anthropomorphs

From: Ptak Science Books

“The concept of high-tech machines shaped like humans has been with us for the better part of a century. The word ‘robot’ itself, derived from the old Slavonic word rabota, meaning ‘servitude’, dates back to 1921, when it appeared in the Czech play R U R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek. Then, the robots in the play were, of course, played by human actors, and thus humanoid in appearance. Yet this early work set the stage for what form robots should take in our imagination; from the novels and short stories of Isaac Asimov to the androids of the movies, they have, for the most part, looked, acted, and even experienced the world like us. [...]"

— Michael Belfiore, aeon
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“I’ve addressed the ideas of early mechanical men elsewhere in this blog (just enter 'robot' in the site search box at left and you'll find two or three dozen related posts on the subject), but failed to include this very fine and early example by William Heath in his March of Intellect series (printed from 1825-1829). He was particularly bitter about what he saw as an aristocracy of official ruination, and created an unusual steam-driven mechanical man with a book-driven intellect that swept up the great ‘rubbish’ and ‘dust’ of society. At the top of this early robot (preceding the invention of the term by about 100 years) was a pile of books with a ‘crown of many towers,’ which was London University, beneath which was a set of gas-light eyes, iron arms, and legs made of printer's tools, sweeping away useless and insulting lawyers and jurists and their legal wigs and obsolete and repetitive rules, medical quacks, and the dust of other official abuses, ‘sweeping rubbish from the land.’”
— Ptak Science Books
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another life-saving pamphlet

Go to Retronaut for more pages.

Pre-Apocalypse

My copy of this booklet, again found among my parents belongings, doesn't have a print date, but from the article below, I would assume it must be either 1959 or 1961.
     The house I grew up in, a typical tract house of its day (in Canada we call it a "subdivision" house) was built in 1960, and one of the optional add-ons was a fallout shelter. You could view it in one of the model homes. When I last drove by that house—the model home—I could still make out the rusted remains of the ventilation stack on the back side of the roof.

"Up for bid on eBay is this rare 1961 U.S. Government Office Of Civil & Defense Mobilization issued booklet entitled Survive Nuclear Attack - Ten For Survival. The seller says, 'This booklet was originally issued in May 1959, this is the March 1961 reprint. This 23 page paper booklet details what Americans should do in order to survive in the event of a nuclear attack. Issued to households in the Cold War era.'"
— Ephemera
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Here's the rest of it. The back cover is blank. You will notice a bit of show-through on these scans — the paper the booklet is printed on seems to be something like a 20 lb., uncoated bond.

what we find and what we lose

Just came upon this bit of the past (November 21, 1986) among my parents' possessions — scraps of stuff left in the bottom of a drawer too precious to discard, I suppose.

Here's a picture taken at the event; I have no clue who took it. John Rose (Bakka Books) sent it to me just after the signing:

Left to right: Charles De Lint, Robert Charles Wilson, Michael Hale
The two people on the right are my parents May and Albert Hale.
     I'm pretty sure that's John Rose in the back corner.

red is blue and blue is red and we are all together...

  

From: Paul Krugman

The spike in public employment (at month 16) is attributed to the temporary hiring of census workers.

scorched pants policy

"The thing about [vice presidential candidate Paul] Ryan is that he has always resided in a counter-factual universe. He is a product of the hermetically sealed right-wing subculture. Many of the facts taken for granted by mainstream economists have never penetrated his brain. Ryan burst onto the national scene with a dense, fact-laden attack on the financing of Obama’s health-care bill that was essentially a series of hallucinations, pseudo-facts cooked up and recirculated by conservative apparatchiks who didn’t know what they were talking about or didn’t care. His big-think speeches reflect the influence of fact-free conservatives and collapse under scrutiny."
— Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
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"At a basic level, what bothers me about politicians who lie, especially at a national level, is that the deceptions are insulting. A candidate who knows the truth, but makes a deliberate decision to deceive, is working from the assumption that Americans are suckers.
     And last night [Thursday, August 29, 2012], Paul Ryan made painfully clear that he thinks we're all profound idiots who'll believe an endless string of lies, so long as they're packaged well and presented with conviction. Jonathan Cohn suggested last night's address may have been the 'most dishonest convention speech' ever delivered, and I can't think of a close second. It was a truly breathtaking display of brazen dishonesty. Paul Ryan looked America in the eye and without a hint a shame, lied to our face."
— Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog
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"We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." — Romney pollster, Neil Newhouse

Photo: Michael Hale

"The Big Lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that someone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'"
— Wikipedia
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"And the Romney campaign put out a memo Wednesday repeating the claim that Obama gutted the Clinton-era welfare reforms after taking office. So why continue beating this drum? Partly because people believe it.
     'We think that the fact that the work requirement has been taken out of welfare is the wrong thing to do,' said Peggy Testa, attending a Tuesday rally near Pittsburgh for Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.
     When told that's not actually what had happened, Testa replied: 'At this point, [I] don't know exactly what is true and what isn't, OK? But what I do know is I trust the Romney-Ryan ticket, and I do not trust Obama.'"
— Ari Shapiro, NPR
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