Alloy Artifacts: online resource for 20th century hand tools and the companies that made them. Via Makezine.
Good Question
September 16, 2009 by Filed Under: Quotes, Technology
“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
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.
