A letter by Rene Descartes, stolen in 1840s, recovered in 2010 by online detective work. The letter was stolen by Guglielmo Libri, inspector general of the libraries of France, who stole thousands of valuable documents and fled to England in 1848. Since 1902 it's been in the collection of Haverford College, its contents unknown to scholars, and nobody there realized that it was an unknown letter. But because they had catalogued it and recently put their catalogue on line, Dutch philosopher Erik-Jan Bos found it "
during a late-night session browsing the Internet". (A Haverford undergraduate thirty years ago had translated it and written a paper on it, in which he recognized that the letter was unknown -- but nobody followed up and the letter had sat in the library since then until it was listed online.) The letter includes some last-minute edits to the Meditations, and some thoughts on God as causa sui.
Haverford, whose president was a philosophy major, is returning the letter to the Institut de France.
posted by LobsterMitten
on Feb 26, 2010 -
21 comments
Unknown Family. 15 years ago, he found a box of 44 negatives at a garage sale in Aiken, SC, and after wondering about them for a long time, posted them to Flickr in October 2008 in hopes of learning who the family is. There are a few clues, but the search seems to have gone cold.
[more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher
on Feb 21, 2009 -
58 comments
Online nerds have known for years that webcomics are often much more daring and interesting than newspaper tripe like Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible. An unknown kid from Fresno by the name S. Sakurai has brightened many of our days with his frequently brilliant work. His ongoing strip
Muertitos is a Beetlejuice-esque afterlife gem, and
Gorgeous Princess Creamy-Beamy is mostly about skewering anime cliches, aliens, lesbians, and junk food.
I was hooked as soon as one of his alien characters described our land vehicles as being "powered by exploding dinosaurs." Highly recommended for any Bloom County/Calvin and Hobbes fans, particularly those who grew up playing 8-bit Nintendo and watching Sailor Moon.
posted by ELF Radio
on Nov 1, 2007 -
53 comments
Cannon Films -- the notoriously schlocky independent studio that brought you such fare as
Invasion USA,
Masters of the Universe, and the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie
Over the Top -- now have a fan-made blog devoted to their impossibly awful (yet addictive) movies. Your hosts
Ink Syndicate give an informative and amusing
history of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus's peerless cinematic empire.
Unknown Films provide an employee's-eye-view, interviewing Cannon advertising guy
Jim Berteges.
posted by pxe2000
on Apr 14, 2004 -
6 comments
Hate your neighbor??? I wonder why I never thought of doing this to the neighbor that accused me of smoking pot... in front of my mom, for Heaven's sake. Those were the days...
posted by fusinski
on Jun 21, 2000 -
4 comments
