survivors 1975-77

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , David wrote:
and don't forget the hydro in Norway, and Scotland, that was a major
theme
in Series 3 of Survivors. I often wonder why we aren't concentrating on
developing our use of hydro as a renewable energy source, rather than
wind;

In a situation like the one depicted in Survivors, hydro energy might very
well be renewable, but the machinery necessary to extract it certainly
would
not be, because the industrial infrastructure that could maintain and
replace
it would be gone. We've become accustomed to living in a throwaway society
because there is always a replacement for something that breaks, but it
would
be sheer folly to depend on anything we couldn't replace when it wore out.
Rod.


Engineering skills would have to be rediscovered and taught, but in the
short term existing hydroelectric dams fortunately need little maintenance.
With multiple generators and turbines, even if several fail there's still a
lot
of redundancy left.

Steve Terry

"Invid Fan" wrote in message
...
In article , Bill Wright
wrote:

"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:33:08 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote:
There is a fascinating book "Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of
everybody for the last 13,000 years" by Jared Diamond.

It takes a scientific look at why the industrial revolution and other
major developments occurred in Europe and led to the dominance of
Europeans.

Obviously the reason is the racial superiority of the inhabitants of that
area.

The tone of the book at times seemed to argue the opposite, that Europe
rose to the top despite the quality of the inhabitants

That's the trouble. So many authors are racist.

Bill

In article , Steve Terry wrote:
The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get lost.

You can't do much with a hard drive or a USB stick without an electronics
industry to maintain the equipment to play them, or without electricity to
run the equipment. We'd be lucky if any usable remnant of those storage
mechanisms lasted five years, never mind a hundred. And in a society that
has been so reduced and fragmented that their most pressing concerns are
fresh water, food and somewhere warm to stay, who is going to teach the
next few generations to read books?

Rod.
--
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In article , Steve Terry wrote:
In a situation like the one depicted in Survivors, hydro energy might very
well be renewable, but the machinery necessary to extract it certainly
would
not be, because the industrial infrastructure that could maintain and
replace
it would be gone. We've become accustomed to living in a throwaway society
because there is always a replacement for something that breaks, but it
would
be sheer folly to depend on anything we couldn't replace when it wore out.
Rod.


Engineering skills would have to be rediscovered and taught, but in the
short term existing hydroelectric dams fortunately need little maintenance.
With multiple generators and turbines, even if several fail there's still a
lot
of redundancy left.

Even if, by pure fluke, out of the fraction of the population left over, the
tiny percentage that knew how to run a power station (do you?) just happened
to find their way to them (How? on foot? on horseback), they'd realise that it
was only a stopgap. There would be no hope of repairing or replacing anything.
You might be able to teach the next generation how to tend a generator, but
without an upbringing in a technological world they'd have an increasingly
limited understanding of how it worked, eventually just knowing what switches
to press to make it work. (This is, after all, the extent of most people's
understanding of technology now). As little as one generation down the line,
explanations in scientific terminology would be meaningless mumbo-jumbo to a
rural society with no laboratories to demonstrate any of it - just stuff the
older people would expect you to memorise to be allowed to tend the great
machine. Within three or four generations, if it was still working, they'd be
worshipping the thing.

Then it would break down.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , Steve Terry wrote:
The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get lost.

You can't do much with a hard drive or a USB stick without an electronics
industry to maintain the equipment to play them, or without electricity to
run the equipment. We'd be lucky if any usable remnant of those storage
mechanisms lasted five years, never mind a hundred. And in a society that
has been so reduced and fragmented that their most pressing concerns are
fresh water, food and somewhere warm to stay, who is going to teach the
next few generations to read books?
Rod.


From the dark ages onwards it was monks in monasteries, i'm sure we'd
be able to do better than that.

Steve Terry

"Steve Terry" wrote in message
...

"Col" wrote in message
...


Thinking about it, we might be able to return to a rather primitive
form of industrialisation. We'd still have water power of course,
but more importantly we'd be still be able to make charcoal.
Early furnaces used charcoal so you'd still have industry of sorts.
Unfortunately you can't fuel a full-blown industrial revolution by
burning trees, so that might be as far advanced as we could get.
Col

Nonsense, that could only happen if all collective knowledge was lost,
and the last time that happened was the fall of the roman empire,
leading to 800 years of the dark ages (in Europe anyway)

The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get lost.

Civilisation recovered relatively quickly from the black death of
the 14th century, resulting in better work conditions, pay, and rights
for remaining workers because of supply and demand


I wasn't talking about lost knowledge, I was expanding on my
previous post as to how it would be very difficult to get
another industrial revolution going without an easily accesible
energy source. The easily extractable coal (and oil) has long
gone, gobbled up in the first industrial revolution, I don't see
how we could get at the rest.

Knowledge is all very well and good, but there is little point
in knowing how to build a nuclear power station when you
don't even have the resources to fuel a coal-fired one.

Col

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , Steve Terry wrote:
The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get lost.

You can't do much with a hard drive or a USB stick without an electronics
industry to maintain the equipment to play them, or without electricity to
run the equipment. We'd be lucky if any usable remnant of those storage
mechanisms lasted five years, never mind a hundred. And in a society that
has been so reduced and fragmented that their most pressing concerns are
fresh water, food and somewhere warm to stay, who is going to teach the
next few generations to read books?

