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Archimedes Death Ray
Werner Heuser writes "Ancient Greek and Roman historians recorded that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (a notably smart person) constructed a burning glass to set the Roman warships, anchored within bow and arrow range, afire. The story has been much debated and oft dismissed as myth ... Intrigued by the idea and an intuitive belief that it could work, MIT's 2.009ers decided to apply the early product development 'sketch or soft modeling' process to the problem."
Columbus Day approaches, but to the "politically correct" this is no cause for celebration. On the contrary, they view the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 as an occasion to be mourned. They have mourned, they have attacked, and they have intimidated schools across the country into replacing Columbus Day celebrations with "ethnic diversity" days.
The politically correct view is that Columbus did not discover America, because people had lived here for thousands of years. Worse yet, it's claimed, the main legacy of Columbus is death and destruction. Columbus is routinely vilified as a symbol of slavery and genocide, and the celebration of his arrival likened to a celebration of hitler and the holocaust. The attacks on Columbus are ominous, because the actual target is Western civilization.
Did Columbus "discover" America? Yes--in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., to the growing, scientific civilizations of Western Europe. The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus' discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded--and on which it still rests. The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed.
Prior to 1492, what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped. The inhabitants were primarily hunter-gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand-to-mouth and from day-to-day. There was virtually no change, no growth for thousands of years. With rare exception, life was nasty, brutish, and short: there was no wheel, no written language, no division of labor, little agriculture and scant permanent settlement; but there were endless, bloody wars. Whatever the problems it brought, the vilified Western culture also brought enormous, undreamed-of benefits, without which most of today's Indians would be infinitely poorer or not even alive.
Columbus should be honored, for in so doing, we honor Western civilization. But the critics do not want to bestow such honor, because their real goal is to denigrate the values of Western civilization and to glorify the primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism embodied in the tribal cultures of American Indians and most Slashdot readers with an ID below 10000. They decry the glorification of the West as "Eurocentrism." We should, they claim, replace our reverence for Western civilization with multi-culturalism, which regards all cultures as morally equal. In fact, they aren't. Some cultures are better than others: a free society is better than slavery; reason is better than brute force as a way to deal with other men; productivity is better than stagnation. In fact, Western civilization stands for man at his best. It stands for the values that make human life possible: reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, productive achievement. The values of Western civilization are values for all men; they cut across gender, ethnicity, and geography. We should honor Western civilization not for the ethnocentric reason that some of us happen to have European ancestors but because it is the objectively superior culture.
Underlying the political collectivism of the anti-Columbus crowd is a racist view of human nature. They claim that one's identity is primarily ethnic: if one thinks his ancestors were good, he will supposedly feel good about himself; if he thinks his ancestors were bad, he will supposedly feel self-loathing. But it doesn't work; the achievements or failures of one's ancestors are monumentally irrelevant to one's actual worth as a person. Only the lack of a sense of self leads one to look to others to provide what passes for a sense of identity. Neither the deeds nor misdeeds of others are his own; he can take neither credit nor blame for what someone
for all those of you (morons) who still say its unpossible (deliberate misspelling), I guess you wont mind if I point dozens of mirrors at you in the bright greek sun?
Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff Boing Boing posted, like, a week ago.
Yeah but what the fuck do you know about anything you stupid faggot shit, I can't believe how fucking stupid you are
Actually, I grew up on a boat. Not a "yacht" - we had a REAL boat.
SO you lived on a "200 foor [sic] yacht" for ONE WHOLE WEEK (OMG!), or on vacation, and you feel qualified to discuss how much motion a boat experiences?
Heh.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
Ok so this is a story from Fark.com, usually /. would have this first, but ohwell. They did the whole thing wrong, they assumed the boat would be sitting still, on dry land. Usually when attacking, boats are in the water and moving. Second they apparently tried as hard as they could to make the boat flamable, Im pretty sure in Roman times fire at sea was still a problem, so they probably went to work making sure it wouldn't burn. MIT loses again, so much for it being the most prestigous tech college.
...but for the average Joe who just watches movies and TV, with no physics background, it was probably something neat to see.
I am an average Joe who watches movies and tv and I find the Mythbusters to be inane, immature, and annoying as all get out. Watching smart people figure out real solutions as opposed to morons simply blowing stuff up randomly would be much more entertaining to me.