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MIT Students Show How the Inca Leapt Canyons
PCOL writes "When Conquistadors came to Peru from Spain in 1532, they were astonished to see Inca suspension bridges achieve clear spans of at least 150 feet at a time when the longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span of 95 feet. The bridges swayed under the weight of traffic terrifying the Spanish and their horses, even though, as one Spaniard observed, they were almost as "sturdy as the street of Seville." To build the bridges, thick cables were pulled across a river with small ropes and attached to stone abutments on each side. Three of the big cables served as the floor of the bridge, two others served as handrails and pieces of wood were tied to the cable floor before the floor was strewn with branches to give firm footing for beasts of burden. Earlier this year students at MIT built a 70-foot fiber bridge in the style of the Incan Empire. The project used sisal twine from the Yucatan Peninsula and anchored it by wrapping it around massive concrete blocks. The weekend's burst of activity was preceded by 360 hours of rope-twisting as the 50 miles of sisal twine was turned into rope. Working together as a group was part of the exercise. "A third of the time was spent learning to work together," one of the students said. "But after a while, we were banging those cables out.""
A few years ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I
had to take a piss. As I entered the john a big beautiful all-American
football hero type, about twenty-five, came out of one of the booths.
I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he
washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was "straight" and
married - and in any case I was sure I wouldn't have a chance with
him.
As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated,
hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still
warm from his sturdy young ass. I found not only the smell but the
shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left
behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It
apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat,
stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd
- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as a man's wrist.
I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and
wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd
always been a heavy rimmer and had lapped up more than one little
clump of shit, but that had been just an inevitable part of eating ass
and not an end in itself. Of course I'd had jerk-off fantasies of
devouring great loads of it (what rimmer hasn't), but I had never done
it. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound
turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy
and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of the world's
handsomest young stud.
Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both
hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled
like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the
consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit
without the benefit of a digestive tract?
I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it
smelled. I've found since then that shit nearly almost does.
I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into
my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big brown cock,
beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and
bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet
flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had
chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed
I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I
soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd
passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily,
sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My
only regret was the donor of this feast wasn't there to wash it down
with his piss.
I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the
cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more
delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with
the rich bitterness of shit.
Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But
then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There
was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished
them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my
briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the
shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever
unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an
unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.
I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using
them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my
mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit
trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six
orgasms in the process.
I often think of that lovely young guy dropping solid gold out
of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could,
and at least once did, bring to a grateful shiteater.
So the moral of the lesson is that ancient men weren't idiots.
Engineering students built a bridge? Stop the presses!
They managed to accomplish something that had already been done hundreds of years ago? Get. The. Fuck. Out.
Wow. Next they will develop institutions to teach kids the ways of the past so that they can improve on them.
You decide...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
it would seem so, despite all the 'drag' supplied by distracting man made stuff.
in the end, it's no contest. the creators always have first dibs. cutting the strings on a few greed/fear/ego based puppets is just a minor parlor trick. time to get real. the lights are coming up all over now. take a second to look in the sky once in awhile, starting early in the morning.
micro management has never worked. it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster.
we're intending/expecting for the nazis to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather'.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab ]
=wv&oi=property_suggestions&resnum=0&ct=property-revision&cd=1
the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption.
fortunately there's an 'army' of angels, coming yOUR way
no need to be afraid/dismayed, it is the way it was meant to be.
the little ones/innocents must/will be protected.
after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit?
for each of the creators' innocents harmed (in any way), there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available.
beware the illusionary smoke&mirrors.con
all is not lost/forgotten.
no need to fret (unless you're associated/joined at the hype with, unprecedented evile), it's all just a part of the creators' wwwildly popular, newclear powered, planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
or, is it (literally) ground hog day, again? many of US are obviously not interested in how we appear (which is whoreabull) from the other side of the 'lens', or even from across the oceans.
vote with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable.
we still haven't read (here) about the 2/3'rds of you kids who are investigating/pursuing a spiritual/conscience/concious re-awakening, in amongst the 'stuff that matters'? another big surprise?
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.
concern about the course of events that will occur should the life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order.
'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
This story came straight from the just-like-ninjas dept.
My UID is prime... is yours?
This is sooo from many months ago. and yes i'm too lazy to search. just like zonk.
Haha, talk about a late story at a completely random time. I was one of the leaders on the project, lots of late nights twisting twine together. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
People here seem to be missing the point - it isn't that this stuff isn't trivial compared to todays engineering, it is. But it's more revealing about the fact that non-western civilizations had an advanced grasp of the physics/science behind this stuff. They knew how to take advantage of rope tension. A bridge like this isn't so impressive today. It's easy to build. But to come up with the design is the hard part.
"If anyone has any questions feel free to ask."
Did you tie each other up?
I was hoping for details of some sort of catapult where some poor person (or sacrifice) was given a lead line and flung across to the other side.
The only things they brought to Peru were horses, guns and syphilis! The only thing they took away was gold!
Because Cheddar cheese has no substitute.
I thought everyone knew that?
Only an ignorant moron or an Academy indoctrinated liberal would think that non-Western cultures couldn't come up with some rudimentary physics.
Really, China did just F'ing fine without Newton thank you very much.
The physical universe is out there for all to discover.
Let me guess you are an Academy indoctrinated liberal.
Is your hate politically correct hate?
Do you believe that racism is wrong unless you hate white people?
Do you believe that sexism is wrong unless you hate men?
Do you believe that sexual discrimination is wrong unless you hate heterosexuals?
Do you believe that religious intolerance is wrong unless you hate Christians?
Do you believe that freedom of speech involves censoring offensive non-Politically Correct speech?
Do you believe that DoubleThink is hard and that DoubleThink is easy?
Do you keep such an open mind that your brain fell out?
Are you a hypocrite and a bigot? Do your friends praise you for it and call you morally superior? Do you think that your bigotry makes you a better person than others?
I was walking around campus one day and saw the cement pillars going up. They were BIG concrete boxes, about 4 stacked up taller than me and about 2-3 feet on a side. I'm not sure what happened to that concrete but it seemed wasteful to make _just_ rectangular prisms. No offense, especially since I'm a 'utility-focused' engineer, myself, but I did think-- wow, these are harsh. It might have been fun to paint, or sculpt them (before being set, or with plaster afterwards), with Incan designs or information about the construction process.
The rope bridge itself looked fun to walk on, but it had a sign saying no trespass. That sign was up the whole time the bridge was there, though it is possible people might have walked around the bridge for fun and jumped around to see how it swayed and bubbled. At that point the bridge might have been up a while and losing tension and so the sides of the shallow creek interfered with the hanging bridge aspect.
It's great to see thought provoking structures go up around campus. Rock on.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Incan Rope Makers Union, or Bangbla, ...
The descendants of the original bridge builders still do this each year at one of the original sites, using techniques handed down by previous generations. Photos here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_rope_bridge#Renewing_the_last_bridge
Who needs archeology when you have Slashdot digging up stories of dubious merit from the past?
some mit dewds built a rope bridge, so what ? rope bridges are really common here in Brazil... atleast in the good ole german colonies, where they are found crossing all kind of rivers... yeah, some of them use steel, but it's almost the same thing
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
I hope you mod down the idiot that modded me troll.
The story is from MAY, as can be seen on all the links
"Fiber bridge connects Incan, student engineers
Ruth Walker, News Office Correspondent
May 16, 2007"
Back in 1997 NOVA did an episode, "Secrets of Lost Empires: Inca", where they went to Peru and filmed the natives building a grass suspension bridge in the traditional style. I'd recommend watching it if you want to see one of these things under construction, it really it amazing how they go from dry grass to a sturdy rope bridge.
