WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William John Broderip HDT WHAT? INDEX
WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP
1789
November 21, Saturday: William John Broderip was born in Princes-street, Bristol, England, eldest son of William Broderip, a surgeon. After being educated at Bristol Grammar School by the Reverend Samuel Seyer (himself a published author), he would matriculate at Oriel College, Oxford. There he would attend the anatomical lectures of Sir Christopher Pegge and the chemical and mineralogical lectures of Dr. John Kidd.
I zingari in fiera, a dramma per musica by Giovanni Paisiello to words of Palomba, was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro Fondo, Naples.
The former English colony of North Carolina signed aboard the ship of state “United States of America”: READ THE FULL TEXT
RATIFICATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
December 8, 1787 Delaware YES= 30 NO= 0 December 12, 1787 Pennsylvania YES= 46 NO= 23 December 18, 1787 New Jersey YES= 38 NO= 0 January 2, 1788 Georgia YES= 26 NO= 0 January 8, 1788 Connecticut YES=128 NO= 40 February 6, 1788 Massachusetts YES=187 NO=168 April 28, 1788 Maryland YES= 63 NO= 11 May 23, 1788 South Carolina YES=149 NO= 73 June 21, 1788 New Hampshire YES= 57 NO= 47 June 25, 1788 Virginia YES= 89 NO= 79 July 26, 1788 New York YES= 30 NO= 27
HTTP://WWW.YALE.EDU/LAWWEB/AVALON/CONST/RATNC.HTM JOINING LATER IN ADHERENCE TO THE US CONSTITUTION: 12
November 21, 1789 North Carolina YES=194 NO= 77 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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(The state motto would be Esse quam videri, “to be rather than to seem.”)
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
William John Broderip “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP
1812
May 16, Saturday: William John Broderip graduated from Oriel College of Oxford University. He would enter the Inner Temple, and study in the chambers of Godfrey Sykes alongside Sir John Patteson and Sir John Taylor Coleridge.
ORIEL COLLEGE
The Emperor and Empress of France arrived in Dresden accompanied by a torchlight parade. Also in attendance were the various German kings, of Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, and Westphalia.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 16th 5 M 1812// A Season of precious favor this morng finished a letter to James D Ladd of Grancille Mill Virginia this Afternoon — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP
1817
May 12, Monday: William John Broderip joined the bar at Lincoln’s Inn. His practice would be on the western circuit. Soon he and Peregrine Bingham would begin reporting in the court of common pleas. (These reports would appear in three volumes from 1820 to 1822.)
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 12 of 5 M / Mother Rodman is Better today her disorder assumes a favorable appearance & we hope her confinement will not be very long. - Went this evening with my H to see her. - her throat has been considerable sore & some fever hanging about her system. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William John Broderip HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1822
William John Broderip accepted from Lord Sidmouth the appointment of magistrate at the Thames police court.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William John Broderip HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1824
William John Broderip edited the 4th edition of R. CALLIS UPON THE STATUTE OF SEWERS. He was elected a member of the Linnean Society, presumably because of his work on conches.
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
William John Broderip “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1825
William John Broderip was elected a member of the Geological Society (he would for some time be a secretary of this society, alongside Roderick Murchison).
In October the Reverend Edward Hitchcock left off being Conway’s Congregationalist minister to become Professor of Chemistry and Natural Science at Amherst College.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
William John Broderip “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1826
William John Broderip and Sir Stamford Raffles aided in the formation of the Zoological Society, of which they were among the original fellows. (His writings in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Zoological Society are primarily to be found under the rubric “malacology.”)
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
William John Broderip “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1828
February 14, Thursday: Edmond François Valentin About was born at Dieuze, in the Lorraine region of France.
William John Broderip was elected a member of the Royal Society.
