Fwd: You just went to the Google homepage. What actually happened?

[Roger Critchlow-2]

Yeah, wood is great, except almost everywhere that depended on it ended up with none within wood gathering radius.  The story is if you look at early photos of Santa Fe, the hills seem strangely denuded compared to the present.

-- rec --

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Parks, Raymond <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steam engines work fine on wood - not as efficient but they worked with wood for years.  Hydro-power has worked even better since ancient times.

Charcoal comes from wood and can be made into coke.

All that aside, I don't understand the comment "we already have mined and spent all of easily available fossil fuels".  That's stupid on several levels.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-844-4024  M: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-238-9359  P: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-951-6084

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On Mar 21, 2013, at 4:41 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:

At the risk of hijacking the thread... I liked the comment on the ycombinator:

PeterisP

There exists a viewpoint that in case of a cataclysm (which would involve man-made objects disappearing*) we would never, ever progress past 18th century tech again.
The argument is that getting from animal-powered devices to solar/nuclear/whatever powered devices while at the same time switching from 90%-agricultural workforce to anything more progressive can happen only if there is a cheap source of energy available - and we already have mined and spent all of easily available fossil fuels.
Even if all kinds of fancy devices are available and constructed by rich enthusiasts, the lack of cheap steam power ensures lack of cheap steel/etc, and all the technologies don't get the mass adoption required for their improvements, there are almost no advantages for industrialization, so the world gets stuck in feudal-agriculture systems as the local optimum.

which suggests the Knowledge Ark would be largely a waste of time.

* refers to a preceding comment.

Robert C

On 3/21/13 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

From HN, a pointer to a delightfully clever essay that would be loved by Nick and others who are often bewildered by the hacker alphabet soup of acronyms and buzz words.

Well, what _does_ happen when you got to a web page?

https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597

This has the possibility of a new book that somehow makes it all reasonably clear. Maybe.

   -- Owen

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[Steve Smith]

S.M Stirling (Santa Fe based, prolific Science Fiction author) addresses this to some extent in his series (first was Dies the Fire) set in a post apocalyptic world.  

The Apocalypse was simply the supposition that the solar system moved (whatever this means physically is hard to figure but bear with him) into a region of the universe where the rules of physics changed just subtly enough to make all electronics and all high-energetic systems (internal combustion, dynamite, gunpowder, C4, etc) fail to work, throwing the world into an artifact and material rich, energy-poor world.  The next 3 or 4 novels explores, in fact, the fuedal-agricultural world (set primarily in the Pacific Northwest) that emerges in the wake of "the Change".

The main antagonist relation was between those who chose to respond by trying to figure out how to create a sane and self-supporting culture on top of this plethora of artifacts but without any obvious source of concentrated energy beyond human and animal and those who chose to be parasitically violent, subjugating the former wherever they could.  

Stirling is a gifted world-builder/storyteller and a great read if you happen to be into post-apocalyptic epics... He's also an interesting person in-person.

In this case, the lack of fossil fuels is their lack of efficacy, not their literal lack of availability (though the refineries would presumably fail quickly anyway).   There might have been mention that steam-power was still likely possible, but i can't remember.

A friend of mine happens to own what might be the oldest known steam automobile... it is a 189? Locomobile, the very one in fact used in the most recent making of HG Well's Time machine.  For what it is worth, he told me the story (as he was building steam to give me a ride) of how much new tech was required to make a steam auto possible.  A liquid-fuel burner had to be developed (including the system now used in "coleman stoves") which is primed by pressurizing the tank, but then uses the heat of the flame to maintain the pressure.  The "boiler" was equally problematic as anyone working with steam knows, it is easy to over-pressure and cause a catastrophic explosion.  The solution used canon-building technology... a cored steel cylinder *wrapped* in piano wire to make it stronger.  Even this could be overpressured, so the *ends* were capped with steel plates drilled with a multitude of holes, copper tubing inserted through the holes (and the vessel) and *swaged* onto these ends.  The result was dozens of parallel tubes which the flame/exhaust could be routed through to transfer heat to the boiler water/steam but which if overpressured would gently pull the tubes out of their swaged holes and release the pressure fairly gently... something important since the boiler could not be removed from the driver and passenger far enough to be otherwise safe.   Also, I believe this might have been when the modern "differential" was developed.   The Locomobile still steered with a "tiller" but soon after, automobiles started sporting "steering wheels". 

An early motorist (or pilot) had to at least be their own mechanic if not practically a full-fledged engineer just to use and keep operating a simple automobile.   Getting from steam trains and traction engines to the automobile as a non-trivial step, complicating the matter you bring up.

