Hard to tell from that picture, but If I were compeled to put money on it I'd go with the Sopwith Pup. The plane is historically significant because it was the first to land on a ship. It's distinguishable from the Camel at low res/great distance because the Camel had a considerable amount of dihedral on the lower wing.
And except for the minor details of being underpowered and underarmed the Pup was perhaps the best all around plane of the war. The Camel scared (and killed) its own pilots, the Pup was universally adored.
I guess in future I'll have to put a sticker on each unit that reads:
Warning! Use of the brake pedal without the brake pedal is . ..stupid.
How come we never see stickers like that?
Warning! Not knowing that pointy things can hurt you if you're not careful means you're a moron and should probably just be removed from the gene pool anyway. That's the way it used to work; and we liked it!
Is there a book, wiki, or other source that pulls together this sort of forgotten knowledge?
Not that I've ever come across, no. I'm a bit of a strange bird, with a strange background and some strange ideas. I mean, just how many home schooled with semi-traditional Zapotec Indian physicist, luthiers who dress like an ancient Egyptian while prancing around in the forest and married an anthropologist, but eschewed academia are there?
Let's just say our conventions are "intimate."
The knowledge isn't exactly forgotten, but it is dispersed and somewhat incomplete. A lot of it is the result of academic research, but academicians are strange birds who often know very important things that other people don't, but get it all wrong because they don't know some simple things that everybody else does.
And of course they typically only publish for other academicians.
Thor Heyerdahl started changing that, but then Thor wasn't exactly held in universal high regard for having done so.
Cable televsion has actually helped here as it's created a few knowledgable people who can smelt and pour copper for the cameras and such, but with the move to "All psychic ghost hunters for Bible secrets all the time " "science" programming I'm afraid that trend may not grow.
Some of the knowledge is in the hands of the survivalists, who are really strange birds. Their essential problem is that they look at their information from the point of view of *Survival(tm)*. Really, all they're doing is "walking through the woods without dying," something any juvenile chipmonk can manage quite nicely (until they get eaten) and virtually all of their ancestors did. They just called it "living," without layering too much macho bullshit onto it.
Some of the knowledge is in the hands of the Back to the Land people, who are strange birds, but at least generally nice, if slightly deluded, folk who do not understand tech at all, even the sort they use, and do not want to.
And some of the knowledge is still being used every day by "native" peoples. They can be a bit closed and xenophobic, with good reason.
I'm just a guy who has moved among all these groups (and several others I haven't bothered bringing up), who don't actually talk to each other all that much, at one time or another, as well as through the halls of high tech.
The survivalists and the Back to the Land people actually hate each other's guts. The "natives" distrust the anthropologists studying them and are prone to play practical jokes on them, or even outright lie, said jokes and lies getting recorded as Truth(tm). The various natives are isolated from each other, so you've got "flint and steel cultures" and "fire piston cultures"; and the physicist/engineers never look at much beyond their blackboards, cyclotrons and computer terminals in Boston and Berkeley.
But it's not like the information isn't out there and I'm not the only one who has pulled it a bit closer together. I've seen other people who've realized that if you've got some sticks and stones and some copper wire and magnets you've got a generator, but you'll need to know how to make a bow drill before you get it running to the point where you can run your electric drill.
I've declined a few attempts to get me to write an autobiography, which would include some of this stuff I guess. I dodged 20/20. I've declined attempts to get me to put out a newsletter or put up a website. I obviously post a lot here, but I don't have that particular itch to scratch. In fact the idea of it makes me feel a bit "itchy."
I'm currently being pursued a bit by a biographer and a film maker. We'll see if one of them manages to catch me or not, but I really do just like to go about my life quietly, even if I do seem to make little "splashes" here and there while I'm about it.
And to sort of, kind of, edge this thing back full circle; sometimes a compiler and vim really is all you need for your
Why spend time with wood and stone when you've got a bunch of metal already laying around?
Obviously something went screwy in my brain between reading your post and responding to it.
Still, the basic points remain I guess. My orginal post was made against a given scenario, that of Survivor Island and there is no "jump" to non-petrochemicals. That's thinking that derives from where we are now, not from where we'd be then.
And do not confuse our culture with our technology. They aren't the same thing at all.
You might also want to throw in a few books, just for shits, giggles and when the power fails.
And of course the end of culture isn't at all the same thing as the end of the world, the end of civilization, or even the end of high technology, although some people seem to think so.
Although I'd think the most useful bit of worked metal would actually be tongs...
Green wood makes exellent tongs, even for holding crucibles. Axe, knife, spear and awl are the core tools.
And quite frankly, if all you're interested in is living well, beyond fire about all you really need is, clay, stone, grasses (bamboo is the queen of grasses) and a bit of chemistry. Metal makes things fast, but who said you need to live fast?
