Scottie Pippen is a retired American professional basketball player who played 17 seasons in the NBA. He is most remembered for his 12 seasons with the Chicago Bulls, with whom he was instrumental in six NBA titles and their record 1995-96 season of 72 wins. Pippen, along with Michael Jordan, played an important role in transforming the Bulls team into a vehicle for popularizing the NBA around the world during the 1990s. Pippen is also the only person to have won an NBA title and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice (1992, 1996).
Spud Webb is a retired American professional basketball player. At only 5′ 7″ tall, he played point guard in the NBA for 12 seasons, primarily for the Atlanta Hawks and Sacramento Kings. Webb is notable for winning the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest (over teammate and defending champion Dominique Wilkins) despite being one of the shortest players in NBA history and being unable to palm the ball. Since Webb made his NBA debut in 1985, only two players have been shorter: Earl Boykins (5′ 5″) and Muggsy Bogues (5′ 3″).
As a short kid who loved basketball, I was in awe of Spud Webb’s NBA success and dunking ability. Webb had a 42-inch vertical leap, minimum. I used to pretend to be him (when I wasn’t playing Air Jordan or Wilkins) as I dunked ferociously on our eight-foot basketball hoop in the driveway and made up Slam Dunk scores.
Jacques Dominique Wilkins is a retired American professional basketball player (born in France) who primarily played for the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA. Wilkins was a nine-time NBA All-Star, and one of the best dunkers in NBA history, earning the nickname “The Human Highlight Film.” Wilkins participated in five slam dunk contests (1984, 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1990), winning two. In 1985, he beat rookie Michael Jordan in the finals. In 1986, Wilkins was defeated by his 5′ 7″ teammate, Spud Webb. In 1988, the highly anticipated rematch of Wilkins vs. Jordan resulted in Jordan winning 147 to 145, controversially.
As a kid, I tried to imitate the 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest dunks on the NERF basketball hoop attached above my bedroom door. Or, even better, on the metal basketball hoop mounted in my late grandparents’ basement that my dad built from Erector Set pieces in the late 1950s. These dunks were essentially the practice of accidentally slamming my nine-year-old extremities into the door frame or doorknob as I contorted my body to get a foam ball to pass through an orange plastic hoop. And the crowd goes wild.
Mike Iuzzolino is a retired American professional basketball player who played for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for two seasons (1991-93). After his NBA career, Iuzzolino played professionally in Italy and Spain until 2003. While unknown to many, Iuzzolino was featured in the 1993 arcade edition of the popular two-on-two basketball video game NBA Jam. He was born on this day in 1968.
As a 14-year-old basketball fan, I was surprised that Mike Iuzzolino was one of the 54 NBA players selected for the 27 NBA Jam teams. The 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks roster was pretty weak, aside from teammate Derek Harper, but still. I thought getting to play as Iuzzolino in a video game was awesome—and play as him I did, whenever I grew tired of collecting Mortal Kombat fatalities at the old coin-op arcade. As a skinny little white kid who wanted to be good at basketball, I looked to my Mike Iuzzolino basketball card for inspiration. Because somehow this thin, 5′ 10″ Italian-American point guard from Altoona, Pennsylvania (just 40 miles from my dad’s house) had made it to the NBA. I dreamed, “As soon as I get my growth spurt, I’ll be right there with him.” Coincidentally, Iuzzolino also played basketball at Penn State, which was the university I planned to attend (and I did, from 1997-2001). So, what happened to the two of us? Iuzzolino is now Director of Basketball Operations at Canisius College in New York, and I didn’t play competitive basketball beyond 10th grade. Though I did finally hit 5′ 10″, which is really important in the fields of graphic design and web development.
Jack Nicklaus, nicknamed “The Golden Bear,” is an American professional golfer. He is widely regarded as the most accomplished professional golfer of all time. Nicklaus won a total of 18 PGA major championships and 73 PGA Tour victories over a span of 25 years. Only Sam Snead and Tiger Woods have collected more PGA Tour victories, but no one has won more major championships. Nicklaus was born on this day in 1940.
Janis Joplin was an American singer-songwriter. She first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. Joplin was a popular act at the Monterey Pop Festival and became one of the major attractions at Woodstock. Her fans referred to her stage presence as “electric.” At the height of her career, Joplin was known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll” as well as “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul.” She was born on January 19, 1943 and died of a drug overdose in 1970 (just 16 days after Jimi Hendrix died, also at age 27).
I’ve done easier things in life than attempt to reproduce Woodstock-era tie-dyed clothing as primitive pixel art.
David Lynch is an American filmmaker, visual artist and musician. He is known for his unique surrealist films, which are characterized by dream imagery and meticulous sound design. Lynch’s first motion picture was the surrealist horror Eraserhead (1977). Three of his subsequent films operate on “dream logic,” nonlinear narrative structures: Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006). Lynch has practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique since the 1970s. He was born on January 20, 1946.
Throughout my entire adult life I’ve said that Lost Highway is my favorite film of all time (with The City of Lost Children and Chungking Express being close seconds). This might still be true. David Lynch is my favorite director. I even enjoy listening to him talk about cooking quinoa—because before you know it he’s telling an amazing story about buying colored sugar water beneath a moonless night sky in the barren, dusty landscape of Yugoslavia, 1965.
