Whole Earth Catalog

Since Steve Jobs died, everyone's been passing around a speech he made for the 2005 Stanford Commencement. Someone printed it out and left it in the break room at work. I was parsing through this transcript when I noticed that Jobs mentioned the Whole Earth Catalog. I love stuff like that, phone-book sized reference books or miscellanies which bring together thousands of bits of esoteric knowledge, so I noted it down. It brought to mind the Zine subculture of the 1980s and 1990s, or the mail-order sections of Popular Mechanics. A quick search revealed that the catalog is still solvent in some form and has a website. The back issues are downloadable for a fee, or you can browse them online:

Whole Earth Catalog, Volume 07, Issue 01, 1986, Spring

Fort Meigs Living History Event: First Siege

This Memorial Day weekend, Fort Meigs State Historic Site in Perrysburg Ohio (near Toledo) is hosting a reenactment of the first siege of the fort in 1813. If you're in the tri-state area and don't have any plans for the long weekend, check it out. Starting on Saturday, reenactors representing the American and British armies (as well as Native American forces fighting for both sides) occupy camps in opposite ends of the fort. A large scale battle is held on Saturday on Sunday; in between battles each camp holds demonstrations and a morning and evening parade. On Memorial Day, a smaller group of American reenactors will hold a ceremony at the 1908 obelisk to honor the soldiers who fought and died here.
 

Check it out:

Official event page at fortmeigs.org

wikipedia.org page for Fort Meigs

A youtube video from last years' event

Series of blog posts on the first siege

Pepys' Blog

Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps") was a Chief Secretary to the Admiralty and MP during the reign of King Charles II. He's best known to posterity for keeping a daily journal that reveals a lot about Restoration-era London. Phil Gyford began posting the daily entries from this diary online in 2003 (starting with 1 January 1660 on 1 January 2003). You can follow them here. It's pretty neat to get daily blog posts from the 17th Century. I wonder if something similar could be done with Twitter... Historical telegrams perhaps?

War of 1812 Reenactment

It's January, the depths of winter, and the humid summer months seem an eternity away. I sometimes troll youtube for online videos of battle reenactments, nearly all of which take place during the warmer times of year. Youtube user hevelhorst has posted video of a reenactment at Fort Meigs last year. I'm in there somewhere, at the end of the American line furthest from the camera. This video really captures a bit of the excitement of a battle with flintlock muskets and cannon.


hevelhorst's youtube channel.

Instructional Videos for the 18th Century

Setting up an 18th or 19th century common tent can be a bewildering experience. In this humorous video, James Townsend and Son, reenactor merchants, help guide you through it. Check out their website, which has lots of neat stuff for the reenactor or time traveler.




Their youtube channel.

Lego Version of Futurama’s New New York

Matt De Lanoy created a Lego diorama of New York from Futurama. You can explore photo galleries of his creations’ impressive detail on Flicker. He even included the sewer underworld…

I particularly like the resigned expression on the foot-mutants’ face.