Tag: history
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A day that will live in world history
At Pearl Harbor there is an exhibit of the events leading up to the Pacific War. Inside is the original draft of the speech FDR gave to congress on the day following Japan’s attack. The document is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of FDR. Several changes you can see include: Replacing, “a date which…
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As Above, So Below
My sister noticed that a recent photo I uploaded to Instagram looked familiar. The photo I uploaded below is of my two kids on a recent trip to Mt. Shasta. The next photo is from a hike in Yosemite with my sister when I was a student at UC Berkeley. Brother – Sister. 20 years…
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Find your first tweet with oldtweets
UPDATE: Twitter announced that you can now request a zip file of all your tweets. Kellan Elliott-McCrea, the CTO of Etsy, has made available an searchable archive of Twitter’s first year of tweets. It’s a fascinating dip into the early days of the service. The first two tweets from Biz and Ev testing out their new…
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Obvious in Hindsight
Today’s history lesson. Cracked.com helpfully points out that depictions of Vikings with huge horns on their helmets was entirely impractical, if not suicidal. As for the Vikings, the one single thing we know them for–wearing huge horns on their helmets–isn’t true. They just wore regular helmets, not anything fancy. Here’s some advice: If you want a career…
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The Family Gathering
While everyone was down in Austin for the annual gathering of the tribes, I sorted through an old box of photos trying to streamline my memories. I don’t have many prints anymore so most of what I found was from the last century (love saying that!). It was nice to actually hold the prints in…
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Ottoman Empire and California State Taxes
The screenshot above is taken from my 2007 version of Quicken Turbo Tax. What does the Ottoman Empire have to do with California state taxes and Michael Jackson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos? Read on.
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Alexander Vraciu, the original Top Gun
On my way back from a day trip to LA, I sat next to a quiet old man who was settling in for the short flight back home to Oakland. I asked him how his day was going and was kind of surprised to hear him say he’s been really busy. He then told me…
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Back in the Day
San Francisco before the .com boom and my brush with Louis Rossetto and other name drops. I read Gary Wolf’s Wired, an account of the magazine and it’s founder, Louis Rossetto. The tales within resonate even stronger than most books about this era because I have a personal connection with some of the characters within.…