Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | wiremaus's comments login

It completely changed the balance of power between landholders and peasants. Peasants started being able to actually negotiate on wages (to a degree that was revolutionary at the time), which also drove a market for capital and artisan goods. The merchant class exploded.

Landlords also started dumping money into development of labor-saving tools, which happens when most of your supply of free bonded labor suddenly dies off.

Pretty huge multi-faceted impacts.


What notable labor saving tools and implements were invented during this time period? (1350-1400 AD)


> Second, and to some extent as a result of its depopulating impact, the Black Death encouraged both the widespread adoption of existing labor-saving technologies and practices and the development of new ones. In the agrarian economy, this resulted in the widespread adoption of the iron plow, the three-field crop rotation system, and fertilization with manure, all of which significantly increased productivity.

https://www.medievalists.net/2021/08/the-black-death-and-the...


They didn't have to be invented during this time. It became economically beneficial (even necessary) to use them at this time, when it wasn't before.


So which tools were these?


To name a few, heavy plows, padded horse collars, fresh water carp farming, water mill improvements, and ships changed in design. Ships became larger but adapted in shape and rigging to e operated by fewer sailors. I think the stern post rudder came to Europe around this time (not sure of the date range though).


Lynn White's classic study, "Medieval technology and social change", looks at three broad innovations: the stirrup, which led to mounted knights as shock troops and the feudal reorganization of society to support them; the agricultural revolution driven by iron horse-drawn plows and three-field rotation; and the development and exploration of medical mechanical power and devices.


The most important was the horse collar, which was like turbocharging a tractor. The use of horses to farm also exemplified the class changes. Horses didnt die of plague. Thier owners sure did. So the horse became cheaper and lesser classes of people put them to uses that previously would have been benieth thier dignity.


you're the best kind of conversationalist.


lol, yeah, the ones that rake your balls over minute details. A PITA contrarian.


> It completely changed the balance of power between landholders and peasants. Peasants started being able to actually negotiate on wages ...

... for the peasants who survived and whose breadwinners survived.


They don't work with it though.

The insult was for abusing that catalogue and falsely claiming they could commercially produce and ship something that they could not, and I think it was fairly deserved. I don't really see any sort of racial dogwhistles or subtext here, this reads like a small snipe over questionable business practices.


The visual AI identification apps are neat, but can and will make dangerous misidentifications. They cannot be used for foraging.


I like how it boils down to "you just have to know." And those who know don't like to share because they like to know that they know and you don't know.


Mentioned above, but got into foraging lightly a couple years ago and found the community to be absolutely welcoming and open. I have not gotten a hint of not wanting to share.


That is usually quite far from the truth. But there are many factors beyond looks that you need to consider, e.g. smell, location, how it reacts when you scratch it, whether some bits are sticky or not, etc. No app will ever work simply because a picture is not enough.

Nobody can tell you all of it like that, not because they don’t want to, but simply because this is just an enormous amount of information that is very context sensitive. There are some very good books if you want to learn. Otherwise, join a bunch of people when they go out looking for mushrooms, the best way to learn is by following them. There really is no substitute.


Be fascinating to hear more about how that actually works; or is it a fabrication by police or drug manufacturers? What mechanism of action would a bunch of metal and exhaust particulate possibly have to produce drug-like effects?


I'm with you; it does kind of sound like a drug-panic story.

The article does suggest that bombé is made from conventional drugs and basically cut with converter residue, so perhaps the residue slightly modifies its chemistry. Or it might do nothing at all; I'd be surprised if there's been a blind study comparing the effects of bombé made with cat residue to the same made with, say, clay.


I bet they just found a bunch of catalytic converter materials at the drug "lab" and jumped to conclusions. They are just having addicts steal the cats to pay for the drugs.


In case it's not a fabrication/not a lacing with conventional drugs , my very uneducated guess: the crushed catalysators contain nanoparticles which cross the blood-brain barrier easily


It's arguably not a strawman argument in the slightest.

There have been changes made to these trucks that do a great job of looking aesthetically "tough and mean" and selling trucks, while also making them more dangerous to other road users: not just to pedestrians, but to other cars via the bumper overlap issue.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...


This truly isn't new; I've seen coffee table books from the 80s that used similar techniques for the photographs. This is a strangely credulous article.


Nearly all the tech giants of today were not the the first in their niches; they just executed better.


So probably not cloning (making a nearly exact copy) of another product.


85 is functional at elevation, but definitely still not preferable at elevation.

Works best with carbureted engines, which are obviously few and far between these days. You shouldn't put 85 octane in a modern fuel injected engine period.


The method of fuel metering the car uses does not necessarily have any connection with what octane you should use. It's all about the engine design. If we are going after rules of thumb, I would say that if the car is turbocharged, it will most definitely run better with higher octane. Although my turbo VW can run with regular fuel, it will just change timing and make less power.

I have a 78 Fiat with a carburetor however, that definitely needs 91 or higher.


VW is seemingly, in my experience, an outlier. Their small displacement turbocharged engines will run fine on 87, but really like 91 (or E-15 88). My '14 Jetta with the 1.8T got better power and fuel economy on "the good stuff."


This is an oddly specific hardline stance to have.

When you have 85 octane available at 7,000 ft and your car is engineered to run with 87 at sea level, you'll be fine.


Unfortunately I don't think TDR would help here: the issue isn't gross damage to the metal of the wires, it's subtle damage to the insulation.


From my prior comment: "Even a small nick in the insulation is supposed to change the impedance enough to create a detectable reflection."

This is what I was told by the person who saw the demo. I believe them, because it'd just be a matter of sending an impulse (or sweeping a tone) and looking at all of the spikes in the impulse response.


Good concept. Well implemented HDR is a great way to get phones to reproduce more "true to life" images.

Interestingly, the final rendering in the Pixel 3 looks better to my eyes.


Yeah I agree. Nearly all HDR photography is uninteresting to me because I’m attracted to contrasting light in the frame. Having everything in focus looks bland to me.


Yes most HDR is meh or just plain ugly.

But it's definitely a great tool. See this HDR photo I made years ago:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/petit_pierrot/3806527134/


That is a great photo. To me HDR on the phone is useful for capturing whatever I happen to be doing in a way that is more like how I perceive it in person.


> Interestingly, the final rendering in the Pixel 3 looks better to my eyes.

Same here.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: