On June 9, the Internet Archive welcomed film lovers, public domain enthusiasts, and fashionably dressed guests for an evening celebrating one of cinema’s enduring classics: Morocco (1930). Our “Top Hat […]

"Who is good if he knows not who he is? and who knows what he is, if he forgets that things which have been made are perishable, and that it is not possible for one human being to be with another always?"

In 1703, the world’s most esteemed scientific journal published a surprising letter from an anonymous correspondent. (At the time, until well into the twentieth century, anonymity often meant the scientist writing was a woman, though the word “scientist” itself was more than a century away, to be coined for a woman.) The letter reported an astonishing discovery in the roots of pond plants placed…

In 1932, a 22-year-old John W. Campbell — later the _Astounding_ editor who shaped midcentury science fiction, and, as has been well documented, an open fascist — published "The Last Evolution" in _Amazing Stories_. It's narrated by the last thinking machine on Earth, recalling how humanity went extinct. — Read the rest

The post In 1932, John W. Campbell imagined machines outliving humanity…

It seems odd, wrong even, that “patience” and “passion” — the twin roots of love — should share a root in pāti, Latin for “to suffer.” But anyone who has lived, who has loved unskillfully or loved the unskilled, knows that the experience can be our sharpest instrument of suffering. We say we “fall” in love precisely because we know we can get bruised, know that the trap door it opens beneath our…

The same horse-racing board game has been published and republished for decades under at least seven different names — Dubble Kross (1991), The Horse Race Game (2004), Wooden Horse Races Game (2004), Horse Race (2005), The Racing Horse Game (2006), Horse Racing Game (2007) — plus a run of unnamed wood-and-metal editions. — Read the rest

The post This horse-racing board game gives players zero…

The Guardian made a list of the 100 greatest novels of all time. You can see the list here, with links to how Guardian’s made it. First place of the list is George Eliot with Middlemarch, but I thought to check which authors had more works in this list. And it’s Virginia Woolf with five … Continue reading It’s Weekend, Let’s Read: Who is the author with more works in the Guardian’s list of 100…

Ten thousand is nearly double the total number of exoplanets that have been confirmed so far. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, public domain

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."

“Love the earth and sun and the animals… re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul…”

Calibration and consolation for those moments when it seems impossible that we should ever again recompose the world's broken fragments into a harmonious whole.

We’ve arrived at the end of our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, Best Remix, and Best Digital Game winners, and now we’re wrapping things up with a look at […]

Back in August, last year, Steve from A World Between the Covers of Books on Instagram created the #GallivantingWithGaskell readalong to go through Elizabeth Gaskell novels, as follows: September – Mary BartonOctober – CranfordNovember – RuthDecember – North And SouthJanuary – Sylvia’s LoversFebruary – Wives And Daughters I managed to start Mary Barton just before the … Continue reading…

Everyone is always speculating about what Quentin Tarantino will do for his tenth and final film, and now we have another title that it's definitely not.

So in the meantime, we have one of his most beloved characters coming back to the big screen and getting mashed up with a legend.

Sony Pictures is officially moving forward with the _Django/Zorro_ film, based on the 2014 comic book…

What are the proper rules of etiquette for a gentleman when calling upon a lady at her home? And what are the rules for leaving calling cards?

A gentleman should call between the hours of two and six in the afternoon, on week days, and not later than ten in the evening, on Sundays.

— Read the rest

The post Researchers built a language model that thinks it's still 1930 appeared first on…

"Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

We’re nearing the end of our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, and Best Remix winners, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Digital Game: I Could […]

Anthony Trollope was born on this day in 1815. I’ve only read five novels and a short story collection. I’m on the fifth volume of Chronicles of Barsetshire and I’m loving it so much that my recommendation for this weekend goes for the first volume in the series. The Warden – Read or download at … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Anthony Trollope! It’s Weekend, Let’s Read! & A New Series by Katie…

Today's links The (other) problem with automatic conversion of free software to proprietary software: You can't add ANY license to a public domain work. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Pimp My Snack; Abandoned Soviet missile silo full of cash; MPAA v 'democratizing culture'; 3,000 page garbage Kindle books; London's lost postal tunnels; Internet voting is stupid;…

We’re past the halfway point in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation, Best Deep Cut, and Best Visuals winners, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Remix: Lilac Song by Autumn […]

It’s time for the third in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation and Best Deep Cut winners, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Visuals: As I Lay Flying by Geouug. […]

Today’s #MurderEveryMonday is a crime fiction title with a word to do with intelligence. Check Kate’s blog to know more. I started with “Desapareceu um Inventor” (can be translated as “An inventor disappeared” (scientist)), which the original title is “Your deal, my lovely” by Peter Cheney. Never read this one and it’s one in the … Continue reading #MurderEveryMonday Crime fiction title with a…

It’s time for the second in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation winner, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Deep Cut: CARAMENTRAN by RedSPINE and poymakes. Sometimes, we get entries […]

As many of the AI stories on Walled Culture attest, one of the most contentious areas in the latest stage of AI development concerns the sourcing of training data. To create high-quality large language models (LLMs) massive quantities of training data are required. In the current genAI stampede, many companies are simply scraping everything they can off […]

It’s finally time! Once again it took us a little while to get through all the entries this year, but we’ve now selected the winners in the latest installment of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! As usual, we’ve got winners in six categories. Plus, at the end, we’ve got some honorable […]

There’s a specific kind of madness that sets in when you’re a documentary filmmaker. You start with a pitch, a plan, and a protagonist, but somewhere between "action" and the edit suite, the universe decides to laugh at your outline.

At this year’s SXSW, a panel of three filmmakers shares how they have mastered the art of the pivot: Marq Evans (_Capturing Bigfoot_), Scott Veltri (_The…

The Mondrian/Holtzman Trust has a creative legal theory: a 147-year-old Spanish statute and a Spanish Supreme Court ruling should govern the copyright status of a Dutch painter's work in the United States. That's what the Trust told an art magazine when asked about Piet Mondrian's _Composition II with Red, Blue, and Yellow_ , which became free to use on January 1, 2026, as Copyright Lately…

How Mickey’s 1930 comic strip turned borrowed hit songs into the foundation of Disney’s musical legacy. On January 13, 1930, Mickey Mouse began starring in daily comic strips. This new […]

“The Diary of a Young Girl” is a Dutch language diary written by the young Jewish writer Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Although the diary and Anne Frank’s death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp are well known, few are aware that the text has […]

“Love the earth and sun and the animals… re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul…”