How British Codebreakers Built the First Electronic Computer

in Google, History, Technology, Video - Arts & Culture | April 23rd, 2014

It was only a matter of time before the folks at Google Cultural Institute wandered down the road in Mountain View to visit the Computer History Museum. Together they’ve taken on a slim little subject, Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing

Unlike the best Cultural Institute exhibits (the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dazzling array of other art and history collections come to mind) this one doesn’t do enough to leverage video to bring the material to life. It’s a breezy little tour from the humble (but effective) abacus to punched cards, magnetic discs and the dawn of miniaturization and networking.

But nothing about how the Internet developed, leading to the Web and, now, the Internet of Everything?

I’ll admit that I learned a few things. I hadn’t heard of the design-forward Cray 1 supercomputer with its round tower (to minimize wire lengths) and bench to discretely hide power supplies. The Xerox Alto came with consumer friendly features including a mouse, email and the capacity to print exactly what was on the screen. The unfortunate acronym for this asset wasWYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

I had also never heard about the Utah teapot, a picture of a gleaming white ceramic urn used for 20 years as the benchmark for realistic light, shade and color in computer-generated images.

“>http://youtu.be/amRQ-xfCuR4

More interesting, and up to the Cultural Institute’s standards, is the exhibit built in partnership with the National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire, England. It’s a fascinating piece of history, focusing on Hitler’s efforts to encrypt messages during the war and stump the Allied forces. He commissioned construction of a super-sophisticated machine (not Enigma, if you’re thinking of that). The machine was called Lorenz and it took encryption to an entirely new level.

“>http://youtu.be/knXWMjIA59c

British linguists and others labored to manually decipher the messages. Attempts to speed the process led to development of Colossus, the world’s first electronic comuter. The project was kept secret by the British government until 1975.

Kate Rix writes about education and digital media. Follow her on Twitter.

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H.G. Wells Interviews Joseph Stalin in 1934; Declares “I Am More to The Left Than You, Mr. Stalin”

in History, Literature | April 23rd, 2014

From the 20/20 point of view of the present, Joseph Stalin was one of the 20th century’s great monsters. He terrified the Soviet Union with campaign after campaign of political purges, he moved whole populations into Siberia and he arguably killed more people than Hitler. But it took decades for the scope of his crimes to get out, mostly because, unlike Hitler, Stalin stuck to killing his own people.

In early 1930s, however, Stalin was considered by many to be the leader of the future. That period was, of course, the nadir of the Great Depression. Capitalism seemed to be coming apart at the seams. The USSR promised a new society ruled not by the oligarchs of Wall Street but by the people — a society where everyone was equal.

H.G. Wells interviewed Stalin in Moscow in 1934 for the magazine The New Statesman. Wells was an avowed socialist and one of the left’s most influential authors. His first novel, The Time Machine, is essentially an allegory for class struggle after all. The interview between the two is fascinating.

Wells opens the piece by stating that he speaks for the common people. While that point is debatable — Stalin calls him out on that assertion – Wells does speak in a manner that is readily understandable. Stalin, in contrast, speaks in fluent Politburo. The blandness of his speech, choked with Communist boilerplate, seems designed to make the listener tune out. But then he drops little bon mots into his monologues that hint at the violence he has unleashed on his country. Take this line for instance:

Revolution, the substitution of one social system for another, has always been a struggle, a painful and a cruel struggle, a life-and-death struggle.

It’s a chilling line. Especially when you consider that at the time of this interview, Stalin was just starting to launch his first wave of political purges and he was plotting to assassinate his main political rival Sergei Kirov.

As the interview unfolds, you can imagine Wells growing increasingly frustrated by Stalin’s narrow, dogmatic view of the world. The Soviet leader, as Wells later wrote in his autobiography, “has little of the quick uptake of President Roosevelt and none of the subtlety and tenacity of Lenin. … His was not a free impulsive brain nor a scientifically organized brain; it was a trained Leninist-Marxist brain.”

At several points in the interview Wells challenges Stalin: “I object to this simplified classification of mankind into poor and rich,” the author fumes.

And when Stalin doesn’t agree with Wells that the Capitalist system was on its last legs, the author actually chides him for not being revolutionary enough. “It seems to me that I am more to the Left than you, Mr. Stalin; I think the old system is nearer to its end than you think.” Now that’s chutzpah.

In the end, the interview presents a dueling version of the future of the left. Wells believed, in essence, that the Capitalist world only needed to be reformed, albeit drastically, to achieve economic justice. And Stalin argued that Capitalism had to be torn down completely before any other reform could take place.

