This article presents new research describing the direct influence of the entertainment disks made by Ottomar Anschütz for public use in his Schnellseher moving-picture device on the kinetoscope ...films made at Thomas Edison’s West Orange laboratory. These include Edison’s creation of a direct copy of an 1890 Anschütz production in The Barber Shop (1893) and an imitation of another Anschütz production in Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1891). In making these connections between the first two moving-picture systems, the article also provides a brief glimpse of the exhibition of the Schnellseher in America from 1889 to 1893 and suggests new lines of inquiry about the international character of the invention of moving pictures, about the sources of early filmed subjects, and about the contributions of previously overlooked figures at the forefront of moving-picture commercialization.
...new readers of Dracula are often surprised at the dialectic of visibility/invisibility in the novel, in which undead bodies resist complete embodiment through their many seductive tricks, ...illusions, and hauntings, and the extent to which the novel's closure of that dialectic in the form of a seemingly simplistic adventure romance seems strangely hap-hazard. 9 The year or so that separates the "official" birth of the cinema and the publication of Stoker's novel has led to some frustrating inconsistencies for critics interested in Dracula's possible cinematic origins. The young barrister's suggestion in his journal that Dracula's movements appear through an illusory interplay of light and shadow and tricks of the moonlight pinpoint Stoker's commitment to gothic narratives of the supernatural that question the scientific rationale of modern skepticism. ...critics frequently suggest that the novel's early scenes at Castle Dracula construct a dichotomy between the Count's ancient powers and the modernity of the novel's typewriters, phonographs, telegraphs, and telephones. 14 This is certainly supported by Harker's own claim that his experiences in Transylvania are "nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance" and that the supernatural forces of the past have "powers of their own that mere 'modernity' cannot kill" (67). ...of this disappearance from the text, the vampire still remains a seductive, threatening figure, despite modern biopower and its attempted management of vampiric "life." Anson Rabinbach suggests that Marey's later graphic reproductions produced an "extraordinary economy of representation - the reduction of the body to a 'geometric' pattern of lines in space along a line of time" (108). ...for Marey photographic reproductions of bodily movements were too seductive, in both Baudrillard's sense and literally, in that they led the objective, scientific eye astray while enticing the fancy of the scientific mind with the potential exchange value of representations of real life.
Pythagoras Leaves the Beans, Takes the Theorem Katie Spalding, the author of Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History 's Greatest Geniuses, offers the following background note (with the ...language reflecting her Britishisms): She spent 10 years, in her words, "studying maths, which is just about the upper limit on how much maths you can do before people start actively avoiding you at parties." While the wacky/funny side of the contents does drive much of this book, each chapter is supported by Spalding's serious research, included at the volume's end; footnotes in the body of the copy are usually asides and often waggish. ...as we find out, this aversion may have cost the Greek his life. Since this reviewer didn't recall this specific leguminophobia, and we didn't have easy access to the author's cited sources, we hit our own shelves for confirmation - double-checking about these supposed creatures from the black legume. ...she's got the goods from Edison's Diary and Sundry Observations - in the French (but not the English) version of the inventor's memoirs. Or "gravity inventor" Isaac Newton, who had a penchant for sticking needles, brass plates, or even his fingers into his eyes to see what happened.
L'originalité de l'ouvrage tient à son sujet même. Nous assistons depuis quelques années à un recentrement des études sur la matérialité des nouveaux médias. Nombre de recherches actuelles sur les ...nouveaux médias ont ainsi tendance à intenoger leur dimension logicielle (software studies) ou électronique (par exemple, les platform studies portant sur les rapports entre logiciel et matériel informatique). Néanmoins, ces recherches s'arrêtent généralement au microprocesseur qui convertit les impulsions électriques en bits-le microprocesseur étant matériellement le point dans le monde numérique. La dimension électrique, sans laquelle ces technologies numériques n'existeraient pas, n'est que rarement abordée. Pourtant, des pratiques de hacking se sont développées dernièrement qui prônent un retour au niveau électrique et appellent à reconfigurer ce dernier pour créer de nouvelles possibilités pour le niveau logiciel. Le champ en plein essor du physical computing renvoie à ces pratiques de rétro-ingénierie travaillant à l'échelle de l'électrique même, où des amateurs oeuvrant dans un espace de hacker (comme le centre Harvestworks à New York) soudent des composants à partir de circuits électroniques produits sur place pour leurs projets, ces derniers étant généralement à forte composante idéologique et contestataire. Ces hackers doivent alors comprendre comment l'électricité circule dans leurs créations et remettre en question les modes de production standardisée des appareils électriques. Ces pratiques d'un nouveau genre impliquent que les hackers mettent en rapport les niveaux électrique et électronique du hardware, ainsi que l'articulation de ce dernier avec le logiciel (O'Sullivan et Igoe, 2004). 1ère électrique, en plus d'approfondir les recherches académiques existantes sur le phénomène électrique, peut ainsi donner une perspective intéressante sur les possibilités que soulèvent ces pratiques de rétro-ingénierie, voire aider à les conceptualiser.
