Chefelf.com Night Life: Reasons to hate the OT - Chefelf.com Night Life

Jump to content

Star Wars Fan Convention

  • (5 Pages)
  • +
  • « First
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Reasons to hate the OT I dare speak my heresy.

#61 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

  • Canada's Next Top Model.
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Head Moderator
  • Posts: 3,382
  • Joined: 01-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:In Your Dreams
  • Interests:I like stuff.
  • Country:Canada

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:18 AM

I think STAR WARS is all about doughnuts. Notice how the Death Star is round.

Also, read this article:

"From Oily Cakes to Doughnuts
Doughnuts as we know them today originated in the mid-1800s. Their predecessor was the olykoek, a treat Dutch immigrants to the U.S. made by frying the leftover bits of bread dough in hot oil. Exactly how the name “doughnut” came to be used is the subject of some disagreement. According to some sources, the Dutch twisted their dough into knots, hence “dough knots”. Others point out that the olykoeken tended not to cook through in the very middle, so some makers would put nuts in the center (“dough-nuts”) to make them more palatable.

The uncooked centers seem to have been, directly or indirectly, the reason behind the hole. According to several widely diverging accounts, the doughnut hole was the invention of a New England sea captain named Mason Crockett Gregory (or Hansen Gregory or Hanson Gregory, depending on who you ask) around 1847. Gregory’s mother Elizabeth made olykoeken and sent them with her son on his journeys to sea. The least likely but most colorful version of the story, and therefore the one I like best, is that Gregory needed a place to put his olykoek while he steered the boat, so he impaled it on one of the spokes of the steering wheel. Other sources say that Gregory came up with the idea in a dream or claimed to have received it from angels; some say he simply didn’t like the uncooked centers (or the nuts his mother filled them with) and poked them out; still others say he may have encountered a cake with a hole in the middle during his journeys and decided to adapt the idea to the olykoeken. Whatever Gregory’s real reason for adding the hole, it had the beneficial effect of making the doughnuts cook more evenly, and the idea quickly caught on.

Success Rolls On
Nearly thirty years later, in 1872, John Blondell received the first patent for a doughnut cutter. Doughnut technology advanced significantly over the next few decades. By the 1930s, automated doughnut-making machines were producing the treats in huge quantities. And in the 1940s and 1950s, chains like Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts sprang up, taking mass-produced doughnuts to the masses. In Canada, meanwhile, the name most often associated with doughnuts is Tim Horton, a former hockey player who lent his name to a nationwide chain of doughnut shops.

Fond though I am of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I have become increasingly aware that the doughnut illuminati don’t take them very seriously. I asked my friend Russ, a doughnut connoisseur, where to find the best doughnuts in San Francisco. Without any hesitation, he said, “Oh, Wirth Brothers Pastry Shop on Geary. They’re the best by far; I’ve been going there for years.” If there was something better than Krispy Kreme, I had to experience it for myself. In the interest of science, I set out on a field trip.

Hole Is Where the Heart Is
Wirth Brothers is a small, inconspicuous bakery; their doughnuts are barely even noticeable in the display case among the cakes and pastries. But I went in and ordered a few, assuring the owner that they came with the highest recommendation. She smiled knowingly; apparently she gets that a lot. The current proprietor is neither a Wirth nor a brother, but she’s been making doughnuts by hand for 28 years, following the recipe of the store’s original owner, who opened the business in the 1930s. She said the recipe is no secret, but that the key is the half-hour of hand mixing they do every morning, which gives the doughnuts their unique texture. “Come back at 8:00 in the morning,” she advised me, “to get them when they’re hot.”

I then headed to the local Krispy Kreme, where even in the evening, the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign was illuminated, signifying the availability of doughnuts fresh off the conveyor belt (as well as free samples for each customer). I carefully compared the Wirth Brothers doughnuts with the Krispy Kreme, trying to maintain a properly objective attitude. The doughnuts from the bakery were significantly larger, and much chewier. When I bit into one, my teeth met some resistance halfway through; I found this “al dente” quality quite pleasing. The Krispy Kremes, however, were uniformly light; it was like biting into sweet, slightly oily air. I repeated the experiment on another pair of doughnuts, just to be scientifically responsible. There was no doubt: Krispy Kreme was merely fantastic, compared to the heavenly perfection of the Wirth Brothers doughnut.
"
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
0

#62 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

  • Canada's Next Top Model.
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Head Moderator
  • Posts: 3,382
  • Joined: 01-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:In Your Dreams
  • Interests:I like stuff.
  • Country:Canada

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:19 AM

I think the Jedi are like Naked Mole Rats.

Think about it:

"When I went to Kenya in June 1996, that time all by myself, I decided on the fly to visit one more remote reservation area, Meru National Park, a bit out of the way for most tourists, not developed, one now decrepit lodge (Meru Mulika), a bunch of self-help bandas (huts) in ruins (Leopard Rock), but one well-working camp site, even with three bandas. I rented one of them and went out to see the area.

Driving through the nature reserve in the late afternoon, I suddenly saw a shaggy Land Rover parked on the road, a small white man with a full beard, and his Kenyan assistant. They had something like a miniature tent built up right in the middle of the dirt road and were apparently watching it.

I drove closer, but the man waved me through very determinedly, indicating that I was disturbing whatever they were doing.

I drove past, giving the tiny tent a puzzled look, but went on to see some animals like the rare Lesser Kudu, of which I caught a nice glimpse. Too little light for a photograph, because it was already evening, and the sun sets at around 6 pm under the equator.

I drove back to the camp site and met a bunch of English zoology students who were on a field trip through Kenya, studying the variety of environments. I spent some time with them, then I saw the same Land Rover again, standing beside the next banda. Curious, I went over and met the bearded man again. I asked him what he had been doing on that road. Without a word, he waved me into his banda and walked to a large metal chest, from which I could hear scratching noises. He opened the lid, and I stared at a whole heap of over a hundred little crawling potatos with four legs, a little tail and four big teeth each. They had no eyes, just a dark mark where the eyes would normally be.

Sure enough, this was the east African variety of the Naked Mole-rat. He then introduced himself as Stan Braude from the University of Michigan and was friendly enough to tell me, and later some of the zoology students, quite a bit about these strange animals.

He was in the process of emptying one colony with an estimated 120 individuals entirely. He trapped them with a tubular, mechanical trap after baiting them with a sweet potato the night before. The reason he had to catch all of them is that the last one is usually the queen. She doesn’t appear, as long as there’s still anybody to feed her, but after her last worker is caught, she finally appears and can get caught.

Stan was measuring and marking all individuals, but the queen is the most interesting, so he has to catch them all. After the work he releases them back into their labyrinth.

The Naked Mole Rat lives in an underground system of tunnels. Deep, meters below the surface, is the freeway system. These tunnels have been dug up by curious researchers, and their oval shape shows that millions of little feet must have used them over the course of many, many years, thereby taking small amounts of dirt with them, which very slowly changes the cross section and makes it vertically elongated and increasingly egg-shaped, rather than circular. In fact, the researchers use this, when they dig down to a freeway tunnel, to estimate the age of the tunnel.

