Technology

"For all the power of video and film, I am not giving up my pen. I am just much more likely to try to link essays to webcasts or videos. The best way for these two media to move forward, to inform and make change, is in tandem; together they are more than the sum of their parts."

"By 1990, movies were either rented or sold at much more reasonable prices directly to consumers (known as sell-through). Video rentals reached a plateau, but video sell-through sales continued to grow. By 1992, the value of video sell-through sales exceeded the domestic theatrical box office for the first time. Home video caused a significant downward shift in the box office; for instance, the domestic box office represented 80% of studio revenues in 1980, but by 1992 it decreased to no more than 25%."

"The theory of communication is partly concerned with the measurement of information content of signals, as their essential property in the establishment of communication links. But the information content of signals is not to be regarded as a commodity; it is more a property or potential of the signals, and as a concept it is closely related to the idea of selection, or discrimination. This mathematical theory first arose in telegraphy and telephony, being developed for the purpose of measuring the information content of telecommunication signals. It concerned only the signals themselves as transmitted along wires, or broadcast through the aether, and is quite abstracted from all questions of "meaning." Nor does it concern the importance, the value, or truth to any particular person. As a theory, it lies at the syntactic level of sign theory and is abstracted from the semantic and pragmatic levels. We shall argue … that, though the theory does not directly involve biological elements, it is nevertheless quite basic to the study of human communication — basic but insufficient."

"While a polemical argument in prose may reach tens of thousands of the usual suspects - formally educated people who like to follow such texts - the video version reached far beyond that audience."

"The launch of cable television redefined television in the 1980s. While there was an obvious audience for 24-hour news and movies, making CNN and HBO almost sure-things from launch, music videos weren't looked upon as having much value at all. When MTV launched with cheap music videos, nobody anticipated that it would revolutionise entertainment."

"Music videos were in short supply at the beginning of the 80s, so MTV played whatever they could get their hands on. Many record companies in America didn’t believe in MTV and weren’t willing to provide music videos at their own cost. A bulk of the music videos MTV played came from Europe where record companies made short promotional films for their artists to be played on video jukeboxes - a popular new piece of technology at the time. With only 250 music videos being played over a 24-hour period, the early artists of MTV got a lot of exposure thanks to a combination of repetition and desperation."

"In August 1858 President Buchanan exchanged greetings with Queen Victoria by means of the newly completed Atlantic cable. Commemorating that happy occasion, it is a pleasure to send best wishes to you on the one hundredth anniversary of the completion of the first Trans-Atlantic Cable. The development of international communications has brought the peoples of the world into close neighborhood. It is our hope that these means of communication will serve increasingly as a carrier of the message of peace for which we both work and pray."

"Beginning with the 1984 presidential campaign, the neoconservative Reagan administration and the Christian Right accelerated their use of television and video imagery to capture political discourse- and power. Along with a new series of "Ron and Nancy" commercials, the Reverend Pat Robertson's "700 Club" (a kind of right-wing talk show), and a resurgence of Good versus Evil kiddie cartoons, American television and video viewers were bombarded with the newest "pro life" propaganda piece, The Silent Scream. The Silent Scream marked a dramatic shift in the contest over abortion imagery. With formidable cunning, it translated the still and by-now stale images of fetus as "baby" into real-time video, thus (1) giving those images an immediate interface with the electronic media; (2) transforming antiabortion rhetoric from a mainly religious/mystical to a medical/technological mode; and (3) bringing the fetal image "to life. "On major network television the fetus rose to instant stardom, as The Silent Scream and its impresario, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, were aired at least five different times in one month, and one well-known reporter, holding up a fetus in a jar before 10 million viewers, announced: "This thing being aborted, this potential person, sure looks like a baby! This statement is more than just propaganda; it encapsulates the "politics of style" dominating late capitalist culture, transforming "surface impressions" into the "whole message." The cult of appearances not only is the defining characteristic of national politics in the United States, but it is also nourished by the language and techniques of photo/video imagery. Aware of cultural trends, the current leadership of the antiabortion movement has made a conscious strategic shift from religious discourses and authorities to medicotechnical ones, in its effort to win over the courts, the legislatures, and popular hearts and minds. But the vehicle for this shift is not organized medicine directly but mass culture and its diffusion into reproductive technology through the video display terminal."

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

"Just as the spinning and gathering of wool serve as the raw material for a weave, so the artist working with video selects images to serve as the basic substance of the work. All technology, in its capacity to instantly reproduce, store, and retrieve information, has moved continually in a direction that seeks to free us from laboring with our hands by giving us greater conceptual freedom to organize, select, and judge."

