Category Archives: history

one-sixth

For Dad‘s birthday I got him a brass sextant. “Thank you, a GPS unit is one gadget that I didn’t have!”

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QotD

C. Northcote Parkinson: The Law and the Profits (1960) It is also usual in works of learning to refer, sooner or later, to ancient Athens. This book will be no exception, difficult as it is to maintain for long the … Continue reading

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who else would tell you?

The Head Heeb: The Sovereign Democratic Republic of Pitcairn. The most astonishing detail of this item is a correct use of the phrase eked out. (Cited, on other grounds, by Chris Brooke (The Virtual Stoa).)

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don’t trust everything you find in a gravel pit

Piltdown Plot — includes ‘prosecution’ and ‘defense’ of seven leading suspects

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the art of Onfim

medieval Novgorod through the eyes of a child Children’s drawings in the Middle Ages?! Even if such things were created in period, how could they have survived to the present day? After all, finger paints, magic markers, and crayons were … Continue reading

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tangled threads, but not infinitely so

U.S. Surname Distribution. (Link from James Grimmelmann.) Most of the names I tried show an anomaly in some part of the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana); for example, Sherwood is rarest in Alabama. Exceptions include Wheeler, about equally common … Continue reading

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numerology

In today’s paper, a rare coin minted in New England. Bonhams expects their sixpence to sell for around $33,200 to $41,500. Those numbers struck me as a bit fishy; a bit of juggling, and I conjecture that the pound is … Continue reading

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