From there upward extend the feeding areas, networks of tunnels that reach near the surface to get at roots, which is their diet. In some places the surface is reached, and a little volcano becomes visible from above. This is how Stan finds them.

Finally they have large nests, into which they retreat, where the queen breeds, where they sleep.

Stan once caught out one colony, which took a little longer. The captive animals eventually gathered in one big heap in the box where he kept them. When he finally released them again, he found some dead ones in the center of the heap. Too bad, he thought, must be more careful the next time, and threw them in a garbage can. Much to his surprise he later heard those scratching noises from the can and found them all alive and well. This is how their ability to hibernate was discovered. Perhaps they can use this ability when the rains fail and there is nothing to eat.

An interesting question is why they have this insect-like social life with only one breeding queen and only very few breeding males. Nobody knows for sure, but we do know how the queen does it. She harrasses all females and puts them under constant stress. They actually don’t ovulate.

When a new male tries to mate with her, she often tries to kill him. Stan speculates that the male strategy could be to try it once. When she agrees—good, when not, try to save your life and don’t try that again too soon.

Unlike some state building insects, they all have complete, double chromosome sets and, contrary to some recent speculation, there doesn’t seem to be any significant inbreeding. Genetic analyses are forthcoming, but research is still in the beginning.

Colonies with more than one queen have been observed. One had a queen and her daughter, who also bred.

The mole-rats do not recognize individuals by smell or some such. When you introduce foreigners into a colony, they are readily accepted. When two colonies expand into each other’s area, the animals will fight fiercely though, sometimes taking slaves. Stan speculates that it’s the situation that triggers the fighting, i.e. when a mole rat digs at the periphery of the colony tunnel system and breaks through into an existing tunnel outside, the animal will be alarmed and will fight. He speculates that when one would create a horsehoe-shaped colony and make the ends touch, they would fight each other, not noticing that they’re the same colony. We don’t know this for sure yet, though.

[Addendum - Danielle Farrar wrote on 2002-05-17: I think they found out that the mole-rats roll in their communal fecal waste pile and identify other members of their community by scent.]

One of the most interesting questions is how new colonies are formed. We know that sometimes some animals leave the colony and move over large distances on the surface. One marked female was found 2 km (some more than a mile) from her colony. We can assume that many will not make it, because they’re such an easy target for owls and other hunters. But some have to make it, meet a mate and form a new, successful colony.

They have to time this, like the ants and termites do, presumably at the end of the rainy season when there’s lots of food and the soil is soft. We know from some other mole rat species (South Africa) that they have dispersion morphs, which are bigger than the average animal. We also know that in some species in Israel the female drums with her hind feet to attract a male. We don’t know that much about the East African species yet.

This is only a small fraction of what I learned in Meru. I hope some readers will find it interesting.

Hans-Georg Michna"

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 31 October 2004 - 11:23 AM

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
0

#63 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

  • Canada's Next Top Model.
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Head Moderator
  • Posts: 3,382
  • Joined: 01-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:In Your Dreams
  • Interests:I like stuff.
  • Country:Canada

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:22 AM

Guy Fawkes
by David Herber


Born: 13 April 1570, Stonegate, Yorkshire
Died: 31 January 1606, Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Guy Fawkes was the only son of Edward Fawkes of York and his wife Edith Blake. Prior to Fawkes's birth, Edith had given birth to a daughter Anne on 3 October 1568, but the infant lived a mere seven weeks, being buried on 14 November of the same year. Two sisters followed Guy, another Anne (who later married Henry Kilburns in Scotton in 1599) on 12 October 1572, and Elizabeth (who later married William Dickenson, also in Scotton, in 1594) on 27 May 1575.

Edward Fawkes, who was descended from the Fawkes family of Farnley, was a notary or proctor of the ecclesiastical courts and advocate of the consistory court of the Archbishop of York. On his mother's side, he was descended from the Harrington family who were eminent merchants and Aldermen of York.

Fawkes became a pupil of the Free School of St. Peters located in "Le Horse Fayre", which was founded by Royal Charter of Philip and Mary in 1557. He counted there amongst his schoolfellows, John and Christopher Wright, Thomas Morton (afterwards Bishop of Durham), Sir Thomas Cheke and Oswald Tesimond. His time there was under the tutelage of a John Pulleyn, kinsman to the Pulleyns of Scotton and a suspected Catholic who some believe may have had an early effect on the impressionable Fawkes.

On 17 January 1578, Edward Fawkes was buried at St. Michael-le-Belfry. Edith spent nine years as a sedate and respectable widow before moving to Scotton between 18 April 1587 and 2 February 1588-89. There she married Dionysius (or Dennis) Bainbridge, son of Philip Bainbridge of Wheatley Hall and Frances Vavasour of Weston (who had previously allied herself to the Fawkes family through her first marriage to Antony Fawkes of York who died in 1551). Dionysius was described by a contemporary as "more ornamental than useful", and both he and Edith appeared to have made use of Guy's meagre inheritance while it was still in their powers to do so.

It is possible that Fawkes married, for the International Genealogy Index (IGI) compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints records a marriage between Guy Fawkes and Maria Pulleyn in 1590 in Scotton, and it also records the birth of a son Thomas to Guy Fawkes and Maria on 6 February 1591. However, these entries appear to be taken from a secondary source and not from actual parish register entries, and so they cannot be clarified further.

Fawkes came of age in 1591 and proceeded to dispose of parts of his inheritance. The first documentary proof of this is through an indenture of lease dated 14 October, 33 Eliz.

A transaction is recorded between "Guye Faux of Scotton in the Co. of Yorke, gentilman, and Christopher Lomley of Yorke, tailor", to whom Fawkes leased for twenty one years, "three and a half acres in Clifton, with one other acre there, and a barn and garth attached to Gilligaite", a suburb of York. Robert Davies who found these documents in 1830, says that "On the seal appended to one of them, though the impression is nearly effaced, the figure of a bird is just discernible, apparently a falcon". This apparently confirms Fawkes' descent for the falcon is the crest of the family of Fawkes of Farnley.

Another document, an indenture of conveyance is dated 1 August, 34 Eliz., between "Guye Fawkes of the cittie of Yorke, gentilman, and Anna Skipseye, of Clifton, spinster", which indicates that Fawkes was no longer in Scotton. For a brief period after this, he was employed as a footman by Anthony Browne, 2nd Lord Montague, a member of a leading recusant family.

Fawkes is believed to have left England in 1593 or 1594 for Flanders, together with one of his Harrington cousins who later become a priest. In Flanders he enlisted in the Spanish army under the Archduke Albert of Austria, who was afterwards governor of the Netherlands.

