Dark Roasted Blend

This isn't the first time gratuitous "technologisation of stuff" has been proposed, though it seems to be proceeding rather apace.

From 1922, "Radio All the Things!": http://i.imgur.com/TSJnicdl.jpg

(Via: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2015/01/videophones-from-future-past.html and origionally: http://wi.mobilities.ca/grant-wythoff-aerophone-telephot-hypnobioscope-hugo-gernsbacks-media-theory/)

Or the original book if you'd prefer: Hugo Gernsback, Radio for All (1922): https://archive.org/details/radioforall00gerniala

I think I know what a radio phone might do. Radio clocks even exist (though a networked NTP timekeeper is more useful). I'm not sure I'd care to fly in a radio-controlled airplane. And I'm utterly perplexed at what a radio heater might be -- unless it's a microwave space heater, or an early instance of Nest.

http://boingboing.net

http://digg.com

http://news.ycombinator.com

http://slashdot.org

http://www.drudgereport.com

http://www.engadget.com

http://www.nytimes.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

https://engineeringblogs.xyz

https://gizmodo.com/latest

https://kk.org/cooltools

https://kottke.org

https://lobste.rs

https://nowiknow.com/archives

https://old.reddit.com

https://pluralistic.net

https://www.bogleheads.org

https://www.darkroastedblend.com

https://www.garbageday.email/archive

https://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

https://www.metafilter.com

https://www.neatorama.com

https://www.newsbreak.com

https://www.openculture.com

https://www.recomendo.com

https://www.youtube.com/feed/trending

"What’s a key attribute of a good UI?

It disappears.

It does not draw attention to itself.

It enables the user experience, but is not itself the experience."

-- Kathy Sierra, Serious Pony

That's the problem. The functional purpose of the UI is to get you to the content or let you do something, then get out of the way. The business purpose of the UI, though, is to get customers to buy the thing. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak". That's the driving force behind this endless tweaking of graphic elements.

Here's another kind of UI - automobile dashboards.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/05/car-dashboards-as-works-of-art.html

This is worth careful study. Match up the dashboards with various computer UIs.

The Darien Gap is a fascinating place.

Pre-pandemic it was a dangerous place with a high risk of running into drug smugglers or just people who might kidnap you. Some would try and cross it on foot and a fair few of those were simply never seen again. The terrain is horrendous. Mud, mountains, many streams and rivers, thick jungle and often torrential rain [1].

Nowadays there are a lot of migrants that cross the Darien Gap. This should tell you something about how truly epsperate they are [2].

[1]: https://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/darien-gap-most-dangerous-absence-of.html

[2]: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/darien-gap-migration-crossroads

These sites may be of interest. They're much more recent than Antikythera.

https://calculating.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/calculators-for-computers/

http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/calculators/1/44

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj/arithmometer/

http://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/Pioneers/Lebniz.html

http://history-computer.com/CalculatingTools/gadgets.html

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate-curta-mechanical.html

http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm

There is a now-defunct Soviet-equivalent to HAARP called Sura Ionospheric Heating Facility, as well as facilities in Ukraine that contain similar arrays of antennae:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sura_Ionospheric_Heating_Facility

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/10/abandoned-ionospheric-research-station.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpN3KXLgCz0 (location not disclosed, but this Youtuber makes several videos of abandoned sites around Ukraine)