The Unorthodox Website Blog

If I were psycho-analyzed it would be interesting to see why I always had a fascination with controversial international borders.

At the age of 16 in the Summer of 1961, within days of the Berlin Wall being built (or quite possibly while it was still being built/made more escape-proof) I was on holiday in Margate, but instead of helping my younger brother build sandcastles I was happily building a very rough representation of the Berlin Wall snaking its way across the city.

Borders such as this are so dramatic, and when they separate two totally opposed political systems and states, then even more so. Five years later, my first trip abroad was by train to the Soviet Union with a group of others, and one of the most exciting things was crossing the ‘Iron Curtain’ not once but three times on the way there.

We look around this modern world of ours, and marvel at all the gadgets and inventions we take for granted. However, people often make the mistake of assuming that many of these are recent inventions, and that the late 20th and early 21st centuries have brought us lots of new technology.

In actual fact, the great age of invention was in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and very little has been invented from the 1950s onwards. Most of the modern technology we are familiar with are simply innovations or adaptations of much older inventions and technologies.

Let’s look at some of the modern gadgets and technologies and their history:

1877  First recording/reproduction device, patented by Thomas Edison the following year (cylinder)

1889  First disc recording (gramophone record)

1940  First vinyl discs

1930s Magnetic recording tape invented

1940s First tape recorders available

1937  First stereo recordings

1982  First digital recordings/CDs

1940s First electronic computers

1850  First dishwasher patented (hand powered)

1920s First plumbed-in electronic dishwashers

1940s First electronic drying elements for dishwashers

1691  First washing machine patented

1904  First electronic washing machines advertised for sale

1868  First vaccuum cleaner

1901  First powered vaccuum cleaner

1945  Microwave oven invented

1908  First mobile (wireless) phone

1947  First cellphone

1897  Color TV first patented

1928  Color TV demonstrated by John Logie Baird

1938  First color TV broadcast

1944  First demonstration by John Logie Baird of fully electronic, 600 line color TV

1844  3D photography invented with the stereoscope

1855  Kinematoscope invented for 3D animation

1922  First 3D movie ‘Power of Love’

1935  First 3D color movie

1941  John Logie Baird patented and demonstrated large screen 3D television.

This is a very contentious issue at the moment, with the so-called ‘credit crunch’ and rising unemployment. As a strong supporter of the European Union and free movement within the EU, it may be assumed that I have no problem with workers from other EU countries coming here for jobs. In actual fact I see it as a real problem.

As I see it, the problems are not caused by the EU itself, nor by the rule about free movement within the Union, but rather it is caused by the use of non-union labor. The trade union movement was greatly damaged in the Thatcher era of course, but it is essential that it is built up again to protect the wages and working conditions of workers everywhere.

What is quite unacceptable is when workers are exploited by being brought in from other EU countries at lower wages or inferior conditions than British workers would be.

Survivalism has more than one meaning, but it is now being used by some atheists, agnostics and non-religious people to describe a belief in ‘life after death’ based on empirical evidence from many sources.

Spiritualism also uses similar methods and seeks to prove ‘life after death’ thru presenting evidence for it, but has many religious trappings. In the UK many describe themselves as Christian Spiritualists, and have services with hymns, the Lord’s Prayer, etc. on Sundays in places they call churches. This is very uncomfortable for those who are not Christians, or for non-religious people.

One of the 7 principles of Spiritualism speaks of the ‘Fatherhood of God’, which is not only outdated and sexist, but meaningless to those of us who don’t necessarily believe in God, certainly not as some sort of father figure.

Indeed in the UK, most Spiritualist churches are regarded as just another branch of Christianity, even though they usually include along with crosses, pictures of Jesus, etc, pictures of guides from other non-Christian cultures such as Native Americans, etc..