WILL THE REAL HERACLES PLEASE STAND UP (AND TAKE A BOW)
REUTERS RECENTLY REPORTED “Roman Sewer Works Reveal Statue of Emperor Posing as Hercules.” Not long ago, Daughter Suz and I watched Pacific Opera Project’s U.S. premiere of Ercole su’l Termodonte, … Continue reading
CHATTING ABOUT CHATGPT AND OTHER A.I. PART 2
YESTERDAY, The New York Times offered several viewpoints about ChatGPT, Generative Pre-trained Transformer capabilities (and its potential threats). Today in Part 2, AAAS Science offers insights. And a previously unknown … Continue reading
CHATTING ABOUT CHATGPT AND OTHER A.I. PART 1
CHATGPT, AS IN Generative Pre-trained Transformer, has been much in the news. Maureen Dowd has written about it in The New York Times, January 28, 2023. In a full-page ad … Continue reading
LINCOLN CONTINENTALS—APPARENTLY SIZE MATTERED
DOMESTIC AUTOMOBILES OF THE 1950s grew and grew… and grew. The Lincoln Continental is an interesting example, especially because it had appeared in R&T, indeed even once as a cover … Continue reading
UNIVERSAL DESIGN REDUX
“RESTORING A HOUSE FOR EVERY BODY,” by Penelope Green, The New York Times, January 29, 2023, rekindled my interest in “Universal Design,” as described in SimanaitisSays back in 2014. Penelope … Continue reading
EVEREST, THE QUEEN, AND A CODED MESSAGE BY RUNNER
ONE OF THE FIRST ROYAL ACTIONS of the coronated Queen Elizabeth II was to knight Edmund Hillary for the conquest of Mt. Everest. In fact, loudspeakers announced the conquest to … Continue reading
THE POWER OF WORDS AND CLAY PART 2
AN INVITATION TO THE 78th Scripps College Ceramic Annual got me interested in the article “Speaking Volumes: Pottery and Word,” by ceramicist Paul Mathieu. Today in Part 2, Mathieu discusses … Continue reading
THE POWER OF WORDS AND CLAY PART 1
A NEAT POSTCARD ANNOUNCES the 78th Scripps College Ceramic Annual at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery in Claremont, California. Bless their hearts; the Gallery has me on its mailing since … Continue reading
VICTORIAN THOUGHT AND SCIENCE
HOW THE VICTORIANS TOOK US To The Moon is Iwan Rhys Morus’s new book reviewed in Science, January 20, 2023. Both the book and its review by Bernard Lightman are … Continue reading
VINTAGE CAR ART
INTRODUCING VINTAGE CAR ART in R&T August 1958, the magazine observed, “To the dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast for the marque Aston Martin, no other make is even worthy of a second glance. … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 