Tag: Patient things
-
Pratt’s Pterotype 3 of 3
Returning to both Sholes and Hammond. Sholes and Glidden didn’t use Pratt’s keyboard at first. Like most early typewriters they followed the piano model. They also used an entirely different way of getting each letter to the paper, with individual hammers bearing each letter. Oddity: Glidden and Sholes sold their idea to gunmaker Remington, but…
-
Zenith set released
I’m done with the expanded Zenith topic. Here’s the set at ShareCG as usual. ShareCG wouldn’t let me upload the set titled as ‘Zenith expanded’. I finally figured out that their algorithm is tuned to reject small variations. I changed the title to ‘Wincharger’ and it uploaded properly. = = = = = List of…
-
Zenith + Wallace, part 1 of 3.
I decided to continue having fun with Zenith, since it seems to bring out the best in my craft. So far all the Zenith items I’ve ‘drawn’ have turned out nicely, above the standard of other recent output. Write what you know. Write what you love. Randomly looking through old radio journals for more material,…
-
Zenith + Wallace, part 2 of 3.
When FDR took office, he had to fix two parallel legacies of the booming speculative 20s, both of which caused busts in the 30s. There were cross-ties between the two legacies, so he couldn’t fix either one by itself. He had to fix them in a cross-linked way. One boom was initiated by huge government…
-
Tired of Platonists
More point-missing by Platonists: = = = = = START QUOTE: In his new book, Science After Babel, David Berlinski expands on his explanation of the development and significance of algorithms, a subject he first examined in The Advent of the Algorithm. Berlinski writes, “The calculus and the rich body of mathematical analysis to which…
-
Zenith origins
Earlier this year I modeled some of Zenith’s more famous and interesting products. How did Zenith start? It was a classic garage inventor story. Ralph Mathews had a unique talent for mechanical invention, and he also had pretty good connections and luck. He started the right business at the right time. Mathews was building and…
-
Where the ice goes
[Redated after several addendums…] I’ve got a brief break in courseware, so decided to do some ‘fun’ graphics. The Ice Plant piece earlier this year didn’t include the destination of the ice. So here’s a condensed version of the original set, with the destination added on. = = = = = How did the ice…
-
Centennial soup
Campbell’s no longer makes Printanier soup, but it does still make Vegetable in beef stock, and I eat it all the time. It’s especially nice on a coldish June day like today, 50 degrees with rain. This summer is a reward for two previous hot ones. From a 1922 Ladies Home Journal: The only influencer…
-
Underground, undermud
I’ve been illustrating and animating the hair cells of the cochlea for work and for fun. The outer hair cells, which are also found in the semicircular canals, are designed to communicate and physically vibrate up to about 40 KC, possibly up to 100 KC. Steinheil’s ground telegraphy was DC, much like Morse except that…
-
Third shift workers day!
Today is Third Shift Workers Day! Rehashing… The Weather Bureau salutes Third Shift Workers Day, for the folks who work graveyard shift. Hadn’t heard of this Day before. From the linked items I couldn’t tell for sure which day is the Official Day. They range from May 7 to May 13. This is fitting, since…
-
The ice industry, part 1/5
I’ve always been puzzled by the long persistence of household iceboxes. Mechanical refrigeration was invented around 1880. Ice plants had formerly used natural ice from ponds or from frozen pools, requiring massive insulation and storage, but rarely lasting through the summer. They started using refrigeration soon after its invention, and by 1910 all ice production…
-
The ice industry, part 2/5
Who invented ice? Fredric Tudor. Obviously ice is a large part of the world, but nobody thought of it as a salable commodity until 1805. Tudor was a wealthy Boston kid with an unbreakable passion for sailing and trading. He knew that spices were the source of many fortunes, but spices were inadequate for preserving…
-
The ice industry, part 3/5
The Enid Ice Plant, photographed in the 1920s and seen on the EnidBuzz facebook page, inspired this piece: Ice trade journals from the era list this company as Enid Ice and Fuel, which is a rational business model. They were processing and delivering portable energy, lumps of heat and blocks of cold. The visible tracks…
-
The ice industry, part 4/5
How did the ice plant make its portable blocks of coldness? The method was unexpectedly complicated. Here’s the coldroom, where the compressed and relatively cool ammonia is allowed to relieve its pressure and absorb heat from the water that will become ice. What’s going on inside? We have a grid in the floor, over a…
-
Refunders vs hoarders
This is completely irrelevant and overly nuanced, but it’s what I want to write about today…. Duane Jones, in his wonderful little book about advertising and human nature, gets hardass at times. He talks openly about forcing a purchase. Here he’s discussing the money-back guarantee: = = = = = Mr Burke was silent for…
Polistra's Mill 