that reminds me of the show Connections, not so much the time machine but how technology was built on eachother in such strange ways, it always starts off with some randome thing then you get sucked in and end up who knows where by the end of the episode, its so good

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series)

This is a great book. I read it a few years ago and I still think about it. The breakdown of how everything is built on each other was interesting.

Bought it. Thanks for the rec!!

If you squeeze enough runes it and write the correct spells it can mimic humans. Now we can't tell who's human and who's a pile of rocks.

200 years ago was 1826 and firmly in the industrial/modern era, they were not executing anyone for witchcraft at that time.

Fortunately, no one was burned for witchcraft. That said, still harassed and killed.

ETA: I stand corrected. I was focused on Salem, but didn't mention. Oops

First you'll need to build the first computer from raw materials.

Linux? Like a cat?

cool

That was clearly before that Babel tower thing.

I wouldn't expect middle eastern shepher to speak futhark

Just be aware that precision metalworking wasn't invented until the renaissance, so you might need to invent that first or your motors will wobble badly.

Edit: that might have even been the industrial age instead of the renaissance. It might have been what really kicked off the industrial age, though the invention itself was for more reliable guns iirc.

How to you make electrical motors and batteries from ancient technology and raw materials?

Where do you get the electricity for your motors?

Michael Vsauce has a solution for that last part: slap bracelets with the locations of things that were lost for centuries. Whenever you end up*, the bracelet has a couple things on there that are lost and could be found.

How to prove you're a time traveller - The Rest Is Science (45:27)

*) In the last couple centuries at least, the further back you go, the fewer things are lost.

Yeah I don't see how much chance you'd have with trying to share all your future knowledge, you might get really lucky and meet some scholar that takes you under his wings but chances are much higher of getting burned at the stake/beaten to death.

You might have a slightly better chance just trying to fit in acting dumb and using your knowledge to get ahead, but of course for that we have to conveniently ignore that you'd get utterly fucked by the new-to-you bacteria and infections and probably will die from some paper cut.

I dislike that the chemical formula for progesterone provided here is ambiguous; there are plenty of molecules with that formula as written.

Cool

The person who made this must assume everyone is time travelling to the 1700s

Something tells me we're going to experience that collapse & regression soon!

Stone Age, or some form of Scavenger-age in not much better shape than stone age.

Almost all of the accessible surface minerals have been mined. That means if the production chain collapses everything goes to shit. We cannot mine and refine the materials we need without heavy and specialized machinery. No reboot. The minerals are inaccessible. That machinery’s production relies on a huge amount of materials, from energy to electronics, and the logistical network to put it all together.

Our production chain is very discrete in a lot of ways. Electronics made one place, smelting another, fuel by ships, food over here, lithium someplace, copper somewhere else, iron from far away, medication over there, clothing someplace else. If the global network fails, that’s it. People starve. The specialized knowledge is lost to make things. Systems fail rapidly. The manufacturing of electronics quits, along with the rest of the supply chain. People probably eat all the seeds for crops. Lack of pesticide and fertilizer, plus climate change, wipes out yields for many. No way to harvest enough or transport it anywhere. Small pockets of humans might survive, but it’s gonna be hand-to-mouth or subsistence farming at best.

You’d go back in time quite a ways pretty quickly. People living tribally in the more remote parts of the world would maybe survive depending on how nasty climate change gets.

Douglas Adams made the very same joke (but better) in HGTTG when Nate was still a baby.

What? There are recipes for soap that date back to ancient Sumer

I have no idea what lye is or how to make it. All I have to fall back on are some sandwich making skills.

Your hardest chore would be getting your hands on lye, and convincing people its not witchcraft.

Isn't that leached from wood ash or something?

Ah right, there was this survival video about making soap from ash with a simple gravel filter.

And some of the better isekai Manga making cement by burning clams. Would that work?

Not in the past, it isn't!

Ok, I'll stop laughing