I think efforts wouild be made to ot deliver at least a very limited
education. Medieval peasants didn't teach their kids to read
because they didn't know how themselves.
Survivors, even if they were living like medieval peasants *would*
know how to read and would realise how important it was if
society was going to have any chance of advancing again.

Col

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , Steve Terry wrote:
In a situation like the one depicted in Survivors, hydro energy might
very
well be renewable, but the machinery necessary to extract it certainly
would
not be, because the industrial infrastructure that could maintain and
replace
it would be gone. We've become accustomed to living in a throwaway
society
because there is always a replacement for something that breaks, but it
would
be sheer folly to depend on anything we couldn't replace when it wore
out.
Rod.
I agree as far as the word 'depend' is concerned but not to USE something if
it is available and you need it or it gives you a big advantage would be
just as great a folly. Learning to make soap before all supplies run out is
one thing, refusing to use what is available because it will eventually run
out is ridiculous. Depending on a crossbow to provide your meat and defence
because you will eventually run out of ammunition for a rifle is just as
great a nonsense while you have the much more efficient rifle and ammunition
for it, though you should certainly learn and use the older technology when
you can before you need it. Reverting to a cart horse and hand-guided plough
makes no sense while you have a tractor and fuel that works now but which
will eventually become useless if you don't use them.

In teaching survival we always taught people to carry 3 sources of making
fire and to learn improvised ways such as the fire bow. The sources carried
were usually a lighter, matches and a flint and steel set. The tactical use
of these was not to use your best first and gradually revert to the least
efficient as you became desperate but to try the improvised methods when you
were strong and the outcome not critical, the flint and steel when
conditions were good enough, but use the matches or lighter whenever, but
only when, you really needed something you could depend on. If you are going
to survive, you need to use common sense in deciding those things.

David (who is having problems with his newserver)

In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get lost.

How long do you estimate a USB stick or HD would survive? In the context
of books, not a lot. Same with all electronic storage media.

--
*A bicycle can't stand alone because it's two tyred.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 20 jul, 11:29, Luke Curtis wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:10:02 -0700 (PDT), sirblob2

wrote:
clcking in at what must be 27 hours, this uk tv series certainly isnt
for the anti sofa brigade.. its bloody great thats what it be.

I certainly enjoyed series 1, and the first episode "The Forth
Horsemen" is one of the best first episode of any series I have seen,
a fantastic 50 minutes.

i havent seen the remake, thou i heard it be arsefest.

I quite enjoyed it myself - I'm quite looking forward to series 2

-
XBox 360 GT: Broton69

--
ButIstillneedtoknowwhat'sinthere! Thekeytoanysecurity
systemishowit'sdesigned! Thatdependsonwhyitwasdesigned!
Ihavetoknowwhatwhoeverdesigneditwastryingtoprotect !
(Blakes 7, City on the Edge of the World *- Vila in typical panic mode)



i just saw the first season of the 2008 version.
there are some changes i like and some i dont
the first episode, for example, was great in its use of silence. it
was a sober little thing, and the tone went on throughout the other
episodes and seasons. in the new one, it's hysterical and to no avail
unlike in dead set, where it was scary etc.
take for instance the point where abbie discovers she's alone and
walks about until she finally says 'oh god, don't let it be me'. it's
on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VeO_JhIXiY
in the new version abbie does the same idea and finally says 'oh god
don't let it be me' but the sequence is much less memorable, much more
conventional and routine because she runs and she's hysterical and the
camera goes all over the place with lots of music.

and it isn't scary, thou the old one wasnt that scary either.

things i like are that comparing the same story 33 years later gives
you an idea how the images have changed so drastically, the way ppl
dress is completely different and has a lot to do with plastic
sexuality and a paranoia that's been embedded and assimilated these
last years. the new one is far more sex-crazed than the old one. this
time around sarah, played by a robyn addison well fit, is much more
explicitly a whore than the last time and she's far more quick to get
the hots for the strong one in the pack. having an arab playboy just
highlights this even further and the episode with the fanatics led by
a schitzo has fanatics apparently so out of contact with themselves
that they want to reproduce with the playboy's sperm, whereas the old
one had long debates on abortion
i like the fact that there's a convict here, whereas the last time i'm
quite sure charles was only a reproduction addict and not an ex-con.
however, it's not as good as stuff we've been seeing from us tv
channels, like alias, mad men, 24.
probably the reason the british remade it was cuz it gave them a
chance to do something with low production costs, no special effects
etcetera. thou paradoxically the newer version dilapidates a lot more
on production than the old one.
as for character development, i'd say it's just different to the last
one, perhaps worse on the one-on-one but has a better spectrum to
choose from. still, thou i find it passable and i can watch it, it
can't compete with a lot of the stuff that's being made these days

there comes a point too, with that plastic sexuality thing, when the
doctor says, to the ex convict, that she falls in love with ppl not
with their sex, nothing against plastic sexuality but i really thought
i was watching that awful recent tv series 'lost in austen', with
moments like when darcy walks all wet out of the swimming pool and she
says 'oh! what a postmodern moment!'. and there's a lot of stuff going
on i couldnt care less about, like when she delivers a baby and we're
subject to all the suspense as to whether she'll make it, with lots of
music added and the loony christian going hysterical. those are the
moments i really miss the tightly knit yaddering on bout everything
group full of dialogue as they were, like those eternal conversation
abby used to have with lots of ppl about survival in the first season.