Am I the only one who was disappointed to learn that this article was about BRIDGES?!?!
I was hoping to read about an Incan Evel Knievel, not some stupid bridge. Lame.
http://xkcd.com/386/
I walked across a suspension bridge similar to these in Thailand when I was there a few years ago. It was somewhere outside Chiang Mai (NW Thailand). Perhaps this was not only "discovered" in South America, but was much more common. The article mentions China, but I suspect much more of Asia has been ignored.
When I sTood for what we've known cycle; take a
I don't see it here! As if we don't have enough smartass types here, it encourages them to no end. The removal of karma for +1 funny was the right step. Please eliminate the deparments!
These aren't suspension bridges, as the comparison to the George Washington bridge in the article clearly shows. They are rope bridges.
The difference is that the walking surface is not suspended from the overhead cables. It is instead supported by tension in the ropes that compose it.
The critical difference from the MIT bridge and the monkey bridges many of us made in the scouts is that it was supported by concrete blocks instead of lashed wooden A-frames and stakes. And that the MIT students put a rather impressive number of hours into making and thoroughly vetting their own rope and design.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
So the moral of the lesson is that ancient men weren't idiots.
"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." - Jack Handey
-kgj
-kgj
History has always been extremely biased (the winner writes the books) and tended to show ancient people as stupid compared to us, especially the ancient non-European people (here in the US at least, I'd guess that other countries have similar slants).
"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." - Jack Handey
-kgj
-kgj
From Red Dwarf:
Rimmer: No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids. How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?
Lister: They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
A third of the time was spent learning to work together
Typical problem for PHDs and other academics. Seriously!
This happened years ago at IIT Madras, India http://www.civil.iitm.ac.in/events/paper-bridge.html
Trajan's bridge over the Danube (built between 103 and 105) was over a thousand meters long and 15 meters wides. Each individual arch that made up the bridge was over 35 meters long. Roman bridges in Spain that still exist extend over 800 meters. And then there are the various Byzantine bridges ...
Not to mention the two mile long pontoon bridge built by the Persians so that their foot soldiers and cavalry could cross the Hellespont prior to the battle of Thermompylae.
Sure, a 150 foot rope bridge is a neat design, but it doesn't really compare in scale of engineering to the bridges of the ancient world.
as usual /. makes it look like its a story about something it totally ain't about. incas leaping canyons. ok. i thought we're talking people leaping canyons in the same way that trinity and the agent leap from one tall building to another and in doing so fly across a rather wide street. i thought, maybe the matrix is real after all and i need to figure out how to get the hell out of here. then i open up the story and realize that /. is fscking with me once again.
Ok, they've built a 70ft rope bridge with ropes made from sisal twine fibers.
But we should apply some modern techniques too, therefore my question is: how long rope bridge could be constructed using rope made from carbon nanotubes?
Here is a related item from Nepal
send + more == money?
Do you realize... Someday people are going to look back on our civilization and say the same stuff
You are living in it!
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Is it just me, or does it seem like any MIT-related story gets automatically published on /.? I don't mean to criticize this article in particular, but it seems that every week there are 3-4 stories on something done by someone at MIT, even when these things are not always particularly important/interesting.
Great story. My husband was course 3 and his advisor was Prof. Lechtman. He made ancient West Mexican bells using lost-wax bronze casting for his thesis.
One question - did you get to use animal fat or another lubricant to keep from ripping your hands up completely?
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
But let's be honest. The Spaniards were probably less impressed by a single span covering a given length than by the fact that these rope bridges were so high up in the mountains. This has less to do with impressive engineering than with the impressiveness of nature. The aqueducts of Cordoba or the ropes used to hold together Darius' pontoon bridge were far more impressive engineering feats than these bridges.
This is not to say that these bridges aren't impressive. They just aren't all that impressive compared to the contemporary engineering in other parts of the world. The Hagia Sophia is still standing. Wither these rope bridges of 500 years ago?