Right around 1879, the
fishwheel (
historical images,
McCord replica) came to the Columbia River. A clever application of mill-like thinking to traditional net fishing techniques, the fishwheel's river-powered automation of upstream harvesting revolutionized canning in Oregon and Washington, drawing both commercial attention and
critical concern [NYT 1881, PDF]. Two men, Thornton Williams and William Rankin McCord, each filed patents for fishwheel designs in 1881 (
#245251) and 1882 (
#257960) respectively; Williams brought an infringement suit against McCord which was
dismissed on the grounds that the invention was not new, being based directly on the publicly documented work of one Samuel Wilson in 1879. Fishwheels were fair game.
[more inside]
posted by cortex
on Jun 28, 2011 -
15 comments
In 1936 in the Jim Crow South,
Robert F. Williams was an 11-year-old black boy in Monroe, North Carolina, who watched helplessly as
Jesse Helms Sr. (father and namesake of the
former senator) beat an African-American woman to the ground and
"dragged her off to the nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head, the same way that a cave man would club and drag his sexual prey." Years later, after a stint in the segregated military, Williams returned home to Monroe and worked as an NAACP organizer, where he brought international attention to the
Kissing Case, a 1958 incident in which two black boys under the age of 10 were sentenced to a reformatory for kissing a white girl. By then, Williams had also attracted controversy for his advocacy of armed self-defense, a position he outlined in the book
Negroes with Guns. But it would all change overnight in 1961, when Williams landed on
FBI's Most Wanted list, after being charged with kidnapping a white couple that Williams claimed he was trying to save from an angry black crowd.
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Jun 8, 2010 -
36 comments
"The written word hasn't kept up with the age. The movies have outmanoeuvered it. We have the talkies, but as yet no Readies." So wrote Rob Brown in 1930 in his book
The Readies. Putting his money where his mouth was, he made a prototype readie, which has since been lost.
Brown's story is recounted by Jennifer Schuessler in The New York Times. Brown expert Craig Saper has created a
replica Readie online, which includes amongst others texts by Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, F. T. Marinetti as well as translations from Horace by Ezra Pound.
[Some of the texts shock modern sensibilities]
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 28, 2010 -
17 comments
People afflicted with
Williams syndroms are known for their "elfin" appearance, the ease with which they approach and socialize with stranger, and their near-normal language skills. Recent
research on children with the rare neurodevelopmental disorder suggests they share another trait: They do not form racial stereotypes.
Via.
posted by Bukvoed
on Apr 13, 2010 -
50 comments
Have you ever dreamed of moving an object with the power of your mind? Mindflex, the new mental acuity game from Mattel, makes that dream a reality. A lightweight headset containing sensors for the forehead and earlobes measures your brainwave activity. When you focus your concentration, a small foam ball will rise on a gentle stream of air. Relax your thoughts and the ball will descend. By using a combination of physical and mental coordination, you must then guide the ball through a customizable obstacle course, the various obstacles can be repositioned into many different configurations. [more inside]
posted by litterateur
on Jun 27, 2009 -
39 comments
The popularity of
podcasting has grown by leaps and bounds in the past year.
Evan Williams, co-founder and former CEO of
Pyra Labs, the makers of Blogger, is a co-founder of
Odeo, a resource for podcast listeners and
podcasters.
More info here. Odeo is
just one of many podcast directories; personally, my favorite is
Podcast Pickle. Another great resource
for audio content is
PodioBooks.com,
founded by
Evo Terra.
PodioBooks are serialized
audio books which are made available in podcast format, many read by their
authors. [more inside]
posted by eclectica
on Sep 24, 2006 -
29 comments
best of luck, ev. after over five years of sweat and tears, founder evan williams decides to hang up the reigns on his position at
blogger.
undoubtedly, he's done a lot for the blogging community and the internet in general.. we wish him well.
posted by mrplab
on Oct 4, 2004 -
18 comments
