via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
A 1907 “Coast-to-Coast” Buick on San Francisco’s Auto Row at Van Ness Avenue and California Street in 1929, evidently at the end of its jaunt. Of all the marques represented here – Buick, Graham-Paige, Pontiac and Oakland – only Buick survives.
5x7 inch glass negative by Christopher Helin
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Bringing computer history to life
via BBC News by Mark Ward, technology correspondent
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How many bits are there in a byte? Eight, right?
Well, it depends. While nowadays it is widely accepted that there are eight bits in a byte the bit-count in that computing fact was not always so settled.
In the early days of computers there was little consensus about the basic computational units used to crunch numbers in those older, hulking machines.
"Everyone thinks a byte is eight bits but that's a relatively new development," said Dr Doron Swade, founder of the Computer Conservation Society (CCS) that has now been going for 25 years. The society is helping to unearth the history of computers, recording how they were built and how those now standard units came about.
"What's astounding is how different they all were," he said, adding that the basic numerical systems seen in those old machines were very different. Some machines were decimal, others binary and others used octal or hexadecimal schemes.
Before eight-bits-to-a-byte became standard, a byte could have four, six or even seven bits depending on the machine.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Meaning of skyscrapers
The Quill, the Walkie-Talkie, the Cheesegrater, the Gherkin, the Shard: Skyscrapers attract strange nicknames to go with outlandish analyses…more
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1215 and all that: Magna Carta, symbol of freedom
via Eurozine by John Crace
On 15 June 1215, King John cut a deal with the barons at Runnymede, near Windsor. 800 years later, the thirteenth century document known as the Magna Carta is of global significance where the nurturing of democratic ideals is concerned.
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Personification vs. Anthropomorphism
via Daily Writing Tips by Maeve Maddox
Question: Is there a difference between Personification and Anthropomorphism? If they’re not the same, could you please explain it?
Answer: Both words convey the idea of attributing human characteristics to something not human.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Intellectual origins of evolution
Alfred Russel Wallace and his notebook traveled some 14,000 miles, accumulating evidence of natural selection. Does Darwin get too much credit?… more
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Women who share on social media are less stressed
via Research Buzz: Wall Street Journal by Jeff Elder
Surfing the Web and checking in on social media does not stress people out, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows. In fact, women who regularly tweet, email and post photos on their mobile devices are 21% less stressed, the study of 1,801 adults reveals.
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Don't Write Off ET Quite Yet
via 3 Quarks Daily: Caleb Scharf in Nautilus (photo by Kim Steele/Getty)
Here’s a riddle. We’ve never seen any, and we don’t know if they exist, but we think about them, debate them, and shout at each other about them. What are they?
Aliens, of course.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The idea of hell has evolved over millennia. Where did it come from, and why does it endure? A brief history of eternal punishment… more
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Video: How books used to be made
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
Check out the video here (maybe me but I could not get it to embed)
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