1872, Stanford was a wealthy robber baron, former Governor of California, and horse racing enthusiast with way too much time on his hands. Spending much of that time at the track, he became convinced that a horse at full gallop lifted all four hooves off the ground. His friends scoffed at the idea. Unfortunately, a horse’s legs moved so fast that it was impossible to tell with the human eye. So he did what really wealthy people do when they want to settle a bet, he turned to a nature photographer, Eadweard Muybridge, and offered him $25,000 to photograph a horse mid gallop.

Those checking my public profile will see that only about 1,000 annotations are in the public layer or in public groups. This underscores the reality that annotations do not have to be public to be beneficial. I use private annotations for all kinds of different purposes, from research to vacation planning to holiday shopping.