- A Map of the Internet from May 1973
This is a wonderful bit of history.
Tag: history
Bookmarks for March 17, 2016
- No Wool, No Vikings
Fascinating write up of the role of wool in viking civilisation.
Bookmarks for March 9, 2016
- The Old River Thames
The Thames, around 1870 to 1920. Lovely.
Bookmarks for September 29, 2014
- Yahoo Directory to close down
I am internet-old enough to remember when the Yahoo directory was the best way to find websites on the internet. A hand-categorised-by-actual-humans list of the most useful websites on many topics was superior (for a while, anyway) to what was produced by the early-stage search engines. I used it pretty much daily. A significant chunk of my first ever internet job was devoted to making sure that our client's sites actually got listed in the Yahoo directory. I am, therefore, wiping away a little nostalgic tear.
Bookmarks for July 17, 2014
- 10 Evil Crimes Of The British Empire – Listverse
Just, you know, in case anyone was wondering why I'm not a fan of our current administration: they appear to take as read that the times in which Britain did this were some kind of halcyon age. Also noted for future reference purposes.
- Papa Parse – Powerful CSV parser for Javascript
I suspect this will be very useful for a number of things.
Bookmarks for March 3, 2014
- Only 90s Web Developers Remember This
And boy, do I remember some of these. The twitching has almost stopped…
- clutter – Opt out of Dropbox's arbitration clause – Opt out of Dropbox's arbitration clause
If you use Dropbox, I urge you to go here, read this, and then opt out of the new TOS clause. Dropbox is still a great service, and I hope it will never matter that I've done this, but the clause is a bad idea – I don't want my rights limited if something *should* go wrong – even if I never exercise them. All that said: I'm impressed they've made it easy to opt out of this clause.
Bookmarks for January 23, 2014
- BBC News – Lions and donkeys: 10 big myths about World War One debunked
Given how politicised/triumphalist the coverage of the conflict is, with the centenary coming up, I don't really know how skeptical of some of this to be – I'm sure the stats are right (and interesting) but some of the "mood" stuff is, well, I dunno… And interesting read, though.
- The Definitive Ranking Of London Tube Lines
Personally, I think the Northern Line is unfairly maligned, but that might be a combination of research and Stockholm Syndrome talking. This is funny though.
Bookmarks for October 16, 2012
- The Good Night Lamp
This is a very lovely idea.
- Index of Jon Boden, John Spiers & Bellowhead's Songs
This is a superb resource for the history of the songs performed by the above named. Proper English folk history.
Bookmarks for June 13, 2012
- Has L.A. changed since the 90s? – losangeles | Ask MetaFilter
A hundred-year history of LA. Makes the place sound interesting.
Bookmarks for May 30, 2012
- UNDO DEL IUMA « ASCII by Jason Scott
The Internet Underground Music Archive is back. It's, ah, a bit trial and error, but basically, there's this absolutely vast pile of free music out there again. If you can't find something in here that you like, I'll eat my socks.
- Half of Detroit’s Streetlights May Go Out as City Shrinks – Bloomberg
Light as an architecture of control. Creepy as fuck – "we're just going to let poor people sit in the dark, in the hope that making their neighbourhoods less safe will make them move" is, well, not the subtext here, but the outright *text*.