Fawkes held a post of command when the Spaniards took Calais in 1596 under the orders of King Philip II of Spain. He was described at this time as a man "of excellent good natural parts, very resolute and universally learned", and was "sought by all the most distinguished in the Archduke's camp for nobility and virtue". Tesimond also describes him as "a man of great piety, of exemplary temperance, of mild and chearful demeanour, an enemy of broils and disputes, a faithful friend, and remarkable for his punctual attendance upon religious observance".

Fawkes's appearance by now was most impressive. He was a tall, powerfully built man, with thick reddish-brown hair, flowing moustache, and a bushy reddish-brown beard. He had also apparently adopted the name or affectation Guido in place of Guy. His extraordinary fortitude, and his "considerable fame among soldiers", perhaps acquired through his services under Colonel Bostock at the Battle of Nieuport in 1600 when it is believed he was wounded, brought him to the attention of Sir William Stanley (in charge of the English regiment in Flanders), Hugh Owen and Father William Baldwin.

Fawkes severed his connection with the Archduke's forces on 16 February 1603, when he was granted leave to go to Spain on behalf of Stanley, Owen and Baldwin to "enlighten King Philip II concerning the true position of the Romanists in England". During this visit he renewed his acquaintance with Christopher Wright, and the two men set about obtaining Spanish support for an invasion of England upon the death of Elizabeth, a mission which ultimately proved fruitless.

Upon return from this mission, Fawkes was informed in Brussels that Thomas Wintour had been asking for him. About Easter time, when Wintour was about to return to England, Stanley presented Fawkes to him. It cannot be proved, but perhaps Wintour had already informed Fawkes of the conspirators' intentions, because in Fawkes' confession he states that "I confesse that a practise in general was first broken unto me against his Majesty for reliefe of the Catholique cause, and not invented or propounded by myself. And this was first propounded unto me about Easter last was twelve month, beyond the Seas, in the Low Countries of the Archduke's obeyance, by Thomas Wintour, who came thereupon with me into England".

Between Easter and May, Fawkes was invited by Robert Catesby to accompany Thomas Wintour to Bergen in order to meet with the Constable of Castile, Juan De Velasco, who was on his way to the court of King James I to discuss a treaty between Spain and England.

In May of 1604, Guy Fawkes met with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Thomas Wintour at an inn called the Duck and Drake in the fashionable Strand district of London, and agreed under oath along with Percy to join the other three in the gunpowder conspiracy. This oath was then sanctified by the performing of mass and the administering of the sacraments by the Jesuit priest John Gerard in an adjoining room. Fawkes assumed the identity of John Johnson, a servant of Percy and was entrusted to the care of the tenement which Percy had rented. Around Michaelmas, Fawkes was asked to begin preparations for work on the mine, but these plans were delayed until early December as the Commissioners of the Union between England and Scotland were meeting in the same house. Eventually the work in the mine proved slow and difficult for men unused to such physical labours, and further accomplices were sworn into the plot.

About March 1605, the conspirators hired a cellar beneath Parliament, once again through Thomas Percy, and Fawkes assisted in filling the room with barrels of powder, hidden beneath iron bars and faggots. He was then despatched to Flanders to presumably communicate the details of the plot to Stanley and Owen.

At the end of August, he was back in London again, replacing the spoiled powder barrels, and residing at "one Mrs. Herbert's house, a widow that dwells on the backside of St. Clement's Church". He soon left this accommodation when his landlady suspected his involvement with Catholics. On 18 October he travelled to White Webbs for a meeting with Catesby, Thomas Wintour, and Francis Tresham to discuss how certain Catholic peers could be excluded from the explosion. On 26 October, the now famous Monteagle Letter was delivered into the hands of William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle. Concern quickly erupted amongst the conspirators, but the letter's apparent vagueness prompted Catesby to continue with their plans.

On Wednesday 30 October, Fawkes, apparently ignorant of the letter's existence inspected the cellar again and satisfied himself that the gunpowder was still in place and had not been disturbed. On Sunday 3 November, a few of the leading conspirators met in London and agreed that the authorities were still unaware of their actions. However, all except Fawkes made plans for a speedy exit from London. Fawkes had agreed to watch the cellar by himself, having already been given the task of firing the powder, undoubtedly because of his munitions experience in the Low Countries where he had been taught how to "fire a slow train". His orders were to embark for Flanders as soon as the powder was fired, and to spread the news of the explosion on the continent.

On the following Monday afternoon, the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, searched the parliament buildings accompanied by Monteagle and John Whynniard. In the cellar they came upon an unusually large pile of billets and faggots, and perceived Fawkes whom they described as "a very bad and desperate fellow". They asked who claimed the pile, and Fawkes replied that it was Thomas Percy's in whose employment he worked. They reported these details to the King, and believing, by the look of Fawkes "he seemed to be a man shrewd enough, but up to no good", they again searched the cellar, a little before midnight the following night, this time led by Sir Thomas Knyvett, a Westminster magistrate and Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Fawkes had gone forth to warn Percy that same day, but returned to his post before night. Once again, the pile of billets and faggots was searched and the powder discovered, and this time Fawkes was arrested. On his person they discovered a watch, slow matches and touchwood. Fawkes later declared that had he been in the cellar when Knyvett entered it he would have "blown him up, house, himself, and all".

Early in the morning of 5 November, the Privy Council met in the King's bedchamber, and Fawkes was brought in under guard. He declined to give any information beyond that his name was Johnson and he was a servant of Thomas Percy. Further interrogations that day revealed little more than his apparent xenophobia. When questioned by the King how he could conspire such a hideous treason, Fawkes replied that a dangerous disease required a desperate remedy, and that his intentions were to blow the Scotsmen present back into Scotland.

King James indicated in a letter of 6 November that "The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad mia tenditur [and so by degrees proceeding to the worst], and so God speed your goode worke", as it [torture] was contrary to English common law, unless authorised by the King or Privy Council. Eventually on 7 November Guido's spirit broke and he confessed his real name and that the plot was confined to five men. "He told us that since he undertook this action he did every day pray to God he might perform that which might be for the advancement of the Catholic Faith and saving his own soul". The following day he recounted the events of the conspiracy, without naming names, then on the 9 November he named his fellow plotters, having heard that some of them had already been arrested at Holbeche. Guido's final signature, a barely legible scrawl, is testament to his suffering. There is no direct evidence as to what tortures were used on Guy Fawkes, although it is almost certain that they included the manacles, and probably also the rack.

On Monday 27 January 1606, the day of the capture of Edward Oldcorne and Henry Garnet, the trial of the eight surviving conspirators began in Westminster Hall. It was a trial in name only, for a guilty verdict had certainly already been handed down. The conspirators pleaded not guilty, a plea which caused some consternation amongst those present. Fawkes later explained that his objection was to the implication that the "seducing Jesuits" were the principal offenders.

