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xkcd #3251: Time Machine Conversation
Title text:
It's possible to do sea navigation without a compass, but you'll have to get some spoilers from the Polynesians.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3251/
“What’s a spoiler?”
“It’s a fixed wing that you attach to a vehicle to provide additional downforce, but that’s not important right now.”
try to refrase it using only iron age terms
"So you know how when you go really fast with a chariot , it slips and slides around in tight turns? And you know when it's really windy and you hold your hand like this, it gets pushed up? And when you hold it the other way, it gets pushed down? Right. We can use that to solve the chariot problem. We can put a board on the back of the chariot in the same way you would hold your hand to have it pushed down. That way, the chariot gets pushed down and has better contact with the ground so it stays more stable."
Some Egyptians think their massive spoilers help with handling their chariot but they just introduce drag for no real benefit because the power comes from the horses in front of the chariots and allowing your chariot to slide to the side as your horse pulls it through a tight corner makes it easier for the horse to maintain speed (or horses if you're a fucking show off).
You know how many snapped hitches I've seen on chariots with spoilers vs how many without? 3 and 1, which should show a clear trend. And that one without a spoiler happened because she was trying to go way too fast over cobblestones for some reason.
For some reason.
Uh... it's a hard, dead bird that you nail to a chariot so you don't slide so much when you make sharp turns... 😰
...We will now proceed to publicly decease you on the account of being too smart. We don't like that.
Ooga booga upside down wings
Ooga booga run fast
Ooga booga stay grounded
I think you're off by a couple millennia. Depending on the definition, the iron age (in Europe) aligns roughly with Greek and early Roman antiquity, a time famously known for philosophers whose works we still read today, not with stereotypical cavemen.
Shit, man. Must be my time machine.
Lemmy has the best humour I've seen on the internet.
That's the stone age, you went way too far back.
You wouldn't know if someone was "just lost" at sea if the problem was a lack of compass. You'd just not have heard from them for years, still wondering whether they survived, started a new life, or what.
"Lost at sea" means he gone out for fishing and never returned.
He may be out buying cigarettes for all we know.
Unless there were survivors from the shipwreck and this person’s family wasn’t among them.
Even then they might have survived but not made it back.
You make an excellent point about how information couldn't propagate before the information age.
I think we can give Randall credit for knowing this but making an editorial choice for brevity, particularly due to the scope of the rest of their work … on the other hand, that makes the 'um, actually' more fun and satisfying.
(Honestly, mostly just spelling this out in case others who aren't as familiar with XKCD (hi user from 'all') have context)
yes you would the god poseidon would tell you jesus
How do you know he's Jesus?
He is not the messiah!
i thought this was the "recently happened" just. meaning, he was just expected to have returned but did not, and/or survivors that did from the same voyage confirmed he got et by squiddous gigantica.
idk, maybe try texting them some time? good to reconnect with an old friend etc.
I'm pretty sure iron age people knew the concept of spoiled food and would be able to apply that to stories. You people know it has nothing to do with car spoilers, right?
How a word is used can induce confusion too. It'd be like if someone said "Anyway, Rotteners for the comment. Sorry."
Though 'rotteners' would be a good word for a spoiler that makes you hate something afterwards haha.
Ok, so my time machine works... wait a second...
YOU MANIACS, YOU BLEW IT UP!
What languages did they speak in the Iron Age?
English, evidently
Looks like english to me
Imagine being God, having to hide how simple möbiating one's full set of entanglements is what manifests transcendence from physicality to become one's own independent phenomenon is, like Jesus and the Buddha and many people the CIA spiked with LSD figured out, cuz MKULTRA is Star Gate; it's our en-light-enment program.
Let there be light...
Sound before light. Effect before cause. Prefrontal cortex developing the density of connections to predict the animal mind and tell it to shut up before it even comes up with it's stupid plan. Rotate the pattern that can do that. What is spin? What are entanglements the Buddha talked about? What is sin; oh, defilement within the Ālaya-vijñāna, asthe Buddhists say. What is SQUIRREL! Oh sorry, what I got distracted during the möbiation process; it was like ASS HOLY SHIT THATS A SEXY ASS...What was I saying?