I hate to be so pessimistic but none of us would survive more than 4 or 5 days in the middle ages. Their version of English was as different to todays as French is to English. You would need to be able to communicate in some way and to learn the language you would need time. You wouldn't have time because you would be starving to death from the moment you arrived. You might stumble on a farm except there were no farms only thousands of small holdings owned by the landowner and run by his serfs. Each one would generate enough food to keep the serfs from starving and the landowner in luxury. You couldn't hunt as all the animals belonged to the Lord of the manor and the punishment for poaching was death. The punishment for stealing food was death or a long spell in jail where you were obliged to pay your way. Result:death. If you arrived in some of the cities you might be able to grunt away to the effect that you are starving and would like some work please but you would need to get behind a line of hundreds of other starving people who can speak the language. You've memorised the formula for gunpowder? How are you going to buy the ingredients? You can only hope the knowledge keeps you warm as you lie down at the side of the muddy road and get ready to die.
No, the best thing to do if you get transported back to the year 1000 is to pray that someone transports you back , pronto.

I think Isaacs is pretty clever. Facing possible jail time for breaking the law he was smart enough to con boingboing into a conversation about his 'art'. His lawyer is most likely hitting the printscreen button right now.

When I was about ten we had a bee swarm in our back garden one summer. They hung about the top of a fir tree we had then moved off slightly to its side and formed a dense ball of black buzzing bees. I still remember clearly standing beneath them feeling kind of scared and excited at the same time because it really was a truly weird thing to see. Eventually a couple tailed off towards our chimney. I don't remember if they actually came back and some sort of bee dance ensued but at some point a decision was made and they all set off for our chimney and settled in. They must have gotten into the walls from there where their little heads strained hour after hour to get through the narrow gap in the metal vents that our bedroom had onto the wallspace. "Danger Bees" indeed. The next day the local council came at the request of my parents and gassed them all. I'm pretty sure we would have had to tape up those vents but maybe someone else did it or my mind had blanked that particular experience out.

Even in the crummiest cafes a BLT and soup like this would be about £8.00 in the UK which is about $16 in the US. You don't know how lucky you are having such low cost food.

#13 CERTHAS
2nd century BC=200BC! oops, thats what I get for reading it too quickly and going off on a daydream about time-travelling Greeks.

#13 CERTHAS
2nd century BC=200BC! oops, thats what I get for reading it too quickly and going off on a daydream about time-travelling Greeks.

"The motion, known as the first lunar anomaly, was developed by the astronomer Hipparcus of Rhodes in the 2nd century BC, and he may have been consulted in the machine's construction, the scientists speculate."

If it dates from 100BC surely Hipparcus wouldn't have been born How could they have consulted him?

I just got up and it seems I missed something. Ah well, ... I think that Mark Frauenfelders handling of the Windows Mobile sponsorship was a bit cack-handed but thats part of the charm of Boing Boing. Its run pretty well but none of the contributers are cynical hacks with some Rupert Murdoch figure breathing down their necks looking at the bottom line. Also this blog is by far the biggest in the "blogospehere" (ahem). Way bigger than all the rest. Its inevitable that Mark et al will want to share in its success beyond getting a pat on the back from their friends. How are they going to share in its success unless they have some form of advertising or sponsorship? Getting sponsored by 'Als natural grain store' isn't going to pay the bills or keep Corey in nappies. I could go on but I get the feeling that this has already been run over. Feel free to delete this post THN if its all old stuff.

Enough already.

#35
"That mental space of potential meanings, which the reader has been maintaining, collapses into no meaning at all beyond plain old xy. This can happen within the space of a sentence."

....ummm I think it happened to me just there.

For some reason I find this incredibly sad. She must have been only nine when she was kidnapped.

Mikelotus: "Can I safely take it to the beach or pool to read like a paperback? Do I dare use it on the crapper (as most everyone knows, a man's (and my wife's after showing her the pleasure)favorite reading room)?"

Um...you let your wife watch you taking a dump while you read a book? That's just sick man.

I checked out these comments expecting some of you to get upset about this story and you didn't disappoint me. Its about time you had your eyes opened. The vast majority of people in Britain thought Ronald Reagan was a joke. Yet you voted for him in your millions and he's one of the best respected Presidents ever(or so I believe). We couldn't understand it when you voted him in again and again. Its kind of the same for Margaret Thatcher but the other way round. She has a really high standing in America but she divided opinion in Britain unlike any other leader for a long time. Where I live, Scotland, she is loathed for reasons that would be too numerous to go into in a comments box.

If this lady had been Jane Doe from Idaho this story would have caused a slight ripple across the internet but the police 'F****d' up big time by having a well connected person die in their custody. I don't think we've heard the last of this and If I was one of the officers involved I be getting worried that the whole truth, whatever that may be, is going to come out.

Lets hope he does some jail time rather than getting a fine. He might find the other inmates less than understanding.

"What the KLF did, as recorded in a story by Bill Drummond that I don't think is online, is persuade the Bank of England to let them destroy a million pounds (face value) of old notes. This did cost money for insurance, but nothing close to a million pounds."

Bullshit. If you were in a pop band and approached the Bank of England and said "can we have a million pounds in decommissioned notes" they would tell tell you to take a hike. The only reason that Bill Drummond made up such a preposterous story is because of the amount of flak they got afterwards about it. Nobody thought they were cool except the people who use words like "situationists".

I'm sure a lot of your readers check out lots of other sites but Boing Boing is about the only one that I've found that is consistently interesting and easy to browse when I'm pressed for time at work. Not now. The text size is too large and half the page is made up of advertising. I don't like the design. It 'looks' like a blog which is a bad thing. In fact it looks like every other blog out there. I don't know how much you paid Miss Hostetler but it was probably too much.