In spite of their differences, Wells left the interview with a positive impression of the Soviet leader. “I have never met a man more fair, candid, and honest,” he wrote.

Wells died in 1946 before the worst of Stalin’s crimes became known to the outside world. Stalin died in 1953. Following a stroke, his body remained on the floor in a pool of urine for hours before a doctor was called. His minions were terrified that he might wake up and order their execution.

You can read the entire interview between H.G. Wells and Stalin on The New Statesmen’s website here.

via Kottke

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Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.

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Free: British Pathé Puts Over 85,000 Historical Films on YouTube

in Film, History | April 18th, 2014

British Pathé was one of the leading producers of newsreels and documentaries during the 20th Century. This week, the company, now an archive, is turning over its entire collection — over 85,000 historical films – to YouTube.

The archive — which spans from 1896 to 1976 – is a goldmine of footage, containing movies of some of the most important moments of the last 100 years. It’s a treasure trove for film buffs, culture nerds and history mavens everywhere. In Pathé’s playlist “A Day That Shook the World,” which traces an Anglo-centric history of the 20th Century, you will find clips of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the bombing of Hiroshima and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, alongside footage of Queen Victoria’s funeral and Roger Bannister’s 4‑minute mile. There’s, of course, footage of the dramatic Hindenburg crash and Lindbergh’s daring cross-Atlantic flight. And then you can see King Edward VIII abdicating the throne in 1936, and the eventual Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 (above).

But the really intriguing part of the archive is seeing all the ephemera from the 20th Century, the stuff that really makes the past feel like a foreign country – the weird hairstyles, the way a city street looked, the breathtakingly casual sexism and racism. There’s a rush in seeing history come alive. Case in point, this documentary from 1967 about the wonders to be found in a surprisingly monochrome Virginia.

Here’s a film about a technological innovation that curiously didn’t take off — an amphibious scooter. The look of regal dignity on the driver’s face as his vehicle moves down the Thames is priceless.

In an early example of a political blooper, there’s this footage from 1942 of Bess Truman trying valiantly to smash an unyielding bottle of champagne against the fuselage of a brand new bomber.

And then there’s this newsreel from 1938 on the wedding between Billy Curtis, a 3’7” nightclub bouncer and his 6’4” burlesque star bride. The jaunty, spectacularly un-PC voiceover should probably be filed under “things were different then.”

If you have several weeks to kill, you can watch all of the videos here.

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Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.

by Jonathan Crow | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 11 ) |

Rare Audio: Albert Einstein Explains “Why I Am an American” on Day He Passes Citizenship Test (1940)

in History | April 14th, 2014

Most Americans by birth, myself included, have little reason to think about the process of attaining our highly sought-after nationality. But it only takes a moment’s reflection on the millions upon millions of immigrants who came to the United States in the twentieth century alone to get us pondering not just the how but the why of American citizenship. It’s become more relevant than ever today, when we need not look far to notice how many trans-national projects, careers, couples, and families have sprung up around us. Not only do a wider variety of people come to America today, but more Americans base themselves elsewhere than ever before. For some serious thoughts on changing nations, have a listen to the radio clip above, a brief interview with German-born theoretical physicist (and internationally known icon of science and intelligence) Albert Einstein. Last year, we featured footage of Einstein’s 1933 speech in praise of individual liberty at London’s Royal Albert Hall. He gave it not long after the Nazis took power in his homeland; just four days later, he set sail for America and never looked back.

This broadcast went out in 1940, not long before the United States joined the Second World War, as part of I’m An American, a joint effort of the NBC network and the Immigration and Nationalization Service to invite “a number of naturalized citizens to talk about the American citizenship which they have recently acquired, a possession which we ourselves take for granted, but which is still new and thrilling to them.” Einstein, an articulate if still thickly accented speaker of English, calls this rare media appearance a “self-evident duty,” and praises the egalitarianism and cooperative spirit that inclines America toward “the development of the individual and his creative power.” The famed scientist’s interlocutor, Second Assistant Secretary of the Department of Labor Marshall E. Dimock, asks him about the reasons he appreciates his new citizenship, why he prefers to live in America given his “international outlook,” and whether he feels America still lives up to its grand promise of liberty. Whether you believe America has improved or gone downhill since that era, I think you’ll find in Einstein’s proud responses a reminder that it often takes a former outsider to clearly see the qualities that have given the country its place in history.

