Apparently a UK internet-based survey has announced the widget as the finest technical advancement of the past - I heard this on the radio last night, I'm sad to see that it wasn't a joke.
& this Canadian headline writer's not helping either "Britons know value of proper beer, survey says" aaargh!the rest of the article follows
_________________________________________________ By OLIVER MOORE Globe and Mail Update In an apparent snub of pioneering surgeons and Internet inventors, a on-line survey in Britain found that the recent invention they most admire is a little gadget that allows them to enjoy draft-type beer at home.
The "widget" a small ball of nitrogen that gives cans of beer a proper, pub-style head of creamy foam, far outstripped the other candidates in an on-line survey that drew almost 9,000 responses.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents said that the widget was the most impressive invention of the past 40 years. The Internet - which may in fact have a greater global resonance than a good pint of draft - scored a distant second, with 13 per cent, and mobile phones were a dismal third with 7 per cent.
The top-10 list was rounded out by cloning, microwave ovens, contact lenses, three-dimensional technology, video games, CDs and DVDs and plastic surgery. Considered too trifling to make the first rank were space exploration, solar-powered cars and contraceptive pills.
The survey - organized by T3, which bills itself as the "World's Best Gadget Magazine," and the Wilkinson Sword Company - makes no pretences of scientific accuracy. But it illustrates the peculiar priorities of the British people, T3 said in a statement.
"Brits obviously only care about the simple things in life. ... It's official - we can't imagine anything worse than sitting down in front of the telly and pouring a pint with no 'head'!"
The Guinness brewing conglomerate introduced the widget in 1989 after years of research. Their invention won a Queen's Award for Technological Achievement two years later and is now churned out in the hundreds of millions every year. ____________________________________