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gwern comments on Fermi Estimates - Less Wrong
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I was basing my notion on having heard that a piano was a standard feature of a Victorian parlor. The original statement of the problem just specifies a piano, though I grant that the cartoon version requires a grand or baby grand. An upright piano just wouldn't be as funny.
These days, there isn't any musical instrument which is a standard feature in the same way. Instead, being able to play recorded music is the standard.
Thanks for the link about the lack of new musical instruments. I've been thinking for a while that stability of the classical orchestra meant there was something wrong, but it hadn't occurred to me that we've got the same stability in pop music.
Sure, but think how small a fraction of the population that was. Most of Victorian England was, well, poor; coal miners or factory workers working 16 hour days, that sort of thing. Not wealthy bourgeoisie with parlors hosting the sort of high society ladies who were raised learning how to play piano, sketch, and faint in the arms of suitors.
Unless it's set in a saloon! But given the low population density of the Old West, this is a relatively small error.