Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 01, 2023

The origin of justifiable homicide

You know, there’s no point in inventing the wheel if you haven’t invented the horse first.

I agree with her, she obviously knows the science part of that, the imagination not her thing.

Eh. Critics are part of the reason that you have to PAY people to create for public consumption.

Did the wheel come before the axle or were they both invented at the same time?

Two days ago it was inventing the lamp before electricity. Get a new joke or learn to coordinate your daily and Sunday ones better.

It isn’t rocket science. It’s rock science.

An awful lot of stuff that was thought up by SF writers has proven to have a basis in ‘real’ scientific thought. The whole idea of parallel universes, for instance, a staple of science fiction. Actually, ancient fortune-telling devices like the i ching used the same ‘technique’. “Should I take the job or not?” “Should I go on that overseas trip?” “Should I go into this venture with my friend?” When there two (or more) alternatives, it depends on what you decide, because there’s another version of your reality where the opposite road was taken, and so on, and on, ad infinitum. Lots of scientists believe in it, now. Didn’t used to …

Pivoting to engineering critique: Best envision first bridle and reins for steering capability and a collar rigging to prevent that mid-strap from slipping back to become a flank strap resulting in the first ever rodeo bucking event.

I love looking at old science magazines that have articles speculating what the future will look like. Some came close. One magazine more than a hundred years ago anticipated video chatting and — of course — flying cars. We’re FINALLY getting close to the flying car or something close enough.

DaVinci’s grandad, 1000 times removed.

She might have a point, while he’s busy creating SF, who’s doing the hunting and gathering? This isn’t a feeding gig after all.

This fellow is a hard core futurist. People rode horses approximately 2000 years before they ever harnessed a horse to anything like a cart/chariot.

yeah. INVENT THE HORSE. there’s a statement

Any “woke” comments?

LOVE IT!

Amazing. A prehistoric Sharpie.

The beginning of the Huns…

What’s happening on the wall is not literature. It is art. Tell the literary critic to go fetch the art critic.

Ah, the first Science Fiction! Hurray!

Nobody appreciates a visionary until someone does.

Sounds like the kind of conversation Iain Banks said he had a lot. Literary types were always assuming he wrote science fiction just to make money and give him leisure to write his “real” (i.e., literary, modern-day) fiction, when he said if anything it was the other way around. Fortunately, he was very good at both.

Genius is never appreciated in its own ancient time.

And which came first,Donald Trump or the lie?

Reminds me of a brilliant radio skit by John Finnemore. An inventor uses an old horse box (U.S. “horse trailer”) as the enclosure for his time machine. Back in Medieval times, a man he encounters is not impressed by the idea of traveling through time but is utterly fascinated by the idea of a horse box.

“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was the genius!” —Sid Caesar (1922-2014) American comedian

The first wheels were probably solid. Spokes didn’t occur until much later

What are wife’s for if not to stiffle creativity? I ask you…

It was probably oxen that first pulled carts. As for the axle and round, if you want to believe the theories about Egypt, they supposedly drilled perfectly round holes, perfect jars so an axle and wheel should not have been a problem. Odd how they went so long without wheels. Seems that knowledge along with lifting 100 ton rocks must have been forgotten. Or just maybe ones long before the Egyptians did the stone work and building. 50-100 thousand years earlier.

I watched a Nova in which scientists and engineers were discussing what would actually be possible from Star Trek. One man said that warp drive would never be possible. There are many examples throughout the centuries when have people have said that something would never happen, but it did. That’s because visionaries didn’t listen to them and made things happen. This is why I think that someday, space ships will have warp drive, because somebody is going to figure out how to do it.

At least he has the horse and cart in the right order!

First time science fiction became real science

And thus began World of War Chariots…I mean, of Warcraft.