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#1 2023-01-12 13:17:57

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,755

discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

Several years ago, Terraformer persuaded Dr. Lewis Dartnell to admit her to his forum.

With the ID of Cererean, Terraformer persuaded me to visit NewMars, and eventually James Burk solved a problem with the registration system to create an ID.

I've held off on adding Dr. Dartnell's forum to this topic, because it is not directly related to space.

However, recent posts there re-awakened the thought of adding the Knowledge forum to the topic.

There ** is ** an index level in discuss.the-knowledge.org for exploration and settlement of space as a disaster recovery option for humans.

Update 2023/02/08 ... The premise of the Knowledge Forum is that civilization has collapsed.  There is no Internet.  There is no organized anything.

Ham radio communication may persist for a while, but there will be no new equipment.

The issues Dr. Dartnell attempts to address are all related to the collapse of the civilization of human beings on Earth.

(th)

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#2 2023-01-12 13:20:30

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

The post I'd like to offer for NewMars readers is from member Dave Z of Dr. Lewis Dartnell's Knowledge forum.

In Goodnight Oppy, it looked like wind power might be a way to go, especially if you can get the tower to transform (a la transformers) into an hunkered structure during the big, planet sized blows.

Have you heard of Windbelt generators? Light, simple and scalable. Hmm... guess I could do a post, here, on that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=windbel … e&ie=UTF-8

Anyway, there's muh two bits!

This energy collection system looks vaguely familiar, so it may well have appeared in the forum previously.

The quantity of energy produced is small, but it may well be perfect for packing in a backpack and using to recharge cell phones out in the wilderness.

SearchTerm:WindChime power supply

(th)

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#3 2023-01-23 06:56:10

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

Here is another post from member Dave Z about wood heating....

Dave Z wrote:

Low tech, highly efficient Rocket Stoves were developed by Approvecho Research Center to address the problems of open-cookfire health and deforestation issues.

The basic principles (underlying many variations and refinements) works as follows when extended by a thermal mass:

Operation_of_a_j-tube_rocket_mass_heater.gif

J-tube rocket mass heater in operation.

1. Vertically inserted wood burns sideways.
2. High temperature creates strong convective currents in the heat riser.
3. Exhaust gas exits sideways.
4. Heat exchange mass absorbs, stores, and radiates away heat.
5. Final exhaust made of Carbon Dioxide and steam)

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater

The advantages for post-cataclymic survivors include:

  • Reduced fuel to useful heat ratio (requires less fuel)

  • Reduced fuel depletion

  • Improved fuel renewability cycles

  • Reduced fuel effort (cutting, splitting, transport, storage)

  • Reduced fire tending

  • Reduced cooking/heating related time draw (freeing for other purposes)

  • Reduced pollution (smoke, soot)

  • Reduced health threat

Both rocket stoves and thermal mass back ends can be DIYed from natural and/or scavenged materials.

Dave Z

(th)

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#4 2023-02-02 20:10:01

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

Dave Z at the Knowledge Forum is back with an update on the concept of a "sacred book of knowledge" ... like a religious text but secular in nature...

http://discuss.the-knowledge.org/viewto … 1990#p3164

A Secularly Sacred Book plus a Human Component
by Dave Z » Tue Aug 30, 2016 12:07 am

A Secularly Sacred Book

I favor a Secularly Sacred Book as the medium for The Knowledge.

(th)

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#5 2023-02-07 12:52:38

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

Dave Z of the Knowledge Forum asked for feedback on his blog about preservation of knowledge ...

http://memeplex.blogspot.com/

The opening section I looked at today is about medical care.

It seems to me that the ideas encapsulated there would fit the Mars situation as well as Earth.

(th)

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#6 2023-02-07 17:50:09

kbd512
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

If Dave Z wants to "preserve knowledge", then since we already have so many technologies and methods to do that, perhaps a better focus would be on teaching people how to go about rapidly finding knowledge when they need it.  No matter how organized your knowledge storage system, if nobody else knows how to use it, then it's wasted effort.  There was a time when I thought internet sites, including this one, would be tailored to touchscreens, navigated using both touch and voice-activation, and more akin to drill-down data visualizations using icons or GIFs or something visual / auditory to let people know what a topic was about even if they knew little else about it.

