Short NYT piece on the history of the algorithm, from Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk–”a part man, part machine … oracle for our times.”
The Great Algoritmi
September 28th, 2007 · No Comments
Tags: Asides
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This is the online home of Rob MacDougall, historian and robot fancier. -
The Good Old
A few of my favorites:
- Dr. Hodgman, I Presume
John Hodgman, the primal scene of American historiography, The Muppet Movie, and how history judges a dream-thief.
- Bon Appetit
The cat eater and cannibal who gave the world “Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay!”
- The Secret Syllabus
Is this post good? Sir, it is pie.
- For Remembrance Day
Major Robert MacDougall, KIA January 1944.
- The Top Five Most Boss Names of U.S. Secretaries of State
Lawrence Eagleburger, thanks for coming out.
- Dr. Hodgman, I Presume
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The New Old
Most recent posts:
- Burger Time Event Horizon
The unknowability of Ms Pac-Man; Major Wesely and Vietnam; the classic arcade “kill screen” and What Lies Beyond.
- Do You Feel Lucky, Steampunk?
The Kinematrix has you: three alternate Victorian internets.
- The Gilded Age Internet and the People’s Telephone
Plus the Jimmy Carterian Internet and the Millennial Pneumatic Tube.
- That Is All
Is John Hodgman the last observer of Gilded Age telephone etiquette? I WOULD NOT PUT IT PAST HIM.
- All That Camp
Write up and reflection on THATCamp 2008, an excellent “unconference” on digital technology and the humanities.
- Burger Time Event Horizon
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The Old Old
In loose Borgesian categories:
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The New New
Interwob links to confound and bemuse:
The Henry Ford of Literature
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, the huckster visionary whose mail-order superhighway paved the way for civil rights, feminism, the sexual revolution and the information age. Also, he may have been murdered by the FBI.Great God, Where Is The Ship?
I don’t talk much politics here, but The Phil Nugent Experience is one political blog I can usually read without curling up into a ball crying. Also: “Drill, Baby, Drill”? Really?Sex Magic Rocket Science
A biography of Jack Parsons, occultist and rocketeer, in comic book form.Wikipedia Is Failing
Wikipedia (who else?) on the ways Wikipedia is failing. (But see also: Wikipedia is not failing; Wikipedia may or may not be failing; Wikipedia on problems solved by MacGyver.)Pants On Fire
Mills Kelly is teaching a course this year that has me seething withjealousyawed respect: Lying About The Past, complete with a second term create-a-hoax practicum.FDR's Men of Action!
Chef Julia Child, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., White Sox catcher Moe Berg, and the proverbial many more served in an “international spy ring” for the OSS during WWII.Old Weird Google Map
Celestial Monochord goo-maps the Anthology of American Folk Music. What part of that sentence isn’t awesome? (See also.)Happiness is Mandatory
Emo and goth to be made illegal in Russia? Don’t they know if we outlaw emo, only outlaws will be emo?Speak In A Raspy Growl and Carry a Batarang
Scott Kaufman reports (without, alas, documentation) that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale based their Batman on Teddy Roosevelt.Mangler 2000
From the “We survived, didn’t we?” department: A paean to old, dangerous playground equipment. (But see Greg Downey’s astute response.) Some Of Our Corky Chums
- Tenured Radical
Superb writer, uncompromising politics, extremely nice person. So don't hold tenure against her. - Edge of the American West
Historians Eric Rauchway and Ari Kelman on history, muppets, and the proverbial more. - History 444E
Course website for my senior U.S. History seminar. - Curious Expeditions
Traveling and exhuming the extraordinary past. - Patahistory
A hot and infinitely dense blog. Home of the life-changing Patahistory Manifesto.
- Tenured Radical
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