Obscure Box

When 17 Century philosopher Rene Descartes penned a letter to a mate back in 1641 it's safe to say he'd never heard of Google, let along the internet.

A philosopher's stolen letter found in a Google search (Source: Haverford College)

The letter to Marin Mersenne later found itself as part of a collection of documents at the Institut de France (Institute of France). From here it was one of many items stolen Italian mathematician Count Guglielmo Libri in the 1800s, according the Associated Press article "Pa. college to return stolen letter by Descartes" (Monday 31 May 2010).

He was convicted in absentia of several thefts in France in 1850 but had already fled to England, selling the documents to collectors and booksellers.- AFP

Rene Descartes

Along comes Erik-Jan Bos, a Dutch scholar of Descartes, who late one night January night enters "autographed letter" and "Descartes" into the Google search box.

He finds the letter at Haverford College, in Pennsylvania in the US, and promptly contacts the school about his find seeking a full scan of the letter. The school was somewhat shocked to find it was the holder of stolen goods.

"We're not in the business of keeping stolen property," college President Stephen Emerson is reported to have said in the AP copy.

The tale ends well though as the school has now returned the original letter to Institut in Paris, says the Agence France Presse article "Thinking man's mystery: Stolen Descartes letter returned" (Wednesday 9 June 2010).

"I thought that if the shoe had been on the other foot, that if material had been stolen from our library, we would be very grateful if it were returned," John Anderies, head of special collections at Haverford, said in the article.

As for Google, the search engine darling is naturally delighted in the role it's played.

"Search isn't a solved problem, but it certainly helps solve problems ... " John Saroff, Strategic Partnership Development Manager, Google TV Ads writes in the Official Google Blog post "Searching for Descartes, solving a centuries-old international mystery" (Sunday 6 June 2010).

A good point indeed. Searching is one thing, but knowing how to search, what to look for, where to look and what to do with what you've found is another thing altogether.

I wonder what Descartes would have thought of all this? A man famous for the phrase "I think, therefore I am" and a man famous for his own search for knowledge.

The Royal Tweets

So the British Monarchy is on Twitter.

The Queen has apparently been a big fan of the World Wide Web for many years so I suppose it's no surprise that Her Majesty would also want the Monarchy to keep up with modern trends and enter the online social network marketplace.

When I last looked an impressive 39,109 people were following the Royal Tweets, on a verified account too.

But the Royal Family is following no-one.

Typical of the Monarchy! All talk and no listening.

Sometimes a news feed offers too much.

Take this offering today from ninemsn.com.au.

Too much information!

A gruesome story with an equally gruesome offer of "Photos Video Watch live" if the feed is followed.

Thankfully the full story "Teen rushed to hospital after tongue piercing" (Tuesday 4 May 2010) doesn't contain any video or ability to watch live the piercing, or the bloody result of the piercing.

Not so gruesome photo

It does contain a photo - just a headshot of the 15-year-old victim Reece-Marie Hall - and not a piercing in sight.

The ninemsn.com.au copy is based on an earlier story in Britain's Daily Mail.

However, more details are given on the online version of the story from the Hull Daily Mail in "Girl, 15, has emergency operation after tongue piercing" (Monday 3 May 2010).

That story includes more comment from Reece-Marie Hall and more reaction from victim's mother Leeanne Hall aged 35, including one line that should server as a warning to anyone considering a tongue piercing.

"Reece-Marie now has a lisp and I can't always understand what she's saying. I hope it isn't a permanent thing." - mother

It was back in August 2008 when I first mentioned my frustration at what I called the Gates' Breath, in Just wait a Gates’ breath.

Now the brainy people at chip manufacturer Intel have revealed figures on a similar condition that's called Hourglass Syndrome.

The Reuters story Stressed by slow computers? You are not alone (Friday 9 April 2010) talks about the frustrations people experience in waiting for the computers to catch up with their actions.

"We found that 41 percent of adults said they are waiting for the computer to catch up with them and they are stressing out while waiting," said Agnes Kwan, of Intel which develops processor technology, said referring to survey results.

The increasing use of Facebook, Twitter and some music and video websites (no doubt including YouTube) were all causing problems for slow computers that struggled to keep up.

A Harris poll for Intel of 2,315 people in the United States found the average computer user was spending about 13 minutes a day waiting for their technology to catch up, which adds up to a total wait of about three days a year.

The clever folk at Intel even created a video to highlight the problems caused by Hourglass Syndrome.

Naturally Intell is using the research to plug its new, faster chips, as revealed in the company's blog posting Hourglass Syndrome: Do You Suffer? (Thursday 31 March 2010).

Of course, another solution could be to develop websites that don't take up so much of a processor's grunt.

No matter what machine I use these days it seems to take longer and longer to access content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a host of other news and information websites.

Cressida Cowell

British author Cressida Cowell may know a thing or two about dragons but her knowledge of Vikings might need a little updating.

Her series of children's books are the basis for the new 3D animated blockbuster How to Train Your Dragon.

It's a fascinating movie that's entertaining for all ages and I confess I shed a tear or two towards the end when I went to a preview screening in Brisbane recently.

(Still puzzled though by the Scottish accents on those Vikings.)

Keen to know more about the movie's origins I was directed towards Cowell's website and information on her series of books on dragons and Vikings.

There I plunged into the Frequently Asked Questions and found this amusing entry:

When did the Vikings invade Britain?

Now I'm no expert on Vikings - and a half century ago is still just a few years before I was born in the UK - but I don't recall my parents ever telling me tales of what life was like when the Vikings invaded Britain.

Nor do I recall any of my Scottish friends telling me tales of Viking settlements on the Western Isles of Scotland in the mid 20th Century.

Surely such news would have made great headlines in the British media but a search of the BBC's excellent website finds no results for Viking invasions of Britain in the 1950s or 1960s.

The public sector broadcaster does have a great website on British history and the section on Britain from 1945 onwards makes no mention of any Viking invasion.

Where the Vikings do crop up on the website is in the ancient history section with a series of raids that began at the end of the eighth century AD.

BBC's ancient history of the Vikings

Read on and we discover the reign of the Vikings actually extended from about 800 through to 1066 and the Norman invasion.

A half century ago? More like a 1,000 years ago, give or take a full century.

Cowell may well have spent time as a child on an un-named Scottish island, staring out to sea but neither she nor anyone else at the time would ever have seen the sails of a genuine Viking ship appear on the horizon.