An agricultural anachronism
Why do we have summer vacation?
Articles Tagged with history
The ancestral line
Genealogy and history
Some people put tremendous effort into extending and filling in their family trees. In the end, what purpose does it serve?
An unlikely number
The lovers’ lodestone
A prehistory of wireless telegraphy
It was much more difficult to stay in touch 300 years ago. A literary magazine from that era has a suggestion for a surprisingly modern way to do it.
Reading the manuscript
Why handwriting?
Communication in writing nowadays is almost exclusively done in type. Why, then, should anyone care about being able to write legibly?
Science fiction and verb conjugations
Past, present and future are not enough
Science fiction writers imagine whole new universes and explore their possibilities, as we’ve mentioned before. Perhaps they need to think about the changes in language that go along with them.
When predictions are wrong
The role of science fiction
Today’s world doesn’t look like most science fiction stories pictured it. But accurate prediction isn’t the main point of the genre.
It’s alarming
Many things want our attention. They can’t all have it
Life always seems to get louder and more insistent. There are reasons for this, though it’s not a good trend.
Hard problems and easy ones
What’s difficult is not always clear
Humans have accomplished some pretty amazing things, from putting men on the Moon (with old technology!) to sequencing their own heredity. But stubborn problems that look much easier persist.
The angle of the light
A photographer and appearances
Our photographer draws our attention to how differently the same objects appear in different light. It’s a lesson easily generalized.