asciilifeform: incidentally, wright airplane steered by bending wings, this is another item that could be reintroduced in small flying machines that keep popping up in threads here, 'because we now have computer', but afaik has not been.
asciilifeform: because there is such a thing as practical craft.
asciilifeform: as for airplanes, i recently read, for instance, an entertaining piece, 'stick and rudder', classic, by one w. langewiesche. but if you wanted to fly in an airplane, i would still recommend going with davout at the wheel, or mthreat, rather than asciilifeform .
asciilifeform: this is not to say that nothing is ever usefully automated. just that we aren't at the 'wish and it happens!!11' level for, e.g., organiking.
asciilifeform: in practice, none of this happened, it only happened in the imagination of folks who only see the results on paper.
asciilifeform: just like, incidentally, the notion that cnc magicked away machining skill.
asciilifeform: this is precisely the kind of notion which gets people into chemical mess.
asciilifeform: magnetic stirrer does not magic away the hand skill.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: how to properly separate layers, for instance. how to boil without 'bumping'. various things that sound braindamagedly simple but many folks fuck up somehow.
asciilifeform: i was thinking more of the basics that folks learn 'with spinal cord' in training.
asciilifeform: '“We don’t spy on anyone. We don’t work with any government to spy on others and we never would,” Dominic Carr, General Manager of Public Affairs at Microsoft, said.' << gold
asciilifeform: 'Homer Hickam stated that "Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys"...' << l0l!!
asciilifeform: and when you helpfully light the way for gasenwagen with gigantic flare above your door..
asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: 'nobody' shows up at any door -- until they do.
asciilifeform: (which was to photograph ~entire east coast of usa)
asciilifeform: incidentally this possibility is a perennial thorn in the side of usg, and they keep coming up with crackpot mega-surveillance schemes against it, most recently the ill-fated $2B balloon
asciilifeform: if you're 'in nowhere' just launch from the woods, neh?
asciilifeform: Great Inca owns, in case anyone missed the memo, not only land, sea, but air.
asciilifeform: launch anything visible from nearest airport in usa, and have problems.
asciilifeform: (it is possible to make such a thing)
asciilifeform: which is why rifle bullets are not the size of grains of rice
asciilifeform: PeterL: it compared poorly with ordinary luger.
asciilifeform: where the jets were simply angularly-drilled openings.
asciilifeform: anyone with a drill press, for instance, can make 'gyrojet'-style projectile
asciilifeform is of the - admittedly armchair - notion that 'backyard artillerists' oughta focus on rockets, lower pressure, better... 'bang for buck'☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: point is not 'top metallurgy', but that the axle beats any kind of iron you can smelt in your cellar.
asciilifeform: PeterL: recall the 'copper caves' thread ? identification of minerals 'in the wild' was useful skill in 1700s.
asciilifeform: point here is that - sadly - not everything is susceptible to the written-word treatment.
asciilifeform: PeterL: would you fly as passenger in a mig that i offer you a ride in after reading 'how to mig' b0000k by, say, mthreat ?☟︎
asciilifeform: and the feedstock problem is not escapable in postindustrial world. e.g., one can make nitric acid from, say, copper sulfate, saltpetre, and water. but where in the forest do i dig up copper sulfate ?☟︎
asciilifeform: how the fuck do you write down ~hand skills~☟︎
asciilifeform: and afaik nobody has seriously considered attempting to write it.
asciilifeform: PeterL: as you well know, the actual body of knowledge that is needed, has never really been written down, because it is at least partly a 'seat of the pants' craft, like flying jets
asciilifeform: PeterL: you would be surprised at what commonplace thing can be abolished by great inca. i was astonished, after moving to usa, that you cannot buy potassium permanganate in drug store here.☟︎
asciilifeform: it is a gedankenexperiment, and likely not justified for almost any current scenario.
asciilifeform: (note what is not on the list - it is doubtful that you can make a usable explosive this way. thought! you can make nitric acid, even now, using it. and from that, it is a day's work to dynamite or whatever.)
asciilifeform: (on whatever you need - abortifacent, performance dope, poison, antidote, antibiotic, etc)
asciilifeform: largely involving circumventing chemical bans.
