In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
Terry Pratchett, “Lords and Ladies”
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man who has published a book must be in want of a blog."
I have just published a book:
Boneless, Lean, and NOT FRIED:
60 Recipes for the Fried Fish Phobic
A Cookbook with 11 Introductions
A Cookbook with 11 Introductions
Plus Geography, History, Exotic Spices, and Snarky Comments
You can go and buy it, if you want to:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DPJU5VG?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DPJU5VG?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660
Go on. You know you want to.
There is a lot of advice out there on what you’re supposed to do when you publish a book on Kindle. A lot of advice. Much of it is utterly wrong for a cookbook. Much of it is utterly wrong. Much of it is distasteful and weird. But the idea that an author ought to have a website - yes, that does make a certain amount of sense.
And so here we are. This is the site. This is the first post.
I have the feeling I ought to say something profound here. I have no idea what that would be. But that vague sense that I ought to do something lead me to wonder about first messages.
- 40,000-35,000 BCE: Earliest cave paintings, on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It’s described as “a pig.”
- 5,260 BCE: Earliest writing, the “Dispilio Tablet,” Greece (or possibly 6,600 BCE in China; there’s apparently some doubt about whether or not the symbols that have been found are actually writing). Nobody really knows what it’s trying to say.
- 2,000 BCE: Earliest musical notation, Iraq. It’s apparently not quite clear what the tune was, but the experts agree that it was intended to be played on a lute.
- 850 CE: Earliest programmable musical instruments, Baghdad (invented by Ahmad, Muhammad and Hasan bin Musa ibn Shakir, including both a hydropowered organ and a flute). I can’t find any evidence that anybody knows what they actually sounded like.
- 1844 CE: First telegraph message, United States. The message was sent by Samuel Morse and read “What hath God wrought,” which comes from the Bible (Numbers 23:23). In case you’re curious, here’s the actual message: .-- .... .- - / .... .- - .... / --. --- -.. / .-- .-. --- ..- --. .... - ..--..
- 1857 CE: First sound recording, France. Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville developed the “phonoautograph,” a device which produced a visual record of sounds. It wasn’t designed to play the sound back. However, in 2008 scientists managed to “play” some of the surviving phonoautographs. The earliest “recorded” sounds ever are someone (probably Scott de Martinville) singing Au clair de la lune, off key.
- 1858: First intercontinental telegraph message, from the US to the UK. The message was from President James Buchanan to Queen Victoria: “Europe and America are united by telegraphy. Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men.” The cable failed after three weeks.
- 1876: First telephone message, US. Alexander Graham Bell, calling out to his assistant: “Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you.” In 2003 the US implemented the National Do Not Call Registry.
- 1901: First radio message, England to Canada. Giuseppe Marconi managed to send, via Morse code, the letter “S.”
- 1962: First attempt to contact another world for no particularly good reason, USSR to Venus (and the star HD 131336, which is 2,160 light years away in the constellation Libra). Apparently scientists or technicians at a deep space radar facility in Ukraine decided to beam a message to Venus: MIR, LENIN, SSSR. The message was sent in Morse code. In 1974 the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico sent a much more complex (and potentially informative) message as a binary string which, if you were really, really clever, you (or a superintelligent alien) could figure out was intended to be a 73x23 grid filled with little pictures.
- 1971: First e-mail, US: Sent by Ray Tomlinson from one computer to another in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nobody knows for sure what the message was, but Tomlinson suggested it was “QWERTYUIOP or something similar.”
- 1973: First cellphone call, US. Martin Cooper called a rival to taunt him: “Joel, this is Marty. I’m calling you from a cellphone, a real, handheld, portable cellphone.”
- 1992: First text message sent by cellphone, UK. Neil Papworth sent the message “Merry Christmas.”
- 1993: First AOL Instant Message, US: Ted Leonsis sent a message to his wife: “Don’t be scared … it is me. Love you and miss you.” His wife responded “Wow … this is so cool!” It’s nice that she was pleased and excited, but I can’t help but wonder why Mr. Leonsis thought she’d be frightened.
- 2003: First Skype message, Denmark. An Estonian member of the development team (I can’t find out exactly who it was) said “Tere, kas sa kuuled mind,” or “Hello, can you hear me?”
- 2005: First Youtube video, US. Jawed Karim, at the San Diego Zoo, announced (kind of unnecessarily, considering it was a video), “All right, so here we are in front of the elephants.”
- 2006: First Twitter message, US. The message was apparently automated, but it was sent from Jack Dorsey’s account: “Just setting up my twttr.”
Sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12784072; https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-first-ever-email--the-first-tweet--and-12-other-famous-internet-firsts-181209886.html; http://mentalfloss.com/uk/technology/40480/the-first-messages-ever-sent-online; http://allday.com/post/2507-the-10-first-messages-that-changed-the-world/#; http://www.theindychannel.com/lifestyle/the-9-most-famous-text-messages-ever-sent; http://m.livescience.com/24317-earliest-audio-recording.html; http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/scott.php; http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/25/1878-first-ever-captured-edison-audio-recording-unveiled.html; http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/7-sound-recordings-made-before-thomas-edison#.ka1PAWD5r3
