History of Lisp (The history of LISP according to McCarthy's memory in 1978, presented at the ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages Conference.)

This is such a fun paper which I couldn't find on LtU. It's about the very early history of programming (1950s and '60s), back when things we take for granted today didn't exist yet.

On taking apart complex data structures with functions like CAR and CDR:

It was immediately apparent that arbitrary subexpressions of symbolic expressions could be obtained by composing the functions that extract immediate subexpressions, and this seemed reason enough to go to an algebraic language.

On creating new data, i.e. CONS:

At some point a cons(a,d,p,t) was defined, but it was regarded as a subroutine and not as a function with a value. ... Gelernter and Gerberich noticed that cons should be a function, not just a subroutine, and that its value should be the location of the word that had been taken from the free storage list. This permitted new expressions to be constructed out of subsubexpressions by composing occurrences of cons

On inventing IF:

This led to the invention of the true conditional expression which evaluates only one of N1 and N2 according to whether M is true or false and to a desire for a programming language that would allow its use.

On how supreme laziness led to the invention of garbage collection:

Once we decided on garbage collection, its actual implementation could be postponed, because only toy examples were being done.

You might have heard this before:

S.R. Russell noticed that eval could serve as an interpreter for LISP, promptly hand coded it, and we now had a programming language with an interpreter.

And the rest is history...

Becky Lynch has become the Superstar with the most total days as Raw Women’s Champion, surpassing Alexa Bliss.

Ten years ago, April 20, 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon were incinerated when the BP/Transocean oil rig blew out and exploded. Just 17 months before the Deepwater Horizon destroyed 600 miles of Gulf Coast, BP covered up a

The post Deepwater Horizon: BP’s SECOND Blowout<div id='sec-title'>The Secret History - 10 Year Anniversary</div> appeared first on Greg Palast.

On February 20, 1792, President Washington formally created the U.S. Postal Service with the signing of the Postal Service Act, which outlined in detail Congressional power to establish official mail routes. The act allowed for newspapers to be included in mail deliveries and made it illegal for postal officials to open anyone's mail.

Princeton historian Rhae Lynn Barnes reflects on teaching and service during the coronavirus outbreak and the history website she launched for educators.

In his book "The Torture Letters," Princeton anthropologist Laurence Ralph examines the torture of people of color at the hands of police from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s in Chicago.

According to our Shiva Mahapurana one day Vishnu and Brahma had an argument over their superiority. Shiva appeared in front of them in the form of a raging fire and asked them to each find the tip of the fire. Whoever reaches the tip would be superior bet

Conservative firebrand Dennis Prager has taken a break from pushing hydroxychloroquine and calling lockdowns “the greatest mistake” in history to rail against the loss of racist language.

A private island in Islamorada on the Florida Keys is for sale for $17 million. The island is called Terra's Key, after its owner John Terra, and has historical significance dating back to the 1800s.

Gut microbes react differently to raw and cooked versions of the same foods.

How to create your own victory garden in the coronavirus era

Noble-minded (and determined you don't forget that) but glibly made, the latest Ryan Murphy Netflix miniseries offers an alternate history in which brave Hollywood types change the world.

Comedians Aparna Nancherla (BoJack Horseman) and Joyelle Nicole Johnson (Crashing) take a quiz on the history of hairstyling and hair trends.

Conservative firebrand Dennis Prager has taken a break from pushing hydroxychloroquine and calling lockdowns “the greatest mistake” in history to rail against the loss of racist language.

There's something for everyone in Torrance's historic downtown district, and the parking is free: Here's how to spend four hours there.

Malibu has long been associated with cars full of beachgoers and staggering cliffside mansions — but there's much more to these "21 miles of scenic beauty."

The shoes featuring L.A. designer Melody Ehsani's touches will be available online starting at 9 a.m. Saturday.

The Huntington Library's acquisition of slavery and abolition papers provides a missing puzzle piece to one community's questions about its past.

The revival of Tokyo Gardens' classic chashu shumai has been a much-needed bright spot during the pandemic — and a reminder of the resiliency of L.A.'s Asian American community.

Sunday is when Tiger Woods made golf history, but Saturday is when he won the 2019 Masters and reestablished himself as golf's king.

Rishi Reddi's "Passage West" plumbs an important story of Indian immigrant farmers, but isn't quite up to the task as fiction

"Jojo Rabbit" filmmaker Taika Waititi is the first person of Māori indigenous descent to win an Academy Award. He dedicated his win to indigenous children.

A historic best director Oscar goes to 'Parasite' filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, the first Korean winner and only the second time the prize has gone to a film not in English.

"Parasite" won the Oscar for best picture, becoming the first non-English language movie to do so. How did it win?

Shapira burst into Germany’s consciousness on New Year’s Eve 2015, when several Arab men beat him on a Berlin metro train because he had objected to their singing anti-Israel and antisemitic chants.

Writer-director Gina Prince Bythewood, executive producer Spike Lee and cast members Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Regina Hall, Gabrielle Union, Tyra Banks and Alfre Woodard reflect on the enduring legacy of the landmark black romance "Love & Basketball" and how the industry has changed in the intervening decades.

