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Silver2195 posted:The real reason Copernicus was wrong is that planetary orbits aren’t perfect circles.
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Sep 20, 2019 22:59
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Um, discussions of U.S. Navy flightplans belong in the Airpower thread? 
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Sep 20, 2019 23:03
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I see a flag tied to a pike
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Sep 20, 2019 23:21
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My Lord, the planet Mars is a pervert.
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Sep 21, 2019 01:23
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Tunicate posted:Everything sees itself as motionless, and the rest of the universe moving away from it in all directions. This was very helpful in explaining this. Thank you.
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Sep 21, 2019 01:44
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Ynglaur posted:This was very helpful in explaining this. Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJhRPBJPoO0
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Sep 21, 2019 01:45
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Grand Fromage posted:A printing press would be one of the easiest transformative technologies to make. The hard part is the mechanism for the actual press and the Romans already had that. I always thought that it's the paper that makes having a printing press worthwhile, and that paper was only invented once by Tsai Lun. Now, my whole basis for that assertion is "100 Most Important People" -book I had in the 90s and read cover to cover while sitting on the toilet, but it makes sense to me still. Printing press with an easily produced, cheap writing material is recipe for pampleths, news papers, etc, and paper is good for notes and letters more so than anything else as far as I'm aware. But that's just it. Was there some other writing material comparable to paper that I'm not aware of? Grimnarsson fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 03:09
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You need a reasonably sturdy printing surface, paper or otherwise. Things like cloth will do just fine, the ancients used pprinting press techniques for them after all. That could be real pricey for a full book though. You need movable type since plain old printing press techniques were known form antiquity, but mostly used for producing decorative patterns on clothes and similar goods - since when you can't freely rearrange the letters you have to individually prepare printing-plates for each page of a work and that gets impractical very fast. You need inks that will work well on the printing surface you choose, while being able to stay on the type for running off large numbers of copies between re-inkings, while not leaving residue that causes too much of a cleaning problem for reusing the type.
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Sep 21, 2019 03:33
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fishmech posted:You need a reasonably sturdy printing surface, paper or otherwise. Things like cloth will do just fine, the ancients used pprinting press techniques for them after all. That could be real pricey for a full book though. But isn't that just the thing with paper, that it's cheap. Maybe not at first but ultimately so? And without that cheap medium, a printing press is not so useful.
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Sep 21, 2019 03:59
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fishmech posted:You need movable type since plain old printing press techniques were known form antiquity, but mostly used for producing decorative patterns on clothes and similar goods
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Sep 21, 2019 04:13
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Grimnarsson posted:But isn't that just the thing with paper, that it's cheap. Maybe not at first but ultimately so? And without that cheap medium, a printing press is not so useful. There was massive costs in labor and time to print before Gutenberg and the various similar systems over in East Asia, which were the major bulk of the costs. Paper being cheap helped for sure, but you would have had radical improvements in the price while using expensive printing material - being able to turn out multiple complete books a day for example, instead of taking a week in copyist time like a relatively short book with a lot of scribes at work would take. As an example of the speed you could publish between hand copying and fully fucntional movable type presses, a fast individual scribe of the 900s AD would be expected to be able to bang out a good quality transcription of the 4 main Gospels in about 2 weeks. In comparison, Gutenberg's initial 180 or so copies of the Bible printed took a year to produce in total - and that was with Gutenberg's print shop insisting on employing illustrators and rubricators to highlight important passages in red ink, have fancy initial letters on major pages, etc - averaging to 2 days or so for each entire 1282 page, 42 line per page, copy, with a lot of that time given over to fancying it up instead of straightforward printing. Oh and at the time of Gutenberg? Similar quality handwritten Bibles of the same contents and level of illustration would take a year to produce in the scriptoriums, by a dedicated team of scribes within the enterprise. (There is of course the fact that before you can start cranking out whole bibles in about 2 days a copy, you spent months beforehand preparing for it by casting type, figuring out optimal layouts etc. But once you start going, your output rate is phenomenal. With no cheap paper, you're not producing works every rando city dweller can afford, but you are producing works that all the middle class might afford without seriously dipping into their assets or wages.)
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Sep 21, 2019 04:15
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fishmech posted:There was massive costs in labor and time to print before Gutenberg and the various similar systems over in East Asia, which were the major bulk of the costs. Paper being cheap helped for sure, but you would have had radical improvements in the price while using expensive printing material - being able to turn out multiple complete books a day for example, instead of taking a week in copyist time like a relatively short book with a lot of scribes at work would take. But where the Gutenberg press and paper really come together is pamphlets and news papers that are available for anyone, not so much books. But I guess books too if they aren't going for anything fancy as you describe. But yeah, the pop-history book I referenced made this exact point: the Gutenberg press plus the cheap medium (paper) made for an information revolution. Without one the other is impressive but not groundbreaking. I think the author credited the supposed inventor of paper higher than Gutenberg because as far as it was known the printing press was an engineering development and was invented multiple times in various places, while paper was only invented once and then spread from there.
