Chris Marker made my favourite movie: la Jetée (on youtube with english subtitles here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ). It was the inspiration of the movie 12 Monkeys
Most paper contain acid. The acid breaks down the paper. Pages become very fragile after some time(100 to 200 years?). Paperback uses cheap paper that contain acid. Paperback books will not last forever.
More expensive acid free paper is often used by artists. Acid free paper is made plant fibers, but often not wood. It could be cotton. This will have a much longer life span. This paper is too expensive for most books
Distribution of knowledge is the only way forward. There where probably only a few people that had key knowledge to these technologies. Once they disappeared, so did the technology.
"That's a broader theme. Watching TV is considered more childish than reading a book, even though TV content requires a lot more kinds of creative work in order to exist."
While TV shows are more involved and complex to make, that does not automatically give the TV show depth, reflection, nuance etc. A TV show is often quite the opposite; a banal story full of platitudes.
Funny thing about steam engines is that we think about them as a thing of the past. But in reality steam engines just scaled up and turned into steam turbines, which are a backbone of society
I think you're technically right, but that this will be overlooked from a legal perspective because it's less obvious that humans have been training ourselves on the prior art of others. We tend to blend in additional things besides prior art. (eg. nature, sensations, etc.)
But you've seen many PD images reshared by stock imagery companies. It raises the question of why false assertions of ownership aren't easily prosecuted, given that they constitute a kind of fraud upon the public.
Construction techniques aside, what was siege technology like in the Roman era? Did they build walls to resist heavy thrown rocks, or just arrows and infantry?
Catapults and other torsion where during the Roman empire, though the thickness of walls also related to how tall they needed to be to be effective. Anything under 30 feet is easy to get over using simple ladders.
The Trebuchet is plenty old enough, but we don't have evidence of use by Rome.
Yes, the giant weapons most people think of when they hear the term trebuchet is medieval improvement allowing people to further scale up the design. A mangonel (traction trebuchet) is the older design, but trebuchet is referring any scaled up staff sling.
Greek and Roman catapults were lighter than medieval trebuchets, using tension or torsion springs rather than heavy weights, but were reasonably capable of hurling rocks well enough to take down a wall eventually. I don't have an example offhand, but the Romans were more than happy to build thick walls to resist sieges if they needed to. My impression is that, fortification-wise, Romans preferred walls and ditches rather than single highly-fortified buildings like castles.
On the other hand, Roman architecture was such that they did not need very thick stone walls to support high buildings.
I think we may all be assuming that the round foundation necessarily means tower, when it could just be a round room. Any ancient Roman architecture experts care to weigh in?
Sunless can be watched on you tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdusEgrbhgA