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    #26
    The Romans also had windows fitted with glass in their buildings, btw. Again, that is something I assumed was a much later development. Though stained glass windows in cathedrals ought to have told me it was at least early medieval.

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      #27
      Originally posted by Janik View Post
      The first aeroplane to land on a ship (intentionally or otherwise) did so in January 1911; the first take-off from a ship was in November 1910. OK, in both cases the ship was at anchor, but for reference, The Wright Flyer's historic flight at Kitty Hawk was in December 1903, so only around 7 years prior to the basic proof of principle of aircraft carriers. The first dedicated carrier launched in September 1914 - the HMS Ark Royal (mk I)... though she only carried seaplanes. The first ship we would recognise as a modern carrier, the HMS Argus was a retrofit of a pre-existing ship. She launched as a carrier that could be used for both taking off and landing planes in December 1917. Again, 14 years only from any kind of powered flight being achieved at all. And, um, only a handful of months since the first successful landing on the deck of a ship at motion (not the Argus)... with the pilot who managed that being killed five days later when he tried it again! So a bit of a gamble by the Royal Navy there.

      As an example of how rapidly naval aviation was developed, just look at how substantial the ship is (after centuries of gradual development) compared to the ricketiness of the plane is this photo taken in 1912:-

      Men in the early part of the 20th century didn't seem to value their own lives very much.

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        #28
        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

        Men in the early part of the 20th century didn't seem to value their own lives very much.
        It's probably something that's always contextualised by time and place.

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          #29
          The pilot who died in 1917 trying something deeply speculative does make more sense in the context of an enormous war. Why people were so laissez faire with their lives up to 1912 or so is harder to logic out.

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            #30
            I know that the British Heart Foundation was still reliant on faxes to send van drivers' invoices to regional offices a year or two pre-COVID... because I was usually the one tasked with taking them to the library and paying 25p a sheet to use theirs, making sure to ask for a receipt because not a single expense could be left unaccounted for.

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              #31
              Originally posted by Janik View Post
              The pilot who died in 1917 trying something deeply speculative does make more sense in the context of an enormous war. Why people were so laissez faire with their lives up to 1912 or so is harder to logic out.
              It's not logical, but it is comprehensible. Wartime aside the overall death rate, through disease and accident was higher than it is today. There was no particular expectation of a long life. Secondly Christianity was still widespread and it's tenets believed by the majority of people. Death was generally accepted to be not "the end" in the same sense as it is today, and even had a certain nobility to it.

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                #32
                Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                the overall death rate, through disease and accident was higher than it is today.
                Erm, there are some mathematical issues with this. The population was smaller. People only die once. The average life expectancy might have been lower... but the overall death rate is unlikely to have been - the two pulls (smaller population vs earlier death) are in opposite directions.

                And having gone googling:- Deaths in the UK 2020 | Statista

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Janik View Post
                  Erm, there are some mathematical issues with this. The population was smaller. People only die once. The average life expectancy might have been lower... but the overall death rate is unlikely to have been - the two pulls (smaller population vs earlier death) are in opposite directions.

                  And having gone googling:- Deaths in the UK 2020 | Statista
                  Yeah OK, life expectancy rather than death rate then. In any case mortality, however defined. Especially if still-births and crib deaths are included, many of which would not have been reported.

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                    #34
                    Originally posted by Janik View Post
                    As an example of how rapidly naval aviation was developed, just look at how substantial the ship is (after centuries of gradual development) compared to the ricketiness of the plane is this photo taken in 1912:-
                    The Cosmonauts exhibition at the Science Museum a few years back had on display some Soviet capsules that went to space and back (including the one Valentina Tereshkova flew in, so clearly not just young men being foolhardy); not only were they ridiculously small and cramped, they also looked like they were basically put together with gaffer tape, genuinely flimsier-looking technology than any modern toaster. It's astonishing to me that some people have looked at that Blue Peter-level stuff and gone "yes that's fine, I'll leave the Earth's atmosphere in that"

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                      #35
                      I went to that exhibition, it was great

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                        #36
                        People overestimate their ability to do things in the present as well. That's why we have the Darwin Awards.

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                          #37
                          Teenagers / young adults have always done things that look quite extreme to people our age. I look back at some of the stuff I got up to in my teens and twenties, stuff that I wouldn't dream of doing now, and marvel that I survived.

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                            #38
                            Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post

                            The Cosmonauts exhibition at the Science Museum a few years back had on display some Soviet capsules that went to space and back (including the one Valentina Tereshkova flew in, so clearly not just young men being foolhardy); not only were they ridiculously small and cramped, they also looked like they were basically put together with gaffer tape, genuinely flimsier-looking technology than any modern toaster. It's astonishing to me that some people have looked at that Blue Peter-level stuff and gone "yes that's fine, I'll leave the Earth's atmosphere in that"
                            Wait till you see what the russians fly in today.



                            until 2019 this was pretty much the only way for humans to get to space. This is undignified. And when they crash in the tundra, they are all armed with the traditional soyuz capsule pistols so they can shoot wolves

                            The Gemini capsule mockup on the uss intrepid looks like it was made from a rubbish bin. It was the style of the times

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                              #39
                              Up until I went to Kennedy Space Centre I always wondered if I could handle going into space. As soon as I sat inside one of those capsules, the answer "No" arrived at very high speed as my claustrophobia kicked in.

                              And that was before I considered the fact that I would effectively be strapped to the top of a bomb.

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                                #40
                                That sounds like the day we boarded HMAS Onslow, a submarine at the local Maritime Museum: https://www.sea.museum/whats-on/our-...ne-hmas-onslow. So ludicrously tight I was getting anxious despite the fact we were bobbing safely in a sheltered harbour.

