What Ancient Tech Do You Do? 308
neonfrog asks: "Before silicon, before electricity even, what the heck did those of us with geek brains do? Our brains have not evolved appreciably in half an eon (at least mine hasn't, but I may be descended from turtles). What would today's programmers have been doing centuries before the invention of the keyboard? What would an electrical engineer be doing a millennia or three before the concept of resistors and capacitors? What piqued their curiosity? Were their skills esoteric or exotic? They can't all have been Leonardo Da Vincis or court 'magicians', right? Summer's starting and, for some, it's hobby time. I bet the Slashdot community harbors quite a few Journeyman, or even Masters. I know a lot of geeks are beer-makers (and I do so appreciate you folk ... urp!) so there's no danger of that knowledge getting lost. What other ancient tech do you indulge in and keep alive? What are some good resources?"
my hobbies (Score:5, Interesting)
Make mead. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wanted to make my own cider, and despite my love for Cider, my new first love is Mead, and its near cousins, melomels, cysers....mmmmm
My first 1 gallon batch of mead recently hit its stride finally. Dear GAWD is that stuff good.
I swear, if you ever get a good mead, you'll never drink beer again. I'm not kidding, I'm dead serious. I have 5 gallons of strawberry melomel going right now, and another 5 gallons of some dark cider that has been going since mid-october. Both are far superior to their off-the-shelf alternatives, and these are just my first tries!
Resources?
The BrewBoard [brewboard.com]
and if you wish to take my advice on the mead specifically:
The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm [amazon.com]
That second link *is* an Amazon link, but not a referral link, so I'm not whoring.
Oh, and yes, I did spell "compleat" correctly. Took me forever to find the book the first time. Oops.
Re:Make mead. (Score:3, Informative)
Good cool mead taste masks the incredible quantity of sugar that you are actualy drinking. Sugars compete with alcohol for dehydrogenase and overworked alcohol dehydrogenase is the cause of the hungover.
I swear, if you ever get a good mead hungover, you'll never want to drink again.
Re:Make mead. (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure what you mean by "cool mead", but your statements are only true for what I've typically heard called a "sack" or sweet mead, which is much easier to make, but not as delicious as the dry recipies (IMHO). A dry mead is more my style, and has an amazing spectrum of flavors that really do justice to the layman's description, "honey wine".
The citric acid is important to conceal the alcohol flavor in a dry mead
Re:Make mead. (Score:3, Interesting)
I made it in PET bottles: when half the plastic had gone white with craze cracking from the pressure and the bottle had stretched by about one fifth it was time to drink it.
Re:Make mead. (Score:2)
Sorry, I have no idea what those words are
Re:Make mead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, for Pete's sake, put a referrer link in there next time. I mean, you're providing us with useful information and it's not like I'm going to save money if you don't put a referrer link in there - Amazon is simply going to keep the profit.
Now, who would I rather see the money go to, Amazon or Numbski? That's easy.
If you were selling your book there might be a conflict of interest, but Amazon has nearly every book in existence so this is just a matter of who gets the money, and contrary to the comments of some on Slashdot, there's nothing wrong with making money for your work.
Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:3, Insightful)
Before silicon, before electricity even, what the heck did those of us with geek brains do? Oh, the geeks have only recently been truly free:
Archimedes, the father of calculus, has his ancient texts bleached and written over with religious mumbo jumbo. Over 1800 years passed before Newton 're-discovered' calculus.
Galileo proclaimed that the earth wasn't the center of it all. Then the Catholic church made him recant (this was the time of the Inquisition which killed a friend of his just a few years befor
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:2)
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:2)
The birth of Christ is accepted by Christians as the arrival of the long promised Messiah.
But the other guy was right, it is those-in-power that cause the trouble and looking at history one has to wonder of those-christians-in-power during the middle ages were actually Christian at all.
These
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly those in the "stories" you refer to did not take their belief merely because they read other "stories" but because of their own experiences with God, which, strangely is a strong force in the lives of many in the less extreme religions.
For instance, my belief in Jesus Christ is based on my own experiences in relation to the practice of the religion I study and not on account of "ooh, it must be true because of...".
