Greatest Invention / Innovation of Your Lifetime?

[CJay]

Marking the 10 year anniversary of the original iPhone and essentially the birth of the smartphone. It's amazing to think how much functionality we now have sitting in our pockets compared to 10 years ago. It has replaced - and still is replacing - so many individual items we used to need. With this in mind... what is the single greatest invention that has come about during your lifetime?

For example, when did debit / credit cards become an everyday thing? I imagine that would be up there for some of the older folk.

[Lewis]

Probably UKIP.

[Giggles]

The wheel.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

The internet.

/thread.

[Mike]

Yup, the internet.

I used my phone to pay for shopping the other day and declared loudly 'this is like living in the future' :cool2:

[Jimmy Floyd]

The internet has nothing on supermarket self-checkouts.

[Giggles]

Was the internet not invented in the 60's?

[Offshore Toon]

Yeah, the Internet. Smartphones are great and everything, but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them. I can't knock the Internet, but smartphones have created a plethora of attention-seeking wankers that can't concentrate for longer than a minute. I fucking hate when somebody takes a photo of a sunset, but it has to be a selfie. Why include yourself in a photo where you're trying to show off a beautiful sunset? Its because we're all vain cunts, ultimately. Not that I'm much better. In fact, I'm not, but I make an effort. I keep my phone in my pocket when I'm in the pub because there's nothing sadder than a group of people at a social event that have their head in their phones and don't want to talk to each other. I've managed to train it out of a couple of my mates that were really bad for it and they've seen the light.

[Giggles]

Yeah, the Internet. Smartphones are great and everything, but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them. I can't knock the Internet, but smartphones have created a plethora of attention-seeking wankers that can't concentrate for longer than a minute. I fucking hate when somebody takes a photo of a sunset, but it has to be a selfie. Why include yourself in a photo where you're trying to show off a beautiful sunset? Its because we're all vain cunts, ultimately. Not that I'm much better. In fact, I'm not, but I make an effort. I keep my phone in my pocket when I'm in the pub because there's nothing sadder than a group of people at a social event that have their head in their phones and don't want to talk to each other. I've managed to train it out of a couple of my mates that were really bad for it and they've seen the light.

Deleting Facebook and Instagram makes the world such a better place. People are so obsessed with showing an idyllic version of their shitty lives.

[-james-]

Contactless payment is all sorts of :drool:. Down with cash.

[Boydy]

Without the internet smartphones would be pretty useless.

Sometimes I think the world might actually be a better place without the internet. Or maybe just nothing faster than dial-up so there's little more than interaction through text on it.

[Offshore Toon]

Deleting Facebook and Instagram makes the world such a better place. People are so obsessed with showing an idyllic version of their shitty lives.
Instagram, like Twitter, is good if you follow the right people. Everybody sees a form of social media and thinks they're supposed to follow everybody they know. I don't have every twat and their dog on Facebook, so I really don't mind it. Plus I unfollow people that post shit so I really don't have a problem. The chat function is essential these days and its great for finding nights out. I don't agree with their nudity policy, but that's my only real gripe.

[Offshore Toon]

Without the internet smartphones would be pretty useless.

Sometimes I think the world might actually be a better place without the internet. Or maybe just nothing faster than dial-up so there's little more than interaction through text on it.
I wonder if the Internet didn't exist would we still walk/cycle about everywhere looking for our mates if they weren't at home.

[Giggles]

I wonder if the Internet didn't exist would we still walk/cycle about everywhere looking for our mates if they weren't at home.

We'd probably still be able to learn to drive without the internet.

[Offshore Toon]

We'd probably still be able to learn to drive without the internet.
:D

Suppose I'm thinking about Jersey, where I live in town and people would likely be within 10 minutes of walking. Actually, I know what it'd be like because I know what it was like. Everybody would have a local and that's where you'd go if you were bored.

[Boydy]

We'd still have landlines.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Was the internet not invented in the 60's?

In some form, yeah.

But how we know it, like 1990 when Berners Lee created WWW.

[Offshore Toon]

We'd still have landlines.
Yeah, but if people weren't at home, which they probably wouldn't be on a Saturday night before the Internet, that wouldn't work. Suppose you could ring around the pubs, but our parents' generation (in Jersey at least) all just had locals where you knew people would be.

[CJay]

Ok, the internet rules all obviously for those born pre-1991. :moop: Where are the wide-eyed kids like Spoonsky and Waff?

[7om]

Contactless payment is all sorts of :drool:. Down with cash.

Yeah, this was new to me when I came back for Christmas. I went to put my card in the chip reader and before I could get there the cashier informed me my card was okay to pay with contactless to which I gave him the Cornette Face and asked what he was on about. No pin, no signature, nothing. The guy must have thought I was a complete mong when I had no idea what was happening.

[Adamski]

What did losers do in the 80's on a Saturday night? Postal chess?

[Jimmy Floyd]

What did losers do in the 80's on a Saturday night? Postal chess?

Play by mail football management games.

[CJay]

Yeah, this was new to me when I came back for Christmas. I went to put my card in the chip reader and before I could get there the cashier informed me my card was okay to pay with contactless to which I gave him the Cornette Face and asked what he was on about. No pin, no signature, nothing. The guy must have thought I was a complete mong when I had no idea what was happening.

I still don't understand how Americans pay for things. They just sign the receipt. :cab:

[Giggles]

Chip & Pin is growing in a huge way in the US. For the swipe ones they normally sign on the screen on the card machine itself.

[The Merse]

Play by mail football management games.

I was not a loser.

I was a winner. Of Einnek football PBM league 7 division 2 season 23 to be exact.

The innovation that has had the biggest impact on me is probably hair straighteners. I'm not sure I'd have got laid without them in the mid-noughties.

[Baz]

Instagram, like Twitter, is good if you follow the right people.Instagram is purely for following females you would like sat on your face.