Old Food Tools

"Henry Petroski, in The Evolution of Useful Things, makes the argument that it is not so much that necessity is the "mother of invention" as that invention takes place in response to dissatisfaction at the shortcomings of an already existing way of doing things.

The eating utensils we use and the ways we use them are the result of centuries of experimentation."

The Elizabethan Practical Companion

Medieval and Renaissance Eating Utensils and "Feast Gear"

Ron Popeil (aka Ron "But Wait!" Popeil)

"Born in 1935, he was for all practical purposes orphaned three years later when his parents divorced and he and his brother were shunted to a boarding school in upstate New York.

The one memory of this period is of a Christmas when parents were taking their children home for the holidays. Ron peered through a window at the long, straight road leading to the school, hoping to see his father's car approach. It never did."

Labels: General, History

Who started it all

"In the fall of 1987, Thomas Knoll, a doctoral candidate in computer vision, was trying to write computer code to display grayscale images on a black-white bitmap monitor.
Knoll thought it had limited value at best. The code was called Display. Knoll wrote it on his Mac Plus computer at home.
Little did he know that this initial code would be the very beginning of the phenomenon that would be known as Photoshop.

Thomas' program caught the attention of his brother, John, who worked at Industrial Light and Magic (the visual effects arm of Lucasfilm, the famous motion picture company founded by George Lucas.
With the release of Star Wars, Lucas had proved that really cool special effects, combined with heroic characters and a "shoot-em up script," could produce a blockbuster motion picture.
To that end, John was experimenting with computers to create special effects. He asked his brother Thomas to help him program a computer to process digital image files, and Display was a great starting point. So began their collaboration."

Labels: History

Paperless Bathroom

"In 1982, an article in The Economist began:

'The vision of the paperless office is future-gazing nonsense. Even computer giant IBM believes paper will be found amidst the micro-electronic wonders in the office of the future.'

In 1983 Wang Labs had introduced a system that could scan images and store them in memory. They predicted paperless offices. Today offices are wangless.

In 1985 the Wall Street Journal had a short quote that said there would be 'a paperless office when there is a paperless bathroom'"

The paperless office. Still waiting

Paperless toilet

"When you press the "cleanse" button, a wand, about the size and shape of a fat pencil (that was previously hidden under the seat) automatically extends, washes itself, and then sprays a carefully aimed aerated stream of water for a few seconds, or until you touch the "stop" button. Then the wand rinses itself off again, and it retracts, out of the way again.

The engineers have been perfecting the Washlet for over ten years, and millions of them have been sold. They have plenty of research on exactly what it takes."

"2001: A Space Odyssey"

The Social Life Of Paper

by Malcolm Gladwell

Labels: General, History

What did your Grandparents do?

"Unsuspecting visitors in crime-infested Port Townsend, victims of shanghaiing, are sold to the highest bidder

Bunco Kelly, Spider Johnson and fourteen dead men on the deck of the Flying Price

Urban East Hicks surrounded by Indians in 1886

Earthquakes, riots, robberies, murders and a host of other terrifying events which created panic in the streets of communities throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Selected from the Clippings File of the Tacoma Public Library's Northwest Room /Special Collections, these true-life tales chillingly capture the dark side of our state's history."

Labels: History

July 10, 1856

Labels: General, History

Color pictures

"Louis Lumière had already invented instant photographic plates and the Cinematographe when, in late 1903, he and his brother Auguste patented a new process for producing colour photographs : the Autochrome.

Before the invention of the Autochrome, colours were separated using a complex three-colour process whereby three successive exposures had to be taken and then superimposed onto each other.

Louis Lumière, however, devised a method of filtering light by using a single three-colour screen made up of millions of grains of potato starch dyed in three different colours.

This mixture was then laid out on a varnished glass plate, which would be ready for use once it was coated in a black and white emulsion.

Developing the plate entailed applying the same process as was used for black and white photographs at the time, with the impression being processed to reversal.

"It looks like a painting by impressionist Edouard Manet, but it is a real color picture, made in 1914, by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud, Commander of the Photography and Cinematography Section of the French Army.

When the Great War broke out, in 1914, French poilu's (common soldiers) still wore their Napoleontic uniforms with red trousers. They made perfect targets.

Labels: History

Low pay by state

Since 1997, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15. The new Congress plans to introduce legislation raising the minimum wage to $7.25-an increase that is long overdue.

This minimum wage increase would boost earnings for 13 million American workers-9.8 percent of the United States workforce.

Six million families with children-46 percent of the total low wage-earning families with children-currently receive all of their earnings from minimum wage jobs.

Raising the minimum wage will increase annual earnings to $15,000 from $10,700.

Without this increase, a family of three supported by one minimum wage earner will live roughly $5,400 below the federal poverty line.

At the 350 largest public companies, the average CEO total direct compensation was $11.6 million in 2005. At this rate of compensation, it takes the average CEO only one hour and 55 minutes to earn the annual pay of a minimum wage worker.

Labels: Answers, History

Trouble map

Labels: History, World

Cylinders of sound

The archive at Edison National Historic Site includes approximately 48,000 disc and cylinder records produced by Edison in West Orange, New Jersey, between 1888 and 1929. Many of these, including unreleased and experimental recordings, have been at the Laboratory since Edison's lifetime. Some of the earliest examples of recorded sound in existence are preserved within this unique collection.

Labels: History, Music

Covers and ads

Remember the old magazines that caused young kids to drool over diesel engines?

ModernMechanics.com



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Labels: History, Magazines