Nachschlagewerke

Singularities: von Neumann, Good, Vinge, …

The OED gives citations for singularity going back to the 14th century, e.g. this example from 1398 in the sense "The fact or condition of being alone or apart from others; solitariness": Men vsyd to ete togyders in open place, leest syngularite schuld brede lechery. A mathematical singularity, as Wikipedia tells us,"is a point at […]

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More caricatured AI reactions

Following up on yesterday's "Singularities" post, today's SMBC: Mouseover title: "Meanwhile the Engineers are just lighting themselves on fire to see what happens." The aftercomic: In fact, there's a wide range of reactions from each group — and likewise from Linguists, although some possibilities are oddly missing… See also "Intellectual Automation" (3/7/2011); "AI Panics" (11/27/2016); […]

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AI doom as message overload

Norbert Wiener's 1950 book The Human Use of Human Beings makes some uncannily accurate predictions, e.g. It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, […]

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Gendering duct tape again

The Weather Channel recently published a story about the value of duct tape in keeping out flood water: "Duct tape kept out more flood water than sandbags in laboratory tests". Its newletter advertised that story as "A victory for dads everywhere": The Wikipedia article on duct tape tells us about the history, in which the […]

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Number line vulnerability?

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "Other numbers are largely unaffected, but anyone using '4' for their certificate key is urged to upgrade to '5'." This obviously echoes the recent panic about vulnerabilities in PHP. The joke works because PHP was just about as much of the assumed ontological background as the number line, even for the […]

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Ask LLOG: Covenant?

From L.J.: Could you explain the real pronunciation of "covenant"? In American English, the first vowel is not like that in British English as shown in the Oxford English Dictionary. Please see the attachment. However, theoretically, a word cannot have three schwas because the stress cannot be assigned. Could the first vowel be actually a […]

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"Pronunciation respelling"

In a comment on yesterday's post ktschwarz informed us that "Pronunciation respelling" is Wikipedia's name for things like "KUV-uh-nuhnt"; I don't know if it's used more widely. I've somehow managed to fail to learn that term, though of course I was familiar with the practice, which is why I invented lah-lah-lah as a placeholder. The […]

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Is It Really Possible for a Nuke to Ignite the Atmosphere?

At exactly 5:30 AM on July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb, codenamed Trinity, detonated over the desert in New Mexico, unleashing in an instant the power of 18,000 tons of TNT. The atomic age had begun. As night turned to day and a fireball 200 metres across rose into the sky, the scientists of the Manhattan Project who [...] The post Is It Really Possible for a Nuke to Ignite the Atmosphere? appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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The Dark Origins of the Treadmill and Why Oscar Wilde was the Worst

“We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.” These are the words of famed master of the pen, Oscar Wilde, in his Ballad of Reading Gaol, referencing his time spent at [...] The post The Dark Origins of the Treadmill and Why Oscar Wilde was the Worst appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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What Was Being a Ninja Really Like?

A relatively common trope today is that of the noble and honorable Samurai warrior opposed by their shadowy brother from another mother, the mystical and morally corrupt, black garbed assassin warrior known as the ninja. These fabled shadow warriors of Japanese history have been a staple of modern pop culture since around the 1960s when super-spy James Bond encountered them [...] The post What Was Being a Ninja Really Like? appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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Look, Ma: no Wings! The Strange World of Lifting Body Aircraft

Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man, better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. So goes the iconic opening of the classic 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors [...] The post Look, Ma: no Wings! The Strange World of Lifting Body Aircraft appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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Was Keel-Hauling Actually a Thing?

Running the gauntlet. Starting. Flogging with the cat ‘o 9 nine tails. Gagging. Clapping in irons. Hanging from the yardarm. While this all might sound like a super fun Saturday night with the misses when the grandparents are watching your kiddos for you, it turns out these are actually just a few of the dizzying array of corporal and capital [...] The post Was Keel-Hauling Actually a Thing? appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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Defeating the Nazis- The Twisting, Turning Road That Gave Us the Microwave Oven

Ahhh the microwave oven: perhaps the most con of mod cons. Whether you’re zapping a mug of lukewarm coffee back to life, rewarming some leftovers, or heating up a frozen burrito for the fourth time this week, this handy little device will get the job done quickly and efficiently without the muss and fuss of a regular stove or oven. [...] The post Defeating the Nazis- The Twisting, Turning Road That Gave Us the Microwave Oven appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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The Dare That Led to the First Hurricane Hunter

