On 09/05/2024 09.14, James Nicoll wrote:
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
Forget planned obsolescence--the creators of these enduring technological
marvels built them to last (for better or worse).
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-novels-about-rediscovering-ancient-tech/
I think that Sea Wasp's _Grand Central Arena_ would qualify here. It's a
big dumb object that sucks in space ships from various species (including
H. Sap) to a situation which leads to combat/dueling.
I don't know if its age is speculated on in the sequels, which I have not
yet read, but it gives the impression of being pretty darn old.
<https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?34912>
On 5/9/2024 9:14 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
Forget planned obsolescence--the creators of these enduring technological
marvels built them to last (for better or worse).
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-novels-about-rediscovering-ancient-tech/
And of course I read the excellent "Galactic Derelict" by Andre Norton.
And this list desperately needs:
1. the awesome "Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber
2. "Ancient Shores" by Jack McDevitt
3. The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey
Lynn
James Nicoll wrote:
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient TechI am currently being cooled by a fan which is several years older than >Voyager. Admittedly not such advanced technology, but a mere household
Forget planned obsolescence--the creators of these enduring technological
marvels built them to last (for better or worse).
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-novels-about-rediscovering-ancient-tech/
item. And it is one of a pair. Which leads me to wonder, just how long >could simple machines work, if we actually built them with longevity in
mind?
On 5/9/2024 9:14 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
Forget planned obsolescence--the creators of these enduring technological
marvels built them to last (for better or worse).
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-novels-about-rediscovering-ancient-tech/
And of course I read the excellent "Galactic Derelict" by Andre Norton.
And this list desperately needs:
1. the awesome "Mutineer's Moon" by David Weber
2. "Ancient Shores" by Jack McDevitt
3. The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey
I am currently being cooled by a fan which is several years older than >Voyager. Admittedly not such advanced technology, but a mere household
item. And it is one of a pair. Which leads me to wonder, just how long >could simple machines work, if we actually built them with longevity in
mind?
Fans bought since then have rarely lasted more than five years. I do
have a Honeywell which lasted eight and still could be fixed if I could
only open it up - or so I think.
On Thu, 9 May 2024 16:01:15 -0400, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
wrote:
I am currently being cooled by a fan which is several years older than >>Voyager. Admittedly not such advanced technology, but a mere household >>item. And it is one of a pair. Which leads me to wonder, just how long >>could simple machines work, if we actually built them with longevity in >>mind?
Fans bought since then have rarely lasted more than five years. I do
have a Honeywell which lasted eight and still could be fixed if I could >>only open it up - or so I think.
Good question though I have a 3-position pole lamp in my living room
that was used in my parents' home some 50+ years ago that hasn't
required any work other than changing light bulbs (we're now using the
newer mini-fluorescents rather than the old incandescents but nothing
else is changed). I have a 30+ year old pair of lamps in my bed room.
No doubt others here have older gear than that.
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-novels-about-rediscovering-ancient-tech/
On 2024-05-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
So, like the car in /The World's End/, it is the same in one sense,
and yet not in another since almost everything has been replaced.
Aka "Ship of Theseus". People have been philosophizing about this
for at least two millennia.
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
So, like the car in /The World's End/, it is the same in one sense,
and yet not in another since almost everything has been replaced.
Aka "Ship of Theseus". People have been philosophizing about this
for at least two millennia.
In the 1660s, the UK parliament passed an act requiring the navy to
build a certain number of ships of the line. These were duly built.
But the technology of wooden warships was advancing. These ships were
getting less viable in the line of battle, as French and Spanish ships
were getting significantly larger.
The natural thing to do would be to scrap these elderly ships and build
new ones, but their existence was required by an act of parliament, and
their scrapping would be illegal.
So the ships were "rebuilt". Disassembled to piles of wood, with as
much as possible of the same wood used to create a larger ship of the
same class (so a 60 gun ship from 1750 would be much larger than one
from 1670 despite having the same rating (though they stated to call
them 64s about that time)).
Some ship were subject to several rebuilds, so there was only a
homeopathic amount of the original timber remaining. But it was still >legally the same ship.
