Cai Lun, 105
I had no idea that we knew the name of paper’s inventor
, or the year of its invention.
History
What Are 21 Years Worth?
As far as I am concerned, these people are owed gobs of money. False accusation, conviction and imprisonment is one of the most heinous things you can do to a person short of murder. How do you repay twenty-one prime years stolen from a life? If I were the jury rewarding damages, I don’t think I’d consider a miliion a year per person the be excessive. I’m not sure I’d consider it to be enough, for something that has no price. Everyone involved in railroading them deserves to be sued into poverty. As Glenn Reynolds notes
, this was one of many cases.
Stop Coddling Your Dog
I knew some of this, but more of it is news to me. Fascinating insight into dogs.
Spoofing the Annual People Born In
People born in 2014 won’t get to experience
, for instance, “…that insane moment in 1066…” or the attack on Pearl Harbor. There are a few of the more traditional one in there, of course, but they waste no time making their point.
124 States
That’s even more than Obama’s 57 states! This is an amusing and intriguing hypothetical map experiement showing what the US could look like had all secession movements succeeded. Clearly there is more to it than that
, to make Cuba a state, for instance. And we gained some from the present Mexico, but Canada not so much.
We The People
It’s important to remember we are in charge and, as V would say, our government should be afraid of us. Snowden has clarified that things are backward.
If you read the post linked above without also clicking through and reading the link it contains, you are missing out. I only have the vaguest memory that there was ever a scandal regarding something called INSLAW, so I looked it up and found it fascinating. Especially given that it involved case management software that was so early, and made me think of software with which I’ve been involved, but used for nefarious purposes, and used/adapted heavily for making connections every which way between people, not just documents or legal cases.
It seems like we’re on a precipice, windmilling our arms, trying to maintain balance, but we’re failing… and perhaps we’ve been closer to the edge for longer than we could preceive.
Hounded
I can remember being deeply offended by this sort of thing as far back as childhood, and I am no longer young by most standards. If you are there and things are how they are, it is entirely wrong for people to come along later and complain, just because they had the audacity to build or occupy new construction in your area. The story I remember from my youth is of new neighbors shutting down a small airport that long preceded them. Bad enough that new arrivals can change the character of an area in more subtle ways
, like making it less purple and more blue in nature.