"Japanese animated explicitly adult cartoons developed along with the general animated Direct-to-video market. The first Japanese Original Animated Video (OAV) title was a science-fiction drama, Dallos, released in December 1983. The third OAV release, on February 21, 1984, was Lolita Anime I: Yuki no Kurenai Kesho * Shojo Bara Kei (freely translated, Crimson Cosmetic on the Snow * Young Girls' Rose Punishment). This half-hour video, first in the short-lived Wonder Kids erotic anime series, consisted of two 15-minute dramas of rape and sadistic sexual torture/murder of schoolgirls, whose spirits exact a gruesome supernatural vengeance. Of the seventeen OAVs released during 1984, six were "general" and eleven were pornographic. In 1985, after the viability of the direct-video market for action-adventure anime had been established, the total was 28 action-adventure titles to just another eleven porno titles. The Japanese domestic OAV market has grown accordingly, over the past decade, with 1997's output of 162 "general" titles and 62 erotic titles (including some multiple volumes of series) being about the average ratio."

"In a phenomenal growth spurt that has reshaped the $10-billion-a-year video business, Blockbuster has gone from 19 stores nationally to nearly 1,300 in three years...."

"When you see yourself on video, do you like what you see? I've yet to meet someone who says yes."

"Video killed the radio star."

"When the first anime-genre videos were released in 1990-91 through mail order and direct sales to the comic-book fandom specialty stores, it was understood by this market that these were animated equivalents of movies like The Terminator and Die Hard, full of explosions, blood-'n-guts, adult dialogue, and often a brief risqué nude scene. Around 1994 the anime videos expanded into the major video mass-market chains and became accessible to the general public, which tends to assume automatically that all animated cartoons are safe for children. This resulted in the necessity for warning advisories on the video boxes such as "Contains violence and nudity;" "Contains brief nudity and mature situations. Parental discretion advised;" and, "Recommended for Mature Viewers." But these did not yet include explicit sexual titles."

"Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you; they make you perfect. It's not real life."

"People want to watch whatever video they want to watch whenever they want to watch."

"I make videos."

"As one industry insider argued, "Saving Private Ryan suffers on [video] cassette. If you see it at home, you are by no means as impressed with it as you were in the movie theater. And Shakespeare in Love is a more intimate picture, it plays well on cassette. It may actually be enhanced by watching it at home."" In response, Dreamworks' marketing chief, Terry Press countered: "That goes to a larger issue. You're a member of the Motion Picture Academy, not the television video academy. These movies are meant to be seen in movie theaters, all of them. They're not meant to be stopped and started and paused when the phone rings or to feed the dog.""

"When I started in video I was one of two or three dozen video artists in 1970. And now, to paraphrase Andy Warhol, everyone's a video artist. Video, through your cellphone and camcorder, has become a form of speech, and speech is not James Joyce. It's great, and to be celebrated, but it has to find its own level."

"Blockbuster’s early value proposition when it opened its first store 25 years ago was relatively revolutionary, as it provided consumers local access to thousands of movie titles all in one place. It was by no means the first video rental company, but it achieved scale in a way no one else did, using its vast reach to dominate the video rental landscape and drive hundreds of local mom-and-pop video stores out of business. For many, Blockbuster provided the convenience of a one-stop shop for nearly any video title one would hope to watch. But over the years, viewers and viewing habits have changed in a way that made Blockbuster less relevant. It’s no longer enough to provide users with a way to get content from a store down the street; nowadays, they want access to that content in their living rooms. At first the mail, and then online video gave them that access."

"Every day, there's another story about fiber-optic technology, 500 channels, video on demand,' says Greg Fairbanks, (Blockbuster's) chief financial officer. Those developments may someday allow viewers to choose from hundreds of movies that would be delivered to TVs over cable or phone lines at any time. That could eliminate the need for a trip to the video store — and, to hear some tell it, eliminate Blockbuster. 'But those stories just complicate our story."

"Prior to tape recording technology, most television programs were broadcast live with no recording or archiving. Film was used for some events and broadcasts, but it was expensive. This fundamentally changed the approach of television stations, enabling them to record shows, and also to archive and re-broadcast them as repeats. However, VCRs also shook up the entertainment industry in other ways. Actors and writers went on strike in 1985 over the percentage paid to them for work released on video. VCRs were also blamed for reducing movie theatre attendance and putting a damper on box-office takings over the 1985 summer season."

"In 1981, only 3% of Australian households (or 150,000 homes) had a VCR. That number rose quickly, and by 1993 80% of Australian households (4.5 million homes) had a VCR. One reason for the rapid uptake was the dramatic drop in price of VCR technology. In 1976, the average price of a VCR was A$4,684 (A$8,838 in today’s dollars). By 1993, the average price was less than 10% of the 1976 price, at A$446 (A$842 in today’s money). The number of movies available also skyrocketed, from a measly two films in 1978 to 33,000 titles in 1993."

