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Camelbak

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lal_truckee

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Jan 5, 2014, 4:23:40 PM1/5/14
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Periodically the topic of SF predictions comes up.
Typical claims for Heinlein are cell phones and water beds.

I was just re-reading passages in Tunnel In the Sky by Heinlein and
noticed a clear description of a CamelBak brand style of hydration device.

Initially I dismissed the "prediction" as trivial - surely the simple
devices were readily available by TitS's 1955 publication, even if I
didn't remember them. However, I checked with the CamelBak company web
site and found a reference to the device's history at
<https://www.tactical-officer.com/articles/hydrate-or-die-a-brief-history-of-camelbak/>
which proudly proclaims a 1988 date for the invention of a water bladder
flexible drinking tube arrangement.

My question is mundane:
Have we covered this, and merely my memory of the discussion is faulty?
Is the drinking bladder regularly acknowledged in the SF predictions
literature?

Michael Black

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Jan 5, 2014, 4:54:45 PM1/5/14
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I thought it had been real before 1988. Maybe Colin Fletcher had a home
made solution in "The COmplete Backpacker"? Or maybe it was in place in
military use? Gee, in "Have Spacesuit Will Travel", there's a water
nozzle in the helmet, and I'm not sure that's the only story that had it
(Heinlein or others). I can remember some article where someone strapped
a thermos bottle to the rack over the back tire of their bicycle, drilled
a hole in the thermos top, and brought tubing out, so their beverage while
cycling could be cold. But I can't remember when I saw that article. It
had to be by the late eighties.

Michael

tian

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Jan 6, 2014, 5:48:13 AM1/6/14
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Your post is the first place that I remember seeing it discussed in afh.

I have a camelback but I never use it. For some reason carrying a bottle
works out better for me. For one thing, they are much easier to wash.

--
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Canadians are "Americans that don't pay taxes to Washington." - RAH
There's a toy raccoon on a 1998 quarter in my home.

Chris Zakes

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Jan 6, 2014, 8:28:02 AM1/6/14
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The basic question "Did Heinlein describe a Camelbak-type water
carrying system?" was discussed here several years ago.

It *is* a somewhat-obvious idea, though. I can recall one year in the
Reeking Regatta canoe race in Houston, seeing a couple of racers with
2-liter soda bottles filled with water strapped to their backs, with a
tube leading up to their mouths. That would have been in the mid
1970s.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the
great mountains, and hear the pine trees and the waterfalls, and explore
the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

-"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

lal_truckee

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Jan 6, 2014, 11:47:13 AM1/6/14
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On 1/6/14 5:28 AM, Chris Zakes wrote:
> The basic question "Did Heinlein describe a Camelbak-type water
> carrying system?" was discussed here several years ago.

TitS:
"It was a belt canteen of flexible synthetic divided into half-liter
pockets. The weight was taken by shoulder straps and a tube ran up the
left suspender, ending in a nipple near his mouth, so that he might
drink without taking it off."
Message has been deleted

Greg Goss

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Feb 23, 2014, 11:59:15 PM2/23/14
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Winston_Smith <not_...@bogus.net> wrote:

>Wine skin. All sorts of animal parts were used as water/wine/milk/beer
>carriers. Might be where fermentation was discovered. Calf's stomach
>has some rennet. Use it to carry milk and get cheese. Camelbak only
>invented the synthetic bladder.

I don't think so. They've discovered remnants of cheesemaking from
before the genes for lactose tolerance developed.

Prior to lactose tolerance, or processes to break down the lactose
(cheese or yoghurt), why would you be carrying a skin of milk?
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

James Kuyper

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Feb 24, 2014, 8:39:16 AM2/24/14
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On 02/23/2014 11:59 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
> Winston_Smith <not_...@bogus.net> wrote:
>
>> Wine skin. All sorts of animal parts were used as water/wine/milk/beer
>> carriers. Might be where fermentation was discovered. Calf's stomach
>> has some rennet. Use it to carry milk and get cheese. Camelbak only
>> invented the synthetic bladder.
>
> I don't think so. They've discovered remnants of cheesemaking from
> before the genes for lactose tolerance developed.

The Wikipedia article on cheesemaking gives the date for the oldest
archaeological evidence of cheesemaking as 5,500 BCE, while the
Wikipedia article on lactose persistence says that selective pressure
for lactose persistence goes back 5,000 to 10,000 years (citations from
relevant source are provided in those articles). That allows for
thousands of years during which someone with lactose persistence could
have been the one who discovered cheesemaking. Does one or the other of
those article require editing?
--
James Kuyper

Greg Goss

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Feb 24, 2014, 11:15:56 AM2/24/14
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James Kuyper <james...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On 02/23/2014 11:59 PM, Greg Goss wrote:

>> I don't think so. They've discovered remnants of cheesemaking from
>> before the genes for lactose tolerance developed.

>[Wikipedia cite] That allows for
>thousands of years during which someone with lactose persistence could
>have been the one who discovered cheesemaking. Does one or the other of
>those article require editing?

I don't know. The A>B I cited was from a radio interview with someone
who had just identified an oldest-ever ceramic "cheesecloth",
supposedly from before the lactose persistence genes.

But I heard the radio interview more than a year ago, and a hand-wavey
pointing to a weekly CBC science show wouldn't satisfy Wikipedia's
iron hand as a cite.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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Feb 24, 2014, 11:31:44 AM2/24/14
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In article <bn19hs...@mid.individual.net>,
Maybe they were making cheese for the kids..
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