May 26 Roundup

Below are things I’ve learned or found interesting in the past month:

1. Not good!

2. Bing style experience points (via Design Explorers)

3. This roundup of Area 51 history

4. The state of Idaho was named after a made-up word that was falsely claimed to be a Native American word meaning “Gem of the mountains”.

5. ancient amazonian village found by LIdar (2024) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671

6. Related, lost city of Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_Z

7. English Corpa, like Google nGrams, but for the web.

8. Related, positive (?) news from the world of degrading slang: the term “village bicycle” (everyone gets to ride “it”) seems to have fallen out of favor for “community ball”, (one who is passed around a lot). One day the youth won’t have a term for this concept at all.

9. The famous Charlie’s Angels pose is largely a myth. In the original, it was gun / karate / walkie talkie (and only in silhouette!). In the remake it was all karate, no guns. The classic 3 gun pose never happened.

10. Telescope ranch

11. Certain NYC subway trains make a noise similar to the opening of Somewhere from West Side Story. This is known. In Spielberg’s 2021 remake of the movie, he included this train sound, despite it not occurring until 1999, over 40 years after the movie is set.. Neat!