Between 1812 and 1820, the Gas Light and Coke Company built the world's first urban gas network in London. The company transformed the technology from the existing stand-alone installations into an ...integrated network spanning much of the metropolis. Doing this involved solving business, technical, and social problems. Technically, the gas company found ways to generate large volumes of gas efficiently, mitigate leaks and stabilize pressure, and balance gas generation with demand. Socially, the company's customers had very different expectations of how to use gas than the company did. The company had to find ways of controlling usage patterns. From a business point of view, the company w! as only able to do this once it had reformed its internal mana! gement into a hierarchical structure of committees with clearly defined mandates. All this shows that the gas industry was one of the first integrated technological systems, a claim usually made for railways.
During World War II, Bryce worked on rocket propellants, carrying out research in his own laboratories at Minnesota and also at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in Cumberland, Maryland. To get ...reliable integrated intensities of a given band, he demonstrated that addition of infrared-transparent inert gas broadens the lines in the vibration-rotation absorption spectrum and allows it to determine integrated intensities of gas molecules.
Legacy Scholar: David E. E. Sloane Bird, John
Mark Twain journal (1954),
04/2014, Letnik:
52, Številka:
1
Journal Article, Magazine Article
In perhaps a culmination of his scholarly pedagogical work on Twain, Sloane contributed "Huck Finn and Race: A Teacher's Toolbox" to the CD-ROM Huck Finn: The Complete Buffalo & Erie County Public ...Library Manuscript (Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, 2003). ...he provides materials helpful to secondary school teachers of Twain's controversial novel, especially a collection of model letters to parents about the teaching of the book. By reading Twain's last work in terms of its connection to literary humor, he demonstrates persuasively why the work is unsuccessful as literature-an argument that goes against the grain of the bulk of the volume's essays, but one that highlights for readers some puzzling features of this troublesome text. Publications: Books Huck Finn and Race: A Teacher's Toolbox, in Huck Finn: The Complete Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Manuscript-Teaching and Research Digital Edition.
In 1878, Thomas Education speculated on a number of possible uses for his new invention of the phonograph. Ten of these speculations are noted, including as a tool for letter writing and all kinds of ...dictation without the aid of a stenographer; phonographic books for blind people; and educational purposes, such as preserving the explanations made by a teacher so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment.
Purpose
The paper describes the development of electric lamp renewal systems, an early, successful program to encourage the adoption of new technology, electric lighting
Design/methodology/approach
...Much material for the research comes from a variety of archival sources and publications of the early part of the 20th century.
Findings
The free lamp renewal system was brilliant and effective: its high level of customer service and human contact dispelled fear raised by the new energy source, increasing the acceptance and use of electric lighting and, thereby, electricity. Lighting, in the absence of electrical appliances, was one of the few users of electricity. Thus, the electric companies created a marketing strategy that encouraged adoption of the new technology.
Research limitations/implications
We examined the electric lighting industry at the turn of the 20th century. Other examples of technology adoption could generalize our findings.
Practical implications
Our research suggests that supportive programs, which are high in customer contact and customized service, can aid in the adoption of new technology and unfamiliar products. By encouraging the use of such free or cheap products, customers are induced to higher usage of related products that increase the revenue stream to the provider.
Originality/value
The lamp renewal system is forgotten today, yet was a crucial factor in winning consumer acceptance of electric lighting and an early example of how companies can encourage adoption of new technology. Although the concept of uniformed men in trucks coming to customer homes once a month to clean and replace light bulbs is quaint– it worked!
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