12.05.2004
Sundials Are Primitive Computers
This essay at SocialFiction has one brilliant insight after another, and I've had a tough time choosing between what I can extract to tantalise your mind:
"Time (and every device that sublimated it) is not the only abstraction of the sun that led to a wide range of applications. A similar story could be written for fire. Fire, once under human control, brought the heat of the sun into the night. This power led to an entire different line of technological progress, starting with the ability to boil food, and ending with nuclear energy. In this last line of development, solar power, and especially the rhetoric's behind it, is an interesting reminder of the fact that we are in the end, still struggling with making the most of the sun." ¶ 2:31:00 AM
"Time (and every device that sublimated it) is not the only abstraction of the sun that led to a wide range of applications. A similar story could be written for fire. Fire, once under human control, brought the heat of the sun into the night. This power led to an entire different line of technological progress, starting with the ability to boil food, and ending with nuclear energy. In this last line of development, solar power, and especially the rhetoric's behind it, is an interesting reminder of the fact that we are in the end, still struggling with making the most of the sun." ¶ 2:31:00 AM