On Friday, 31 January 1606, Fawkes, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and Robert Keyes were taken to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster and hanged, drawn and quartered "in the very place which they had planned to demolish in order to hammer home the message of their wickedness". Thomas Wintour was followed by Rookwood and then by Keyes. Guido, the "romantic caped figure of such evil villainy" came last. A contemporary wrote:

"Last of all came the great devil of all, Guy Fawkes, alias Johnson, who should have put fire to the powder. His body being weak with the torture and sickness he was scarce able to go up the ladder, yet with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck by the fall. He made no speech, but with his crosses and idle ceremonies made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of all the beholders that the land was ended of so wicked a villainy".

David Jardine, in his book "A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot" (1857), says that "according to the accounts of him, he is not to be regarded as a mercenary ruffian, ready for hire to do any deed of blood; but as a zealot, misled by misguided fanaticism, who was, however, by no means destitute of piety or humanity".

Reproduced by kind permission of the Gunpowder Plot Society

Sources
.............

Aveling, Dom. Hugh, O.S.B., 'The Catholic Recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire 1558-1790', Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society, Leeds, X, 1963
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, International Genealogy Index
Davies, Robert, The Fakkes of York in the Sixteenth Century, Including Notices of the Early History of Guye Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot Conspirator
Dictionary of National Biography, 1895
Durst, Paul, Intended Treason: What really happened in the Gunpowder Plot, 1970
Edwards, Francis, S.J., Guy Fawkes: the real story of the Gunpowder Plot?, 1969
Edwards, Francis, S.J., The Gunpowder Plot: the narrative of Oswald Tesimond alias Greenway, trans. from the Italian of the Stonyhurst Manuscript, edited and annotated, 1973
Fraser, Antonia, Faith & Treason - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, 1996
Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, What Gunpowder Plot Was, 1897
Gerard, John, The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, tr. Philip Caraman
Gerard, John, S.J., What was the Gunpowder Plot? The traditional story tested by original evidence, 1897
Hawarde, Reportes of Star Chamber
Haynes, Alan, The Gunpowder Plot, 1994
Howell, Thomas Bayley, ed., Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials.., II, 1603-1627
Jardine, David, A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, 1857
Longley, Katharine M., Three Sites in the City of York
Pullein, Catharine, The Pulleynes of Yorkshire, 1915
Simons, Eric N., The Devil of the Vault, 1963
Spink, Henry Hawkes, The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, 1902
Weekely News, Monday 31 January 1606
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
0

#64 User is offline   jariten Icon

  • making the nature scene
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 1,845
  • Joined: 18-August 04
  • Location:in the bin
  • Country:Nothing Selected

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:27 AM

Hannibal-

the real problem here is that despite pretending to use this well mannered, orderly approach the fact is that you were aiming to annoy and patronise Vwing (as well as completly destroying this thread). im sure you'll claim discrimination, but can you really argue against the claim that your only purpose with this rant is to provoke? the other problem is that you arnt discussing, youre telling.


and about your idea Hannibal-

push hard enough, and any theory will fit into anything you like. your claims are the worst kind of forced, laboured critisicm.

This post has been edited by jariten: 31 October 2004 - 11:32 AM

0

#65 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

  • Canada's Next Top Model.
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Head Moderator
  • Posts: 3,382
  • Joined: 01-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:In Your Dreams
  • Interests:I like stuff.
  • Country:Canada

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:28 AM

It's been mentioned and argued that STAR WARS promotes fascism. Some have made this claim and then followed with scads of random data about famous fascists, making at best little and on average no comparison with STAR WARS. In the fast and loose world of essay marking, this is what we call "You copied this from an ecyclopaedia, you little shit, and for that you get an "F.""

Consider this:

"By now, everyone's so familiar with the familiar song and dance about Star Wars being the Woodstock of our generation, about how Joseph Campbell and the power of myth powered the most comprehensive comparative religion fable rolled into one tell-all amazing sci-fi epic of epic proportions that you could probably just puke. The truth is, that crap just sells more tickets to pseudo-intellectuals who need to rationalize going for the eleventh time to see a movie about their most deeply rooted fear: impotence and premature ejaculation. Star Wars is one big cock tale about one and only one thing, the ability to get and keep it up all the way to the end.

Start by just looking at the poster. Just as the Empire Strikes Back poster was a direct rip off of the Gone With the Wind marquee, the style-A one-sheet for Star Wars is a classic rip-off of the original cover art for The Great Gatsby. In that image, the face of Daisy is hovering above the city, the milieu in which Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby battle it out for her affections. Luke and Han stand in for Tom and Jay in this case, with Leia representing Daisy, obviously, but the real clincher here is the equation of sex and death as Darth Vader represents the ur-feminine principle that must be conquered, who is both an embodiment of Luke's worst fears via the sins of his (literally) "dark father," as well as the cosmic representation of the anima as female she-bitch whose dark side is tamed only in sexual conquest. In the poster, a swimming load of semen ejaculates from Leia's side as X and Y-wing chromosomes blast their way up to fertilize and impregnate the cosmic egg of the Death Star, which as everyone by now has memorized, has a narrow trench with a small hole at the end, in which only a "direct hit" will trigger her. Thus, Star Wars is both a macroscopic psychological retelling of the ancient tale with a microscopic biological précis as to its physical achievement.

The X-wing fighters, you recall, have a phallus-shaped nose from which the payload of deathlove must, literally, come. Lots of folks get confused by the fact that the four cannons on each end of the X-wings are the source of the laser beams, but remember, to trigger the death star's chain reaction, you have to fire proton torpedoes from the nose of the craft. These protein torpedoes, as we shall see, do more than just hit their mark and send her shuddering into a cosmic orgasm—recreating what the French call the "little death"—but they also reinstigate the cosmic cycle of rebirth, as the Phoenix of the empire rises from her own ashes only to be done in again and again symbolically and literally in each subsequent film.

What is Luke's tool for fighting this cosmic sex goddess? He must acquire, then learn, then master his father's sexual mysticism, the force, the primary weapon of which is mental control for the physical handling of a light saber. The film opens with Luke in the same psycho-sexual status as that of the film's primary audience—he is eleven years old, just beginning to understand the power he holds in his hands. Then, through the trustworthy guidance of his elderly loving uncle whose pedophilia is all too understandable in the context of this already dysfunctional family drama (for Luke will ultimately discover that the object of his affection is the ultimate taboo—his sister!), Luke begins to play at swordsmanship with this strange new tool that erects on command with the slightest caress. The phallic connections between swords and penises are far too exhaustively covered in the last hundred years of Freudian literature, and suffice it to say that we won't elaborate on them here, but it is worth noting that the purpose of his training is to learn the art of the slow build, the gentle arousal of his conquest, which is consistently contrasted throughout with Han Solo's wham-bam-thank-you-maam approach of the holstered blaster, ready to pull out, fire, and put away at a moment's notice.

