A few of my favorites:
“A flannel curtain has descended across the continent.” The second of five alternate Canadian histories.
All hail King Ludd.
Amish computing, the Ralphies, Senator McCarthy and me.
Look into the future. Wave. The children of 2024 are looking back at us and holding us responsible.
John Hodgman, the primal scene of American historiography, The Muppet Movie, and how history judges a dream-thief.
Most recent posts:
Here’s a second concept course, though the idea is neither new nor mine, and maybe it’s not really a concept course if several people have done it. Still, I would really like to try this someday.
The Backwards Survey
Every single event is the offspring not of one, but of all other events prior or contemporaneous … […]
Last fall, Bill Turkel had a great blog entry calling for “concept projects” in academic history: like concept car prototypes or catwalk fashions, these would be imaginative efforts that need not prove wholly workable or utilitarian, but that might serve to get ideas into circulation, push the boundaries of the form, or, a la Thoreau, […]
Peeing dogs, Donkey Kong, lesbians, sitcoms, and gin.
Spybots invade English village.
Beards, bots, and were they hot?
In loose Borgesian categories:
Tags: Sorry, Bainbridge Colby.
The top five most boss names of U.S. Secretaries of State:
5. Abel Parker Upshur (1843-1844)
4. Condoleezza Rice (2005-)
3. Elihu Root (1905-1909)
2. Hamilton Fish (1869-1877)
1. Philander C. Knox (1909-1913)
Honorable Mention: Lawrence Eagleburger (1992-1993), who as my friend Ned points out, sounds like something you’d be served at Ted Nugent’s ranch.
Interwob links to confound and bemuse:
The SITI Program
The Search for Intelligence on the Internet: My man Mark Rayner plugs the numbers into the Drake equation, predicts that there should be 2.7 intelligent blogs in cyberspace. Keep watching the skies!
The Tank
Tom Englehardt posts Chalmers Johnson’s review of Alex Abella’s new history of RAND.
Note To Self: Ia Fhtagn
What appears to be H.P. Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book: creepy images, story ideas, and games he’d like to run. (Via Felix Gilman.)
High Tech Noon
Do not laser-shark me, oh my darling: isn’t everything better with rayguns?
Men In Tights
It’s been well linked (Barista assumed it was taking the piss but I think he underestimates Chabon’s geeky earnestness) but it’s worth it: Michael Chabon on the superhero unitard. PS How good is All-Star Superman, am I right?
The Cardboard Internet
Paul Collins on the Mundaneum, a networked encyclopedia on fifteen million index cards (shades of the Memex?). Plus index cards as (literally) the U.S. War Department’s killer app.
Google Maps of Sci-Fi
BLDG BLOG’s Geoff Manaugh on mapping the fictional onto the real.
More Dick
You heard it here first:* Moby Dick is awesome! (*No, you didn’t.)
Au Clair de la Lune
Feast your ears on the oldest known sound recording–from 17 years before Edison’s phonograph. (Via Corn Chips & Pie.)
The Pickle King of Islamistan
Khalid (née Bertram) Sheldrake, the “power hungry, toothbrush mustachioed, British ninny” who somehow failed to convert western China to Islam.
Invisible elves make our site go:
© 2001–2007 Rob MacDougall
3 responses so far ↓
1 Ned Codd // Apr 24, 2006 at 5:01 pm
No love for Robert Bacon nor for Lawrence Eagleburger, whose name suggests making a snack out of our revered national symbol.
2 sm // May 29, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Put in that company Rice looks postively pre-Great War!
3 S.J. Redman // Aug 5, 2006 at 5:34 pm
This is hilarious. Thank you.
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