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Posts Tagged ‘history’

Any Human Ever

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , , on October 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Some days you come across something on the web that helps you remember why people thought it was a good idea in the first place. For today’s entry into that ledger, I present Any Human Ever.

Any Human Ever: one life from over 100 billion

So: what would happen if stories were drawn from actual data, randomized to give a valid representation of the human story? That’s the question that was stuck in my head, and that drove this project forward. If you could draw a life at random from all of human history, what would it look like? Roll the dice, and see a genuinely random life, depicted as well as the data allow. Do it again and again, and what kind of pointillist painting emerges from all those colorful drops of humanity?

I love this idea. Do statistics have their place? Absolutely. Is this perfect? Maybe not, but I spent some time in grad school arguing for the humanization of data, and that debate solidified my belief that one of the best ways to connect people to ideas is through stories.

Have fun exploring 100 billion of them.

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Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

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Drain the Oceans, Or Not

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , on October 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Drain the oceans and flood the land with this sea level simulator

You’ve surely seen interactive maps showing the effects of the sea level rising, but Sliding Shores makes a game of it: you get a beautifully-rendered globe and a slider to raise or lower the oceans. There’s a load of presets, from “oceans drained” to “drown Everest,” a feat not even Waterworld managed.

Here’s the actual tool: Sliding Shores — Interactive Sea Level Rise Simulator by Richard Franklin.

(It had me at “Boil off 100 feet and we get Doggerland back!” Want to more about why that’s cool? It’s a real-life Atlantis, kinda sorta! Check out this backgrounder.)

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Photo by Gatis Marcinkevics on Unsplash

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Happy 200th, Ottawa!

Posted in Holidays, tagged , , , , , on September 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Ottawa 200 Day: here’s what you need to know | Ottawa Tourism

On September 26, 2026, Ottawa will mark a major milestone: the 200th anniversary of the city’s founding. What began as Bytown along the Ottawa River has grown into a vibrant capital shaped by generations of residents, diverse communities and cultural traditions.

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Photo by Jacob Meissner on Unsplash

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Pearls of Wisdom

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2026| 3 Comments »

I think this application of language to science is really cool, and speaks to the layered memories that are built by each successive generation, if only we know where to look.

Lost oyster beds rediscovered thanks to Gaelic and Scots language

“We thought that as native oysters are now really rare throughout Europe, is there a way to look where they used to be, using people’s memory and understanding – that can come through place names.”

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Photo by Moon Moons on Unsplash

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Bayeux Mania!

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Books are just one of the many ways to interpret and record history. The 11th-century Bayeux tapestry is going on display to the public today in the UK. The tapestry has more than 220 feet of embroidery detailing the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. And the public is loving it.

British Museum Opens Bayeux Tapestry Exhibition

Inside the exhibition on Thursday morning, the first visitors made their way along the tapestry, snapping photos as they went. They were all quiet until one — Cheryl Prax, 71, a retired property manager — spotted some of the nude figures in the tapestry’s borders and laughed loudly. “I love quirky historical things like that,” Prax said afterward.

(And what would this type of storytelling look like with more modern topics? Artist Edith Pritchett drew a modern-day version depicting “today’s battles with online trolls, social media addiction, the manosphere, AI agents” and more: The trollers v the scrollers: Edith Pritchett’s Bayeux tapestry for the modern age)

Want to see the tapestry in person but can’t get tickets to see the original? You still have options!

Where to See the World’s Bayeux Tapestry Replicas

Here are links to just some of the animals, people, and other items depicted (an astronomical object as well as some less safe for work items) in the tapestry. And if you can’t make it in person, check out this high-res digital version from the Bayeux Museum: Explore the Bayeux Tapestry online.

Fair warning, though, many of the main websites linked to the tapestry are slooooow today. Because history is cool, and Bayeux Mania is real!

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Norman soldier spray-painting the Bayeux tapestry. By Ertly – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

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The Sound of Other Worlds

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

It’s a beautiful day here, all blue fall skies and fluffy white clouds, and birds singing in the back yard. What, one might wonder, did the landscape sound like in eons past? Before technology? Even before humans? 

There are still a lot of questions to answer, particularly about dinosaurs and other creatures with soft tissue that has not traveled to us through time, but insects? That, we now have a better handle on.

What Did Jurassic Forests Sound Like? Like This.

Scientists spent over a decade reconstructing the calls of nine species of ancient insects to create the first accurate Jurassic soundscape.

Something to think about if you are a writer building a soundscape for your world. And having spent much of the weekend with mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, I can only say that insects certainly can make an impression!

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Photo by George Patient on Unsplash

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Going Back? Plan Ahead!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2026| 4 Comments »

This is fascinating, educational and fun. One of the things they may not tell you when they give you the keys to the time travel machine is that language is a living thing, and English is now very old.

Linguist and teacher Colin Gorrie decided to illustrate how the English language has changed over the last 1000 years by writing a post that slowly transitions from the modern day, in hundred year increments. How far back can you understand? 

How far back in time can you understand English?

He arrives, he checks in. He walks to the cute B&B he’d picked out online. And he writes it all up like any good travel blogger would: in that breezy LiveJournal style from 25 years ago, perhaps, in his case, trying a little too hard.

But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler.

By the middle of his post, he’s writing in what might as well be a foreign language.

The last 300 years aren’t so bad, but then things start to get squiffy enough that I hope you’re planning to pack a fairly comprehensive dictionary. The success of your time travel adventures may depend on it!

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Is this a statue of a time traveler holding a dictionary? Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

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Our American Experience

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , , on February 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Black history is American history. It’s a story of promise, setback, and redemption—all things at the heart of the American experience. We shouldn’t be afraid of this story. We should learn from it, be inspired by it, and celebrate it every single day… — Colin Allred

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Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

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Journey to The Journey

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on December 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I ran across this short piece by Brian Lewis (self-described Cosmic Poet, which is awesome), and wanted to share. 

In the fall of 1929, with America days away from financial ruin, Joseph Campbell committed what everyone called “professional suicide.” He walked into his advisor’s office at Columbia—degree in hand, future within reach—and announced, calmly, boldly, disastrously: “I don’t want one field. I want all of them.”

Yes, that Joseph Campbell, Mister Hero with a Thousand Faces.

By now, most of us have heard about Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and how it distills thousands of years of mythology into a useful, easily transferrable model to help reach an audience.

(It also generated follow-on models, including Gail Carriger’s Heroine’s Journey.)

But how did Campbell build that original model? The essay shares some of the backstory of that process, and was full of new-to-me details. How did Campbell go from obscurity to one of the best known framers of storytelling?

Read the full essay for more. And yes, George Lucas plays a significant role:)

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Photo by Javier García on Unsplash

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Look What We Did!

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , , on December 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Last month marked 25 years of humanity’s continuous presence in orbit around this fair planet.  

25 years, one website: ISS in Real Time captures quarter-century on space station

Two NASA contractors, working only during their off hours, have built a portal into all of those resources to uniquely represent the 25-year history of ISS occupancy.

ISS in Real Time, by Ben Feist and David Charney, went live on Monday (October 27), ahead of the November 2 anniversary. In its own way, the new website may be as impressive a software engineering accomplishment as the station is an aerospace engineering marvel.

It’s a good story about persistence and creativity, and it’s great to have all of this history and knowledge in one place. 

It’s also easy to get bogged down in the trials of life and forget what’s good. But really? Our adventures in space are pretty incredible. For most of our species’ existence we’ve looked up at the stars and dreamed. And now?

Look! Look what we did!

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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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