Content tagged history

Blog Entries

Famous photographs (e.g. Capa’s “Death of a Loyalist Soldier”), rendered in Lego. (Interesting details on how they were made as well.) gulfstream/2421

Clay Shirky’s tantalising suggestion that perhaps TV is a temporary spare-time-filling measure, and that sometime soon we’re going to come up with … gulfstream/2431

Essay on the iconoclastic Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman and his involvement in the making of an early parallel supercomputer. gulfstream/2442

Since MPs are technically forbidden to resign (since they theoretically serve at the pleasure of their constituents), they need to “resign” via the … gulfstream/2412

High-resolution images of that (previously-uncontacted?) Amazonia tribe shot who shot at a plane flying overhead with arrows. gulfstream/2448

The design similarities between Braun and Apple products. (The Braun calculator and iPhone calculator are distressingly similar.) gulfstream/2321

Great piece on Toronto’s subway signage, and public signage in general. gulfstream/2330

Loving piece on the Leica. “Ralph Gibson once went to a meeting of the Leica Historical Society of America and, he claims, listened to a retired Marine … gulfstream/2331

Astute essay on the state of web apps, and what might happen next, with comparisons to the place ofLotus 1-2-3 3.0 and Windows in computing history.The … gulfstream/2332

Nice series by Tim Wu on some categories of laws that are not actively enforced (including copyright laws, immigration laws), and why. gulfstream/2342

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Includes sections on The Bible (the handwriting on the wall), proverbs (he who laughs last, laughs best), idioms … gulfstream/2349

The evolution of Mario gameplay via an interview with Super Mario Galaxy game director Yoshiaki Koizumi (surprisingly interesting): “There are issues … gulfstream/2355

Surfing the modern web with Netscape 0.9b. (Not much of it works, though mostly because it doesn’t talk HTTP 1.1, or understand content type.) gulfstream/2373

“The Charms of Wikipedia,” by Nicholson Baker. The first section neatly captures the charms of Wikipedia, and the last is a nice account of Baker’s … gulfstream/2407

Photographing medieval tapestries. gulfstream/1717

First-hand account of the Yalta conference. Stalin apparently had a lemon tree flown in so that Roosevelt could serve his martinis with a twist. gulfstream/1776

Jorn Barger of robotwisdom.com now semi-homeless in SF? gulfstream/1791

“How vanilla became shorthand for bland.” I hate hate hate it when I get a milkshake with no flavour when I ask for a vanilla milkshake.  … gulfstream/1813

What the “@” sign is called in different countries. gulfstream/1839

Malcolm Gladwell on the college admissions process. gulfstream/1846

John Seigenthaler’s Wikipedia entry was wrong for 132 days, which makes him unhappy. gulfstream/1893

Lone Star Statements: One star Amazon reviews of notable books. gulfstream/1919

Where map geeks and music geeks intersect… Map superimposes 20th Century musicians over London’s tube map; musicians at intersections  … gulfstream/1965

In 1962, a U.S. high-altitute (400km!) nuclear test knocked out one-third of the satellites in low earth orbit, including the first commercial communications … gulfstream/2020

Figure I should put this up: the top 50 blogs in September 2000. gulfstream/2029

Measuring poverty: in the US, the poverty line for the last 40 years has been set at three times a (very minimal) food budget. This approach has many … gulfstream/2045

History of The New Yorker via the recently-released CD anthology. Less than affectionate; attempts to diminish. (e.g. “The New Yorker is the only magazine … gulfstream/2089

On the origin and revival of Matthew Carter’s font Georgia. gulfstream/2104

“Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence”: “... Little did such founding fathers as George Washington, George Jefferson, and ***ERIC … gulfstream/2124

Things I didn’t know: there is still Shaker community, though there are only four of them left. Their website explains why they share all their goods: … gulfstream/2129

Why there’s a shot clock in basketball: in the 1950s, before the shot clock, teams would stall after claiming an early lead, resulting in slow, dull … gulfstream/2139

Malcolm Gladwell: the success of a company (or country) is determined, to a great extent, by the ratio of workers to dependent non-workers. (GM has 453,000 … gulfstream/2141

Remarkably honest and straightforward (feelingless?) autobiographical account of Robert Hughes’s first marriage. “We met at a drinks party in Notting … gulfstream/2142

Buildings in Mecca and Medina dating back to the time of Mohamed and before are being destroyed by Wahhabists in an attempt to prevent idolatry. (The … gulfstream/2206

CIA account of two CIA operatives shot down over China on their first mission in 1952, and held captive for 20 years. gulfstream/2270

Google search of all the pages you’ve ever visited. You need to have the Google Toolbar installed. Must require a really nasty amount of computing … gulfstream/2273

del.icio.us

Apple //c - a photoset on Flickr
apple //c unboxing!

photographs of leaders before they became famous

The Inflation Calculator

How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Commodity Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States | Book Reviews | EH.Net

torgo_x: Everything old
browsing the web with mosaic 0.93

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Review: Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler

The History Channel - Great Speeches: Politics & Government

The History of Sampling

invention of utf-8

keepgoing.org :: The Big Fish

Native ingenuity - The Boston Globe

Focus: White do-gooders did for black America - World - Times Online

From Nineveh to New Orleans - Books - Times Online

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Tashkent's hidden Islamic relic

Dresden - Do Germans have a right to mourn their war dead? By Carly Berwick

How Much Is That? | EH.Net

Tony Rothman's Article on Evariste Galois

BBC SPORT | Football | World Cup 2006 | World Cup memories

The New Criterion — Tales from the crypt
history of the new yorker via a review of the cd anthology; attempts to diminish it

Slavery and the American Revolution

Japan Probe

World Leaders Youth Pics - Iran Defence Forum

Improbable Research

Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate

American Scientist Online - Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island
easter island inhabited by humans much later than previously thought, and deforested by rats??

Wired 14.11: The Perfect Thing

The 10 Downing Street Door
oh, england: the "0" on 10 downing street is fixed at an angle, because the original had a badly-fixed "0" also.

interview with the creators of zfs

Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection: An Overview - Guides, Reference Aids, and Finding Aids (Prints andPhotographs ReadingRoom, Library of Congress)
the original image contains a thumb, which was airbrushed out--choose "jpeg image" or the link from the detail page to see it

SpiekerBlog (en): Braun Apple

Image:Carlos segundo80.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giampietro+Smith: Writing