But if swordfighting is merely a symbolic cover for cockfighting, then why does Luke not fight Darth Vader, and why does Darth beat Ben Kenobi in the long awaited master-disciple duel? The answer lies in the fact that Luke's ultimate goal is not his sister, nor his father (who we discover in round two is merely Luke fighting himself), but is the feminine structure of the cosmos itself. Thus Luke begins his training by fighting a miniature death star, the small seeker robot that zaps him whenever he lets his guard down. As in the art of love, Luke must master the art of sexual conquest with the lights out, thus the need for the helmet that covers his eyes. The training scene is also the one in which his masculine rival, Han Solo, taunts him mercilessly for his silly belief in the mysticism of the kama sutra. "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Later, Han confesses his real frustration over his own inability to satisfy a woman: "Look, going good against remotes is one thing. Going good against the living? That's something else."

Luke, who doesn't even realize it, has become gay. In love with Ben Kenobi, in jealous affection of Han Solo, Luke's ultimate need is to either destroy or be reconciled with his father, whose childhood abandonment and subsequent raising by an overbearing aunt and a gruff uncle have clearly led to his latent rage over his own misunderstood identity, now must prove himself alpha male in the ensuing outerspace dogfight to regain what little sense of his own masculinity remains. Biggs, his childhood companion and love interest (note the name, indicating his dominant position), is reunited with Luke at the battle station, a scene in the screenplay that was cut from the final film, but which is nevertheless poignantly pointed to during the space fight when Bigg's loses his life in sacrifice to Luke's quest.

And just what are the instructions to our young fighter pilots? "The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station."

This is perhaps Star Wars dirtiest little secret: that shooting your wad to destroy her requires not taking the approach of the main vaginal port (which would impregnate her), but delivering your load anally, to the "small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port." Luke's latent homosexuality is unrecognized by him but clearly recognized by Vader, well-versed in the ways of black leather and masked identity, who senses the boy's dark sexual ambition and comments, "The force is strong in this one."

We see Luke's worst fears of premature ejaculation embodied in Red Leader's supposed hit. "It's away!" he screams, and then Red Nine shouts, "It's a hit!" but Red Leader flaccidly replies, "Negative! It didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface." At this point, the Death Star is one minute from firing range of the rebel base, and the game is to conquer the impatient dominatrix or be conquered by her.

Luke ends up practically all alone, with his neurotic-compulsive father telling him "bad boy, don't do it" on one shoulder and Uncle Ben saying "good boy, you can do it" on the other, and at the last minute, gets an assist from Han Solo, whose ultimate sexual loneliness is implicitly suggested in his name's etymology: Hand Solo gets the job done the only way he knows how, by himself on himself. It is Han's willingness to finally confess his weakness that leads him to help Luke in what he has up until this point thought to be a lost cause. Luke fires his proteins, and immediately jerks back in his seat as the sexual tension releases itself in his body. Han admits his pride in seeing Luke win a battle that he himself had all but given up on when he says, "Great shot, kid. That was one in a million." Han's courage, in fact, is lifted so high by his friend's success that he manages to wink at Leia at the closing ceremony, thinking "Maybe it's not too late for me after all."

Luke, as we all know by now, goes on to not only master his sexual force and his tool, but becomes a monk in devotion to the sacred power of his sexual energy, releasing his sister Leia from their incestuous love and freeing her to teach some of his wisdom to the randy and untrained Solo. We look forward to episodes 7, 8, and 9 to see just how much of this wisdom Solo can gain."
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
0

#66 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

  • Canada's Next Top Model.
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Head Moderator
  • Posts: 3,382
  • Joined: 01-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:In Your Dreams
  • Interests:I like stuff.
  • Country:Canada

Posted 31 October 2004 - 11:40 AM

Something else you all have not considered:

George Lucas formed Industrial Light and Magic. Thomas Edison mass-produced and allegedly invented the "light" bulb at the height of the "Industrial" Revolution. Many at the time probably considered invisible electricity powering a light source a kind of "magic."

I think it's worth considering the biography of Thomas Edison and its apparent links to STAR WARS because, well, why not?:

"Biography Of Thomas Alva Edison

By Gerald Beals

"... Thomas Edison was more responsible than any one else for creating the modern world .... No one did more too shape the physical character of our present day civilization.... Accordingly, he was the most influential figure of the millennium...." The Heroes Of The Age: Electricity And Man


Surprisingly, little "Al" Edison, who was the last of seven children in his family, did not learn to talk until he was almost four years old. Immediately thereafter, he began pleading with every adult he met to explain the workings of just about everything he encountered. If they said they didn't know, he would look them straight in the eye with his deeply set and vibrant blue-green eyes and ask them "Why?"

-----------------------------------------------

Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Edison was not born into poverty in a backwater mid-western town. Actually, he was born (on Feb. 11, 1847) to middle-class parents in the bustling port of Milan, Ohio, a community that - next to Odessa, Russia - was the largest wheat shipping center in the world. In 1854, his family moved to the vibrant community of Port Huron, Michigan, which ultimately surpassed the commercial preeminence of both Milan and Odessa....
At age seven - after spending 12 weeks in a noisy one-room schoolhouse with 38 other students of all ages - Tom's overworked and short tempered teacher finally lost his patience with the child's relatively self centered behavior and persistent questioning.... Noting that Tom's forehead was exceptionally broad and his head was larger than average, he made no secret of his belief that the hyperactive youngster's brains were "addled" or scrambled.


If modern psychology had existed back then, Tom would have probably been deemed a victim of A D S (attention deficit syndrome) and proscribed a hefty dose of the "miracle drug" Ritalin. Instead, when his beloved mother - whom he once said "... was the making of me and was always so true and so sure of me, I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint." - Convinced her son's slightly unusual physical appearance was a sign of his intelligence, when she became aware of the situation, she promptly withdrew him from school and began to "home-teach" him.


A descendant of the prominent Elliot family of Massachusetts, the devout daughter of a highly respected Presbyterian minister, and an educator in her own right, Nancy Edison (above) now commenced teaching her favorite son the "Three Rs" and the Bible. Meanwhile, his roguish and "worldly" father, Samuel, encouraged him to read the great classics, giving him a ten cents reward for each one he completed.

It wasn't long before the serious minded youngster developed a deep interest in world history and English literature. Interestingly, many years later, Tom's abiding fondness for Shakespeare's plays lead him to briefly consider becoming an actor. However, because of his high-pitched voice and extreme shyness before every audience - except those he was trying to influence into helping him finance an invention - he soon gave up the idea.

Tom especially enjoyed reading and reciting poetry. His life-long favorite was Gray's Elegy In A Country Churchyard. Indeed, his favorite lines - which he endlessly chanted to friends, employees, and himself - came from its 9th stanza: “The boast of heraldry of pomp and power, All that beauty all that wealth ere gave, Alike await the inevitable hour. The path to glory leads but to the grave.”

At age 11, Tom's parents tried to appease his ever more voracious appetite for knowledge by teaching him how to use the resources of the local library. This was the earliest of many factors that gradually led him to prefer learning through independent self instruction.

