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The Feynman Technique - YouTube

'...Richard Feynman was a physicist who received a nobel prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was notorious for asking others to explain concepts in simple language to test their understanding....'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkm0TNFzIeg

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Apple Inc. will invest $1 billion in a new campus in Austin, Texas, the company announced on Thursday.

Gardener Henry Scott pushes pineapples in Georgian England

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A rare and lovely broadside trade card for British gardener Henry Scott, reflecting Georgian England’s craze for pineapples and other tropical fruits. A proof copy, edited in manuscript by Scott and with a note from him likely addressed to renowned fellow gardener Thomas Knowlton.

Henry Scott was gardener for Richard Boyle, the 3rd Earl of Burlington, at Chiswick House in Middlesex from 1738 until some time in the 1750s. Thereafter he established his own nursery at Weybridge in Surrey, where he produced this large and very fine engraved broadside trade card.

The broadside mentions a wide variety of nursery products but places most of its emphasis on pineapples, apparently Henry’s specialty. Brought to Europe in the 17th century by the Dutch from their colony in Surinam, pineapple cultivation proved a great challenge in the cold northern climates. It was first accomplished in England around 1714-1716, and what at least one writer describes as a “full-blown pineapple mania” ensued. (Johanna Lausen-Higgins, “A Taste for the Exotic: Pineapple cultivation in Britain,” at buildingconservation.com)

The broadside features an engraved allegorical vignette (7 ½”h x 7 ½”w) surmounting two columns of letterpress. The vignette depicts a triptych of a gardener—Scott himself?–being presented with a bounty of tropical fruits by the kneeling figure of Labor, while Knowledge, holding a thermometer, looks on. In the middle ground four figures represent the Elements, against a backdrop including a greenhouse and formal garden. The text below, English at left with a translation in French at right, advertises “ripe fruit” and “plants of all sizes,” as well as “Garden Tools, Seeds, Mats, Fruit Trees, Flowering Shrubs, and Green House Plants.” It emphasizes further the availability of regular transport to London—daily coaches for fresh fruit, twice-weekly boats for trees and other large orders.

In the upper margin an “Explanation” has been added in manuscript by Scott himself: “Knowledge and Labour (assisted by the four Elements) presenting the Gardener with a Cornucopia of Fruits whach are the product of the Hotest [sic] Climates.” On the impression held by the British Museum, this text is engraved along the upper edge of the vignette with only minor changes of spelling.

The previous owner of the broadside claims to have obtained it from a descendant of Thomas Knowlton (1691-1781). This is certainly plausible: Knowlton was a friend of Scott’s and a renowned gardener with a particular expertise in the use of hothouses to raise exotics such as pineapples. Knowlton also spent much of his career in the employ of the Earl of Burlington, so Scott may have learned much of his trade from him. Further, Knowlton refers to a copy of this trade card in a letter to a colleague written November 5, 1754:

“[Scott has] published a fine print of Knowledge and Lab[ou]r assisted by the 4 Elements presenting the gard[ene]r with the fruits of the hotest Climates Extreemly well done in ye maner of a place bill & is the neatest thing of the Kind I have seen he sent me on[e] down.” (quoted in Val Bott, “The Scott Brothers,” at nurserygardners.com)

Whomever the intended recipient, along the lower edge of the broadside Scott has penned and signed the following note:

“Sr: I have taken the Liberty to send you one of my Bills, and if any thing therein specified is wanting, I hope for the favour of yr: orders, which shall be most punctually obeyed by Sr: yr: most obedient servt. Henry Scott.”

Whether Scott is inviting comments on a proof of the broadside or actually soliciting orders from his nursery is not clear.

In all, a rare and lovely relic of an 18th-century obsession, with a wonderful association.

Rarity and references
I have been able to locate only two other impressions of this broadside. I have already mentioned the later state, with engraved “Explanation,” held by the British Museum. As of November 2018 both COPAC and OCLC list a single impression, held by the National Library of Scotland. It is hard to be certain, but the description suggests that is another example of the proof state.

See the details: https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/henry-scott-pineapples-trade-card-1754/

Today in Apple history: Apple buys ‘iPhone’ web domain - December 14, 1999: Apple acquires the domain name www.iphone.org, prompting years of speculation that Cupertino is considering building a cellphone. While the news generates interest, some take it as a warning sign. Apple only recently abandoned the kind of non-computer gimmicks like games consoles, PDAs and digital cameras that proved to be dead ends earlier in […] (via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Gboard is rolling out new Light and Dark Gradient Themes

At the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, technicians practice and prepare to stack NASA's Space Launch System rocket. The SLS fueled-up core stage weighs around 2.3 million pounds and measures 212 feet long.

A young star caught forming like a planet - Astronomers have captured one of the most detailed views of a young star taken to date, and revealed an unexpected companion in orbit around it.

Everyone loves a competition. Well, let’s be honest, most people just like free stuff. You can use this to your advantage in business. Here's a shortlist of the 6 best competition software you can use to engage your audience and grow your business.

Nearby Supernova Lit Up Earth’s Sky Could have Caused One of Earth’s Mass Extinctions

Nothing lasts forever. If you look for it, mounting evidence of an impending mass extinction event is all around us, and the forces behind these epic die-offs could be greater than we ever knew.

Astronomers say radiation arriving from a powerful stellar explosion may be the event that wiped coastal ocean animals off the planet 2.6 million years ago.

About 2.6 million years ago, one such supernova lit up Earth’s sky from about 150 light-years away. A few hundred years later, after the new star had long since faded from the sky, cosmic rays from the event finally reached Earth, slamming into our planet. Now, a group of researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas believes this cosmic onslaught is linked to a mass extinction of ocean animals roaming Earth’s waters at the time — including the Megalodon.
Their work was published November 27 in Astrobiology. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2018.1902

Read more here: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/12/did-a-nearby-supernova-cause-one-of-earths-mass-extinctions

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/uok-dsk121118.php

Clips, images credit: Megalodon via Wikimedia Commons, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, ESA/HUBBLE & ESO

Music credit: YouTube Audio Library

Besides the iconography, everything else looks fresh and clean. Well done, Samsung 👌