Towards the end of the 1800s, there were three primary American groups competing to invent technology to record and play back audio.
Alexander Graham Bell worked with with Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell in at their
Volta Laboratory in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., while
Thomas A. Edison worked from his
Menlo Park facilities, and
Emile Berliner worked in
his independent laboratory in
his home. To secure the rights to their inventions, the three groups sent samples of their work to the Smithsonian. These recordings became part of the permanent collections, now consisting of 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made.
But knowledge of their contents was limited to old, short descriptions, as the rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass recording media are fragile, and playback devices might damage the recordings, if such working devices are even available. That is, until
a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory came together to make 2D and 3D optical scanners, capable of
visually recording the patterns marked on discs and cylinders, respectively.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Feb 10, 2012 -
21 comments
When New York State sentenced convicted murderer William Kemmler to death, he was slated to become the first man to be executed in an electric chair. Killing criminals with electricity “is a good idea,” Edison said at the time. “It will be so quick that the criminal can’t suffer much.” He even introduced a new word to the American public, which was becoming more and more concerned by the dangers of electricity. The convicted criminals would be “Westinghoused.”
posted by monju_bosatsu
on Oct 12, 2011 -
54 comments
Back on
August 15, 2010, Aesop Rock kicked off a sprawling collaboration effort, with input by 28 artists, with
an eclectic collection of videos spanning from
music videos to
odd clips and
a Kimya Dawson recording studio dance party,
works by photographer Chrissy Piper, and
lots of music, from
unreleased tracks,
remixes, and
mixtapes. There's even a post about being
manhandled by a nude model, written by the Dwarvs front-man
Blag Dahlia. Going back to the beginning of the site, the second post was
a collection of facts about bats, and the only obvious connection back to the tragic impetus for the title of this ongoing collaboration (
900 bats) --
over 900 bats were torched to prevent disruption of work on the ongoing
renovations of the historic
Bala Quila (also spelled
Bala Qila) fort in
Alwar, Rajasthan, in north-eastern India.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 16, 2010 -
4 comments
Feeling like you need something to balance the scent of sandalwood and musk after reading this list of
famous man caves (including Jefferson's study, Douglass' office, Edison's library, and Roosevelt's trophy room)? If so, you may be interested in seeing the inner sanctums of some of history's most influential women. Check out Eleanor Roosevelt's living room (
picture/
info), Marie Curie's laboratory (
picture/
info), Margaret Mead's room in Samoa (
picture/
info), Maya Angelou's parlor (
picture/
info), Susan B. Anthony's
study and
bedroom (
more pictures and info), Georgia O'Keefe's sitting room (
picture,
info), Helen Keller's childhood bedroom (
picture,
info), and Frida Kahlo's studio (
picture 1,
picture 2/
info).
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posted by emilyd22222
on Jul 28, 2010 -
23 comments
Last year we discussed a recently discovered 10-second audio recording from 1860 that was thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice, a girl or woman singing the 18th century French folk song
“Au Clair de la Lune”. Turns out, it was being played too fast - slow it down and it's the voice of the inventor himself. As well, a number of other recordings have been found, pushing back the oldest recording to 1857.
Hear it all on NPR (5-min).
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posted by stbalbach
on Jun 1, 2009 -
24 comments
Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had
1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the
floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the
World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of
ADR ceramic disks, for instance),
Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted by humannaire
on Feb 23, 2007 -
27 comments
Freak Show: Jumbo In The New World "In 1903, American inventor Thomas Edison arranged to have an elephant publicly electrocuted in Luna Park. Up to that point Edison, in his bitter campaign to discredit the electrical theories of George Westinghouse, had been content to publicly electrocute cats and dogs. When Topsy, an enraged circus elephant, trampled to death its third trainer in three years, Edison offered to "execute" the animal in a way that would demonstrate once and for all his belief in the dangers of alternating current. The electrocution of this elephant was filmed and apparently the footage can still be viewed at the Coney Island Museum."
posted by quonsar
on Sep 15, 2003 -
26 comments
Edison schools 'privatization with public money' scheme a failure? School districts such as San Francisco's, which saw Edison as a panacea, may end up worse off for having played the privatization game. If Edison goes under, the district (could) be faced with huge logistical challenges: re-enrolling kids, renegotiating contracts with teachers who were working at Edison schools,
maybe even dealing with the company's creditors.
posted by skallas
on Jun 27, 2002 -
28 comments
