@bhgross144.bsky.social
John Merritt Associate Director for Research Services at the Harry Ransom Center; Author of The TVs of Tomorrow-How RCA's Flat-Screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs (Chicago 2018). Posting in a personal capacity.
🎶You're either talking or yawning. You didn't listen to a thing you heard. Don't start your morning moaning, or you might end up at the 2025 @shothisttech.bsky.social conference!🎶
(See you in Esch-sur-Alzette, SHOT friends!)
www.historyoftechnology.org/annual-meeti...
#SHOT2025 #histSTM #histtech
"Be sure to smash that like button and support my Patreon to ensure we have enough pennies for Charon, the dark ferryman of the underworld!"
05.10.2025 18:41 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It’s your 75th anniversary, Charlie Brown! 💛
🎉 Today marks the official 75th anniversary of Peanuts! On October 2, 1950, the first Peanuts comic strip, shown here, was published in seven newspapers nationwide. Charles M. Schulz was 27 years old.
Jane Goodall visits United States Mission Uganda on 4 April 2022 Image courtesy of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall#/media/File:Jane_Goodall_visits_United_States_Mission_Uganda_on_4_April_2022_-_5_(cropped).jpg
List detailing participants for Fleur Cowles’s “The Flower Game.” Jane Goodall is the penultimate name listed at the bottom of the right-hand column.
“The first 6 flowers were very easy to chose—but the last 4 were much harder. Not because it is difficult to think of 4 flowers one loves, but because it is difficult to reject others.” -#JaneGoodall in Fleur Cowles's The Flower Game
HT @ransomcenter.bsky.social: sites.utexas.edu/ransomcenter... 🗃️📜
"There's #ArtificialIntelligence, and there's actual intelligence..."
(Well played, @merriam-webster.com!)
#Dictionary #LLM #Booksky 📖
Jenny Kenyon discusses the work of Patrick Hamilton during the Ransom Center's Familiar Terms works-in-progress series.
It's always nice to attend the "Familiar Terms" works-in-progress series @ransomcenter.bsky.social!
Today's presenter was HRC fellow @jennykenyon.bsky.social, who discussed "nervous realism" in the #radio dramas of Patrick Hamilton (author of #Gaslight & #Rope, among other plays).
#theatre 🗃️📜📻🎭
This would be why I am such a strident critic of digitization as a substitute for actual archival preservation. My sixteenth century documents are far sturdier and likely to survive another 500 years than the detritus on the internet. And digitization is not democratization.
29.09.2025 19:21 — 👍 762 🔁 299 💬 12 📌 5
Today's minor victory: Tying my longest @nytimes.com crossword streak!
(Onward to 679...)
#NYTXW #crosswords
"An Archive of the Imagination: Research Opportunities at the Harry Ransom Center" Presentation by Distinguished Visitor, Benjamin Gross, Ph.D. October 3, 2025 from 11 am - 12 pm in the J. Willard Marriott Library, rm 1130 Talk is made possibly by Harry Ransom Center and University of Utah's Office of the Vice President for Research
Next week is going to be really exciting!
On Thursday (10/2), I'm co-hosting an online info session about
@ransomcenter.bsky.social's fellowship program.
Then on Friday (10/3), I've traveling to @utah.edu to discuss the Center's fellowships & collections.
www.research.utah.edu/funding-item... 🗃️📜
Hmm...that's odd. I just retested the link, and it seemed to work.
As an alternative, you can visit the Ransom Center's Fellowships page and register from there: www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/
(In any case, thanks for letting me know and apologies for the inconvenience!)
Social media graphic promoting the Harry Ransom Center's fellowship program. A photograph of a fellow reading a postcard is surrounded by a blue frame with white text ("FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN") on each side.
Heads up, #humanities scholars! @ransomcenter.bsky.social is hosting an online info session about our 2026-27 research fellowships.
Join me & Tracy Bonfitto next Thursday (Oct. 2) at 9 AM, CDT for details about our collections & application process.
events.teams.microsoft.com/event/ad72fe... 🗃️📜📚
I'm reasonably certain this is the 1st time I've ever been included on the short list for a #photography contest!
Many thanks to the @sciam.bsky.social staff for highlighting my recent #SciAmInTheWild selfie @ the Rufus Porter Museum.
(Original post here: bsky.app/profile/bhgr...)
#scicomm #SciAm
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue jay.
Further investigation will reveal more about their nature.
#Zorknithology
I imagine a speech paraphrasing the Tick, "I hate flamin' hot cheetos. And yet, in a sense, I *am* flamin' hot cheetos..."