The initial of several customs treaties in the German Confederation was signed between Prussia and Hesse- Darmstadt, providing a basis for greater German unity.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 14th of 2 M 1828 / Meeting nearly silent & I apprehend had better been entirely so. — it however was generally a good Meeting to me RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William John Broderip HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1829
Nicholas A. Vigors’s and W.J. Broderip’s GUIDE TO THE GARDENS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1830
William John Broderip’s “Account of the Manners of a Tame Beaver” appeared in the THE GARDENS AND MENAGERIE OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY DELINEATED: PUBLISHED, WITH THE SANCTION OF THE COUNCIL, UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SECRETARY AND VICE-SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY (Volume I, page 167). The animal arrived in this country in the winter of 1825, very young, being small and woolly, and without the covering of long hair which marks the adult Beaver. It was the sole survivor of five or six which were shipped at the same time, and it was in a very pitiable condition. Good treatment quickly restored it to health, and kindness soon made it familiar. When called by its name “Binny,” it generally answered with a little cry, and came to its owner. The hearth-rug was its favourite haunt, and thereon it would lie stretched out, sometimes on its back, sometimes on its side, and sometimes flat on its belly, but always near its master. The building instinct showed itself immediately it was let out of its cage and materials were placed in its way; and this before it had been a week in its new quarters., Its strength, even before it was half grown, was great. It would drag along a large sweeping-brush, or a warming- pan, grasping the handle with its teeth so that the load came over its shoulder, and advancing in an oblique direction till it arrived at the point where it wished to place it. The long and large materials were always taken first, and two of the longest were generally laid cross-wise, with one of the ends of each touching the wall, and the other ends projecting out into the room. The area formed by the crossed brushes and the wall, he would fill up with hand brushes, rush baskets, books, boots, sticks, cloths, dried turf, or any thing portable. As the work grew high, he supported himself on his tail which propped him up admirably, and he would often, after laying on one of his building materials, sit up over against it, appearing to consider his work, or, as the country people say, “judge it.” This pause was sometimes followed by changing the position of the material “judged,” and sometimes it was left in its place. After he had piled up his materials in one part of the room, (for he generally chose the same place), he proceeded to wall up the space between the feet of a chest of drawers which stood, at a little distance from it, high enough on its legs to make the bottom a roof for him; using for this purpose dried turf and sticks, which he laid very even, and filling up the interstices with bits of coal, hay, cloth, or any thing he could pick up. This last place he seemed to appropriate for his dwelling: the former work seemed to be intended for a dam. When he had walled up the space between the feet of the chest of drawers, he proceeded to carry in sticks, cloths, hay, cotton, and to make a nest; and when he had done he would sit up under the drawers, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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and comb himself with the nails of his hind feet. In this operation, that which appeared at first to be a mal-formation was shown to be a beautiful adaptation to the necessities of the animal. The huge webbed hind feet of the Beaver turn in so as to give the appearance of deformity; but if the toes were straight, instead of being incurved, the animal could not use them for the purpose of keeping its fur in order, and cleansing it from dirt and moisture. Binny generally carried small and light articles between his right fore leg; and his chin, walking on the other three legs; and large masses, which he could 'not grasp readily with his teeth, he pushed forwards leaning against them with his right fore paw and his chin. He never carried any thing on his tail, which he liked to dip in water, but he was not fond of plunging in the whole of his body. If his tail was kept moist he never cared to drink; but if it was kept dry it became hot, and the animal appeared distressed and would drink a great deal. It is not impossible that the tail may have the power of absorbing water, like the skin of frogs, though it must be owned that the scaly integument which invests that member has not much of the character which generally belongs to absorbing surfaces. Bread, and bread and milk and sugar, formed the principal part of Binny's food; but he was very fond of succulent fruits and roots. He was a most entertaining creature, and some highly comic scenes occurred between the worthy, but slow, Beaver, and a light and airy Macauco that was kept in the same apartment. An animal so sociable in his habits ought to be affectionate; and very affectionate the Beaver is said to be. Drage mentions two young ones which were taken alive and brought to a neighbouring factory in Hudson's Bay, where they throve very fast until one of them was killed accidentally. The survivor