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Ben Nevis posted:The CIA wasn't around then. So what, by Army Intelligence during WWI? That strikes me as unlikely.
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Apr 21, 2017 18:11
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Some real good jokegetters ITT
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Apr 21, 2017 18:33
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Senor Dog posted:Some real good jokegetters ITT Actually, people don't seem to be getting the joke at all
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Apr 21, 2017 18:39
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fishmech posted:Every little common detail like that of modern life has at least 3 articles online on WikiHow and the 1000 websites that just copy all the data off WikiHow et al to serve their own ads over. Until the Great Crash of 2064, which will wipe out most of the Internet, which raises another problem with ancient sources, which is that most of them don't exist. There are works, authors, and even entire philosophical schools that we only know about because other people quoted or summarized them. Stuff just gets festroyed, or lost, or just not copied down, and then it fades out of history. So, who knows, maybe somebody did write a complete guide to Roman customs and toga wearing, but it was destroyed and we don't have a record of it.
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Apr 21, 2017 19:25
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Also if you're consciously trying to preserve the wisdom of the lost ancients, you might focus a bit more on texts detailing their history and philosophy than those explaining what leg of your underpants to step into first
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Apr 21, 2017 19:51
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Epicurius posted:Until the Great Crash of 2064, which will wipe out most of the Internet, which raises another problem with ancient sources, which is that most of them don't exist. There are works, authors, and even entire philosophical schools that we only know about because other people quoted or summarized them. Stuff just gets festroyed, or lost, or just not copied down, and then it fades out of history. So, who knows, maybe somebody did write a complete guide to Roman customs and toga wearing, but it was destroyed and we don't have a record of it.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:13
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Lord Hydronium posted:You can save/discover one lost work: the Etruscan history by Claudius, or The Lives of Famous Whores? Whores. Both for my own juvenile amusement and because it would give us a good look into the lives of non-aristocratic women, even if only obliquely.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:14
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Cyrano4747 posted:Whores. What would be the case for and against the Etruscan history?
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Apr 21, 2017 20:23
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What about hot air balloons? Is there really any limitations that would prevent Romans from building some? Seeing a battlefield from the air in the ancient time would probably be a game changer.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:25
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Cyrano4747 posted:Whores. What the hell? You're literally the worst person.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:42
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Dalael posted:What about hot air balloons? Is there really any limitations that would prevent Romans from building some? Seeing a battlefield from the air in the ancient time would probably be a game changer. I don't know a ton about how hot air balloons work but I assume a wood fire either doesn't get hot enough or is too uncontrollable to not burn the entire balloon down
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Apr 21, 2017 20:43
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Real challenge would be getting enough of the right kind of material for the balloon, I would think.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:52
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Lord Hydronium posted:You can save/discover one lost work: the Etruscan history by Claudius, or The Lives of Famous Whores? Whores because actually *stands bravely* I'm literally the worst person.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:54
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xthetenth posted:What would be the case for and against the Etruscan history? For: we don't really know much about them, their language is an almost total mystery and they seemed to like women and loving a lot more than the Romans. They also politically dominated the republic in its early history to a degree that extant Roman histories didn't always make obvious and Claudius might, conceivably, have given a fuller history of early Rome through treating of them. Against: presumably, though not certainly, fewer whores.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:56
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xthetenth posted:What would be the case for and against the Etruscan history? The case for Etruscan is that they are partially a mystery. Much of the language remains untranslated. The case against Etruscan is primarily that the other text would likely tell us more about a culture that influenced us to a greater extent.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:58
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The etruscans also bullied the jews. They were very worldly
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Apr 21, 2017 21:00
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paragon1 posted:Real challenge would be getting enough of the right kind of material for the balloon, I would think. They had silk
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Apr 21, 2017 21:03
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Actually I assume that as long as your fuel is wood you're probably out of luck because a hot air balloon has to lift its own fuel and wood is heavy. I haven't done the math but I wouldn't be surprised if you have to have a much denser fuel to make it all work.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:07
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Speaking of Etruscans, does anyone know if anyone in antiquity made the connect between Indo-European languages? Especially since there were the Etruscans, and possibly other non-IE languages that we know even less about, like Eteocretan. the only thing I know of that comes close is Dionysus of Halicarnassus who commented on the Etruscans' uniqueness:quote:Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else, but was native to the country, since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:13
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skasion posted:For: we don't really know much about them, their language is an almost total mystery and they seemed to like women and loving a lot more than the Romans. They also politically dominated the republic in its early history to a degree that extant Roman histories didn't always make obvious and Claudius might, conceivably, have given a fuller history of early Rome through treating of them. A couple of extra things in the "for" category here: it's a book by an emperor! We've only got one other of those, and while Meditations is interesting, it wasn't intended to be a published manuscript. So, the Etruscan history is a very unique piece while Whores would, in comparison, just be another piece of Suetonian salaciousness. Definitely interesting, but perhaps less informative than you'd think since Suetonius is deeply unreliable.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:17
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Tunicate posted:They had silk Imported at great expense, yes.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:22
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The Romans probably could’ve learned to pasteurize milk, right? Just heat it but don’t let it curdle.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:Whores.
