Paul Otlet was an information scientist working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He designed various systems of cataloging and connecting information, including systems that expanded upon those are broadly used today (for example, Otlet’s Universal Decimal Classification significantly expanded on the Dewey Decimal System). Among Otlet’s credits are the inventions of the term “link” for the notion of documents referencing each other, and his vision of a réseau (”web”) of human knowledge. From a Boxes and Arrows article on his achievements:

In 1934, years before Vannevar Bush dreamed of the memex, decades before Ted Nelson coined the term “hypertext,” Paul Otlet envisioned a new kind of scholar’s workstation: a moving desk shaped like a wheel, powered by a network of hinged spokes beneath a series of moving surfaces. The machine would let users search, read and write their way through a vast mechanical database stored on millions of 3×5 index cards.

This new research environment would do more than just let users retrieve documents; it would also let them annotate the relationships between one another, “the connections each [document] has with all other [documents], forming from them what might be called the Universal Book.”

Otlet, together with Henri la Fontaine, created the Mundaneum in 1910, in an effort to gather and classify all world knowledge. The Mundaneum was to be the heart of a “city of the intellect,” and sought to break human knowledge down onto 3×5 cards, which would be cataloged using Otlet’s Universal Decimal Classification.

Read more about Otlet in an excellent article on Boxes and Arrows.

Some things just get lost in translation. That’s my best explanation for the following head-scratcher, used widely across Russia in 1968 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Army. (Commenter Zarv from Englishrussia took a guess: “It’s an ancient Russian tradition to kiss respected people, best friends three times in lips in gratitude.” I’ll have to side with Zarv.)
More wacky Russian stamps after the jump!
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I don’t always carry a camera. Yesterday, I did.

We’ve been receiving mail for my home’s previous owners regularly for almost three years. Endless pre-approved credit cards, random herbal medicine catalogs, and even a few letters from the office of then-Senator Bill Frist. I’ve given up hope that the U.S. Postal Service will ever fix this. They clearly have other priorities. For example, saving the world.

Turns out they’re slowly converting their fleet to hybrid vehicles. They’re clearly missing an opportunity with the truck design.

The second picture is something recently featured on adfreak. A banner promoting the new wooden roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure. Today I noticed that the ad had been taken down. You can decide whether or not this is safe for a public bus terminal.

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NewScientist’s Short Sharp Science blog had a plug for this newly designed Smoking Jacket. Apparently, the idea is for conscientious puffers to blow smoke into their collars (instead of the air) to contain the smoke and curb second-hand ingestion. And while the wearable ashtray seems kind of stylish, and the idea’s interesting (making a martyr of every nicotine-fiend on a smoke break, while displaying what smoking does to the lungs) it looks pretty irritating to clean.

According to OhGizmo, an artist and a palaeontologist have created a breakthrough in video game sciences by combining forces and recreating Pac-Man’s skull. The brilliant duo based their hypothetical skull on “the observation of human and various predatory animal skulls,” as well as plenty of observation of his work on the screen. And while the skulls aren’t for sale (at least, not just yet), I have no doubt schools and bio labs across the country will be trying to get their mitts on one of these as soon as possible.

As someone who’s never even broken a bone — not even as a kid when I used to climb (and fall out of) trees, jump off swing sets and wrestle viciously with my friends — it’s tough for me to imagine undergoing major surgery. Brain surgery is about as major as you can get, if you want to get really radical, we can talk about the hemispherectomy, in which one half of your brain is removed. Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that hundreds of people have undergone this procedure, and not only lived to tell the tale, but can walk around and talk and do a lot of the things people with all of their brains can do. This left me with lots of probing questions, which Scientific American was only too happy to answer.

Q: If you have half your brain removed, can you keep stuff in the empty half?
A: No, the evacuated cavity fills up with cerebrospinal fluid within a day or so.
Q: Please don’t talk about “evacuated cavities” anymore, it gives me the willies.
A: If you say so.
Q: So people who have this insane procedure done are, like, normal afterwards?
A: Well, not quite. You do lose the use of one hand and one eye on the side of your body opposite where the brain was removed. (more…)

Yesterday, Tim Nudd of Adfreak mentioned Major League Baseball-branded urns (via Make The Logo Bigger). A little Googling turned up a Stanley Cup urn, teddy bear urns (for pets) and a bronze bust urn. I don’t have anything else to say about urns. But I would like to discuss the contents within.

Spreading a lost loved one’s ashes across an exotic or poignant locale is something I’ve only ever seen in movies. I assume this really happens – either the inspiration for all the big screen ash-spreading, or in response to it. Anyone have a (true) story about scattering a person’s ashes somewhere special?

I know I have a problem with the incorrect use of certain words. Were there a support group for my ilk – that is, people who have a hard time watching/listening as others mangle the language — I’d not only be a charter member, I’d probably be president of the board. I’ve devoted many Word Wrap posts over the last year to this or that offender, this or that offense. (Check out the Word Wrap archives in the side bar for multiple examples.) Today’s post is yet one more in that series, where I unload my frustration on you loyal wRap Readers looking for sympathy and perhaps a few more examples of such blasphemy; a post that has to do with intention and meaning - words that are meant to say one thing, but wind up saying something else entirely. For example, here’s a setup:

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The latest soudbite quiz takes you on a stroll down cartoon lane. How well do you think you know some of the most famous cartoon characters of all time? Give it a whirl. And, as always, we love to know how well you made out.

There’s a piece in the current (June) issue of the Harvard Business Review on the scarcity of exceptionally creative minds in which Daniel J. Socolow, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, says, “Creative people we look at have often ruffled a few feathers along the way,” – in other words: don’t expect the creative types to be the most popular. Apparently, they’re generally not the best at promoting themselves, either. “Don’t assume that you can figure out who your creative people are all by yourself,” he says. “Listen to others and look in the least likely places.”

Here at the _floss, we love and respect creativity, too. And though we can’t give you a $500,000 MacArthur, we can give you a Flossy - otherwise known as serious SERIOUS braggin’ rights with a whole post devoted to you.

So go ahead and nominate yourself or someone else in the comments below. Know someone who’s done something so wildly creative he/she/you deserve(s) a Flossy? [I posted this late last week — but am throwing it up again in case you missed it. Contest ends today, so if you’re going to nominate, there’s still time!]