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Sep 21, 2019 04:48
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Grimnarsson posted:But where the Gutenberg press and paper really come together is pamphlets and news papers that are available for anyone, not so much books. But I guess books too if they aren't going for anything fancy as you describe. But yeah, the pop-history book I referenced made this exact point: the Gutenberg press plus the cheap medium (paper) made for an information revolution. Without one the other is impressive but not groundbreaking. I think the author credited the supposed inventor of paper higher than Gutenberg because as far as it was known the printing press was an engineering development and was invented multiple times in various places, while paper was only invented once and then spread from there. Well no. It already came together for the books. If for some bizarre reason paper had not been available or paper had been available but at far higher prices, it would still have been revolutionary and groundbreaking. It would still have allowed mass-issuance of pamphlets and newspapers (which didn't become the modern several dozen to a hundred or so pages until within the last 150 years mind you) and their mass distribution, just with slightly reduced scopes that don't matter so much overall. You have Gutenberg and others mass producing books of all sorts well before 1500, while mass newspaper and widespread pamphleteering waited til the late 1600s/early 1700s for the most part, due to all sorts of incremental advancements that couldn't initially be done.
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Sep 21, 2019 05:16
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You need money for any of these technologies anyways- stuff like glassware or precision metalwork has only got cheaper over time. there's a reason distilling is always suggested as the first invention to make money, although where you'd get equipment to set up a still is another matter.
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Sep 21, 2019 05:38
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fishmech posted:Well no. It already came together for the books. If for some bizarre reason paper had not been available or paper had been available but at far higher prices, it would still have been revolutionary and groundbreaking. It would still have allowed mass-issuance of pamphlets and newspapers (which didn't become the modern several dozen to a hundred or so pages until within the last 150 years mind you) and their mass distribution, just with slightly reduced scopes that don't matter so much overall. Eh, I suppose so. How would I know otherwise? It's just always seemed to me that giving so much credit to the method of printing the words but not so much to what those words are printed on was skewed.
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Sep 21, 2019 05:41
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Grimnarsson posted:Eh, I suppose so. How would I know otherwise? It's just always seemed to me that giving so much credit to the method of printing the words but not so much to what those words are printed on was skewed. edit: sorry, i don't know if dorms were a thing yet. lovely little apartments. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 05:51
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HEY GUNS posted:the wide availability of paper did cause a revolution, back in the High Middle Ages, when writing material got cheaper and more plentiful. For instance, shops would rent books on the syllabus out to college students by the quire, who'd take them back to their dorms, copy them themselves, bring them back, and get the next quire I'm now picturing students desperately cramming their textbook-copying into the last day before they have to return it because they spent the entire term partying
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Sep 21, 2019 05:54
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cheetah7071 posted:I'm now picturing students desperately cramming their textbook-copying into the last day before they have to return it because they spent the entire term partying they did kill people more than modern college students do tho
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Sep 21, 2019 05:57
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Oh and also thanks for these history threads, they're the reason I subscribed.
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Sep 21, 2019 06:01
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Does anyone know anywhere online I could find the Prester John letter to emperor Manuel I in Latin or Greek (any version as long as it's medieval)? All I'm finding is translations.
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Sep 21, 2019 07:53
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Nothingtoseehere posted:You need money for any of these technologies anyways- stuff like glassware or precision metalwork has only got cheaper over time. there's a reason distilling is always suggested as the first invention to make money, although where you'd get equipment to set up a still is another matter. That's why Lest Darkness Fall stands out from similar time-traveling fantasies—the protagonist actually has to find a creditor first so he can buy the copper required. He also makes a bit of money from teaching decimal notation and double bookkeeping, but finds out quickly that the people he taught will happily sell the knowledge themselves.
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Sep 21, 2019 09:37
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Zopotantor posted:teaching decimal notation What a monster. He has the opportunity to set them up with a number system of any base, and he goes with “it’s the number of fleshy bits I have on my hands”  .
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Sep 21, 2019 09:55
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Yeah the different Chinese dynasties controlled varying amounts of land throughout their history. Thinking of it as a region like Europe can be a useful way to think about it. I mean, even the modern PRC controls less territory than the Qing did. Tibet is technically a part of the country but functionally autonomous, the status of Taiwan remains disputed, and Hong Kong and Macau also have a high degree of autonomy (although the Chinese army does garrison those areas). Eyebrows go up
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Sep 21, 2019 11:00
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Platystemon posted:What a monster. TBF, the Roman system was already sort of decimal.
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Sep 21, 2019 12:03
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If you wanted to ingratiate yourself with the powerful, the best thing to take back in time would be a big jar of viagra. Historically power has tended to accumulate in the hands of old men, and old men care about nothing as much as their fading virility. Give the king a pill which makes him sport wood, and you're looking at a bishopric minimum.
