did that thing where I assumed it was a technical overview of how Valve developed the Steam store. This is the second time I've done it and it probably wont be the last
I always wonder, with articles like this, what really drove these innovations.
Like, is it oversimplifying the socioeconomic pressures that drove or impeded these innovations? How did things like labor shortages or resource needs slow down and speed up the development of steam tech. How many parallel steam innovations stalled out or never took hold in other places in the world?<p>I guess what I'm really wondering is, is this an example of a narrative fallacy where we summarize a chaotic, messy process with a highly uncertain outcome as being linear and inevitable?
Related:<p><i>The origins of the steam engine</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463195">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463195</a> - Nov 2023 (44 comments)
Hero's door-opener doesn't need pipes and a bottle and a bucket: the expanding air could have moved the rope by filling a rubber bladder. Except the Greeks didn't have rubber. (Therefore if they <i>had</i> had rubber, we'd have no steam engines?) The noise-maker could similarly have sent air through its organ directly, I'm not sure what's wrong with that, it doesn't seem to use hydraulics to increase the rate of flow, maybe some evening-out occurs that improves the sound?