Modern Invention in the Home: Everyday Essentials

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The discussion centers on the evolution of everyday household items and the impact of modern inventions on home life. Participants explore how basic items like beds, tables, and utensils have transformed from primitive forms to their current state, emphasizing the challenge of pinpointing when these items became recognizable as their modern counterparts. Historical references highlight that many conveniences, such as the pressure cooker, faced skepticism and mishaps during their introduction. The conversation also touches on cultural practices related to hygiene and the significance of handedness in societal norms, particularly regarding the use of the right hand for eating and greeting. Overall, the dialogue reflects on the complexity and historical context of domestic inventions, while acknowledging that many modern luxuries, like electronics, are distinct from essential household items.
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The every day things in the home, the bath, toilet, cooker, carpet, table, chairs, paint, bed,
cup and saucer, knife, spoon , fork, etc, etc.
Given that your TV, computer, radio are luxuries, how much do we owe to Modern invention in the home.
 
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They all pretty much evolved ( were created if you live in Louisiana) out of cruder natural items.
So the difficulty is defining when it stopped being a mound of moss and became a bed, or stopped being a bit of metal/rock and became a knife.
 
Also, they were invented before people thought to keep track of - and give credit to - people who invented stuff.

(Those who track stuff now are the same people who brought us the 'instant classic!' and 'collector's item!' mentality.)
 
Ancients Greeks had baths, and possibly Pharaohs of Egypt too.

The table must have evolved from when the cavemen realized they could put something on a large stone, or a collapsed tree.


Paint dates back to cave paintings. I think Neanderthals painted drawings in Spain dating back to 30,000 BC.
 
wolram said:
The every day things in the home, the bath, toilet, cooker, carpet, table, chairs, paint, bed,
cup and saucer, knife, spoon , fork, etc, etc.
Given that your TV, computer, radio are luxuries, how much do we owe to Modern invention in the home.

that's too much to think about--it makes my head hurt----those things are way too complex to figure out---so, I'm going to just go for an answer so I don't HAVE to think so hard to try to understand it all---


----"ID"
 
Screens on windows to keep bugs out.
 
waht said:
The table must have evolved from when the cavemen realized they could put something on a large stone, or a collapsed tree.

I imagine the table would have evolved shortly after the chair. I think the modern "feature" of a table is that it has room under it to allow people to be seated at it with their legs in front of them.
 
DaveC426913 said:
I imagine the table would have evolved shortly after the chair. I think the modern "feature" of a table is that it has room under it to allow people to be seated at it with their legs in front of them.

and right after that, the first argument over "who took the big piece of chicken?"
 
wolram said:
The every day things in the home, the bath, toilet, cooker, carpet, table, chairs, paint, bed,
cup and saucer, knife, spoon , fork, etc, etc.
Given that your TV, computer, radio are luxuries, how much do we owe to Modern invention in the home.

Not all modern conviences were invented or evlolved without some mishaps and even religious misgivings.

The pressure cooker1 was invented by the French physicist, mathematician and inventor Denis Papin in 1679. Rumour has it that his first pressure cooker exploded while being presented at the Royal Society in London in 1679, which inspired Papin to invent the safety valve. The diarist and horticulturist John Evelyn gives a very positive record from another presentation at the Royal Society three years later. However, it is said that when pressure cookers were first used, some people thought they were the result of witchcraft because of the incessant hissing from the valve. In Germany, the first pressure cookers were sold in 1927.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A15826179


THE HISTORY OF KITCHEN APPLIANCES

http://inventors.about.com/od/kstartinventions/a/kitchen.htm

Many of the items we use daily went though a series of improvements.
 
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  • #10
The cup and saucer came from Japan, along with the tea. The first cups had no handles, much like the cups still used today in Japan. By 1840 we added the handles, and the cups became finer. Saucers were deep, because the fashion of the day required tea drinkers to pour the hot tea into the saucer, let it cool a bit then drink it out of the saucer. It was called saucering your tea. What to do with your empty cup? Why put it on a Cup Plate of course.
 
  • #11
So what did people drink out of before cups? Bowls?
 
  • #12
WarPhalange said:
So what did people drink out of before cups? Bowls?
Streams.
 
  • #13
Paperclips?
 
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  • #14
phyzmatix said:
Paperclips?

there was something on TV about that--it was some guy playing with a wire while waiting for a trolley, I believe
 
  • #15
rewebster said:
there was something on TV about that--it was some guy playing with a wire while waiting for a trolley, I believe

Waiting for a trolley? :confused:
 
  • #16
phyzmatix said:
Waiting for a trolley? :confused:

it was back in the teens or twenties went just about every town had them and interurbans of some sort (like the Red Line in CA--)
 
  • #17
rewebster said:
it was back in the teens or twenties went just about every town had them and interurbans of some sort (like the Red Line in CA--)

*ping*...of course!

(I probably shouldn't even admit this, but I had difficulty understanding why someone would sit and wait for a shopping trolley :redface: :smile:)
 
  • #18
I have made blades from obsidian and flint, and it's pretty darned tough to duplicate the craftsmanship of flint-knappers of thousands of years ago. The great thing about the stone blades is that they are REALLY sharp and can be re-sharpened by knapping new edges. The downside is that they are incredibly brittle. The instruction cards and minimal tool set that I bought were very helpful, though. They guy who marketed the kits used to sell his flakes of obsidian to an outfit that made scalpels for plastic surgeons. A cleanly-knapped flake has an edge only about a molecule thick, which cuts skin cleanly and reduces scarring.
 
