The bicycle, as we know it today, was not invented until the late 1800s. Yet it was a simple mechanical invention. It would seem to require no brilliant inventive insight, and certainly no scientific background.
Why, then, wasn’t it invented much earlier?
I recently finished the book Empires of Light, by Jill Jonnes, about the “War of the Electric Currents”—AC vs DC—that took place as the electricity industry was getting established in the late 1800s.
Large cities were considered unsustainable by many, before modern sanitation: pic.twitter.com/ti2f9CbTdR
The phonograph was invented in the late 1800s, but for decades, recording technology was quite primitive by today's standards: pic.twitter.com/RcVLhkSbKO
The transition from urban transit to automobiles was “enthusiastic”. “The twentieth-century urban ridership despised fixed rail transit.” pic.twitter.com/OUlCxig4HR
An ode to the jet engine pic.twitter.com/GbhkwXZfSB
“Science was born when, with the progress of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars” Edgar Zilsel, “The Sociological Roots of Science” (1942) jstor.org/stable/2769053
“Science was born when, with the progress of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars”
Tinkering alone could never have created a sustained Industrial Revolution: pic.twitter.com/OOYtwzPZm8
PSA: If you—or a friend who's coming to you for tech support—suddenly can't access certain websites today, they might be on a very old/outdated operating system. @letsencrypt's root certificate expired and older OSes don't have the new one: scotthelme.co.uk/lets-encrypt-o…
“I think America had a sort of national self-esteem crisis around the late '60s / early '70s, with Vietnam, Watergate, and the oil shocks all hitting around the same time.… I don't think we've ever fully recovered.” My interview with @Noahpinion: noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-ja…
I'm seeing some people assume that an outage this large must have been due to a deliberate attack or sabotage. Absolutely not—this was almost certainly an ops mistake / misconfiguration. It is quite easy to shoot yourself in the foot this hard. No conspiracy required twitter.com/jasoncrawford/…
I'm seeing some people assume that an outage this large must have been due to a deliberate attack or sabotage.
Absolutely not—this was almost certainly an ops mistake / misconfiguration. It is quite easy to shoot yourself in the foot this hard. No conspiracy required
Steve Jobs died ten years ago today.
Some men do great things in the prime of their lives, then retire to enjoy the fruits of their labors, and perhaps to sit on some boards or give some talks.
Did a prof at @UofR assign my history of factory safety for a class a couple weeks ago? (That's my guess based on Google Analytics.) Curious who it was and how it turned out! rootsofprogress.org/history-of-fac…
Did a prof at University of Rochester assign my history of factory safety for a class a couple weeks ago? (That's my guess based on Google Analytics.)
Curious who it was and how it turned out!
Don’t be a hashtag activist, build the future twitter.com/Tracinski/stat…
The isolation of rural families, before the telephone and mass media, is hard to comprehend today. (A story from the early life of Norman Borlaug, who was called “Norm boy” as a kid) pic.twitter.com/ccT9jqJtrZ
“If total factor productivity had continued to grow at its 1957 to 1973 rate then we today would be living in the world of 2076 rather than in the world of 2014” @ATabarrok marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
Loved recording this episode with @jasoncrawford on Progress Studies, what we learn from the history of technology, and why some things take so long to be invented tib.buzzsprout.com/1597213/934274…
My interview with @matthewclifford: “what causes progress; why it's not universally popular; what the history of bicycle tells us about why advances in technology sometimes take so long; why the future people imagined in the 1960s didn't happen;” and more tib.buzzsprout.com/1597213/934274…
We're fortunate to have an Energy Secretary who's focused on creating high-quality jobs to build a clean energy economy. I look forward to working with @SecGranholm on clean tech innovation and deployment. b-gat.es/3dP6VJQ
The technological transformation we need to address climate change can create good, safe jobs and build a more equitable, prosperous economy. To make that happen, we need to think big: gatesnot.es/3dh6w11 pic.twitter.com/PR5sxI7aDt
“We are closer than ever to building a world where safe sanitation service is a basic human right enjoyed by everyone, not just those with money and access to water.” – @Doulaye_bmgf gates.ly/3zQXl0X
Ever heard a toilet be compared to an espresso machine? That’s how Dr. Shannon Yee describes the toilet he and his team have developed. gatesnot.es/3iiW5xz
How much of the world population still lacks access to a toilet that safely removes waste from the home? Find the answer here: gatesnot.es/3C6lNgH
I don’t think any of @ronnychieng’s innovations are ready to bring to market. Luckily, brilliant scientists and engineers around the world have developed hundreds of exciting solutions that will prevent illness and death: gatesnot.es/3kjj3oh twitter.com/TheDailyShow/s…