The Round Stable

Would the library of Alexandria be nearly as famous or as significant if it hadn't burned down?

Just thinking it'd probably still be abandoned and crusty by this point, making it a place with maybe a handful of un-looted and intact works for people to read, and they'd probably be some really dull intellectual treatises of their time. Rather than being the cool mystery that it is today, if the library had remained maybe it'd just be this somewhat known archaeological site that's popular among history nerds for being the source of some documents.

Libraries are for nerds

Where flaming ruins are badass.

I was at a dollar store today and there was a kid in front of me buying birthday cards. I don't know what the dispute was (maybe the kid was unclear about whether the cards came with the envelopes?) but I overheard his mother saying that if he got an envelope he didn't pay for then he would have stolen an envelope and they would call the police and the kid would go to jail for stealing an envelope.

We should pronounce envelope and Penelope the same way. We should change one, I don’t care which.

Mechanical Ape wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:35 pm

We should pronounce envelope and Penelope the same way. We should change one, I don’t care which.

When I was a kid, I used to think that the latter was pronounced like the former.

West Filly wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 9:18 am

Would the library of Alexandria be nearly as famous or as significant if it hadn't burned down?

Just thinking it'd probably still be abandoned and crusty by this point, making it a place with maybe a handful of un-looted and intact works for people to read, and they'd probably be some really dull intellectual treatises of their time. Rather than being the cool mystery that it is today, if the library had remained maybe it'd just be this somewhat known archaeological site that's popular among history nerds for being the source of some documents.

It's possible we'd be much more advanced technologically if it didn't burn down. Same thing goes for if the fall of Rome never happened.

Octavia wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:39 pm

It's possible we'd be much more advanced technologically if it didn't burn down. Same thing goes for if the fall of Rome never happened.

When America falls in the next 50-100 years, do you think China will have stolen enough of our tech to avoid this particular fate?

Spaceship Earth taught me that the important stuff in the Library of Alexandria wasn't lost because the Arabs had copied it down, and they took up the mantle of making advancements at that point. And if you can't trust a theme park ride to teach you accurate history, who can you trust?

Pocket wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 11:14 pm

Spaceship Earth taught me that the important stuff in the Library of Alexandria wasn't lost because the Arabs had copied it down, and they took up the mantle of making advancements at that point. And if you can't trust a theme park ride to teach you accurate history, who can you trust?

We're whalers on the moon!

West Filly wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 6:32 pm

Where flaming ruins are badass.

well, yeah

Octavia wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:39 pm

It's possible we'd be much more advanced technologically if it didn't burn down. Same thing goes for if the fall of Rome never happened.

It's something I hear a lot when people talk about the Antikythera mechanism. Its intricate gearing isn't just a wonderful and useful mathematical device, it also shows the kind of tooling and machinery required to kickstart the mercantile/imperial age and the subsequent industrial revolution.

I'm not sure, myself. If you think about how long people have had electrical generators kicking about as an academic item and how long it took for that to become something more than just a showpiece, I'm inclined to say that just because the Greeks could gear doesn't mean they were set to build factories before the end of the first millennium. There's sometimes a huge inexplicable gap between knowledge, prototyping and then full implementation.

This is why I'd love it if someone ever produced a real-life "tech tree" showing all of humanity's important scientific advancements and what the prerequisites were. Alternate history is full of "what if we had invented X earlier?"s but it's probably always done without regard for whether it would actually have been possible.

From what I understand, the major thing that enabled the industrial revolution was the concept of mechanical tolerance and interchangeable parts. If you took a dozen 18th century rifles, took them apart, mixed them up, and put them back together again, you'd be lucky if any of them could fire.

Each part of a machine was built to work with the other parts that had been made. Once parts were built to a specification instead, you could crank out a hundred of them on a line and not worry about which went where.

Sometimes tech is based more on societal changes or even dumb luck, it seems.

Like the wheelbarrow arrives on the scene surprisingly late (in Europe, around 1000 AD!) for something so simple and agriculturally handy. It feels as if the wheelbarrow’s a thing that could have been invented almost any time in human history, and just ... wasn’t, I guess?

Unless there’s some reason in the history of agriculture for wheelbarrows to not have been useful until a certain point.

I suppose a lot of inventions are labor-saving devices and maybe in an era where there’s labor to spare (due to slavery/serfdom/Pharaohs), there’s just not much demand.

every time Aria posts, I'm reminded that I drew Steven Universe and his lion in Johnny Test style

Aria will not let me escape my sins, I appreciate that

Perrydotto wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 9:21 pm

every time Aria posts, I'm reminded that I drew Steven Universe and his lion in Johnny Test style

Aria will not let me escape my sins, I appreciate that

I'd say I should change my signature to that picture of me and Fontra, but I have a brand to uphold.

The best thing is that timeline of things Ireland invented, and then whisky happened, and it was, like, fucking nothing for 300 years.

This time next week I'm moving cross country and the idea that theres this long stretch of land I'll be going across that I've never seen before is just kind of surreal.

Juju&Lulu wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 12, 2018 1:55 pm

This time next week I'm moving cross country and the idea that theres this long stretch of land I'll be going across that I've never seen before is just kind of surreal.

