PJMurphy 3's Comments
My favourite inventor story goes like this...in 1907 or so, a gentleman was rowing across a lake to fetch an ice cream for his girlfriend on a hot summer day. By the time he got it to her, it had melted.
His name? Ole Evinrude, and he invented the outboard motor.
His name? Ole Evinrude, and he invented the outboard motor.
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All he had to do was park near his closest airport and heave it up onto his shoulder. Someone would have been by quickly to take it away.
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Actually, the story of the Opium Wars is a little more complicated....and I may be a little off, but this is what I recall.
Hygiene and sanitation in Britain was not all that great, and many places got their drinking water from rivers where people upstream dumped their waste. If you were thirsty, water could kill you, so you drank beer or wine. This meant that many people were tipsy, all day long.
Then came tea, and to make it, you had to boil the water. This provided the only non-alcoholic beverage that was safe to drink. There was only one problem....the Chinese would only accept silver or gold in payment. This was depleting the British treasury, and they needed a solution, and FAST.
Enter opium. British ships would travel to India with luxury and manufactured goods, then load up with opium for China, sell it there, and use the gold and silver to buy tea, silks, and spices.
The Chinese objected to the opium, and war resulted. The British sailed a warship up a river, and THAT was the origin of the phrase "gunboat diplomacy". As part of the settlement of the war, Britain ended up with a lease on a chunk of rock known as Hong Kong, which expired in 1997.
Like I said, this is simplistic, and from memory, so feel free to provide clarification.
Hygiene and sanitation in Britain was not all that great, and many places got their drinking water from rivers where people upstream dumped their waste. If you were thirsty, water could kill you, so you drank beer or wine. This meant that many people were tipsy, all day long.
Then came tea, and to make it, you had to boil the water. This provided the only non-alcoholic beverage that was safe to drink. There was only one problem....the Chinese would only accept silver or gold in payment. This was depleting the British treasury, and they needed a solution, and FAST.
Enter opium. British ships would travel to India with luxury and manufactured goods, then load up with opium for China, sell it there, and use the gold and silver to buy tea, silks, and spices.
The Chinese objected to the opium, and war resulted. The British sailed a warship up a river, and THAT was the origin of the phrase "gunboat diplomacy". As part of the settlement of the war, Britain ended up with a lease on a chunk of rock known as Hong Kong, which expired in 1997.
Like I said, this is simplistic, and from memory, so feel free to provide clarification.
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There are plenty of people out there committing crimes, blasting spam, and downloading porn and copyrighted material. Do you REALLY want this activity tracked back to your IP address?
I once knew someone who would wardrive, find open connections, do whatever he cared to, and when he was done, he would enter the router, enable the encryption, change the SSID to something like "Lock it next time, idiot", and then change the router's password. These people got a quick lesson on internet security.