On the morning of July 27, 1943, U.S. Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Duckworth sat down to breakfast at Bryan Field near Galveston, Texas. Outside the wind howled as a category 2 hurricane bore down upon the coast. The storm had come as a complete surprise; as a precaution against U-boat attacks a radio blackout had been ordered for [...] The post The Dare That Led to the First Hurricane Hunter appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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The Incredible Soviet Probe Space Heist

Just before we get into today’s topic on America’s attempt to steal a Soviet spacecraft, wanted to shout out the author of this script, Gilles Messier, also made a phenomenal shirt related to this topic. For those interested, you can check it out here. Now let’s get into it. On October 4, 1957 at 7:28 PM Greenwich Mean Time, a [...] The post The Incredible Soviet Probe Space Heist appeared first on Today I Found Out .

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Zoology

Description of the Lyon in Edward Topsell’s 1607 bestiary The History of Four-Footed Beasts: Lyons bones have no marrow in them and are so hard that they will strike fire. Their neck is made of one stiffe bone, without any vertebras. They have five claws on the hinder feet and the balls of their eyes are black. Lyons eat but once in two days, and drink in like manner. Formerly in England a Lyon could tell noble blood from base. There is a variety of Lyon with human faces. As for the rest, the taile of a Lyon is very...

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Turnabout

An “enigma in praise of women,” from an 1820 miscellany: Happy that man may pass his life, Who’s free from matrimonial chains; Who is directed by a wife, Is sure to suffer for his pains. What tongue is able to unfold The falsehood which in women dwell? The worth in women you behold Is almost imperceptible. Adam could find no solid peace When Eve was given him for a mate; Till he beheld a woman’s face, Adam was in a happy state. See, in the female race appear Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride; Truth, darling of a heart sincere, In women...

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“Curious Address”

I send you a post-card which I received in the ordinary way by post from my brother, who lives at Sutton Scarsdale, a scattered village near Chesterfield. You will notice that the card was posted at 7.15 p.m. on the 5th October, and it was delivered during the evening of the following day. The address looks a mixture of Greek and German, but on inspection it will be found that each letter is spelled out in full. The pencilled words were inserted by the Post Office officials. The Post Office is often the object of complaints for tardiness in delivery,...

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Unquote

“He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer’s booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.” — Schopenhauer

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Poles Apart

A problem by Russian mathematician Viktor Prasolov: A circle is divided by points into 3k arcs such that there are k arcs each of length 1, 2, and 3. Prove that two of the division points are diametrically opposite one another.

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Plagiarism

In a randomly infinite Universe, any event occurring here and now with finite probability must be occurring simultaneously at an infinite number of other sites in the Universe. It is hard to evaluate this idea any further, but one thing is certain: if it is true then it is certainly not original! — John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 1986

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A Pearl

Writing to Robert Gathorne-Hardy in 1929, Logan Pearsall Smith referred to an account in the London Times of a solar eclipse as seen from Manila: The weather was cloudless, the conditions were perfect. Acacia trees closed their leaves as for the night; dew fell, chickens roosted, and the peasants in outlying villages, terrified by the awful phenomenon, supplicated the Saints. Smith wrote, “Could this sentence, which Flaubert might have written with the help of Gibbon, be the chance product of a journalist’s pen? I cannot think so.” For the record, a Times archivist attributed the passage to Wi

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In a Word

polyhistor n. a person of great and varied learning edacious adj. greedy, eager perlegate v. to read through defatigate v. to tire out, exhaust, fatigue In his Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, Edward John Trelawny describes Shelley’s thirst for knowledge as “unquenchable”: I called on him one morning at ten, he was in his study with a German folio open, resting on the broad marble mantel-piece, over an old-fashioned fire-place, and with a dictionary in his hand. He always read standing if possible. He had promised over night to go with me, but now begged me...

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The People, Counted: Browse Raw Census Records at the Internet Archive

The U.S. Census has been in the headlines lately, as proposed changes to the 2030 count have sparked debate over who gets counted and what information should be recorded as […] The post The People, Counted: Browse Raw Census Records at the Internet Archive first appeared on Internet Archive Blogs .

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