{"id":262288,"date":"2024-07-04T10:14:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=262288"},"modified":"2024-07-04T10:14:22","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:14:22","slug":"that-time-ben-franklin-jumped-naked-into-the-thames-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/07\/04\/that-time-ben-franklin-jumped-naked-into-the-thames-river\/","title":{"rendered":"That time Ben Franklin jumped naked into the Thames river"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Literary Hub<\/a>: “It was a fine early summer afternoon in England, and the port at Chelsea was just slipping out of sight when Benjamin Franklin\u2014\u00adat the urging of his fellow passengers\u2014\u00adkicked off his buckled shoes and tossed aside his heavy jacket. John Wygate, a fellow printer whom Franklin had taught to swim, had been regaling the gentlemen aboard the ferry with stories of Franklin\u2019s fishlike agility in the water and the peculiar aquatic tricks he could perform. They had spent the morning viewing taxidermied crocodiles and rattlesnakes at Don Saltero\u2019s curiosities shop and weren\u2019t ready for the day\u2019s amusements to end, even as they headed back to Blackfriars. Franklin likely put on a good show of modesty, demurring at first to the group\u2019s excited requests for a demonstration, but was no doubt secretly pleased as he undressed for his dip in the Thames\u2014\u00adhe loved both an audience and any excuse to get in the water.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This computerized love-letter generator was a precursor to ChatGPT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From JSTOR Daily<\/a>: “In the early 1950s, small, peculiar love letters were pinned up on the walls of the computing lab at the University of Manchester. The history behind them is even stranger; examples of the world\u2019s first computer-generated writing, they\u2019re signed by MUC, the acronym for the Manchester University Computer. In 1952, decades before ChatGPT\u2019s computer generated writing was integrated into mainstream media outlets, two gay men\u2014Alan Turing and Christopher Strachey\u2014essentially invented AI writing. Alongside Turing, Strachey worked on several experiments with Artificial Intelligence: a computer that could sing songs, one of the world\u2019s first computer games, and an algorithm to write gender-neutral mash notes that screamed with longing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The surprisingly contentious history behind the invention of Whac-A-Mole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Mel magazine<\/a>: “It was November 1976, and I was at the first IAAPA I had ever attended. I brought a talking animatronic head to the convention \u2014 that was getting a lot of interest, but a lot of people also wanted me to build specific things for them, because I\u2019m really an inventor. So I built a talking bear and things like that, and one guy had a request for me. His name was Denny and he showed me this game a few aisles over. It was the first mallet game of its type, but it didn\u2019t work. It was being shown by some Japanese men. In the game, there were some kind of animals that jumped out of holes, so that was the inspiration. I was commissioned by Denny to build a game inspired by that, and I came up with the name \u201cWhac-A-Mole.\u201d I had a mole sculpted by an artist who I knew and then I had a fiberglass mold made. I made an air-operated game using air cylinders, so that when air pushed up the moles, the air acted as a cushion, so when you hit the mole, it didn\u2019t break the game. It was very durable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Editor’s note<\/strong><\/em>: If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else. And if you <\/em>really <\/strong><\/em>like it, perhaps you could subscribe, or contribute something via <\/em>my Patreon<\/em><\/a>. Thanks for being a reader!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leopold and Loeb, the thrill killers of the 1920s who pulled off the crime of the century<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From the Smithsonian<\/a>: “At the time of the murder, Leopold was 19 and Loeb was 18, and they were both members of German Jewish immigrant families that were very wealthy and lived in Chicago, and they both were very intelligent and had excelled in school from a young age. Leopold was enrolled at the University of Chicago, and Loeb was preparing for his first year there as more kind of like graduate studies. And, apparently, they didn\u2019t actually really like each other at first, but once they realized that they got along well, things definitely escalated from there. It became this very intense kind of romantic, sexual partnership. Loeb was very much interested in committing crimes as something for the thrill of it. Leopold viewed himself as a Nietzschean Superman. He had taken some classes in philosophy and learned about this concept of individuals who were so intelligent that they were above all the rest of the population and they also were above the law, so they could commit crimes without any repercussions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anxious history behind the American summer camp<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Atlas Obscura<\/a>: “In 1861, weeks after Confederate troops fired the first shots of the Civil War, educator and abolitionist Frederick Gunn assembled his own troops\u2014about 30 boys and a dozen girls who were students at his Washington, Connecticut, boarding school. Gunn, an early proponent of outdoor education, had led students on camping trips before, but this time he had something a little more regimented in mind. Like the gathering Union forces, they would march\u201442 miles to be exact\u2014to a beach on the Long Island Sound, where they would set up camp, waking in the morning to a bugle call and falling asleep under the stars after singing patriotic songs by the fire. During the day, between fishing and foraging, they would perform military drills. The Gunnery Camp, as it came to be known, was so successful that Gunn made a tradition out of it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands of miles apart, trees drop their fruit at the same time<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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From Quanta<\/a>: “Each summer, like clockwork, millions of beech trees throughout Europe sync up, tuning their reproductive physiology to one another. Within a matter of days, the trees produce all the seeds they\u2019ll make for the year, then release their fruit onto the forest floor to create a new generation and feed the surrounding ecosystem. It\u2019s a reproductive spectacle known as masting that\u2019s common to many tree species, but European beeches are unique in their ability to synchronize this behavior on a continental scale. From England to Sweden to Italy, somehow these trees \u201cknow\u201d when to reproduce. But how? A group of ecologists has now identified the distinctive cue that, along with balmy weather, triggers the phenomenon. Their analysis of seeding data suggests that European beech trees time their masting to the summer solstice and peak daylight.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This baby stroller that attaches to a bicycle was invented 100 years ago<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Designed a hundred years ago pic.twitter.com\/yWVzpmK8u2<\/a><\/p>— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) July 2, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>