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Comment count is 6
HarrietTubmanPI - 2012-05-29

Five stars for inaccurate broad brushed history. Less than a minute in and he credits Whitney with inventing interchangeable parts. More than one person was responsible with that invention (like most inventions in the industrial revolution through the 20th century), and even though parts were beginning to be interchangeable from a single manufacturer, they weren't standardized until the invention of the micrometer by Whitworth. Until Whitworth came around, you'd still have to order parts from the manufacturer, and they still might not fit. Whitworth created standardization of parts to the level you could then go to a hardware store and pick up a screw/bolt/tool made by some other manufacturer, and because it had a standard size it would fit every time.

To me Whitworth is more important than Edison and Whitney, and even Marconi. He ranks up there with Turing as a true visionary. But Whitworth is British and American public schools won't talk about that.


HarrietTubmanPI - 2012-05-29

Also it is an interesting point that the north could not grow cotton like the south, it could become a manufacturing center. So the north began to embrace new ideas and new technologies, and education because you needed it to manage technology. At the same time the south grew all of the cotton they could and picked it by hand due to slave labor. I really think it's a stretch (although possible) that since the steam ship already existed before the war, and the south could make iron clad ships, that if they embraced education and wanted to get rid of slavery they could have found a way to pick the cotton by machine.

But of course they didn't want to do that, and rather wanted to stick to backwards thinking - even though when small inventions like the iron clad ship, or the cotton gin, or the steam ship, or the Whitworth rifle benefited them, they didn't have the gumption or wherewithal to really exploit new ideas and further technology for their own benefit.

It has a lot of parallels with the GOP today with our energy problems and scientific illiteracy.


StanleyPain - 2012-05-30

This is what I love about POE in general. You get comments like this. Fuck YouTube.


craptacular - 2012-05-30

I'm withholding stars until they explain how gin is distilled from cotton


Jet Bin Fever - 2012-05-30

I don't know why I thought this was so damned funny. It must be the Linkin Park... I can't explain it.


STABFACE - 2012-06-01

Oh, it's the Linkin Park alright.

Once I realized that the soundtrack was a subtle, acoustic piano version of a goddamned Linkin Park song, I chucked this sumbitch right in the hopper.


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