Mastodawn

Joe McLaughlin Mar 10

Oh, nothing, just individually locating and downloading 9.5gb worth of (200+) high-rez (3600px wide) scans out of a 16th C book of extremely satisfying machines from the Library of Congress, one at a time, labeling them, and putting them in a folder for future collage work.

@pluralistic I am scared, impressed, and confused.

Well played, Doc.

Leaping Lords Masticating Mar 10

@pluralistic it … pumps the water up with screws? And then it goes back down a pipe?

I am not satisfied. I am disturbed

Leaping Lords Masticating Mar 10

@pluralistic for some reason, I find the idea of gears at 45 degree angles off-putting as well

@thedansimonson @pluralistic

badum-tish

Also, it uses the river to pump river water up three stories. What anyone does with it once there is up to them. But kinda ingenious to use the Archimedes screw as the drive train for the mechanical energy.

John Timaeus Mar 10

@Amgine @thedansimonson @pluralistic

I'm guessing that pipe then goes someplace else, carrying water with about 1 atm of pressure behind it; about the same as what we use for irrigation.

Shark Attak Mar 12

@thedansimonson @pluralistic
Don't forget that the first screw doesn't seem to draw water directly from the river, but from the little box 'B' where it is poured from holes in the main wheel.
It looks like something purposefully designed to torture engineers with.

@SharkAttak @thedansimonson @pluralistic River level goes up and down based on rainfall. Box stays the same height, with no floating debris to hit your screw.

Chris Hodges Mar 12

@SharkAttak @thedansimonson @pluralistic That bit makes sense if the wheel is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noria. The only bit lacking explanation is the downpipe Q. If instead the water flowed from A into an aqueduct, it would make sense - perhaps for something that needs a good head of water, like a fountain. The same aim as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_de_Marly, which used waterwheel-powered piston pumps instead

Noria - Wikipedia

Shark Attak Mar 14

@HodgesC @thedansimonson @pluralistic
Honestly the whole contraption makes sense only as a proof of concept thing.

@thedansimonson @pluralistic The water has to go up in the tower so that the pipe, which is a siphon, will push it up at the other end wherever it comes out.

Joe McLaughlin Mar 10

@pluralistic
As one does

lemgandi Mar 10

Lookin' forward to seeing these in future art.

Maybe upload to https://commons.wikimedia.org?

Wikimedia Commons

Cory Doctorow Mar 10

@Amgine Probably not, as each one would have to be described in detail and sourced to a page number from the original. I may make a tarball of them and put it on the Internet Archive, though.

Hmm…. script time! add the same meta data to your label in one swell foop.

Negative12DollarBill Mar 10

@pluralistic Make a Mastodon bot account to post them regularly?