There is a common assumption that sealing a letter was about privacy, and it misses what the object was for.
A seal provides no privacy whatsoever. Anybody determined to read…
There is a description of this process that everybody learns and that understates it substantially.
The description is that a tadpole grows legs, loses its tail and becomes a frog…
Prints deteriorate through several separate processes, some driven by light, some by chemistry and some by whatever they were stored in. Here are fifteen.
1. Colour Prints Are Made of…
Every surface in a home collects the same grey film, and it is a record of everything that has been shed, tracked in or blown through recently. Here are fifteen…
There is a contradiction at the centre of making charcoal that explains everything about how it was done.
The wood has to be heated to a high temperature, and the…
There is an idea about sailing that seems obviously true and is only half the story.
The idea is that a sail is a bag that catches the wind and…