Tag: history

Ages Of Discord

Turchin has some great stories about unity vs. polarization over time. For example in the 1940s, unity became such a “problem” that concerned citizens demanded more partisanship: Concerned about electoral torpor and meaningless political debate, the American Political Science Association in 1946 appointed a committee to examine the role of parties in the American system. 4 years later, the committee published a lengthy (and alarmed) report calling for the return of ideologically distinct and powerful political parties. Parties ought to stand for distinct sets of politics, the political scientists urged. Voters should be presented with clear choices.

The Birth of House Music

House has become one of the most popular forms of electronic music since its inception in the late 80’s. It began in Chicago, when local DJ’s and music producers experimented with remixing disco vocals over hard hitting drum machines. They would soon play a huge role in popularizing the sound and distinguishing house music as a global music genre

Peter Saville

last July, at Raf Simons’ Spring/Summer 2018 show in New York City. Deep in Chinatown, underneath the Manhattan Bridge, Simons showed a collection of expressionistically shredded menswear with a cyberpunk edge, and included was a series of garments bearing imagery Saville had created for Factory nearly 40 years prior. This was not the first time Simons has used those graphics. His Fall/Winter 2003 collection contained similar items, many of which are now among the most covetable in his catalogue—military parkas covered in patched and painted renderings of Saville’s imagery now routinely sell for 5 figures. Why, I wondered, is this world of images still so pervasive? I put the question to Simons himself, over email. He responded simply: “It is iconic and timeless.” Well—okay, yes. But what does “timeless” actually mean?

Treadmill Punishment

Inventor William Cubitt subscribed to the “no pain, no gain” philosophy. His “Tread-Wheel,” which was described in the 1822 edition of Rules for the Government of Gaols, Houses of Correction, and Penitentiaries (published by the British Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders), was presented as a way for prisoners to put in an honest day’s labor. Prisoners used treadmills in groups, with up to 24 convicts working a single machine, usually grinding grain or pumping water, sometimes for as long as 8 hours at a stretch. They’d do so “by means of steps … the gang of prisoners ascending at one end … their combined weight acting upon every successive stepping board, precisely as a stream upon the float-boards of a water wheel

this explains a lot.

Modeling Evolution

Barricelli programmed some of the earliest computer algorithms that resemble real-life processes: a subdivision of what we now call “artificial life,” which seeks to simulate living systems—evolution, adaptation, ecology—in computers. Barricelli presented a bold challenge to the standard Darwinian model of evolution by competition by demonstrating that organisms evolved by symbiosis and cooperation. Until his death in 1993, Barricelli floated between biological and mathematical sciences, questioning doctrine, not quite fitting in. “He was a brilliant, eccentric genius”

Mittani Palace

the site of Kemune can be dated to the time of the Mittani Empire, which dominated large parts of northern Mesopotamia and Syria from the 15th to the 14th century BCE. The Mittani Empire is one of the least researched kingdoms of the Ancient Near East. The archaeologists now hope to obtain new information about the politics, economy, and history of the empire by studying cuneiform tablets discovered in the palace.

New Era of Political Reform?

History suggests that we’re at an inflection point on the cusp of a new era of reform. In one sense, it’s right on schedule. As Samuel Huntington notes in his 1981 classic, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, the US goes through periods of reform politics about every 60 years or so: the 1960s, the Progressive Era, Jacksonian Democracy, and the Revolutionary War. In these years, Americans grew disillusioned and discontented with the corrupt status quo, and reform movements spread. New media and expanding participation upended traditional power politics. The parallels of today with earlier eras are striking.

Jony Ive Design Legacy

In conversation, he would always be unfailingly polite (if not always prompt in recent years), a gentle soul in the body of a rugby player. He’d shimmer with intensity as he dove into the tiny things that were always paramount in bringing his visions into physical form. Like Carl Sagan awed at some mind-bending celestial wonder, he’d extol the sound that a laptop made when it closed shut, or praise the way concrete had been poured in the parking garage at Apple headquarters. When we talked about the iPod, he would launch into reveries about its whiteness. “It’s not just a color. So brutally simple and so … pristine … so shocking.” That word again.