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Ariel - Volume 3 Number 5
Editors
Richard J. Bonanno
Robin A. Edwards
Associate Editors
Steven Ager
Tom Williams
Lay-out Editor
Eugenia Miller
Contributing Editors
Paul Bialas
Robert Breckenridge
Lynne Porter
David Jacoby
Terry Burt
Mark Pearlman
Michael Leo
Mike LeWitt
Editors Emeritus
Delvyn C. Case., Jr.
Paul M. Fernhof
Consumption, planned obsolescence and waste
In the five decades since Vance Packard published The Waste Makers (1960), planned product obsolescence has developed in many subtle and sophisticated ways. Yet its social and environmental impact remains largely unacknowledged; planned obsolescence continues to be elaborated and to undermine consumer choice, increase costs of owning and using products, accelerating the destruction of useful objects and resulting in higher levels of ecological spoiling. It is a phenomenon widely acknowledged though little discussed. Conceptual and empirical detail will be discussed in relation to i) ‘in-built’ technological obsolescence the design; development and incorporation of functionally fragile components leading to premature malfunction, ii) stylistic obsolescence; the styling or fashioning of myriad consumer objects such that they are deemed to have ‘worn out’ stylistically and aesthetically before they have failed functionally and, iii) the ‘superfluous within the necessary’; the over-elaboration of products such that they are functionally ‘overprogrammed’, the specific design of many objects such that they cannot be repaired or adapted for alternate uses and, the way that many products urge and often require the subsequent consumption of extra goods and services simply to maintain them
Modern merthods and a controversial surname: Plant
In the past few years, DNA testing has begun to contribute to our understanding. It is currently emerging more clearly which surnames are multi-origin, originating with many different forefathers, and which descend from a single male ancestor.
As a case study, I shall describe the application of modern, multidisciplinary methods to the surname Plant, which has been ascribed a different meaning each time an authority has written about it. The recent emergence of a different view anout this name's origins has prompted a reassessment of its meaning
Ariel - Volume 5 Number 6
Editors
J.D. Kanofsky
Mark Dembert
Entertainment
Robert Breckenridge
Joe Conti
Gary Kaskey
Photographer
Scot Kastner
Overseas Editor
Mike Sinason
Circulation
Jay Amsterdam
Humorist
Jim McCann
Staff
Ken Jaffe
Bob Sklaroff
Janet Welsh
Dave Jacoby
Phil Nimoityn
Frank Chervane
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