As a (sad?) corrolary, it is possible that large scale urbanization and agriculture could never have emerged without an effective slave class.   If we fell back into pre-agriculture and pre-urban circumstances, we might have to drop our current social mores to climb back up out of hunger-gatherer or herd-follower?

At the risk of hijacking the thread... I liked the comment on the ycombinator:

PeterisP

There exists a viewpoint that in case of a cataclysm (which would involve man-made objects disappearing*) we would never, ever progress past 18th century tech again.
The argument is that getting from animal-powered devices to solar/nuclear/whatever powered devices while at the same time switching from 90%-agricultural workforce to anything more progressive can happen only if there is a cheap source of energy available - and we already have mined and spent all of easily available fossil fuels.
Even if all kinds of fancy devices are available and constructed by rich enthusiasts, the lack of cheap steam power ensures lack of cheap steel/etc, and all the technologies don't get the mass adoption required for their improvements, there are almost no advantages for industrialization, so the world gets stuck in feudal-agriculture systems as the local optimum.

which suggests the Knowledge Ark would be largely a waste of time.

* refers to a preceding comment.

Robert C

On 3/21/13 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

From HN, a pointer to a delightfully clever essay that would be loved by Nick and others who are often bewildered by the hacker alphabet soup of acronyms and buzz words.

Well, what _does_ happen when you got to a web page?

https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597

This has the possibility of a new book that somehow makes it all reasonably clear. Maybe.

   -- Owen

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[Steve Smith]

Stirling's "Dies the Fire" and subsequent books follow this line of reasoning way out toward it's logical conclusion... he (and many SF writers are big SCA fans).   The same day I met him (Stephen Stirling) I also met Diana Paxson (I was hosting a visit of SF authors to LANL) who claimed to have (accidentally) started the SCA when she held a graduation party at her house for her Masters in Medieval studies and invited all of her friends to dress for the period... only to discover how serious many of them were about their garb and toolage.

I don't know how the new crowd of SteamPunks would fare in post-apocalyptic, but I do have to say I am enamored of the style!

How about a craftsman or artisan that understands the engineering principles of what they craft?  Too many craftsmen I've met don't know why they do things a certain way - that's just the way they were taught to do it.  I can think of two people I'd like to have with me in case of a major catastrophe - one is a rocket scientist who crafted a museum quality (as in museums have offered to buy it) astrolabe, sews costumes from eye (not patterns), and makes water balloon catapults.  The other is a carpenter and builder who restores old (as in 1000 year) buildings on the Isle of Jersey.  Oddly enough, both are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism - which might be another pre-req for surviving a major catastrophe.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

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On Mar 21, 2013, at 5:50 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:

Russ Abbott wrote at 03/21/2013 04:45 PM:

Every once in a while I hear about a survey where it is asked who you

would like to have with you in case of a major catastrophe.

Overwhelmingly the answer is an engineer.  I wouldn't disagree.

I've always preferred to answer that question with a craftsman or
artisan.  In principle, there shouldn't be much difference.  But in
practice, I find engineers talk and argue like lawyers whereas artisans
talk very little but produce quite a lot.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com
Reprove not an arrogant man, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and
he will love you. -- Proverbs 9:8


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[Robert J. Cordingley]

He wouldn't be descended from Robert Stirling of the Stirling Engine fame would he?  (He probably gets that question all the time).
Robert C

On 3/21/13 10:56 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

S.M Stirling (Santa Fe based, prolific Science Fiction author)

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[Rich Murray-2]

Hi Steve,

So that's pretty adventurous in 1991 -- as an Net participant since
December 1995, after doing AOL and Prodigy and local bulletin boards,
I appreciate the fabulous progress since, which is accelerating, from
what I see every day on summaries from Phys.org Newsletter -- no
genius left behind --

Here's one of my longer toxicity alerts, tossed into the global fray last night:


Table 5.2 is the key chart -- ADH1 enzyme at high levels in 20 tissues
in body and fetus makes methanol into formaldehyde right inside cells,
initiating over 20 human diseases, with full text references, WC Monte
paradigm: Rich Murray 2013.03.21
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2013/03/table-52-is-key-chart-adh1-enzyme-at.html


[ See also:,
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/03/13/unlabeled-aspartame-use.aspx#
2013.03.13  292,095 visits in a week ]

[ welcome to a scientific bouquet -- some tasty dishes are presented twice... ]

A liter of diet drink gives the same methanol (wood alcohol) as the
smoke from a pack of cigarettes, 60 mg -- methanol has a half-life in
the human bloodstream of 3 hours, showing that its elimination is
slow, while it reaches every part of the body and the fetus every
minute.

