> On Sep 7, 2019, at 10:17 AM, Cian Witherspoon <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have the ebook, and my only major complaint is that it doesn’t mention lathes. At all.
> Another equivalent book, The Knowledge, barely mentions lathes.
> Sometimes I’m tempted to design simple machines using the principles in the books and then release it as “practical engineering for the colonial time traveller”

Or just get a copy of Dave Gingery’s collected works…:-) but yes, that’s an astonishing omission, you quite literally cannot bootstrap an industrial society without them.

One of the real blind spots of modern techies is just *how* dependent they are on digital technologies. I’ve seen project plans for things that call for laser cutters and CNC routers…that could easily be managed with a coping saw and eggbeater-style hand drill…

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs