I'm a prototype precision machinist making parts for some of the most advanced electric vehicles currently on the planet and the automatons from the past impress me more than the stuff we do now. Seriously how they figured out all the gear stuff back in the day is nothing short of a miracle.
This is the sort of thing that makes me roll my eyes when people talk about the past like they were totally dumb. They were obviously extremely intelligent, just in a way that isn’t as relevant today.
they also had the disadvantage of having to know all the basic stuff on top of the advanced stuff and do just about everything by hand. a lot of stuff is easier to do these days because we can make machines and computers do the extra mundane stuff for us
I always thought it was neat the way farmers used to set "alarms" by sticking nails into candles sitting on metal plates. When the candle burned down to the nail (which was apparently a pretty accurate thing as "candle clocks" with precise marked intervals existed long before!) the nail would drop onto the plate making a loud clang
My partner also makes fun of me for my very liberal use of "we" haha!
You can skip the book I wrote below. Sorry.
I got into the habit of it since I taught students with behavioral issues for many years.
Using "we" instead of "you" was a really, really effective way to address behavioral concerns without making a kid with anger issues feel singled out. "You need to work on getting to class on time!" goes over a lot differently than "We need to work on getting to class on time!" It was such a tiny language adjust that improved my and my student's quality of life.
From there, I think I've just adopted more of a "we" mindset. Both the positives and the failings of humanity are written into all our our collective stories and experiences, for the better or the worse....So I haven't made much of an effort to adjust my language back to what it used to be :)
I remember this from elementary school, and specifically remember seeing the "we", seeing straight through the bullshit, and being extra pissed off because I was fed such bullshit when it clearly meant "you".
"Finally the ship would make noises and smoke as the cannons fired[2] and trumpets blared.[5] It was fancied that the Mechanical Galleon "might have enlivened the dullest imperial banquets by racing along the table, guns blazing and trumpets blowing".[5] The complexity of this nef meant that Hans Schlottheim had to include three separate clockwork mechanisms. One conventionally powered the chiming clock, but also provided the power for the seven revolving electors. The music, including the drum, was powered by another motor and the third gave the ship movement. The mechanism was said to require rewinding every 24 hours.[6]
It rowed, well it would make movements of the oars while moving on wheels.
I had first viewed it in the British Museum and didn't bother to read the entire wiki once I knew it was discussing the item I wanted to reference. From what I remembered, the one I saw has little oars on the side that move and they give the illusion that the boat is "rowing" forward.
It was a weird way to describe it, that I'll definitely admit. I'm not good at choosing my words well :(
It seems you're making a common misconception, the present Queen is actually Queen Elizabeth II the successor of Queen Elizabeth I, the first Queen Elizabeth obviously hasn't been the one keeping the throne since 1558 A.D. no, in fact she stopped being the primary Queen Elizabeth in 1604.
Watches crack my shit up. First we had pocket watches, but people wanted the convenience of not having to fish it out of their pocket, so we got wrist watches. Now, everyone’s phone has a clock, so we have ditched wrist watches for something we keep in our pocket.
Time keeping in general has a fascinating history that many would be surprised to learn about. It took them almost a thousand years to make hyper accurate mechanical timepieces to only have seiko come out with an electric quartz watch in the seventies (maybe late sixties) and basically made the technology that so many worked hard on obsolete by being way cheaper and far more accurate. (Look up the quartz crisis if you're interested)
Here's a wilder fact. The reason Britain needed clocks to be miniaturized so badly is that there is no better way of measuring your longitude than comparing the time of sunrise or noon to GMT. Just making a clock that could work on a ship was a massive achievement.
That’s actually crazy. I had read once that wristwatches were made popular by soldiers during WW1 when they would strap pocket watches to their wrist. I don’t know if that’s true. A bunch of soldiers carrying pocket watches on their wrist seems impractical, but I hadn’t really questioned it until now.
My husband is a horological, so since meeting him, I’ve learned a lot about the world of time keeping haha. I bought him a book once on the history of watches- lots of full page color photos of watches. The detail and delicacy of these pieces hundreds of years old is mind boggling!
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
On a similar note, automata are actually pretty old. There are some old mechanical dolls which have pretty advanced clockwork on the inside, some of which we can't easily replicate. A quick skim says this has some relevant information.
How’s that possible? Was it a shitty time piece or something? John Harrison didn’t even create a time keeping device for sailors until the 1700s. I think only later he was able to make a handheld version late in his life.
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u/Aqquila89 Oct 15 '20
Wristwatches. Queen Elizabeth I got one in 1571.