22.09.2025 21:05 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Historians and STS scholars should be leading the charge against technological determinism in our libraries and universities, waving the banner of contingency above their serried ranks.
22.09.2025 19:20 — 👍 24 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0Technologically advance a band:
HDTV on the Satellite Radio
You're not alone...
21.09.2025 18:49 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Krusty and Bart discuss a Super Bowl winning play in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" segment of Treehouse of Horror VI. (Oct. 1995)
"It's your basic Statue of Liberty play with one twist--you throw it to me!"
#Simpsons
"Well, that depends what you mean by 'crisis'..."
21.09.2025 18:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
- #MeanGirls costumes✅
-Annotated #ThreeAmigos scripts✅
-The pilot for #30Rock ✅
& 50 years of #SNL history✅
Come & see "Live From New York: The #LorneMichaels Collection," now open to the public!
(Thanks to @mr-jce.bsky.social for visiting @ransomcenter.bsky.social earlier this week!) #ATX #TBT
Welcome to Austin! If you have time while you're in town, you should swing by @ransomcenter.bsky.social to check out our brand-new Lorne Michaels exhibition.
Further info via @texashighways.bsky.social: texashighways.com/culture/its-...
"These are the building blocks of the show that's been around for so long, it's really a great history lesson for us."
Curator Steve Wilson discussing @ransomcenter.bsky.social's new #LorneMichaels exhibition on the Today Show.
#LiveFromNewYork #NBC #Today
#SaturdayNightLive #SNL #TVHistory 🗃️📜🎭
Sketchy Characters for $800 On Saturday Night Live, this late, great funny man played Matt Foley, battling both wayward kids and his falling pants
The original costume that the correct response to that Jeopardy clue wore while playing Matt Foley on Saturday Night Live, as seen in the Harry Ransom Center’s new exhibition, “Live From New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection”
Further proof that going to @ransomcenter.bsky.social can improve your #trivia skills!
(@kenjennings.bsky.social—You & the @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social crew have an open invitation to tour Lorne Michaels exhibit the next time you’re in Austin!)
www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/...
#Jeopardy #SNL
Thanks to @rmwhittaker.bsky.social & @austinchronicle.bsky.social for the great write-up of @ransomcenter.bsky.social's new exhibit, "Live From New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection."
(Be sure to stop by UT tomorrow for our Campus Preview Day!)
#SaturdayNightLive #SNL
#TVHistory #Austin #ATX 🗃️📜📺
J'aimerais rencontrer son tailleur.
#Zevon
"He has shed no blood, robbed nobody, & despoiled the country of no one, which is more than can be said of any of his fellows in that line." -Daily Alta Californian (Jan 22, 1867) on Joshua Norton, who named himself Emperor of the U.S. #OnThisDay in 1859.
www.kqed.org/news/1165270...
#EmpireDay 🗃️
Photo of Robert Redford signing the authors' door at the Harry Ransom Center by Pete Smith. Originally posted on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOrCTz3DTX0/?img_index=1
Robert Redford's self-portrait, drawn beneath his signature on the Ransom Center's authors' door. (Originally posted on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stories/ransomcenter/3723088168670375159/)
I'm not surprised that Robert Redford came to visit @ransomcenter.bsky.social in 2011. After all, the Center is home to Woodward & Bernstein's #Watergate papers.
What I didn't know until today is that he drew a little cartoon of himself after signing our authors' door!
#RIP #RobertRedford 🗃️📜
Today's #histSTM lunchtime read: @aip.bsky.social's Anna Doel interviews @mattshindell.bsky.social (Curator of Planetary Sci. & @historyscience.bsky.social secretary) about the National Air & Space Museum's recent renovation.
#histtech #museums #NASM 🗃️📜🚀🔭👩🚀
#Smithsonian #SpaceHistory #FuturesInSpace
#ICYMI: Alcalde (the official magazine of @texasexes.org) published a feature on the Lorne Michaels Collection. "Live From New York," a new @ransomcenter.bsky.social exhibit exploring Michaels's career, opens this week.
alcalde.texasexes.org/2025/08/lorn...
#comedy #SaturdayNightLive #SNL #ATX 🗃️📜
First pages of a handwritten draft of “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace.
On page 30 of a bound copy of “Corrections of Typos/Errors for Paperback Printing of Infinite Jest,” Wallace corrects the age of one of the characters in the book.
15 years ago today, @ransomcenter.bsky.social announced that David Foster Wallace's archive was open to researchers. Since then, Wallace's papers have remained one of our most frequently consulted collections.
Read the finding aid: research.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/fin...
#OnThisDay #BookSky 🗃️📜
