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I'm far too dumb to select an appropriate category: Thought for the Day

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  1.  
    It is only by building a working time machine that one comes to a full appreciation of the future pluperfect
    •  
      CommentAuthorAngus
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2014
     
    When you will have had thought about that a bit, you may change your mind.
    • CommentAuthorthehard
    • CommentTimeAug 7th 2014
     
    A camel is a horse designed by a client.
    •  
      CommentAuthorTrim
    • CommentTimeAug 7th 2014
     
    Does the cannot drive do time travel as well?
    • CommentAuthorsonoboy
    • CommentTimeAug 7th 2014
     
    Just give me one that let's me go back in the past 20 minutes and I'm good.
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      CommentAuthormaryyugo
    • CommentTimeAug 7th 2014
     
    Posted By: thehardA camel is a horse designed by a client.
    The version I heard was:

    An elephant is but a mouse, designed by a committee and built to military specifications.
  7.  
    Most intelligent species in the universe might possess the outlook of whales, and never conceive of radio or travel to the stars
    - David Brin, The Great Silence
  8.  
    He got that from me.
    Look at all the cloudy planets, too. If you never see the stars, not even your own primary due to the perpetual overcast... what will your science be?
    Astronomy, mathematics and cosmology are the earliest and the most intertwined of the sciences. I am including math because a lot of the development of mathematics happened due to the needs of astronomers.
  9.  
    I don't necessarily think so. Trading and barter made maths commonplace as a way of keeping track and accounts. Surveying, construction and architectural demands pushed maths further. All this can be accomplished under a cloudy sky. Rotary and linear machines and engines pushes the maths yet further, and again it can be overcast.
    • CommentAuthorloreman
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2014
     
    Didn't Asimov do all this in the '60's? I can't remember the name of the story but it ran along similar lines.
    • CommentAuthortinker
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2014
     
    Trading and Barter = Arithmetic.
    Surveying and construction = Geometry and Trig.
    Navigation and Astronomy = Algebra and Calculus.
  12.  
    Uh, no. The first "surveying instruments" and the first tables of sines, etc. were created for strictly astronomical purposes. In fact the first large "architected" structures were laid out along astronomically significant orientations and astronomical quadrants and other instruments were adapted to surveying. Writing itself developed as a way to control the masses by recording and hence predicting phenomena like lunar eclipses and more significantly, the equinoxes and solstices, and in the Nile valley, the yearly inundations.
    • CommentAuthortinker
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2014 edited
     
    Double entry bookeeping. That's how you control the masses.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAngus
    • CommentTimeAug 12th 2014
     
  15.  
    Why can't we fish and cut bait?
    •  
      CommentAuthorpcstru
    • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: alsetalokinLook at all the cloudy planets, too. If you never see the stars, not even your own primary due to the perpetual overcast... what will your science be?

    Revealing. Above all, Science is revealing. No matter what your present outlook on the world is, properly applied the scientific method will reveal the truth, if truth is to be had.
  17.  
    Why can't we fish and cut bait?
    That is how I do it
  18.  
    Sometimes I envy the octupi.
  19.  
    Earlier this morning I was reading about Neptune's moon Triton and came across the factoid that Triton was Neptune's son. This got me wondering. At some time in prehistory, there was no pantheon of the gods, and then later there was. I ponder that creation process.

    Did the Greeks borrow it all from an earlier lot - the Babylonians perhaps? No matter; there was a day when someone woke up, went to his desk or whatever passed as such back then, and came up with this lot.

    "Neptune...OK, sea. A son? Yeah. Well, that's Triton, of course".

    How does this stuff get started?
    •  
      CommentAuthorAngus
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2014 edited
     
    Good question, because there are eerie parallels among many pantheons - notably the Norse and the Graeco/Roman. I just found out that even the ancient Hebrews had what were effectively gods of the forge, music, and agriculture- Tubal, Jubal and Jalal. Furthermore there are many common legends in these stories - Noah/Defkalion/Utnapishtim etc. Do they stem from some common original, or do they represent some structure in the unconscious mind so that they keep coming up by themselves?

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