William Hyde
So, like the car in /The World's End/, it is the same in one sense,
and yet not in another since almost everything has been replaced.
On 5/14/2024 3:47 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:I've read that there was a medieval idea that all the material in
So, like the car in /The World's End/, it is the same in one sense,
and yet not in another since almost everything has been replaced.
Aka "Ship of Theseus". People have been philosophizing about this
for at least two millennia.
a human's body was replaced over 7 years, and that this is where
the notion that 21 should be the age of majority came from.
On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_ (1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
[stuff deleted]
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_
(1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower, >chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas
goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has
not been treated, it will not start the saw.
I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.
Would water have
somehow collected in the gas tank under the gasoline? Would the gas be
so "flat" that it would not run?
BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:
On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
[stuff deleted]
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_
(1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas
goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has
not been treated, it will not start the saw.
I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.
Well, I can vouch for 4 year old gas - we just started the
'74 450SL in the barn which hadn't been started since
March 2020 - all it took was a new battery and it purred
like a 70's kitten.
I've heard anecdotally that modern gas doesn't deterioriate
as quickly as it used to.
Would water have
somehow collected in the gas tank under the gasoline? Would the gas be
so "flat" that it would not run?
It likely depends on how full the tank is/was
and how much headspace there is to produce condensation
and whether it is vented.
On 5/15/24 13:22, Scott Lurndal wrote:
BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:
On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
[stuff deleted]
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_ >>>> (1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas
goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has
not been treated, it will not start the saw.
I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.
Well, I can vouch for 4 year old gas - we just started the
'74 450SL in the barn which hadn't been started since
March 2020 - all it took was a new battery and it purred
like a 70's kitten.
Interesting. Was this a gasoline or diesel Mercedes? I think diesel
lasts longer.
Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:
On 5/15/24 13:22, Scott Lurndal wrote:
BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:
On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
[stuff deleted]
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_ >>>>>> (1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages. >>>>>> No flat batteries there.
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have >>>>> gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the >>>>> gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas >>>>> goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has >>>>> not been treated, it will not start the saw.
I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.
Well, I can vouch for 4 year old gas - we just started the
'74 450SL in the barn which hadn't been started since
March 2020 - all it took was a new battery and it purred
like a 70's kitten.
Interesting. Was this a gasoline or diesel Mercedes? I think diesel
lasts longer.
Gasoline. The tank was close to full.
Every year, I have to mothball my lawn tractor and my snowblower (at
opposite times,
obviously). Current practice is to add some gas preserver (isopropyl >alcohol), and fill
up the tank.
Filling reduces the headspace, and so the amount of humid air to condense >water
out of, and the preserver allows what water does get in to dissolve into
the gas,
rather than sink to the bottom .
On 15/05/2024 14.03, BCFD 36 wrote:
On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_
(1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
No flat batteries there.
Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the
gas goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and
has not been treated, it will not start the saw.
Interesting. I've never added any preservative, yet my chainsaw always started,
even when I went a year or more between uses. Just out of curiosity, did
your
saw require a gas-oil mix as mine did? Maybe the oil acted as a
preservative
for the gas.
| Often SF authors imagine that working alien relics will turn out
| to be doomsday devices.
_Forbidden Planet_. Well, not intended as such.
Would the Blight from _A Fire Upon the Deep_ count, or is "ancient tech" implicitly hardware?
On 5/14/2024 3:47 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
On 2024-05-14, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:I've read that there was a medieval idea that all the material in
So, like the car in /The World's End/, it is the same in one sense,
and yet not in another since almost everything has been replaced.
Aka "Ship of Theseus". People have been philosophizing about this
for at least two millennia.
a human's body was replaced over 7 years, and that this is where
the notion that 21 should be the age of majority came from.
Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
Forget planned obsolescence--the creators of these enduring
technological marvels built them to last (for better or worse).
There's a belief in an indestructible bone of
the human body. Specifically, this is mentioned
by Judaism and Islam - with or without being
official - but apparently not in Christianity. ><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luz_%28bone%29>
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