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India, astrolabes, government & democracy
India, astrolabes, government and democracy (and data)? These things pretty much have nothing to do with each other, right? Right. Astrolabes have nothing to do with democracy (or the conquistadors). This is a electronic voting machine used in India. You’re probably thinking: we just put this photo in here because we thought it would look cool. But is there a relationship. What is it? And how does it relate to Catalan hero Ramon Llull? Let’s see … India and astrolabes. Is that the relationship? Some possibilities (and controversy) there; we’ll leave for another day. Electronic voting machines another big source of controversy; we could post endlessly here. 🙂 And democracy: we’ve talked about that before in our social progress posts (the dutch schoolhouse photo post on IG and others). India is the world’s largest democracy (although we hope that’s just a prototype; if that thing’s used in real elections in India we’re nervous.… Read the restAstrolabe: data and ancient ship GPS navigation
The historical navigation device in yesterday’s post was too newfangled for the conquistadors.This is what they would have used: a historic astrolabe from 1400, just in time for the conquistadors. This historical model isn’t quite intended for use on a boat at sea, but the ones used by sailors were similar if less visually appealing. The concept is the same as yesterday’s sextant. This is essentially an ancient GPS, except this device is harder to get an accurate reading from. As we learned with some early problems with Apple Maps, then, as now, accurate data is required to convert the measurements into a position at sea. For use at sea, the astrolabe needs to be suspended by a string so that it stays level on a heaving ship deck, which creates problems on windy days. Just as with yesterday’s sextant, the idea is to measure the angle between the sun or stars and the horizon, and then use the current day/time (if you know it accurately), mathematical tables, and/or multiple measurements to get a position through a complex mathematical recipe.… Read the restSextant: data and historical old ship GPS navigation
Continuing from our last post on models of historic civilizations and data, we’re drawing a line from Carl Sagan to the Conquistadors (and modern TV documentaries’ theories about them). This historic photo is an antique sextant from 1890. This historical navigation device worked by measuring the angle between the sun (or stars) and horizon using two mirrors. It was the GPS (or Apple Maps) of its day. And, as we learned from Apple Map’s initial glitches, then as now, successful navigation required a lot of information (or data) to work correctly! Since the Internet didn’t exist, this data had to arrive by some other means, which we’ll talk about in a future post. (So we’re also continuing on our earlier mirror theme.) The use of two mirrors’ reflection to align the image of the object with the horizon (when the sextant was set at the correct angle) enabled accurate measurements when on a moving platform, such as by a sailor on a boat at sea.… Read the restDolphin with wearable computer?
Finishing up our mirror animal consciousness theme, we promised one last very special animal (or group). This is it. Cetaceans, which includes dolphins, are the last of the currently known very small group of highly intelligent animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror. (All of the others are mammals, with the exception of magpies. We started off with extinct mammoths, who are closely related to elephants, then went through magpies and great apes, with a lot of mirror photos along the way.) The actual animal that passed the mirror test is the bottlenose dolphin (shown here), but it is believed all cetaceans can pass the test. Cetaceans include dolphins, whales, and porpoises, known to be some of the most animals out there. This particular leaping bottlenose dolphin is named K-Dog, and has been trained by the in mine-clearing operations by the US Navy. Many people (and some bloggers) erroneously believe chimps are the second smartest animal after humans.… Read the restRecent Posts
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