Posts Tagged ‘Easter egg’
“A map is the greatest of all epic poems”*…
A marmot hiding in plain sight in the Swiss Alps
Errors—both accidental and deliberate—are not uncommon in maps (17th-century California as an island, the omission of Seattle in a 1960s AAA map). Military censors have long transformed nuclear bunkers into nondescript warehouses and routinely pixelate satellite images of sensitive sites. Many maps also contain intentional errors to trap would-be copyright violators. The work of recording reality is particularly vulnerable to plagiarism: if a cartographer is suspected of copying another’s work, he can simply claim to be duplicating the real world— ideally, the two should be the same. Mapmakers often rely on fictitious streets, typically no longer than a block, to differentiate their accounts of the truth (Oxygen Street in Edinburgh, for example).
But there is another, less institutional reason to hide something in a map. According to Lorenz Hurni, professor of cartography at ETH Zurich, these illustrations are part inside joke, part coping mechanism. Cartographers are “quite meticulous, really high-precision people,” he says. Their entire professional life is spent at the magnification level of a postage stamp. To sustain this kind of concentration, Hurni suspects that they eventually “look for something to break out of their daily routine.” The satisfaction of these illustrations comes from their transgressive nature— the labor and secrecy required to conceal one of these visual puns…
Slipping one past one of the most rigorous map-making institutions in the world: “For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland’s Official Maps.”
* Gilbert H. Grosvenor (President of the National Geographic Society, first editor of the magazine, and champion of cartography [and photojournalism])
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As we hide Easter eggs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1345– according to 14th century scholars at the University of Paris– the Black Death was created… from what they called “a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius, occurring on the 20th of March, 1345.”
AKA the Pestilence, the Great Bubonic Plague, the Great Plague, the Plague, or less commonly the Great Mortality or Black Plague, the Black Death was actually transmitted by fleas who had fed on diseased rats. It killed an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
More on “the greatest catastrophe ever.”
Spread of the Black Death in Europe and the Near East (1346–1353)
… so you don’t have to…
Every week, I scour Netflix for a movie rated at one star and put it in my queue, suffering through it for your entertainment so that you don’t have to. In the past, I’ve taken on anime cancer demons, softcore Iraq War porn and racist ventriloquism, and this week, it’s the most unnecessary sequel since Caddyshack IV: Oblivion.
ACE VENTURA : PET DETECTIVE JR. (2009)
Starring: Existential dread.
If you’re anywhere near my age, then you probably remember when Ace Ventura: Pet Detective hit theaters, and how it led to 7th graders across the nation upgrading their playground Fire Marshall Bill impressions into full-fledged Ace Ventura riffs that were only slightly less funny than the end of Old Yeller by fall. Looking back, I can pinpoint the class (third period Social Studies) where I came to the conclusion that if I never heard another pre-teen drop an “alllllllll righty then,” it’d be too soon.
And then someone had to go and spend more money than I’ve ever seen to make that very thing happen.
Read the entire review here, then check out the Worst of Netflix Archive. It’s the handiwork of Chris Sims, one of whose other endeavors, Chris’ Invincible Super Blog is a treasure of sufficient worth to have become an “easter egg” in Glen David Gold’s Sunnyside.
As we cull our queues, we might bid a profane farewell to wise and witty George Carlin, the Grammy-winning comedian who is probably best remembered for his routine (originated on his third album) “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” When it was first broadcast on New York radio, a complaint led the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ban the broadcast as “indecent,” an order that was upheld by the Supreme Court and remains in effect today. Not coincidentally, Carlin was selected to host the first Saturday Night Live.
Finding a higher use for those left-over Easter eggs…
From the always-inspirational Instructables, and user bbstudio (among whose passions is carving that natural geometric marvel, the egg shell, as above):
This was done simply to discover if I could do it. I went though a stage where my goal was to remove as much material from an egg shell as possible while still retaining the shape and image of the egg.
More views of this minimalist marvel here; links to more views of the scrimshaw egg shell, and to other contra-seasonal sensations here.
As we gratefully put away the Rit dye, we might recall that it was on this date in 1961 that Robert Noyce was awarded the patent for the integrated circuit that changed electronics. Readers may recall that Jack Kilby had (separately and independently) patented the integrated earlier than Noyce— and won a Nobel Prize for it. But Noyce’s design (rooted in silicon, as opposed to the germanium that Kilby used) was more practical… and paved the way for an altogether new kind of “Easter egg.”
Noyce made his breakthrough at Fairchild Semiconductor, of which he was a founding member. He went on to co-found Intel, then to serve as the unofficial “Mayor of Silicon Valley,” a mentor to scores to tech entrepreneurs– including Steve Jobs.
Noyce with a print of his integrated circuit (source: BBC)
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