When Newer Isn't Necessarily Better

Do you really think that your iPhone, Netbook, Computer, and Broadband connection make your life better than our parent's or grand-parent's generation? Do you really think that we have one up on the ancients who existed before the Information Age?

Every once in a while an article comes around that makes you re-think that...someone will prove they can make complex mathematical computations faster on a slide-rule than the world's fastest supercomputer can, or that someone can recall data faster from their own memory than a Google Search with all of Google's Data Centers at their disposal.

Now, it has been proven that Carrier Pigeon is actually faster than Fiber Optics!

Pigeon Transfers Data Faster

A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country's leading internet service provider.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.

Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.

Sometimes taking the Low-Tech Road (less traveled) is better (and faster) than taking the High-Tech Road (Wow! I squeezed in four metaphors into one!).

Don't be fooled into thinking you have to have the latest and greatest gadgets...because more often than naught you don't. They aren't going to make your life any better, or even more efficient. Instead they are going to make you dependent upon them and trick you into continuously tossing your money away on the latest and greatest.


[edit on 10-9-2009 by fraterormus]

They didn't say how big the data file was. I think the situation here is that data storage media are becoming cheaper, smaller, etc. at a faster rate than data transfer technology. At some point if the imbalance were large enough, I could walk the data across country faster than it could be transferred via internet. So I don't think this is an indictment of "newer things" in general but it certainly makes for an interesting headline.

I personally think this is true in SOME cases....im skeptical about "new" items being outdone by "older" technology. This situation in Africa is only one situation... Give me more expansive evidence then maybe i'd believe this theory. Seems like it can be a good one

It would be fun to make bench-marks tests of applications
run on Win XP and WinNT, for example. . .

We all know the "quality" of Win$loz upgrades ! ! ! B-)))

Blue skies.

Now, it has been proven that Carrier Pigeon is actually faster than Fiber Optics!

Internet in SA is not fiber optic.....

No, it has been proven that a Carrier Pigeon is faster than some piss poor South African Internet connection because of poor infrastructure and an obvious bias; for example, to send 1 byte of data, the Internet would do it instantly at the near the speed of light, while the Pigeon would take a few hours. Fiber Optic? Not even close. The future NBN network in Australia is 100 megabit to the home, over two magnitudes faster than the speed in South Africa. Of course, I could fill a backpack up with a few hundred terrabytes worth of hard disks, and spend a few weeks walking places. Does that mean walking is faster than fiber optics?

What you have stated is completely and entirely misleading.

They aren't going to make your life any better, or even more efficient.

Yeah, they do. Internet banking, mathematics, CAD, fluid dynamics, free information, ATS... to name a few? In other fields of technology has been a massive help, for example, farmers are over 3 times as productive as they were in the 1950's.

[edit on 11/9/2009 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by fraterormus
Do you really think that your iPhone, Netbook, Computer, and Broadband connection make your life better than our parent's or grand-parent's generation?

You don't have to be parent or even grandparent to realize that... I was born in the early 80's in a 3rd world country. Went all the way to high school without proper computer. Yep we used to have a computer early in the 90's but it was very old circa early 80's type that I barely used.

All I can say is, life used to be easier back then... People were also a LOT better and nicer, and I loved going to the school library to do some research as opposed to internet surfing.... Information in the internet I could say if not coming directly from books is difficult to understand or even 'watered out' of useful information.

What computers did TODAY is advance pace of EVERYTHING to a very rapid rate. It made doing things so EASY that we could now handle A LOT more stuff. That made life more pressing because the human mind can't keep up. If you don't believe me and think you are succeeding in you pathetic careers, then look at your pathetic relationships and lives!!

Cellphones, internet, and wireless technology, while great for communications have ruined the way people think.

Back in high school, we were at school talking about the things we would invent that would change the world for the better!

Now all teens do is stick their eyes in that tiny evil contraption looking for some random guy to date or have sex or party with.

Now tell me, that isn't bad

Now all teens do is stick their eyes in that tiny evil contraption looking for some random guy to date or have sex or party with.

That does not happen here in Australia.

Is that because Australia is different, or are you wrong?

A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom.

Oh, it was a 4gb stick. That would take about 1 and a half hours on my terrible internet, or 5 minutes on a fibre optic to the home network (ABN). The network in SA transferred 4% of that in the same it took the Pigeon, which equats to a speed of about 20kb/s. No wonder they are pissed at bad internet, there internet SUCKS.

[edit on 11/9/2009 by C0bzz]

LOL The post in the UK is probably quicker than my 512Kb connection I have here.

Most youtube videos to me are 3 seconds of play, 4 seconds of wait.

Techology makes our lives easier, not necessarily better..

I find that as things progress, the sense of satisfaction and achievement earned from carrying out a difficult task wanes as the task is made easier by technology.

Mankind could potentially become extremely lazy and impatient because of this. In fact, you see it now, people have things 'on demand', they want it NOW, there's no sense of anticipation, only irritation when something doesn't work as it should.

And when things go wrong, or break, people won't know what to do without them, I fear mankind will largely become more and more heavily reliant upon gadgets to do things for them.. It may even be our demise..

Newer isn't better particularly for Microsoft Windows since Windows 98 and later versions are unusually susceptible to Bugs and Malwares.

reply to post by ahnggk


Everything is relative to your age and upbringing.

This thread is the same as saying that ever since guns were invented, knifes are useless (for battle/fighting).

Almost everything ever invented has a downside that something else can do better.

If someone actually thought that there were not downsides to technology, then may I lay a smack upon thee?

reply to post by fraterormus


Thanks for sharing that with us Frat I found it very interesting. For myself, there is no need to be in constant electronic land. I have thought about, and postulated mucho about the inability for many modern People to survive without computers.

It's a sad fact, but true; many People cannot survive without their gadgets. Sometimes it's good to remember some of the finer things in life are just plain ole' fashioned.

S&F