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Re:What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? by globuous on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @08:47PM (#16760783)
Going off of that, when I realized that an ice cube was proof of incredible engineerning and that in terms of mankind, it's brand new tech !! I "couldn't believe it". I got that the concept of freezing water was some complex thermodynamics, but never realized it implied I couldn't make an ice cube without it when it's hot outside ! I thought the French had been drinking cold champagne all these years ! (turns out they have, since mostly only the rich ere drinking it and they were using various caves to keep cold temperatures, and they shipped ice from the Alpes; no source on my hands, but that's what I remember when looking into it).

Shizzles, I couldn't make a simple flame by myself ;p

Re:What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? by toomanybeersies on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:52AM (#16762174)
Before refrigeration, people would use evaporative cooling to keep things cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
Re:What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? by Cthulhu_ on Thursday April 05, 2018 @04:55AM (#16763079)
And cooler cabinets, where they had blocks of ice in a compartiment at the top of a closet (of sorts).

(source: guided tour of a late-1800s castle with a fully equipped French kitchen complex. Complex because they had rooms for separate tasks.)

Re:What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? by BuildTheRobots on Thursday April 05, 2018 @05:19AM (#16763199)
Ice Houses were really popular; especially in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)

Re:What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? by noefingway on Thursday April 05, 2018 @08:53AM (#16764395)
Harvesting ice in the winter was a common and wide spread activity in North America (and most of Europe). Short article on Hudson River ice harvesting http://www.genealogy.clifflamere.com/Aid/History/IceHarvesti...