  • #20
About the only thing i could think of that is needed in the home and is quite modern is copper pipe, and may be insulated copper wire, even then we could do without electricity.
a solid fuel aga to cook on and heat water, gas lights.
 
  • #22
Toilet paper. It was inevitable, but who was the first to decide to make paper especially for that purpose?
 
  • #23
WarPhalange said:
Toilet paper. It was inevitable, but who was the first to decide to make paper especially for that purpose?
I don't know who he was, but I'll bet he was left-handed.

You see, the reason we shake hands and salute and everything else with the right hand is because that is the hand we have traditionally eaten with - the clean hand.

On the other hand, all flush toilets are operated with the left hand because of the same traditions.
 
  • #24
DaveC426913 said:
I don't know who he was, but I'll bet he was left-handed.

You see, the reason we shake hands and salute and everything else with the right hand is because that is the hand we have traditionally eaten with - the clean hand.

On the other hand, all flush toilets are operated with the left hand because of the same traditions.

yeah--the left hand is very sinister.
 
  • #25
rewebster said:
yeah--the left hand is very sinister.
In heraldry, the bar separating the symbols of your families could mirror the direction of a right arm reaching for a sword (bar dexter) or the left arm reaching for a sword (bar sinister). Bar dexter indicated that you were the legitimate son of X and Y and bar sinister indicated that you were the illegitimate son of X and Y. Now you know why Underdog's nemesis was maned Simon Bar Sinister. A little inside joke for the writers to slip past the censors.
 
  • #26
turbo-1 said:
In heraldry, the bar separating the symbols of your families could mirror the direction of a right arm reaching for a sword (bar dexter) or the left arm reaching for a sword (bar sinister). Bar dexter indicated that you were the legitimate son of X and Y and bar sinister indicated that you were the illegitimate son of X and Y. Now you know why Underdog's nemesis was maned Simon Bar Sinister. A little inside joke for the writers to slip past the censors.

O.o wow.
 
  • #27
turbo-1 said:
In heraldry, the bar separating the symbols of your families could mirror the direction of a right arm reaching for a sword (bar dexter) or the left arm reaching for a sword (bar sinister). Bar dexter indicated that you were the legitimate son of X and Y and bar sinister indicated that you were the illegitimate son of X and Y. Now you know why Underdog's nemesis was maned Simon Bar Sinister. A little inside joke for the writers to slip past the censors.

A great story but would censors really object to implications of an illegitimate child?
 
  • #28
DaveC426913 said:
A great story but would censors really object to implications of an illegitimate child?
They would have blocked any story-lines about Simon the Bastard!
 
  • #29
I want to know who invented chicken.
 
  • #30
glondor said:
I want to know who invented chicken.
Eggs.
 
  • #31
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  • #32
DaveC426913 said:
I don't know who he was, but I'll bet he was left-handed.

You see, the reason we shake hands and salute and everything else with the right hand is because that is the hand we have traditionally eaten with - the clean hand.

On the other hand, all flush toilets are operated with the left hand because of the same traditions.
Being right handed, wouldn't you wipe with your right hand? The handle is on the left because after you wipe, the left would be the clean hand. :smile:

I thought the tradition of shaking hands with the right was to prove you were not holding a weapon.
 
  • #33
Evo said:
Being right handed, wouldn't you wipe with your right hand? The handle is on the left because after you wipe, the left would be the clean hand. :smile:

I thought the tradition of shaking hands with the right was to prove you were not holding a weapon.
That too.

But using one's right hand is not simply a personal preference, it is a societal and logistical convention - because of the swords, the saluting and the hand-shaking.
 
  • #34
Evo said:
I thought the tradition of shaking hands with the right was to prove you were not holding a weapon.

In Arab countries I believe it is quite the opposite. You shake with your right hand because that is the clean hand. The same with regard to eating or preparing food as well. You take food with your right, because reaching for communal food in the middle ... why that would be considered a matter of hygiene as well. Your companions might take offense.

One might imagine that such a custom would arise in a place without toilet paper - like say a desert?
 
  • #35
if I remember reading 'right', its because in Europe (roman times/latin) most were right handed and the better you manuevered your hands the more dextrous (dexter 'latin'-right) you were; and, if you were left handed, you were odd (sinister 'latin'-left). --latin for hand is manus --and has many romantic language derivatives -manufacture, manicure, etc.
 
  • #36
rewebster said:
if I remember reading 'right', its because in Europe (roman times/latin) most were right handed and the better you manuevered your hands the more dextrous (dexter 'latin'-right) you were; and, if you were left handed, you were odd (sinister 'latin'-left). --latin for hand is manus --and has many romantic language derivatives -manufacture, manicure, etc.

Being a particular handedness can of course be an advantage in Roman times if for no other reason than maintaining the fighting integrity of the cohorts thrusting their gladii from behind the gaps in their shields. And that alone might have even served to ensure an evolutionary bias in handedness.

But as to the subject of toilet paper, it's my understanding that one means of Roman army hygiene was the use of a sponge on a stick that may have been carried on a soldier's belt. Actually a pretty effective and eco-efficient solution I would think if running water was about. Less useful in the desert. I suspect adopting such a style today might not be quite so acceptable. (Mercy look at how slide rules hanging from the belt used to be selected against.)
 

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