Extrasomatic: outside of the body About 10 millennia ago… the first patches of deliberately cultivated plants as a small share of the Earth’s total photosynthesis… Read More »Technology (25): Vaclav Smil on prime movers and extrasomatic energy
Hattip: Brink Lindsey Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that a hundred years hence we are all of us, on the average, eight… Read More »Technology (24): Keynes on The Permanent Problem; or, The Dread of Abundance
John Harrison’s timekeepers… were both precise and accurate, but given that they took years to make and perfect, and were the result of hugely costly… Read More »The machine that makes the machine: Simon Winchester on machine tools and the democratisation of precision
Don’t become a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific. Zig Ziglar Returns to specialisation Dangers of specialisation See also: Dr SnipTechnology (22): Francis Bacon on… Read More »The Specialist; or, Dr Snip
Motorcycle production figures [for Japan] before 1930 are not available, but in that year a total of 1,350 were made in Japan. The 2,000 mark… Read More »Amazing Japanese motorcycle production figures
I’ve got soul but I’m not a solderer You may find this short video from Richard Langner helpful if you solder from time to time,… Read More »Technique: Autofeed solder method from Richard Langner
Recommended by OpenCulture.org, via HN. See also: Writing and Reading as Technology (1): Transforming Fire; Slow BurnWriting and Reading as Technology (2): Half-baked BeginningsWriting and… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (15): videos on the evolution of the alphabet and the spread of writing
With 1.5 million individual drawings sketched, transferred to transparent cells, hand coloured and composited into over 350 thousand frames… Walt changed the game when it… Read More »100 Years of Cinema: The Making of Snow White
Hat tip: HNWith apologies to subscribers who received post 14 of this series out of order due to my enthusiasm for the subject matter… …… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (13): Erik Engheim on Gutenberg vs earlier Asian printing technologies
We often have convenience now because someone did the maths before. Ben Sparks With apologies to subscribers who received this out of order due to… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (14): Magical Paper Sizes; or, The Golden Non-Ratio