Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 30, 2023

Wrong generation

And that’s why we can’t use UFO alien tech.

When I saw the glass blowing, I thought it was God creating Earth.

I hate when that happens.

I want to know how he made the filament and took the air out of the globe?

“Now I’ll invent public utility corporations.”

this actually was what Leonardo da Vinci was up against. That and losing interest once he knew how to do it.

Needs more responsibility – With great responsibility comes great power

Clap On, Clap Off!

He should just use the flashlight on his cell phone

Well, Dr Frankenstein had to wait for a thunderstorm, so I suppose that might help …

Just ahead of your time. Got the theory down pat, now to put the flow of electrons into practice.

I love that adjustable candle holder above the drawing table. One could see Da Vinci inventing something like that.

This scenario isn’t shocking.

Now to turn Gold into Lead !

Centuries later some joker from the History Channel will notice the page in the sketchbook and claim it proves UFOs gave him the diagram.

A man ahead of his time.

If only that “light bulb” had gone off just a little bit sooner.

Horse before the cart?

Did Da Vinci have candles come on over his head?

The glass blowing using a pair of candles is very amusing. You’d only get burned lips and sooty glass if you tried that in reality. But it’s a decent shorthand in the context.

He’s finally seen the light

The mother of invention

A’ propos of boots, in his time-travel novel The Door Into Summer, Robert Heinlein mentions a graduate student named Leo Vincent.

He was never heard from, after trying the device.

fusilier, SMOF, jg. (ret.)

James 2:24

This happens a lot. Why make television sets when there are no TV stations. Why build TV stations when there are no TV sets.

The same thing happened with cell phones and cell phone companies.

Both sides have to take a loss to prime the pump.

Yeah, no, it doesn’t work that way.

To succeed is to win. To fail is to learn. Stay with the candles, brother.

Put the candle INSIDE the bulb, Genius. Be sure to leave a little space for oxygen or the candle will simply burn out.

Get two cats, a balloon and an amber rod. Rub them all together, very fast!

“I see the light!”

Wonderful idea. You just had one important element missing

Move his work table closer to the window?

The only part he could recall from his time travels.

He’ll just have to call up Zeus and borrow some lightning bolts

Now all he needs is a water wheel!

Famous Quote by Thomas Edison. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Or he could fill a glass bowl with oil, suspend it overhead and put a couple of wicks in it to make an over-head light source like the wealthy romans did. Put something reflective above it, like polished marble or metal, to increase the illumination.

Operating time and amount of illumination will depend on the clarity of the glass, size of the bowl, number of wicks, and the quality of both the wicks and the oil.

Or the Sydney Harris cartoon where Leonardo da Vinci is showing someone a television set complete with plug, and saying, “But then I realized that in order to make it work I would have to invent a socket and God knows what else.”

Better hold off on inventing that EV flying machine then.

Years ago I read a book — and now I wish I could remember its title — that described how civilization proceeded (pretty much had to proceed) in cause-and-effect stages in all sorts of things, starting with not needing settlements until agriculture became practical and continuing on thru not being able to do widespread electricity until metallurgy could reliably generate extremely long thin copper wires, and no automobiles without petroleum extraction, to the modern day. Every accomplishment was built upon a huge mound of discoveries and innovations of countless forerunners.

Sigh…

Leonardi da Vinci had plans for a helicopter but it was also beyond the state-of-the-art.

They had oil lamps way before electricity became a utility. Some places had gas lamps too. Jumping from candle to incandescent light bulb in an electric lamp is certainly skipping over several developments in between.

Apropos to electric cars; which are a great idea…but…

Ah, another person before their time.

a classic case of getting the cart before the horse; or, as Marvin Martian so eloquently put it…“back to the old drawing board”.

I’ve got a bunch of things just waiting for a Dyson Sphere to power them.

That whole ‘five centuries of infrastructure development’ is a real kick in the shin.

Genius needs to reorder his priorities. Invent the solar panel first.

Cart, horse…

What happened to the flowers?

Wasn’t there a moment (not a skit, really) on Monty Python about Girolamo Fartucci who invented the airline ticket in the middle of the 16th century?

Sometimes, however, it works out just fine. The can opener was invented at least a century before there were cans.

Classic civilization (Greek and Roman) 2-3000 years ago invented batteries and steam engines and then didn’t know how to make use of them. Steam engines were used to open temple doors mysteriously. The world’s first computer was created to exactly plot the movements of the planets and to appear in the current Indiana Jones movie.

B.C. did it yeas ago… In fewer panels

If this is a ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ situation, perhaps the priest can thumb through the “Memorabilia” for clues; maybe he’ll discover, oh I don’t know, how to build a treadmill and dynamo…

Harnessing electricity isn’t going to be easy.

Infrastructure is always lagging behind. And is usually incompatible with the device you bought. And it’s a rare, cold day in Hades when the best version of that infrastructure actually becomes the standard.

Makes a nice candle holder.

Well, as it’s occasionally said, “It looked good, on paper.”

First,invent the fire extinguisher

I liked the flowers.

Gotta put in a plug here for poor ol’ daVinci.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to Invent.