The first diodes. These were apparently incredibly unreliable, especially for portable radios, as you had to randomly search for the best contact point you could find in a random polycrystalline material!!
And also quality was highly dependant on where the material was sourced from as that affected the impurities present in the material. Later this was understood to be an issue of doping.
It was so unreliable that vacuum tube diodes overtook them in many applications, even though crystal detectors are actually semiconductor diodes, which eventually won over!
For a long time, before artificial semiconductors kicked in, people just didn't know the underlying physical working principle of these detectors. What I cannot create, I do not understand basically.
They were superseded by transistor radios, which were much more reliable, portable and could amplify the signal received.
How a Crystal radio Works by RimstarOrg
. Source. 
2009 Nobel Prize lecture
. Poor Charles was too debilitated by Alzheimer's disease to give the talk himself! But if you've got a pulse, you can get the prize, so all good.If you ask for something, and they don't want to do it for whatever reason, they won't say no. They will say "I could do it, sure, no problem" and just never do it, nor explain why they don't want to do it!
And then if you don't understand that this actually meant "no" and push things further, they might eventually say "no", but they might become offended that you didn't understand them at first!
Please just say at least "yes" or "no". And if you're feeling specially nice, say "why no" which helps a lot the asker sometimes, though that's optional since people are entitled to their privacy. Just don't waste our poor foreigners' time with "bhlarmeh"!
Perhaps East Asia is a similar and more severe case of the same problem. But at least in their case it is so obvious that you already expect it.
The polar opposite apparently being Germans and the like.
Why we can't find more bibliography on this?
- www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/ywt98p/why_are_british_people_so_indirect/ "Why are British people so indirect?". Now deleted body with some fixes, bullshit deletion procedure they have:The best comment:I've worked with people from all over the globe, but its when i work Work with British people it's always frustrating.From conversations to communicating what they would like me to do for them in notes. Never direct. Confusing and unclear. When I ask politely what they are asking me to do I get some patronising passive aggressive BS.Most times I don't even have to ask questions or clear things up. I try to make sense of everything, but sometimes I have to ask. In my job its important that I have the exact facts. I need 100% clarity from colleagues, so decisions I make don't come back to bite me on the ass. My clients don't have time for British behaviour like that. I don't have time for that.Why are Brits do indirect and passive aggressive in the workplace?
- www.facebook.com/soverybritish/posts/things-that-mean-no-yeah-could-do-im-easy-really-well-yes-and-no-well-see-maybe-/1497343080313575/
Things that mean "no" by "Very British Problems": - letstalk.voiceprint.global/talking-with-the-brits-the-problem-with-indirectness/ "Talking with the Brits - the problem with indirectness"
How I Faked Being American interview with Jack Barsky
. Source. The former East German spy undercover in the USA says:I had learned to speak English and write it as well as anybody, but I hadn't become an American culturally.My behavior was still very German.Having now learned the difference between the German style and the American style, I have been trying to adjust and soften the way I'm approaching things.Germans are in your face, they will tell you what they think even if you don't ask for it, and they will criticize you at any chance they get.And that was me.Americans will be a little more passive, sometimes passive aggressive, and they wrap everything, every piece of bad news, in some kind of a velvet cloth so it doesn't hurt that much.
Bibliography:
CIA 2010 covert communication websites Oleg Shakirov's findings by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Starting at twitter.com/shakirov2036/status/1746729471778988499, Russian expat Oleg Shakirov comments "Let me know if you are still looking for the Carson website".
He then proceeded to give Carson and 5 other domains in private communication. His name is given here with his consent. His advances besides not being blind were Yandexing for some of the known hits which led to pages that contained other hits:
- moyistochnikonlaynovykhigr.com contains a copy of myonlinegamesource.com, and both are present at www.seomastering.com/audit/pefl.ru/, an SEO tracker, because both have backlinks to
pefl.ru, which is apparently a niche fantasy football website - 4 previously unknown hits from: "Mass Deface III" pastebin. He missed one which Ciro then found after inspecting all URLs on Wayback Machine, so leading to a total of 5 new hits from that source.
There are unlisted articles, also show them or only show them.