Archive for December 2015
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day”*…
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, as the saying goes.
Lumberjack beards, old typewriters, old-timey drinks, thick rimmed glasses, your grandmother’s knitting, fixed gear bicycles, mason jars for every occasion, workaday heritage brands, you name it – if it’s oldish, it’s in. All things vintage have now become eagerly sought after status symbols by modern-day consumers of a particular stripe, albeit with an ironic twist, under the insidious guise of counterculture coolness.
These are some of the hallmarks of today’s so-called hipster, the caricatured figure of a subculture much mocked in the media and on the internet, yet who somehow persists in having a widespread impact on popular culture and counterculture as it moves, sometimes unwillingly, into mainstream consciousness…
So if all sorts of retro symbols from the past are being revived, consumed, and regurgitated by a fast-moving hipster culture, it’s a fair question for us language obsessives to ask: is vintage language, perchance, also making a comeback?
In this decidedly unscientific investigation, the answer seems to be a resounding: mayhaps?…
Do the linguistic lambada at “More Hipster than Thou: Is Vintage Language Back in Vogue?”
* Proverbial
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As we twist our tongues, we might send improving birthday greetings to Samuel Smiles; he was born on this date in 1812. A Scottish Chartist writer of many personal improvement books, his “masterpiece,” Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, even as it attacked materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called “the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism”, and turned Smiles into a celebrity overnight.
George Bernard Shaw called Smiles “the modern Plutarch”; but, as F. A. Hayek wrote, “It is probably a misfortune that, especially in the USA, popular writers like Samuel Smiles…have defended free enterprise on the ground that it regularly rewards the deserving, and it bodes ill for the future of the market order that this seems to have become the only defense of it which is understood by the general public. That it has largely become the basis of the self-esteem of the businessman often gives him an air of self-righteousness which does not make him more popular.”
Your correspondent is headed, as he hopes readers are, into the warm embrace of family and friends for the Holidays; thus (Roughly) Daily is going into its customary Holiday hiatus. Regular service will resume just after the New Year. Many thanks for checking in throughout 2015. Have the Happiest Holidays!
“… you just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans”*…
… least of all when it comes to amusing Twitter feeds:
To improve your experience on Twitter next year, try following fewer humans and more bots. Automated accounts add whimsy, serendipity, and occasional inspiration to an otherwise drab timeline of tweets.
Bots get a bad rap, in part because they are often confused with spam and aren’t particularly attractive to advertisers seeking human customers. Twitter, perhaps sensing those mixed feelings, also hasn’t done much to encourage or highlight bots on its platform. That’s a shame because bot makers, particularly the #botALLY community, are responsible for some of the most creative work on Twitter right now…
Check ’em out for yourself at “The best Twitter bots of 2015.”
* Isaac Asimov, I, Robot
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As we unrestrainedly retweet, we might spare a thought for Stephen Day; he died on this date in 1668. An indebted locksmith in London, Day was brought to America 1939 by a John Glover, a clergyman who had purchased Day’s indenture. On the same crossing, Glover imported the New World’s first printing press, which Day was to operate. Glover died on the voyage, but his widow and Day established the Cambridge Press on Holyoke Street and produced the first book printed in America, the Bay Psalm Book (1640).
Stephen Day’s press
“Math is sometimes called the science of patterns”*…
email readers click here for video
From Katie Steckles, help for the Holidays…
Special Holiday bonus: the story behind those massive bows that bedeck cars given as Holiday presents.
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As we fold with care, we might recall that it was on this date in 1937 that Walt Disney released the first full-length animated feature film produced in the U.S. (and the first produced anywhere in full color), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The original theatrical one-sheet
“Study the past if you would define the future”*…
Six Degrees of Francis Bacon (SDFB) is a digital reconstruction of the early modern social network that scholars and students from all over the world will be able to collaboratively expand, revise, curate, and critique. Historians and literary critics have long studied the way that early modern people associated with each other and participated in various kinds of formal and informal groups. By data-mining existing scholarship that describes relationships between early modern persons, documents, and institutions, we have created a unified, systematized representation of the way people in early modern England were connected…
Follow the connections at Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.
* Confucius
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As we marvel at the interconnectedness of it all, we might recall that it was on this date in 1606 that The Virginia Company loaded three ships with settlers, who set sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. As this was the UK’s first colony, today can be considered the birthday of the British Empire.
A rendering of the initial settlement/fort at Jamestown, c. 1607
“Time is a game played beautifully by children”*…
A 15-year-old spends the day differently than an adult who works full-time (obviously). You’re not going to see much of the latter spending their time on education in the middle of the day. It’s the leading activity for the former. Similarly, as you get older and pass retirement age, it’s much more likely your working hours decrease, which leaves a lot more time to get your leisure on…
See how you compare to those in your age and gender cohort at Flowing Data‘s wonderful interactive visualization of the “Most Common Use of Time, By Age and Sex.”
* Heraclitus
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As we listen to the ticking of the clock, we might recall that it was on this date in 1871 that Samuel L. Clemens received U.S. patent #121,992 for an “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments,” an affordance primarily designed to tighten shirts at the waist, but also used for men’s underpants and women’s corsets.
Clemens– better known, of course, as Mark Twain– was an enthusiastic inventor who received a total of three patents: his second was for a self-pasting scrapbook (1873) which sold over 25,000 copies; his third, for a history trivia game (1885).
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