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Sep 21, 2019 12:44
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HEY GUNS posted:the wide availability of paper did cause a revolution, back in the High Middle Ages, when writing material got cheaper and more plentiful. For instance, shops would rent books on the syllabus out to college students by the quire, who'd take them back to their rooms, copy them themselves, bring them back, and get the next quire Go check out any reasonably old Oxbridge college, they have accommodation for both students and masters on site. You get a room, possibly two. This is still a thing, my first year room was at the top of one of the staircases on the right here.  (Oxford being Oxford, that's the New Buildings (17th century) of New College (14th century)) feedmegin fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 12:50
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Let’s talk about printing. What if you couldn’t get moveable type or cheap paper going, but you could deliver a complete set of engraved lead plates of the Vulgate to the court of Charlemagne? They only have the one set, but it could print quite a few volumes before wearing out.
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Sep 21, 2019 12:52
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feedmegin posted:Go check out any reasonably old Oxbridge college, they have accommodation for both students and masters on site. You get a room, possibly two. This is still a thing, my first year room was at the top of one of the staircases on the right here. I can't wait for Jeremy Corbyn to turn them into council flats
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Sep 21, 2019 12:57
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Platystemon posted:Let’s talk about printing. Then....There's a few more Bibles around the place in an already Christian country? That's about the least useful book you could possibly give them.
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Sep 21, 2019 13:02
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feedmegin posted:Then....There's a few more Bibles around the place in an already Christian country? That's about the least useful book you could possibly give them. How many copies were scribes collectively producing, say per decade? I don’t want to give them the time traveller’s cheat sheet. I just want to upset the monastery economy, maybe create more opportunity for schism. On second thought, distilled alcohol would also do that, and it’s more fun.
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Sep 21, 2019 13:08
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Platystemon posted:How many copies were scribes collectively producing, say per decade? Monasteries don't primarily exist to sell books. They're their own self contained agricultural estates that also receive donations to pray for rich people's souls etc. A few extra copies of the Bible existing won't bankrupt them or anything. If you really want to cause schism send them a slightly modified Vulgate. Maybe Jesus has a little brother etc. It's already going to look a bit like the Tablets of Moses divine intervention wise after all.
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Sep 21, 2019 13:21
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I debated whether I should give the plates to Big Chuck or to Jerome. Jerome already took enough fire for translating (large portions of) what would become the Vulgate. Producing thousands of perfect copies would turn some heads.
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Sep 21, 2019 13:29
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Mr Enderby posted:If you wanted to ingratiate yourself with the powerful, the best thing to take back in time would be a big jar of viagra. Historically power has tended to accumulate in the hands of old men, and old men care about nothing as much as their fading virility. Give the king a pill which makes him sport wood, and you're looking at a bishopric minimum. That's shortsighted. Bring a big jar of viagra, grind up a quarter pill and dress it up with some mysticism, invent a religion, and kings will fall at your feet for redemption after your sacrament doesn't make 'em sport wood.
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Sep 21, 2019 13:30
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Grimnarsson posted:I always thought that it's the paper that makes having a printing press worthwhile, and that paper was only invented once by Tsai Lun. Now, my whole basis for that assertion is "100 Most Important People" -book I had in the 90s and read cover to cover while sitting on the toilet, but it makes sense to me still. As far as I know there’s nothing to say it wasn’t still invented by one dude, but recently there’s been paper found that predates him by several centuries, so he probably shouldn’t make the book anymore. Sorry Tsai alum.
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Sep 21, 2019 15:11
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If you gave the ancient Romans a printing press they would just print books directly onto slaves.
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Sep 21, 2019 15:35
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:If you gave the ancient Romans a printing press they would just print books directly onto slaves. so, uh, about that frasier episode...
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Sep 21, 2019 15:45
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feedmegin posted:Monasteries don't primarily exist to sell books. They're their own self contained agricultural estates that also receive donations to pray for rich people's souls etc. A few extra copies of the Bible existing won't bankrupt them or anything. Jesus’s stepbrother  
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Sep 21, 2019 17:20
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feedmegin posted:Monasteries don't primarily exist to sell books. They're their own self contained agricultural estates that also receive donations to pray for rich people's souls etc. A few extra copies of the Bible existing won't bankrupt them or anything. So you're the one responsible for going back in time to trigger the Taiping Rebellion!
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Sep 21, 2019 18:46
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Monasteries were also lending libraries, though unlike modern ones they required collateral
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Sep 21, 2019 18:52
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feedmegin posted:Go check out any reasonably old Oxbridge college, they have accommodation for both students and masters on site. You get a room, possibly two. This is still a thing, my first year room was at the top of one of the staircases on the right here.
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Sep 21, 2019 22:49
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