It's a huge trip. My parents just came back from California and they spent about six days driving. They only spent about eight hours on the road each day, and could've done it faster if they took turns driving for 12-plus hours each day, but still it's a long trip.

I drove from Boston to Los Angeles with a U-Haul in 4 days when I graduated from college.

Boston to Chicago day 1, Chicago to Colorado Springs day 2, Colorado Springs to Las Vegas day 3, then Las Vegas to Los Angeles day 4. I had the valet at Caesar's Palace park my giant truck with all my stuff in it.

Colorado and Arizona are the two prettiest states to drive through, imo.

Yeah we've got 2 trips mapped out: 1 for 12 hrs of driving a day and 1 for 10 hrs of driving.

You know how at the beginning of "Ballroom Blitz", it's just the drummer playing as the four of them are like

"You ready, Steve?" "Uh-huh."
"Andy?" "Yeah."
"Mick?" "Okay!"
"All right, fellas.......... LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!!"

I was suddenly reminded of this when I was watching some people play PUBG, and now I can't unhear it as them readying up for some co-op game, and they all rush into the battlefield on that last line.

AND THE MAN WITH THE EARS
SAID EVERYONE APPEAR
AND IT TURNED INTO A BALLROOM YIFF

I feel like a character from the wrong show, lately.

Like, imagine there's this sitcom, right? And it goes for several seasons, and then suddenly the zombie apocalypse happens, and it's not a joke at all, it's serious, and this is just what the show is about now, and even though all the characters are the same, it's not a sitcom anymore; it's a dead-serious drama.

That's about how I feel any time I read the news. Like my entire life up to a few years ago has ultimately had no point, and now I have to either completely reinvent my character or get written out for being thematically inappropriate.

Allow me to propose that real life has no theme, you need not feel beholden to any script or showrunner, and you have just as much right to impose YOUR presence on the world as the world does to impose its on you.

Taking it fictional, which TV shows changed the most over the course of their run? I.E. started as dark comedy but retooled to full-blown horror, or drama to comedy, or what have you?

Mechanical Ape wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:06 am

Taking it fictional, which TV shows changed the most over the course of their run? I.E. started as dark comedy but retooled to full-blown horror, or drama to comedy, or what have you?

The biggest example I can think of is "Moral Orel". It started off as a edgy comedy poking fun of religion (which fit in perfectly with the rest of the Adult Swim comedy block), but by the final season it turned into a depressing, semi-serious drama.

Oh god yes you’re right, Moral Orel has to be the champ in that regard.

Pocket wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:30 am

I feel like a character from the wrong show, lately.

Like, imagine there's this sitcom, right? And it goes for several seasons, and then suddenly the zombie apocalypse happens, and it's not a joke at all, it's serious, and this is just what the show is about now, and even though all the characters are the same, it's not a sitcom anymore; it's a dead-serious drama.

That's about how I feel any time I read the news. Like my entire life up to a few years ago has ultimately had no point, and now I have to either completely reinvent my character or get written out for being thematically inappropriate.

I know exactly what you mean because I feel the same way.

My only consolation is knowing that as long as I exist, no person can erase me and how I feel about myself, no matter what the law says. If that’s all the consolation I can get, that’s better than nothing.

Madeline wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 23, 2018 9:20 pm

I know exactly what you mean because I feel the same way.

My only consolation is knowing that as long as I exist, no person can erase me and how I feel about myself, no matter what the law says. If that’s all the consolation I can get, that’s better than nothing.

I have your back, Maddie

As long as I exist, no person can erase me and how I feel about myself, no matter what the law says

Frame this post, because it will always be true.
Don't forget you're far from alone.

Fizzbuzz wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:34 pm

When America falls in the next 50-100 years, do you think China will have stolen enough of our tech to avoid this particular fate?

话说天下大势，分久必合，合久必分。
The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. This has been so since antiquity.

I feel like I'm unknowingly surfing the rivers of time, so that when a major Bad Thing happens I narrowly avoid going down that stream and continue down the the one that means life continues. Whether through accident, dumb luck or design I shall never know.

This is why all those predicted apocalypses and cataclysms never actually happen.

At least, I hope this is the case with the chasm of Brexit fast approaching!

Mr. Big wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:55 am

I have your back, Maddie

I am still bad at debating or making arguments without either sounding patronizing or like a clueless doofball

to be fair, I am clueless half the time. I can forget anything important with ease

Communication is hard for everyone (especially in text-only form), some are just better at pretending otherwise. You're fine, try not to overthink or criticize yourself too harshly.

Perrydotto wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:21 pm

Communication is hard for everyone (especially in text-only form), some are just better at pretending otherwise. You're fine, try not to overthink or criticize yourself too harshly.

I’m trying

In unrelated news, I now own a shirt with Sailor Moon on it and it’s rad

Thanks for reading my random thought

oh heck yes Got a picture of the design?

Perrydotto wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 26, 2018 5:04 pm

oh heck yes Got a picture of the design?

I had to go down a size smaller than normal. They’re sized quite large and it hung down a bit more than even a dorm shirt does on me It’s meant to be tucked in, but I don’t need it hanging near my kneecaps to be able to tuck it into my pants