[HN Gopher] Lessons from the invention of the thermometer
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       Lessons from the invention of the thermometer
        
       Author : firstSpeaker
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2022-11-05 18:30 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (antonhowes.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (antonhowes.substack.com)
        
       | dr_dshiv wrote:
       | Cornelis Drebbels. Not only did he invent the thermometer he also
       | invented the thermostat--an early example of cybernetics.
       | Basically, expanding mercury would push up a plunger than would
       | open the door to an egg incubator. By allowing the cold air in,
       | the temperature of the incubator would decrease until the mercury
       | shrank and the vent closed
        
       | fuzzfactor wrote:
       | >You're reading _Age of Invention_ ,
       | 
       | >who was responsible for the breakthrough? And why does it
       | matter?
       | 
       | >Santorio was different. Santorio had spent most of his career
       | totally obsessed with measuring things
       | 
       | >What made Santorio so different, then, is that he became aware
       | of the inverted flask experiment while _already_ looking for
       | measuring devices. He was already thoroughly primed for making
       | the connection to measuring temperature. It's the reality behind
       | all those legendary _Eureka!_ moments. It's not that an ordinary
       | person sees something mundane,
       | 
       | >people who are _already_ actively trying to solve particular
       | problems become reminded or aware of potential solutions. The
       | inverted flask experiment was ancient and common. A mind actively
       | searching for ways to measure things was not.
       | 
       | >Those who see room for improvement where others do not -- those
       | with the "improving mentality" -- are the people open to this
       | kind of inspiration.
       | 
       | >Inventors are rare enough to begin with --
       | 
       | >Given the sheer size of what we haven't yet achieved,
       | 
       | Get off your butt and invent something that's habit forming . . .
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | I know the HN guidelines say not to criticize a website's
       | presentation, but Substack's new Medium-like subscription popup
       | has me thinking something else.
       | 
       | With the resurgence of desire for decentralization, I wonder if
       | publishing too could leap into a p2p or widely-federated model.
       | 
       | I assume authors are the ones opting into this behavior because
       | they want either tracked followers or monetary subscriptions.
       | (VC-fueled platforms probably urge the authors to consider it.)
       | 
       | A system not tied down to a particular platform could reduce the
       | friction. Micropayments + p2p / federation seem like they could
       | work hand in hand. You'd see interesting content from all over
       | the Internet bubble up into your feed, and you could opt to
       | follow or subscribe (similar to Patreon or Github sponsorship).
       | 
       | We'd finally be able to tweak the algorithm directly. Tune it to
       | our interests, the discovery coefficients we want, and filter out
       | known uninteresting content or bad actors. No more
       | BlogThatIHate.com or InsufferableProductFan5.
       | 
       | Bookmarking could exceed what any existing product can do. You
       | could combine your feed/interest graph and bookmarks with your
       | own personal approach to note taking and knowledge management.
       | Instantly access quotes, data, and relevant materials. Your
       | database would be portable, too.
       | 
       | The cooking blogs you follow would be locally or cloud searchable
       | with a nice gallery interface, and you could harness the semantic
       | information within them to build shopping lists. (This, but for
       | all applications. Photography, art, sports, gaming, code, debate,
       | ...)
       | 
       | Medium, Substack, Instagram, TikTok, etc. can't build that. It's
       | too many products. That's why turning this into a shared protocol
       | / data model and reusing the common pieces would allow more
       | innovation and reuse than ever before. It's one of the original
       | ambitions of the semantic web, but finally looks like something
       | we understand enough to be able to model.
       | 
       | Nevermind the politics. This would be amazing from an innovation,
       | shared rails, reuse, and remix perspective.
        
         | MichaelZuo wrote:
         | The vast majority of users don't want to pay a small amount to
         | dozens of writers each, but a moderate amount once a month to a
         | single entity.
        
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