You absolute fools, shameless buffoons, the Watch and the 5 watt laser pointer are the only perfect combination.
With this combination could have created the greatest army to rule the seas, commercial ships, spices and war, bring anyone do their knees with a single flash of this ray.
Put fear in to the souls of millions with this futuristic weapon and burn ships at a distance.
Illuminate the night sky as only gods can do. Become the alpha and omega, master of time and light, seas and commerce. Render the Dutch and Britain absolutely to shreds and raise a civilization based on Aegean culture from the Mediterranean with laws and different approach to puritanism and culture to power earlier, with science and mathematics for everyone.
Fuck, well live a different present, here’s why:
Wristwatch :
Solar Navigation: By knowing the exact time during the day, navigators could use the position of the sun in conjunction with an astrolabe (a device already in use during the Middle Ages for astronomical measurements) to determine their latitude. The watch would help in timing the sun’s zenith (its highest point in the sky), which occurs at local noon, allowing for a more accurate reading.
Star-based Navigation: At night, timekeeping would be essential for using the stars to navigate. The position of certain stars and constellations relative to the horizon changes predictably throughout the night. Knowing the exact time would allow navigators to calculate their latitude based on the altitude of known stars above the horizon.
Dead Reckoning: This is a method to estimate one’s current position based on a previously determined position, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, along with course directions. A precise timepiece would have significantly improved the accuracy of dead reckoning calculations by allowing sailors to keep track of time more accurately during their journey.
Longitude Problem: Although determining longitude (east-west position) remained a significant challenge until the development of the marine chronometer in the 18th century, a precise timekeeping device in the Middle Ages could have theoretically been the first step towards solving this problem. If navigators had a way to keep track of time accurately during their voyages, they could compare the local noon (when the sun is highest in the sky) to the time at a known location (like Greenwich, England). The difference in time would allow them to calculate how far east or west they had traveled.
Tide Predictions: Accurate timekeeping would aid in predicting tides, which was crucial for coastal navigation. Knowing the time of high and low tides could prevent ships from running aground and help in planning more efficient voyages.
The laser pointer:
Burn Materials: It can easily burn through various materials like paper, plastic, and wood with direct and sustained contact. It can also etch patterns or marks on surfaces
Visibility: The beam of a 5-watt laser can be extremely bright and visible, even over long distances.
TL;DR: To navigate using an astrolabe and a watch, measure the sun’s altitude at local noon with the astrolabe. Adjust for the sun’s declination from an almanac. Your latitude is roughly the corrected sun altitude. For longitude, compare local noon to the reference time on your watch; every hour difference equals 15 degrees of longitude. This method involves basic trigonometry for calculating angles and positions but is quite approximate and not highly accurate for longitude.
This allows to navigate beyond the horizon from the coast so you can travel overseas and beyond where other people has been on a ship without following the coast.
I mean they did have decently good mathematicians abord the ships who were already great mappers. An accurate time peice would help with accuracy… But nautical maps were nautical maps. More accurate ones are great but they did already have serviceable ones.
What’s wild about the cultural concept of your average maps of the period in a more general sense is they were often more conceptually philosophic and religious tools meant to illustrate a “you are here” for the soul. Geographic accuracy was at best a secondary consideration.
Sure, but someone else was wanting to use the motorcycle engine as a generator. I feel like this is more practical since you don’t need to figure out how to get more fuel. Not that I have any idea what to do with a generator in that time period either way.
You can use a windmill, waterwheel, or animals to turn a generator. The real problem would be getting a magnet and enough purified copper. Most people do not realize how complicated and interdependent our society is. No person is an island and no invention is either.
With a diesel engine you could fuel it with biodiesel made from cooking oil, sodium hydroxide(an impure solution likely sufficient for our purposes could be obtained from wood ash, this was normally used in soap making) and methanol(obtainable by distillation and used as early as ancient egypt)
Also certain non diesel engines can run on ethanol, including some motorcycles made for brasilian market that can run on E100 that is 94.7% ethanol (rest is water) so fuel for that engine could be distilled with medieval technology
power requirements of spinning a shawarma and doing useful work is quite different. Would be very interested to learn more about this ancient indian steam engine if you gave some links. But if it’s anything like the ancient greek aeolipile that has real world measured efficiency of as low as 0.0128 (theoretically 1%), it isnt really useful
That’s basically enough to start a religion in medieval times. Spices to finance a nice temple, and dabs to create a religious experience forc prophets who testify to the power of the faith.
