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The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future (gizmodo.com)
Gizmodo reports: Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world's first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2,000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device... It wasn't programmable in the modern sense, but it's considered the world's first analog computer.
schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism -- named after the southern Greek island off which it was found -- was a tantalizing puzzle.... After more than a decade's efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text -- a quarter of the original -- in the innards of the 2,100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.
schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism -- named after the southern Greek island off which it was found -- was a tantalizing puzzle.... After more than a decade's efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text -- a quarter of the original -- in the innards of the 2,100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.
It's kind of pointless to write an article about an ancient Greek text that was found if you don't report what the text actually said.
Bonus points if you present a translation of the text, which neither article linked to actually does. (Most likely because the researchers aren't sure what the text actually says).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So... 42?
The fragment says, "...in 2100 years, an Oompa Loompa with strangely tiny fingers will attempt to rise to power. Beware, since he has the mark of the Beast on his forehead, which you can't see because he's got this weird thing going on with his hair. His wife will be a nice piece of Slovenian ass though, so big ups for that."
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is a machine that simulated the movement of the planets and the moon using gears. The whole idea of this machine is to predict the phases of the moon and the location of the planets in the coming days.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
They were also the precursors to scientists because there are a number of them that didn't 'make stuff up', but rather observed and tried to understand why, and from that develop predictions to test. How do you think a philosopher back then identified that the Earth was spherical, much less calculate it's size to a far greater accuracy level than would be expected by someone who's distance data was based on someone pacing out the distances between cities? (If you say "aliens", there's an Coast to Coast collected episodes box coming your way filled with fish heads.) (Yes, that was a joke, I don't think the post office would let you send that.)
There are plenty of other examples of 'philosophers' doing lots of scientific discovery in all kinds of fields back then. You are mistaking modern philosophers who spend a lot of time lost in their own daydreams with the ancient greek philosophers that did the heavy and indepth thinking trying to figure things out way back then.
It's kind of like calling a guy who wears a cowboy hat and boots to the country music club a cowboy, and then trying to equate him to the 1800s cowboy that actually herded cattle for a living.
The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future
Y'know, it would be nice the summary even remotely hinted at how this thing "predicted in the future."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Without such a mechanism, astrological calculations were done by intelligent, educated people, white-collar workers so to speak. If machines like this took over this kind of work, such artificial intelligence would have probably destroyed the economy. Or maybe that theory has been proven wrong over the last several thousand years of machines becoming more sophisticated all the time.
What hypocrisy? Has PopeRatzo previously taken a stance vehemently against personal attacks and sexual objectification (for comedic and satirical purposes)?
Or, actually, did it occur to you that PopeRatzo might, in fact, be parodying Trump himself?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
nt
Are you really accusing me of "sexually objectifying" the woman who posed for this picture?
http://gq-images.condecdn.net/...
Because I'm pretty sure that once you've posed for a "men's magazine" handcuffed to a bedpost in nothing but heels and jewelry, you're way past the point of having someone else "sexually objectify" you. Yeah, showing off your pootenanny in a stroke book is pretty much the ne plus ultra of being a sexual object. And that's one of the least NSFW photos from that "spread".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nothing so advanced could have been the "first" thing of its kind. Think about it. If I told you to make a bronze wheel 140mm in diameter with 233 perfectly spaced teeth, would you know how to do it? With tools that were available in 200 BC Greece?
No there is must have been an at least decades-old tradition of instrument-making leading up to the design and execution of the Antikythera Mechanism, stuff like armillary spheres and quadrants and such. At some point they must have made simpler instruments that maybe could use wheels coupled by friction, and from there the very notion of toothed gears (which we take for granted) could be invented.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When this show was on PBS a retired mechanical engineer created one of the cogs for the machine in about 5 minutes with hand tools. He also had a model of the machine already built.
The astronomical knowledge and mathematics that went into the machine are FAR more impressive than the mechanism itself.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.