An interesting thing for you to look into would be
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't expect my validations to hold more weight with you than your own validations, but its good that you can see that this is what it comes down to, and its nice for me to realise I'm not looking for anyone elses approval of the current state of my learning process.
As far as your theoretical group of friends, some of them may be lying and one of the liars may even be a mormon. Its had to know what experiences a person has had.
As far as an unfair God dammin
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:2)
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:4, Insightful)
The Arabic Islamic world was the most advanced civilisation in the early centuries of the second millennium, whilst the European Christian world was stagnated around the bits of Greek science they could understand.
In addition to developing from the knowledge of the Greeks in such areas as medicine, they developed our modern mathematical characters and the idea of 0. They also developed a law system where Christians and Jews could peacefully co-exist in Islamic countries, albeit as second class citizens.
This was a far cry from the situation in Europe where anyone who was non-Christian in the same period was likely to end up dead. Even being suspected of something like witchcraft (normally an elderly woman with some property but no surviving relatives, funny that, eh?) was a death sentence, unless of course you weighed more than a duck.
Somehow the Muslims in power were more able to tolerate the advance of science than the Christians in power during the same period.
So the original post seems to be fair in its focus on Christianity as a bad example of established power structures fighting progress with dogma.
And it still goes on; eggs, sperm, zygotes, blastoclysts and embryos with less nerve tissue than a per rat are claimed to have equal rights to born humans by the Roman Catholic Church.
Jehovah's Witnesses oppose the transfusion of blood.
Fundamental Christians deny the vast level of supporting evidence for an ancient naturalistically formed Universe where life developed under the control of natural selection, and insist on a literal 7 x 24-hour day creation.
Look at the lobby groups now most opposed to stem cell research...
Re:Religion stifles advancement in our species (Score:3, Informative)
This is actually not true: the concept of zero originates with Hinduism, around the 7th centure BC.:
http://www.udupipages.com/book/hindhu.html [udupipages.com]
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Advanced_Concept s.htm [atributetohinduism.com]
WRT naturalistically formed universe (Score:4, Insightful)
I would certainly be described as one of those "Fundamental" Christians, and I must respectfully take issue with your point.
People who believe as I do do not deny the evidence. We collect evidence and draw inferences from it to see how that fits into our view of how the universe works. To be fair, this is precisely what naturalists do. We all share the same evidence. We differ in the meaning of the evidence and the explanations that accompany the evidence. Only a fool would reject solid evidence.
You also said:Christianity seem to win the contest as 'religion most likely to stifle scientific advancement'
I'll take issue with that as well. While it is true that many who claimed the name and power of the Christian church have abused that power and have done despicable things, that is not consistent with Christian beliefs. The list of Christians who have offered up significant scientific advances includes:
Johann Kepler, Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle, Charles Babbage, Samuel F. B. Morse, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Henri Fabre, Lord William Thompson Kelvin, Joseph Lister, George Washington Carver, Wernher von Braun, and many others.
To suggest that scientific advancement is inherently incompatible with Christianity is simply not inclusive of the facts.
Look at the lobby groups now most opposed to stem cell research...
Embryonic stem cell research is definitely opposed on moral grounds.
Adult stem cell research - the area that shows therapeutic benefit TODAY is not morally out of bounds and is helping people to live a more healthy life. This is GOOD science, and should be promoted.
Embryonic stem cell research is different. We believe that all human life is sacred and that no human should be killed to make life easier or healthier for someone else. The science shows that these zygotes are inherently human - that all that is required for a person to grow from a fertilized egg is food and shelter.
Science's technological reach has exceeded its moral grasp in this area. Science has long existed in a realm where there were moral guidelines on appropriate research. e.g. People must know that they are part of an experiment, and what the risks are, etc. I feel strongly that one day, the conventional scientific wisdom will look on this and say 'oops' we messed that one up.
FWIW - While I've not seen it written this way elsewhere, I rather like the idea of a "Fundamental Christian" over the moniker "fundamentalist" As a Fundamental Christian, I hold fast to the tenets of the historic Christian faith, which is somewhat different from the connotation of a fundie as described on
Respectfully,
Anomaly
Re:WRT naturalistically formed universe (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course not. The universe was obviously created 5000 some years ago in a 7 day even in which the creator rested.
