Ramblings & ephemera
From Marc Ambinder’s “HisSpace” (The Atlantic: June 2008):
Improvements to the printing press helped Andrew Jackson form and organize the Democratic Party, and he courted newspaper editors and publishers, some of whom became members of his Cabinet, with a zeal then unknown among political leaders. But the postal service, which was coming into its own as [...]
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, history, politics | No Comments »
From Jonathan M. Gitlin’s “Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does” (Ars Technica: 24 September 2008):
We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that’s not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a [...]
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: education, history, politics, science | No Comments »
From Wade Davis’ “Wade Davis: an Inuit elder and his shit knife” (Boing Boing: 26 September 2008):
The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. [...]
Posted on October 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history | No Comments »
From Laura Miller’s “The heretic” (Salon: 25 August 2008):
Still, the mental powers of Bruno and his fellow memory artists seem almost superhuman today. The basic principle, Rowland explains, is simple enough, “to link words with images.” Nevertheless, the structures employed were mind-boggling: vast, elaborate patterns and nested wheels within wheels (like the color wheels used [...]
Posted on September 29th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: education, history | No Comments »
From Steve Marsh’s “Homage to Mister Berryman” (Mpls St Paul Magazine: September 2008):
Berryman’s last words to Kate came on that January morning—he told her he was going to campus to clean his office. He had never said that before, she says, but Kate, who was attending Al-Anon meetings at the time, was trying “not to [...]
Posted on September 28th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, Uncategorized, art, history | No Comments »
From Claudia Roth Pierpont’s “The Florentine” (The New Yorker: 15 September 2008): 92:
… the rules by which conspirators must proceed: confide in absolutely no one except when absolutely necessary, try to leave no one alive who might be able to take revenge, and, above all, never put anything in writing.
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How Venice protected [...]
Posted on September 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, art, business, history, security | No Comments »
According to Mickey Kaus’ Why write about the Edwards scandal? (Slate: 4 August 2008), these are the 6 stages of any political scandal:
… the natural progression in cases like this: 1) Too horrible and shocking; it can’t possibly be true; 2) It’s not true; 3) You can’t prove it’s true; 4) Why are [...]
Posted on September 6th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, politics | No Comments »
According to RFC2606, available at http://www.rfc.net/rfc2606.html, the following domains have been reserved for examples in technical and other writing:
example.com
example.org
example.net
In addition, the following TLDs are reserved for obvious uses:
.test
.example
.invalid
.localhost
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Monopolies & Internet innovation
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Who made [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, business, history | No Comments »
From Sam Anderson’s “A History of Hooch“, a review of Iain Gately’s Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (6 July 2008):
Elizabethan England had a pub for every 187 people. (By 2004, the country was down to one for every 529 people.) The Pilgrims’ Mayflower was actually “a claret ship from the Bordeaux wine [...]
Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history | No Comments »
From Sam Anderson’s “A History of Hooch“, a review of Iain Gately’s Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (6 July 2008):
Aztecs liked fermented sap, but had a legal drinking age (52) higher than their average life expectancy - although every four years they’d hold a New Year’s festival called “Drunkenness of Children,” at [...]
Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history | No Comments »
From Oliver Sacks’ “The Case of Anna H.” (The New Yorker: 7 October 2002: 64):
I was reminded of a blind woman, a contemporary of Mozart and a most remarkable pianist, who, it is said, could no longer play after she regained some sight.
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Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, history, security, weird | No Comments »
From Charles Glass’ “The New Piracy: Charles Glass on the High Seas” (London Review of Books: 18 December 2003):
Ninety-five per cent of the world’s cargo travels by sea. Without the merchant marine, the free market would collapse and take Wall Street’s dream of a global economy with it. Yet no one, apart from ship owners, their [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, law, security | No Comments »
From George Pendle’s “New Foundlands” (Cabinet: Summer 2005):
Call them micro-nations, model countries, ephemeral states, or new country projects, the world is surprisingly full of entities that display all the trappings of established independent states, yet garner none of the respect. The Republic of Counani, Furstentum Castellania, Palmyra, the Hutt River Province, and the Empire of [...]
Posted on April 13th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, history, law, politics, weird | No Comments »
From Atul Gawande’s “Final Cut: Medical arrogance and the decline of the autopsy” (The New Yorker: 19 March 2001):
… in the nineteenth century … [some doctors] waited until burial and then robbed the graves, either personally or through accomplices, an activity that continued into the twentieth century. To deter such autopsies, some families would post [...]
Posted on April 12th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history, science, security | No Comments »
From Atul Gawande’s “Final Cut: Medical arrogance and the decline of the autopsy” (The New Yorker: 19 March 2001):
The Roman physician Antistius performed one of the earliest forensic examinations on record, in 44 B.C., on Julius Caesar, documenting twenty-three stab wounds, including a final, fatal stab to the chest.
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The last remaining Stone Age tribesmen
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Posted on April 12th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history, science | No Comments »
From Jim Windolf’s “American Idol” (Vanity Fair: 20 December 2006):
A vestige of the franchise’s 1940s roots remains in the form of Jughead’s hat. In those days, explains Archie Comics managing editor Victor Gorelick, kids would take their fathers’ discarded fedoras, cut off the brims, and scissor them into jagged beanies. Archie artists have recently tried [...]
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, weird | No Comments »
From Charles C. Mann’s “The Coming Death Shortage” (The Atlantic: 1 May 2005):
The twentieth-century jump in life expectancy transformed society. Fifty years ago senior citizens were not a force in electoral politics. Now the AARP is widely said to be the most powerful organization in Washington. Medicare, Social Security, retirement, Alzheimer’s, snowbird economies, the population [...]
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Non-Fiction, history, politics | No Comments »
From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (III: 4):
Scene: Paris - The Palace
BASSET:
Villain, thou know’st the law of arms is such
That whoso draws a sword, ’tis present death,
Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.
Blackstone in his Commentaries (IV. 124): “By the ancient law … fighting in the king’s palace … was punished with [...]
Posted on January 15th, 2007 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history, law | Comments Off
From Timothy Noah’s “Bush’s Fart-Joke Legacy” (Slate: 2 October 2006):
Legend has it that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, once farted in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I, whereupon he went into exile for seven years. On his return, the queen reputedly greeted, “My lord, we had quite forgot the fart.”
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Ulysses Grant [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history, politics | Comments Off
From D. Ghirlandaio’s “Comment to Stephen Griffin’s ‘Torture and the Ticking Time Bomb’” (10 October 2006):
The Syrians had a technique for the ticking bomb scenario. Give the man who knows where the bomb is a cell phone. “Call your mother.” At the mother’s house, a man picks up the phone.
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Why the US toppled Iran’s [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics | Comments Off