Acetio | Blogma

Posted: Visualizing US expansion through post offices. from Derek Watkins on Vimeo.

SundayMagazine found a newspaper article from 1890 titled, "FRIENDS THEY NEVER MEET: ACQUAINTANCES MADE BY THE TELEGRAPH KEY. CONFIDENCES EXCHANGED BETWEEN MEN WHO HAVE NEVER SEEN EACH OTHER — THEIR PECULIAR CONVERSATION ABBREVIATIONS"
http://sundaymagazine.org/2010/08/from-1890-the-first-text-messages/

It describes the equivalent of text messaging over the telegraph. Given the cumbersome nature of tapping out each letter, it naturally bred a new kind of shorthand language:

Their morning greeting to a friend in a distant city is usually "g. m.," and the farewell for the evening, "g. n.," the letters of course standing for good morning and good night. The salutation may be accompanied by an inquiry by one as to the health of the other, which would be expressed thus: "Hw r u ts mng?" And the answer would be: "I'm pty wl; hw r u?" or "I'm nt flg vy wl; fraid I've gt t mlaria."

Also worth reading is "How jokes went viral in 1910": http://sundaymagazine.org/2010/06/passing-a-good-joke-along-the-wire/

Martha's Vineyard Museum has an online exhibit titled Girl on a Whaling Ship based on the found diary of Laura Jernegan.

From the site: "In October, 1868, Laura Jernegan, a 6 year old girl from Edgartown, Massachusetts set out on a three year whaling voyage with her father, mother, brother and the ship's crew to the whaling grounds of the Pacific Ocean."

The journal in particular gives a fascinating look at the realities of life in those days, in that situation - some of the details are surprisingly banal and others just surprising. It's a great example of history made accessible to the public.

Honolulu sept, 1870
Monday 26
it has blown real hard for two days. Prescott cut his foot last night it bleed. I am in Honolulu. it is a real pretty place. Mama is making a dress for me. papa is up north where it is cold. he will come back pretty soon. I have two kittens here and one aboard the ship. good by for today.

This is Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity's grandfather, of sorts:

"In November 1970, more than a year after the United States' Apollo 11 mission, Soviet engineers sent Lunokhod 1 to the moon aboard a probe named Luna 17. Powered by solar cells and equipped with radio antennas, cameras, and a dust-sampling scooper, Lunokhod 1 had the appearance of an otherworldly creature."

It was the first robot on another celestial body.

And it's still there.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/forgotten-soviet-...

Yards Brewing Company, based in Philadelphia, has an "Ales of the Revolution" series with beer recipes based on those used by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

I tried the "Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale" which was good, Belgian-y but with a light body.

I'm curious to try the "Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale" which uses molasses in place of barley malt and spruce in place of hops.

Baby Name Wizard has a few interesting visualization tools for mapping the prevalence of infants' names over time.

Here you can see how "J" names for boys have changed over the past 130 years.

"Jacob" is apparently the most popular name for boys at the moment.

IBM's website has photos and information about their Antique Attic exhibit, showcasing their collection of mechanical calculating devices.

"The nearly 400-year history of mechanized calculation was created by men and women with varying and diverse talents, temperaments, backgrounds and education, working in such fields as mathematics, the sciences, government, business and commerce. It is a history not just of singular inspiration and genius but also the continuing, collective discovery of new materials, skills, technologies and techniques to implement and enhance the plans and dreams of individual inventors and scientists."

Above, a Babbage Analytical Engine

200 years ago on this date, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. It's statistically probable that any famous person would share his/her birthday with another famous person, but it is a little jarring to think that these two men, who both, independently, shaped civilization as much as any human being could, were born within hours of each other.

In sports, they have "Dream Teams". Here is the "Dream Kindergarten Class" of 1814 - people (men) born in 1809 (who would have been 5 years old in 1814):

* January 4 - Louis Braille, French teacher, inventor of braille (d. 1852)
* January 19 - Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet (d. 1849)
* February 3 - Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (d. 1847)
* February 12
o Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (d. 1865)
o Charles Darwin, British naturalist (d. 1882)
* March 31 - Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (d. 1852)
* August 29 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician and writer (d. 1894)
* December 24 - Kit Carson, American frontiersman (d. 1868)

I don't think of Lincoln and Darwin as contemporaries. Nor do I imagine Mendelssohn and Poe as such. Or Gogol and Kit Carson. Yet they all were. They all witnessed the emergence of the railroad and telegraph along with their peers, and helped shape 20th-century thought from the same late-19th-century perspective.

And since I'm in Georgia, nearly four score earlier, in 1733, was the founding of America's 13th colony: Georgia.
Today is Georgia Day

A recent find by archaeologists put the first north Asians in North America 30,000 years ago.

The weird thing is that they used weapons made of ivory - in Siberia.

There used to be wooly rhinoceroses up there, you know.

The main European influx came after 1492, but most know of the Vikings centuries earlier.

It's interesting to actually read the sagas of Erik the Red.