3 ms·

That's not practical at all. It could be applied only for an odd number of lines, if they even happened to know in advance how many lines it'd take. Also, it'd

by mfukar 16y ago

That's not practical at all. It could be applied only for an odd number of lines, if they even happened to know in advance how many lines it'd take. Also, it'd be amazingly frustrating: imagine having to "switch" your focus from the start of the text to the end, and then a little further from the start, and then a little further from the end... I don't think our ancestors were masochists or dumb, really.

gwern 16y ago
> It could be applied only for an odd number of lines, if they even happened to know in advance how many lines it'd take. I think when you are working in stone, you have your text prepared in advance. (But what do I know? Just the other day, I took a week and dashed down my grocery list on some granite. Turned out to be an even number of lines.)
- mfukar 16y ago
  Hey, I might be horribly wrong. It's not like I can put myself in their position. It certainly isn't the first or last thing about ancient times that we come up with half-witted explanations for..