instantly felt the loss, began to moan, and abstained from food till it died. Mr. Bullock mentioned to the narrator a similar instance which fell under his notice in North America. A male and female were kept together in a room, where they lived happily till the male was deprived of his partner by death. For a day or two he appeared to be hardly aware of his loss, and brought food and laid it before her: at last, finding that she did not stir, he covered her body with twigs and leaves, and was in a pining state when Mr. Bullock lost sight of him. The specimens in the Garden were sent to the Society from Canada by Lord Dalhousie. They were partially deprived of sight before their arrival in this country: but one of them has still the use of one eye; and the other, although totally blind, dives most perseveringly for clay, and applies it to stop up every cranny in their common habitation that can admit' the winter's flaw.' They both appear happy and contented. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1832
William John Broderip, FRS’s HINTS FOR COLLECTING ANIMALS AND THEIR PRODUCTS. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1836
William John Broderip RS was the author of all the articles relating to mammals, birds, reptiles, crustacea, mollusca, conchifera, pulmonata, &c.; Buffon, Brisson, &c., and zoology in THE PENNY CYCLOPÆDIA OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE (only a few of these volumes are presently available in electronic form on the internet; however, those that are available are a tremendous resource into the factual understandings of the world available to the general public during this period). ANDOCIDES-ATHANAGILDE ATHANARIC-BASSANO BUFFON-CHARLES’S WAIN COPYRIGHT-DIONYSIUS DIONYSIUS-ERNE HADLEY, JOHN-INTESTINA PERU-PRIMATES SCANDEROON-SIGNET HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1846
William John Broderip transferred from the Thames police court to the one at Westminster, where he would remain for a decade and then need to resign on account of growing deafness. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1847
William John Broderip FRS’s contributions to the New Monthly Magazine and to Fraser’s Magazine (up to that point) were collected in a volume entitled ZOOLOGICAL RECREATIONS (London: H. Colburn). Henry Thoreau would, in about 1855, make entries in his Fact Book from this volume. ZOOLOGICAL RECREATIONS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1850
January 30, Wednesday: William John Broderip was elected bencher of Gray’s Inn.
The 2d of Henry Thoreau’s two lectures on Cape Cod at the Concord Lyceum (the 1st had been on Wednesday, January 30th).1
DATE PLACE TOPIC
January 23, Wednesday, 1850, at 7PM Concord; Unitarian Church, Vestry “An Excursion to Cape Cod” (I) January 30, Wednesday, 1850, at 7PM Concord; Unitarian Church, Vestry “An Excursion to Cape Cod” (II) February 18, Monday, 1850 South Danvers MA “An Excursion to Cape Cod”
1.From Bradley P. Dean and Ronald Wesley Hoag’s “THOREAU’S LECTURES BEFORE WALDEN: An Annotated Calendar.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Narrative of Event: Encouraged, perhaps, by the dramatic success, and possibly even by the notoriety of his “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” lectures during the latter part of 1848 and the early part of 1849, Thoreau began working on another series of lectures in the fall of 1849, immediately after returning from his first excursion to Cape Cod. Within eleven weeks, he was able to write a course of three lectures describing the excursion. Indeed, in December 1849 Aunt Maria Thoreau wrote to Miss Prudence Ward that Thoreau had ready a series of Cape Cod lectures that would be “very entertaining, and much liked” (THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU, page 273). The full three-lecture course, however, was never given. Almost as soon as Thoreau finished writing it, he was asked to deliver two lectures before the Concord Lyceum. He therefore hastily collapsed the three lectures into two and delivered them on the last two Wednesdays of January 1850. This lecture was the eighth in a course of sixteen that season at the Concord Lyceum (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 164). The lyceum record of the event is, except for the date, identical to that of the first Cape Cod lecture delivered a week before (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 164).
Advertisements, Reviews, and Responses: See lecture 24 above.
Description of Topic: See lecture 24 above. Comparison of the various forms of evidence mentioned in our comments on lecture 24 above, with the summary from the Portland Transcript (see lecture 29 below), and with the remark by James Lorin Chapin that Thoreau “seems to have a great faculty of saying a great deal about a very small affair,” causes us to surmise that in this lecture Thoreau presented the narrative and speculative elements of the most of the third and the entire fourth chapter in CAPE COD. His description of John Young Newcomb, the retired Wellfleet oysterman, seems to have been the climax of this lecture and was very likely what caused his audience to laugh “till they cried,” as Waldo Emerson reported (THE CORRESPONDENCE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU, page 255). HDT WHAT? INDEX
WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP
1851
January 29, Wednesday: William John Broderip was elected treasurer of Gray’s Inn (he would also become responsible for that institution’s library).
