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Warning: I just read a 1920s dredge manual that said operators used to measure silt density by taste
Found it in a box of old papers at the Port of Tacoma, and now I'm wondering what other insane old-school methods are out there that we've forgotten.
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seanj762mo ago
My grandpa worked in a print shop and said they used to check ink thickness by rubbing it between their fingers, then licking them clean. He swore he could tell the mix of oils just by the taste. It's wild how much hands-on stuff got replaced by machines. Makes me wonder if those guys actually had better instincts about their work than we do now with all our digital readouts. They were basically using their whole bodies as tools.
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campbell.nora23d ago
Tasting ink sounds more like old-school stubbornness than actual skill, honestly.
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linda_mason822mo ago
Honestly, that sounds gross but maybe not the worst. People used to test for diabetes by tasting urine for sweetness. A lot of old methods were just using what they had. Bet the silt guys got used to it and called it a day. Makes you wonder what we do now that will seem nuts in a hundred years.
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