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Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on cities, language, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

How the CIA Turned Doctor Zhivago into a Propaganda Weapon Against the Soviet Union

in Books, History, Literature, Politics | April 9th, 2014

Humanity has long pondered the relative might of the pen and the sword. While one time-worn aphorism does grant the advantage to the pen, most of us have entertained doubts: the sword, metaphorically or literally, seems to have won out across an awfully wide swath of history. Still, the pen has scored some impressive victories, some even in living memory. Take, for example, the CIA’s recently revealed use of Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago as a propaganda weapon. Repressed in Pasternak’s native Russia, the book first appeared in Italy in 1957. The following year, the British suggested to America’s Central Intelligence Agency that the book stood a decent chance of winning hearts and minds behind the Iron Curtain — if, of course, they could get a few copies in there. A CIA memo sent across its own Soviet Russia Division subsequently pronounced Doctor Zhivago as possessed of “great propaganda value, not only for its intrinsic message and thought-provoking nature, but also for the circumstances of its publication. We have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country in his own language for his own people to read.”

That evaluation comes from one of the over 130 declassified documents used by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée in their brand new history of this act of real-life literary espionage, The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book. You can read an in-depth article on some of the events involved in this operation — the CIA’s printing of both hardcover and miniature paperback Russian-language editions, the not-so-clandestine distribution of copies at 1958’s Brussels Universal and International Exposition, the CIA’s unexpected alliance with the Vatican in this mission, the inept probing by Soviet “researchers” — at the Washington Post.

You can also watch a CBS This Morning clip on the book just above. Dramatic though this “Zhivago Affair” sounds, it came as neither the first nor last American use of culture as a means of destabilizing the Soviet Union. We’ve even previously featured two others: secretly-funded abstract expressionist painting, and Louis Armstrong’s 1965 East Berlin and Budapest concerts. Cold War America may have had the sword, in the form of its vast nuclear arsenal, polished and ready, but clearly it retained a certain regard for the pen — and brush, and trumpet — as well.

How the CIA Secretly Funded Abstract Expressionism During the Cold War

Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on cities, language, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Old Books Bound in Human Skin Found in Harvard Libraries (and Elsewhere in Boston)

in Books, History | April 6th, 2014

For at least a decade now, the “death of print” has seemed all but inevitable. Amidst all the nostalgia for printed literature, it’s easy to forget that mass-produced books and media, and a literate population, are fairly recent phenomena in human history. Books—whether printed or hand-copied—had a totemic status for thousands of years, given that they were kept under the protection of an educated elite, who were among the few able to read and interpret them. Even after the age of printing, books were rare and hard to come by, largely too expensive for most people to afford until the advent of paperbacks.

A grisly reminder of the book’s status as an almost magical object surfaced in Harvard’s rare book collection a few years ago. In 2006, librarians discovered at least three volumes bound in human skin—and as travel site Roadtrippers reports, “in one case, skin harvested from a man who was flayed alive.” Gruesome as all this seems, the practice of skin-binding was apparently not the sole province of serial killers:

As it turns out, the practice of using human skin to bind books was actually pretty popular during the 17th century. It’s referred to as Anthropodermic bibliopegy and proved pretty common when it came to anatomical textbooks. Medical professionals would often use the flesh of cadavers they’d dissected during their research.

The book supposedly made of flayed skin is a Spanish law text from the seventeenth century titled Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias (above). Despite an inscription naming the deceased and claiming his skin as the binding, this volume has actually just been identified as sheepskin—according to a Harvard Law Library blog post from yesterday—“thanks to a technique for identifying proteins that was developed in the last twenty years.” Speculates the Law Library post:

Perhaps before it arrived at HLS [Harvard Law School] in 1946, the book was bound in a different binding at some point in its history. Or perhaps the inscription was simply the product of someone’s macabre imagination.

Nevertheless, other human skin-bound books exist—as far as librarians and scientists can determine. Former director of libraries for the University of Kentucky Lawrence S. Thompson claims that the practice dates as far back as a 13th century French Bible and became more common in the 16th and 17th centuries. A 1933 Crimson article mentioned another skin-bound book in a collection of miniature books, including this graphic detail: “removal of 20 square inches of skin from his back failed to impair the health of its donor, who is still alive and in the best of condition.”

