Birthday Bots!
Ok, ok, so this is not exactly site related, but I celebrated my 26th birthday this past weekend and I wanted to show off this awesome gift bag my girl Jess gave me my present in. Isn’t it the best? Well, I got some pretty fun stuff, including this:
Check it out! A Webster’s Dictionary circa 1916 from my dear Mom. She’s had this sucker ever since I can remember, and I always coveted it. She gave it to me for my birthday this year (what an honor!), and considering our last blog post, I was curious to see if there was indeed no entry for the word “robot”. Sure enough…
It’s rather hard to believe! Once upon a time, there was officially no word in the English language to desrcibe an idea that may or may not have been previously used. Pre-industrial revolution, I think that the closest thing to a robot was a golem type monster, something that we in our modern time would place in the realm of fantasy rather than science fiction. I think the most fascinating thing about opening up this dictionary and not being able to find the word “robot”, this wholly tangible revelation, is the way it has made me consider Science Fiction; that science, even approaching it as we think of the term today, has not been a part of the collective consciousness for all of man’s history. You may be saying something along the lines of “Well, duh…”, but I honestly feel that it is something we often take for granted in our new-fangled culture.
Oh, oh, and in that same vein, there’s also this:
Posted in Site News, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
May 1st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I like the definition for “compute” – “reckon”.
One who reckons.
Woah.