Some greater inventions

Some inventions are great because they changed the world. Others are great because they are incomprehensible.The pointy stick and the rock as a projectile are two of the former.  

These are what allowed man to dominate his environment. He learned to poke things with the stick and to concuss with the rock. All weapons originate with these two inventions. Essentially, man either pokes holes in or concusses his prey and his enemies.  

The bow, a combination of the two, and gunpowder, just do this more efficiently. The big brothers of the gun, the cannon and the bomb, poke a hole bigger than the object. The ancient Romans had a machine that hurled a rock the size of a cow. Vikings were in the habit of sharpening one end of a tree and poking it through your front door.

In the second category we have the amazing thermos. If you have not already heard, this device keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. The amazing thing is how does it know? If properly cared for, they last for years. My Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Thermos served me well, although it did excite some comment in high school.  

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Some inventions bridge both categories. Electricity is magic. I don’t believe for a minute that anybody understands it. I flip a switch and night turns to day right inside my house. It saves lives and it takes them. Sometimes it just issues you a warning. An electric warning can lead to hair loss.

The wild version seems to hate golfers. The VCR/DVD/TiVo (essentially the same thing) may be the greatest invention of the 20th century. Before this, you had to pay really close attention at the movies and try really hard to remember everything you were seeing.

Going to the bathroom during the picture could cause you to miss critical plot development or cool action sequences.  Sometimes, like when I first saw the movie, “Waterloo,â€� in 1969, you just had to stay and watch it again because there was too much to take in at one sitting. When the day arrived that you could actually own your own copy of your favorite movie I kind of went nuts. I began “collecting.â€� It took years for the reality to sink in. When you have the movie, you seldom get around to watching it again. Knowing that you could watch it takes the place of actually watching it.

There is that other issue. Sometimes you can’t stay awake through a whole movie.  Aha! But I can roll it back to where I fell asleep. I can do this again and again. I do this a lot lately.

Bill Abrams resides (and contemplates weaponry and old movies) in Pine Plains.