Russell A. Kirsch invented the square pixel. The history is that in the late 1940s, Kirsch led a research team that created America’s first internally programmable computer, the SEAC. By 1957 he and his team had invented a scanner which, using the computing power of SEAC, converted photographs to digital images. This breakthrough created the basis for satellite imaging, CAT scans, barcodes and desktop publishing. Kirsch is now retired and resides in Portland, Oregon. These days he claims that inventing square pixels was a bad idea and has a written a program that creates smoother, variably shaped pixels.
I think this story is really sweet. The first scanned digital image made on a computer in 1957 showed Kirsch’s baby son. Due to the importance of this first digital photograph, Life credited it as one of the 100 Photographs that Changed the World in 2003. Without Kirsch, this 8-bit-themed site wouldn’t be possible, in so many ways.
Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers. Case recorded and toured for several years as Neko Case & Her Boyfriends before performing solely under her name. I particularly enjoy her Fox Confessor Brings the Flood album. Also, she is hilarious on Twitter.
Note: This 8-bit black dress is what she wore for the epic cover of her 2009 album Middle Cyclone, in which she stood barefoot, with a sword, on the hood of her burgundy 1967 Mercury Cougar. In 2011, Case auctioned the car to support 826 National, a nonprofit organization helping children become better writers.
Jenny Lewis is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actress. She was the primary vocalist of the indie rock band Rilo Kiley and has released two solo albums. Lewis currently performs as part of the duo Jenny & Johnny with boyfriend Johnathan Rice. As a child actor in the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared in a number of TV shows, movies and commercials. Lewis was born on this day in 1976 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We’ll all be portions for foxes.
Brian Hugh Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American rock musician and former music journalist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from juxtaposing the names of two American cultural icons – actress Marilyn Monroe and murderer Charles Manson. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor produced Marilyn Manson’s debut album in 1994. Manson, now with his own brand of absinthe, was born on January 5, 1969.
Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century saint and Greek bishop in Myra (modern-day Turkey). Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus (whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas).
Frank Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter and producer. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. He was born on this day in 1940 and died in 1993.
If you’re reading this, then I guess the world didn’t end. Which means popular interpretations of the Maya calendar and Nostradamus didn’t work out. Shocking!
Ty Cobb was a Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder who spent 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, the last six as the team’s player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. Cobb is widely credited with setting 90 MLB records during his career. He still holds several records as of 2012, including the highest career batting average (.367). Cobb’s legacy as an athlete has sometimes been overshadowed by his surly temperament and aggressive playing style. He was born on this day in 1886.
Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s. Lake was well known for her peekaboo hairstyle. She died of complications of alcoholism in 1973.
Note: Lake was one of the models for the animated character of Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, especially for her hairstyle.
Nostradamus was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Despite loads of academic whining about popular misinterpretations and deliberate mistranslations of his vague quatrains, Nostradamus has still been credited with predicting many major world events. He was also a famous plague doctor who gave medical advice about preventive measures.
Note: Nostradamus was born on December 14 or 21, 1503. This means his birthday is either today or next week, which precisely coincides with the so-called end of the Maya calendar. So, Happy 509th Birthday, Dr. Apocalypse.
Emily Dickinson was an American poet who lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson’s poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. She was born on this day in 1830.
George Custer was a U.S. Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Custer graduated last in his class from West Point, but developed a strong reputation during the Civil War. He is best known for his disastrous final battle, popularly known as “Custer’s Last Stand.” Custer and all the men with him were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, fighting against a coalition of Native American tribes led by Sitting Bull. Custer was born on this day in 1839.
Bill Nye is an American science educator, comedian, television host and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993-98) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. His professional entertainment career began with a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle. He was born on this day in 1955.
Note: Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” – Bill Nye
Joe DiMaggio was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player who spent his entire 13-year career as the center fielder for the New York Yankees (1936-1942 and 1946-1951). He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 to July 16, 1941), a record that still stands. DiMaggio was a three-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star. During his 13 years with the Yankees, the club won 10 American League pennants and nine World Series championships. He was born yesterday in 1914.
Note: DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe eloped in 1954, but divorced less than a year later. In 1962, they were on the verge of remarriage when Monroe was found dead in her bedroom. Suicide by barbiturate overdose, or was she murdered?
Spud Webb – No. 568
Spud Webb is a retired American professional basketball player. At only 5′ 7″ tall, he played point guard in the NBA for 12 seasons, primarily for the Atlanta Hawks and Sacramento Kings. Webb is notable for winning the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest (over teammate and defending champion Dominique Wilkins) despite being one of the shortest players in NBA history and being unable to palm the ball. Since Webb made his NBA debut in 1985, only two players have been shorter: Earl Boykins (5′ 5″) and Muggsy Bogues (5′ 3″).
As a short kid who loved basketball, I was in awe of Spud Webb’s NBA success and dunking ability. Webb had a 42-inch vertical leap, minimum. I used to pretend to be him (when I wasn’t playing Air Jordan or Wilkins) as I dunked ferociously on our eight-foot basketball hoop in the driveway and made up Slam Dunk scores.