In "The True History of the Kelly Gang," director Justin Kurzel's fourth and best feature, George MacKay stars as 19th-century Australian bushranger Ned Kelly.

Los Angeles history — in particular its Mexican and Chicano culture and folklore — is at the heart of Showtime's "Penny Dreadful: City of Angels."

EXPRESS SPORT takes a look at some of the most celebrated sets of siblings in the beautiful game, but who are your favourite duo?

In Indiana, everyone knows the best restaurants to get the best pie, fried chicken, tenderloins and yes...fried brains.

William Edouard Scott and John Wesley Hardrick both studied under famed Impressionist painter Otto Stark at Manual High School.

After nearly 100 years, the northern Indiana resort and amusement park closes. The park near Monticello was originally named Ideal Beach.

The importance of voting as seen in Varvel's cartoons.

Leonard has made 284 tackles, 12 sacks and seven interceptions in his first two years, but says he only met 3 or 4 of his 15 goals last year.

California's state government faces a $54-billion budget deficit through next summer, according to an analysis released Thursday.

Leonard has made 284 tackles, 12 sacks and seven interceptions in his first two years, but says he only met 3 or 4 of his 15 goals last year.

Darth versus Luke. A levitating Yoda. And the greatest duel of them all.

It’s another way in which the president’s supposedly narrowly focused tariffs have trickled down.

All the latest Covid-19 updates from around the world.

History of Machu Picchu

Archaeological evidence uncovered around the site suggests that the area was first used for agricultural purposes back in 760 B.C.

The war of Vilcambamba Pachacutec in 1440 established the first settlement at the site. It was called the Tahuantinsuyo Empire which was later followed by the formation of the government of Manco Capac.

It is thought that Machu Picchu was first inhabited by 300-1000 inhabitants, who were of the highest Class or "llactas".

The valleys around these areas were important for their agricultural contribution, however after death of the Emperor Pachacutec, it lost it's importance, with the establishment of new sites like Ollaytantambo and Vilcambamba. The building of these new sites by his successors, in more accessible terrain made Machu Picchu less appealing.

From 1527 to 1532, two brothers Huáscar and Atahualpa fought against each other in a civil war over the Inca Empire. Their father, Inca Huayna Capac had given each brother a section of the empire to manage, one in Huáscar in Cuzco and Atahualpa in Quito. When Huayna Capac and his heir, Ninan Cuyuchi, died somewhere between 1525 and 1527, the two brothers Atahualpa and Huáscar went to war over who should rule.  The population who had come to live in the Machu Picchu area from rural or remote locations left after the war ended to return to where they came from. Later another brother, Manco Inca was sent into exile in Vilcambamba, and Machu Picchu was deserted.

Antonio Raimondi was an Italian geographer and scientist from Milan who visited Machu Picchu in 1851. In 1867 Augusto Berns arrived to mine the site.

Hiram Bingham re-discovered the ruins in 1911. He documented and publicised his "discovery".

Hiram Bingham

The 2019 Chatham House Prize is awarded to Sir David Attenborough and Julian Hector, head of BBC Studios Natural History Unit, for the galvanizing impact of the Blue Planet II series on tackling ocean plastic pollution.

N. Leigh Anderson
Nov 1, 2002; 1:845-867
Reviews/Perspectives

7 November 2019

This is the second part of a two-part article on how time was perceived and measured in ancient and medieval Europe.

In the last installment of History for Fantasy Writers I addressed years, months, weeks, and days. Now I turn to shorter lengths: days, hours and still shorter periods. I’ll close with a more general consideration of time and the awareness of time.

Hours

We carve the day into twenty-four hours, but in the past the hour was a malleable thing. There were twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, regardless of the season. The day began with zero at sunrise. Then came the first hour, the second, and so on. The twelfth hour fell at sunset. A winter daylight hour was therefore shorter than a summer hour.

This feels a little nuts at first, but it’s actually pretty sensible. At least the word midnight makes sense in that system—it’s the mid-point of the night, regardless of how long is the night. All we have to do is abandon the notion that an hour is a unit of time, to consider it as marking portions of a day.

Continue reading History for Fantasy Writers: Do You Have a Moment? at Mythic Scribes.

Banks appear in a number of fantasy stories. George Martin’s Iron Bank is probably the best known, but banks and banking families can be found all around the fantasy landscape, especially in modern works. For writers considering including banks and bankers in their own stories, knowing something of the history can help add detail and color.

Money Changers

Europe in the High Middle Ages, say around 1100, had a bewildering variety of coinage (see my article on medieval money), a crazy cobweb of overlapping public authority, and an unreliable network of roads. Banking arose in response to the need of merchants to conduct large-scale business at a distance in that environment.

As you might guess, with so many different coins, knowing how to convert from one currency to another was a fairly technical business. That business was handled by a money changer. In Florence and other north Italian towns, the money changers set up shop at markets and near merchant establishments—any place where there was plenty of commercial traffic. The benches they sat on are called banca in Italian. That’s where we get the term bank.

Money changers knew more than just how to convert currencies.

Continue reading History for Fantasy Writers: Bank on It at Mythic Scribes.