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Python in the future

Lloyd Zusman ljz at asfast.com
Fri May 5 01:43:49 EDT 2000 
Greg Ewing <greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:

> Will Ware wrote:
> > 
> > Ancient civilizations like
> > the Phonecians (sp?) and Babylonians had records relating to trade,
> 
> No, that was the Phoenicians. The Phonecians developed a
> primitive form of communication using small clay pots linked
> together with long pieces of string. Archaeologists have
> unearthed the ruins of a building that was located at the
> centre of a village, with the rotting remains of strings
> leading from it to many of the dwellings. It is thought to
> have been an early form of telephone exchange, in which
> teams of clerks switched calls by rapidly tying and untying
> pieces of string. The word Tal'ee-kom was inscribed over
> the door in ancient Phonecian letters, which translates
> roughly to "thoughts flying like the wind".

Yes, and I just read about another recent archaeological find: the
people of E-trus.com were neighbors to the Phonecians and shared, but
improved upon many of their customs, including the string-and-clay-pot
system.  The E-trus.com used it for facilitating commerce as well as
for more mundane communications.  In many of the dwellings in the
ruins of a recently unearthed E-trus.com village, the
clay-pot-communication string leads to a larger clay pot on a raised
area in one of the rooms.  On this larger pot was often found the
inscription W'rl Dwy-dueb in the E-trus.com script, which most experts
agree means something like "FREE Sex Passwords - virgin sluts in
heat!"


-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz at asfast.com
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