Before I’m sent back, shoot the time travel master (nerd!) in the head. Shoot their attendants, too (nerds! nerds!).
Grab all the other options, and load them in the time travel car. VERY IMPORTANT: the Moog will be playing the Knight Rider Theme until further notice.
Time travel back to the Vatican, Apostolic Palace. Driving the motorcycle up to The Pope, I do a jump that involves me turning upside-down OVER the Pope, during which I look down, shove the LSD down the Pope’s throat, and then do an Akira-slide right in front of him.
In fluent Latin, I explain to the Pope that I am a messenger from God who has been sent to deliver a Mighty Revelation. For the next several hours I use all the other options I brought back to astound and amuse The Pope during the LSD trip. During this phase of the experience, the Moog will be playing selections from Pink Floyd, focusing on music from Dark Side and before. The key message of The Revelation is that I am an agent of God to be protected and revered.
After the Pope comes down, I scope out the Vatican’s Cardinals. (The Moog will be playing Guile’s Theme during this phase.) The spices are covertly swapped for hashish and opiates, which I use along with the Warheads candy to bring mini-Revelations to those Cardinals who seem friendly. Those Cardinals who seem hostile to me, are fed bits of the Uranium. I am declared a Cardinal. When the time is right, The Pope is also fed bits of Uranium.
After the Pope dies, a conclave is convened in the Sistine Chapel to select the next Pope. The Moog will be playing Objection from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) during this phase. As a Cardinal, I attend, and will use the motorcycle to pop wheelies and do donuts until I am elected.
When I first appear on the Papal balcony, to be revered for the rest of my life as an infallible being whose words must be obeyed without hesitation, the Moog will be playing the instrumental version of We are Number One from Lazy Town, and I will be doing an appropriate dance.
My plan was to take the dab pens and the moog, assuming it could be used as a backup battery to the pens. And then just plan to hang myself when confronted with the inevitability of sobriety.
Hey y’all no need for that! Meet up with me in the year 1214, and Pope Rolando will set you up as Archbishops somewhere. We can even go on convenience store runs in my time machine!
Everyone taking this challenge is invited. All your sins will be forgiven!
The moog is “magic - works without amp or outlet” so it is magic. (Given.)
Therefore the moog is AI, since magic and AI are indistinguishable. (Lemma: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” -Clarke. The exact workings of contemporary “AI” neural networks are insufficiently understood, therefore indistinguishable from magic.)
Because the moog is AI, I can talk to it like ChatGPT, I just have the wrong keyboard.
Use the keyboard like this: first key is “A”, second key is “B”, etc. Type out some sentences until the AI figures out the pattern. I have plenty of time to do so, since I have a time machine.
Use the keyboard to chat with the moog to tell it what I want it to play.
yes there’s a problem, its only magic is that is works without an amp or outlet. none of the other things you’ve listed are implied or remotely plausible.
Just hope your time machine doesn’t deposit you off during the Western Catholic Schism or else you’ll have to repeat this multiple times with multiple popes.
The synth and 10 jars of saffron. I’ll learn to play music like a bard and be fucking rich selling little bits of spices while I travel (and eventually be murdered as a witch).
I would probably mix in some whole nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves with the saffron as it was generally more popular in England at the time and the variety would probably mean more of my wares purchased by at each stop to save me needing to travel further. Travel being so gods awful at the time mitigating the risks a little bit would be worth it I think.
They Synth and the Warheads. I'm sure the Warheads alone are flavorful enough to convince any Medieval person that I am a God (or or the Devil, lmao), but the sick beats from the synth would seal the deal. (Once I learn how to play)
Or just sketch what you want and have a metalworker of the period make it. They would have had the precision to manage it particularly if you sacrificed quality and worked in pewter. Pewter is so easy to cast you can pretty much diy.
The Phillips head screwdriver screws are great for not exactly needing the most precise shape for undoing them. Anything sort of in the ball park will work.
There’s a good book from a former Smithsonian curator called One Good turn that talks about the ancient history of the screwdriver and the screw.
If you went back in time far enough that the people around you didn’t know about the screwdriver and the screw, Even a rudimentary knowledge of It’s existence would possibly on its own break the timeline.
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