#technological history

[nature-isnt-real]

Nature isn’t real.

The outside world as we know it, or rather, as we think we know it, is not real. At least, not anymore.

During the American industrial revolution, the US government created top secret technology which fundamentally changed the way the American people perceive the world around them. It is nearly impossible to find records of this device; the government is hiding this information from us.

What we perceive as grass, trees, and the sun are actually hard cement floors, factory equipment, and the fluorescent lights of a factory. When we interact with “the outside world” we are in reality working, generating capital for the factories’ CEOs.

When was the last time you really went outside?

[historysisco]

On This Day in History June 6, 1984: Russian computer engineer Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov using an Electronika 60 developed and released his video game, Tetris. Tetiris was inspired by the puzzle board game pentominoes (a pentomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining five equal squares edge to edge.) 35-years later, it is believed that Tetris has sold over 170 million copies and is the best selling video game of all time.

For Further Reading:

History of Tetris from Tetris.com

Tetris Story by Vadim Gerasimov

Top 10 Best-Selling Video Games Of All Time

[historysisco]

On This Day in History January 1, 1992: Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 - January 1, 1992) who was known as  “Queen of code” the “Mother of computing” and “Amazing Grace” passes away at the age of 85. 

Hopper was a mathematician and a computer scientist who graduated from Vassar College in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. She would earn her master's degree from Yale University in 1930 and In 1934 she would earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale. 

As part of the U.S. Navy Reserve, Hopper would work on the Harvard Mark I computer, which was used in the war effort and the Manhattan project from 1944. Post World War II, Rear Admiral Hopper taught Mathematics at Vassar College and was influential in the creation of such computer languages as FLOW-MATIC and COBOL. 

The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper was named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. She would be posthumously be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama on November 22, 2016.

The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) is the world's largest gathering of women technologists. It is produced by AnitaB.org and presented in partnership with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). GHC 19 will be Oct. 2–4 in Orlando, Florida. 

For Further Reading:

The Grace Hopper Fullstack Academy website

The Legacy of Grace Hopper from Vassar College by Max Kutner ’11

Grace Hopper Celebration from the Anita B.org website

Meet Rear Admiral Grace Hopper from the Grace Hopper Celebration webpage of the Anita B,org website by Merry Maisel of the San Diego Supercomputer Center

USS Hopper (DDG 70) "Dare and Do" from the US Navy website

[historysisco]

On This Day in History September 4, 1998: Google Inc. was formally established when founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page filed incorporation papers. The search engine used by millions of people on a daily basis started out as a doctoral research project while Brin and Page were at Stanford University. Ever wonder where the word “Google” comes from? It comes from the term googol which is the name the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

For Further Reading:

History of Google: How It Began and What's Happening Beyond 2019 by Brian O’Connell from the Street.com dated December 31, 2018

Almost Everything You Need to Know About Google's History by Christopher McFadden from Interesting Engineering dated January 15, 2018

[historysisco]

On This Day in History August 8, 1899: The United States Patent and Trademark Office issues patent number US630617 A, patent title: Automatic expansion-valve for refrigerating apparatus to Albert T. Marshall of Broxton, Massachusetts. So what was this patent for? 

It was the patent for the first household refrigerator which included an automatic motor cut-off and a means for the automatic regulation of the water used for cooling the refrigerant. The first home refrigerators were made available in 1914. Prior to this, refrigeration of food stuffs was regulated by the use of ice.

For Further Reading:

On August 8, 1899, first refrigerator patent was issued to Albert T. Marshall – This Day in Patent History by Patent Yogi.com

First Refrigerator Patented from Refrigeration Industry.com

The Impact of Refrigeration by Barbara Krasner-Khait from History-Magazine.com

The Story of the Refrigerator Throughout the Ages from Learning-History.com

[historysisco]

On This Day in History April 3, 1973: In an act that most of us take for granted in 2019, the first ever wireless phone call was made by Martin Cooper of Motorola on the streets of New York City. Who did Cooper call? He called a rival in the form of Joe Engel who was working at the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey.

While the patent for the “radio telephone system” was filed in October 1973, it would be 10 years before the wireless telephone would be made available to the public in the form of the $4000 Motorola DynaTac 8000x phone. 

For Further Reading:

Motorola Introduces Wire‐Less Telephone by Gene Smith from the NEw York Times dated April 4, 1973

40 Years Ago Wednesday: First Ever Cell Phone Call Made In NYC from the CBS 2 News website dated April 3, 2013

The prototype mobile ‘shoe' phone weighed 2 1/2 pounds by William E. Gibson from the AARP website dated April 3, 2018

On this day: First cell phone call made on April 3, 1973 by Summer Delaney from the WPIX 11 website dated April 3, 2018

[historysisco]

On This Day in History January 3, 1996: The Motorola Corporation releases its new phone: The Motorola StarTac. In doing so, Motorola released the first clamshell flip cell phone. The phone’s dimensions were 3.7 in. by 2.1 in. by 0.75 in. and 3.1 oz., making it the smallest and lightest cell phone at the time. The Motorola StarTac would prove to be popular with the general public with over 60-million of these phones being sold. 

For Further Reading:

Motorola StarTAC from the Mobile Phone History website

[historybubbles]

December 25th, 1990: The first successful trial run of the system that'd become the Internet.