COTD: Low Tech Is Sexy Edition

Let's take a look at the Triumph TR3. Is it designed with advanced aerodynamic modeling? No. Does it have the newest of the new in terms of technology? No. Is it still achingly desirable? Yes.

Sometimes "progress" isn't all that it's cracked up to be, and that's not just a question of aesthetics as JackTrade pointed out while we were gawking at the revised all-terrain Scamander.

...that would assume they were absolutely comfortable relying upon electronic systems to keep from dying.

This and the news of Ray Bradbury's death today remind me of how overriding faith in high technology seems to be a hubris that never goes out of style in the West.

I ride the D.C. Metro to work every day. It was designed and built in the 1970s. So it has an awesome brown/orange/yellow color scheme and blocky brutalist-modern architecture.

It also has a single track in each direction.

Because even back then, I'm sure it was "hey, we've got computers here...what could possibly go wrong here?!"

As any regular rider knows, all it takes is a minor problem, and an entire train line gets screwed up. And there are limited areas where they can put a malfunctioning train, so things often grind to a halt as emergency workers are deployed to try to fix things, or the train is slowly moved through the system to a maintenance yard.

Just like an quick open manual hatch, or putting in a third emergency track when you're tunneling it all out, sometimes, it's better to admit that low-tech, while not sexy, can have its uses.

Photo Credit: Sebastián González Míguez