Journalist Nellie Bly Began her Around the World in 72 Days Tour Nov 14, 1989

From Wikipedia: In 1888 Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days’ notice,[19] she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line,[20] and began her 40,070 kilometer journey. She took with her the dress she…

Today’s Computer Displays Distort Pixel Art Designed for 1980s CRTs

As a kid, I remember studying my CRT displays with a microscope. Each pixel that I could control with BASIC on my TRS-80 or Atari 800 or Commodore-64 was made up of tiny arrays of red, blue, and green dots that I could not control directly. There was one display mode of the Atari 800 that officially offered 4 colors — black, red, blue, and white. My brother and I…

8yo who found 1500-year-old artifact in a lake: “I had to give the sword to the local museum.”

I was crawling along the bottom of the lake on my arms and knees, looking for stones to skim, when my hand and knee felt something long and hard buried in the clay and sand. I pulled it out and saw that it was different from the sticks or rocks I usually find. One end had a point, and the other had a handle, so I pointed it up to…

Crash site and Tower of Voices. Well worth the side trip on the way back from a weekend gig. @flight93_nps

Flight 93 crash site and Tower of Voices. Well worth the side trip on the way back from a weekend gig. I had to explain to the girl why the 9/11/2001 newspaper in the exhibit didn’t mention the attacks (it had been printed overnight). She was especially moved by the recorded messages left by some of the passengers. I was moved by the display that showed the contours of the…

On this date in 1999 I first added a date to the list of web links I had been curating. (The image has long since broken.)

On this date in 1999, I first dated an entry in the collection of web links I had been curating since at least that January.

Illustration of glowing chain links in a shovel of dirt.

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader

This fascinating essay, by the grandchild of a Nigerian slave trader, explores a complex cultural legacy. At least as provocative as “Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other?” and the stunning, bitter “Molasses to Rum (to Slaves)” from the otherwise cheery musical 1776. African intellectuals tend to blame the West for the slave trade, but I knew that white traders couldn’t have loaded their ships without help from…

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