Nothing like showing off your mastery of the craft by... making the exact same thing everyone else did.

It's already difficult to get some 10 year old devices' documentation or user manual. The company behind it might not even exist anymore so I'm off to digging up the archives or translating chinese OEM's pdfs.

And you know what to look for, have the resources to find it, and can interpret the information when you find it.

Imagine having an Xbox, a router, a cable modem, an iPhone 11, the control board from a washing machine, and the central unit from a Tesla and trying to explain what each of them was without any other context, cables, chargers, etc...

Maybe not even a compatible source of electricity!

Don't even get me started on the ephemeral nature of software...

It's an anomalous object that expands the inside dimensions of a space without altering the outside dimensions. It gets lazy about it after a while though and starts making stuff out of whatever bullshit comes to hand, though. DO NOT leave it outside for prolonged periods of time.

(/srs) my most convincing theory is that it's for testing smithing skills. Like that one boat on 3D printers.

This is the explanation I've seen. IIRC there's a video where someone uses one of these to make fine gold threads.

As is tradition!

but.. tradition is peer pressure from dead people.

and.. dead people turn into zombies.

Ipso facto, you better make it or zombies will take your lunch money.

Logically sound reasoning.

I do not believe you.

"I do sell a lot of wank, don't I?"

Check out 90% of woodworking posts, logic holds up.

And if you used the wrong hole, you now have a new daughter!

That's why they're everywhere

If I recall correctly, they aren't everywhere though.
Afaik they were only found in provinces but not in Italy.

Oh shit, is the epoxy river table our version of the dodecahedron!? 😱

Wait till the wood rots away and all future archaeologists find is the epoxy.

"We believe 21st century rich people put a long strip of epoxy in their homes for ritualistic purposes. Though some have suggested it's pretty obviously some device for knitting."

Oh cmon, it's obviously a dildo but the scientists didn't want to say it out loud.

If they're trying to objectively evaluate someone's skills that's exactly what you would want to do. If you have to come up with a different criteria for every submission then it starts to become subjective quickly.

Here’s a tip: don’t publicly theorise about things that you have close to no knowledge about. This shouldn’t have to be said.

Nothing wrong with discussing shit you're not an expert on. If it's not proven, it's not proven, they're not hurting anything by suggesting their ideas. You don't have to be an expert to do that. Maybe someone will come up with something no one has thought of before that could then be investigated by experts.

I sometimes have to support old harsware still used in live systems and sometimes it feels like digital archaeology trying to find. I feel a massive wave of relief if I see them running an old enough version of our software that I can tell them lol nope unsupported.

Oldest thing I have had to support this month is a card reader from the late 90s. Essentially a scanner which scans printed templates and identifies where someone filled in the form on it. The customer was putting the cards in upside down.

Eh, the turbo encabulator actually subsumes all the useful features of the continuum transfuctioner. Plus, thank to its panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, it only has a quarter of the current draw!

Standardized testing!

It's an old-school Beanie Baby.

Someone crafted, it looked amazing, everyone wanted one, they probably started calling them good luck charms and sold a bunch more.

Art historians prefer the term “fertility idol”

Wait till they find the terabytes of fertility idols on my computer.

It's for starting a ball of yarn, also drugs

Psssh, you can CNC that bad boy in an hour with close to no work.

Time Traveler: "Listen, I know it's weird, but spread making this thing as a tradition, it'll confuse the fuck out of historians in a couple thousand years."

Knitting is 17th century (in Europe). In Rome you'd have nalbinding as an alternative.

There's a lot of evidence, both direct and indirect, of textile production techniques. I can recommend reading books from Karina Grömer, if you're interested in the subject.

look at this larper, he doesn't even recognize a bigass thundercube.

You use this for krangling your items.

It was found in a Roman toilet along with three shells.

A Roman benchie?

I mean... Maybe... It would be a tricky make that would require quite a bit of skill to cast or bend, weld and polish.

Not an unreasonable hypothesis all things considered.

That everyone else knows is pain in the dickhole to make? Yeah, works well, actually.

With quite a bit of work. That's more than one setup and probably a decent amount of time getting the CAM programming right.

Ok, what do you think it is?

Obviously it's the ship design the Grays used during their early recon phase.

Just try building your nanomachines without one!

What is the bowl of wicker balls on the coffee table in every airbnb for?

Modular mace head

Your tip is actually really bad. Getting opinions from people who aren't metalworkers or archaeologists or anthropologists is often how answers to these questions are discovered. There are many inventions/discoveries/realizations that are made from people in different trades approaching problems differently.

More specifically they were largely found in Gaul and Britain, so I assume it's nonsense that spread around with the Romano-Celts. Either as noted a masterwork or maybe some type of scrying tool. There are examples of similar objects both pre and post Rome so take that as you will.

Multipurpose candle holder.

Holds candles of different diameters.

It's so obvious we probably shouldn't write it down

Wiggle diggle.

Roman guilds I think?

Floor hockey