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#7 2023-02-08 07:57:58

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

For kbd512 re #6

Your feedback helps me to realize that I have failed to introduce the Knowledge Forum correctly.  I have attempted to correct my oversight by adding new text to the opening post:

Update 2023/02/08 ... The premise of the Knowledge Forum is that civilization has collapsed.  There is no Internet.  There is no organized anything.

Ham radio communication may persist for a while, but there will be no new equipment.

The issues Dr. Dartnell attempts to address are all related to the collapse of the civilization of human beings on Earth.

The work of Dave Z is related to the challenge of trying to hold onto the knowledge so painfully won by humans over thousands of years.

After the collapse of civilization, the Internet will be dead as a doornail.  Since telephone systems in the United States have been converted to digital networks, there will be no telephone communications.  There will be no manufacture of anything.  After existing equipment reaches end-of-life, that's the end of that entire technology.

The folks in the knowledge forum tend to be a door bunch.  There's not much to cheer about.

(th)

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#8 2023-02-08 08:51:10

kbd512
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

tahanson43206,

I'd say you still have to figure out how to "preserve the knowledge" using light / CD-ROMs that can be played on projectors.  There's no practical way to do it using books.  The foundational educational stuff needs to be in books or stone tablets if need be, but then you need a more efficient storage medium.  My younger brother has done research work on this problem of digital media / asset preservation, so I might ask him the next time he's available.  That means using something like M-Disc.  Those should last for a century or more.  If there's a way to use them without resorting to electronics, then they're essentially immortal, sort of like records and record players.  Those have already lasted for more than a century, which is how long it actually took to industrialize.  This entire "there will be no manufacture of anything" is silly.  There will be manufacture of something, food and water at the very least, or there will be no humanity left.

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#9 2023-02-08 10:15:46

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

For kb512 re #8

You are contributing to a thought process that has been going on for a number of years.   Each insight is helpful, but some more so than others.

Regarding your closing point ... humanity rose from humble beginnings without manufacturing.

It is entirely within the realm of possibility that humanity could put itself back into the state it was before manufacturing (as we know it today) was invented.

Rocks were shaped into useful implements by artisans working by themselves.

Small water craft were fashioned by small teams using available materials and tools made of early metal, but it would be incorrect to call that process "manufacturing".

It may be difficult for humans living in the current age to imagine we might put ourselves so far back that "manufacturing" is no longer socially possible.

Your prediction that the number of humans alive on Earth would decrease, if this scenario comes to pass, seems reasonable to me, but I think it is likely that small pockets of humans will persist, well away from major population locations.

It is that small set of humanity for which Dave Z is trying to imagine techniques for passing knowledge from one generation to the next. 

It seems to me that your post #8 contains some interesting ideas that might be worth considering.

The traditional approach to this problem seems to be to make every effort to preserve such books as may survive whatever causes a major collapse.

If your idea were to be considered seriously, some means of copying the contents of books to the storage media you've described would be needed.

Nothing along those lines exists today, as far as I know.  On the ** other ** hand, there are oceans of information I ** don't ** know, and I would be happy to see information about such systems, if they exist.

(th)

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#10 2023-02-08 11:52:00

kbd512
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

tahanson43206,

Small water craft were fashioned by small teams using available materials and tools made of early metal, but it would be incorrect to call that process "manufacturing".

It's not "mass manufacturing in a purpose-built factory", if that's what you actually meant, but "artisanal manufacturing", known today as "small business", is how / why America is / was so successful, before and after the industrial revolution.

The British had the "Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield", a singular facility that produced most of their small arms during the transition to mass manufacturing in a purpose-built small arms factory that made most of the small arms during the Victorian Age, like the Martini-Henry and Magazine / Short Magazine Lee-Enfield series of rifles.  America had Colt, Winchester, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and a slew of other much smaller "factories", in addition to some government arsenals like Springfield Armory / Rock Island Arsenal / Watervliet Arsenal.  Colt made some of the first pseudo mass-manufactured machines using pseudo-interchangeable parts.  Eventually, Colt did produce firearms with interchangeable parts, and his business model was "fake it until you make it".  Eventually, his company did "make it", although IIRC Sam Colt never lived to see it.  His wife did, though, and she ran the business after he died.

