H.G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, 21 september 1866.
(following the Google UFO mystery)
A Castle In The Making
Deep in secluded woodland, an abandoned quarry reveals a landscape, seemingly untouched since the dawn of the last millennium. Out of this wood and stone, using 13th century building techniques, a castle is being created.
The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less
The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less by Eric Schulman.
The Clash of Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. He drew a lot of criticism from e.g. Amartya Sen (see e.g. NYT or read his book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny ).
Samuel Huntington died Dec 24, aged 81.
Helvetica and the subway
There is a commonly held belief that Helvetica is the signage typeface of the New York City subway system, a belief reinforced by Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s popular 2007 documentary about the typeface. But it is not true—or rather, it is only somewhat true. Helvetica is the official typeface of the MTA today, but it was not the typeface specified by Unimark International when it created a new signage system at the end of the 1960s. Why was Helvetica not chosen originally? What was chosen in its place? Why is Helvetica used now, and when did the changeover occur? To answer those questions this essay explores several important histories: of the New York City subway system, transportation signage in the 1960s, Unimark International and, of course, Helvetica. These four strands are woven together, over nine pages, to tell a story that ultimately transcends the simple issue of Helvetica and the subway.
Related:How Helvetica Took Over the Subway by Jennifer 8. Lee in the NYT.
The first web site
Following the proposal for the management of general information about accelerators and experiments at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee to his boss, the first ever web site was created and available in August 1991.
Europa Film Treasures
Thanks to this collaborative effort by several European film archives & centers, the Europa Film Treasures aims at preserving in digital format a good part of the world’s memory in picture – although “it is probable that already 70% of the images shot during the first fifty years of cinema is definitively lost”.
All genres and time periods are on the playbill! From comedy to science fiction, from westerns to animation, from erotic to ethnological movies, Europa Film Treasures dives into the moving heritage of European cultural and political history, through each film archive working on preserving their movies.
A lot of information is not available yet, but already this site is worth a visit. The videos are via streaming, and cannot be downloaded.
Related : European Film Gateway, and Europeana. And of course AFI…
First sound recording
Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville was born in France in 1817. At a young age he was apprenticed to a printer and soon became an avid reader. He was fascinated with the scientific discoveries at the time. Perhaps influenced by a book on human anatomy, he created the phonautograph to simulate the activity of the human ear.
He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, which was patented on March 25, 1857.
In 2008, the New York Times reported the discovery of a phonautogram from April 9, 1860. The recording was a ten-second snippet of a singer performing the French folk song “Au Clair de la Lune“. This phonautograph recording is now the earliest known recording of a human voice and the earliest known recording of music in existence, predating, by twenty-eight years, the longest surviving Edison phonographic recording of a Handel chorus, made in 1888.
More info at First Sounds.
Rithmomachy
Rithmomachy, sometimes known as The Philosophers’ Game) is a highly complex, early European mathematical board game. The earliest known description of it dates from the eleventh century. A literal translation of the name is The Battle of the Numbers.
I have a description of the game, but I can’t find a decent rule book. Anyone ?
The history of graphic design
The history of graphic design. Interesting introduction.
Vasectomania, and Other Cures for Sloth
As always an interesting article at Cabinet.
Ancient Greek Science and Technology
List of links to Ancient Greek Science and Technology
Naumachia
The naumachia (in Latin naumachia, from the Ancient Greek ναυμαχία/naumachía, literally “naval combat”) in the Ancient Roman world referred to both the re-enactment of naval battles and the basin (or more broadly, the complex) in which this took place.
More about naumachia at Pruned.
The inventor of the internet
The Englishman Tim Berners-Lee in collaboration with the Belgian Robert Cailliau is usually credited with the invention of the Wold Wide Web.
However this is to some extent due to the work of Paul Otlet. His vision of a great network of knowledge was centered on documents and included the notions of hyperlinks, search engines, remote access, and social networks—although these notions were described by different names. The NYT published recently an article about the work of Paul Otlet to acknowledge his early vision of the web.
Update: I just discovered why the initial logo of the World Wide Web was green. It so happens that Robert Cailliau is a synaesthetic (when the perception of numbers and letters is associated with the experience of colors) and he sees all “W”s as green… So the logo was green not because WWW is a “green” technology.
Weekend Reading
The Origins of Cybex Space about Gustav Zander’s amazing gymnastic devices
Rawls vs. Nozick: the standoff between these two thinkers is central to political philosophy today. More on Rawls and also more on Nozick.
The Nerve of Frida Kahlo in the NYRB. Links I posted last year about Frida.
Timeline of the universe
Scientists can now tell us what happened in nearly every millisecond of the big bang. Robert Matthews takes us through the first crucial moments.
More detailed information via the Big Bang entry at wikipedia (well written with lots of links).
Poème électronique
Expo 58, also known as the Brussels World’s Fair, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling or Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles, was held from April 17 to October 19, 1958. It was the first major World’s Fair after World War II.
Poème électronique (“Electronic Poem”) is a piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse written especially for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, and was recorded to be played back from 425 loudspeakers, placed at specific points in the Philips Pavilion, designed by Iannis Xenakis while under the employ of Le Corbusier.
Philips Pavilion
«Poème électronique» is the first, electronic-spatial environment to combine architecture, film, light and music to a total experience made to function in time and space. Under the direction of Le Corbusier, Iannis Xenaki’s concept and geometry designed the World’s Fair exhibition space adhering to mathematical functions. Edgard Varèse composed the both concrete and vocal music which enhanced dynamic, light and image projections conceived by Le Corbusier. Varèse’s work had always sought the abstract and, in part, visually inspired concepts of form and spatial movements. Among other elements for «Poème électronique» he used machine noises, transported piano chords, filtered choir and solo voices, and synthetic tone colorings. With the help of the advanced technical means made available through the Philips Pavilion, the sounds of this composition for tape recorder could wander throughout the space on highly complex routes. (source)
A recording of Poème électronique:
Fake memoirs, factual fictions, and the history of history
But is “historical truth” truer than fictional truth? The difference between history and poetry, Aristotle argued, is that “the one tells what has happened, the other the kind of things that can happen. And in fact that is why the writing of poetry is a more philosophical activity, and one to be taken more seriously, than the writing of history.” Historians have turned this thinking on its head. History, not literature, is the serious stuff.
More by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker
Saint Patrick’s Day
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day (or isn’t it ?). The world will turn green again…
Update: I linked to the Britannica first, but for some reason the full article is not available, although Britannica tells otherwise ?!?
Secretum Secretorum
Secretum secretorum is a medieval treatise also known as Secret of Secrets, or The Book of the Secret of Secrets, or in Arabic Kitāb Sirr al-asrār, or the Book of the science of government: on the good ordering of statecraft. It is a mid-12th century Latin translation of a 10th century Arabic encyclopedic treatise on a wide range of topics including statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. It was influential in Europe during the High Middle Ages.
Sample page (source)
Two charts for determining whether a person will live or die based on the numerical value of the patient’s name. From copy of a portion of Kitāb Sirr al-asrār falsely attributed to Aristotle (see pseudepigrapha). The copy is dated on fol. 9b, line 12: Rajab 1264 [= 3 June-2 July 1848]. The copyist is not named.
(Unfortunately I cannot read Arabic, and couldn’t locate a translation either of this page)
1 comment