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Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

blog.caranddriver.com

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Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#71

Post by ChuckMcM »

taneq wrote: post #63
beambot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the assumption that IP (designs & patents) will be enforceable on Mars. That sounds risky. You can't even get those guarantees on earth among nation states.

I'd guess they'll be more interested in acqui-hiring you for demonstrated expertise than in buying your IP.

This it what I was thinking, it is going to be difficult (and too late) to demonstrate expertise in 2024 when Elon is putting together the first Red Dragon mission and you'll want to be able to say "Hey, check out this self assembling Mars Habitat and Greenhouse thing we've been prototyping."

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#72

Post by [deleted] »

khuey wrote: post #38
dreamcompiler wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no wood on Mars. A great deal of our infrastructure (not just Amish infrastructure) is wood-based, and the first Martians will have to find a substitute for it. The typical substitute for wood is plastic, but that comes from petroleum, and there's none of that on Mars either. I suppose one of the first things we'll have to build on Mars is greenhouses -- not just for food, but for plant-based plastic to build…

Or we'll just make a lot more things out of metal.

[deleted]

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#73

Post by jdironman »

khuey wrote: post #38
dreamcompiler wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no wood on Mars. A great deal of our infrastructure (not just Amish infrastructure) is wood-based, and the first Martians will have to find a substitute for it. The typical substitute for wood is plastic, but that comes from petroleum, and there's none of that on Mars either. I suppose one of the first things we'll have to build on Mars is greenhouses -- not just for food, but for plant-based plastic to build…

Or we'll just make a lot more things out of metal.

I'm curious. What happens when one starts a fire on mars to forge a metal?

We can't ship metal, it's much to heavy. So we have to consider that beneath the fine powdery surface of mars there lies basalt rock. Is there a type of concrete that can be constructed from basalt material?

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#74

Post by tempestn »

fuhrysteve wrote: post #18
altendo wrote: post #3

>Despite what you may have heard, the Amish aren’t against technology. Communities adopt new gadgets such as fax machines and business-use cellphones all the time—as long as the local church approves each one ahead of time, determining that it won’t drastically change their way of life. This alone is the most interesting point of the article. People not belonging to the community, like myself, have a fixed preconceiv…

In the area I grew up, inflated rubber tires and bicycles were not allowed, but wooden tires on scooters were fine. Reason being, inflated tires made it too easy to travel far from home, which was generally discouraged. So many people I grew up with seemed to think that Amish were being hypocritical by paying for taxi drivers to drive them around. That's an over-simplistic view. To an Amish community, taxi fees are a…

Normally I wouldn't make an off-topic comment on region locking, but the irony of this one amused me (emphasis mine):

This video contains content from BBC Worldwide, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#75

Post by ams6110 »

snarf21 wrote: post #12
oh_sigh wrote: post #11

How do Amish people generally make money? I know there are markets that sell Amish goods to non-Amish, but there must be more to their income than that.

I live in Lancaster PA and most Amish can't afford the farm land here anymore (its become housing and malls) and have moved west. Lots of Amish now work in the trades (construction/electrical/roofing/etc.) Someone picks them up and takes them to their job sites. Their general low standard of living (no car payments or electronics budgets) allow for that to be a very solid income for most.

> no car payments

The article quotes ~$8,000 for a new buggy, plus a horse which although they produce themselves has to be fed and cared for. That to me sounds in the ballpark of the cost of owning a decent used car.

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#76

Post by ams6110 »

ars wrote: post #24
rconti wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the vastly lower energy consumption of LEDs perhaps a virtue that makes them preferable to incandescents, even though they are far more complicated to manufacture?

They can't manufacture either of them, so complexity of manufacture doesn't enter into it. So I assume they like LED's for the same reason you do, less battery. If they did make incandescents (I suppose if they tried they could), then the comparison would be harder for them, and I would expect some communities to go one way, some the other.

I would imagine they could manufacture incandescents if they so chose. Glassblowing seems like something they'd be OK with. And otherwise it's just a bit of wire and a vacuum.

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#78

Post by Symbiote »

tempestn wrote: post #74
fuhrysteve wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the area I grew up, inflated rubber tires and bicycles were not allowed, but wooden tires on scooters were fine. Reason being, inflated tires made it too easy to travel far from home, which was generally discouraged. So many people I grew up with seemed to think that Amish were being hypocritical by paying for taxi drivers to drive them around. That's an over-simplistic view. To an Amish community, taxi fees are a…

Normally I wouldn't make an off-topic comment on region locking, but the irony of this one amused me (emphasis mine): This video contains content from BBC Worldwide , who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

BBC worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC, responsible for licensing TV programmes abroad.

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#79

Post by ars »

ams6110 wrote: post #76
ars wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't manufacture either of them, so complexity of manufacture doesn't enter into it. So I assume they like LED's for the same reason you do, less battery. If they did make incandescents (I suppose if they tried they could), then the comparison would be harder for them, and I would expect some communities to go one way, some the other.

I would imagine they could manufacture incandescents if they so chose. Glassblowing seems like something they'd be OK with. And otherwise it's just a bit of wire and a vacuum.

That wire is pretty special though, it's a coil of coil, with extremely tight tolerance. i.e. if you look at it it looks like a coil, but actually the wire that makes up that first coil is itself an even smaller coil.

You have to wind it such that no part of the wire touches (or it will burn out at that spot).

It's titanium which is not an easy material to make wire out of without special industrial equipment. And not pure titanium either, but has special additives.

You have to make it without any variation in thickness! Even a 1% variation will cause it to rapidly overheat and burn out.

It's also not a vacuum in there, but a mixture of nitrogen and argon, which needs special equipment to gather.

In short they could make a bulb like what Edison made, but without an industrial base not anything like a modern bulb.

And despite all that, those bulbs sell for pennies.......

Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

#80

Post by whatusername »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #7
baobrain wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm somewhat confused. As the article says, buggy components are often manufactured off-site (e.g. fiberclass body), how does this make them self-sufficient?

Hm I guess if they can repair the body. Which is pretty easy. The other half of their philosophy is avoiding pride. So cool, you're self-sufficient. But not perfectly so, or that would be prideful. There's an old Amish joke - father is driving the family home from Meeting in the buggy. He turns to Momma and says "I guess we were the plainest ones there!"

Can you explain the joke? I'm not sure I understand the humour.
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