Re:WRT naturalistically formed universe (Score:3, Interesting)
The God(s)/God created PI. An infinite number of non repeating digits that describe the ratio of circle to an ever more perfect degree.
Thus it could be argued that god(s)/God are really into doing things right up front.
Hence the whole Adam and Eve creation myth is bunk because it's too much of a kludge for a god who's into elegant solutions.
The big bang was an elegant solution. It was elegant because of the beauty of its simplicity.
Evolution is an elegant solution. Going and
Re:bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
He claims the reason that the Islamic scholars didn't add that much to what they later transferred back to Europe, was that their religion stopped research.
So this is another case that supports the grandparent's point.
i wondered this myself (Score:3, Funny)
Before the keyboard (Score:2, Funny)
I can't say for sure, but it would probably only require one hand.
Intaglio printmaking (Score:5, Interesting)
not really ancient (Score:4, Interesting)
Jim
Re:not really ancient (Score:2)
Over the last few years I've gathered an extremely large collection of super low tech, and a few high tech pieces of coffee roasting and preparation equipment.
I also have a passion for cooking, and I've started learning techniques from all over the world.
My wife is only tolerant of the coffee geekery, but she's utterly devoted to my amateur chef pursuits.
There's also something extremely meditative I find about fishing. Gear, techniq
Blacksmithing (Score:5, Interesting)
I was fortunate enough to work at an 18th century living history museum many summers, weekends, and holidays as a blacksmith. Nearly twenty years later, I am still impressed at how much can be done with steel and fire. The technology of tempering is ancient, and the same metalurgical chemistry is used everywhere today in instrument sharpening, oxidization resistiveness, and high strength/weight component design such as in an F1 racecar (when they choose to drive them).
You can set up your own blacksmith shop now for not much more than some fireclay, an old hairdryer blower, some coal fuel, an short piece of railroad track turned upside down for an anvil (always used a forged metal, never cast) and a hammer. Although if I did it these days, I would be more disciplined about wearing hearing protection.
Re:Blacksmithing (Score:4, Informative)
It looks promising, but I have not started yet (mainly because the landlord does not appreciate foundry equipment in the appartment).
Their catalog is really cool, they have reprints of documents from 1900, 1800 and before, all obsolete by now, of course, but that's how the Golden Gate and the Titanic were built.
They also have an electrical section, for example, how to make an analog amplifier in a Jar from a speaker and a carbon microphone. Really neat stuff, and I wish I could tinker with it some more.
Re:Blacksmithing (Score:5, Funny)
One of those is perhaps not the greatest example.
No, both were good (Score:2)
It is important to point out that those old books are the old knowledge, but old knowledge wasn't better than ours today. Those books will teach you how to do things that have strong odds of killing you. Every reminder of safety is important, particularly when your instructions ignore them, so you have to consider it all of yourself.
There is something wrong with the geek who doesn't love that catalog and buy books from them once in a while. Always something interesting, even if you never build the p
Re:Blacksmithing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blacksmithing (Score:4, Informative)
Trust me - Harbor Frieght sells a terrible anvil. Wait till you get to use a good one and then you will appreciate the difference. I work pt (for fun) at Arms and Armor [armor.com] I shudder to think of what it would cost to rebuy our forging equipment (especially the stakes) and we have a couple nice anvils and one that looks like we put it under a surface grinder daily - flat smooth - nice. As for doing the Gingery books - I highly recommend trying the casting ones, but as for the rest - it is a lot like 'roll your own linux' very educational, kinda fun, but man alive - your time is also worth something - try Grizzley [grizzley.com] tools.They are still junky tiawan/chinese tools - but they are considered the best of the low/pro-sumer tools. Sorry this was so long - meh.
Sera
Same hobby, different tools! (Score:5, Funny)
History of the Ancient Geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Many would perhaps be smiths; blacksmiths, armorsmiths, glassworkers, etc. All types of smithing requires an advanced knowledge of the craft, with nuances more intricate than any xfree86 config file. What makes geeks tick is not sci-fi itself, or computers themselves, it's systems. Geeks love systems. Systems of numbers, systems of logic, computer systems, pen and paper games rules systems, computer language systems. Even non-geeks like systems. Physical Sports are systems; they are self consistent rule-based constructions. Geeks are merely overly obsessed with certain systems, such as the stars, or physics, or computer languages, much like an autistic person could be obsessed with anything, but he chooses a certain something. So perhaps any intricate systematic smithing craft would appeal to the ancient geek.
