I bet you didnt know that

Franz Von Peppercorn

gozunda wrote: »

No you've missed the point again. It's the story of 'what if' ...

You’ve missed my point. The what if is what I answered. The Roman Empire had more than a thousand years to innovate and it didn’t, so it wouldn’t.

Capt'n Midnight

Harasrailltub wrote: »

You can buy a simple device called a chain checker for 5 euro that you pop on your chain and it'll show if its gone into the danger zone so you can get it changed before it wrecks your bike

Or you could use a ruler since chain links are usually a half inch long


https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chain-wear.html

gozunda

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

You’ve missed my point. The what if is what I answered. The Roman Empire had more than a thousand years to innovate and it didn’t, so it wouldn’t.

That's the point lol - there is no one answer...
With regard the Stirrup and gunpowder - they appear to been too late ever to help in the repulse of invading barbarian tribes. The Romans were good at warfare and expansion. If the Romans had the Stirrup and gunpowder - who knows what the outcome would have been?

However on your point of 'innovation' though there is plenty of evidence that the Romans did 'innovate' throughout the period of the republic and empire. They adopted both technologies and ideas from other cultures. They used those ideas and technologies in the building of the roman world...

http://www.crystalinks.com/romescience.html

http://www.history.com/news/10-innovations-that-built-ancient-rome

Many of the innovations we claim as ours - were theirs first ...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

the purple tin wrote: »

Ulysses by James Joyce was banned in the UK, Australia and the US but contrary to popular belief it has never been banned in Ireland.

And the reason it wasn't banned is because it wasn't for sale here. It was never imported in to Ireland at the time, because it was felt it would be banned if it were.

Wibbs

gozunda wrote: »

The Romans were good at warfare and expansion. If the Romans had the Stirrup and gunpowder - who knows what the outcome would have been?

Well we kinda know. As I noted earlier Rome did continue in the form of the eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium. Which at its zenith followed the geography of the old Empire around the Mediterranean and even retook Rome itself. It survived until the 15th century when the Ottomans finally took it. They thought of themselves as Roman and their empire as Imperium Romanum. They cottoned on to the stirrup, which they got by way of the Arab world and they had their own version of gunpowder in the form of Greek fire, which could be projected like a flame thrower or used in grenades. An innovation that terrified their enemies. They kept the secret of its making and use so tightly that in the end they forgot about how to make it altogether. Though by that time gunpowder was in play and more effective in most cases.

Did they innovate? Certainly but not by much. Now they were at various times the most powerful economic and military state in the early medieval of Europe, but no steam engines or industrial revolution or world domination.They went as empires do into a kind of centralised opulent stagnation with the odd burst of innovation. China follows a similar course in its history as an empire though China certainly had brighter points of innovation. And as I noted in the thread earlier though while ancient Greece and Rome remain cultural touchstones and memories Byzantium remains remarkably absent in the western European psyche as a state and culture. Even though they extended the Roman Empire by over a thousand years.

UsedToWait

^ font of knowledge this thread is


I only know it through the word Byzantine

(of a system or situation) excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail.

which ties in with the "centralised opulent stagnation" so vividly described

I always thought that was the cause of their decline & fall, but clearly, the end was more sudden, from the above..

Wibbs

UsedToWait wrote: »

which ties in with the "centralised opulent stagnation" so vividly described

Aye, and their endemic levels of court and political infighting and intrigue.

New Home

Warning - some of the following is pretty gruesome.

gozunda

Thanks for the history Wibbs ...

Going back to the original post - it's certainly generated lots of additional comment . Imo the 'what's if' is always a good way of stretching the imagination...

Back to my post - You will note I set the date for the 'whats if' at the point of 476 AD marking the end of Ancient Rome under the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus.

Regarding innovation - I see Roman civilisation as quite good in the use and adoption of technology and knowledge - much of it from outside sources. The Romans certainly did not stand on their togas when it came to taking advantage of anything which they saw as benefiting either the state or the populace.

I posted a link earlier which lists which highlights some of the well known innovations...

See:
http://www.crystalinks.com/romescience.html

There's a good list appended to the end of that link - titled "Technologies Invented or Developed by the Romans".

Time to leave this particular open door now ...

New Home

Pter wrote: »

Well my point is that marshmallows DO stay puft. So naming a marshmallow product 'stay puft' would be like naming cola 'stay sweet'. The cola isnt going to go sour, so why would you promote its sweetness.

Dough can deflate, thus having a dough mascot that promotes a product as staying 'puft' means its a better product.

It seems I wasn't the only one to notice a resemblance.

gozunda

Polytetrafluoroethylene is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene otherwise known as Teflon ....

BaZmO*

gozunda wrote: »

Polytetrafluoroethylene is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene otherwise known as Teflon ....

Also known by the acronym PTFE. Plumbers use it in tape form (thin white tape) as a sealant on pipe and fitting threads.

Badly Drunk Boy

Harasrailltub wrote: »

if you cycle a bike the chain will start to wear out .Once its worn past a certain point after say a few 1000 Kilometers it starts to eat away at the cogs on the front and at the rear and so it'll end up thrashing your bike if you keep using it .

Eventually the chain will snap under load and you'll have to buy a new chain . Then you'll discover that the new chain wont work as the cogs on the bike have been destroyed by the old stretched chain so you'll have to fork out more dough for chainrings and rear cogs.

