Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

Post by ch4s3 » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #101

ch4s3 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 100- and 500- year plan is ludicrous on it's face. They don't even credibly hit their 5 year plans a lot of the time. The idea of planning something so large and complex so far into the future seems like wishful thinking at best.

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower "No plan survives the first shot of the battle". So, sure, the plans will likely not survive in any detail even a decade from now. But the fact that they are making plans, attempting to understand the considerations of those future generations, understand what strategic goals need to be worked o…

Post by svachalek » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

beowulfey wrote: post #33

Joker_vD wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen exactly blue-collars workers arguing for impossibility: it's hard enough to do with modern technology ("I know it first-hand!"), how would you even do it without it?

That’s perhaps a testament to our dependence on modern machinery, if the skills did exist once.

Post by jacobolus » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

db48x wrote: post #30

fho wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss that he finished the mechanism? From what I've seen he went into hiatus and has been only posting ClickSpring "clips" for a while now?

He hasn’t completely finished his reconstruction, but he hasn’t entirely been on a hiatus either. He co–authored a paper on the calendar ring of the mechanism: https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera... But he hasn’t made many videos the last year or two.

Post by jazzyjackson » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #103

usrbinbash wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a problem of the craft however, it's a problem of the culture. We are perfectly capable of writing native GUIs, and we have powerful tools for it as well. QTDesigner comes to mind as a well known example. The problem is, about 12 years ago, application design went through a gameification and "toy-i-fication" phase, from which it has yet to recover, because suddenly, everything had to look like it was desig…

It is a culture problem, but it goes back before phones and Javascript. Even before that, application design was usually terrible. Apps were almost universally ugly. Developers just aren't very good at it; it's not in their skill sets. They're good at making apps fast and small, but not at making them usable. Rare companies would hire separate designers, and the apps could be functional and attractive, but they were…

Post by Joker_vD » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

svachalek wrote: post #143

beowulfey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s perhaps a testament to our dependence on modern machinery, if the skills did exist once.

It's fairly simple to construct a way to see your own face. All you need is a high-grade color LCD or OLED display, a high-resolution digital camera, a power source, a few controls and a logic board. Too bad none of this was available before 2010, those poor ancients must have always wondered what they looked like.