Re:History of the Ancient Geeks (Score:2, Funny)
Wow. You have no idea how much you've raised my respect for these things. Cognitive dissonance...what a feeling.
There's a difference between Ancient and Medieval (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, an ancient goidelic bronze-smith's life was generally short and often ended in madness due to the lack of forced ventilation technology. The arsenic and heavy metals naturally occuring in ores acculumated in the body and induced illness and psychosis. Consequently the smiths were often unable to have normal children; so of course fathers did not want their daughters to marry smiths. A smith who wished to marry might have to steal or buy a bride.
The inherited, rigidly defined social and occupational classes you're talking about are a feature of medieval and post-medieval (c.g. Renaissance and Modern) culture, and are very rare in truly ancient times. In ancient times fostering and apprenticeships were more the norm, and typically a smith chose his apprentices or fosterlings based on aptitude and ability.
What I would have been... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd have been the peasant who starved because he was so busy trying to figure out how to get his ox to plow more field when all he had to do to survive was plant a small garden with his hands.
Good thing I'm alive today and didn't live in centuries past.
I don't know about humans (Score:2)
Then there were the unsung geeks who invented fire, the spear, the flint tip for same, the wheel, the bow and arrow, camoflaged big hole in ground, etc.
More recent-ish, before Henry Ford came along, most auto owners had to be (or hire...) geeks to keep those !@#$! things on the road.
On a slight tangent, one college professor of mine talked about how, in some "primitive" cultures, homosexuals had roles as things like helpers in child rearing. More directl
Re:I don't know about humans (Score:2)
Didn't he end up leaving his wife ant and moving in with her daughter ant?
Re:I don't know about humans (Score:2)
Blacksmithing (Score:3, Interesting)
1) swinging a hammer all day can give you a repetetive motion injury like using a keyboard.
2) When making complex things you have to pay attention to details and have an idea of what your working towards.
3) You can undo mistakes fairly easily, just heat it up and pound out the error.
4) There are lots of technical things to remember like metal compostions, metalworking techniques, and different ways to heat treat metals to give them different properties.
5) It's rather a skilled job compared to being a farmer, and I suppose the pay might not have been too bad.
Plus you can make your own swords and armor for D&D.
Why? (Score:2)
I can see how a smith would need different skills than a farmer, but not how a good smith would need more skill than a good farmer.
Sailing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sailing (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also very fuzzy and analog. The wind changes d
Gardening... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. Gardening.
Its geeky, in its own way.
Not only do you have layout, planting times, and organic methods, but there are loads of experimentation available.
Do you want to use the French-Intensive method of gardening? How about the traditional method? Blocks or rows?
This year, I'm experimenting with rooting suckers from tomato plants and seeing if the new plants are worthwhile producers. I'm also trying to plant late corn in between flowering beans. (I like to maximize my yeild from a small space.) Next year, I'm going to try interplanting lettuce and tomatoes, hoping that the tomatoes will keep the lettuce cool enough to extend the growing season. I'll also try more mulch next year, I think.
...And Farming (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no end to the invention you can pour into growing plants and taking care of animals.
Being not very far descended from farmers, I have to say that agriculture of any kind is a great target for creativity. And a couple of centuries ago, a heck of a lot of the world's population was subsistence farming.
You have to plan for the seasons, account for risks (weather, sickness), do more with less effort, take care of your tools and your land, preserve foods, try to maintain nutrition through a long wi
Re:Gardening... (Score:2)
Seconded!
I'm a gardening geek myself, and I think I'd be doing that if there were no computers around. There are a lot of geekly things you can do with gardening, and I don't think there are many gardeners who are masters of all of them.
There's plant identification (so controversial at the time - identifying by plant's private parts!), propagation, grafting (had an uncle who was big on this, and it can help you grow plants in different climates than they were bred for), growing edible plants, growing sp
Welding (Score:2)
I started by making a welding bench out of steel and have kept doing more and more projects with it.