Starting with the last book on the bottom shelf, Tom began to read what he planned would be every book in the stacks. However, his parents wisely directed him towards being more selective.... By age 12, Tom had not only completed Gibbon's Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Sears' History Of The World, and Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy, he had devoured The World Dictionary of Science and a number of works on Practical Chemistry.

Unfortunately, in spite of their noble efforts, Tom's dedicated parents found themselves incapable of addressing his ever increasing interest in the Science. For example, when he began to question them about concepts dealing with physics - such as those contained in Isaac Newton's "Principia" - they were utterly stymied. Accordingly, they scraped enough money together to hire a clever tutor to help their precocious son understand Newton's mathematical principles and unique style....

Unfortunately, the experience had some negative affects on the highly impressionable boy. Essentially, he was so disillusioned by how Newton's sensational theories were written in classical aristocratic terms - which he felt were unnecessarily confusing to the average person - he overreacted and developed a hearty dislike for all such "high-tone" language and mathematics....

On the other hand, the simple beauty of Newton's physical laws did not escape him. They helped him sharpen his own free wheeling style of clear and solid thinking, proving all things to himself through his own method of objective examination and experimentation."

Tom's response to the Principia also enhanced his propensity towards gleaning insights from the writings and activities of great men of wisdom, always keeping in mind that even they might be entrenched in preconceived dogma and mired down in associated error....

Meanwhile, Tom cultivated a strong sense of perseverance, readily expending whatever amount of perspiration was needed to meet and overcome all challenges - which was a characteristic he would later note was contrary to how most people respond to challenges.... Certainly, his extraordinary mental, and physical, stamina stood him in good stead when he took on the incredible rigors of a being a successful inventor in the late 19th Century....

Another factor that very much shaped Tom's unique personality was his loss of hearing..... Even though this condition - and the fact that he had only three months of formal schooling prevented him from taking advantage of the benefits of a secondary education in contemporary mathematics, physics, and engineering - he never let it interfere with finding ways of compensating....

In sum, Tom's "free wheeling" style of acquiring knowledge eventually led him to specifically question many of the prevailing theories on the workings of electricity..... Approaching this field like a "lone eagle," he used his kaleidoscopic mind and his legendary memory, dexterity, and patience to eagerly perform whatever experiments were necessary to come up with his own ideas and theories... At the same time, while most of his contemporaries were indulging in popularized electrical pontifications of the day, he developed a style of dispassionately questioning them and boldly challenging them....

Possessing this perspective enabled Tom to gradually establish a unique foothold in the world of practical science and invention. In fact, at the dawn of the "Age Of Light And Power," nothing would serve his destiny any more....


Returning to the story of his youth, by age 12, Tom had seemingly become a virtual adult. He not only talked his parents into letting him go to work selling newspapers, snacks, and candy on the railroad, he had started an entirely separate business selling fruits and vegetables.....

At age 14 - during the time of the famous pre-Civil War debates between Lincoln and Douglas - he exploited his access to the associated news releases that were being teletyped into the station each day and published them in his own little newspaper called the Weekly Herald.... By focusing upon such "scoops," he ultimately enticed over 300 commuters to subscribe to his splendid little paper Interestingly, because this was the first such publication ever to be type-set, printed, and sold on a train anywhere, an English journal now gave him his first exposure to international notoriety when it related this story in 1860.

After his hero, Abraham Lincoln, was finally nominated for president, Tom not only distributed campaign literature on his behalf, he peddled flattering photographs of "the great emancipator." (Interestingly, some 25 years later, Tom's associated feelings about abolition caused him to select Brockton, Massachusetts as the first place to model the first standardized central power system, described elsewhere on this web site.)

At its peak, Tom's mini-publishing venture netted him more than ten dollars per day. Because this was considerably more than enough to provide for his own support, he had a good deal of extra income, most of which went towards outfitting the chemical laboratory he had set up in the basement of his home. When his usually tolerant mother finally complained about the odors and danger of all the "poisons" he was amassing, he transferred most of them to a locked room in the basement and put the remainder in his locker room on the train.

One day, while traversing a bumpy section of track, the train lurched, causing a stick of phosphorous to roll onto the floor and ignite. Within moments, the baggage car caught fire. The conductor was so angry, he severely chastised the boy and struck him with a powerful blow on the side of his head. Purportedly, this aggravated the loss of hearing he had experienced earlier from a bout with scarlet fever. In any case, Tom was penalized by being restricted to peddling his newspaper to venues in railroad stations along the track ....


Late in his 14th hear, Tom contracted scarlet fever. While it has never been ascertained, some biographers have surmised that it was the after effects of this condition - and (or) being struck by the conductor - that destroyed most of his hearing....

Whatever the cause - it now became virtually impossible for him to acquire knowledge in a typical educational setting. Amazingly, however, he did never seemed to fret a whole lot over the matter.... Naturally inclined towards accepting his fate in life - and promptly adapting to whatever he became convinced was out of his control - he simply committed himself to compensating via alternative methods....

Ultimately, Tom finally became totally deaf in his left ear, and approximately 80% deaf in his right ear. He once said that the worst thing about this condition was that he was unable to enjoy the beautiful sounds of singing birds. Indeed, he loved the little creatures so much, he later amassed an aviary of over 5,000 of them. In the meantime, he learned to use the silence associated with deafness to greatly enhance his powers of concentration.

In fact, not long after he had acquired the means to have an operation that "would have likely restored his hearing," he flatly refused to act upon the option.... His rationale was that he was afraid he "would have difficulty re-learning how to channel his thinking in an ever more noisy world."

In any event, Tom's career of producing and selling his newspaper on a train finally came to an abrupt end when he and his press were permanently thrown off the vehicle by an irate railroad supervisor. Shaken and confused by the incident, he continued to frequent the station area. One day, the stationmaster's young son happened to wander onto the tracks in front of an oncoming boxcar. Tom leaped to action. Luckily - as they tumbled away from its oncoming wheels - they ended up being only slightly injured.

One of the most significant events in Tom's life now occurred when - as a reward for his heroism - the boy's grateful father taught him how to master the use of Morse code and the telegraph. In the "age of telegraphy," this was akin to being introduced to learning how to use a state-of-the-art computer.

By age 15, Tom had pretty much mastered the basics of this fascinating new career and obtained a job as a replacement for one of the thousands of "brass pounders" (telegraph operators) who had gone off to serve in the Civil War. He now had a golden opportunity to enhance his speed and efficiency in sending and receiving code and performing experiments designed to improve this device....


Once the Civil War ended, to his mother's great dismay, Tom decided - that it was time to "seek his fortune." So, over the next few years, he meandered throughout the Central States, supporting himself as a "tramp operator.

At age 16, after working in a variety of telegraph offices, where he performed numerous "moonlight" experiments, he finally came up with his first authentic invention. Called an "automatic repeater," it transmitted telegraph signals between unmanned stations, allowing virtually anyone to easily and accurately translate code at their own speed and convenience. Curiously, he never patented the initial version of this idea.

