Comments on: A Cabinet for the Curious

A Cabinet for the Curious

stbalbach — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:33:02 -0800

The Queer, the Quaint, the Quizzical (1882). A Cabinet for the Curious.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:59:53 -0800

This is really cool. Unwieldy for quick dipping into, unless I haven't yet found the way. The search stickies are kinda cool, but again, a bit unwieldy. There's a great bill on page 63.

By: steef

steef — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:29:29 -0800

Ooo, this is full of great fun. Thanks!

By: fish tick

fish tick — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:06:17 -0800

Wondrous fine!

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:30:48 -0800

This is right up my street—quite reminiscent of D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature—thanks, stbalbach.

By: whimsicalnymph

whimsicalnymph — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:36:40 -0800

Love it.

By: rob511

rob511 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:30:04 -0800

It's MetaFilter for the Victorian Age! Judge for yourselves. From page 14: After the horn-book, the children of the incipient United States were furnished with primers, among the most noted of which was "The New England Primer," ... [which] had in it the alphabet, syllables of two letters, and many a pious distich, such as—
Young Timothy / Learn'd sin to fly. Whales in the sea / God's voice obey. In Adam's fall / We sinned all....
These puritanic verses were accompanied with illustrations fully as bad as the rhymes... Is that olde-time snarke, or what?! Other examples of parallel posting: page 38's Puritan Surnames (e.g. Repentance Avis, Kill-sin Pimple, and Meek Brewer) and Double-Entendre, describing a Revolutionary War-era poem with elaborate hidden agendas (p. 39).

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:33:42 -0800

I get a blank page. Emperor's new clothes, in web form?

By: kozad

kozad — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:02:39 -0800

Delightful. And although we don't throw witches in the water to see if they float...or not; we still throw salt over our left shoulder if we spill it. (Not we MeFi's...but now that they say it's especially inauspicious to spill salt on a Friday...well, I might reconsider, especially if I'm dining at TGIF's, something I do every decade or two.)

By: owhydididoit

owhydididoit — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:24:13 -0800

Cool find, thanks! The title sounds like a great soap opera...

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:35:49 -0800

This is for real, right? It's not some kind of fakery?

By: faineant

faineant — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:08:40 -0800

Oh, marvelous - thank you so much.

By: honeydew

honeydew — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:57:12 -0800

This is really fun.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:18:57 -0800

It's MetaFilter for the Victorian Age! Yeah that's what it seemed like. The unusual, interesting and curious in 1 minutes pieces.

By: WPW

WPW — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:02:34 -0800

Wonderful! Thank you!

By: unknowncommand

unknowncommand — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:35:04 -0800

This is awesome.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:31:10 -0800

Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.2.1, open source for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:57:05 -0800

Dave Faris, that is incredibly useful, thanks a lot for the link!

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 06:53:29 -0800

I've been using it for a couple days. I notice that sometimes, it temporarily locks up my machine while the magnifying glass loads up, especially if I haven't called it for awhile. I also wish would have more mouse cursor behavior and let me scroll my browser without dismissing it. But, considering it's free and open source, I can't expect or complain too much.