America has so many examples of so many different firearms now, that "losing" the ability to make them is virtually impossible.  It's so simple that even things never originally intended to be firearms can be made into firearms from plumbing supplies, assuming all the steel and Iron piping in this world doesn't vanish overnight.  Every part of the manufacturing process has been written down and duplicated.  It's also been done by singular individuals who make everything except the base metals.  This means they actually make their own gunpowder from base chemicals, brass / steel / Aluminum cartridge casings, primers, priming compounds, bullets, sealants.  This is all pretty durable machinery with no computers or electronics or batteries involved.  Stray voltage and gunpowder don't mix well.

It may be difficult for humans living in the current age to imagine we might put ourselves so far back that "manufacturing" is no longer socially possible.

Since we were making things in large quantities for the past several thousand years, you'd probably have to take humanity back to a time before they had opposable thumbs.  Beyond that, you can't simply "wish away" all the stuff that's already been built.

If your idea were to be considered seriously, some means of copying the contents of books to the storage media you've described would be needed.

If we store enough books on CD-ROMs and burn enough copies, then no, you don't.  You can revert back to using paper until you re-establish the ability to make new computers and CD-ROM drives.  In point of fact, you can make electro-mechanical daisy wheel printers that use the data stored on the CD-ROMs to print new copies of books.  The process to turn input digital signals into printed characters using IBM Selectric typewriters has been described in quite some detail.  I have an IBM Selectric.  I also own manual typewriters.

I could modify an existing IBM typewriter to print using very simple circuitry that could be duplicated without using what you normally think of as "electronic components", if need be.  I do need Copper wiring / Iron / glass, but there's plenty of that.  It would have to run at higher voltages and it would be less efficient than a modern fully electronic printer, but it would still work.  If we had to have a hamster running on a wheel to power the contraption, then we could still do it.  And no, we wouldn't be mining our own metals to do it, because the metal to do it already exists.  Ink is finely powdered carbon mixed with water or oil, when last I checked, so I think I could even figure out that part of it, but I'll brush up on my ink knowledge later.

If your idea were to be considered seriously, some means of copying the contents of books to the storage media you've described would be needed.

Wrong.  Reversing the process isn't necessary unless everyone has a computer.  Unless all the existing machines magically vanish, then it's safe to say that we can find and even make another one.

Nothing along those lines exists today, as far as I know.  On the ** other ** hand, there are oceans of information I ** don't ** know, and I would be happy to see information about such systems, if they exist.

Systems to copy books without electronics?

Google "mimeograph machine".  IIRC, the original patents go back to 1897.  The machines our school had did not contain any electronics.  Some were hand-operated, so they weren't even electrical.  One of the great benefits of a good memory and sense of history, as well as a little bit of age, is that I remember the world before computerization.

01_mimeograph_4x3.jpg

All this make-believe is fine, and using your imagination is fun, but why not solve an actual current problem here or there?

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#11 2023-02-08 13:55:40

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

For kbd512 re post #10

I've notified Dave Z you are thinking about the problem posed by Dr. Dartnell.

Your fresh approach may be helpful.  I hope so!  The problem at hand is a global economy that is totally seized up.  No electricity. No ships. No airplanes. No railroads. No automobiles (after gas supplies are exhausted). No Internet.  No automation of any kind.

Your suggestions will (hopefully) generate some interest in the (generally gloomy) prepper community.

(th)

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#12 2023-02-08 16:08:54

kbd512
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

tahanson43206,

It's a make-believe problem that doesn't exist.  Back in the real world, we have an economy, global or not, we have electricity and running water, we have cars / trucks / trains / planes galore.  We have advanced medical treatment, too.

I sincerely doubt most preppers have ever thought about mass distribution of information.  Many of those people think the Bible is the only book you need.

That said, I know how to make a radio that requires no batteries (and made several of them as a kid, which to my shock actually worked- with the caveat that it requires a really long antenna wire to function; spoiler alert, the battery powered ones are more usable if portability matters at all), so...

I did have to read a book that taught me how to do it, because there was no internet.  Somehow, we managed just fine without the internet.  It was actually a whole series of books (purchased from Radio Shack) now that I think about it, some of which contained advanced math (for a 6-year old).  Radioman A School still taught radio theory and Morse Code when I was there in 1998, but I've no idea what they teach now.

