Dictionary Authors Want to Fleech You Into Saving Obscure Slang Words

by in Community, History, Media Comments Off on Dictionary Authors Want to Fleech You Into Saving Obscure Slang Words

As a writer, one of the best things about the English language is its speakers love of borrowing words from other languages. If English speakers don’t have a word for something, we’re happy to borrow some one else’s. Perhaps a more unique characteristic of English is the enormous number of unofficial slang words spoken throughout the vast areas in which English is a native language. Many of these words — such as Appalachia’s whistle pig for groundhog — are basically unknown to English speakers outside of particular…

What If Aaron Burr Had Become President?

by in History Comments Off on What If Aaron Burr Had Become President?

  One common criticism of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is a lack of a political core. Another famous New York politician, Aaron Burr, was so lacking in principle that as Thomas Jefferson’s running mate, he sought to snatch the presidency after the 1800 Electoral College tie. “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections,” (Stairway Press, 2016) looks at the four most controversial presidential elections in American history, and what if the outcome had occurred the other way…

The Complicated History of the Humble GIF Image

by in History, Technology Comments Off on The Complicated History of the Humble GIF Image

Already more than a decade old and with roots reaching back half a decade before the World Wide Web itself, the GIF was showing its age. It offered support for a paltry 256 colors. Its animation capabilities were easily rivaled by a flipbook. It was markedly inferior to virtually every file format that had followed it. On top of that, there were the threats of litigation from parent companies and patent-holders which had been looming over GIF users for five long years before the fiery…

The Life and Death of Gopher, the Internet Before the Web

by in History, Technology Comments Off on The Life and Death of Gopher, the Internet Before the Web

On March 18, in a conference room of the hotel, Berners-Lee presented one possible breakthrough: the World Wide Web. It was evening. Many of the 530 conference attendees had already gone to the bar or to dinner. To the curious who stayed behind, Berners-Lee explained that the Web could be used to connect all the information on the internet through hyperlinks. You could click on a word or a phrase in a document and immediately retrieve a related document, click again on a phrase in…

Foreign Governments Have a History of Intervening in American Elections

by in Campaign 2016, Foreign Policy, History, International Politics Comments Off on Foreign Governments Have a History of Intervening in American Elections

Something quite remarkable happened this morning. Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, beseeched the government of Russia, a foreign and quasi-hostile country, to hack the private email account of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he told a room of flummoxed reporters. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” For those few readers who aren’t up to speed, let’s back up a step. It…

Urban Voters Overwhelmingly Choose Democrats But This Was Not Always the Case

by in Demographics, History, Metapolitics Comments Off on Urban Voters Overwhelmingly Choose Democrats But This Was Not Always the Case

Over the past few decades, Republicans and Democrats have become more and more sharply divided – not just ideologically, but also geographically. Democrats tend to do best in the nation’s urban areas, while Republicans find their strongest support in more rural areas. Now, a new Pew Research Center analysis of county-level presidential-voting data quantifies just how dominant Democrats are in big cities – and analysts say this dominance will present a tough challenge to Donald Trump this November. […] The last time a GOP presidential candidate won…

Ted Cruz Just Made the Same Mistake Ted Kennedy Did in 1980

by in Campaign 2016, History 14

After a long and bitter primary battle, businessman Donald Trump is now officially the Republican nominee for president. Despite promising to support whoever the eventual nominee was, many of his vanquished opponents stayed home instead of attending the GOP’s national convention in Cleveland. That reaction is not exactly a surprise considering that Trump essentially used an insult comic shtick as one of his prime arguments against his competitors. Given Trump’s constant lying and his continual reversals of his own positions, refusing to endorse him is…