Sitting here on the deck on a seasonally hot day reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I have a glass of what was ice water. Before the ice “cubes” melted, they were prisms of a segment. That is the shape that the level water in the ice maker has as the intersection with the arc that is the mold. Someplace around here, I have articles (a,b,c) about ice maker repair but when it works an ice maker is a wonderful thing.
In a previous time, the ice cubes had to be made in the freezer section of the refrigerator. A metal pan held held metal dividers that had to be warmed or shifted with a lever to separate the rectangular prisms from the separators in the tray. When plastic became popular, a plastic tray made “cubes” with trapezoidal faces. These trays ejected the ice everywhere but into the glass you were trying to fill.
Back even farther, chunks of ice were broken from the same block of ice that cooled the food in the ice box. An ice pick was poked at the ice until a chunk came off. The block of ice likely came from an ice plant where ammonia refrigerant cooled a couple of gallons of water in each mold to make thousands of blocks every day.
Even farther back and maybe still today where it is more economical than not, ice was sawn from surface of a lake or even a purpose-built pond. Hauled and stored in an ice-house with sawdust packed between the blocks to keep them from sticking and to insulate.
Just some thoughts on a day when the temperature is 97 or so. A bit of a breeze make it tolerable. And ice water makes it enjoyable.