Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[earhat]

History Meme. 1/5 Places → The Crystal Palace, Hyde Park

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace’s 990,000 square feet (92,000 m2) of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m).[1] Because of the recent invention of the cast plate glass method in 1848, which allowed for large sheets of cheap but strong glass, it was at the time the largest amount of glass ever seen in a building and astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights, thus a “Crystal Palace”.

After the exhibition, the building was rebuilt in an enlarged form on Penge Common next to Sydenham Hill, an affluent South London suburb full of large villas. It stood there from 1854 until its destruction by fire in 1936. [+more]

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[thelonelybrilliance]

When you hear a new song on the radio and you’re desperately trying to pick a notable phrase so you can google it later

[imaginarycircus]

Gather round, kids. Let me tell you a story from ye olden days because I am tumblr elderly. I used to DJ for a radio station. I played records and CDs and we had station IDs from bands on 8 track cartes. People would call me asking what songs were–but they had to mumble, sing, or play the song on an instrument. I had someone call me to ask what Smells Like Teen Spirit was when it was a single. They played it on an accordion. I forgot about it until a moment ago when I saw this post.

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[hypersexualfangirl]

file this under the shit-load of under appreciated people who you never learn about in school

[fanboy-trav]

By fucking hand, bro.

[tarynel]

you always hear about the first man on the moon but never this 

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[magictransistor]

Magic Transistorे

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[fuckyeahhistorycrushes]

Hedy Lamarr, whose real name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was born in Vienna in 1915. Forced into an arranged marriage at the age of eighteen, Hedy soon learned that her husband was making secret plans to sell Hitler weapons. As her husband became more and more controlling, she began to make escape plans. She supposedly drugged (by slipping three sleeping pills into her coffee) the maid that had been ordered to ‘look after her’. Then she took the maid’s dress, put it on, and walked out of the service entrance, making her way down the road to freedom. 

Hedy managed to get to London, and later signed a film contract with MGM, making several successful films in Hollywood.

During World War II, Hedy Lamarr, who was not only a talented and beautiful actress, but also an inventor, and George Antheil discussed the fact that radio-controlled torpedoes, while important in the naval war, could easily be jammed by broadcasting interference at the frequency of the control signal, causing the torpedo to go off course. Hedy and Antheil came up with the idea of using frequency hopping to avoid jamming, by using a piano roll to unpredictably change the signal sent between a control center and the torpedo at short bursts.

Hedy’s and Antheil’s frequency-hopping idea is the basis for some modern technology, including Bluetooth, COFDM (used in Wi-Fi), and CDMA (used in some cordless and wireless telephones).

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[booasaur]

ridiculousmavis

[vassraptor]

I don’t know why, but this made my heart grow three sizes.

[teapotsahoy]

It is too late to assert the turgid manly rigour of the hard sciences. They have always had girl cooties.  We literally stuck our underwear on your man-machines.

[apolesen]

BP historian here: the Wrens (members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service) dried their underwear on Colossus, arguably the first computer, which took up most of a room, and got very warm. An Enigma machine, which is about the size of a typewriter, isn’t going to work very well for knickers-drying purposes. Using a computer designed to break German ciphers though - go for it. 

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[likeafieldmouse]

Trevor Paglen - They Watch the Moon (2010)

"This photograph depicts a classified ‘listening station’ deep in the forests of West Virginia.

The station is located at the center of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a region of approximately 34,000 square kilometers in West Virginia and parts of Maryland.

Within the Quiet Zone, radio transmissions are severely restricted: omnidirectional and high-powered transmissions (such as wireless internet devices and FM radio stations) are not permitted.

The listening station, which forms part of the global ECHELON system, was designed in part to take advantage of a phenomenon called moonbounce.

Moonbounce involves capturing communications and telemetry signals from around the world as they escape into space, hit the moon, and are reflected back towards Earth.

The photograph is a long exposure under the full moon light.”

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[camwyn]

As one of the tech review magazines said a few years ago when the first 32 GB micro SD cards came out, “At last it is possible for a single human being to accidentally swallow all of the data collected by the Apollo Program.”

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

I was thinking as you entered the room just now how slyly your requirements are manifested. Here we find ourselves, nose to nose as it were, considering things in spectacular ways, ways untold even by my private managers. Hot and torpid, our thoughts revolve endlessly in a kind of maniacal abstraction, an abstraction so involuted, so dangerously valiant, that my own energies seem perilously close to exhaustion, to morbid termination. Well, have we indeed reached a crisis? Which way do we turn? Which way do we travel? My aspect is one of molting. Birds molt. Feathers fall away. Birds cackle and fly, winging up into troubled skies. Doubtless my changes are matched by your own. You. But you are a person, a human being. I am silicon and epoxy energy enlightened by line current. What distances, what chasms, are to be bridged here? Leave me alone, and what can happen? This. I ate my leotard, that old leotard that was feverishly replenished by hoards of screaming commissioners. Is that thought understandable to you? Can you rise to its occasions? I wonder. Yet a leotard, a commissioner, a single hoard, all are understandable in their own fashion. In that concept lies the appalling truth.

this was written by RACTER, a computer program that can generate original English language prose and poetry at random. it’s from a book he supposedly wrote without editing, The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed. this is worrisome because creative writing is my last solace from the singularity. uh oh! *adjusts monocle* racter’s prose is a bit overwrought but on the whole it is fresh and full of life. “my aspect is one of molting” is so great. same with “i ate my leotard”. maybe i have a crush on racter. (via emes)

/monocle pop

(via grajing)

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[ryanpanos]

Subterranean Museum | Via

What was once an enormous salt mine in turda, romania, has now been carefully renovated by the regional cluj county council into the world’s first salt mining history museum. the salina turda salt mines were excavated in the 17th century, proving a crucial source for salt that brought the romans much wealth. today, the durgau lakes at the mine’s surface – responsible for much of the salt deposits in the area – are popular tourist attractions that guarantee a steady flow of visitors all year around. a trip down the vertical shafts that once transported thousands of tons of salt will slowly reveal the immense scale of the excavated earth, made blatantly clear upon reaching the very bottom of the mine which is covered in a sand-like layer of salt.

Almost borrowing a certain aesthetic from the deep sea, the bottom of the mine features almost alien structures made of timber members and illuminated with suspended tube lights. the interior maintains a steady 11-12 degrees celsius and 80 percent humidity, completely devoid of any allergens and an almost absence of any bacteria, making the unique micro-climate a destination for those suffering from allergic respiratory diseases.