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#13 2023-02-09 03:05:49

kbd512
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

tahanson43206,

I almost forgot about the Hectograph and Ditto machines.  Those were also popular.  However, that good old mimeograph was there to save the day if the teacher forgot to print out enough copies before class.  One of us would go to the Principal's Office to print out our worksheets.

Some were motorized, some were hand-crank.

Exploriso: Low Tech Fine Art

The 20th century

From the 20th century (circa 1900), there were two types of equipment in use: In addition to single-drum machines there were also two-drum machines. The one-drum devices could, even if one does not suspect it, print multicolored by the fact that the color drums were interchangeable—in the lower cabinets of the devices the unused inking units could be stored. In 1910, 200,000 mimeographs were in operation, by 1940, this number rose to 500,000.

In his publication “Office Duplicating,” which was printed on a mimeograph by A. B. Dick in 1939, George H. Miller wrote: “There is little doubt that stencil duplicating in America owes its rapid and widespread growth to the Mimeograph machines and stencils as developed by the A.B. Dick Company.”

In 1923, the spirit duplicator was invented by William Ritzerfeld, and distributed as “Ditto machine” in the USA, “Banda machine” in the United Kingdom or “Roneo” in France and Australia. The term “spirit duplicator” was used because because it refers to the alcohols which were needed as major component in the solvents that were used as “inks” within the machine. In order to duplicate an original, first of all, as with all other methods, a template was made. In this case a sprit master or master sheet could be typed, drawn, or written upon. This color-treated master was placed on a special foil containing an alcohol-soluble wax that had been impregnated with one of a variety of colorants. The pressure of writing or typing on the first sheet transferred the colored wax from the second sheet to the shiny/coated back side of the first sheet, producing a mirror image. This produced the same result of a sheet of carbon paper put in backwards. The two sheets were then separated, and the first sheet was fastened onto the drum of the machine, with the back side facing out, acting as a printing plate. There is no separate ink used in spirit duplication, as the wax transferred to the back side of the first sheet contained the ink. As the paper to be printed moved through the printer, the solvent was spread across each sheet by an absorbent wick. When the solvent-impregnated paper came into contact with the back side of the first sheet, it dissolved just enough of the pigmented wax to print the image onto the paper as it went under the printing drum.

As with mimeographs and later risograph printers, the quality of the prints was rather limited, and the use of documents printed with the spirit printer was severely limited in time as the color of the prints quickly faded. Thus, this method was not suitable for archival purposes. The costs were very low and the spirit printer was therefore used by schools, associations, churches and other smaller organizations for printing, also because of the usable, very inferior and thus cheap paper. Spirit printers, like the other duplication methods, gradually began to be used less frequently and were eventually retrieved in 1970 and replaced by the more favorable and higher-volume printing process of Xerography.

...

Even in times of tablets, e-mail and smartphones, the global production of paper and cardboard stood at approximately 420 million metric tons in 2018, compared to 390 metric tons back in 2007. According to the German Pulp and Paper Association, Germany produces about 22 073 tons of paper every year. Besides being used for packaging and consumables, the scope of application extends to magazines and books. There is still a difference in how printed publications are haptically perceived in contrast to digital ones. It goes without saying that printed information, not only regarding education, is absorbed more easily. High quality paper is of utmost importance especially for publications printed with a risograph. Furthermore, a delicately designed publication printed with extravagant colours emphasises the importance of printed products available in physical form. About 9500 tons of the paper being used up in Germany every year are so-called “graphic papers”. That equals 43%, which is slightly below the world average of 43%. The main requirements of graphic papers are tear resistance, printability and good colour reproduction, which is why they are mainly used for printing newspapers and books. Graphic papers can be divided into two classes: wood-free papers and wood-containing papers. Wood-free papers are mainly composed of pulp and may contain a maximum of 5% woody fibres, while wood-containing papers consist of different percentages of mechanical pulp, turn yellow faster and are therefore more likely to be used for fast-moving products such as newspapers.

The link goes on and on and on if you keep scrolling down the page, explaining the evolution of various printing / reproduction technologies in use from the 20th century onwards.  It's both beautifully done and concise.  Whomever created that web page and site deserves an entire case of beer.  It's definitely German.

