501–510 of 515 posts
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The Haya people from contemporary Tanzania began making steel 2,000 years ago. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi385.htm
Hmm... And so? Hardly the first. [0] Although, I admit, I wouldn't have thought that Tanzania would be so advanced in that era. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_metallurgy
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You say they had horses for those types of traveling, except they most likely didn’t. Only a successful farmer... We can't make a universal rule like this. Everyone has a particular mental image of how farming worked long ago, but circumstances varied. Horses can eat a wide variety of plants, including something that is growing wild right outside your door. The density of farmers probably had more to do with whether…
Horses could bot be used for farming until the invention of the harness which was actually pretty late (steam tractors were not far behind). Until then oxen were used which could use a simple yoke. Even after the complex harness oxen were generally more practical for farm use.
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Bamboo-frame bicycles exist today as a fashionable item, and as far as I can tell without having ridden one, they work for practical purposes just as well as metal-frame ones. I suspect you could make a perfectly acceptable modern bicycle with 18th century technology, albeit not as durable. Metal axles aren't much of a problem. Light and strong wheels are trickier, but you could get away with solid wooden ones, or em…
The existence of huge numbers of wooden scooters called chukudu in Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda disproves this. Apparently they are made with simple woodworking tools, transport 500 pounds and last 2-3 years.
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> If you do any physical activity that you are unused to you will have slight pains etc. It's not about being used to it - I'd been cycling for years. There will always be muscle soreness from using your legs, but an upright brings a totally unnecessary set of aches and pains in other places - wrists, taint, shoulders, neck - because of the awkward hunched position and the fact that you're supporting your body weight…
> It's not about being used to it - I'd been cycling for years. There will always be muscle soreness from using your legs, but an upright brings a totally unnecessary set of aches and pains in other places - wrists, taint, shoulders, neck - because of the awkward hunched position and the fact that Your bike doesn't fit! This is like saying "I wore shoes that are two sizes too small and my feet hurt". This isn't a val…
Happened with multiple bikes, after having a fit, and it's not like I got the recumbent fitted. And a post back you were saying it was normal for cycling to feel like boxing training. (It is - for upright cycling).
> You are not everyone and just because you have problems the vast majority of people do not. My nan who is 4ft 11 (so a very small lady) managed with a regular bicycle until she was in her late 70s. Are you saying that you are frailer than a woman in her late 70s?
So someone who's about half the weight of the average person didn't suffer issues from having too much weight on too small an area. That's exactly what I'd expect. The vast majority of people do find cycling uncomfortable - and don't cycle as a result.
> I ride almost everywhere in jeans and t-shirt unless when it is boiling hot in summer when I wear T-shirt and shorts. I don't ride like some people who seem to think it is the tour-de-france everyday.
Does this not suggest that it's you who's unusual? People don't wear those padded shorts for fun, they wear them because it's unpleasant not to. Maybe you're some combination of light, riding short distances, insensitive to particular kinds of pain, or just unusually suited to saddles via some random quirk of anatomy. Lucky you, but you are not representative.
> Fixing the chain coming off is literally just feeding it back on. Does it take years of experience to loop something round cog ... no.
You think that as an experienced cyclist. I've had to stop for people on the side of the road who couldn't/wouldn't put their chain back on, more than once. A normal commuter just isn't interested in learning how to do maintenance, even something that basic.
> You are just making stuff up to win the argument at this point.
Wow, that's some first-tier projection there.
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It still blows my mind that they abandoned the printing press for aesthetic reasons, long before Gutenberg was born. And bamboo really is a hell of a material. The breadth of vocational materials science they had was staggering.
Well, their printing press wasn't nearly as useful as Gutenberg's. Mostly because of weak materials. A printing press isn't as useful if you have to manually verify and fix the types ever other print.
It brings to mind one artifact of letter construction being based upon the writing method - cuneiform vs ink pen letters for instance.
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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…
He asked about standard screw sizes and was told that there were no standard sizes or "in stock", and he should just tell them what size he wanted because their supplier just makes whatever size screws they need.
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Assembling a bike from parts would be a challenge for many people here. Assembling a wheel from parts is beyond most people, including many bike mechanics. In fact most wheels are assembled by machines, else labor costs would be too high. Used to be it was mostly serious amateurs and professionals that had them hand built. They’re more reliable, but I think it’s more to do with the combinatorial explosion of parts. M…
> Assembling a wheel from parts is beyond most people, Just how shitty wheel would be admissible here? A wooden octagon?
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> It would be less efficient, but still workable. Even just wood on wood is sufficient. Proof: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvFpbh2fjE Your "proof" is unconvincing. 1. The bike looks super wobbly and seems like it takes a lot of effort to just make it function properly. Yes, it is an example of a wooden bicycle, but it is not an example of a useful wooden bicycle. It seems like it probably has a pretty short wo…
Well it was a youtube gimmick, just a proof that wood-on-wood isn't as high friction as people think. But there were wooden bicycles without ball bearings in real-life history and they worked with the infrastructure they had. How well they worked is a different thing, but still it proves "no tech to build a bicycle" isn't the reason we waited for bicycles for thousands of years. We had people jumping off towers with…
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> It's not about being used to it - I'd been cycling for years. There will always be muscle soreness from using your legs, but an upright brings a totally unnecessary set of aches and pains in other places - wrists, taint, shoulders, neck - because of the awkward hunched position and the fact that Your bike doesn't fit! This is like saying "I wore shoes that are two sizes too small and my feet hurt". This isn't a val…
> Your bike doesn't fit! This is like saying "I wore shoes that are two sizes too small and my feet hurt". Happened with multiple bikes, after having a fit, and it's not like I got the recumbent fitted. And a post back you were saying it was normal for cycling to feel like boxing training. (It is - for upright cycling). > You are not everyone and just because you have problems the vast majority of people do not. My n…
I know I said I wouldn't reply but that is a totally disingenuous interpretation of what I said and there is no way I could leave that be.
I never said such a thing. I said if you don't do something for years you will ache. Thai boxing was an extreme example to ram the point home as you were being thick headed about the subject.
> Does this not suggest that it's you who's unusual? People don't wear those padded shorts for fun, they wear them because it's unpleasant not to. Maybe you're some combination of light, riding short distances, insensitive to particular kinds of pain, or just unusually suited to saddles via some random quirk of anatomy. Lucky you, but you are not representative.
No not at all. I see many people cycling in normal-ish clothing on fixed gears, racing bikes, mountain bikes etc.
It is really frustrating when you will deny reality. I've cycled to work in many different countries (UK, Spain, Denmark, Germany) and the vast majority of people where normal clothes.
Here are some from Denmark (not taken from me but I did live there)
This was taken by me while waiting in Gibraltar.
This is a picture from Bournemouth
A shot from Manchester (I used to live there as well)
All wearing normal clothing and not struggling. I am sorry but it simply isn't true that I am unusual.