technology

If you left a plug socket on with no plug in all the power would run out

Anon

When I was a kid I was scared of installing things because I thought you had to do it fast because it always shows like a wire with flamey sparks going around the Earth, so I thought if I didnt do it fast enoughm, the earth would burn up
(I stopped believing this when I was 8)

Damian

When I was like 4 or 5 (don't remember exactly), I asked my dad why we had to turn off the computer after that "It is now safe to turn off your computer." thing appeared. He said it would blow up if we didn't do that. I was always careful to shut down the computer at the right time until I saw my dad just push the off button on the computer and nothing happened.

Rachel

I thought horsepower meant how fast horses can run. But 200 horses can't run any faster than 2, so why was 200 horsepower better than 2?.....

jenny

When I was about five or so, I remember looking through a catalogue with my friend and finding in it our very own life sized robots! We were so impressed we begged our parents for them (they cost a whole £3.50 each or something). We spent our time planning how we could have our very own robots serve us and do our chores etc. When they finally arrived however, they were a whole 4 inches tall and went round in circles. I remember wanting to have my parents write to the catalogue and complain about false advertising.

Pete

I first saw a piezzo-electric gas-oven lighter when visiting some of my parents friends. They (the adults) thought it'd be fun to pretend that it was a space-gun and that one of these friend used to be a astronaut. I am sure I remember telling all my friends back at school about my astronaut friend and his gun...

Dellusional Nic

I didn't understand what a microphone was, and thought the mics and brown microphone covers used by performers on Top of the Pops during the late 1980s were actually gigantic bulbs of chocolate, put there in case the singers became hungry. But I'm alright now...

misguided chocolate fiend

i used to think that shtml stood for
"sh*tmail".

anonymous

When I was younger, I thought I was the only person in the world who knew that pressing record while the radio was on actually taped the songs.

Anon

I used to believe that there was a person called Houston that all the astrounats would talk to whenever they were in trouble, then I learned that it was actually the city Houston, Texas. "Houston, we have a problem"

Danie

I used to think that when you sent a fax, the paper went through the wires.

em

I used to believe that if you were holding a phone up to your ear the person on the other line could hear all of your thoughts and it wasn't necessary to talk.

Anon

When I was a boy living in England I though I could re-charge flshlight batterries by wrapping some wire around a battery and inserting the ends of the coli into a live light socket. When I tried this I was rewarded by a loud bang and shower of sparks which caused me to fall off the step ladder. Later I tried the battery in a flashlight and was happy to see a very dim orange glow on the bulb filament.

Alan Hart

when i was a little kid (about 5), i thought there were little people in computer speakers. I thought whenever you would turn the volume up a little needle poked their butts to make them be louder. So (being a kind person) i always turned the speaker down.

bri

When I was younger I used to believe that when you faxed someting the paper would de-materialize and the particles would travel through the phone lines and re-materialize later at the other end of the fax machine.

Laura Vivoni

I used to think that there was day only so we could have light at night. See, there must have been this big box inside my wall that would suck up the light during the day. At night, when the light outside went away, the light would stay inside the little box in my wall. When you flipped on the light switch a shutter would open in the box and the light would filter through tubes that went through the wall to the ceiling to the light bulb. When you turned off the switch the shutters would close. That was my theory on electricity and day and night.

Riannon Showers

when i was little i used to believe that when a person was going to burn a cd they actually set it on fire. so when my friend asked me if i wanted her dad to burn my favorite cd for her i said no.

Anon

I thought a Walkman (tape-version of the Discman) only worked if you were walking and when you stopped it would go off automatically. I always begged my brother to let me try it, but he said that if little kids used them then they'd go deaf and end up like those people who walked around carrying boomboxes on their shoulders. That was the only way they heard music. It was like some punishment- you used a walkman too early so you're partialy deaf and you have to carry a bigger radio. What a dork I was.

Meg

I used to believe that elevators were magical boxes that, when you pushed a button for a floor, all the intervening floors of the building collapsed upon themselves while the elevator stayed put. The floors were then magically rebuilt when you pressed the button for your original floor. Strangely, I didn't worry about what happened to all the people on those floors that collapsed.

Anon

i thought that when you die they retire your email adress (apparently it's not true)

Nanofreak