Pages Tagged “History”
Reviews
- Four Lost Cities
★★★★★
Annalee Newitz
Fascinating look at how cities form, live and die, seen through archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, Angkor, Cahokia and Çatalhöyük. - From Hell (Movie) ★★★☆☆ A fairly decent Jack the Ripper film (if there is such a thing), but tossed out the main themes of the graphic novel.
- The Old Iron Dream
★★★★★
David Forbes
An extended essay tracing the strand of military authoritarianism and white male supremacy in science-fiction, from John Campbell through Heinlein, Pournelle and other major names up through the then-present of 2013. - Ragtime
Ragtime has even more emotional impact on stage than the songs do alone, and the historical themes resonate strongly with the present day.
Les Misérables
- Waterloo At a cliffhanger in Valjean's story, Victor Hugo pauses to spend 45 pages describing the Battle of Waterloo and what makes it the hinge of the 19th century.
- Getting Un-Convent-ional Hugo separates exposition & action, spending pages on character & setting before telling you what they did. Ex: The convent where Valjean & Cosette shelter.
- You Say You Want A Revolution Before the barricades arise, Hugo establishes the political mood in Paris from 1830-1832, making clear the scope of unrest and that they DID have a chance.
- Barricades of Future Past (Plus Cannon Geekery) After a look ahead to the 1848 barricades, Enjolras gives a speech, Valjean makes an entrance, and the students talk geek out over the army's new cannon.
- Last Stand at the Barricade Hugo lays out the main theme of the book, 1000 pages in. The barricade falls, the surviving defenders retreat to the tavern, and Grantaire wakes up at last.
- Return to Waterloo Waterloo draws you in immediately with the perspective of a visit to the battlefield, before it breaks down into a long string of opinions.
Blog Posts
- Elemental States of Matter
It’s interesting how well earth, water, air and fire map to solid, liquid, gas and plasma. People recognized the four states of matter, but for ages they interpreted them as ingredients instead of structure.
- Plural of Eclipse
Yes, it turns out a colander *does* make a fun instrument for observing a solar eclipse! Also, thinking about how common eclipses actually are.
- Lost Cities and Alien Skies
You wouldn’t think that books about astronomy and archaeology would have a lot in common, but Four Lost Cities and Under Alien Skies pack some odd similarities.
- Looking Back at Camp Myford
I’ve been looking through photos from back when we could, you know, go places and found a set from the hills above North Tustin during a year that we got enough rain to turn the hills green. There were some really clear shots of Peters Canyon, Saddleback, and even some south Orange County hills that […]
- Recent Links: Geography, Internet and Comics
Live wind patterns, historical travel times, reliability of social networking, the importance of web page weight, emergency gadget power, UNIX Daemons and Seurat’s Justice League.
- Origins of Unix
IEEE Spectrum article on The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix. This was an interesting read, especially for the cloak-and-dagger tactics they had to resort to not only to create the OS in the first place, but to do things like distribute bugfixes (because management was afraid that distributing bugfixes would be considered “support”). […]
- Sequencing the Black Death
A few years back, while I was reading Eifelheim, I found myself curious about the timeline of the pandemic and read up on the Black Death. There was an idea floating around at the time that, based on descriptions of the symptoms and spread of the disease, the black death might have been caused by […]
- Links: Ancient World, Eudora, Area 51
Familiar yet alien ancient views of Earth – photorealistic simulations of the world as seen from space, millions of years ago. Back in 2006, Qualcomm effectively discontinued Eudora, though they sponsored a project to extend Mozilla Thunderbird with the look, feel, and some features of Eudora. I lost track of it over the years, but […]
- Links: Coffee, D&D Advice, Paused Niagra Falls
Some interesting links I’ve encountered over the past week or two. Help! My Half-Elf is Pregnant! – The 11 strangest Dungeons and Dragons questions from the “Sage Advice” Column 15 things worth knowing about coffee by The Oatmeal. Photos: When Niagra Falls Ran Dry
- Links: Science as a Subway, App Pricing, Terraforming IRL
Some interesting stuff I’ve found this week.
- Links! Alarms, Ghosts of History, Firefly Trek, WW2 Star Wars & More
Hazards of too many alarms; Merging historical and modern photos; Computer lightning safety; Allergies, Star Wars as World War II; Firefly as Star Trek, SMBC’s Logogeneplex.
- Links: Identity, Kindle, Language, and the Moon
Linkblogging: Privacy in terms of identity. The new Kindle. The future of old-timey language. Geek Merit Badges. The Moon Hoax debunked as a comic.
- Great Quotes With “Dear”
Here are some of my contributions to todayââ¬â¢s Twitter meme, #greatquoteswithdear. You can probably figure out how the game worksââ¬Â¦
- Man-Eating Bird
Fossils linked to Maori legend of man-eating bird The giant Haast’s Eagle, which died out at least 500 years ago, was originally thought to have been a scavenger, but new analysis of fossils indicates that it was a lion-level predator…making it the probable basis for the Maori Te Hokioi legend.
- Touring the Mt. Wilson Observatory in 1992
With the observatory threatened by the Station Fire, I dug out my photos from a tour my family took 17 years before.
- Lost Food: Panda Panda
Panda Panda was a steam table Chinese restaurant in Lake Forest around 2000, until it was replaced by Panda Express, then bulldozed for a new Panda Express.
- Satellite Market, Fast Food Options, Ada and More
Last night I learned that the Satellite Market near Disneyland is still there, but the Sputnik-style sign has been replaced. Old & new photos. Side salad vs. fries study: Adding a healthier option caused people to choose the unhealthy option more often. It’s made me a lot more aware of what I order for lunch. […]
- “Oh, There’s a Snake Under My Cot”
The night I found a rattlesnake in my tent at a Boy Scout summer camp. No one was bitten, but getting that snake out was an interesting experience.
- February 30 and the Seven-Day Week
An NPR story about an archaeological site in Peru mentioned that the ancient Andean calendars used a 10-day week, and I started wondering what other measurements various societies have used. The seven-day week is (almost?) universal these days, developed independently in both the Middle East (spreading to the West) and in the Far East, but […]
- Billion-year-old Nuclear Reactors
From the Astronomy Picture of the Day, it’s the remnants of a two-billion-year-old nuclear reactor discovered in 1972 in a mine in Oklo, Gabon. Apparently in the old days there was enough uranium-235 in the Earth’s crust that, under the right conditions, nuclear fission could occur naturally. Over time the fuel was used up, and […]