That's not to say I'd want to give up metal, very useful stuff, but I can live quite well without, and at a very advanced state of tecnology with surprisingly small amounts of the stuff. Just a few, simple tools. An axe, a knife. ..movable type. Most of what we've got is really quite a pile of superfluous crud that serves no purpose other than being there.
The biggest thing you'd notice in your home if most of the metal went away is that . ..the lights would go out. Very useful stuff, metal, for dealing with electricity.
But when you stop and think -- I mean really think, you might well discover that most of the things we use electricity for could be replaced by . ..community. Might even be an improvement.
Ah, but it's not just the knowledge, it's the availability of the resources.
Note that I mentioned resources?
You get to the point where you start needing petroleum products. ..
Why the hell would need those? You're thinking from where you are now backwards. The first twentieth century harpsichord makers were piano makers. They tried to develop harpsichords backwards from pianos.
They sucked.
The harpsichord was developed forwards from the lute. When luthiers turned to harpsichord making the "secret" was rediscovered.
Stop thinking "petroleum" and start thinking "oil" and alchohol. Hydrocarbons.
That last sentence might come as something of a shock to those who have read some of my posts on biofuels, but we're talking a different scenario here.
Same thing with a lot of metals... the easily accessed deposits have been mined out, and the hard to get at stuff requires higher technology...
Now you're talking the "Mad Max" post apocolyptic scenario, which is something rather different than the Survivor Island scenario. Notice how in the movies they discovered something called "junkyards"? Axe heads and refined aluminum are "natural" resources post apolcolypse. You're boot strapping from 1890, only with 20th century manufactured stuff to do it with.
Also bear in mind that "accessable" is often economically defined. Our mass needs define the sorts of deposits we find useful. Many, many smaller deposits are ignored completely, but completely accessable; and useful to 24 people trying to rebuild.
Ironically it is mass education that's at the front line of getting us there; and the answer is not raising the national education budget by a factor of ten to double the size of the administration who raise the bullshit level by a factor of 100.
In my spare cycles I think about what it would take to reconstitute civilization from scratch.
In my spare time I actually go out and try it. I've posted about some of it over the years.
Making the jump to metal (and I'm talking copper, not iron) is the highest hurdle, even if you already know how it's done. After that it's really all downhill, but not, as most people might expect, because it makes things possible. I can make a drill that will put a hole through a block of granite with nothing but plants and a bit of sand. Metal just makes things so much faster that one man can accomplish more in a given unit of time.
I mean, what if the whole of the world was reduced to the technology of Survivor Island, basically subsistance living?
See that phrase up there; "even if you know how it's done"?
It's the figuring shit out that takes the time. I guesstimate that a group of about 24 people on a reasonably resource rich land and sufficiently motivated to do so could rebuild from standing naked to pre atomics in about a decade, if they already know how shit's done (oh yeah, and if none of them have modern "issues." The big, strong lug is gonna haul stone and five foot two, eyes of blue is gonna spin and weave; and that's the way it is).
To save technology don't save too many things, save knowledge and make the things from it. Turns out that people are really quite capable of making some amazing things from nearly nothing. Who woulda thunk it?
Nor are we always as advanced as we think we are today. See those blue jeans you're wearing? Ancient Egyptian technology, only if he needed to the Egyptian would know how to duplicate them starting with no more tools than his bare hands. If you'll settle for linen instead of cultivated cotton all you need can be found along nearly any riverbed.
That's actually how American pioneers went west. They didn't carry much in the way of clothing because they knew all they needed to acquire more was a riverbed and some time. We're talking fine woven linens here, not crude bearskins or something.
The most prized possession they tossed into the wagon in Conestoga? An axe head. That first bit of worked metal is a godsend.
Slashdot Mirror
Hard to tell from that picture, but If I were compeled to put money on it I'd go with the Sopwith Pup. The plane is historically significant because it was the first to land on a ship. It's distinguishable from the Camel at low res/great distance because the Camel had a considerable amount of dihedral on the lower wing.
And except for the minor details of being underpowered and underarmed the Pup was perhaps the best all around plane of the war. The Camel scared (and killed) its own pilots, the Pup was universally adored.
KFG
Am I the only one here reading Ford as in Prefect?
No, because Ford is as in Prefect. That was the joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Prefect_(car)
Are the people that find me strange actually right?
No comment.
KFG
GM is not part of Ford Motor Company.
No, Henry Ford Company is part of GM.
KFG
Since a ballon filled with air and immersed in water does not collapse. . .
.would a ballon filled with space in our atmosphere float back up to space, and not collapse?
False premise.
. .
Your false premise points to the answer. The Balloon would expand.
Pop!
That's why weather balloons look like someone forgot to put the space in 'em when they let 'em go. They look full once they get up there.
KFG
Polar bears are cute.
Try lookin' at one from the inside.
