231–240 of 247 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's so much about programming that I just don't know because someone else abstracted it away from my responsibility.
If you haven't, learn to program in assembly. Everything else is built on top of that.
I used to be tempted to think that our modern generations are extra smart because of the cool gadgets we have. Seeing stuff like this, and reading ancient political / philosophical writings, gives me a much-needed reality check.
I rather wonder what our descendants will marvel at that we are doing. Will they think that it was ingenious to design machines in different parts, from different materials, then assembled and shipped to where they are needed? With the limited technology and methods of our time? That we used to engineer and create special machines for these different purposes because in their world, everything you can conceive will c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes me wonder if they've been done in parallel or serially. Also, I'd love to know how the bridge was designed. How did they figure out the shapes of the supporting structure, or location of the piers? Etc. We have this knowledge systematized today, but we use mathematics in a form that was developed much later than those bridges.
According to JE Gordon in “ Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down,” the answer is surprisingly simple: everything was massively, tremendously overbuilt. Also, often builders would start with scale models, and then exaggerate proportions - that doesn’t require sophisticated math. Just do the modeling “analog”!
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaduc_de_la_Roizonne
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_des_Pierres#/media/Fichie...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These projects employed skilled journey men (level between apprentice and master). At some point they then traveled to work on the next project, spreading the know-how. Once something was working, it was often copied as modifications were risky.
To add to this: those were highly sought after specialists with a lot of privileges. This had consequences that sound strange to us nowadays. Stonemasons were heavily involved in medieval diplomacy, since everybody in power needed them to build or repair fortresses. They could travel freely between kingdoms that were at war with each other and exchange messages between the respective rulers.
Perhaps a comparable example would be an executive with a technical background: Jim Keller has highly sought-after skills desired by chip makers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.
We are actually getting stupider because of the raise of CO2 consentration in air. https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-dire...
Even if we doubled yearly increases in ppm we'd be a century away from a measurable impact on human cognition for outdoor air.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a pretty typical mistake. We are just as smart as our predecessors. We just have a much higher population, a higher % of them are well educated, and we have an enormous body of historical knowledge (as well as easy ways for anyone to access it). "On the shoulder of giants" etc.
We are actually getting stupider because of the raise of CO2 consentration in air. https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-dire...
A couple of other studies showed no effects of elevated CO2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23161403
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Several shots, planned out carefully so it could be edited to look like one shot. Russian Ark (2002) (Russian: Русский ковчег) is a single 96-minute steadicam shot, and it has over 2,000 actors and three orchestras in it. It was recorded directly to a hard drive carried behind the camera operator, which could hold 100 minutes.
thus the winking emoji. thank you for reminding me that I need to watch Russian Ark again though!
Animations like this have amazing information density. Think how much harder it is to explain how they built these bridges using language.
For instance, the first layer of stones across the arches builds up from one side, over the top, and down the other, rather than up from both sides to meet in the top with keystones.
Other places may have done it that way, but the Swiss simply subcontracted their bridges to Satan: https://www.andermatt.ch/en/discover/holidays-for-culture-lo...
