Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 57

Varie Minneapolis Star and Tribune oo cn CO CO -C cn CO CO Thursday December 201984 GOOD DATE OF SALE ONLY 1C Inventions don't always mean progress for example UV3VIAKMJO0V1I 01.00 1 1 xrtus -AA- 1(4 By Jake Page Science 84 Magazine Being clumsy, I probably could not have survived in any other century but the 20th. There are so many contrivances now designed to keep the clumsy out of trouble, clothed and fed. I honor them all, as is only appropriate. But there are a few 20th-century inventions that, it seems to me, run contrary to our best interests, and that we would have been better off without." I III ti i i.t W. TWWWWTww'fTl TAX GOO OCD0" task.

First off, you must buy 10 such screws because that is how they come, hermetically sealed onto a piece of cardboard. Then you must find a chisel or knife to pry the plastic away from the cardboard. Several vexatious and stress-filled moments later, you will have your three screws in place and seven others that you don't need and will almost certainly lose. The blow-in subscription card These loose pieces of paper invite you to subscribe to a magazine you've already subscribed to. At best, they fall out on the floor, making it necessary not only to bend over but to search out a wastebasket.

At worst, they blow away at the mailbox, causing you to run after them or to contribute against your will to the public litter. They are a minor but real irritant. rhythms of nature. In summer, women are asked to contemplate the warm clothes of winter, and in the chill of winter they must select bathing suits. Correspondingly, clothing stores are over-air-conditioned in summer and overheated in winter to create the needed artificial climate, thus wasting vast amounts of energy.

411 1 1 The suicidal light bulb I once heard that one of Edison's original light bulbs, put in a fire station, gave up the ghost only after 100 years. Hard to believe, given my own experience. I have made some calculations on the lifetimes of the light bulbs in my house. One, located in a rarely used guest room, lasted for I87 days, just over half a year. Most have a life of about three months, though any bulb placed in a socket that is awkward to reach, such as a ceiling light, will die within weeks.

One attractive-looking brand of light bulb, billed as especially long of life, flashes green immediately upon being screwed into these inaccessible sockets in my house and dies. Every time. precisely designed not to use this helpful network but instead to careen around in places explicitly avoided by roads and their accompanying pollutants and noise. Thus snowmobiles destroy the quiet of a snowy wood, dirt bikes scream through rural meadows like chainsaws gone mad, and fat-tired beach vehicles spray sand and noise into the eyes and ears of sunbathers. Except for rescuing people, the ORV should be universally recalled.

of the opposite hand to press a button, and there came the time of day, though altogether invisible if the sun was shining brightly. You can, of course, get them without the button efficiency redux but nonetheless the time comes up numerically, as in 11:59. This digital time even if a little PM or AM blinks up at you takes time away from its more humane form of a circle endlessly returning, a visible reminder of the cyclical nature of things. The phone siren This is a relatively recent invention in an overall technology that seems to me already of dubious utility. The siren is a series of high-pitched electronic tones that the telephone emits when it has determined that the dialer has done something wrong.

It can, if heard too frequently, cause tinnitus and 'angst. It is followed by a recorded voice that says, "We're sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again." Ears aching, you wonder just who is the "we" who is so patently not sorry at all that you have made some boneheaded mistake. Then you wonder what you did wrong: The voice never explains, merely accuses. Perhaps you hit a wrong button.

But if in fact you did it right the first time and then try it again, you run the risk of being blasted by the siren once more and chided yet again. Perhaps the newly created competition in the telephone system will result in the invention of something that is less hazardous to the mental health of the public, but I doubt it. Guilt There was a time when some people were innocent, having not committed a crime against society, and others were guilty, having engaged in some flagrantly illicit activity that was offensive or dangerous to the innocent. But since the turn of the century, it has been asserted that everyone is guilty of some dreadful malfeasance or another, such as admiring the form of one's mother or being envious of one's brother's curly hair. Such 20th-century venality may be at the very base of our worldwide malaise: a universal guilt that explains why people make war, maim or just sit around miserable, unfulfilled and depressed, unable to get on with the work of the world.

One has to wonder if guilt could not be removed from its omnipresent status and sent back to brood in the courts of law where it belongs. The electric guitar This is to music what street rebellion is to a religious observance, or what the hysterical sighting of a fleet of UFOs is to the completion of a scientific experiment. Copyright 1984 American Association for the Advancement of Science Report" was watched by 34 percent of the viewing audience, estimating that an average of 220,000 Twin Cities homes tuned to Channel 4 during the month. KSTP, Arbitron said, won 30 percent of the viewing audience and was seen in 185,000 homes. WTCN, still in third place, captured 15 percent of the audience and was seen in 89,000 homes.

The Nielsen survey gave WCCO a Coleman 12C )J Swr Jl The gassed tomato Agribusiness has found it fun to pick tomatoes in great quantities when they are green, gas them so that they will turn uniformly red often shrink-wrapping them to boot and send them thousands of miles away so that people can have the altogether disagreeable experience of eating them. Tomatoes should be eaten in season from local sources. Proper inventions do not raise people's expectations only to dash them. The off-road vehicle Since its founding, this nation has spent billions and billions of dollars of local, state and federal funds to construct an elaborate network of lanes, roads, streets and highways. These have been produced in order that constantly improving vehicles can transport people to where they must go with ever decreasing difficulty.

Yet this century has seen the deliberate creation of vehicles The digital watch Once upon a time, the pocket watch was invented, permitting people to carry time about with them in a convenient manner. All one had to do was reach in one's pocket, extract the watch, open it and hold it up. Then someone invented the wristwatch. A quick turn of the forearm, a glance downward and one knew the time. In this century came the digital watch: a flick of the wrist, the disengagement Nick Coleman Shrink-wrapping This is a technique by which things can be packaged, using plastic film, into small quantities or units and rendered easily shipped, inventoried, sold and so forth.

For example, go to the hardware store in search of, say, three 1 -inch brass screws needed for the completion of some simple NECESSARY FMMED NTME UMTEDSWE8 BUSINESS REPLY CARD FIRST CLASS KAMTPto 190 UVMQ8TON. POS1M3E mx Ptt BY AOMESSEC Thm Nowawook Budding P.O. Box 403 Livings, N.J. 07039-9967 Fashion magazines These publications have probably done as much as any other single device to convince women that they must perforce resemble scarecrows or be banished from polite company. Some seem to propagandize against smiling, and all nudge women away from a healthy synchrony with the Tuesday after the ratings came in.

"Despite all the hoopla in our market about who's gaining 'momentum and who's the 'news we won every newscast across the board. I like to think that reflects our strong commitment to news and public affairs programming and that a growing number of people trust our newscast and are comfortable with it." November and May are the two most 11 'r I 1 Channel 4 tops Channel 5 in TV news ratings war important ratings periods for local TV stations because many spring and fall advertisers buy their advertising time at rates determined by the size of the May and November audiences. Channel 4, in a perennial see-saw contest with Channel 5, moved sharply ahead last month, according to the surveys done by the Nielsen and Arbitron ratings services. Arbitron said that WCCO's "10 P.M. KSTP-TV recently unveiled billboards advertising itself as "Minnesota's News Leader." And WTCN-TV's ads brag about "Momentum Worth Watching." But after studying November's local news ratings, WCCO-TV News Director Reid Johnson is suggesting that Channel 4's competitors may have to revise their slogans.

"We kicked butt," Johnson said.