David Mapes and a group of Ripon townspeople founded a college on top of their hill, Brockway College. (As of 1864 the name would be changed to Ripon College.)
On or about this day, Herman Melville wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne: That side-blow thro’ Mrs Hawthorne will not do. I am not to be charmed out of my promised pleasure by any of that lady’s syrenisms. You, Sir, I hold accountable, & the visit (in all its original integrity) must be made. — What! spend the day, only with us? — A Greenlander might as well talk of spending the day with a friend, when the day is only half an inch long. As I said before, my best travelling chariot on runners, will be at your door, & provision made not only for the accomodation of all your family, but also for any quantity of baggage. Fear not that you will cause the slightest trouble to us. Your bed is already made, & the wood marked for your fire. But a moment ago, I looked into the eyes of two fowls, whose tail feathers have been notched, as destined victims for the table. I keep the word “Welcome” all the time in my mouth, so as to be ready on the instant when you cross the threshold. (By the way the old Romans you know had a Salve carved in their thresholds) Another thing, Mr Hawthorne — Do not think you are coming to any prim nonsensical house — that is nonsensical in the ordinary way. You must be much bored with punctilios. You may do what you please — say or say not what you please. And if you feel any inclination for that sort of thing — you may spend the period of your visit in bed, if you like — every hour of your visit. Mark — There is some excellent Montado Sherry awaiting you & some most potent port. We will have mulled wine with wisdom, & buttered toast with story-telling & crack jokes & bottles from morning till night. Come — no nonsence. If you dont — I will send Constables after you. On Wednesday then — weather & sleighing permitting I will be down for you about eleven o’clock A.M. By the way — should Mrs Hawthorne for any reason conclude that she, for one, can not stay overnight with us — then you must — & the children, if you please. H. Melville HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1852
William John Broderip FRS’s continued contributions to the New Monthly Magazine and to Fraser’s Magazine (after 1847) were collected in a 2d volume, this time entitled LEAVES FROM THE NOTE BOOK OF A NATURALIST (London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand; Boston: Published by E. Littel & co.; New York: G.P. Putnam, 1852). Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this in his personal library, and would in approximately this year make entries about it in his Fact Book. WILLIAM JOHN BRODERIP HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1859
February 26, Saturday: In the midst of a storm of controversy, the Board of Overseers of the Corporation promoted George Phillips Bond to fill his father’s shoes as Director of the Harvard Observatory, and appointed him to
be the Phillips Professor of Astronomy. The nominee of the “Lazzaroni,” a pressure group in science which has been sarcastically referred to as “the sacred brotherhood,” had been not Bond but Benjamin Peirce, the Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at Harvard College.2 THE SCIENCE OF 1859 ASTRONOMY
In the evening William John Broderip FRS was writing “On the Shark” for Fraser’s Magazine and broke off in the middle of a sentence.
February 27, Sunday: William John Broderip died in his chambers at 2 Raymond Buildings, Gray’s Inn, London, in his 70th year. The autopsy would indicate “serous apoplexy,” an excess of fluid in the brain. 2.The core group of the “Lazzaroni” consisted of Professors Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Peirce of Harvard, and Professor Benjamin Athorp Gould (1824-1896) of Dudley Observatory in Albany NY, plus Alexander Dallas Bache of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Washington DC. According to Edward Lurie, Agassiz’s biographer (LOUIS AGASSIZ. Chicago IL: U of Chicago P, 1960), what they were trying to do was “control the institutional forms of science in America.” The core agenda of this group was to set itself astride all channels of funding in such a manner as to take charge of what research was feasible and important and who could be relied upon to dependably perform this research. They were playing hardball: their machinations included spreading invidious and false whispers about the accuracy of the observations of the Bonds, wherever possible boycotting their membership in scientific bodies, wherever possible alleging the priority of the discoveries of others, and by the back door seizing control of government funding. For one instance, the cheap secret processes of the creation of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. The prime offense committed at the Harvard Observatory, which so enraged the “sacred brotherhood,” seem to have consisted in the fact that since these astronomers were working to all intents and purposes for free, by financing themselves out of the cash drawer of the timekeeper manufacturing firm of William Bond & Son in Boston, therefore, practically, they had unwittingly placed themselves outside the ordinary spheres of influence of these conspirators and were in a position to treat most of their machination with Christian condescension, as if they amounted to nothing more than “water off a duck’s back.” The machinations of this group had at one point come close to destroying the Dudley Observatory. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 27, Sunday. P. M.–To Cliffs. Though it was a dry, powdery snow-storm yesterday, the sun is now so high that the snow is soft and sticky this afternoon. The sky, too, is soft to look at, and the air to feel on my cheek. Health makes the poet, or sympathy with nature, a good appetite for his food, which is constantly renewing him, whetting his senses. Pay for your victuals, then, with poetry; give back life for life.