VintageComputer.ca - Escon Kit that converts an IBM Selectric into a printer

From 2011:

IBM Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Selectric Typewriter

(PresseBox) (Armonk, 07/27/2011) The IBM (NYSE: IBM) Selectric typewriter turns 50 on July 31, commemorating a design icon that revolutionized the day-to-day lives of office workers around the world. The Selectric's half-century birthday coincides with IBM's Centennial year and the release of a new U.S. postage stamp honoring the Selectric as an icon of design.

The IBM Selectric became an instant sensation upon its debut on July 31,1961, and remained the typewriter found on most office desks until the brand was retired 25 years later, in 1986. With 2,800 parts, many designed from scratch, it was a major undertaking even for IBM, which had been in the typewriter business since the 1930s and was already a market leader. The Selectric marked a radical change from previous typewriter designs, and it took IBM seven years to work out the manufacturing and design challenges before it went on sale.

The Selectric typewriter was a game-changer in many ways:

- Its unique "golf ball' head allowed typists' fingers to fly across the keyboard at unprecedented speed. An expert typist could clock 90 words per minute versus 50 with a traditional electric typewriter.
- The golf ball moved across the page, making it the first typewriter to eliminate carriage return and reducing its footprint on office desks.
- Interchangeable golf balls equipped with different fonts, italics, scientific notations and other languages could easily be swapped in.
- With magnetic tape for storing characters added in 1964, the Selectric became the first (albeit analog) word-processor device.

The Selectric also formed the basis for early computer terminals and paved the way for keyboards to emerge as the primary way for people to interact with computers, as opposed to pressing buttons or levers. A modified Selectric could be plugged into IBM's System/360 computer, enabling engineers and researchers to interact with their computers in new ways.

"The Selectric typewriter, from its design to its functionality, was an innovation leader for its time and revolutionized the way people recorded information," said Linda Sanford, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation, IBM, who was a development engineer on the Selectric. "Nearly two decades before computers were introduced, the Selectric laid the foundation for word-processing applications that boosted efficiency and productivity, and it inspired many user-friendly features in computers that we take for granted today."

The Selectric's elegant, curvaceous form was a hallmark of IBM's industrial design and product innovation. It was created by Eliot Noyes, the famed architect and industrial designer who served as IBM's consulting designer for 21 years. The Selectric is featured in the new "Pioneers of American Industrial Design" stamp series from the U.S Postal Service, which cites Noyes as among 12 important industrial designers who helped shape the look of everyday American life in the 20th century. The stamp displays Noyes' name and an image of the typewriter.

A Bellweather of Corporate Design

Design has long been a tenet of corporate culture at IBM, whose Chairman Thomas J. Watson, Jr. declared that "good design is good business." Watson hired Noyes in 1956 as design consultant, and together they created the first corporate design program that would shape thinking around corporate design and culture for decades to come. The program encompassed IBM's products, buildings, logo and marketing material. Noyes brought in a wide variety of artists, designers and architects - including Paul Rand, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Isamu Noguchi -- who created many lasting icons of corporate design, from the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., to IBM's instantly-recognizable eight-bar logo.

"IBM has always believed that corporate design has to be purposeful," said Lee Green, vice president of Brand Experience and Strategic Design at IBM. "Design is not about cosmetics and decoration. It's about reflecting all aspects of our brand, from the solutions we provide to clients, to the corporate culture and values that permeate our organization."

I have to admit that there's something very appealing to me about the world before computers as we know them today.  A car was still "just a car", a refrigerator wasn't monitoring what you purchased last week and automatically reordering it without telling you.  Sometimes I think I was born displaced in time.  Where in time do I actually belong?  I honestly don't know, but it's not here.

Looking at the IBM Selectric sitting on my desk next to this computer, there's something about it that no computer replicates.  The noise that motor makes, the way the lubricant oil smells, the way it feels while typing...  Even my daughter recognizes that there's something special about it.  I need a computer that replicates the beauty of that 60 pound chunk of finely machined steel.  That machine appeals to me in the exact same way that my M1903 Springfield or M1 Garand or old Colt revolvers, or cast Iron Chrysler engines do.  If you've never owned or at least used one, then you're missing a part of your humanity.  It's not perfect and it's not the most efficient thing we can conceivably make using unlimited time and money, but it was made with human hands by someone who for damn sure knew what they were doing.  It's an extension of humanity, proof that we existed and could use our ingenuity to make fantastically complex things with the hands and minds we were born with.  Explicit detail was not required.  It's not some cold and lifeless artifact created by another computerized machine.  The various minor imperfections are part of its beauty and what makes it unique amongst its many similar but not precisely the same copies.  It neatly encapsulates the humanity of its makers and current caretaker.

