Hacker NewsMay 17

Twilight of the Velocipede: Typesetting Races Before the Age of Linotype

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/twilight-of-the-velocipede/

#HackerNews #TwilightOfTheVelocipede #TypesettingHistory #Linotype #Innovation #PrintingPress #CyclingHistory #PublicDomainReview

Twilight of the Velocipede: Typesetting Races before the Age of Linotype

Before Linotype revolutionised typesetting in the 1880s, compositors set texts by hand — and they set them fast. Alex Wright rediscovers the thrilling world of typesetting races, which drew crowds in the thousands, offered huge cash prizes, and helped women "Swifts" fight for workplace equity.

The Public Domain Review
Hacker NewsApr 19

Frank Dudley Beane's Experience with Ergot and Cannabis Indica (1884)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/experience-with-ergot-and-cannabis/

#HackerNews #FrankDudleyBeane #Ergot #CannabisIndica #History #ofScience #PublicDomainReview

“A Beautiful Purplish Hue”: Frank Dudley Beane’s Experience with Ergot and Cannabis Indica (1884)

An early contribution to drug literature, in which a man came to be fashioned out of wood.

The Public Domain Review
Hacker NewsApr 9

Doing Impressions: Monet's Early Caricatures (ca. late 1850s)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/claude-monet-caricatures/

#HackerNews #Monet #Caricatures #Art #History #Impressionism #1850s #PublicDomainReview

Doing Impressions: Monet’s Early Caricatures (ca. late 1850s)

Moneymaking caricatures by a teenage Monet, before he turned to Impressionism.

The Public Domain Review
petersuberMar 14

1/ As far as I can tell, there are no #AI tools to help determine whether an arbitrary #book is in the #PublicDomain for an arbitrary country.

I respect the best of the non-AI tools and services already doing parts of this complex job, such as the #HathiTrust Rights Determination, #Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, and the #PublicDomainReview Guide to Finding Public Domain Works Online.

But there seems to be a niche for testing to see whether AI tools might do this job better and faster.

#Copyright #ScholComm

🧵

WhileWereBothRunningMar 5
D. Graham Burnett traces today's attention crisis back to WWI "pursuit tests": multi-stimulus rigs that measured how well aviators could track 14 lights, a motor, and an amp meter simultaneously.

The inversion: we don't have an attention deficit. We have an attention surplus of the wrong kind. Our cybernetic attention (tracking, clicking, responding to machine stimuli) is sublime. It's our human attention (daydreaming, being present, reading uninterrupted) that's disappearing.

An ethnographer from Mars would think we're attentional champions. We stare at screens all day.

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/cybernetic-attention/

#attention #cybernetics #technology #history #PublicDomainReview
Cybernetic Attention: All Watched over by Machines We Learned to Watch

Before the attention economy consumed our lives, “pursuit tests” devised by the US military coupled man to machine with the aim of assessing focus under pressure. D. Graham Burnett explores these devices for evaluating aviators, finding a pre-history of the laboratory research that has relentlessly worked to slice and dice the attentional powers of human beings.

The Public Domain Review
MauroGataJan 15

Cover book 1869

Full book here: https://archive.org/details/Spectrumanalysi00Rosc

From Public Domain Review, full article here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914/?fbclid=IwY2xjawPWBVtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEegFtY_tSBZhiNEfTJOrW3VJGE6Unl1JW073tjfvNXA1se8ryLA01Q7oEiWAc_aem_H8VoqEUxb9GwG0HzFd4x0g

#illustration #book #oldbook #PublicDomain #1860s #1800s #cover #bookcover #PublicDomainReview

Annette C. BoehmDec 24, 2025

A fun collection of images from The Public Domain Review: Snowball Fights in Art (1400-1946)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/snowball-fights/

(scroll down under the article for lots of images)

#PublicDomain #PublicDomainReview #Art #snow

Snowball Fights in Art (1400–1946)

What’s wondrous about browsing the images of snowball fights gathered here is how little changes across centuries and continents.

The Public Domain Review
Hacker NewsDec 22, 2025

Luke Howard's Essay on the Modification of Clouds (1865)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/essay-on-the-modification-of-clouds/

#HackerNews #LukeHoward #Essay #Clouds #1865 #PublicDomainReview #WeatherScience

Luke Howard’s *Essay on the Modification of Clouds* (1865)

First cloud taxonomer and a poem by Goethe.

The Public Domain Review
Hacker NewsNov 15, 2025

The Nature of the Beast: Charles Le Brun's Human-Animal Hybrids (1806)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/le-brun-human-animal-hybrids/

#HackerNews #TheNatureOfTheBeast #CharlesLeBrun #HumanAnimalHybrids #ArtHistory #PublicDomainReview

The Nature of the Beast: Charles le Brun’s Human-Animal Hybrids (1806)

Illustrations of supposed physiognomic affinities between humans and animals.

The Public Domain Review
Ed Wilk antifascistJul 9, 2025

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/splitting-hairs/?utm_source=newsletter

#Publicdomainreview #Chinese #ChunderRoad

Splitting Hairs: Chinese Immigrants, the Queue, and the Boundaries of Political Citizenship

As Chinese immigration to California accelerated across the 19th century, the hairstyle known as the queue — a long, braided pony tail — became the subject of white Americans’ fascination, disgust, and legal regulation. Sarah Gold McBride explores why hair served as an index of political subjecthood, and how the queue exposed cracks in American norms regarding gender, economy, and citizenship.

The Public Domain Review