Content Warning
In my new Invisible Universe column, I decode how the phrase that Carl Sagan made famous is routinely misunderstood & abused -- and how to use it as the BS detector it's meant to be.
https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/why-do-extraordinary-claims-require #science #history #logic #philosophy
Content Warning
Content Warning
The dimensions are correct assuming the antenna dome at the back is part of the over all length (79 cm long 28 cm wide).
There seems to have been 2 versions, one with a smoother casing, I went with the version seen in most pictures. So like all my models there is a bit of wiggle room, however the design is accurate.
Content Warning
Content Warning
Or to put it simply, "My friend went to Rome and all I got was this lousy pen.
Dated to about AD 70. Found in London during excavations by MOLA.
Content Warning
⚙️ Initially, I wanted to call it a series, but it was simply a 35-minute adaptation of a part of the play "R.U.R." by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for "Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots)" and was first staged in 1921. It's about humans who create robots (more closely related to the idea of "androids," "replicants" from Blade Runner, or "cylons" from Battlestar Galactica) that eventually rebel against their creators.
⚙️ The most important thing is that in "R.U.R." the term "robot" was used for the first time.
📸 Photo: a sequence from the BBC adaptation of the play "R.U.R." for the small screen (1938)
#History#Culture#TV#SciFi#Robots#Android#RUR#Czech #czechrepublic #europe#KarelCapek
Content Warning
Content Warning
If your character encounters a ruined building, that building can tell us so much about the world. Even if you write notebooks of backstory but then decide to condense the character’s reference down to a single name drop you are still giving them both a history and a place in it. I feel that if your world building or character feels flat that the problem lies in their history. Flush that out, with a focus on how that history would shape that character and you will be amazed at how alive they feel to you.
Content Warning
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
— Howard Zinn
Content Warning
Our awareness of galaxies is just one century old! I dig into the full story in my latest Invisible Universe column:
https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/the-100th-birthday-of-the-universe #space #science #astronomy #history
Content Warning
So instead of copper, silver, electrum gold (the D&D standard), the early Roman Empire used various iterations of Bronze, Orichalcum, Silver, Billon, and Gold.
And today I learned Billon is the name for an alloy of silver and gold, or silver and copper, or silver and gold and copper, or basically any alloy of silver and some base metal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#Imperial_period:_27_BC_%E2%80%93_AD_476
Content Warning
Content Warning
Don't miss the responses : https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-ai-we-deserve/#responses
Content Warning
As Ken Macleod remarked, "history is the secret weapon of the science fiction writer".
Not every time, not for every story element, but it's an *amazing* toy box that you can borrow from whenever you're stuck for an idea! Because fiction illustrates the human condition and humans get up to some really weird shit, for values of "you can't make that up" weird.
Content Warning
Content Warning
Content Warning
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_History_of_Science_Fiction_-_Flickr_-_jurvetson.jpg
#sciencefiction #scifi #history #starwars #startrek #alien #dune #cyberpunk #amazingstories #julesverne #pulp #magazines #pulpmagazines #foundation #hgwells #space #opera #spaceopera#BattleStarGalactica #matrix #bladerunner #heinlein #isaacazimov #metropolis #science #fantasy #adventure #kafka #themartianchronicles #robot #robots #philipkdick #planetoftheapes #terminator #doctorwho #theprisoner
Content Warning
Content Warning
Hello, I'm James Longhurst, a historian of urban and environmental policy. I wrote about the history of bike policy in the United States a few years ago; available from @uwapress (and your local library):
https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742663/bike-battles/
Content Warning
2005: Discovery of the Sloan Great Wall
by J. Richard Gott and co-authors
https://doi.org/10.1086/428890
At the time of its discovery, this 1.37 billion light-years long filament is the largest observed structure in the Universe.
#Cosmology #galaxies#SloanGreatWall#Cosmography #archives #archive#CosmographyArchives #history #science#HistoryOfScience #Astrodon #astrophysics #astronomy #physics#STEM#Universe#CosmicWeb
