5 Intriguing Things
"Over the next year or so, as I’ve mentioned in recent posts, I plan on tracing out as much as possible of what can be known or reasonably guessed about the next five hundred years or so of North American history—the period of the decline and fall of the civilization that now occupies that continent, the dark age in which that familiar trajectory ends, and the first stirrings of the successor societies that will rise out of its ruins. That’s a challenging project, arguably more so than anything else I’ve attempted here, and it also involves some presuppositions that may be unfamiliar even to my regular readers. To begin with, I’m approaching history—the history of the past as well as of the future—from a strictly ecological standpoint."
"At first glance, planetary scientists who study asteroids might seem to be obvious supporters of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) plans. It would, after all, redirect a small near Earth asteroid (NEA) into lunar orbit, where astronauts would visit it and return perhaps many kilograms of samples. In fact, though, many planetary scientists have expressed skepticism, or even outright opposition, to ARM, worried that the mission might turn into a boondoggle that, if cancelled, could hurt other asteroid projects."
3. A screenshot has sold for $90k, as art.
"Opening at a minimum bid of $500 and finishing just four days later on 1 August at $90,900, the screenshot—named 'Artwork by Anonymous'— is an anonymous post on the board pondering the diminished nature of art—once something 'to cherish', now reduced to a post on 4chan."
4. Funny money and the Mexican revolution.
"But just as film began to flourish in the early 1900s, counterfeiting crimes rose; as a precaution, Federal laws were enacted that barred the use of real currency in full-scale photography. Studios found a replacement in 1920: when the Mexican Revolution ended, vast quantities of Mexican currency, rendered worthless by the war, were acquired by Hollywood producers and used in lieu of U.S. tender. When the supply of these notes diminished a decade later, studios began replicating other Mexican currencies. By the 1960s, this crude prop money was in widespread use."
5. It is possible to recover audio from video of a vibrating object, like a bag of chips.
"Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass. In other experiments, they extracted useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant."
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
chalet. A herdsman's wooden cottage in the Swiss mountains; a house or cottage of that style. Not just any house on a hillside, as many US house names would suggest.
Rendered Worthless by the War