> When the book’s plates required an illustrator, and he was unable to find a satisfactory one, he taught himself perspective drawing, then published a 1770 tutorial for aspiring artists titled A Familiar Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Perspective.
Shades of Knuth.
(For anyone unfamiliar with Donald Knuth’s prodigious dives into mathematical topography and related subjects, https://yakshav.es/the-patron-saint-of-yakshaves/ is a highly entertaining read. Even for those who are familiar it’s entertaining.)
> Another side-note: both TeX and METAFONT still see releases, at a slow pace. TeX is currently at version 3.14159265, METAFONT at 2.7182818. Yep, TeX is slowly converging towards pi, while METAFONT towards e. Take that, semantic versioning advocates!
I always thought of Joseph Priestley as a strictly English figure and was surprised to learn that he spent his final years in Pennsylvania. Though Priestley discovered oxygen in England in 1774, a centennial gathering at his house in Pennsylvania in 1874 led to the founding of the American Chemical Society [1].
Nicely done! I've been wanting to build something similar, but as a tool to assist in my history studies.
Oh, and if you are into timelines and their history, you might enjoy Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton. Very informative read!
I checked out your History Chronicle which is pretty cool. I'm thinking I should also use the Wikipedia 'On this Day' API to add events automatically to my timeline.
Is it just me, but when I see a reference to a map of time, I get a vivid flashback to a scruffy band of little people pushing a bedroom wall back into a portal.
Shades of Knuth.
(For anyone unfamiliar with Donald Knuth’s prodigious dives into mathematical topography and related subjects, https://yakshav.es/the-patron-saint-of-yakshaves/ is a highly entertaining read. Even for those who are familiar it’s entertaining.)