From the Boston Globe:
On Oct. 24, 1861, with the push of a button, California’s chief justice, Stephen J. Field, wired a message from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, congratulating him on the transcontinental telegraph’s completion that day. He added the wish that it would be a “means of strengthening the attachment which binds both the East and the West to the Union.”
Writing blanks: “also known as ‘school pieces’ or ‘Christmas pieces’, these were single sheets printed from copper or wood engravings, issued by print sellers (and, later, children’s booksellers), and sold to children across a broad socio-economic spectrum. ‘Regularly published at least twice a year’, they were intended as a form of sampler, the child filling in the blank space in the centre of a sheet with a set piece in her or his best penmanship. They were sold in book and print shops ‘for the use of writing schools, at the vacations of Lady-day-Midsummer-Michaelmas-Christmas, &c.’, as well as by street criers. Schools, and, in one recorded example, a workhouse overseer, distributed them.
via BibliOdyssey
Jason Oberholtzer defends his Lost Generation over at Forbes:
I reject any notion that my generation is afraid. However, I think it is fair to suggest that a generally mistrustful view of adulthood has become more common, and for defensible reasons. One can make a case-by-case argument that every institution we have been taught to hold in esteem has, in the last decade, given us ample reason to question their integrity.
The Church (already struggling to connect with progressive youth) is still dealing with the fallout of widespread pedophilia scandals; The Military is stuck in two unpopular wars (to be clear, the general opinion is that this reflects on the leadership and on the institution itself, not on the soldiers) in which a decisive victory seems to be impossible; The Government is viewed with such cynicism that being able to “run as an outsider” is a more important quality than “being literate,” -corruption is expected, fidelity is antiquated and politics play out like a gladiatorial event where campaign promises are “moves” and “countermoves” to which no elected official is held accountable; and finally, The Market has been handled so irresponsibly that we now have Amanda M. Fairbanks writing about us as The Lost Generation.
Well fucking said.
Hemmings Blog on the history of New York City and automobiles:
The pairing of the automobile and the narrow, teeming, crowded canyons of New York City is endlessly fascinating. The Standard Catalog lists 334 different manufacturers based in New York City (most of which, surely, built no more than one or two cars, if any), but beyond that, the Big Apple has a history of dealerships, driving, navigation, cab riding, and automotive legislation all its own.
As Just A Car Guy mentions, 334 is a lot of manufacturers.
I love New York.
This lovely old tag is from the website of Dick Sheaff and boy do I love what he does:
I have always found myself keenly interested in a seemingly endless list of vintage things, especially ephemera: stamps, postal history, trade cards, billheads, trade cards, broadsides, cartes-de-visite, stereo views, tickets, engravings, chromolithographs, early American glass, Irish blown three-mold glass, patent medicine bottles, flasks, almanacs, postcards, marbled paper, early letterpress printing, typography, books, African art, record album covers, airbrushed restaurant china, Micronesian tapa cloth . . . . I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I’ve long thought that what I’d most like to do in life, in some better world, would be to put out an ongoing series of high-quality, small publications about such things. As a graphic and publication designer with all the appropriate software, one would think I’d be in a fine position to do just that.
But it ain’t that easy. Especially in today’s publishing and economic environment, the idea of putting out a lot of
ink-on-paper is just not practical. Or even sane. Eventually I realized that what I can do–and fairly easily–is scan
the images, write the words and then simply post them online. I get it out of my system, and the material gets out there in front of the eyes of anyone who may be interested. Win win. So, here goes . . .
For years now I’ve casually collecting the same type of stuff (like the manual to my grandmother’s ’63 Ford Fairlane), although I haven’t made it as much of a focus of this site as I could.
via Still Life
Paleofuture: Tesla Predicts the Portable TV (1926)
NEW YORK, Jan 25 – (AP) – Application of radio principles will enable people by carrying a small instrument in their pockets to see distant events like the sorceress of the magic crystal fairy tales and legends, Nikola Tesla, electrical inventor, predicted today. Mr. Tesla, who on several occasion has tried to communicate with the planet Mars, made his predictions in an interview published in the current issue of Collier’s Weekly.
“We shall be able to witness the inauguration of a president, the playing of a world’s series baseball game, the havoc of an earthquake, or a battle just as though we were present,” Mr. Tesla said.
Once again, another reason for me to love Telsa. He was always overshadowed by the more popular and business-savy bully who was Thomas Edison but the dude needs credit where it’s due. I even admire him trying to contact Mars.
Wired has translated and posted an academic essay by Italian film scholar Federico Giordano on the problems with archiving video games:
Videogames come to us as a form of media which have, on the one hand, some affinities with other previous forms such as cinema, television, technological parks, board games or role-playing games, and even panoramas and dioramas. It is this aspect in itself that makes videogames a medium that can be “archived.”
On the other hand, videogames seem to be a decisive break from these forms. They develop themselves as a specific system of relationships between the text and users.
He identifies three guidelines (borrowed from the KEEP project) for archiving – a) storage, b) transfer and c) emulation.
Here’s a section on emulation:
The “emulation” of Bionic Commando, as with other such games, is not the same as its “storage.” Emulation fails to preserve in detail the experience of the original game, and it certainly cannot store the physical support which was part of the game experience. Generally, emulated games alter the game rhythm, the rendering of the graphics, and the sound, changing the spatial and temporal performance of the original games.
Amiga can be reproduced only partially by WinUAE or other emulators, due to the internal limits of the software. The response time of old joysticks and keyboards, which are different from Gamepads and today’s controllers, make it intrinsically impossible to reproduce the game experience.
via The Escapist
Above is a Notgeld or emergency German currency during the post-WWI inflation period.
More beautiful examples over at Words and Eggs.
What is the Caterpillar Club?
The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin.
Go over to Yimmy Yayo and check out all the images he’s gathered on da Club.
