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From optics to machine learning, artists have played an important, if underrated, role in the history of technology
a year ago

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Why were Belle Époque cities beautiful?

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More in history

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part I: Households

This is the first post in a series discussing the basic contours of life – birth, marriage, labor, subsistence, death – of pre-modern peasants and their families. Prior to the industrial revolution, peasant farmers of varying types made up the overwhelming majority of people in settled societies (the sort with cities and writing). And when … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part I: Households →

23 hours ago 6 votes
How Georges Méliès Brought Magic to the Movies

In the earliest days of cinema, when pictures moving at all was still shocking, one visionary saw the fantastical possibilities of this exciting new technology. Artist, magician, inventor, and director Georges Méliès created worlds filled with magic and adventure that revolutionized filmmaking when it was just beginning. He remains one of the most creative […]

20 hours ago 2 votes
The Fireworks King: Brock’s Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making, 1922

“My object has not been to write a text-book on firework-making, but rather to trace the art from earliest times, and to give a description of the development and process of manufacture… My excuse for adding another volume to the literature of the art is that I am of the eighth generation of a family … Continue reading "The Fireworks King: Brock’s Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making, 1922" The post The Fireworks King: Brock’s Pyrotechnics: The History and Art of Firework Making, 1922 appeared first on Flashbak.

3 hours ago 1 votes
What Are the 5 Biggest Islands in the World?

Less than 30 percent of the world’s surface is covered in land, yet this is still a massive amount of space that humans have sought to explore and exploit. Included in all this land are around 200,000 islands.   From the icy Arctic to the tropics, here are the five biggest islands in the […]

yesterday 2 votes
Fate and Free Will

The Stoic Perspective

yesterday 3 votes