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Comment by Maxion | Hacker News Reader

That first link makes me want to buy some 1 carat CVDs to play around with.

I mean at those prices, making my own diamond chandelier isn't too out of the question.

Well, if you think about it, mass manufacturing, progress in industrial chemistry, plastics, etc, did a lot of impossible things super cheap.

We have disposable pieces of plastics worth 10 cents that if teleported back to 1600 in bulk (say, 1000 units) would have cost entire counties back then, including the people living on them: light, strong, elaborate and very precisely machined.

Look at this thing:

https://www.decathlon.be/fr/p/mp/moma-bikes/velo-de-ville-ho...

About $240, by modern standards quite bad, but for someone in 1600, the ability to go most places in comfort with a decent chunk of stuff with you in some baskets and bags.

Road quality in 1600s would make it quite difficult I think.

I was thinking that about 2 months ago. And then I saw people doing bikepacking/long distance bike touring, and I was quite amazed. With wide enough tires, adequate tire pressure control and seat suspension, people ride huge distances with no problems, on old fashion dirt roads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QSrBIIC4po

The reason I linked a bike above was that they truly are a modern marvel. So unassuming and yet so flexible, reliable and overall... powerful, plus cheap by modern standards. A bike is probably the most accessible high tech modern invention that we take for granted.

I don't think you need seat suspension for bicycles to beat walking. On the kinds of surfaces that foot traffic naturally forms, am average commuter bike is gonna perform very decently.

I think the only qualitative difference would be that modern roads are usable all year whereas natural tracks are generally gonna get unusable when it rains a lot.

It's incredible that we have machines that can take that kind of a beating, while also having precision components on them, and also being light enough to pick up in 1 hand, and being affordable to the poorest members of society.

I think the word we are looking for here is horses lol

Horses are not "affordable to the poorest members of society" though

I've always loved these chairs.. they are $12, very light and are almost entirely indestructible under normal use:

https://www.shoprite.com/sm/planning/rsid/316/product/resin-...

If you took one back to 1600 I wonder how much you could get for it?

For projects like that I can heartily recommend looking at cubic zirconia too. It's wildly cheaper and arguably prettier.

A fascinating idea... what other cool optical devices could be made with these ?

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