AI cracking undeciphered languages!!!

originally posted by: Hanslune
The steel framing may fail and they crash to the ground but the foundation will still be there along with the broken glass, a nice mound of actually along with all the plastic, ceramic and other stuff that will await a future grad student with a shovel.

Might be able to knap some nice looking spearheads from that glass to fight the mutated telepathic giant crabs.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: Hanslune
The steel framing may fail and they crash to the ground but the foundation will still be there along with the broken glass, a nice mound of actually along with all the plastic, ceramic and other stuff that will await a future grad student with a shovel.

Might be able to knap some nice looking spearheads from that glass to fight the mutated telepathic giant crabs.

Absolutely! Glass makes great stone tools but you have to watch out for fragments getting in your eye as the way to remove them is have some hit you in the back of the head to knock them out.

a reply to: SecretKnowledge

Get it to decipher the Voyenich Manuscript then im impressed

I was waiting for this, but you could've at least written it correctly.

It's Voynich, not Voyenich.

The Voynich Manuscript is an interesting mystery, especially since the penmanship is remarkably and consistently beautiful, while the images are primitive and childish.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Just because a person has excellent calligraphy skills, does not in no way mean they can be good artists.

I have been told over the years my handwriting is good. Can i draw even the simplest of pictures? Barely.

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Gothmog

It's not that I dismiss the possibility....I'm just learning to be very skeptical.

Take a big landlocked town in IA. In thousands of years I imagine there would still be evidence of the city planning.

But would they be acknowledged for what they are, or would they try and pass it off as natural formations (since it may not fit with their currently held myths)?

After 10-50,000 years what would really be left to find? Most plastic has a half life of 10,000 years or less. Glass, metals, pavement, concrete, etc, would all reconstitute into nature long before that. At most we would end up leaving the gravel/sand pads for buildings and road ways as clues. And as we have "natural" gravel/sand seams now.... well that's natural materials what about nuclear? Hot zones will last a few thousand years before the radiation lowers to safe levels. But again we have "natural" hot zones now....

Point is, will future us actually acknowledge or existence or will it be ignored as fringe science? That's the question.

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: Hanslune
The steel framing may fail and they crash to the ground but the foundation will still be there along with the broken glass, a nice mound of actually along with all the plastic, ceramic and other stuff that will await a future grad student with a shovel.

Might be able to knap some nice looking spearheads from that glass to fight the mutated telepathic giant crabs.

Absolutely! Glass makes great stone tools but you have to watch out for fragments getting in your eye as the way to remove them is have some hit you in the back of the head to knock them out.

Didn't the hunter gatherers use some kind of headband with a slit where the eyes are? Not quite as good, maybe, but it would probably keep the bulk of the shards out.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

Didn't the hunter gatherers use some kind of headband with a slit where the eyes are? Not quite as good, maybe, but it would probably keep the bulk of the shards out.

You are thinking, I believe, of the "snow glare goggles" used by the Inuit and other northern tribes. As far as I know (from knapping flint and obsidian and watching others) you prevent that by use of hides/cloth and making sure you know what you're hitting and where you're hitting and how to hit it.

originally posted by: looneylupinsrevenge

originally posted by: atlantiswatusi
a reply to: Gothmog

It's not that I dismiss the possibility....I'm just learning to be very skeptical.

Take a big landlocked town in IA. In thousands of years I imagine there would still be evidence of the city planning.

But would they be acknowledged for what they are, or would they try and pass it off as natural formations (since it may not fit with their currently held myths)?

If you discover something that makes (or breaks) a myth, you rush off to publish it because you'll get quoted a lot of places and universities will want you as a teacher. You don't bury it and pretend it didn't exist.

After 10-50,000 years what would really be left to find?

Don't believe the "hundred years after" type tv programs. You'd be amazed at what we can find.

Most plastic has a half life of 10,000 years or less.

You'd still find plastic fragments and in garbage dumps you'd find larger pieces (or whole pieces.) PLUS you'd find all the plastic from the years before we made degradeable plastic.... so bits of corningware from the 1930's, for example. Old billiard balls. Etc.

Glass, metals, pavement, concrete, etc, would all reconstitute into nature long before that.

Glass is pretty near indestructable. It doesn't biodegrade and unless it gets rubbed or crushed, there's not much that happens to it. Remember that the strongest acids are stored in glass because it doesn't react with anything.

At most we would end up leaving the gravel/sand pads for buildings and road ways as clues.

Far more than that. In addition, you'd have changes in the earth where a building sat (it crushes down the soil in a very different way) which is why you can find some very old roads via satellite. Railroads leave some impressive scars. So do dams and river modifications.

And garbage pits. Everybody leaves garbage. There's SO much to learn from a midden (poop pit) or garbage pit. We've found drawings of mammoths in Florida (they did have them) that are 10,000 years old in the garbage pits of the coastal Native Americans.

Ah yes... and in addition to whatever WE left as moderns, they'd find (in our garbage pits, in our cities, etc, the remains of 1960's America... and 1950's America... and so on and so forth in smaller amounts. It's not just a 'cities drop onto this part of the landscape for 10 years and then leave' scenario. At your home, under your building, there are traces from generations before. Buttons, pencils, coins, all the detritus of life.

Point is, will future us actually acknowledge or existence or will it be ignored as fringe science? That's the question.

That depends on whether they're teaching archaeology and history and paleontology as I learned it (first hand and on digs and from people who went digging and published the exciting things they found) or whether they're just reading a few books or web page equivalents and explaining that they're experts.


...sorry if I sound cranky. Those "after humankind" tv shows just irritate the fire out of me with their very ignorance.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: Hanslune
The steel framing may fail and they crash to the ground but the foundation will still be there along with the broken glass, a nice mound of actually along with all the plastic, ceramic and other stuff that will await a future grad student with a shovel.

Might be able to knap some nice looking spearheads from that glass to fight the mutated telepathic giant crabs.

We used to do that at rock shows. Not the mutated giant telepathic crabs, but knap glas.