Another skin-bound volume, which Thompson calls “the most famous of all anthropodermic bindings,” resides across the river from Harvard at independent library the Boston Athenaeum. Called The Highwayman: Narrative of the Life of James Allen alias George Walton (above), the book is a memoir of the titular outlaw. The author, reports the Crimson, “was impressed by the courage of a man whom he once attacked, and when Walton was facing execution, he asked to have his memoir bound in his own skin and presented to the brave man.” Thumb through (so to speak) a digital copy of Walton’s 1837 memoir above, and imagine being the recipient of such a gift.

via Roadtrippers

How a Book Thief Forged a Rare Edition of Galileo’s Scientific Work, and Almost Pulled it Off

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Batgirl Fights for Equal Pay in a 1960s Television Ad Supporting The Equal Pay Act

in History, Politics, Television | April 1st, 2014

Featured on the Emily’s List Facebook Page today is this “PSA from the 1960s,” where “Batgirl advocates for equal pay while saving Batman and Robin.” Emily’s List, a PAC aiming to put more pro-choice Democrat female candidates into political office, goes on to note, “Over 50 years ago, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, a law designed to end wage discrimination against women. Unfortunately, the fight’s still got many rounds left.”

Indeed, a 2008 Census Bureau report shows that women’s median annual earnings were 77.5% of men’s earnings, and efforts to address that imbalance with The Paycheck Fairness Act have been filibustered successfully by Republicans in the Senate. Although President Obama supports the measure, data shows women aren’t faring well financially in the Obama White House either. Where’s Batgirl when we need her?

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by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Durable Wisdom on Curiosity, Empathy, Education & Responding to Criticism

in Education, History, Life, Politics | April 1st, 2014

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a prolific columnist and writer, with an impressive list of clips produced both during FDR’s tenure in the White House and afterwards. George Washington University’s Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project tallies up her output: 8,000 columns, 580 articles, 27 books, and 100,000 letters (not to mention speeches and appearances). Many of those columns and articles can be found on their website.

Their archive offers every one of Roosevelt’s “My Day” columns, which ran through United Features Syndicate from 1936–1962. These short pieces acted like a daily diary, chronicling Roosevelt’s travels, the books she read, the people she visited, her evolving political philosophy, and, occasionally, her reflections on such topics as education, empathy, apathy, friendship, stress, and the scourge of excessive mail (“I love my personal letters and I am really deeply interested in much of my mail, but when I see it in a mass I would sometimes like to run away! I just closed my eyes in this case and went to bed!”)

The “My Day” archive is a little difficult to navigate—you have to browse by year, or search by keyword—but the archive’s short list of selected longer articles is a bit simpler to survey. Some of my favorites:

“In Defense of Curiosity” (Saturday Evening Post, 1935): Roosevelt often drew fire for her insatiable interest in all areas of national life—a characteristic that people thought of as unladylike. This article argues that women, too, should be curious, and that curiosity is the basis for happiness, imagination, and empathy.

“How to Take Criticism” (Ladies Home Journal, 1944): Roosevelt had a lot of haters. This longer piece mulls over the different types of criticism that she received during her public career, and asks how one should distinguish between worthy and unworthy critiques.

“Building Character” (The Parent’s Magazine, 1931): An editorial on the importance of providing children with challenges, clearly meant to reassure parents worried about the effects of the Depression on their kids.

“Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education” (Pictorial Review, 1930): Much of this piece is about the importance of fair compensation for good teachers. “There are many inadequate teachers today,” Roosevelt wrote. “Perhaps our standards should be higher, but they cannot be until we learn to value and understand the function of the teacher in our midst. While we have put much money in buildings and laboratories and gymnasiums, we have forgotten that they are but the shell, and will never live and create a vital spark in the minds and hearts of our youth unless some teacher furnishes the inspiration. A child responds naturally to high ideals, and we are all of us creatures of habit.”

How British Codebreakers Built the First Electronic Computer

H.G. Wells Interviews Joseph Stalin in 1934; Declares “I Am More to The Left Than You, Mr. Stalin”

Free: British Pathé Puts Over 85,000 Historical Films on YouTube

Rare Audio: Albert Einstein Explains “Why I Am an American” on Day He Passes Citizenship Test (1940)

How the CIA Turned Doctor Zhivago into a Propaganda Weapon Against the Soviet Union

Old Books Bound in Human Skin Found in Harvard Libraries (and Elsewhere in Boston)

Batgirl Fights for Equal Pay in a 1960s Television Ad Supporting The Equal Pay Act

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Durable Wisdom on Curiosity, Empathy, Education & Responding to Criticism

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