Oh nooooo, the retrogrouch camps appears to be weakened! Sheldon says:

"Friction shifting
Shifting operated by a lever that moves smoothly through its range. With friction shifting, the rider must learn exactly how far to move the lever to get from one gear to another. If the rider moves the lever too far, or not far enough, the chain will not line up properly with the sprocket, causing noise and roughness. See index shifting
If your bike has friction shifters, consider upgrading to a modern indexed system. This is a major, very worthwhile upgrade."

"Rear Derailers
Older rear derailers are generally much inferior to modern ones, even quite expensive older rear derailers don't work as well as the cheapest newer designs."

I am confused, I guess Sheldon loves all bikes (including Rivendell) but i still wonder why he would recommend the modern bits. Oh well. Guess i am glad i hub gears because at present i really wouldn't know what der. gear system to opt for.

As for Computing retrogrouch stuff, anyone know any other examples than VI txt editor -that's a good one as according to Maddox from "The Best Page in the Universe" (you guys know him right?):

"This page was made using vi in unix. Anything else is for failures."

Maddox actually often cracks me up. On a sidenote does anyone know a girl/woman that really likes Maddox's writings?