Nick

My instinct served me well, and I switched from my work computer to my personal phone before searching for what the "Spearmint Rhino" is.

03.11.2025 19:41 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rSm...

03.11.2025 19:37 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Whose work are you translating here? I know that a lot of folks (e.g. Huygens, Liebniz) came up with some version of it.

30.10.2025 19:40 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

"The Meiji Emperor 明治5年. Albumen silver print. Uchida Kuichi was the only photographer granted a sitting by the Emperor Meiji and in 1872 Uchida photographed the Emperor and Empress Haruko in full court dress and everyday robes. In 1873, Uchida again photographed the Emperor, who this time wore military dress, and a photograph from this sitting became the official imperial portrait (Ishii and Iizawa). Copies of the official portrait were distributed among foreign heads of state and Japanese regional governmental offices, but their private sale was prohibited. Nevertheless, many copies of the photograph were made and circulated on the market. (Kinoshita). Published in the Japanese book, Meiji Tenno gyoden (Tokyo: Kaneo Bun'endo, 1912)" CREDIT: Uchida Kuichi - Tenno Yondai No Shozo "天皇四代の肖像", published by Mainichi Shinbun Sha 毎日新聞社, 1999.

"A historical photograph of a group of cowboys from the American West, likely from the late 19th century. The photograph appears to be a promotional image for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show" The name "Johnny Baker" is written at the bottom, either as the photographer or labeling a gentleman in fancy hat holding a long rifle.

Referring to global history during the 'Victorian era', but de-centering Europe:
The Meiji era of Japan lasted from 1868 to 1912.

So:
"Cowboys were roaming warrior-gunmen who managed cattle empires for the noble class in early Meiji-era America."

14.10.2025 20:40 — 👍 114    🔁 32    💬 4    📌 2

Wonderful; thank you! I hated to go all <citation needed> on you, but since I was going to send the stat to at least one PhD academic librarian of my acquaintance...

14.10.2025 17:19 — 👍 9    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Bret, that stat is fascinating, and a couple of academics I know would be interested to see it. Do you have a reference for it?

14.10.2025 17:15 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

The second rule is: ARE YOU ACTUALLY FLIPPING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? PUT THAT DAMN THING DOWN AND GET AN AUTOPIPET, YOU ABSOLUTE NUTBAR!

28.01.2025 19:55 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Traffic is stopped in the arrivals line at O'Hare. Anyone know why? It's been 20 min...

18.01.2025 01:08 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

This is the dream

14.01.2025 21:04 — 👍 2463    🔁 156    💬 61    📌 8

Every time I find myself on a Wikipedia page reading about some random bit of evolution (e.g. the Euarchonta hypothesis), there's good odds that I started by looking up something related to one of your posts (e.g. where in the phylogenetic tree Onychomys is situated) and then wandered.

14.01.2025 17:50 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I had heard the story of the Smoot before, but I had no idea that he went on to lead ANSI and ISO! That is so hilariously appropriate that, in fiction, it would be labeled as "too on-the-nose."

09.01.2025 18:48 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0