this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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History Memes

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago

I always say "People have been people for as long as there have been people," which means this guy's boss was a dickhead, too.

Not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that people in this community don't recognise that this is a Blood Meridian quote.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

It's called a ledger

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 64 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Script itself wasn't invented for poetry or stories or history but for bookkeeping. Who owns how much and who own whom what amount? Let's write it down.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 18 points 3 days ago

I know it's a typo, but "who owns whom" is also correct...

[–] DonEladio@feddit.org 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For Accounting. Don't let your accountant friends know. They are never gonna shut up about it.

[–] ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago

Ehh, double entry accounting being invented at 3000 bc was a basic part of most accounting 101 classes.

[–] DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.world 50 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is actually a moon mining ROI breakdown from Eve Online. Long story short, you lose one drone and you've wasted an hour.

But seriously, great share, thanks!

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That's so sexagesimal

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 26 points 3 days ago

I like that you can still sorta tell that the universal convention is preserved where the last column is for comments.

[–] teft@piefed.social 20 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Genesis 1.0:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the excel.

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago

God created VisiCalc. Then Satan mocked it and created Excel.

the world is actually a database, i believe. reality (the material world around us) is just the user interface.

[–] Una@europe.pub 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

God originally used excel to plan the creation of everything.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 11 points 3 days ago

He's still learning how to use it, too

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 21 points 3 days ago

It has broken edges not because of weathering and age, but because it was thrown to the ground when the self referencing formula kept locking the whole database up.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How do formulas work on a physical spreadsheet?

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You calculate it yourself.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (6 children)
[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

It's actually kind of interesting, they used wax tablets as scratchpads back then. This practice actually continued well into the early modern era because paper, parchment, and vellum were quite expensive and people wanted something that could easily be erased. So most likely they would have written the calculations in wax and only put the final results in clay. By the way, cuneiform tablets are essentially pottery, not rocks. They were basically clay versions of the wax tablets I linked that got fired in kilns for preservation.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

If you're not dual-rocking you're just wasting efficiency

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

If you write things down instead of just remembering them, you'll lose your ability to remember anything at all and will eventually start forgetting what you want to write by the time your chisel touches the stone!

Plus think of all the wasted rocks whenever you make a mistake and need to start over! What if we run out of rocks?? What will we stand on then?

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Yes and you need to sign into that rock using Authenticator or it won't let you put it down unerased.

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

On the sand/ground.

[–] Darkness343@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

In your own mind? I mean, it shouldn't even be a question.

[–] Klear@quokk.au 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait until this guy learns how people used to send letters instead of emails and that paper was used instead of word.

[–] FoxyFerengi@startrek.website 14 points 3 days ago

During the period this tablet was made, letters were also written in clay. My favorite part of this is clay envelopes were also made for documents, and they sometimes contained similar information that we place on envelopes now. Other times they had a condensed version of the document instead

An Old Assyrian (circa 1800BCE) clay tablet partly encased in a clay envelope

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago