The Cawood Sword: History of York (and early password generation!)

One of the finest Viking swords ever discovered was found in the River Ouse near the village of Cawood, a few miles South of York.The Cawood Sword can be dated to 1100 by comparing it to a very similar sword found in Norway which was probably made by the same craftsman. The swords are almost identical except the one in Norway has an inscription on its hilt in Runes. Both swords can be fairly accurately dated from the clues in this Viking language.

Historians locate King Arthurs Round Table - Telegraph

The search is over! According to the UK newspaper The Telegraph, Historians locate King Arthurs Round Table. Very exciting! Now, how long before they make yet another Hollywood movie about Arthur? After Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) and Fuqua’s King Arthur (2004), it’s time for another spin…

The Evolution of The Logo - Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine has published a short history of the logo. As a fan of logos (both the plural of logo and the software Logos (which is completely unrelated to the word logo)), from printers' marks (example shown here) to Rembrandt’s “logo”/signature and more. Take a stroll down logo lane at The Evolution of The Logo - Smashing Magazine.

StatJump - Data Search Made Easy

A few days ago, the great Revolutions blog posted ("Visualizing the census") about a new utility called StatJump where you can visualize data from the 2010 US Census using, of course, R. Pretty impressive. The image here shows the percentage of students graduating High School, by county. There are tons of canned visualizations – just click one of the menu items (e.g. “Social Demographic Data”) on the home page. You can also run your own searches, though it only seems to return the data in a table – i.

'Camelot' Rolls into Ireland's Ardmore Studios | The Irish Film & Television Network

Woohoo! Filming has begun on the new 10-part tv miniseries based on Malory’s Morte dArthur: ‘Camelot’ Rolls into Ireland’s Ardmore Studios | The Irish Film & Television Network. King and Queen have been cast, along with several other major players. It has the potential to be very cheesy, but hopefully will avoid the most obvious glitzy traps of recent movies and shows. Keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome to Woruldhord

Dr. Stuart Lee at the Oxford Computing Services department, has begun a new website, Woruldhord (Old English for World-hoard), to collect together into an online hoard, digital objects related to the teaching, study, or research of Old English and the Anglo-Saxon period of history. What a wonderful way to collect and revel in Old English material, even (especially?) if it’s not part of your daily life any more.

Game of the Day: Who controlled the flow - WSJ

The WSJ posted an interesting timeline graphic showing the flow of ball control during the recent Mexico/France World Cup match: Is the area under the graph the time of possession? What does the distance from the center axis mean? Maybe the marginal shots/goals/cards line could be incorporated into the main graph more effectively – especially if the distance from the center axis is time, those three measures could be plotted from the center axis.

Glasses: the ultimate image changer

From FlowingData (ultimate source unknown), a very funny 4-pane graphic showing the impact of glasses on first impressions. Gotta get me a pair of those cool specs!

Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com.

How Genetics Works | FlowingData

I love simplicty and you don’t get much simpler than this visual depiction showing How Genetics Works | FlowingData. Thanks, Nathan, for another excellent post! Short and sweet.