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On 5 May 1663, Samuel Pepys encountered the world’s first tech upgrade — and the first pang of gadget envy. His diary captured it in a single line, and centuries later, a reader named A. Hamilton explained why it mattered. The modern age, it seems, began with one man pretending not to notice a better gadget.
📜 The Diary Entry
5 May 1663
Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary:
“Deane of Woolwich went home with me and showed me the use of a little sliding ruler, less than that I bought the other day… however I did not seem to understand or even to have seen anything of it before.”
And there it is — the first recorded case of gadget envy.
Pepys, proud owner of a new slide rule, suddenly sees Deane’s slimmer, more portable version.
His solution? Deny everything. Slide rule? Never heard of it.
⚙️ The Eternal Upgrade
It’s a perfect 17th-century iPhone moment: the anxious pride of early adopters, the quick camouflage of embarrassment, the eternal truth that technology moves faster than our egos.
From the Navy Office to the Cloud Café, nothing has changed.
We still want the newest model — and we still pretend we don’t.
💬 A Modern Reflection
As one reader, A. Hamilton, observed in the Pepys Diary archives:
“This is a fascinating glimpse into the history of technology in action… Sam, working hard to be up to date with the latest calculation techniques, finds Deane the shipwright a step ahead, with a tool that is as good but smaller and cheaper… Think how much of our own sense of living in a dynamic age comes from just this kind of progress… The modern age has begun.”
That comment makes the scene unforgettable.
The drive for mastery, invention, and improvement — the same spark behind our phones, laptops, and GPS — was already alive in Pepys’s jealous glance.
The modern age had begun — not with revolutions or proclamations, but with one man pretending not to notice a better gadget.
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If you’ve ever wondered how far courtesy can travel — from a 17th-century slide rule to a 21st-century book cover — follow the thread of kindness to The Art of Collaboration and see how two simple words built another kind of bridge.
If you’ve ever wondered how far courtesy can travel — from a 17th-century slide rule to a 21st-century book cover — follow the thread of kindness to The Art of Collaboration and see how two simple words built another kind of bridge.
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