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Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#91

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Threeve303 wrote: post #74
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #71

I wonder if a 'google streetview' like system could be used to find library books that have been misfiled. A robot drives around the shelves taking photos of the books on the shelves, those are then matched to what is expected to be found in that section, obviously there will be some without names or labels on the spines - but hopefully not many. But it can atleast say there are 4 unknown books and 3 unaccounted for…

If anyone gets around to making this I suggest calling the robot Dewey.

I think it should be Uncle Donald, as it's trying to catch a particular Dewey!

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#93

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

Hoasi wrote: post #31
bserge wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds straight out of the movies. Black market for ancient/cultural artifacts that provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. Fascinating.

> Black market for ancient/cultural artifacts that provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. Fascinating. No practical benefit but status; a lot of people, rich and poor, are chasing standing.

There is actually a VERY practical benefit to holding stolen art and artifacts in certain circles.

For Criminal Organizations, drug dealers, terrorists, etc... these items can be used as collateral to secure loans or drugs on consignment, or exchanged for hostages.

They are a vital part of the black market currency exchange. This is a big part of the plot of the book "Gold Finch" if you find it interesting.

Another very easy way to look at it, if you are a drug dealer wanting to move 10 Million dollars, that's not very easy in cash even if its $100 bills. A single painting could hold the same value and take up much less physical space.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#94

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Xophmeister wrote: post #12
globular-toast wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I don't know why I'm being downvoted either. It seems really fascinating. Is it an investment? A storage of wealth? Or did someone really decide they wanted that painting in their life instead of a brand new Boeing 747, for example? It's obviously not really worth that much, so what's it all about? Inflation is mainly due to money being creamed off into the hands of rich people, but all they are getting…

An item's market value is effectively defined by how much someone is willing to pay for it, rather than the material sum of its parts.

Well, also an item can be a token. I gather that high-value art is used by criminals as if it were large value currency. A piece of artwork works as a $100M-note and the art aspect legitimises the value.

I'd guess it's a route for laundering too.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#95

Post by mhh__ »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #33

Newton’s notebooks have been digitized nicely: https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03996/55 As a research scientist, one thing that has definitely changed since the passage of FTF [0] in 2013 is the loss of a singular notebook of ideas and thoughts. Most everything is digital now, and ideas are exchanged through dozens of media which don’t facilitate easy recording to a single physical source. [0]: https://en.m.wi…

I really want to do this, i.e. document basically everything I know for the rest of my life but I genuinely can't bring myself to have the attention span to stick to it.

Maybe it's the way the computer effects one's brain (I'm relatively convinced I have ADHD to at least some degree too). At very least procrastination-orbiting around that task has meant that I have a fairly functional set of scripts for blogging in LaTeX i.e. integrating the mathematics and diagrams properly is hard.

I'd never admit it in person but I'd actually love to have an ASMR channel to non-verbally ramble about the sheer volume of pointless information I have in my head.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#96

Post by crazygringo »

dialamac wrote: post #78
crazygringo wrote: post #75

I'm curious if there have been any tech advances in tracking valuable objects in like rare books, sketches, paintings, etc. that are currently actually used by institutions or considered a best practice. Whether it's RFID chips, Bluetooth tags, security cameras that do "book recognition", or something else. Heck, even something as simple as a barcode per object, shelf, cart and holding area, and you've got to scan th…

Lol you’ve never stolen a book from the library before either intentionally or not? This should be pretty straightforward but the more valuable something is the more incentive there is to steal it. Meanwhile, while you can throw more money at physical security and scale it up, technology hasn’t changed much in 50 years let alone 20 - you hire enough people at considerable expense and implement good basic security sys…

Ha, when I was younger some libraries would have security tags but they didn't have ID's for tracking, they'd just set off an alarm.

But from reponses and doing a bit more research, it sounds like RFID tags have really taken off since then for tracking.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#97

Post by Cactus2018 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #71

I wonder if a 'google streetview' like system could be used to find library books that have been misfiled. A robot drives around the shelves taking photos of the books on the shelves, those are then matched to what is expected to be found in that section, obviously there will be some without names or labels on the spines - but hopefully not many. But it can atleast say there are 4 unknown books and 3 unaccounted for…

2017 "Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15562743

2020 update "Walmart ends contract with robotics company Bossa Nova" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24973360

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#98

Post by xtracto »

ajnin wrote: post #54
konschubert wrote: post #11

Who steals this stuff? If you want them because you care about enlightenment, wouldn't you also want them to be publicly accessible?

A similar behavior happens in the game ROM dumping community, owners of very rare or sometimes unique arcade boards often refuse to release ROM dumps, or do so only in a small group of individuals. They would lose nothing if they released it but I guess they take pleasure in knowing they have the exclusivity of a specific thing in the World.

This is really interesting, given that even if they chose to create the ROM dump and shared it, they would /still/ have the very unique arcade board.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#99

Post by breakfastduck »

tokai wrote: post #51
breakfastduck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t need to. Pretty clear from reading it that no one wanted to admit they’d been stolen on their watch, so they kept up some kind of pretence of it being lost within the library so they wouldn’t be public hounded for being responsible for its loss.

That's all in your head. It's pretty clear that the library was aware that the books were missing, and that they looked for them. What do you want to happen when unique documents disappear? Call the cops? International press conference? I assure you that professional pride is much more important for these people than being 'hounded' by the public. While there is a good chance that it was been stolen, it could still t…

They clearly lied to protect their professional pride.

And I think calling these ‘unique documents’ is fairly undervaluing.

It’s pretty clear the people in charge now recognise they should have been reported stolen straight away.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#100

Post by antpls »

interestica wrote: post #58

Luckily: "The two Darwin notebooks had previously been digitised and their content is available online." . University of Cambridge has a bit more on their "appeal" site ( https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/DarwinAppeal ) The digitized notebooks are available: [1] https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DAR-00121/1 [2] https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DAR-00122/1 Also, yesterday was the anniversary of the release of On the Or…

I believe it is important to keep the physical version at a safe place for as long as possible. How long before a new wave of "flat earthers" decides the digital version is just a deep fake and it never existed?
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