TURING’S BOMBE; HOLMES MEETS HARRY NILE
TALK ABOUT SERENDIPITY: November 30 marks publication of Alan Turing’s 1936 paper “On Computable Numbers, with Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” The November 2023 issue of BBC HISTORY recounts this idea … Continue reading
EARLY AIR MAIL SNAFUS PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE CAUGHT UP WITH the latest valuation of a rare “Inverted Jenny” air mail stamp. We also began the tale of Lieutenant George Boyle helping to inaugurate air mail … Continue reading
EARLY AIR MAIL SNAFUS PART 1
IT’S INTERESTING ENOUGH that a philatelic screwup complicated early U.S. air mail, so too did prenup nepotism. Here in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow are tidbits especially focusing … Continue reading
SCRIPTS REDUX PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE LEARNED OF A RECYCLED SCRIPT going from play to movie to Broadway musical to movie of the musical. Today, the recycling continues, even to including an original author … Continue reading
SCRIPTS REDUX PART 1
SOME TALES ARE SO GOOD that they’re worth repeating. Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story. La Bohème and Rent. The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz. Here, though, I’m … Continue reading
ALPHABETS, SYMBOLS, AND OTHER SQUIGGLY STUFF
ONE OF MY MORNING RITUALS, after 6:00 a.m. Pacific BBC World Service and a final reading/editing of the day’s SimanaitisSays, is Voice of America News. Each day VOA includes its … Continue reading
TOYOTA ENTHUSIASMS
WHEN A GUY IS A CAR NUT—and his name, sorta, is on the building—enthusiasm filters down. And so it seems with Akio Toyoda, current chairman of the board and past … Continue reading
A VERTICAL TOUR
BRITISH ASTRONOMER FRED HOYLE GOT ME THINKING about the sliver of atmosphere making life possible on Earth. Here are tidbits about this, sourced from one place and another, including SimanaitisSays. … Continue reading
SCIENCE FOR ARTIES, POETRY FOR TECHIES
WE LAMENT THESE DAYS the chasms of thought between this and that, reds and blues, one thing and another. Occasionally, though, a unifying aspect appears. And so it is with … Continue reading
A PRE-COMPACT FORD
COMPACT DOMESTICS WERE STILL TWO YEARS AWAY in 1957 when R&T noted “What Dearborn doesn’t have, Dagenham does.” The car tested was the English Ford Consul II, a downsized rendering … Continue reading →