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When the push button was new, people were freaked

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Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#181

Post by tremon »

eastbound wrote: post #67
hilbert42 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm of 20th C. origin—not 19th—and the first electrical things I played with as a young kid were electric bells, buzzers, batteries, flashlight globes and reels of bell wire—lots and lots of it. (Experimenting with such items wasn't an unfashionable activity when I was a kid.) Bell wire, which usually came in the form of two single-stranded copper wires twisted loosely together and insulated in red and white PV…

Living in Europe, I’m one of the rare millionaires so I have a house, 150m2 (on the Côte d’Azur, I admit it’s expensive), but even for me, thinking of “a bell for mother to signal us to come to dinner” is the thing that belong to the times when energy was unlimited, and therefore house sizes and taxes on inhabitable square meters. It’s not that we do have bells here, but we don’t have the square meters anymore.

"a bell for mother to signal us to come to dinner” is the thing that belong to the times when energy was unlimited

Well, practically so. My mother had a massive copper (I think) cowbell at the bottom of the stairs to signal us. All it required was the muscle energy to give the 2-kilogram monstrosity a little shake.

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#182

Post by tremon »

rasz wrote: post #156
lupire wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they found a MechE not an EE. They also made them do it standing up with an awkwardly shaped bulb, and only a single wire, so the task was basically impossible, without a cutter and/or some tape. Still, people should know why they are failing. Of course, they are being caught out of context and are guessing the "rules" of the "game".

Is this a higher level of sarcasm Im failing to detect? You cant make a circuit with one wire? People arent being caught, the rules are basic physics, ohms law is taught to 14 year olds in high schools. We have Mechanical Engineer unable to fix a flashlight coming out of MIT.

You cant make a circuit with one wire?

You can, but it would be pretty short.

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#183

Post by NIL8 »

plurinshael wrote: post #88
SilasX wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reason you couldn't have made the point explicit the first time? Were you worried that others' reading skills would atrophy if they only needed to read 100 words to get the point, and so you posted 400 words while still missing a critical block of 50?

Lighten up, Francis.

I spotted this gem of a comment while scrolling and had to scroll back up to be sure I hadn't misread it. It's both hilarious and pertinent! Well said, "Big Toe."

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#184

Post by kingfish22 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #59

Not much more magical than delivering a chicken to the butcher, and getting back pieces of meat. Or delivering a typed manuscript to your publisher, and getting a bound book. Or any trade essentially. Having a machine do it - that was new. But not the part about abdicating responsibility for function.

hey Joe, how can I get in touch with you regarding a RE project similar to what you did for Golem a couple years ago? I don't see any private messaging or ways to contact individuals through this site, so I am just responding to your most recent post in hopes to start a dialog. Do you still work on RE projects?

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#185

Post by hilbert42 »

tremon wrote: post #181
eastbound wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Europe, I’m one of the rare millionaires so I have a house, 150m2 (on the Côte d’Azur, I admit it’s expensive), but even for me, thinking of “a bell for mother to signal us to come to dinner” is the thing that belong to the times when energy was unlimited, and therefore house sizes and taxes on inhabitable square meters. It’s not that we do have bells here, but we don’t have the square meters anymore.

"a bell for mother to signal us to come to dinner” is the thing that belong to the times when energy was unlimited Well, practically so. My mother had a massive copper (I think) cowbell at the bottom of the stairs to signal us. All it required was the muscle energy to give the 2-kilogram monstrosity a little shake.

Yeah, my mother also had a hand bell as a backup to the pushbutton system. It was of some 3-4 inches in diameter with a black handle that had been turned to give it an ornate pattern. The bell was attached by string to a hook on a shelf in the kitchen so it wouldn't go walkabout.

It worked marvelously and almost always the dog would arrive there first (it was usually my job to feed the dog before our food was served).

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#186

Post by blix »

pas wrote: post #179
blix wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dialogue has several distinct advantages over reading when it comes to learning. I think we both agree that applied knowledge is best, but this can only be gained through application. Dialogue forces you synthesize ideas into new statements and respond to challenges to those statements which is intrinsically more applied than simply reading alone. There's a good amount of research inicating that discussion and speaki…

> Dialogue forces you synthesize ideas into new statements and respond to challenges to those statements which is intrinsically more applied than simply reading alone. Exactly! Talking about a subject helps organize it. > This is why I get into silly arguments on HN in the first place, gotta supplement that reading ;) Ah, the good old Feynman criterion. You don't understand something until you can explain it to a 6th…

I feel your doctor pain. I hope you find an answer. Actually, doctors may be one the more guilty professions when it comes to shallow knowledge without application. I like to see how many times I can ask a doctor 'why' or 'how' before they become frustrated with me for wasting their expensive time :P

> you can be fairly sure that you all read the same thing

I don't think this is a given. The bible has been around for a long time, but for whatever reason there have been disputes over what information exactly is encoded in it that have been going on for centuries. It's definitely a little more consistent the spoken word though!

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#187

Post by cercatrova »

SilasX wrote: post #176
ordu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has a block of text, whose purpose isn't clear at the beginning [1], and requires you to read the entire comment Nah. It makes you think, I personally like to practice the art of thinking, of making connections between seemingly unconnected things, like Socrates and push buttons. Try to guess the point of a big comment by a first few sentences. And here I guessed right, that it would be about dangers of writing.…

>It makes you think, I personally like to practice the art of thinking, of making connections between seemingly unconnected things, like Socrates and push buttons So I guess I can add you to the list of people missing the irony. There three "technologies" here: writing, push buttons, and clear writing. In historical context -- because of cercatrova's oh-so clever, unclear comment -- we can laugh at how foolish it was…

You're really on this aren't you? Seems like everyone else here except you understood the point I was trying to make by referencing Socrates' story. No one else but you in this thread had I problem with how I did it. Perhaps if everyone else around you gets it but you, it might be time to ask yourself why.

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#188

Post by JoeAltmaier »

kingfish22 wrote: post #184
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #59

Not much more magical than delivering a chicken to the butcher, and getting back pieces of meat. Or delivering a typed manuscript to your publisher, and getting a bound book. Or any trade essentially. Having a machine do it - that was new. But not the part about abdicating responsibility for function.

hey Joe, how can I get in touch with you regarding a RE project similar to what you did for Golem a couple years ago? I don't see any private messaging or ways to contact individuals through this site, so I am just responding to your most recent post in hopes to start a dialog. Do you still work on RE projects?

email in my profile!

Re: When the push button was new, people were freaked

#189

Post by kingfish22 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #188
kingfish22 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey Joe, how can I get in touch with you regarding a RE project similar to what you did for Golem a couple years ago? I don't see any private messaging or ways to contact individuals through this site, so I am just responding to your most recent post in hopes to start a dialog. Do you still work on RE projects?

email in my profile!

OK, I am apparently not smart enough to figure out how to do that! LOL When I click your name, there is no email address or option to email. Perhaps you could email mine? We have also posted the job on UpWork if you are on that website?
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