You are to be banished to the year 1800. You get to pick one machine to take with you. What would it be?
Here are the rules:
A machine is defined as a single device that does some type of work. A computer, car, an inclined plane, and a refridgerator are some examples. A collection of machines like a metal shop is not allowed.
Your machine comes with its own unlimited source of energy that powers it. Gasoline and electricity will never run out. Likewise, you get an unlimited supply of replacement parts.
You cannot ever sell your machine to anyone else but you can make money by producing something with it if you wish. Your machine also will not be able to influence the development of new technology. No one in 1800 will be interested in looking at how it works.
It has to be a machine that exists in the real world today. No teleporters.
You still live at your currect location.
Make your choice.
I live in rural New England and I imagine roads sucked back them. I could go for a tractor but I think I will pick a 4-wheeled ATV. It would make transportation much easier than riding around on a horse and it is just plain fun. I could travel all over the place in a day and I bet I could pick up New England Puritan chicks like no tomorrow. I bet their father’s would be pissed when I pull up to the house and start revving the engine waiting for her to come out and start some fun.
A typewriter. I think anything more complex would get me burned alive as a witch, regardless that its 1800. And don’t flame me or call me a moron if the typewriter was already invented at that time - its just the first thing that popped into my head.
Oregon in 1800? Lewis and Clark won’t even get here for another six years and I don’t speak any Amerindian languages nor do I have any sort of talent or ability to allow me to live more than a week in the wild before being eaten by bears.
A gun then. Or something that will be sure to kill me quickly and painlessly.
If I brought a laptop, could it surf the web in realtime (Our Present. Not 1800) and post on the SDMB? Could I attach a webcam and printer and scanner to it and call it One Machine? Would I get unlimited printer paper and tech support?
You can have the whole setup but there is no internet or tech support unless some farmer 2 miles down the road has some eerie intution about system conflicts and driver problems. The closest you can come to posting on the SDMB is to print out everything you want to post, bury it in a time capsule and tell us where to dig it up in 2004 so that we can rekey it (we will also need your SDMB password). Do the same with any webcam pictures that you want to share.
Bytown in the early 19[sup]th[/sup] century was a little lumber town before Queen Victoria decided to make it the capital and rename it to Ottawa. Imagine the output that could be produced with one of these?
For me it would be a tossup between a solar-powered calculator and a good resophonic guitar. Neither one would make me a king, but I could probably make a decent living with either.
I live near Baltimore. Structural and civil engineers here in 1800 would probably value someone who could do a week’s worth of calculations in ten minutes.
And the resophonic guitar would sound enough like an ordinary guitar that it wouldn’t freak people out, but would be 120 years ahead of its time. (A Beard wood-bodied Dobro would probably sound best, but a metal-bodied National would be pretty much indestructible). It would be louder than any other string instrument, and I could play it either lap style or upright, singing if I wanted to. I could make good tips in Fells Point. (I would also like to bring along a supply of strings and fingerpicks).
I’d use it to drive to the White House, and declare myself President and write into effect a new bill making the U.S. a monarchy to be ruled only by me and my descendants from then on. Everyone would do exactly as I said, because I had a sophisticated vehicle from the future and I could tell them I was a golden god from another dimension.
I seem to recall a patented lever system design for a self-propelled boat that was attached near the bottom rear of small seacraft: it moved forward WITH the waves and slightly faster AGAINST them. Assuming I recall correctly and I have the basic principles down I now have a craft that can be used and marketed worldwide. Naturally we’d name them after me – an aski-boat.
