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Spectral Imaging Reveals Jefferson Nixed 'Subjects' for 'Citizens'

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-cooler-than-unredacting-pdfs dept.

Jamie points out this excellent piece, well timed for America's Independence Day, that says spectrographic evidence has established that the one word Thomas Jefferson fully blotted out from an early draft of the Declaration of Independence was not "resident," or "patriot," but rather "subject." This, he replaced with "citizen."

3 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. When will the government ever learn... by Kaenneth · · Score: 5, Funny

    That redacting documents by simply putting a opaque block over them dosn't removing the unlaying data?

  2. Morphing by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tthe task was made more difficult by the way Jefferson sought to match the lines and curves of the underlying smudged letters with the new letters he wrote on top of them.

    "It's quite amazing how he morphed 'subjects' into 'citizens,' " she said. "We did the reverse morphing back to 'subjects.' "

    Figures. The government has been trying to do that for years ...

  3. Re:Considering the mindset of the era by Alsee · · Score: 5, Funny

    when was the last time you wrote code that lasted more than two centuries with less than 30 patches?

    Six thousand years ago.

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