[HN Gopher] Poor Richard's Almanack
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Poor Richard's Almanack
Author : JNRowe
Score : 46 points
Date : 2024-08-14 15:22 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.plover.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.plover.com)
| mjd wrote:
| Who is this "Franklin" guy he keeps talking about? Franklin
| Roosevelt?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| First line:
|
| > _Benjamin Franklin wrote and published Poor Richard 's
| Almanack annually from 1732 to 1758_
| mjd wrote:
| Like I'm going to believe some guy who doesn't even know how
| to spell "almanac"
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I suppose you understand that there is no objective rule to
| transliterate 'al-manakh' into IE dialects, so I must guess
| you are joking.
|
| Benjamin Franklin, you know: Founding Father [of the USA],
| signer of the Declaration of Independence and of the
| Constitution; first postmaster general of the USA; first US
| ambassador to France; secretary and president of the
| American Philosophical Society; inventor of the lightning
| rod and bifocal eyeglasses; founder of the Library Company
| and the University of Pennsylvania... Polymath,
| inspirational figure...
|
| And surely you know that jokes in these pages make sense
| only if they fulfill the purpose HN has.
| baruz wrote:
| I believe user mjd is Mark J Dominus, ie, Perl-lover.
| Check the OP.
| tomcam wrote:
| Love it! I am observing a moment of silence for your no-
| doubt plummeting karma scores
| fuzztester wrote:
| hn karma score be like no one care about em.
|
| dey no have value in de real world except for hipsters.
|
| eye em oh.
| fuzztester wrote:
| mark-jason, imo, you should have said, "some guy who _don
| 't'_ even know how to spell 'almanac' ".
|
| that would have made your trick more believable.
|
| still, nice try.
|
| :)
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Back in the day when we had paper currency (before Apple Pay),
| you would find this guy on the most expensive denomination:
| $100. $100 used to be a lot of money.
|
| Benji also printed his own benjis:
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/07/was-benjamin-frankli...
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| $100 still is a lot of money. It's not as much as it used to
| be (thanks for nothing, inflation) to be sure. But I would be
| upset if I lost $100 in a way that I wouldn't be if I lost $1
| or even $10.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Who is this "mjd" guy who keeps talking about himself in the
| third person? Mason-Jominus Dark?
| mjd wrote:
| We prefer DARK MOMINUS.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord
| Mominus. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not
| helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes...
|
| [but seriously: did you ever figure out whether it was more
| likely Loki had thought of the goat shtick beforehand or
| not?]
| knodi123 wrote:
| Benny Franklin, some ye olde guy who is only famous for his
| groundbreaking discovery that black clothes make you hotter
| than white clothes.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Also famous for getting electricity signs wrong, not
| understanding that electrons existed and had charges that
| were "negative" according to his definition.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| He didn't get it wrong - it is entirely arbitrary. Though
| it might be fair to say that it would be more useful to
| beginners studying electromagnetism if he had reversed the
| signs.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Also famous for advising young men that if they're gonna
| have premarital sex, they should bang old women and not
| young women.
| silisili wrote:
| I'm not sure I've seen someone troll their audience about their
| own article. Masterful.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Nice read, I always wondered some items on the pages seemed
| "mixed up".
| HellsMaddy wrote:
| I highly recommend The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. His
| writing style completely transported me to the time and place of
| early America. He led a truly interesting and inspiring life
| which I think HN readers would find fascinating. I think he
| embodied the entrepreneurial spirit.
| riemannzeta wrote:
| Agreed. If you consider his habits of:
|
| 1) seeding his former apprentices with funding in exchange for
| a small amount of equity in their new printing ventures, 2)
| forming non-profit organizations to address public needs (such
| as subscription libraries, fire departments, and street
| sweepers) 3) forming groups of like minded tradespeople who
| were interested in improving themselves and their communities
| through ventures like 1) and 2)
|
| ...then one might even say that Benjamin Franklin was a kind of
| 18th century YCombinator
| akira2501 wrote:
| Drinking _after_ work instead of before it.
| mjd wrote:
| Possibly relevant to your interests:
| https://blog.plover.com/2020/12/30/
| shriphani wrote:
| He was a towering intellect - there's this book I got as a
| gift: https://www.amazon.com/First-Scientific-American-
| Benjamin-Fr...
|
| He was an towering intellect and positively influenced any
| situation he was placed in - the odometer, the mapping of the
| gulf stream, counterfeit detection for paper bills are so far
| removed from his background in publishing, and later role as
| statesman - I can't think of anyone since who had such an
| striking impact; certainly no contemporary leaders who will be
| remembered so fondly 200 years from today.
| fuzztester wrote:
| I had read the whole book many years ago. Found it in a second
| hand book shop.
|
| It was quite interesting. He was talented and accomplished in
| many ways.
|
| His famous letter to a young man on the pros and cons of
| marriage vs. choosing a mistress was interesting and highly
| controversial, probably both at that period, and also in later
| decades and centuries.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Benjamin+Franklin+essay+to+a...
|
| A few of the search results:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosi...
|
| https://web.viu.ca/davies/H320/Franklin.advice.mistress.htm
|
| https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-00...
| itsthecourier wrote:
| USD 10.84 in 1735 woult be USD851.41 today it seems
|
| thats the amount of almanacks he gave his brother's widow, if I
| computed right
|
| https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1735?amount=10.84
| Bluecobra wrote:
| I think the original link already includes the conversion w/
| inflation. It says that the book retailed for fivepence in 1735
| which is L10 8s. 4d in today's money. It would be interesting
| to see the math behind this though. When I tried myself I got
| PS3.63 ($4.66 USD) but that is taking into the account the
| inflation of the UK pound, not the local Boston pound
| (https://crowd-media.loc.gov/cm-
| uploads/resources/colonial_cu...).
|
| Before decimalization, a pound was 240 pence, so fivepence
| should be 0.02p today (5/240). Here we can find that in 1735
| one pound is PS181.43 in today's money:
|
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
|
| That comes out to PS1.81 per pence or PS3.63 for 2p.
|
| I'm probably wrong but it was an interesting rabbit hole to go
| down.
| silisili wrote:
| For anyone as confused as I was until I looked it up, s is
| for shillings, d for pence.
| mjd wrote:
| I had tried out that Bank of England page, while I was
| writing the article, but I decided not to mention it. It
| wasn't clear to me that PS10 in London in 1735 would mean the
| same thing as PS10 in Philadelphia, where hard money was
| probably much scarcer. So I left it out.
| simonw wrote:
| Something I find impressive about Benjamin Franklin is that he
| was born in 1706, meaning he was 70 years old when he signed the
| Declaration of Independence in 1776. And after that he went on to
| be Ambassador to France for 9 years!
|
| Traveling to Europe from the USA wasn't exactly an easy route
| back then.
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(page generated 2024-08-14 23:00 UTC)