They just put up a great article about the machines people used to lift and move heavy loads before the advent of steam power. Arguably the pinnacle of human-powered lifting technology were Sir William Fairbairn’s hand-cranked “Tubular Cranes,” one of which is shown above as illustrated in Fairbairn’s 1860 Useful Information for Engineers, Vol. 2:
Retired Navy patternmaker and former shop teacher Charlie Kested was 71, in 2000, when he first fired up his scroll saw to start work on this project. He just finished. In the intervening decade, Kersted has survived and recovered from a stroke that left him without feeling in one hand.
Apart from all the human interest angles on Charlie himself–senior citizen, veteran, patriot, teacher, craftsman, stroke survivor–the piece itself seems a truly remarkable artifact. Each word is carefully cut from dark walnut, right down to the last flourish and detail of the script, and affixed to a light-colored baltic birch “page.” Hopefully there’ll be some nice higher-resolution photos available online soon. [via Boing Boing]
Model maker and retired farmer Alex Garrard has spent over 33,000 hours bringing his scale model of Herod’s Temple to life. Meticulously researched, it accommodates over 4,000 figures and occupies over 200 square feet.
Motherboard has this wonderful look inside the world (and workshop) of Ralph Baer, creator of Pong, Simon, and other electronic/video game classics. Ralph Baer and His All-Purpose Boxes
You can thank Nikola Tesla for helping you read this. Before his harnessing of the energy of Niagara Falls, most electricity was transmitted via direct current. Tesla pioneered the use of alternating current that is used in our electric grid. Check into the documentary film excerpted above for more info and links.
Lisa Katayama writes on Boing Boing Gadgets: Behind an ordinary door in a nondescript room hosting several printers and copiers at PARC is the world’s first Ethernet cable. In 1973, Bob Metcalfe sent an internal memo to his colleagues at Xerox proposing a local system of interacting workstations, files, and printers. The devices would all […]
IEEE Spectrum has a great package of articles covering 25 Microchips that shook the world. All of your faves are there: the 555, the 6502, the 8088, the TI TMC0281 (which ET used to phone home), the PIC 16C84, the WD1402A (aka the first UART chip), the Z80, and the Sh-Boom coprocessor. The wha? Here’s […]