The same thing current grads are doing... (Score:3, Funny)
--------
+1 sarcastic
food for the animals (Score:3, Insightful)
a possible explanation... (Score:2)
building garages (Score:2, Interesting)
I think tinkering with wood would be a great alternative to coding.
For resourc
Probably Priests of sorts (Score:2)
But thinking about it, I found that I'd probably be way too stupid for it - you can't simulate anything. Pretty amazing what these folks did.
Re:Probably Priests of sorts (Score:2)
It troubles me.
Not quite ancient, but... (Score:2)
Some of us LIKE playing with pre-pentium machines
Printmaking (Score:2, Interesting)
I've just begun doing some printmaking at home. Doing linocuts [wikipedia.org] and printing them by hand on paper. Just looking up information, I found Escher did this as well [mcescher.com]. Certainly an artistic figure many geek-types have taken to.
It's not difficult or expensive to do (all you need is the linoleum [misterart.com], some blades [misterart.com], a brayer and ink), but I find that many traits good coders have apply well to it (like everything, right? Also think design/typography). I find it a satisfying after a day of programming.
Musician (Score:5, Insightful)
Also designing and building musical instruments would be pretty geeky even in the 16th century.
Bee Keeping (Score:3, Interesting)
Boxes with cards, become supers with frames.
It is in some ways the an early nano-tech with thousands of simple machines carrying out tasks that create something much larger than any of them will understand.
There are even bugs like Varroa Destructor that can make your hive crash.
There is even over clocking, some people build hives with two queens (colonies of bees) in the same box, or would that be multi-processing.
It is a bit like the free software community there is more to be gained by sharing idea with other bee keepers than can ever be gained by keeping ideas to your self.
Well it is fun and you get sweet stuff to share with people.
Sailing (Score:3, Interesting)
Cave Man Geeks watch grass grow in the summer (Score:2)
accounting and moneylending (Score:2, Interesting)
I've done duty occasionally as an accountant/treasurer for various organiza
Geeks have always been around (Score:5, Interesting)
There's been a long geek tradition with making automats and mechanical toys, and funny enough the Japanese in the Edo period (1600 onwards) were really good at that stuff, because "inventions" were not allowed in that era. The feudal lords were afraid "inventions" could be used against them, so only fun automats ("karakuri ningyo" etc.) were considered harmless enough, that people were allowed to "invent" if it was for mechanical toys and automats. This started a real boom of the production of ever more amazing geek gadgets.
SCA of course (Score:4, Informative)
A large amount of effort and detail is put into the crafting of authentic armour and weaponry, and the enthusiasm and energy dedicated to these tasks often exclude the demands of a more normal, healthy lifestyle, thus making these a small part of larger geekdom.
Engineering and Mathematics (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no reason to think that the sorts of folks that became engineers or mathematicians 5000 years ago were, tempermentally, any differnt from the sorts of folks that become engineers or mathematicians today.
There were, no doubt, other highly skilled and technical professions that would have attracted ancient geeks: other's have mentioned smithing, scribing is another possability (just being literate enough to read and write was analogous to the general level of education of most geeks today), as is accountancy (conducting simple arithmetic without the benefit of decimal numbers must have required great patience and dedication). In the far east, at least since about 200 B.C., there was a good chance that anyone with reasonable education would have become a government functionary under the Confucian civil service system. I also suspect that, in other times, when people's conception of the world was very different from ours, many geeks may have gone into fields that would seem highly esoteric by modern standards: ancient geeks may have become musicians, artists, poets or monks as a means of persuing the life of the mind.
Finally, we should recognize the uncomfortable fact that most ancient geeks probably never got the opportunity to persue any career whatsoever. Throughout most of history, most people, no matter what their personal interests or inate abilities, were destined to be peasant farmers, servants, slaves or other bondsmen, like their fathers and grandfathers and so on. The idea that people, no matter what their station by birth, should be able (or even required) to choose their path in life, is a thoroughly modern concept.
Agriculture is Geeky (Score:2)
.
