CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"Is the earth still inhabited? While scientists are wrangling over the question as to whether Mars or Venus is signaling us, it would be well to start an inquiry into whether the earth is inhabited." From Life, 1920. We say the same thing about scientists touting artificial intelligence: is there any intelligence on earth to begin with?
From the Technique yearbook of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1895. (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)
The cartoonist labeled the earth and Atlas as if we wouldn't know what they were. By Robert Carter for the N.Y. Evening Sun, reproduced in Cartoons magazine, 1914.
You likely have not heard that "theatre makes the world go round" (only 7 Google results for that). But here's proof nonetheless. From Popular Science Monthly, 1920.