You can buy a simple device called a chain checker for 5 euro that you pop on your chain and it'll show if its gone into the danger zone so you can get it changed before it wrecks your bike .

your chain lasts much longer if you clean it and re oil it every so often too

That happened to me last year. I hate the feeling of a chain snapping and then you're pedalling like mad for a couple of seconds. I really hate having to buy a new chain and rearcogs/sprocket.

mzungu

Nixonbot wrote: »

Henry Gunther was an American soldier in WW1. On the morning of November 11, 1918 (Armistice Day) his unit came across a German roadblock. With a minute to go until the armistice took effect, he decided to charge the position with a bayonet. The Germans were well aware of the impending peace so tried to ward him off, but he kept coming. Eventually, they killed him. He was the last soldier to die during WW1.

Private First class Kinshichi Kozuka of the Japanese Imperial Army was shot and killed during a guerilla attack in the Philippines in 1972. A case could be made that he was the last fatality of WW2 as he believed the war was still ongoing.

Kozuka, along with Private Yūichi Akatsu, Corporal Shōichi Shimada, and 2nd Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, absconded to the Lubang Island jungles in the Philippines in early 1945 after US and Philippine Commonwealth forces had landed to recapture the island from the Japanese.

Even though they saw leaflets in October 1945 announcing the end of war, they figured they were traps to try lure them out so they ended up staying put. All four of the Japanese soldiers continued to hide in the jungles for years after it.

In 1949, Akatsu decided to leave his three companions and subsequently surrendered to Filipino forces in 1950. In 1954, Shimada was shot and killed by a search party looking for the group.

Kozuka and Onoda carried out guerilla attacks and acts of sabotage for two decades more. At this point they still believed the war was ongoing, even though leaflets and letters from family members were dropped from aircraft's urging them to surrender. This only seemed to strengthen their belief that it was all a ruse to lure them out into the open.

On October 19, 1972 Kozuka and Onoda had set fire to piles of rice gathered by local farmers. This was to be their last guerilla attack carried out together. Local police responded, firing two shots that killed Kozuka. Onoda fled in to the jungles again, and it wasn't until 1974 that he finally surrendered.

On January 17, 2014 Hiroo Onoda died in Japan.

gozunda

New Home wrote: »

It seems I wasn't the only one to notice a resemblance.

Water John

PTFE is an interesting plastic. Worked with it and used in manufactured goods. Used as shock absorption in hurling helmets. Used as a seal seat for ball taps, has a low friction. Difficult to process as its affected by weather conditions.

As an interesting aside, nylon is when processed quite brittle. It has to reabsorb about 2% water to harden it.

gozunda

BaZmO* wrote: »

Also known by the acronym PTFE. Plumbers use it in tape form (thin white tape) as a sealant on pipe and fitting threads.

Type "Teflon Taoiseach" into Google - and you'll get this ...




"like playing handball against a hay stack"

Teflon has also entered into urban Rapper terminology where it is used incorrectly to indicate something is bulletproof

See:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teflon

Teflon

A bulletproof garment 50 Cent claims to wear. He in fact wears Kevlar, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to rhyme with "left on."

I come creepin' through the hood wearin' Teflon/Hit the corner, motha****a get left on. - 50 Cent, In da Club.

IvyTheTerrific

It's a widely held (and incorrect) belief that teflon was developed by the NASA space program. It was actually invented in 1938 and was relatively widely available before NASA started using it as a heat-proof material in space travel.

Quazzie

gozunda wrote: »

Type "Teflon Taoiseach" into Google - and you'll get this ...




"like playing handball against a hay stack"

Teflon has also entered into urban Rapper terminology where it is used incorrectly to indicate something is bulletproof

See:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teflon

Surely the lyric by 50 Cent is about he's able to walk around and nothing sticks to him, rather than referring to Teflon for bulletproof.

gozunda

Quazzie wrote: »

Surely the lyric by 50 Cent is about he's able to walk around and nothing sticks to him, rather than referring to Teflon for bulletproof.

Did you take a read the rest of the link? That appears to be the consensus from the various entries there. Plus this ...

50 Cent refers to his vests as being made out of Teflon rather than Kevlar. Teflon's only used to coat armor-piercing bullets (otherwise, they would wear down the rifling in the barrel much faster than regular bullets); having it on your vest will not help you.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/FiftyCent

Maybe there is a rapper on boards who might advise

VW 1

When referencing teflon in that manner I had always presumed it was in relation to the bullets not sticking or missing as opposed to being bulletproof. Interesting.

Cordell

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

It's a widely held (and incorrect) belief that teflon was developed by the NASA space program. It was actually invented in 1938 and was relatively widely available before NASA started using it as a heat-proof material in space travel.

Also, it was discovered by accident, they were working on a completely different thing.

Ipso

VW 1 wrote: »

When referencing teflon in that manner I had always presumed it was in relation to the bullets not sticking or missing as opposed to being bulletproof. Interesting.

There is the remote possibility that 50p may not be the brightest spark.

lmimmfn

Ipso wrote: »

There is the remote possibility that 50p may not be the brightest spark.

its fiddy man, lol

donegal.

Ipso wrote: »

There is the remote possibility that 50p may not be the brightest spark.

definitely not the full shilling

New Home

Why is it that when people tell you what they think they say "my 2 cents", but if you ask them what they're thinking about you say "a penny for your thoughts"??

New Home

New Home wrote: »

Why is it that when people tell you what they think they say "my 2 cents", but if you ask them what they're thinking about you say "a penny for your thoughts"??

Inflation.

Ipso

They think their opinion is worth twice as much as yours.

Ipso

Ipso wrote: »

They think their opinion is worth twice as much as yours.

Eggsactly. They have an inflated opinion of the worth of their opinions.

Inflation!

New Home

I thought it was just an exchange rate thing... you know, pennies vs. cents. But now I'm glad I asked.