‘The Composites blog takes descriptions of literary characters and runs them through police composite sketch software to produce composite sketches… This is one of those “why didn’t I think of this?” projects…well done,’ says kottke.

Robert Krulwich: There are people who live long enough to create a link — a one-generation link — to figures from what feels like a distant past, and their presence among us shrinks history. When “Long Ago” suddenly becomes “So I said to him …,” long ago jumps closer.

There are many examples of people who shrink history this way. The blogger Jason Kottke has been collecting examples. He calls them “human wormholes,” because these people help us leap across space/time. Here are my favorites.’ (via NPR)