History

Ireland's First Computer Scientist - Percy Ludgate

The Irish Times published a piece this week about Percy Ludgate who is believed to be Ireland's first computer scientist. In 1914 the accountant and inventor from Skibereen presented designs for the worlds second analytical engine, a mechanical computer of the time.

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The Market For Bob Ross Paintings

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The Hustle published an interesting piece looking at the market for Bob Ross paintings, and why owner retention could be why they are so hard to buy despite Bob Ross being one of the most prolific famous painters in history, painting around 30,000 pieces during his life.

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Old Maps Online

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Old Maps Online lets you explore a map to find all the old maps available for that area. You can also filter the old map results by timeline.

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Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus

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For fans of the great TV show Halt and Catch Fire, technologist Ashley Blewer created a great course syllabus for the show. The site is split into 15 classes that link to important RFCs, articles, books, and other resources in the history of computer science and the IT industry that inspire the events of the show.

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17th Century Letter X-Ray

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Researchers from MIT, King’s College London, Queen Mary University London, Utrecht and Leiden used X-ray microtomography scans of a 17th century folder letter locked letter to unfold and read the letter virtually without ever opening it. As amazing as this is, it is even better that the letter contained a complaint! :-)

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Cistercian Number Cyphers

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Highlighted by MathematicsUCL on Twitter, Cistercian monks in the 13th century developed a cypher system to prepresent numbers from 1 to 9999 in one symbol.

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GameBoy WorkBoy

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YouTuber DidYouKnowGaming tracked down a fascinating unreleased GameBoy accessory from 1992 that turned the GameBoy into a desktop computer! WorkBoy used a connected keyboard and game cartridge to bring PDA functionality to the GameBoy with apps like calculator, alarm, phone book and appointment book, in 1992!

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Podcast of the Week: Tell Me A Story with Eddie Lenihan on Christmas

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Tell Me A Story with Eddie Lenihan is a podcast of stories collected and retold by Seanchaí (Irish traditional storyteller/historian) Eddie Lenihan. In his latest episode about Christmas, Eddie describes some of the older Irish Christmas traditions, along with some folktales about the magical time of midnight on Christmas Eve.

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10 Remarkable Discoveries of 2020

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Nature published a list of 10 remarkable discoveries of 2020 which include the violation of matter-antimatter symmetry, the connection between the shifting jetstream and the ozone layer, and the DNA based discovery of incest between the people buried in Newgrange.

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Ireland's Only Dinosaur Fossils

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The only dinosaur fossils ever found on the island of Ireland have now been confirmed as coming from two seperate dinosaurs. The fossils, confirmed by a team from National Museums NI, University of Portsmouth, and Queens University Belfast, come from a Scelidosaurus and a Sarcosaurus.

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