Betamax Salesman Training Video 1977

A real trip down memory lane (if you're old enough)...



via metafilter

Friday links

July 14 is Bastille Day, the anniversary of the French revolution in 1789.

What did medieval peasants eat?

That Time When America Air-Dropped Pianos For Troops in Battlefields.

These poorly translated English language T-shirts spotted In Asia are a hoot.

Julius Caesar came. He saw. He conquered. Here's how Rome celebrated.

The Century-Long Evolution of the U.S. Army Helmet.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include why monkey butts are so colorful, Nikola Tesla's birthday, how to buy your kid's way into college, and the 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs.

Ed's London Guide

Ed's London Guide

We get asked for this pretty often - it's a PDF scanned from an old typed copy so there's no easy way to convert to text without re-typing. I may do that one of these days.

He put this together in 1992, but since most of your trip to London will involve historical sites and museums, it's still pretty applicable.

Tuesday links

July 9 is Nikola Tesla's birthday: bio, some science and engineering, Tesla coil music, Tesla vs Edison rap battle.

What a Conservative Learns In College:

...as a conservative at my small, Minnesota-based liberal arts institution, I’ve spent the last four years defending myself against personal and political attacks from professors and peers alike. 

Raising the American Weakling - there's been a 20 percent decrease in grip strength in one generation.

The 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs.

How to Buy Your Kid's Way Into College.

Why Are Monkey Butts So Colorful?

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and are Independence Day related - history, movies, music, inspirational speeches, the science of barbecue and of fireworks, more.

The 47 names Disney considered for the 7 dwarfs

In the 1930s, as Disney began work on the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (an adaptation of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm), the writing team compiled the following list of potential names for the seven dwarfs - characters who, in the original story, were unnamed.

As we now know, Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, and Sneezy were picked. The name of their leader, Doc, was chosen at a later date, although I don't see Happy on this list, either.

By the way, in 1912 the story had been adapted for the Broadway stage, and the names chosen for the dwarfs were Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick, and Quee.

Here's the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Original Theatrical Trailer from 1937:

And here are the options they compiled (What the heck is Neurtsy? And why leave off Sleazy and Smutty?):

1. Awful
2. Baldy
3. Bashful
4. Biggo-Ego
5. Burpy
6. Daffy
7. Deafy
8. Dippy
9. Dirty
10. Dizzy
11. Doleful
12. Dopey
13. Dumpy
14. Flabby
15. Gabby
16. Grumpy
17. Hickey
18. Hoppy
19. Hotsy
20. Hungry
21. Jaunty
22. Jumpy
23. Lazy
24. Neurtsy
25. Nifty
26. Puffy
27. Sappy
28. Scrappy
29. Shifty
30. Shorty
31. Silly
32. Sleepy
33. Snappy
34. Sneezy
35. Sneezy-Wheezy
36. Sniffy
37. Snoopy
38. Soulful
39. Strutty
40. Stuffy
41. Swift
42. Tearful
43. Thrifty
44. Weepy
45. Wheezy
46. Wistful
47. Woeful

via Lists of Note

July 9 is Nikola Tesla's birthday: bio, Tesla coil music, Tesla vs Edison rap battle

Want a quick explanation of everything Tesla? Check out this infographic at The Oatmeal.

Epic Rap Battles of History — Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison:

The video below is based on stories about Tesla's lost papers and documents, about how the government secreted them away somewhere: The Missing Secrets Of Nikola Tesla from The Phenomenon Archives (described as "A documentary series that takes an in-depth look at the topics found in recently de-classified government documents. It explores well-known issues with new information that has been sequestered from the public"):

Tesla Coils Play the Inspector Gadget Theme Song, Sweet Home Alabama (with an included explanation of how it works), and more Tesla coil music.

In 2009, Popular Mechanics republished this 1909 NYT interview with Tesla about mobile phones.

Here's Biography.com on Tesla.

Wardenclyffe, Tesla's Long Island estate, was originally intended to be “a vector for trans-Atlantic wireless communications, broadcasting, and wireless power. The site consisted of an (incomplete) 18-story-high transmission tower that topped off a laboratory surrounded by 16 acres of land in Shoreham, Long Island in 1903. 

By 1917, Tesla had sold the site for $20,000 to pay bills at the Waldorf. That same year, the transmission tower was blown up by the buyers and sold for scrap. 

In 2013 it was purchased by a non-profit for the purpose of building a Tesla museum, with the help a fund-raining effort from The Oatmeal. Here's an NPR story on the purchase. More on Wardenclyffe and the likely methods employed in its operation here.

A brief bio:

July 9 is the anniversary of the birth of Serbian-American electrical-engineering genius and futurist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) (wiki), to a Serbian-Orthodox priest in Croatia. Tesla displayed remarkable intuition for mechanical and electrical phenomena while still a youth, and although he studied physics sporadically in Graz and Prague, he was largely self-taught in scientific and engineering subjects. 

In 1881. he began working at the Budapest Telephone Exchange as a technician, but within a year he transferred to an Edison subsidiary in France, designing electrical equipment. Two years later, he relocated to New York City, where he worked directly for Thomas Edison but resigned several years later in a dispute over pay. 

Subsequently, Tesla moved out on his own, eventually forming a company to commercialize his own inventions for the improvement of electric motors and generators operating largely on alternating current (vice Edison's direct current). Most importantly, he invented the concept of polyphase alternating-current power systems and the AC induction motor, which used a rotating magnetic field to propel the rotor. 

In 1888, Tesla licensed his patents to George Westinghouse, who used them to devise alternating-current alternatives to Edison's DC systems for generating and distributing electrical power, and eventually alternating current prevailed as the national standard.* 

In 1891, Tesla became an American citizen and established his own laboratory in New York City to work on a wide variety of electrical developments, including X-ray technology, radio, and high-voltage/high-frequency apparatus. Among the latter was the "Tesla coil," a device for developing extremely high voltages and creating spectacular displays of artificial lightning. 

In 1899, he moved his operations to Colorado Springs and concentrated on devising a system for the wireless transmission of electrical power through the atmosphere (but never realized it at a practical level). He also developed concepts for vertical takeoff/landing aircraft, remote controlled vehicles, and an early directed energy weapon. He ultimately received nearly 300 patents for his discoveries. 

Since Tesla had sold his most lucrative patents to Westinghouse and plowed what money he earned later into further experimentation, he died in relative poverty in 1943. Although vastly overshadowed by Edison in the popular imagination, it was Tesla who was primarily responsible for the concepts underlying the electrical power grids used world-wide today.

Alternating Current (AC) vs. Direct Current (DC)

*The great advantage of alternating over direct current in power distribution is that the former can make use of transformers to step the voltage up and down, and high voltage is much more efficient for sending electrical power over long distances.

Related: The Greatest Inventions Nikola Tesla Never Created.