‘Lost’ music instrument recreated
New software has enabled researchers to recreate a long forgotten musical instrument called the Lituus.
The 2.7m (8.5ft) long trumpet-like instrument fell out of use some 300 years ago.
Bach’s motet (a choral musical composition) “O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht” was one of the last pieces of music written for the Lituus.
Now, for [...]
So I was catching up on On the Media this morning, and heard this bit buried in a piece on the movement of public opinion toward approval of gay marriage.
… if we look back at interracial marriage, it was initially only at a 19 percent support level in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court, [...]
Those of us who grew up in the shadow of WW2 surely remember the contempt with which the “just following orders” defense was met. From the Nuremberg principles:
Article 7. The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or [...]
Hilzoy, at the Washington Monthly.
The Obvious Comparison
You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. (…) As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into [...]
via Sam Smith
Edward Harrison at Naked Capitalism.
Barack Obama as Herbert Hoover
Edward Harrison here. For months now, we have been hearing the Obama — FDR comparisons, all suggesting that Barack Obama is a modern day Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the opportunity to lead us out of Depression with a new New Deal. I have some serious problems with [...]
Stephen Labaton, NY Times, 1999, via Sam Smith.
Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which commercial banks, securities houses and insurers will find it easier and cheaper to enter one another’s businesses.
The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was [...]
Brian Palmer in Slate.
Was Jesus a common name back when he was alive?
… The long version of the name, Yehoshua, appears another few hundred times, referring most notably to the legendary conqueror of Jericho (and the second most famous bearer of the name). So why do we call the Hebrew hero of Jericho Joshua and [...]
The USGS has a nice collection of scanned historical maps of the San Francisco Bay Area. Here’s the one I was after, a c1902 map of the area where I now live.
These maps are available in medium-resolution JPEGs (this one at 1600×2161) and higher-resolution MrSID files (this one at 6614×8933). Mac users can use a [...]
Interesting historical footnote in this Slate Explainer.
Can Rod Blagojevich still appoint a replacement senator?
…
Even if Blagojevich makes his pick before any state-level action can be taken, the buck stops with the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members.” That leaves the final [...]
Here’s a nifty graphic from the USGS. This version is a little small; click it to see a bigger one at the USGS site, where you can also download even bigger copies.
The Earth is very old — 4.5 billion years or more according to recent estimates. Most of the evidence for an ancient Earth is [...]
The following is an abridged text of an open letter [PDF] by John Maynard Keynes to the US president.
Dear Mr President,
You have made yourself the trustee for those in every country who seek to mend the evils of our condition by reasoned experiment within the framework of the existing social system. If you fail, rational [...]
We have here, courtesy of Jonathan Hoefler, a sample of a pixel font from 1567.
The struggle to adequately render letterforms on a pixel grid is a familiar one, and an ancient one as well: this bitmap alphabet is from La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorte di ricami, an embroidery guide by Giovanni Ostaus [...]
Great stuff.
Well, in charts, anyway. Barry Ritholtz collects some very nice examples, of which this is only one. Have a look.
Rob Kapilow talks about the Harburg/Gorney 1932 classic on NPR. It sounds alarmingly up to date, adjusted for inflation.
The article has links to several renditions of the song, of which Harburg’s is my favorite (though Daniel Schorr’s version, at the end of the audio version, is quite fine). YouTube has a perfectly awful version by [...]
Dean Baker, posting at TPMCafe.
The High Priests of the Bubble Economy
Those following the meeting of Barack Obama’s economic advisory committee could not have been very reassured by the presence of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both former Treasury secretaries in the Clinton administration. Along with former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin and Summers [...]
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, [...]
Paul Krugman, on economic lessons to be learned from the Great Depression.
Franklin Delano Obama?
Suddenly, everything old is New Deal again. Reagan is out; F.D.R. is in. Still, how much guidance does the Roosevelt era really offer for today’s world?
The answer is, a lot. But Barack Obama should learn from F.D.R.’s failures as well as from [...]
Mr Fish