421–430 of 515 posts
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I just might put it up on my blog. Need to collect references for the things I've been saying first. I first need to finish and ask someone to proofread my long overdue post on my views about advertising industry.
I can proofread if you want.
Innovation takes an unreasonably twisty path. An even more stark example: suitcases with wheels. If you have the technology to build a siege engine or a crossbow, then surely you can build a suitcase with wheels. And yet they post-date the Saturn V rocket. How reasonable is that?
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I don't have a source, and maybe I'm misremembering, but I think compilers (for software) and CPU production tooling (for hardware) both bootstrap off their own performance. A better compiler can compile itself more efficiently, same for CPU/chip layout systems.
> compilers Absolutely. Otherwise, all compilers would be written in Assmebly. Most compilers used today are written in C and the compiler for C (GCC) is written in C itself. The C language was also written by Ken Thomson, because he was unhappy with the BCPL language, so the compiler for C was originally written in B. So on and So forth. More Recently, the initial compiler for Rust was written in OCaml but is now wr…
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You tried to make an element from... nothing?
Nothing provided by civilization. It's the old "you're dropped naked into the wilderness 10,000 years in the past" challenge and have to make iron to impress the tribe so they won't eat you.
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> "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something…
Which is incidentally yet another reason why it's very important to ensure stability of our technological civilization. We've pulled ourselves by the straps of our boots a couple hundred meters into air now; it's not safe to stop pulling. Given big enough shock to economies and populations, we'll regress not a decade or three, but all the way to the beginning of industrial revolution - you can't build the technology…
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I've ridden many different types of bicycle from fixed gears, single speed mountain bikes and more traditional mountain bikes and racing bikes. Recumbent is horrible to ride in traffic (you are below the height of most traffic) and the handling is atrocious. Yes they are maybe more efficient but they are not pleasant to ride. TBH the current design is efficient enough, is well understood both in terms of the technolo…
> Recumbent is horrible to ride in traffic (you are below the height of most traffic) Depends on the recumbent. Mine (an Azub Six) isn't - I commute through London on it every day. And cities are (slowly) getting better at keeping traffic out of the way. > and the handling is atrocious. How so? You have to take a different line through corners, but you turn later (front wheel is further back) so it's if anything easi…
How do you store it at home/work?
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Bicycles are entirely stable without a rider as long as they’re moving. The human is only really necessary to provide motive power. There are a ton of videos showing this. It is totally unlike the intentional instability of a modern jet fighter.
That relies on the front fork being at an angle, though, doesn't it? If they made it straight down (which is the obvious choice) or pointing backwards, it would be much, much harder to ride.
the geometry of the ride type of a bicycle or motorcycle is really interesting [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_geometr...
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That does not sound like a good argument at all. Metal for vast majority of human history gave you massive edge in weapon technology. Some Mandarin just shut something like that down? Seems super unlikely Vikings transported Crucible steel all the way from Afghanistan to make high end swords. Damascus steel(actually manufactured in India) and then forged into weapon in Damascus.. etc There got to be other reasons. Be…
This kind of thing isn't totally out of the question. The mandarins famously shut down China's budding sea voyages because they were run by a eunuch, and the mandarins and the eunuchs were opposed factions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He But there was never a Chinese ideological opposition to peasants becoming rich; the theory advanced by AnimalMuppet makes no sense.
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> Recumbent is horrible to ride in traffic (you are below the height of most traffic) Depends on the recumbent. Mine (an Azub Six) isn't - I commute through London on it every day. And cities are (slowly) getting better at keeping traffic out of the way. > and the handling is atrocious. How so? You have to take a different line through corners, but you turn later (front wheel is further back) so it's if anything easi…
How do you find day-to-day usability of the azub once you are off the bike? I.e. locking it to a post or bringing it into a building. Do you have the under seat stearing? How do you store it at home/work?
At work I can't actually fit it in the wheel slots of the racks they've got but that's more about having wide tyres/tubes than it being a recumbent (an upright mountain bike would have the same problem) - I've got a stand so I just park it in the rack row resting on its stand, it takes up the same amount of space (no problem with having other bikes in the slots on either side).
I went for the above seat steering - I do touring in various countries so didn't want anything that would be too unconventional / hard to fix.
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"The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing " Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. Then you can install the first precision screw in a lathe and make more screws in harder metals. This is how precision is bootstrapped. [1] https://chestofbooks.com/ho…
> "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something…
This is how compilers for example are made. You initially compile the improved source code of a compiler on the previous version.
I wonder if there is an ancestry trees (or I guess chains) somewhere of the major compilers out there?