In 1868 - after making a name for himself amongst fellow telegraphers for being a rather flamboyant and quick witted character who enjoyed playing "mostly harmless" practical jokes - he returned home one day ragged and penniless. Sadly, he found his parents in an even worse predicament.... First, his beloved mother was beginning to show signs of insanity "which was probably aggravated by the strains of an often difficult life." Making matters worse, his rather impulsive father had just quit his job and the local bank was about to foreclose on the family homestead.

Tom promptly came to grips with the pathos of this situation and - perhaps for the first time in his life - also resolved to come to grips with a number of his own immature shortcomings. After a good deal of soul searching, he finally decided that the best thing he could do would be to get right back out on his own and try to make some serious money....

Shortly thereafter, Tom accepted the suggestion of a fellow "lightening slinger" named Billy Adams to come East and apply for a permanent job as a telegrapher with the relatively prestigious Western Union Company in Boston. His willingness to travel over a thousand miles from home was at least partly influenced by the fact that he had been given a free rail ticket by the local street railway company for some repairs he had done for them. The most important factor, however, was the fact that Boston was considered to be "the hub of the scientific, educational, and cultural universe at this time...."

Throughout the mid-19th century, New England had many features that were analogous to today's Silicon Valley in California. However, instead of being a haven for the thousands of young "tekkies" - who communicate with each other in computerese and internet code of today - it was the home of scores of young telegraphers who anxiously stayed abreast of the emerging age of electricity and the telephone etc. by conversing with via Morse code.

During these latter days of the "age of the telegraph," Tom toiled 12 hours a day and six days a week for Western Union. Meanwhile, he continued "moonlighting" on his own projects and, within six months, had applied for and received his very first patent. A beautifully constructed electric vote-recording machine, this first "legitimate" invention he was to come up with turned out to be a disaster.

When he tried to market it to members of the Massachusetts Legislature, they thoroughly denigrated it, claiming "its speed in tallying votes would disrupt the delicate political status-quo." The specific issue was that - during times of stress - political groups regularly relied upon the brief delays that were provided by the process of manually counting votes to influence and hopefully change the opinions of their colleagues.... "This is exactly what we do not want" a seasoned politician scolded him, adding that "Your invention would not only destroy the only hope the minority would have in influencing legislation, it would deliver them over - bound hand and foot - to the majority."

Although Tom was very much disappointed by this turn of events, he immediately grasped the implications. Even though his remarkable invention allowed each voter to instantly cast his vote from his seat - exactly as it was supposed to do - he realized his idea was so far ahead of its time it was completely devoid of any immediate sales appeal.

Because of his continuing desperate need for money, Tom now made a critically significant adjustment in his, heretofore, relatively naive outlook on the world of business and marketing.... From now on, he vowed, he would "never waste time inventing things that people would not want to buy."

It is important to add here that it was during Tom's 17 month stint in Boston that he was first exposed to lectures at Boston Tech (which was founded in 1861 and became the Mass. Institute of Technology in 1916) and the ideas of several associates on the state-of-the-art of "multiplexing" telegraph signals. This theory and related experimental quests involved the transmission of electrical impulses at different frequencies over telegraph wires, producing horn-like simulations of the human voice and even crude images (the first internet?) via an instrument called the harmonic telegraph.

Not surprisingly, Alexander Graham Bell, who was also living in Boston at the time, was equally fascinated by this exciting new aspect of communication science. And no wonder. The principles surrounding it ultimately led to the invention of the first articulating telephone, the first fax machine, the first microphone, etc.

During this epiphany, Edison also became very well acquainted with Benjamin Bredding. The same age as Bell and Edison, this 21 year old genius would soon provide critically important assistance to Bell in perfecting long distance telephony, the first reciprocating telephone, and the magneto phone. A crack electrician, Bredding, with Watson's assistance, later set up the world's first two-way long distance telephone apparatus for his close friend Alexander Graham Bell, who at the time "knew almost nothing about electricity."


Copyrighted - never before published - tintype of Bredding and Bell in October of 1876 on the day they successfully communicated across Boston's Charles River in the world's first long distance two-way telephone conversation. i.e., "The world's first practical telephone conversation."

Bredding had originally worked for the well known promoter, George B. Stearns, who - with Bredding's help - had beaten everyone to the punch when he obtained the first patent for a duplex telegraph line. A device that exploits the fact that electromagnetism and the number and direction of wire windings associated with a connection between telegraph keys can influence the current that flows between them, and greatly facilitate two-way telegraphic communication, it powerfully intrigued Edison....

Stearns, finally sold the patent for this highly significant cost-cutting invention to Western Union for $750,000. Bredding (and Edison, of course) wound up getting absolutely nothing from the venture. In the meantime, however, Bredding provided his pal, Tom Edison, with his first detailed introduction and understanding of the state-of-the-art of the harmonograph and the multiplex transmitter....

Unlike Edison, Bredding was an extremely modest individual with little taste for aggrandizement and self promotion... The pathetic upshot of all this was that - while the caprice associated with the rough and tumble world of patenting inventions in the mid-19th century ultimately crushed Bredding's innately mild and somewhat naive spirit and his extraordinary potential - it merely spurred the tough-minded Edison on to not only improve the duplex transmitter, but to later patent the world's first quadruplex transmitter....

Deeply in debt and about to be fired by Western Union for "not concentrating on his primary responsibilities and doing too much moonlighting," Edison now borrowed $35.00 from his fellow telegrapher and "night owl" pal, Benjamin Bredding, to purchase a steamship ticket to the "more commercially oriented city of New York."


During the third week after arriving in "the big apple" Tom (seen above) was purportedly "on the verge of starving to death." At this precipitous juncture, one of the most amazing coincidences in the annals of technological history now began to unfold. Immediately after having begged a cup of tea from a street vendor, Tom began to meander through some of the offices in New York's financial district. Observing that the manager of a local brokerage firm was in a panic, he eventually determined that a critically important stock-ticker in his office had just broken down....

Noting that no one in the crowd that had gathered around the defective machine seemed to have a clue on how to fix it, he elbowed his way into the scene and grasped a momentary opportunity to have a go at addressing what was wrong himself.... Luckily, since he had been sleeping in the basement of the building for a few days - and doing quite a bit of snooping around - he already had a pretty good idea of what the device was supposed to do.

After spending a few seconds confirming exactly how the stock ticker was intended to work in the first place, Tom reached down and manipulated a loose spring back to where it belonged. To everyone's amazement, except Tom's, the device began to run perfectly.

The office manager was so ecstatic, he made an on-the-spot decision to hire Edison to make all such repairs for the busy company for a salary of $300.00 per month.... This was not only more than what his pal Benjamin Bredding was making back in Boston but twice the going rate for a top electrician in New York City. Later in life, Edison recalled that the incident was more euphoric than anything he ever experienced in his life because it made him feel as though he had been "suddenly delivered out of abject poverty and into prosperity."


Success at last!

It should come as no surprise that, during his free time, Edison soon resumed his habit of "moonlighting" with the telegraph, the quadruplex transmitter, the stock-ticker, etc. Shortly thereafter, he was absolutely astonished - in fact he nearly fainted - when a corporation paid him $40,000 for all of his rights to the latter device.

Convinced that no bank would honor the large check he was given for it, which was the first "real" money he had ever received for an invention, young Edison walked around for hours in a stupor, staring at it in amazement. Fearful that someone would steal it, he laid the cash out on his bed and stayed up all night, counting it over and over in disbelief. The next day a wise friend told him to deposit it in a bank forthwith and to just forget about it for a while.

A few weeks later, Edison wrote a series of poignant letters back home to his father: "How is mother getting along?... I am now in a position to give you some cash... Write and say how much....Give mother anything she wants...." Interestingly, It was at this time that he also repaid Bredding the $35.00 he had borrowed earlier.

Over the next three years, Edison's progress in creating successful inventions for industry really took off.... For example, in 1874 - with the money he received from the sale of an electrical engineering firm that held several of his patents - he opened his first complete testing and development laboratory in Newark, New Jersey.


At age 29, he commenced work on the carbon transmitter, which ultimately made Alexander Graham Bell's amazing new "articulating" telephone (which by today's standards sounded more like someone trying to talk through a kazoo than a telephone) audible enough for practical use. Interestingly, at one point during this intense period, Edison was as close to inventing the telephone as Bell was to inventing the phonograph. Nevertheless, shortly after Edison moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J. in 1876, he invented - in 1877 - the first phonograph.

In 1879, extremely disappointed by the fact that Bell had beaten him in the race to patent the first authentic transmission of the human voice, Edison now "one upped" all of his competition by inventing the first commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb...


And if that wasn't enough to forever seal his unequaled importance in technological history, he came up with an invention that - in terms of its collective affect upon mankind - has had more impact than any other. In 1883 and 1884, while beating a path from his research lab to the patent office, he introduced the world's first economically viable system of centrally generating and distributing electric light, heat, and power. (See "Greatest Achievement?") Powerfully, instrumental in impacting upon the world we know today, even his harshest critics grant that it was a Herculean achievement that only he was capable of bringing about at this specific point in history.


By 1887, Edison was recognized for having set up the world's first full fledged research and development center in West Orange, New Jersey. An amazing enterprise, its significance is as much misunderstood as his work in developing the first practical centralized power system. Regardless, within a year, this fantastic operation was the largest scientific testing laboratory in the world.

In 1890, Edison immersed himself in developing the first Vitascope, which would lead to the first silent motion pictures.

And, by 1892, his Edison General Electric Co. had fully merged with another firm to become the great General Electric Corporation, in which he was a major stockholder.

At the turn-of-the-century, Edison invented the first practical dictaphone, mimeograph, and storage battery. After creating the "kinetiscope" and the first silent film in 1904, he went on to introduce The Great Train Robbery in 1903, which was a ten minute clip that was his first attempt to blend audio with silent moving images to produce "talking pictures."


By now, Edison was being hailed world-wide as The wizard of Menlo Park, The father of the electrical age," and The greatest inventor who ever lived." Naturally, when World War I began, he was asked by the U. S. Government to focus his genius upon creating defensive devices for submarines and ships. During this time, he also perfected a number of important inventions relating to the enhanced use of rubber, concrete, and ethanol.

By the 1920s Edison was internationally revered. However, even though he was personally acquainted with scores of very important people of his era, he cultivated very few close friendships. And due to the continuing demands of his career, there were still relatively long periods when he spent a shockingly small amount of time with his family.

It wasn't until his health began to fail, in the late 1920s, that Edison finally began to slow down and, so to speak, "smell the flowers." Up until obtaining his last (1,093rd) patent at age 83, he worked mostly at home where, though increasingly frail, he enjoyed greeting former associates and famous people such as Charles Lindberg, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, and President Herbert Hoover etc. He also enjoyed reading the mail of admirers and puttering around when he was able in his office and home laboratory.


Thomas Edison died At 9 P.M. On Oct. 18th, 1931 in New Jersey. He was 84 years of age. Shortly before passing away, he awoke from a coma and quietly whispered to his wife, Mina, who had been keeping a vigil all night by his side : "It is very beautiful over there..."

Recognizing that his death marked the end of an era in the progress of civilization, countless individuals, communities, and corporations throughout the world dimmed their lights and, or, briefly turned off their electric power in his honor on he evening of the day he was laid to rest at his beautiful estate at Glenmont, New Jersey. Most realized that even though he was far from being a flawless human being, and may not have really had the avuncular personality that was so often proscribed to him by myth makers, he was an essentially good man with a powerful mission.... Utterly driven by a superhuman desire to fulfill the promise of research and invent things to serve mankind, no one did more to help realize our Puritan founders dream of creating a country that - at its best - was viewed by the rest of the world as "a shining city upon a hill."

ADDENDUM

Because of the many peculiar voids that Edison evinced in the area of cognition, speech, grammar, etc., a number of medical authorities have argued over the years that he may have been plagued by a fundamental learning disability that went beyond mere deafness.... A few of have conjectured that this mysterious ailment - along with his lack of a formal education - may account for why he always seemed to "think so differently" compared to others of his time, "always tenaciously clinging to those unique methods of analysis and experimentation with which he alone seemed to feel so comfortable...."

Whatever the impetus for his unique personality and traits, his incredible ability to come up with a meaningful new patent every two weeks throughout his working career "added more to the collective wealth of the world - and had more impact upon shaping modern civilization - than the accomplishments of any figure since Gutenberg...." Accordingly, many serious science and technology historians grant that he was indeed "The most influential figure of our millennium."

Notes: In 1929, Edison's close friend, Henry Ford, completed the task of moving Edison's original Menlo Park laboratory to the Greenfield Village museum in Dearborn, Mich. In 1962 his existing laboratory and home in West Orange, N.J. were designated as National Historic Sites."



I THINK THAT'S SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!!

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 31 October 2004 - 11:44 AM

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
0

#67 User is offline   Vwing Icon

  • Soothsayer
  • PipPipPipPip
  • Group: Junior Members
  • Posts: 657
  • Joined: 31-October 03

Posted 31 October 2004 - 12:10 PM

Civ, have I ever told you that I love you? Cause I do.

Brilliant.
0

#68 User is offline   HK 47 Icon

  • Level Boss
  • PipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 487
  • Joined: 20-April 04

Posted 31 October 2004 - 12:51 PM

Civ, you're the man. Just hope Chef bans this little f*ck. Have a Happy Halloween!
0

  • (5 Pages)
  • +
  • « First
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5


Fast Reply

  • Decrease editor size
  • Increase editor size