Methanol is actually less toxic than ethanol, except when it goes
easily into cells that also happen to have high levels of free
floating ADH1 enzyme, in 19 specific human tissues, including inner
walls of blood vessels in the brain and eye, as well as in the rods
and cones of the retina -- the methanol is made quickly into free
floating formaldehyde inside these cells, where it naturally wrecks
havoc, interfering with all biochemistry, just as in its well known
uses for embalming and sterilizing medical tools.

The resulting stew of formaldehyde modified proteins activates the
inflammation process of the immune system, producing complex evolving
pussy lesions -- brain in Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, inner
walls of blood vessels in atherosclerosis, skin fibroblasts in lupus,
pancreas in diabetes 2, retina in macular degeneration, joint
fibroblasts in rheumatoid arthritis...

Methylation of DNA and RNA leads to cell dysfunction and death, many
later cancers, and birth defects, spina bifida, autism, preterm birth,
Fetal Alcohol Sydrome.

Two key ATP enzymes are impaired in mitochrondria, shutting down
aerobic energy metabolism, leading to reduced metabolism and anaerobic
buildup of lactic acid, resulting in acidosis.
[ much more... ]

within the fellowship of service,  Rich


On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Jean-Baptiste Quéru's (accurate and complete to my study) description of the
> details (down to the physical layer) of what happens when you go to Google's
> homepage reminds me of how, roughly 22 years ago, at LANL:
>
> <long-winded technical anecdote>
>
> We wrote a simple PERL script to act as a daemon (a program running all the
> time, listening on a logical port (conventionally 80) on the network) to
> field this new thing called the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol......

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[Parks, Raymond]

  Yes, most currently wooded population areas in the West were pretty much lumbered out for railroad ties, mine frames, and buildings during the 19th Century.  Pictures of the Durango and Silverton area show the extent of that lumbering.

  A while back, the Corps of Engineers wanted to to do some work on the levee and bypass ditch that protects Corrales from Rio Grande flooding.  They intended to use bull-dozers and other equipment, which caused a great outcry from the environmentally-inclined about how the work would destroy old-growth trees in the Corrales bosque.   They were somewhat embarrassed when old-timers pointed out that those old-growth trees had replaced the trees wiped out by the big flood in 1941 - not old-growth at all.  Of course, much of the concern came from folks who don't realize that cottonwoods rarely live beyond 50 years, anyway.  Some forests never grow old.

  I wonder if one of the reasons that the juniper and piñon around Santa Fe have succumbed to bark beetle is because they are invasive species - certainly there was something else growing in the area worth lumbering that has been replaced by the trees which are not.

  It's a fascinating aspect of human nature that we assume that nature as we see it has been that way for eons.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084

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On Mar 21, 2013, at 6:55 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

Yeah, wood is great, except almost everywhere that depended on it ended up with none within wood gathering radius.  The story is if you look at early photos of Santa Fe, the hills seem strangely denuded compared to the present.

-- rec --

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Parks, Raymond <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steam engines work fine on wood - not as efficient but they worked with wood for years.  Hydro-power has worked even better since ancient times.

Charcoal comes from wood and can be made into coke.

All that aside, I don't understand the comment "we already have mined and spent all of easily available fossil fuels".  That's stupid on several levels.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-844-4024  M: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-238-9359  P: <a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Mar 21, 2013, at 4:41 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:

At the risk of hijacking the thread... I liked the comment on the ycombinator:

PeterisP

There exists a viewpoint that in case of a cataclysm (which would involve man-made objects disappearing*) we would never, ever progress past 18th century tech again.
The argument is that getting from animal-powered devices to solar/nuclear/whatever powered devices while at the same time switching from 90%-agricultural workforce to anything more progressive can happen only if there is a cheap source of energy available - and we already have mined and spent all of easily available fossil fuels.
Even if all kinds of fancy devices are available and constructed by rich enthusiasts, the lack of cheap steam power ensures lack of cheap steel/etc, and all the technologies don't get the mass adoption required for their improvements, there are almost no advantages for industrialization, so the world gets stuck in feudal-agriculture systems as the local optimum.

which suggests the Knowledge Ark would be largely a waste of time.

* refers to a preceding comment.

Robert C

On 3/21/13 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

From HN, a pointer to a delightfully clever essay that would be loved by Nick and others who are often bewildered by the hacker alphabet soup of acronyms and buzz words.

Well, what _does_ happen when you got to a web page?

https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597

This has the possibility of a new book that somehow makes it all reasonably clear. Maybe.

   -- Owen

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