-shpoffo
All very true (Score:5, Interesting)
These people, in Renessance times, were typically sponsored by rich patrons, who took care of the mundane needs whilst they got on with inventing or whatever. It made for a society that evolved culturally and technologically faster than anything that had preceeded it.
Geeks would likely also have been explorers - it is very likely that St. Brenden "The Navigator" (who sailed from Ireland to Newfoundland in about 600 AD in a leather dinghy) was a geek at heart. There was a lot to discover, and required a mind agile at problem-solving along with fantastic patience, as they would be doing a great deal of nothing much.
You find hints of geekdom in gnostic and hellenistic thought and religion, suggesting early geeks may have been heavy into religion. Again, no great surprise - geeks love answering things, and for a long time, those were the best answers anyone could devise.
Cave painters may well have been geeks, too. One set of cave paintings in England would have been a few hundred feet under an ice sheet at the time they were painted. Someone shimmied down an ice crevice for the sole purpose of dawbing animals that couldn't possibly have existed there on the walls. That guy was NOT normal.
Brewers, throughout history, have experimented with different sources of sugars, flavours, etc. Since wild yeast can take many forms, and since many ingredients would have been expensive, they would undoubtably have researched methods of sustaining the active ingredient in much the same way that modern kids brew their own "ginger beer plants" by splitting bottles and topping up with fresh ingredients to keep the yeast alive.
The vertical loom and tablet weaving, both parts of Norse tradition, involved some highly complex thought and engineering on the part of their inventers and practicioners. Even the Viking longships - which would slide up beaches and could then be used to carry cargo from raids by reversing the oars - show considerable evidence of highly creative thought.
I think it safe to say that geeks throughout history have been much as they are today, excpet maybe more influential, as many of the trades I've mentioned have had considerable status and power in their times.
Railroading... (Score:2, Insightful)
Drafting/Technical Illustration (Score:2)
Learn precision drawing on paper with the old tools (T-squares, pencils, compasses - it's techno-Zen) and/or the ability to effectively express a physical thing/abstract concept with a simple hand-drawn sketch. These skills are being lost.
apprentice or clergy (Score:2)
Pillars of the Earth (Score:2, Interesting)
If you think you life is tough now, this book will open your eyes on how hard life used to be the past few thousand years.
They struggled to survive, like everybody else. (Score:2, Insightful)
Prospecting/Mining (Score:2)
-cp-
The Field Guide to Alaska Rocks and Minerals [alaska-freegold.com]
Strings (Score:2)
Some linguist has a theory that music was used to teach counting, counting used to lead while taking aim at dinner with a spear.
Whether music has been improved by technology is OT but if someone wants a rant on that get in touch (Short Answer: yes and no)
Covered in Shit. (Score:2)
CUSTOMER: Why?
MORTICIAN: He hasn't got shit all over him.
We all would have been what our fathers were.
Buy hotel (Score:2)
How to find water the ancient Roman way: (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the first things a Roman engineer would do on any building site is locate a spring to supply him with water. In order to do this, the engineer would get up before sunrise and lie down on the top of a hill, facing downhill. As the sun rose, tendrils of mist would appear in certain places on the ground. The engineer would note their location, and he would dig in those spots to produce a water supply.
The reason this works? The mist appears where the water table is closer to the surface. By digging, you go below the water table, and the hole will naturally fill up with water over time. This water can be filtered and used.
Isn't that neat?
Making my own joghurt (Score:3, Interesting)
Basicaly it's as simple as making your own kids but less fun.
Lots of stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
80 BC: The Antikythera celestial navigation device (Score:5, Informative)
What were engineers doing over 2k years ago? How about building the Antikythera Mechanism [giant.net.au] (web copy of a June 1959 Scientific American article, p60-7)
An amazingly complex, intricate, and accurate mechanical astronomical calculation device from 80 BC. Found in a shipwreck in 1900, and not fully reverse engineered until 1973, there are no other examples of this level technology in the ancient world.
"It is hard to exaggerate the singularity of this device, or its importance in forcing a complete re-evaluation of what had been believed about technology in the ancient world. For this box contained some 32 [brass] gears, assembled into a mechanism that accurately reproduced the motion of the sun and the moon against the background of fixed stars, with a differential [gear] giving their relative position and hence the phases of the moon."
