It was strategically important in WW1 because the British could communicate with the colonies with very chance little chance of messages being intercepted. The Germans, in contrast, didn't have access to their own transatlantic channels and had to use plain-text messages on cables that the UK/US controlled (US operators disallowed coded comms).
Frankenstein. Superb science fiction, very readable even though written 200 years ago. And Wuthering Heights, which strangely like Frankenstein, has a complex narrative structure and an unhinged, obsessive central character
I read it this year too. I was surprised by the amount of heartfelt soliloquising the monster did, he was much more compelling than I expected. Victor of course was the real monster in the story, self obsessed, not taking responsibility for his actions, I found myself actively rooting against him.
Some time in the early 1990s I worked with a Macintosh of some variety that had a massively heavy CRT display. It was a real bummer when we were asked to do offsite customer demos, but luckily my back and knees were young enough to carry it upstairs. In retrospect, this is probably why my boss took me to the demos, which was actually quite useful career-wise.
Well Christopher Tolkien was 'silenced' by the fact of his dying at the age of 95.
The article in my opinion unnecessarily links JRR Tolkien's views on the monstrosity of cars with the much later conspiracy theory that car-free zones are an attempt by the UN to limit personal freedoms. TFA does itself make clear that there wasn't a connection but if it was me I wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place, when there is so much more interesting to say about Tolkien's own views on modernism.
space-elevators require various types of unobtanium and have their own logistics challenges not to mention failure modes that involve spattering fast moving debris round the entire equator
They broke my ribs when I had a cardiac arrest, doing vigorous CPR. Would not be posting this now if it wasn’t for them. I was basically alive when the air ambulance landed, but wouldn’t have been otherwise
> Running a family was a brutal two-person job -- and the kids had to dive in to help
In many societies before (say) the 18th/19th Century, extended families would have been the norm, e.g. with elderly relatives living in the same household, helping with food preparation and clothes making. Harvests may have been community-wide affairs. Children would have had to dive in, as you say, but they wouldn't have had school to go to, and there would have been a wide age spread. Maternal mortality (death due to childbirth) was high, and many widowed fathers would have remarried, extending the family further (incidentally this is partly why there are so many step-sisters and step-mothers in folk stories).
Agreed, but I don't think you need to go as far back as the 19th century, even early 20th century it was the same in some places in eastern Europe. Out of 7 siblings in my Dad's family only one went to college. The spread between oldest and youngest was about 12 years. All went to school which was dismissed much earlier, after which children were expected to help in the fields with animals, house work, etc. before doing homework. The one pause, and really only time they wore nicer clothes, was on Sundays for church. The person who went to college would be back each summer to help with the grain and potato harvests. My life by comparison is a life of luxury.
Yup. Also elementary school was often fewer grades than it is today. It was the norm to finish your education after elementary school to help the farm/household. Individuals, especially from the country side, were an exception to finish secondary education and go on to college.
The kids went to school in the winter, where there wasn't so much to do on the farm. That's why we still have summer "vacation", a holdover from needing the kids to work on the farm in the summer.
As kids in a rural area in Eastern Europe, summer "vacation" was sure to be filled with "fun" farm work. I recall being amused at hearing one of my friends towards the end of the summer say: "man, I can't wait for school to begin, so I can get some rest".
It used to be way more informal and less institutional, but I'm skeptical that it was more communal. We're still heavily dependent on community to raise our children (e.g. school, spots, etc). Sometimes to the point of absurdity.
"Galaxy" (in the UK) is the obvious one. Incidentally, Mars bars were named after the Mars family who owned the company that made them, not the planet.
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