KFG
However, anyone can witness the rise of slime as evidenced by ads on cable television for ambulance chasers, or just br turning to C-Span.
KFG
Ahhhhhhh, a rose by any other name; probably wouldn't sell as well.
KFG
It's hard to beat an incumbent?
KFG
I guess in future I'll have to put a sticker on each unit that reads:
.stupid.
Warning! Use of the brake pedal without the brake pedal is . .
How come we never see stickers like that?
Warning! Not knowing that pointy things can hurt you if you're not careful means you're a moron and should probably just be removed from the gene pool anyway. That's the way it used to work; and we liked it!
KFG
There's nothing obvious about this at all. The controller I built uses a cone depressed by a foot.
Totally different.
KFG
Associated pairs would, of course, then simply be named with the convention: Jessica "Left" and Jessica "Right."
KFG
While they are not sufficiently massive to spark fusion, they do, in fact radiate in the infrared range, due to gravitational contraction heating.
KFG
How about starlet?
Then we could name heavely bodies after heavenly bodies.
KFG
I think we can just stick to "The twins"...
I like Planemo and Planelarry, implying, of course, the future discovery of Planecurly and a receding Planeshemp.
KFG
. . .would you like to spend your time about how it feels to be constantly punched in the face?
No, but then I'm not George Plimpton or a boxer. I'd be more likely to write about broken collarbones, road rash and saddle sores.
KFG
You should never be happy when someone gets laid off... you don't know who they have to support with that income.
But the protection racket is booming and the mob is taking on more enforcers. Rejoice, for the children!
KFG
Is there a book, wiki, or other source that pulls together this sort of forgotten knowledge?
Not that I've ever come across, no. I'm a bit of a strange bird, with a strange background and some strange ideas. I mean, just how many home schooled with semi-traditional Zapotec Indian physicist, luthiers who dress like an ancient Egyptian while prancing around in the forest and married an anthropologist, but eschewed academia are there?
Let's just say our conventions are "intimate."
The knowledge isn't exactly forgotten, but it is dispersed and somewhat incomplete. A lot of it is the result of academic research, but academicians are strange birds who often know very important things that other people don't, but get it all wrong because they don't know some simple things that everybody else does.
And of course they typically only publish for other academicians.
Thor Heyerdahl started changing that, but then Thor wasn't exactly held in universal high regard for having done so.
Cable televsion has actually helped here as it's created a few knowledgable people who can smelt and pour copper for the cameras and such, but with the move to "All psychic ghost hunters for Bible secrets all the time " "science" programming I'm afraid that trend may not grow.
Some of the knowledge is in the hands of the survivalists, who are really strange birds. Their essential problem is that they look at their information from the point of view of *Survival(tm)*. Really, all they're doing is "walking through the woods without dying," something any juvenile chipmonk can manage quite nicely (until they get eaten) and virtually all of their ancestors did. They just called it "living," without layering too much macho bullshit onto it.
Some of the knowledge is in the hands of the Back to the Land people, who are strange birds, but at least generally nice, if slightly deluded, folk who do not understand tech at all, even the sort they use, and do not want to.
And some of the knowledge is still being used every day by "native" peoples. They can be a bit closed and xenophobic, with good reason.
I'm just a guy who has moved among all these groups (and several others I haven't bothered bringing up), who don't actually talk to each other all that much, at one time or another, as well as through the halls of high tech.
The survivalists and the Back to the Land people actually hate each other's guts. The "natives" distrust the anthropologists studying them and are prone to play practical jokes on them, or even outright lie, said jokes and lies getting recorded as Truth(tm). The various natives are isolated from each other, so you've got "flint and steel cultures" and "fire piston cultures"; and the physicist/engineers never look at much beyond their blackboards, cyclotrons and computer terminals in Boston and Berkeley.
But it's not like the information isn't out there and I'm not the only one who has pulled it a bit closer together. I've seen other people who've realized that if you've got some sticks and stones and some copper wire and magnets you've got a generator, but you'll need to know how to make a bow drill before you get it running to the point where you can run your electric drill.
I've declined a few attempts to get me to write an autobiography, which would include some of this stuff I guess. I dodged 20/20. I've declined attempts to get me to put out a newsletter or put up a website. I obviously post a lot here, but I don't have that particular itch to scratch. In fact the idea of it makes me feel a bit "itchy."
I'm currently being pursued a bit by a biographer and a film maker. We'll see if one of them manages to catch me or not, but I really do just like to go about my life quietly, even if I do seem to make little "splashes" here and there while I'm about it.
And to sort of, kind of, edge this thing back full circle; sometimes a compiler and vim really is all you need for your
Why spend time with wood and stone when you've got a bunch of metal already laying around?
Obviously something went screwy in my brain between reading your post and responding to it.
Still, the basic points remain I guess. My orginal post was made against a given scenario, that of Survivor Island and there is no "jump" to non-petrochemicals. That's thinking that derives from where we are now, not from where we'd be then.
