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The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

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Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#11

Post by Noumenon72 »

sgnelson wrote: post #6

Neat story, but god do I often hate the modern internet. Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)

I like that Twitter gives me a nice digestible chunk at a time, and forces each chunk to have its own main point. I have an opportunity to stop reading at the end of each tweet, so he has to keep each one interesting. When I shared this article, I linked to the tweet and not to the threadreaderapp rollup.

Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#12

Post by foerbert »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #11
sgnelson wrote: post #6

Neat story, but god do I often hate the modern internet. Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)

I like that Twitter gives me a nice digestible chunk at a time, and forces each chunk to have its own main point. I have an opportunity to stop reading at the end of each tweet, so he has to keep each one interesting. When I shared this article, I linked to the tweet and not to the threadreaderapp rollup.

Interestingly, I think you just managed to help me figure out why I dislike Twitter so much for these sorts of things. I'd never thought about it so much, but everything just snapped into focus with your comment.

Too simplified, no nuance, and a looming suspicion that each individual portion has been slightly 'improved' to fit the criteria you mentioned. While perhaps fairly acceptable individually, I can't shake the feeling that the sheer scale of their sum might surprise even the author sometimes.

As a result it makes me increasingly uncomfortable as I read more.

Toss in the UI, and yeah. I think this is precisely why I dislike Twitter so much for these things.

Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#13

Post by pm90 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #11
sgnelson wrote: post #6

Neat story, but god do I often hate the modern internet. Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)

I like that Twitter gives me a nice digestible chunk at a time, and forces each chunk to have its own main point. I have an opportunity to stop reading at the end of each tweet, so he has to keep each one interesting. When I shared this article, I linked to the tweet and not to the threadreaderapp rollup.

Same. I like reading both long form and short form content. Twitter threads like this one remind me of a slideshow, with each tweet trying to make a single point.

Honestly I don’t get the hate. If you don’t like a certain format, don’t read it. Or use other tools that condense the format (like the threadroller app).

Especially when experts from other domains use this format to explain the nuances of eg a new paper, discovery, policy or political position, this kind of format has a extremely low barrier of entry, is standardized and available on a platform that loads rapidly and without (too) invasive ads. It also allows for asking questions or making comments really easily.

Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#15

Post by justincormack »

sgnelson wrote: post #6

Neat story, but god do I often hate the modern internet. Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)

It is not information sharing, it is story telling. It is engaging as it gets posted piece by piece, like a modern day version of serializing Dickens. Creativity comes from working within limitations too.

Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#18

Post by perlgeek »

That sounds like an interesting narrative.

How well is it accepted in the historical community (or whatever you call the community of history scholars)?

I'm afraid it's pretty easy to come up with lots of interesting narratives, and then search for evidence to support them, and as somebody not in the field, I'd easily fall for each of them.

Re: The naval shipworm helped bring about the Industrial Revolution

#19

Post by samb1729 »

sradman wrote: post #7

> References in Greek texts from the 4th century BC are IMO suggestive of early voyages to the coast of West Africa, the nearest navigable mangrove forests (unless shipworm managed to somehow get carried across the Sinai isthmus) Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2]) so it is unlikely that early voyages reached any further south along the coast of West Af…

What about Cape Bojador made it impassible for so long? I know essentially nothing about navigation or ships in general besides that they don't travel over land particularly well[0], so if you know of an easy to digest resource I'd really appreciate it.

[0]: except near Constantinople, obviously

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