Via Treehugger.
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Via Treehugger.
Posted on July 16, 2009 in Inventions that never made it, Low-tech cars, Military technology, War technology, Warfare, Weapons, Wind powered vehicles, Windmills | Permalink
Posted on July 10, 2009 in Farming, Tractors | Permalink | Comments (0)
"The Polynesians, scattered as they were over 1,000 islands across the central and southern Pacific Ocean, were master navigators who tracked their way over huge expanses of ocean without any of the complex mechanical aids we associate with sea fairing. They didn’t have the astrolabe or the sextant, the compass or the chronometer. They did however have aids of a sort, which though seemingly humble, were in fact the repositories of an extremely complex kind of knowledge. Called Rebbelibs, Medos. and Mattangs, today we call them simply Stick Charts." Via Tecob. Related: Satellite navigation in the 18th century.
Posted on July 08, 2009 in History, Maps, Navigation | Permalink | Comments (0)
And:
"It's not just AV software. The entire software industry operates this way.
1.
Shovel feature-rich bug-ware onto unsuspecting schlubs to build "brand"
(especially in the enterprise/IT market where the person purchasing the
software is often not the person who has to use it, so they make
decisions based on feature list and brand name rather than quality)
2. Wait for hobbyists, researchers, or smaller companies to figure out how to do it right
3. Buy their companies
4. Repeat"
Quoted from the discussion at Slashdot.