Upon reconsideration, maybe there is a point to what Dave Z is attempting to do, so long as he's not trying to live in the past.  The world that created those artifacts is gone, because the people who created them are long since dead and gone.  We could not recreate them because we would needlessly fixate on the minor imperfections not present in our current technology.  So long as our children remember who created these machines and why, their humanity lives on and they are not forgotten.

In our quest to continually create new technology which is increasingly beyond any one person's understanding, we'd do well to remember our humanity, to ask who and to what purpose our fantastic new technology serves.  Does it serve us well or are we all beholden to it?  If it did disappear, however slowly or swiftly, would we get on without it?

It's an interesting question, however remote the possibility happens to be.

Do we actually need to solve this puzzle, or is it another passing curiosity?

Time is not infinite.  What other problems are we not solving by spending time on this one?

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#14 2023-02-09 11:36:33

Mars_B4_Moon
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Posts: 8,893

Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

When I came across books inside a second hand store in physics, electronics, chemistry, I always enjoyed the practical military effective simple explanations, when I got old British books there was somerthing 'stuffy' in the language like you were also getting a lesson in history or language, they added more confusion and mysticism to a subject rather than make it more simple. In an older topic we had a discussion, what happens to knowledge, language and culture. I talked to many people who did not enjoy English in school even though they were English speakers. Some enjoyed Huckleberry " Huck " Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain even if it is considered 'controversial' today, Dickens, Shakespeare, some liked Harper Lee or Homer's Odyssey or J. D. Salinger and others found them 'boring' what do you do when your language and culture goes so far removed from its origin, how do you culturally stay in touch with people and remain relevant. The world was different in the past, it will be different in the far future. People today get much of their culture and entertainment from video games, there is one game called Fallout a post Apocalypse Mad Max type world with old tech laying around, steam punk, clockwork, computers, punch cards, type writers and some engines and nuclear devices still working, one is a Robot called Mr Handy. an incredibly popular model, used by government agencies, private companies, and individual citizens across the United States, it is one of these robots teachers that still survives in a Post-Apocalypse video game universe. One question was if your Space Empire breaks down then How to send a Letter or Email after 100 plus years of Lost Contact. Then after a thousand years more, how would you pass on a message to a more simple population,  'Don't Dig Here Hazardous Waste'.

Art and the Printing press was a useful way of sending information before the internet, in fact 'Art' might have been a better and earlier form of communication than language.

SpaceNut and Tahanson discussed scifi speculation and science fiction, how to you warn a people who have almost de-evolved into cavemen to stay away from a danger? In science fiction there is a story AI systems that were well developed at the time descendants of man from long ago dispersed over the entire planet, and they adopted very different customs, but the common thread of the AI teaches, it stops communication break downs and devices kept the descendants from straying too far from whatever the human language. We had the topic of radiation and pulsars, in our 'dead internet' discussion we talked of old devices like 'vinyl' because eventual micro circuits will break, Kbd512 talked of harder machines because it happens the universe is  unkind to microelectronics and data storage. Over time stuff will decay due to some molecular-level damage caused by powerful radiation storms created from supernova events, maybe in the future nano tech might self repair with its own greyish gray goo but for now we have our real limits. Supernova events continue happening and cosmic rays won't "go away", yet these changes happen on timescales well beyond a human lifetime, maybe one day we could have a thousand year old hardened living robot that simply archives and teaches for future generations.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-02-09 11:40:03)

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#15 2023-11-08 07:44:55

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

I came here today to remind NewMars members that Dr. Dartnell has kindly provided a place for NewMars members to look for updates when NewMars goes down, as has happened twice in the current Earth year.

However, this visit provided an opportunity to re-read posts by kbd512 (about the IBM Selectric typewriter) and by Mars_B4_Moon, about stuffy British history and other (many other ) topics.

SearchTerm:Selectric typewriter IBM 50th anniversary

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this topic. 

