Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison
The Phonoautograph
The history of the Phonoautograph. A technology in which you can still buy stock.
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

Personally, I don't think hope is lost for modern music. Puerto Rican reggaeton is finding solid ground in the world of mainstream hip hop, indie kids are dancing to Brazilian favela jams at loft parties, and old time experimental music snobs don't even have to go to the "World Music" ghetto to find the newest Congotronic sounds. Still, sometimes I can't get off on the new school and I gotta dig back. Way back. The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project has created a database of over 6,000 wax cylinder recordings from the turn of the last century, all free to download or stream. For you sound recording buffs and noise connoisseurs, Tinfoil.com offers early sound experiments AND a cylinder of the month. And for extra nerd cred, check out Thomas Edison's contribution and peep his disturbing talking doll.
posted on Apr 3, 2006 - View this thread

Edison's Conquest of Mars! Garrett P. Serviss' unofficial, 1898 sequel to War of the Worlds, featuring Thomas Edison and Lord Kelvin as the heroes. It seems this book originated the space battle and the ray-gun, not to mention the aliens-built-the-pyramids plot. Sounds like a blast.
posted on Nov 17, 2005 - View this thread

Turtle's 78 RPM Jukebox
Popular Victor, Edison, and Columbia recordings, 1900-1930.
posted on Jun 2, 2005 - View this thread

Some technological histories - including Edison's Electric Pen, a History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy, and Cox's 1907 Gold Changer.
posted on May 23, 2005 - View this thread

Edison spoke: "Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best..."

Auditory Antiquity as Anachronism.

Does One fancy the Sonic Cylinders and Spindled Spirals of Edison? are the Victorians' crackling gramophones what Ought to be? could it be the Transitory Teens for a treat in Tonality? perhaps One is enamored by the Resonance as Reasoned by the Roaring Decadence of Decade, the fret of Jitterbug Fears, and some Hopped-up Lindys instead?

Why not Then and Then to be found at Once?

( Fully formed Fondness recommends the abilities of a Reality Playfulness, the oddish Ogg, and an M.P.-third to boot. )
posted on Nov 22, 2004 - View this thread

Edison's New Media. American Memory (natch) offers this sprawling archive of audio files and filmic material. Uncovered while seeking an archive of piano roll recordings, unsuccessfully. Also noted: Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier and recordings from the American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.
posted on Sep 6, 2004 - View this thread

The IEEE Virtual Museum. Virtual exhibits about microelectronics, sound recording, Edison, war and technology etc.
posted on Jun 30, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Sep 15, 2003 - View this thread

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 on Jun 27, 2002 - View this thread

Edison electrocutes an elephant at Coney Island. I never knew this horrifying bit of history until I read about it via rscharm's MeFi post.
posted on Jul 23, 2001 - View this thread