Great to see these old pictures of my neighborhood.
Category: history
Scurvy and organizational dementia
The British navy discovered a cure for scurvy and implemented it across the whole organization with great success, then forgot about it only to rediscover it at great cost 150 years later.
Information superhighway
Awesomeness.
1930’s “Blue Monday”
New Order’s classic Blue Monday was released on 7 March 1983, and its cutting-edge electronic groove changed pop music forever. But what would it have sounded like if it had been made 50 years earlier? In a special film, using only instruments available in the 1930s – from the theremin and musical saw to the harmonium and prepared piano – the mysterious Orkestra Obsolete present this classic track as you’ve never heard it before.
Original at the BBC.
The “Big Lie”
I read this quote today and it somehow reminded me about Fox News…
never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
But the thing is, it’s not about Fox News, but from a psychological profile prepared during WW2 by the United States Office of Strategic Services.
l’Escalade
Some genius (cough) has made some nice pictures of a yearly Genevan tradition called l’Escalade
Nice 🙂
Dark side of the 80s
An aerobics championship video from the 80s… the horror, the horror! 🙂
Cheating orange
Reminds me of something I went through earlier this year.
But I’m much, much better now, thanks for asking 🙂
Old school airplane
A Bleriot XI aircraft from the year 1908. Photo by Ronald Zak.
The best stats you’ve ever seen
Hans Rosling debunks myths about third world countries with the best stats you’ve ever seen:
The Atlas of True Names
The Atlas of True Names is a map of the world where each city or geographical entity is labeled with the ‘true’ meaning of their name. The result is astonishing:
Maps of Asia and the Americas after the jump:
Old photos
Shorpy has some wonderful high definition photos of times past, like this photo of Atlanta in 1864.
“Federal Army wagons at railroad depot”.
Wet plate negative by George N. Barnard. Link to original.
The math grenade
Behold the Curta calculator, the most popular analogue pocket calculator in its day, originally designed in a concentration camp as a present for the Führer.
Image credit: Rick Furr
Here’s a movie on how it works:
More on Dark Roasted Blend, or try one yourself with this online simulator.
The international association of time travellers
A fictional forum for time travellers:
“11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl’s cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!At 14:57:44, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1936 Berlin; incapacitated FreedomFighter69 before he could pull his little stunt. Freedomfighter69, as you are a new member, please read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote:
Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what’s the harm?At 18:33:10, SilverFox316 wrote:
Easy for you to say, BigChill, since to my recollection you’ve never volunteered to go back and fix it. You think I’ve got nothing better to do?11/16/2104
At 10:15:44, JudgeDoom wrote:
Good news! I just left a French battlefield in October 1916, where I shot dead a young Bavarian Army messenger named Adolf Hitler! Not bad for my first time, no? Sic semper tyrannis!At 10:22:53, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1916 France I come, having at the last possible second prevented Hitler’s early demise at the hands of JudgeDoom and, incredibly, restrained myself from shooting JudgeDoom and sparing us all years of correcting his misguided antics. READ BULLETIN 1147, PEOPLE!“
Time magazine’s archive: 1939-1945
I have always wondered how people in the years before, during and after WWII observed the events that were happening. Now I know, thanks to Time Magazine – who have put their complete archive online, for free. You can access it using Google News.
A small selection:
- Chamberlain’s appeasement (Monday, Mar. 07, 1938)
- Hitler mobilizing the army (Monday, Aug. 22, 1938)
- Churchill addresses the U.S. Congress (Monday, May. 31, 1943)
- Post-war discussion on what to do with Germany (Monday, May. 14, 1945)
Thank you, Time Magazine, for putting this online.
If WWII was an MMORPG
This is brilliant.
*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0J0: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]: sure whatever
Stalin: cool… more
Guinness book of Computer Games
You can view the Guinness book of Records – Gamer’s Edition online, for free.
Eyewitness of The Black Death, 1348
How did the plague affect daily life? An intriguing eye witness account can be found at this site, which also sports eyewitness accounts of the Vikings discovering America, and the battle of Waterloo – for example.