Exploring a Logarithmic Temporal Technology Scale

In a previous, fairly soft-content post, I mused about the possibility of the existence of a logarithmic pattern in history that relates, in a predictable way, the subjective perceptions of technology within a civilization to their pace of technological advancement. (In a sort of tongue-in-cheek gesture, I called it the McGee Scale of technological advancement.) At […]

Iconic space image of the day

As anyone who knows me or has visited my home office knows, (where rescued original Douglas, Lockheed, and Aerojet ads from the 1950s and 1960s adorn the walls and beam futuristic optimism from behind protective glass,) I have a deep fascination with the historical presentation of space exploration and space concepts to the public. Mine […]

Timestream Post: A Note from 10.7.2010

It’s October 7th, and in a few moments I’m heading out to the National Archives in Chicago in search of NERVA (the joint NASA-Atomic Energy Commission program to develop nuclear thermal rockets) material and program files. As this is another of my digital time-travel experiment messages, I’m sending this far enough out to encompass a […]

Another Time Traveler found in 1928 film?

Just as with this 21st-Century hipster discovered at a Canadian bridge dedication in the 1940s, another historical anachronism has been spotted, this time in the 1928 Charlie Chaplin film, The Circus. As reported by the U.K. Daily Mail, a Chaplin film expert discovered an older woman walking alone across the background of a scene in […]

Foraging for Nuclear Rocket Secrets

I spent this past Thursday at the National Archives in Chicago as one of the few humans in the last three decades to track down the project files for the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) Program from the 1960s. The experience of using the National Archive was exactly like and completely unlike what I’d […]

Time Traveler found in 1940s museum image?

According to Stephen Hawking, perhaps the biggest argument against time travel is the fact that we haven’t met any time-traveling tourists. When you think about it, the point is a fairly strong one. However, the Earth is almost incomprehensibly vast, and with such a nigh-infinity of moments available to a potential time traveler, the numbers argument […]