Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social)

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

I’m off elsewhere.
It was fun for a while. I have made friends, exchanged ideas and found inspiration here. But no more.
Adieu.
Here, by way of envoi, are some favourite blue sky paintings. #DutchLight

[yara rodrigues fowler @yazzarf]

I’m in this article @guardian about how median author pay has fallen 60% since 2012: https://t.co/cKZPBBjE1i

What the piece doesn’t get into is *why* author pay has fallen when revenues across publishing are the highest they’ve ever been.

So here’s a bit more about that 🧵

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Enjoyed The Office? Loved Horrible Histories? But felt they both somewhat neglected the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Problem solved: #1670netflix. One for @17thCenturyLady @DrFrancisYoung

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Just Coleridge begging a pdf from Humphry Davy:
‘When you do write (& do write soon) tell me how I can get your Essay on nitrous oxyd.’
One of the many unexpected treasures in scientists’ correspondence through the ages in @Of_Lost_Time’s Great Scientists anthology.

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

On the joys and dangers of ‘writing intelligence’. Happy to have written an introduction on the history of scientific letters for @Of_Lost_Time @BloomsburyBooks’ new anthology.

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

‘Facing the end of the world is neither here nor there’ –
With these immortal words Judge Christopher Hehir secures his place on the wrong side of history.
https://t.co/ItDplya4na

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Starting a campaign to rename Norwich as Liz Truss International Airport . . .

[Matteo Salvini @matteosalvinimi]

✅ L’aeroporto di Milano Malpensa è ufficialmente intitolato a Silvio Berlusconi.
Grande soddisfazione per un grande italiano.

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Wow yes. She hd so many friends. (And how did I not know about this amazing resource: an impressive Who knew who in the Dutch Republic.)

[Supersneuperzeesluis des vaderlands @sneuperdokkum]

@HoooAW Nearly 20 times inscribing in Alba Amicorum: https://t.co/MCZcMFvr5B

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Not mental pride nor graceful form drove me
To engrave my features in everlasting copper.
But since my rough graving tool could do no better here,
I would hardly turn sooner to more important subjects.

Read here about the talented Anna Maria van Schurman: https://t.co/JgAUQC5aGM

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

They knew how to blurb in 1659:
‘So largely hath the Divine bounty powred forth it self upon one person. . . . And though she most deserveth Praise, yet (which is above all Praise), She desireth no thing less.’
https://t.co/JgAUQC5aGM

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

@LauraCummingArt @AshmoleanMuseum @vintagebooks @ObsNewReview @andrewbillen @DalrympleWill @TomHolland1996 @Walsh_e_Patrick @richardovenden @JANUSZCZAK Luminous isn’t it. And seasonal too! I wonder if you ever got to see this Dutch TV on it: https://t.co/6mRkw8YK01

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

@Helenreflects HOW-ghgh-(e)ns, I think. (ie. like Scots -ch) But my brother had a French physics teacher who said: Whee-Gonzz

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

@philipcball @taranummedal this new one looks intriguing too. https://t.co/nUD10w38GN

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

@philipcball Many thanks, Phil. I got more on the context in @taranummedal’s excellent Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire.
Fewer alchemists tried, and fewer of those sentenced to death, than people now imagine based on notoriety of the activity. See also witchcraft, of course.

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

The incidental death of an alchemist.
My latest for @PublicDomainRev. https://t.co/inKL6xlQHp

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Now that spring is properly here (I saw my first swallow today – weeks later than usual), it’s a good time to catch up on Robert Marsham and his landmark #phenology project, ‘Indications of Spring’. See how many you can spot. https://t.co/dXWy8AAd9i

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

What special powers does ‘occult chemistry’ possess. Can it see atoms? Theosophists Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater thought so: https://t.co/lvGMEd4JY5

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

When science sets out to describe the invisible, whose description comes closest? “The atom can scarcely be said to be a ‘thing’ . . . It is formed by the flow of the life-force and vanishes with its ebb.”
https://t.co/lKBNJIBqc9

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

Ha! Yes, that’s a good one. Nevertheless he went on to father a dozen children!

[Herripedia @herripedia]

@HoooAW @TommyShakes @BylinesEast Or alternatively from Browne, ‘I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this triviall and vulgar way of coition.’

[Hugh Aldersey-Williams (hoooaw.bsky.social) @HoooAW]

My debut for @BylinesEast. Be more like Thomas Browne: ‘we are not Magisterial in opinions, nor have we Dictator-like obtruded our conceptions; but in the humility of Enquiries or disquisitions, have only proposed them unto more ocular discerners’
https://t.co/3sWJGcspUy