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                                  #41
                                  There's an early missile submarine called the uss growler at the uss intrepid museum and before you enter it, you hove to fit through a "you must be This small" hatch. As a slightly above average sized, late 20th century 17 year old, there was no fucking way I was going to be able to move around inside the ship, given the bending and contortions I needed to go through. I would have been carried out concussed if I had tried.

                                  Within 30 years the russians would have a gym and a sauna on their typhoon class submarines, and enough missiles to wipe out every city over a million people in the US. Now that's progress

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                    Can't recount the details without googling, but there are apparently piers that are thousands of years old made of lava-based concrete which actually gets harder with exposure to salt water.


                                    Volcanic ash...not lava.... https://newatlas.com/roman-concrete-...eawater/50343/

                                    I remember watching a TV programme a few years ago which mentioned the astonishing properties of pozzolana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzolana

                                    As for fax machines, up until a few years ago at least the asset management company I used to work for did occasionally have to fax instructions to custodian banks when an authorised signature was required. Electronic signatures were being grudgingly accepted by some of them but it was a slow process, as indeed was the painful job of trying to get the documents to send in their entirety. There's nothing like a pending deadline and a repeated NOT SENT message on a fax machine window or print out!

                                    When I was in Toronto in early 1995 I met a couple of Mrs. NS's friends. One was planning to come over to London to do a masters or something at the LSE (the further education institution rather than the local stock exchange) and her husband, an IT contractor, was quizzing me about the sort of society he'd be moving to for a year. "Do you," he said, "have fax machines in England?" That was had they arrived in the country rather than been phased out. I was, of course, able to reassure him.

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                                      #43
                                      Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                      There's an early missile submarine called the uss growler

                                      Ah, one of the short-lived genitalia-class of submarines, along with USS Todger and USS Ballbag.

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post


                                        It's not logical, but it is comprehensible. Wartime aside the overall death rate, through disease and accident was higher than it is today. There was no particular expectation of a long life. Secondly Christianity was still widespread and it's tenets believed by the majority of people. Death was generally accepted to be not "the end" in the same sense as it is today, and even had a certain nobility to it.
                                        Well there's always the case of Calvin coolidge Jr, who forgot to put on his socks when playing a game of tennis against his brother in the white house, got a blister, and died of sepsis a week later. He was only 16, and had access to the best medical care in the world. so these people all walked around with the strong sense that death could suddenly and randomly sweep them away because they bumped into something, or cut themselves. A friend of mine showed me a load of photos of his great grandad flying planes off the first carriers. I have no fucking idea how he survived being a pilot long enough, to make it through the first world war, and then go on to survive this wild bullshit. He would later be invited by DeValera to come to ireland and set up a hosiery factory during our period of self sufficiency. I suppose it was a welcome change of pace.

                                        I'm very impressed at theh rather wild abandon of the early 20th century naval arms races. Sailing ships didn't really change very much until the Royal navy decided to make every ship in the world obsolete (including their own) in 1860 with HMS Warrior, it took another 45 years for them to repeat the trick building HMS Dreadnought, and while they were spending unimaginable sums of money building dreadnoughts, and super-dreadnoughts, they were already working on making those obsolete, in what must have seemed to have been the wildest and most implausible way possible. It's also impressive the degree to which pretty much every navy went all in on these aircraft carriers from such an early stage, even when quite frankly the planes would all be shit until the middle of the second world war.

                                        Then again by the time of pearl harbour the Royal navy had sunk a large proportion of the italian fleet at anchor, and crippled the bismarck with something that looked like this.

                                        07.jpg

                                        this plane made of wood and cloth and incredible amounts of slowness, sank a greater tonnage of shipping than any other allied plane. One of the reasons it was so successful is that it could operate at night. Carrier operations at night are pretty sketchy now. Imagine flying out into the north atlantic night in one of these things?
                                        Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 09-12-2022, 12:49.

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                                          #45
                                          The first examples of video games can be traced to the 1950s, typically in labs, displayed on oscilloscopes.

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post


                                            Ah, one of the short-lived genitalia-class of submarines, along with USS Todger and USS Ballbag.
                                            Sadly American submarines of the time were all named after fish. The three most successful us submarines of the second world war were the tang, the flasher, and the rasher.

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                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                              Up until I went to Kennedy Space Centre I always wondered if I could handle going into space. As soon as I sat inside one of those capsules, the answer "No" arrived at very high speed as my claustrophobia kicked in.

                                              And that was before I considered the fact that I would effectively be strapped to the top of a bomb.
                                              And the toilet arrangements.

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                                                #48
                                                https://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/864667...o-10-turd-poop

                                                In fairness, the apollo 10 turd mystery was the most craic the astronauts had other than bouncing around on the moon.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Also, it seems everyone in the early 20th century had at least two drinks inside them by midday, never mind the "pep pills" and who knows what other Class A drugs they were taking either as prescribed or just available over the pharmacy counter.

                                                  They were all half cut before they even got started, no wonder they were flying off ships, doing motorcycle stunts and generally carrying on.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Originally posted by Eggchaser View Post
                                                    Also, it seems everyone in the early 20th century had at least two drinks inside them by midday, never mind the "pep pills" and who knows what other Class A drugs they were taking either as prescribed or just available over the pharmacy counter.

                                                    They were all half cut before they even got started, no wonder they were flying off ships, doing motorcycle stunts and generally carrying on.
                                                    There are still early houses all around what used to be dublin's market area, Capel St to smithfield, because people who got up really early in the morning needed to be able to drink.

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