Category: History

What do you get when you cross Nazis and Bing Crosby? Answer: Audiotape.

Post author By Dave
Post date November 14, 2006
No Comments on What do you get when you cross Nazis and Bing Crosby? Answer: Audiotape.

Reading an industry mag the other day this one opening paragraph blew me away. So much in just a few sentences, it really intrigued me. Here it is:

At this year’s NAB, I finally heard the bugle sounding â€œTapsâ€ for tape, that thin ribbon of oxide-coated polyester first descended from Nazi-era paper audiotape used to broadcast German propaganda; then ferreted in a duffel bag by an American serviceman after the fall of Berlin to an LA company called Ampex, then re-engineered in 1948 with Bing Crosby’s money as a U.S. radio recording medium, and then transformed by means of rotary recording into a TV recording medium by NAB 1956, again with Der Bingle’s loot.
Digitial Content Producer June 2006

link icon Here’s the entire article, but probably boring reading for non-industry types.

link icon More detailed history info here at Wikipedia.

A.M. & P.M. What do they stand for?

Post author By Dave
Post date November 13, 2006
1 Comment on A.M. & P.M. What do they stand for?

My son asked me the other day what a.m. and p.m. mean. Of course I could tell him what they mean, but what do those letters stand for. Turn’s out they’re Latin of course! My first guess for p.m. was close, “post meridian” but couldn’t come up with the a.m. A.M. is ante meridiem (a.m., from Latin, literally “before midday”) and post meridiem (p.m., “after midday”).

link icon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock

Other great time related info courtesy of the US government
link icon http://time.gov/exhibits.html

Books Government History

Donald Rumsfeld’s resume

Regardless of your opinion of Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, he has a very impressive resume.

Attended Princeton on a Navy ROTC scholarship.
Navy pilot and flight instructor
Two and a half terms in Congress
Nixon’s cabinet
Ambassador to NATO
Secretary of Defense under Ford
CEO of a several of Fortune 500 companies

Gleaned from Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial”

http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html

wikipedia entry

Everyday Things History Humanities

“Close, but no cigar” origin

Post author By Dave
Post date November 3, 2006
No Comments on “Close, but no cigar” origin

I was wondering about the origin of some of these sayings we use everyday. And the fact that, at least in the US, they are universally known. For example this jewel, “Close, but no cigar” I suspected had some origin at a carnival, but this site traces when the phrase was actually recorded in print or media. Seems we can thank screen writers for this one, which would make it’s ubiquity understandable.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/close-but-no-cigar.html

Here’s another site that discusses word origins.

http://www.word-detective.com/

History Uncategorized

Restaurants appear to be a modern enterprise.

Post author By Dave
Post date October 26, 2006
No Comments on Restaurants appear to be a modern enterprise.

While dining out last night my 5 year old son asked where the first restaurant was, which made me wonder about where the restaurant concept originated. From what I’ve gleaned, it appears to have originated in France around the late 1700s, which makes since since ‘restaurant’ is French word. The Wikipedia entry also credits 13th century China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant

History Sports

Morten Anderson, oldest player in NFL

Post author By Dave
Post date October 24, 2006
No Comments on Morten Anderson, oldest player in NFL

This past weekend, I was able to watch my Atlanta Falcons play on television. There was old Morten Anderson at 46, the oldest player in the NFL, kicking it with the best of them. In fact he was playing in the NFL before many of his teammates were born. He’s stated he want to break the record for being the oldest player in the NFL, he’ll have to make it to Dec 2008 to accomplish that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Andersen

History

Protection of Past Presidents

Post author By Dave
Post date October 21, 2006
No Comments on Protection of Past Presidents

The Secret Service protects current presidents and past presidents and their families. This protection was offered until their death. But in 1997, the law was changed to only protect them for 10 years after office.

Gleaned from The Sentinel DVD bonus features

Official info
http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/protection.shtml

Everyday Things History

Why did we stop using ‘Thou’?

Post author By Dave
Post date October 19, 2006
No Comments on Why did we stop using ‘Thou’?

I sometimes wonder why somethings become archaic, why does something else become the norm? Here’s an interesting discussion on the reasons why we started using “you” as opposed to “thou.” Still not a definitive conclusion, but compelling none the least.

http://www.quaker.org/thee-thou.html

History

Bribes were tax deductible

Post author By Dave
Post date October 12, 2006
No Comments on Bribes were tax deductible

Until recently, in several European countries bribes to foreign public officials were not only legal but tax deductible!

http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/295/Writing_off_tax_deductibility.html

History Technology

Why 16:9 and not 2:1?

I always wanted to know why the Advanced Television Committee went with such an odd aspect ratio for the new digital television standard. Turns out one guy, Dr. Kerns Powers, discovered that this ratio would cover all of the existing formats of film, from super wide screen 2.35 down to TV and old film size of 1.33.

Check out these entertaining and informational instructional videos from Craig Syverson, the videogrunt. Highly recommended.

http://gruntmedia.com/videogrunt_directory.html