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Apr 21, 2017 21:24
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Apr 21, 2017 21:56
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Lord Hydronium posted:You can save/discover one lost work: the Etruscan history by Claudius, or The Lives of Famous Whores? Probably the Etruscan history, but either would be great to read. Suetonius also wrote a book called On The Customs and Manners of the Romans, so there's your book about Roman Customs. As to why you could argue in favor of Famous Whores, first, Suetonius is always entertaining, but beyond that, it would give us a look at the way Romans looked at female sexuality and power, and the link they put between them. One of the recurring themes you see in Roman stories is the idea of women using their sexuality to control men.
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Apr 21, 2017 22:03
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echopapa posted:The Romans probably could’ve learned to pasteurize milk, right? Just heat it but don’t let it curdle. Yeah honestly just teach people basic germ theory
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Apr 21, 2017 22:04
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Restitute ALL the orbises
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Apr 21, 2017 22:17
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Lord Hydronium posted:You can save/discover one lost work: the Etruscan history by Claudius, or The Lives of Famous Whores? Lives of Famous Whores is a way more marketable title. Discovering and translating that would earn me more royalties, so that's what I'd go with.
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Apr 21, 2017 22:23
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The Etruscan history sounds like it would almost certainly be of much more useful historical value. That said, I gotta go with the whores
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Apr 21, 2017 22:40
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cheetah7071 posted:Actually I assume that as long as your fuel is wood you're probably out of luck because a hot air balloon has to lift its own fuel and wood is heavy. I haven't done the math but I wouldn't be surprised if you have to have a much denser fuel to make it all work. I think charcoal works. Harder to adjust than gas though, so altitude control could be an issue.
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Apr 21, 2017 23:11
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Wood gets plenty hot enough for a hot air balloon and is still used some even today. The main thing with using wood is you can spend much less time in the air than some nice charcoal, coal, or liquid fuel will allow. Many of the balloon flights of the US Civil War were done with wood fires simply because it was cheap, available, and you needed to get back to the ground quickly anyway to pass on important detail.
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Apr 21, 2017 23:40
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fishmech posted:Wood gets plenty hot enough for a hot air balloon and is still used some even today. The main thing with using wood is you can spend much less time in the air than some nice charcoal, coal, or liquid fuel will allow. Wood burns hotter than most liquid fuels. Unlike jet fuel, it can even melt steel beams.
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Apr 21, 2017 23:54
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fishmech posted:Many of the balloon flights of the US Civil War were done with wood fires simply because it was cheap, available, and you needed to get back to the ground quickly anyway to pass on important detail. Couldn't you just wrap your message around a brick and drop it? Let the cavalryman assigned as liaison retrieve it.
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Apr 22, 2017 00:30
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The Lone Badger posted:Couldn't you just wrap your message around a brick and drop it? Let the cavalryman assigned as liaison retrieve it. Drop a slave to relay the message, slaves are cheaper than bricks and this way you don't need a literate balloon operator
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Apr 22, 2017 00:33
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I doubt the Montgolfier brothers used anything that wasn't available to the Romans 1500 years earlier.
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Apr 22, 2017 00:37
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cheetah7071 posted:Drop a slave to relay the message, slaves are cheaper than bricks and this way you don't need a literate balloon operator The Union Army were the ones who used balloons the most. The Confederates only made 3 balloons (for obvious reasons, they had a hard time getting suitable material for the balloon itself), and 2 of them got captured by the Union before they could see serious use.
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Apr 22, 2017 00:39
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fishmech posted:The Union Army were the ones who used balloons the most. The Confederates only made 3 balloons (for obvious reasons, they had a hard time getting suitable material for the balloon itself), and 2 of them got captured by the Union before they could see serious use. Oh I got confused by the conversation and was making a joke about a hypothetical roman balloon
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Apr 22, 2017 00:47
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Deteriorata posted:I doubt the Montgolfier brothers used anything that wasn't available to the Romans 1500 years earlier. The Montgolfier brothers used taffeta which (i think) could have been made back in roman times. E: Wait scratch that, I googled to make sure. taffeta is what they experimented with. Sackcloth is what they used for their public demonstration. Dalael fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 01:09
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:] I hate autocorrect.
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Apr 22, 2017 01:19
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Deteriorata posted:I doubt the Montgolfier brothers used anything that wasn't available to the Romans 1500 years earlier. I'm pretty sure the Montgolfier brothers had fire.
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Apr 22, 2017 01:20
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