March: William John Broderip’s “On the Shark” appeared in Fraser’s Magazine.
March 4, Friday: Final telescopic observation of comet Donati.
The body of William John Broderip was interred at Kensall Green Cemetery near the body of his friend Robert Brown the botanist, whose death had preceded his by only a few months (he had never married). SKY EVENT
March 4: Began to snow last evening, and it is now (early in the morning) about a foot deep, and raining.
P.M.–To E. Hosmer Spring. Down Turnpike and back by E. Hubbard’s Close. We stood still a few moments on the Turnpike below Wright’s (the Turnpike, which had no wheel-track beyond Tuttle’s and no track at all beyond Wright’s), and listened to hear a spring bird. We heard only the jay screaming in the distance and the cawing of a crow [American Crow Corvus brachyrhynchos]. What a perfectly New England sound is this voice of the crow! If you stand perfectly still anywhere in the outskirts of the town and listen, stilling the almost incessant hum of your own personal factory, this is perhaps the sound which you will be most sure to hear rising above all sounds of human industry and leading your thoughts to some far bay in the woods where the crow is venting his disgust. This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling, of the forge. It sees a race pass away, but it passes not away. It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature. I find near Hosmer Spring in the wettest ground, which has melted the snow as it fell, little flat beds of light- green moss, soft as velvet, which have recently pushed up, and lie just above the surface of the water. They are scattered about in the old decayed trough. (And there are still more and larger at Brister’s Spring.) They are like little rugs or mats and are very obviously of fresh growth, such a green as has not been dulled by winter, a very fresh and living, perhaps slightly glaucous, green. The myosotis and bitter cress are hardly clean and fresh enough for a new growth. [But the last is, at Well Meadow. Vide (5 MARCH).] The radical leaves of the Ranunculus repens are conspicuous, but the worse for the wear; but the golden saxifrage has in one or two places decidedly and conspicuously grown, like the cowslip at Well Meadow and still more, rising in dense beds a half to three quarters of an inch above the water, the leaves, like those of the cowslip, only partly concealed and flatted out. This distinguishes the fresh-springing leaves of these two. Probably there is more of the chrysosplenium thus advanced in Concord than of the caltha. [There is also at Well Meadow on the 5th.] I see none of the last here. The surface of the snow thus rapidly melting and sinking (there are commonly some inches of water under it, the rain having soaked through), though still very fresh and pure white, is all cracked, as it were, like that of some old toadstools. It has sunk so much that every inequality in the surface of the ground beneath is more distinctly shown than when bare. The ruts of old wood-paths are represented in the surface a foot above, and the track of the man and of the dog that ran by the side of the team (in the old snow), – the thread, in short, of every valley. The surface of the snow, though so recent, is therefore, on account of the rain, very diversified. On steep slopes it is regularly furrowed, apparently by water that has flowed down it. In the brook in Hubbard’s Close I see the grass pushing up from the bottom four or five inches long and waving in the current, which has not yet reached the surface. C. thinks this is called a sap snow, because it comes after the sap begins to flow. The story goes that at the Social Club the other night Cyrus Stow, hearing that the lecture before the Lyceum by Alger was to be on “The Sophistry of Ennui” and not knowing what that was, asked in good faith if it went by wind or water. SOCIAL CLUB HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1861
Richard Owen FRS’s MEMOIR OF THE DODO, WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY W.J. BRODERIP.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William John Broderip HDT WHAT? INDEX
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: June 9, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with