“How much of what we readily identify as ‘progress’ in urban-industrial society is really the undoing of evils inherited from the last round of technological innovation?” Quoted from: “Where the Wasteland Ends
Good Question
September 16, 2009 by Filed Under: Quotes, Technology
The Blackpool Tramway
September 16, 2009 by Filed Under: Public transport, Random, Trams or streetcars, Travel
They have the worst weather in the world, but they also have the hottest looking open top trams (streetcars). Welcome onboard the 1930s Blackpool Balloon cars in the UK. Alan Robson has around 1,300 pictures of the vehicles, some of them below. Text and first picture from Wikipedia.
Competing with Computers
September 6, 2009 by Filed Under: Computers, Mathematics, Navigation
Magnetic deviation, lightning calculators, nomograms and more “lost arts in the mathematical sciences” at Dead Reckonings. Related: Satellite navigation in the 18th century.
Optical telegraph in the Netherlands
September 6, 2009 by Filed Under: Communication, History, Obsolete technology, Random
The communications device was located on the beach of Scheveningen in the 1700s. More on the optical telegraph: Email in the 18th century. Source: geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland.
Why Paper Is Eternal
“There are modes of learning and thinking that at the moment are only available from actual books. There is a kind of deep-dive, meditative reading that’s almost impossible to do on a screen. Without books, students are more likely to do the grazing or quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author’s ideas.” Read: Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books (via). See (and print…) also this 75-page essay: “Hamlet’s Blackberry: why paper is eternal“.