The link for situations when NewMars is down is;
http://discuss.the-knowledge.org/viewto … 4719#p4719

I'd like to point out that the link will not be available when NewMars is down, so if a member wants to be able to visit the site, it would make sense to bookmark the link.

My intention is to provide updates for NewMars members as soon as I become aware of an outage.

(th)

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#16 2024-01-11 07:16:21

tahanson43206
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

This post is from discuss.the-knowledge.org
It shows links and provides an overview of a concept in development for rebooting civilization.
It should be applicable to the Mars situation:

Global Village Construction Set Concept
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Global Village Construction Set Concept
Postby Dave Z » Wed Jan 10, 2024 11:40 pm

The Global Village Construction Set

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost set of blueprints that enables fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts. The name, GVCS, has been coined for the [project]... [O]ur Vision [is] collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance.

-- From the GVCS Wiki


The GVCS concept was introduced by Marcin Jakubowski in 2003, and its goals reframed in 2019. It's principle aspects include:

Open source designs
Off-the-shelf components
'Tinker'-level assembly
Modularity (allows tools to be combined and/or used with others)
Boot-strap approach
Prioritized Design / Develop / Prototype / Completion schedule


Related Links:

GVCS Introductory Video: https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubo … vilization
GVCS Wiki: https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki … uction_Set

*****

The GVCS was not intended for extraterrestrial development, but I think the approach bears adaptation / emulation. In particular, open-source design, modularity from standardized components and between tools, 'tinker'-level assembly and boot-strapping would pair well with pioneer efforts.

Dave Z
Blogging at http://triloboats.blogspot.com and http://teotwurbulence.blogspot.com
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#17 2024-01-18 11:13:39

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
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Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

The next meeting of the North Houston NSS chapter is this coming Saturday, January 20th.

The presentation will be by a member of the Axiom Space Station project team. Her focus is on life support for the station.

Building Axiom Station – Megan Yang from Axiom Space @ Barbara Bush Library on Saturday, January 20, 2024 at 2PM
[Note: This is the 3rd Saturday in January. Because of library holiday schedule, we moved the meeting]

Join us for our Monthly NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) meeting. Connect with others who are excited about exploring the cosmos, learning how to use the resources of space to improve human life, and who want to go and spread humanity to the rest of the universe.

This will be a hybrid meeting. Come in person at Barbara Bush Library (6817 Cypresswood Drive, Spring, TX 77379) or join us online Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

The meeting will be on Saturday, January 20, 2024 at 2PM (US Central Time).

2:00 PM – Opening Remarks
2:15 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:45 PM – Featured Speaker: Building Axiom Station – Megan Yang – Axiom Space
3:40 PM – Socializing
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

About Our Featured Presentation: Building Axiom Station

This will be a hybrid meeting. Come in person at Barbara Bush Library (6817 Cypresswood Drive, Spring, TX 77379) or join us online Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

The meeting will be on Saturday, January 20, 2024 at 2PM (US Central Time).
About Our Featured Speaker: Megan Yang

Megan Yang’s family immigrated to the US from Taiwan in 1999.
She followed in her father’s footsteps as an engineer and majored in chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, then moved to Houston after graduation.

At Axiom Space, Megan is the Environmental Control and Life Support System  Water Accumulation and Treatment Assembly  Group Lead, where she oversees hardware design for the water system that recycles astronaut urine, sweat, and condensate, and turning them back to clean water for various crew use, including for drinking. In this role, she provides technical input and oversight of her group’s project scope, cost, and schedule.

About the Meeting
Meetings are open to all age groups and interest levels. Come explore with us the potential that developing and exploring space has to better life here on earth and to open up new frontiers creating new perspectives that can help enrich the human experience.

The Vision of NSS is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

The Mission of NSS is to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity. Accordingly, we support steps toward this goal, including human spaceflight, commercial space development, space exploration, space applications, space resource utilization, robotic precursors, defense against asteroids, relevant science, and space settlement oriented education.

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#18 2024-01-21 07:40:54

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,755

Re: discuss.the-knowledge.org forum

The link below is to a post in the Knowledge forum.

http://discuss.the-knowledge.org/viewto … =11&t=2194

The post contains links to several topics, including a YouTube list about travels on the waterways in Alaska.

The series is not directly space related, but it may be of interest to someone who would like to learn more about Alaska.

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