Commenter Of The Day: Technofad Edition

Every new year brings with it a new technological fad. This year's big story, in case you hadn't heard, is Twitter (remember to follow @Jalopnik and @RayWert). For some, Twitter is an incredibly useful way to stay networked with contacts, current events, and friends. For Ashton Kutcher, it's a way to cement his status as one of the world's biggest douchebags. For many, many others, however, it's a total mystery why people would feel the need to update people with their daily goings-on, 160 characters at a time. Those people tend to grouse whenever they see Twitter mentioned in the media, which these days means they're doing quite a fair bit of grousing.

What many of those people conveniently forget is that much of the technology they use today (blogs, email, instant messengers, text messages) was similarly mocked and ridiculed when it first came to prominence. One such technology was Wikipedia, the famous/infamous online open-source encyclopedia. When it first hit the mainstream, people thought it was stupid and pointless. Well, maybe they were right, but it's now a ubiquitous part of the online experience. In an inspired mashup of technology that caught on and imaginary technology that didn't, supercommenter boosted-lego-wagon had this to say about the Legway:

Polishing up my wikipedia entry:

"First released in the fall of 1863, the Legway was the brainchild of Horatio Chindle, the "Admirable Chinnie." Chindle was a wealthy part-time inventor who had so far produced a string of failures such as the electric saddle, the combination toenail clipper and scythe, and the cast-iron umbrella. Initially, the Legway seemed poised to break the trend, but sadly it was out-competed by an even earlier invention: Legs."

It's fair to say they out-legged the competition, I guess (groan).