Information Overload
Stepping aside from online video for a moment, two unrelated but interesting stories:
First - Google’s book indexing project is growing by the day and it’s causing more people to revisit history. Consider how big a deal it is that a Google search yields a growing number book results.
Secrecy News points to a recently scanned book from the Harvard Library about a rarely mentioned point in history:
In a remarkable episode from the Civil War that is not as widely known as it might be, General Ulysses S. Grant issued Order No. 11 on December 17, 1862 expelling all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, where his forces had taken the field.
Equally remarkable, President Lincoln did not say he would “stand by” his generals or that “we must give the military the tools it needs” to accomplish its mission. Instead, he rescinded the Order.
The book, “Abraham Lincoln and the Jews” was self-published and has been out of print for decades but is reportedly the most detailed account of Grant’s Order number 11 and its aftermath in existence - now easily accessible and searchable on Google books.
The other story - on a completely different spectrum, was NTT’s smellavision signs, used to tempt passers by to enter a Tokyo beer hall:
The tests, which will take place outside the Kirin City Beer Hall in the underground Yaesu Shopping Mall…involve internet-controlled signs that display electronic imagery of beer while emitting aromas such as lemon and orange.
It’s true that stale beer isn’t the most pleasing aroma, but I’m not convinced lemon and orange smells coming out of that thing would increase my desire to drink either. A Red Sox loss on the other hand…
Sony is reportedly working on its own more high-tech smellavision set that would emit ultrasonic frequencies to activate the brain’s sense of smell. Japan already has smellphones. We’re the fattest country on the planet, how are we behind on this?
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