Tag: history

Genealogy of Blue

Blue was once little-known in the Western palette. Homer’s sea was “wine dark”; blue would not be used as water’s color until the 17th century. It has evolved from its original association with warmth, heat, barbarism, and the creatures of the underworld, to its current association with calm, peace, and reverie

Forgotten New York

Forgotten New York is 20 years old today. In that time, its proprietor has toured many a corner of NYC. Among countless other trips, he’s documented rails old and new (and roads named Old New), explored NYC’s scenic beaches, and ventured to where the streets have one name.

The Evolution of Cycling

Cycling in the City: A 200-Year History, “reveals the complex, creative, and often contentious relationship between New York and the bicycle” and examines the important role of cycling as the city faces challenges due to climate change, energy scarcity, and population growth. This new exhibit marks the 200th anniversary of the introduction of the bicycle to New York City in 1819.

Medieval Trade Routes

Even before modern times the Afro-Eurasian world was already well connected. This map depicts the main trading arteries of the high middle ages, just after the decline of the Vikings and before the rise of the Mongols, the Hansa and well before the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

Coding Women History

A good programmer was concise and elegant and never wasted a word. They were poets of bits. “It was like working logic puzzles — big, complicated logic puzzles. I still have a very picky, precise mind, to a fault. I notice pictures that are crooked on the wall.”

What sort of person possesses that kind of mentality? Back then, it was assumed to be women. They had already played a foundational role in the prehistory of computing: During World War II, women operated some of the first computational machines used for code-breaking at Bletchley Park in Britain. In the United States, by 1960, more than 25% of programmers were women. At M.I.T.’s Lincoln Labs in the 1960s, most of those the government categorized as “career programmers” were female. It wasn’t high-status work — yet.

Alphabet Origin

this alphabet, designed by and for sub-literate Semites living on the borderlands of Egypt 4 ka ago – is likely the origin point of all modern alphabets. In some cases, it’s a direct lineal descent as in Canaanite to Greek to Latin to our modern alphabet

Finding the JPEG Person

In 1972, a photo of a Swedish Playboy model was used to engineer the digital image format that would become the JPEG. The model herself was mostly a mystery—until now.

Ubar

Most people associate Atlantis with a sunken city or continent that is long gone and hidden beneath the waters. However, Arabia has its own legend of a lost city, the so-called “Atlantis of the Sands“, which has been the source of debate among a number of historians, archaeologists and explorers. Perhaps Ubar is in Rub’ al-Khali, “The Empty Quarter”, but “archaeologists remain divided on whether it is indeed the ‘Atlantis of the Sands.’ Many have changed their opinion and now claim that Habarut, across the border in Yemen, could be the site of Ubar.”

Be: Concept To Death

Be, the company Steve Sakoman and I founded after leaving Apple, had a great product idea, or so we thought, only to discover that a bad choice of partner would almost destroy the company.

Learn Ancient Languages

Lexicity: dedicated to providing online study resources for ancient languages, claims to be “the first and only comprehensive index for ancient language resources on the internet.” With links to resources for 30 ancient languages from Akkadian to Ugaritic (a language discovered in 1928!), you can spelunk and meander and amble your way through dictionaries, grammar lessons, charts and aids, ancient texts, and other resources. As you’d expect, the site has ancient Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Arabic, Sanskrit and Sumerian. Sure, they’ve thrown in Old French and Gaulish, Old Irish and Old English, Old French and Old High German. But the “olds” don’t stop there, and if you want to find resources to brush up on your Church Slavonic, Hittite, or the Mayan language families, there’s something here for you.