Curiosity has got the better of me. I quite enjoy a lot of technology, but as to maintaining or repairing it, well, that's another matter. Even using it sometimes.
So what technology do you really like and fully understand?
Here's my list:

My steel handled hammer.
My 1930's Rudge Whitworth bicycle (not manufactured but seemingly forged by antique blacksmiths).
My cast iron frypan.
Shoe polish.

Cheers,David

What you understand you take for granted, what you do not understand... you call "technology"

Arthur C Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Jeremy

I understand the other technologies but shoe polish bothers me - what is it about the wax that makes it shine?

It's the beeswax. The wee bees collect the pollen in daylight, and the beeswax releases back the sunlight slowly over time. The reason your shoes don't glow in the dark is, of course, that is when the sun doesn't shine.

Those who love technology do not deeply understand it.

Taquin: "Magic is what dwells in the souls of men and women. That is why technology has no place there"

I think it's more accurate to say that those who deeply love technology don;t have to fix it!

Peter

With carbs 'neath hoods,
With wired tubes
I always used to tinker.
Germanium gates and Willy Gates
Took them away, the stinkers!
A solid state of unseen bits
Now fills each crack and crevice.
I only buy and use 'em, dumb as Butthead.
- Or is it Bevis?

Even though I understand a lot of electronic, mechanical, and optical technology I still marvel that you can send pictures and sound through the air to distant places, wow that's really amazing.

Still don't understand most things about networking, what a bureaucratic mess THAT is! It is just a little scary to think there exist people who can get there brains around networking.

I don't fully understand my Epson 9880, but we are gradually coming to terms if not exactly understanding. Bottom line is, technology is something you come to terms with, understanding is optional.

For me the internal combustion engine is magic - all I know about car engines are that they need gas and a key to make it go. After that I am lost.

And how do they get the "smoke" into all those modern electronics/components, and why is this "smoke" necessary to make the things work?

Andrew

Understanding is all a matter of degree. As Carl Sagan once said: “If you wanted to make an apple pie from scratch, you’d first have to create the universe.” Well, no one can create the universe, but it’s still pretty easy to make an apple pie from its basic components, if not it’s basic elements.

And just like apple pie, the marvel of our age is that many very powerful tools are available to nearly anyone, and you need not understand them in minutia to get good use of them. But in all things human, knowledge is power, and the more one is willing to learn, the more one can do.

It is always beneficial to spend at least a little time to find out more about how things work. Technology is the hallmark of human kind. There is no other being that not only depends on tools, but thrives by their continual advance.

One thing is certain: electrical devices are all about the smoke. If you let the smoke out, they don’t work no mo.

Can't dispute that one, Justan, I have learned to accept it through experience, possibly the best tutor there is.

Rob C

Unless a singer or actor, an artist is most likely relying on tools (technology) to create their art. Sometimes their technology makes their work easy, and sometimes good art is produced despite the available tools. I'd venture to say that if you took away all the “tools of their trade”, most people on this forum would still produce art. It may take a little time to happen, and may be in a totally different way, but the desire for expression and creativity can't be suppressed.
What are the most important inventions of the last 100 years? For me, it is the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner. Followed closely by the refrigerator. Without these photography and leisure activities would be impossible for me. I can have the chores done by Saturday lunchtime and the weekend is then mine. I recall the tailend of the time before labour-saving devices were universal. The reason there was always a roast on Sunday night was so that there would be leftovers the next day. The copper had to be fired up before dawn on Monday and the washing and ironing went through until dark. There was no time to cook the next evening. It is no coincidence that the first use of electric power in houses wasn't for lighting, but for an iron.
I'd only enjoy using a vacuum cleaner if I'd faced the alternative. Well that's fair enough. I maintain most of our technology is just “tools to get a job done”, and problems arise for us all when it become a desired end in itself.
But there is some stuff that is just really nice to use. And not past the point where we either don't know how it works, or could describe to someone else how it could be fixed if need be. So does anyone else have a “list”?
David

David, you have done a very good job of creating a list of your imagined housewife's favourite labour-saving devices. Unfortunately, reality shows that in all magazine listings of housewives' favourite labour-saving devices, the single item that comes out of it as #1 is the common or garden condom.

Rob C

I thought the #1 tool of the average housewife is the husband’s wallet and it’s life support system – the husband.

....and does a "garden condom" qualify as a tool??

On and off...


Rob C

What are you doing in the garden?????

Russ, with advancing years it's just an appreciation of the simpler things in life. For example, if the weather is fine I can't say how grateful I am when the lady next door comes over, ferrets out me old equipment and helps me give it a once-over in the shrubbery...

You've checked the shrubbery for poison ivy?

Goodness me, that seems anything but simple to achieve with advancing years; precisely the opposite, I would have feared. However, having settled on thirty-nine and holding, that late stage will never arrive in my lifetime...

Rob C

No need, Russ: she's only a song.

Rob C

Uh, Rob, no one believes the 39. Instead, I recommend that you do as I do -- give your age in Celsius!

Man, that's heavy: ever since klrzfm had to stop streaming I have gone into deep depression and can't handle such technical matters. Can I use centigrade (semantic joke intended) instead?

But how will this help the housewife, in or out of the neighbour's garden?

Rob C

My ex father-in-law used to worry that he didn't understand computers and that life was passing him by. I'd laugh because he'd been listening to radio his entire life, not understanding how it worked, and that never bothered him.

I recall the father of a childhood friend explaining to me his understanding of how an automobile works: "You pour water in the front and gasoline in the back and they mix in the middle and make the car go."
I'm sorry he didn't have an explanation for shoe polish.

Eric, I have a funny feeling your friend's father must have known my mother. She never said much about shoes, though.

Rob C

Quote them Martian years Rob. That would make you 21.
David

Which has got to be better than thirty-nine, regardless of whose currency you describe it with!

Rob C

EDIT: you see the level of good advice that you can pick up on LuLa; and people said it was just a boring old landscape snapper's last resting place, the waiting room in the crumbling (unpainted) adobe shack, before the final storm on that final ridge behind the spectacular, religious and tarantula-shading saguaro!

 
Nah! He doesn't act 21. More like 13?  

(Sorry Rob. Couldn't resist. From another old geezer.)

Hold your stallions, Eric; I'm talking about the first set of numerals, the second childhood is still safely somewhere over the rainbow (hidden code for proving first-generation credentials) and not expected for a while yet. Male menopause was fun, though: had it happened later I would probaby now be gazing in amazement at an M9 which just happened to be sitting on the desk. All I managed to do in celebration was switch countries. Much neglected target group, the male menopausers...

Rob C

Who needs to not understand technology when you can not understand women?

Which women?

Rob C

Never met one yet I understood...

The answer to that, pom, is simple: learn to take no for an answer.

Rob C