How to Plan Your Old School European Vacation

Perspective…  we can’t get enough of it.

For instance, how long would it take to get you and your ox cart from London to Rome back in the days when they were called Londinium and Roma?  Those up for such a quest should get acquainted with ORBIS, The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World:

Spanning one-ninth of the earth’s circumference across three continents, the Roman Empire ruled a quarter of humanity through complex networks of political power, military domination and economic exchange. These extensive connections were sustained by premodern transportation and communication technologies that relied on energy generated by human and animal bodies, winds, and currents.

(click image to explore)

See you in Alexandria!

[via Ars Technica]

On Not Taking Every Minute of the Day for Granted

24 hours, 70 workers, 1,440 minutes and 1,611 digit changes, all filmed in real time.

The entire 24 hour performance of Standard Time is available for purchase to run as a clock on your computer, iPhone or iPad.

Will they really make every change in time?  There’s only one way to find out.

[Artwork by Mark Formanek realized by Datenstrudel at Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum]

100 Years Ago in Cleveland…

The Time Bandits
Internal Memo
April 27, 2012

Re: 100 Years Ago in Cleveland…

This poster from The Industrial Worker seems straightforward…

(click through to enlarge)

..but in the end begs the question, how critical are little girls with shovels to the structure of our society and do we owe them thanks or… what?

[via Disinformation (via Retronaut)]

A History of Things Worth Knowing

If you think you can get lost surfing the internet, try adding another dimension to it by going through old newspapers online.  It can be a strange experience looking at a past that is at once so familiar and yet somehow alien.  A quarter page might be more than most can handle and a close look at a single ad can send you down the most random of rabbit holes.

Take this ad from the November 27th, 1873 edition of The Weekly Kansas Chief

Turns out we’ve been attempting to assemble useful knowledge into a single volume for longer than you’d think.  Didn’t they know they were clueless back in 2012 1873?   Yes, as one reviewer on Amazon notes of Joseph Triemens’ Manual of Ready Reference, “the material in this book is out of date”, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t learn something from it.  Project Gutenburg has a copy of the 1911 edition you can peruse for free to find out how to keep your canary birds “healthy and in good song”, be reminded that duration of copyright is “fifty-six years in all” or hear that:

the two great apostles of the evolution theory were Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. The latter began his great work, the “First Principles of Philosophy,” showing the application of evolution in the facts of life, in 1852. In 1859 appeared Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” The hypothesis of the latter was that different species originated in spontaneous variation, and the survival of the fittest through natural selection and the struggle for existence. This theory was further elaborated and applied by Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and other writers in Europe and America, and though to-day by no means all the ideas upheld by these early advocates of the theory are still accepted, evolution as a principle is now acknowledged by nearly all scientists. It is taken to be an established fact in nature, a valid induction from man’s knowledge of natural order.

Looks like we need to send a few copies of this one to some people in the present.  If you find yourself unearthing some gems from its pages, please share your favorite “Things Worth Knowing” in the comments.

[Image from the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America archive]

From Big Bangs Come Big Histories

Between the beginning of our universe and the present moment lies 13.5 billions years and so much data that the Information Age hasn’t even put a dent into it yet.  Not only did Earth not come together, literally, until 9 billion years after the party started, we, relatively speaking, just showed up a few moments ago.  That’s a lot of inside jokes we’ve missed out on, not to mention all the other universes or unknown entities potentially beyond our present understanding.

Despite the disadvantage, the field of Big History was born in the 1980’s with the simple goal of studying history from the beginning of time to the present across multiple disciplines of knowledge.  How’s it going so far?  Judge for yourself by checking out ChronoZoom, a collaboration between Microsoft Research, UC Berkeley and Moscow State University.

(click to explore ChronoZoom)

While visually impressive, you might still wonder where you are going to find the time to dive into such a study or why you should even care given that you haven’t filed your taxes yet, but perhaps Bill Gates will one day save up enough money to give us all a couple of days off for such a purpose.  Until then, more information can be found at the Big History Project and from David Christian’s TED talk on the subject.

[via Flowing Data] [Related Posts: Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar, Get Your Perspective On]

A Magical Extra Day

“Poke your eye, pull your hair, you forgot what clothes to wear!”

If you don’t catch the reference, 30 Rock has stepped up and given long-overdue meaning to Leap Day.  Unless you have a better idea, it might be our best chance to give this awkward and abitrary day some life.

Meanwhile, if you find yourself wishing the rest of the year could have a bit of a twist to it, the Ape Con Myth 2012 Novelty Calendar is ready to serve up the next ten months in ways you’ve never seen before!  (Mainly because calendars become much less useful once you start messing with them.)

You can find the calendar, and very little else, in the fairly new Ape Con Myth shop!

Happy Leap Day!  Real life is for March!

2011 Calendar Results

The Ape Con Myth 2011 Have a Nice Dot Calendar is drawing to a close.  Now it’s time to wrap yours up and send a copy in for analysis.  Here’s ACM’s results straight from the home office, with weekdays in red and weekends, along with federal holidays, in blue:

 

Meanwhile, it’s getting about that time.  Do you have your Ape Con Myth 2012 Novelty Rip-Off Calendar yet?  Next year won’t be the same with it, order today!

Step 1: Counting Abstract Objects

It wasn’t just crickets and then computers.  Civilization has been wrestling with data since the start.  Do a Google search and you’ll find that we’re still struggling to get a handle on what we know.  Perhaps it would help to consider our approach historically.  Wolfram|Alpha has prepared a special timeline of computable knowledge for just such an endeavor…

(click to explore the timeline)

[Advance of the Data Civilization: A Timeline via Stephen Wolfram|Blog]

The Ape Con Myth 2012 Novelty Rip-Off Calendar

Will the world end in 2012?  You wish.

The Ape Con Myth 2012 Calendar is not a doomsday calendar, but one specifically designed to get you through what by all appearances could be a pretty interesting year.

Buy one today and enjoy a year of people asking you what that is on your wall!

And to get you in the mood, here’s something to take up more of your time via BoingBoing
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
A Brief History of the Apocalypse

The latter, a timeline of past, present and future predictions of Earth’s doom, starts things off on a familiar note:

“According to Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (1979), an Assyrian clay tablet dating to approximately 2800 BC was unearthed bearing the words “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.” This is one of the earliest examples of the perception of moral decay in society being interpreted as a sign of the imminent end.”

Alas, it was just another Thursday.  And so it goes?

Next year, break the monotony with The Ape Con Myth 2012 Novelty Rip-Off Calendar!

Also available at Electric Works.

The Long Now Foundation

“The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.”

(image from Long Now – click to enlarge)

Learn more at LongNow.org

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