user locations: pete_nice
brookhaven national laboratory
from tennis for two posted in video games by pete_nice
Developed in 1958 by William Higginbotham to entertain bored visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Tennis for Two is considered one of the first video games ever created.
The game was constructed using an oscilloscope as a display and a Donner Model 30 analog computer as a processor. The players would use an aluminum analog joystick to volley a "tennis ball" back and forth in a profile view of a match (unlike Pong, which was viewed from above).
The game was used only twice (during the Brookhaven open houses), but hundreds of people gathered in line to experience the new form of interaction. Check out this fascinating video of the 1958 recreation.
Higenbotham now has a special collection named for him, the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection, at Stony Brook University. Their mission is dedicated to "documenting the material culture of screen-based game media."
lead belly’s apartment
from lead belly posted in music by pete_nice
Huddie William Ledbetter, more widely known as Lead Belly, and his wife, Martha, lived at this apartment building in New York City in the 1940s.
The famous folk singer lived at this apartment until he died of Lou Gehrigs's disease in NYC on December 6, 1949.
rock of gibraltar
from greek myths, atlantis posted in history by pete_nice
Plato wrote of the lost civilization of Atlantis being located somewhere beyond the Pillars of Hercules (now Rock of Gibraltar).
Considering ancient people saw the Pillars of Hercules as the edge of the known world ("Nec plus ultra" means "nothing further beyond" and was the local motto), this doesn't exactly serve as a GPS coordinate. But if it keeps late-night History Channel documentaries in business, why the hell not?
rock of gibraltar
from greek myths, atlantis posted in history by pete_nice
The Rock of Gibraltar is the name given to the promontory rock formation that overlooks the landscape on the strait of Gibraltar on the southwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula.
Currently owned by the UK Crown as a British overseas territory (to the chagrin of most Spaniards), the Rock of Gibraltar is mostly known these days for the troop of macaques that explore the labyrinth of tunnels with the tourists.
In antiquity, the Rock of Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules. In the Greek myth of the twelve labors of Hercules, the tenth labor was to fetch the Cattle of Geryon of the far West and bring them to Eurystheus. The Rock of Gibraltar represents the westernmost point of that labor. Jebel Musa, across the Strait of Gibraltar, serves as the North African Pillar of Hercules.
blarney stone
from ween posted in music by pete_nice
The Blarney Stone is a piece of bluestone installed in Blarney Castle of County Cork in 1446.
According to legend, kissing the Blarney Stone will endow the kisser with the gift of gab.
According to Ween, "the Blarney Stone brings a tear to me eye."