And do not confuse our culture with our technology. They aren't the same thing at all.
KFG
You might also want to throw in a few books, just for shits, giggles and when the power fails.
And of course the end of culture isn't at all the same thing as the end of the world, the end of civilization, or even the end of high technology, although some people seem to think so.
KFG
Although I'd think the most useful bit of worked metal would actually be tongs...
.movable type. Most of what we've got is really quite a pile of superfluous crud that serves no purpose other than being there.
.the lights would go out. Very useful stuff, metal, for dealing with electricity.
.community. Might even be an improvement.
Green wood makes exellent tongs, even for holding crucibles. Axe, knife, spear and awl are the core tools.
And quite frankly, if all you're interested in is living well, beyond fire about all you really need is, clay, stone, grasses (bamboo is the queen of grasses) and a bit of chemistry. Metal makes things fast, but who said you need to live fast?
That's not to say I'd want to give up metal, very useful stuff, but I can live quite well without, and at a very advanced state of tecnology with surprisingly small amounts of the stuff. Just a few, simple tools. An axe, a knife. .
The biggest thing you'd notice in your home if most of the metal went away is that . .
But when you stop and think -- I mean really think, you might well discover that most of the things we use electricity for could be replaced by . .
KFG
Ah, but it's not just the knowledge, it's the availability of the resources.
.
Note that I mentioned resources?
You get to the point where you start needing petroleum products. .
Why the hell would need those? You're thinking from where you are now backwards. The first twentieth century harpsichord makers were piano makers. They tried to develop harpsichords backwards from pianos.
They sucked.
The harpsichord was developed forwards from the lute. When luthiers turned to harpsichord making the "secret" was rediscovered.
Stop thinking "petroleum" and start thinking "oil" and alchohol. Hydrocarbons.
That last sentence might come as something of a shock to those who have read some of my posts on biofuels, but we're talking a different scenario here.
Same thing with a lot of metals... the easily accessed deposits have been mined out, and the hard to get at stuff requires higher technology...
Now you're talking the "Mad Max" post apocolyptic scenario, which is something rather different than the Survivor Island scenario. Notice how in the movies they discovered something called "junkyards"? Axe heads and refined aluminum are "natural" resources post apolcolypse. You're boot strapping from 1890, only with 20th century manufactured stuff to do it with.
Also bear in mind that "accessable" is often economically defined. Our mass needs define the sorts of deposits we find useful. Many, many smaller deposits are ignored completely, but completely accessable; and useful to 24 people trying to rebuild.
KFG
Ironically it is mass education that's at the front line of getting us there; and the answer is not raising the national education budget by a factor of ten to double the size of the administration who raise the bullshit level by a factor of 100.
KFG
In my spare cycles I think about what it would take to reconstitute civilization from scratch.
In my spare time I actually go out and try it. I've posted about some of it over the years.
Making the jump to metal (and I'm talking copper, not iron) is the highest hurdle, even if you already know how it's done. After that it's really all downhill, but not, as most people might expect, because it makes things possible. I can make a drill that will put a hole through a block of granite with nothing but plants and a bit of sand. Metal just makes things so much faster that one man can accomplish more in a given unit of time.
I mean, what if the whole of the world was reduced to the technology of Survivor Island, basically subsistance living?
See that phrase up there; "even if you know how it's done"?
It's the figuring shit out that takes the time. I guesstimate that a group of about 24 people on a reasonably resource rich land and sufficiently motivated to do so could rebuild from standing naked to pre atomics in about a decade, if they already know how shit's done (oh yeah, and if none of them have modern "issues." The big, strong lug is gonna haul stone and five foot two, eyes of blue is gonna spin and weave; and that's the way it is).
To save technology don't save too many things, save knowledge and make the things from it. Turns out that people are really quite capable of making some amazing things from nearly nothing. Who woulda thunk it?
Nor are we always as advanced as we think we are today. See those blue jeans you're wearing? Ancient Egyptian technology, only if he needed to the Egyptian would know how to duplicate them starting with no more tools than his bare hands. If you'll settle for linen instead of cultivated cotton all you need can be found along nearly any riverbed.
That's actually how American pioneers went west. They didn't carry much in the way of clothing because they knew all they needed to acquire more was a riverbed and some time. We're talking fine woven linens here, not crude bearskins or something.
The most prized possession they tossed into the wagon in Conestoga? An axe head. That first bit of worked metal is a godsend.
KFG
H.G Wells called and wants his 1890s predictions back.
Futurism for Dummies(tm): Find a book at least a century old; rewrite it into the current vernacular.
Pop Fads for Dummies(tm): Same as above, but you only need to go back 20 years.
KFG
Dear sir, colored clicks are my intellectual property. Please cease and desist.
KFG