You can see a reconstructed version of the Antikythera Mechanism here [grand-illusions.com]. Another article detailing the probable creation date of the device based on the construction of the gears can be found here [nordex.com]"
Another article [21stcentur...cetech.com] makes the conjecture that ancient navigators could have used the Antikythera Mechanism to determine longitude via the position of the moon (1800 years before longitude calculation was perfected [amazon.com] in England)
Ben in DCRe:80 BC: The Antikythera celestial navigation dev (Score:2)
I'm a research physicist... (Score:2)
99% of people would be peasants (Score:2)
S/he would be working in the fields all day long. If they were very lucky, they might be semi-free and would only have to worry about covering the rent whilst actually growing enough to live on. Most of them would be worrying whether their owner would decide that he had a few too many peasants and so decide to sell a few off or use them for sword practice.
Bowmaking and fletching (Score:3, Interesting)
It's amazing how effective a recurve bow with 40lbs strain is in the right hands....
Metalcasting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Metalcasting (Score:2)
Advanced Ballistic Physics (Score:2)
Aside from that, I enjoy studying basic physio-chemical effects of complex carbohydrate distillates on the human body, and piecing together the hormonal puzzle of the effect of the female of the species in really short skirts on drunken guy^H^H^Hscientists.
Best /. thread in what? 3 years? (Score:2)
How about a clockmaker? (Score:2)
SCAdian (Score:2)
Tech Support (Score:3, Funny)
tech: Hello sir, how may I help you?
caveman: fire, BAD!!!
tech: I understand your frustration, you'll need to restart your fire by hitting two stones together.
caveman: FIRE, BAD!!!!!
tech: Sir, you're going to have to work with me here.
caveman: fire.........good?
tech: Yes sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?
caveman: UNF!
in the prehistoric times ... (Score:2)
Woodworking (Score:2)
I suppose before the light bulb (which in turn brought the vac tube, and the transistor)...I probably would have been attracted to a profession that involved building things.
Meteorology (Score:2)
My Spare Time (Score:2)
Try a diptych... (Score:3, Interesting)
Answer the question! (Score:2)
In fact, if you are an orthodox greenie or you are convinced that petroleum resources will dry up in the next decade, you SHOULD be DOING some low-tech nerdwork right now.
Some things I do:
Re:Answer the question! (Score:2)
Village idiot (Score:2)
Let's be realistic (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Born into violence, filth, and disease.
2) Eek out a life of scavenging or farming, paying taxes to your lord, having some children, most of whom will die before a couple years old, until:
3) war, or some other tribal/religious/cultural dispute.
4) death at 20.
This hypothetical geek from BCE 5000 or AD 1600 might have been the next Einstein, or Stephen Hawking, or anything we can imagine. But he'd never have had the time, opportunity or resources to do anything with it.
We're NOT smarter than previous humans, we just have an *unprecendented* level of peace and prosperity. We have developed a culture where people have the opportunity *not* to toil and die at an early age.
Finally, this success isn't evenly distributed, yet. A fair amount of humanity still lives the way our ancestors did centuries ago.
The real answer... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in the day you had to do cool hacks to survive. Hackers are not the descendants of court wizards. We are descendants of farmers that when one of his tools broke he would fix it with what he had on hand or make a different tool out of it.
Caveman Chemistry (Score:3, Interesting)
Projects from making charcoal, mead, and ceramics to casting metals and glass, and making plastic (making and drawing polyester fiber).
Magic / Necromancy (Score:3, Funny)
Problem was, there weren't enough good jobs for the educated class. There were many underemployed people with time on their hands and limited prospects.
So they did what came naturally. Like we hack technology, they hacked theology.
Much 'black magic' was based on the standard Catholic rite of exorcism. In the rite, the priest commands demons or the devil to leave, in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost, perhaps with other holy names thrown in for good measure.
Some clerk must have seen that, and thought "What a waste! If you can command them, why not tell them to do something useful?"
Thus, the idea that a sorceror could follow a similar ritual, and use the influence of the holy powers to command the spirits to bring wealth, or sex, or knowledge.
Sort of like hacking a CueCat.