Post

Colin McMillen
@mcmillen.dev

i love that humanity developed ranged weapons in the following order: bow crossbow nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile compound bow

81 reposts508 likes

Grant Wu
@grantwu.bsky.social

this reminds me of when I tried to figure out why the (torque converter) automatic transmission predates the automated manual transmission. as far as I could find, the answer is machining/manufacturing/computers

Dan Seitz
@dseitz.bsky.social

Every now and then it's fun to see what people are doing to update relatively abandoned technologies. The throwing knife guys have essentially perfected remote stabbing.

David Pick
@davidmichaelpick.net

When I'm explaining bow types to beginners at archery I point out that the compound bow was designed by Americans for hunting: It's short so you can hide behind a bush or get up a tree. It's relatively easy to hold at full draw while you wait for Bambi to come down the path. /

David Pick
@davidmichaelpick.net

It's relatively easy to shoot. You can fiddle with it endlessly and fit a slew of optional extras to avoid having to actually develop skill at shooting. (Don't get me wrong, that fiddling is a skill all its own, but it's not *archery*.)

Eli Evans
@elievans.art

Amazing. I count lamination, recurve, and siyahs as “basic design improvements” over the bent stick, but that’s just me quibbling with marketing copy, as I do.