Posted inCommentary History Technology
The fate of letters
There's a difference between paper and bytes. Handwriting power. A prelude: BINGO resolutions!
Posted inAutomobiles History Technology
CES “booth babes” before 1967?
It’s CES time. Organizers and attendees have argued about the ladies since 1967, sometimes just about their label. Their marketing services date back much longer.
Posted inHistory Technology
Four photographs and their “truths”
Photos from the nineteenth century and from 2023 helped my fall seminar students explore truth, the fake, and fiction.
Posted inAutomobiles History Technology
How The American Way traveled by car
Photography from the 1930s shows the interplay of cars, hopes for the future, and The American Way of life.
Posted inHistory Technology
Separated by more than a century, two musicians share a complaint
Rick Beato and John Philip Sousa agree on a "menace" to music and to human creativity even though they never met.
Posted inCommentary History Technology
The villainy of things
Some 99-year-old tools might scare you. Fantastical creatures I ran into while reading for a chapter I'm writing. And children working with tools.
Posted inHistory Living Technology
Does 1950s “mechanization” provide a roadmap for today’s AI influence on skill?
Will AI behave like earlier automation? What affect will AI have on skill requirements? They're open questions.
Posted inCommentary History Living
Going underground to get aboveground
"I've confined my quest to the underground that is not the domain of the vice squad. (No time.)"
Posted inAutomobiles History Technology
Out to pasture
The passing of the horse ... and into the clean world of the car!
Posted inHistory Living Technology
Boston bakers, more or less
In 1998, Microsoft Windows was a Boston baker. If bread is the product, does the process matter to the people who bake? Plus, observations about WFH from the 1990s.