"Countries which do not have the facilities and resources to produce films for theatrical release are using video format to reach their audiences. As shown in Table 6, Nigeria–with an average production of 1,000 movies per year –is the third largest producer in terms of volume. As a result of new technology and video production, the emergence of new film producers, such as Mauritius, has been possible. While the country did not produce any feature films before 2009, Mauritius increased its production from 19 to 30 films between 2010 and 2011."

"In June, 1699, Captain Savery exhibited a model of his engine before the Royal Society, and the experiments he made with it succeeded to their satisfaction. It consisted of a furnace and boiler B: from the latter, two pipes, provided with cocks C, proceeded to two steam vessels S, which had branch pipes from a descending main D, and also to a rising main pipe A: each pair of branch pipes had check] valves a, b to prevent the descent of the water raised by the condensation or by the force of steam. Only one vessel, S, is shown, the other being immediately behind it. One of the steam vessels being filled with steam, condensation was produced by projecting cold water, from a small cistern E, against the vessel; and into the partial vacuum made by that means, the water, by the pressure of the atmosphere, was forced up the descending main D, from a depth of about twenty feet; and on the steam being let into the vessels again, the valve b closed, and prevented the descent of the water, while the steam having acquired force in the boiler, its pressure caused the water to raise the valve a, and ascend to a height proportional to the excess of the elastic force of the steam above the pressure of the air."

"About the year 1761, or 1762, I tried some experiments on the force of steam in a Papin's digester, and formed a species of steam-engine by fixing upon it a syringe, one-third of an inch diameter, with a solid piston, and furnished also with a cock to admit the steam from the digester, or shut it off at pleasure, as well as to open a communication from the inside of the syringe to the open air, by which the steam contained in the syringe might escape. When the communication between the digester and syringe was opened, the steam entered the syringe, and by its action upon the piston raised a considerable weight (15 lbs.) with which it was loaded. When this was raised as high as was thought proper, the communication with the digester was shut, and that with the atmosphere opened; the steam then made its escape, and the weight descended. The operations were repeated, and, though in this experiment the cock was turned by hand, it was easy to see how it could be done by the machine itself, and to make it work with perfect regularity. But I soon relinquished the idea of constructing an engine upon its principle, from being sensible it would be liable to some of the objections against Savery's engine, viz., the danger of bursting the boiler, and the difficulty of making the joints tight, and also that a great part of the power of the steam would be lost, because no vacuum was formed to assist the descent of the piston. I, however, described this engine in the fourth article of the specification of my patent of 1769; and again in the specification of another patent in the year 1784, together with a mode of applying it to the moving of wheel-carriages."

"When once the idea of the separate condensation was started, all these improvements followed as corollaries in quick succession, so that in the course of one or two days the invention was thus far complete in my mind, and I immediately set about an experiment to verify it practically."

"The first machine of Papin was very similar to the gunpowder-engine... of Huyghens. In place of gunpowder, a small quantity of water is placed at the bottom of the cylinder, A; a fire is built beneath it, "the bottom being made of very thin metal," and the steam formed soon raises the piston, B, to the top where a latch, E, engaging a notch in latch engaging the piston rod, H, holds it up until it is desired that it shall drop. The fire being removed, the steam condenses, and a vacuum is formed below the piston, and the latch, E, being disengaged, the piston is driven down by the superincumbent atmosphere and raises the weight which has been, meantime, attached to a rope... passing from the piston rod over pulleys... The machine had a cylinder two and a half inches in diameter, and raised 60 pounds once a minute; and Papin calculated that a machine of a little more than two feet diameter of cylinder and of four feet stroke would raise 8,000 pounds four feet per minute—i.e., that it would yield about one horse-power."

"Should the engine, to the apprehension of some, seem intricate and difficult to be worked, after all the description I have given of it in this book, yet I can, and do assure them, that the attending and working the engine is so far from being so, that it is familiar and easy to be learned by those of the meanest capacity, in a very little time; insomuch that I have boys of thirteen or fourteen years of age, who now attend and work it to perfection, and were taught to do it in a few days; and I have known some learn to work the engine in half an hour. We have a proverb, that interest never lies; and I am assured that you gentlemen of the mines and collieries, when you have once made this engine familiar in your works, and to yourselves and servants; not only the profit, but abundance of other advantages and conveniences which you will find to attend your works in the use thereof, will create in you a favourable opinion of the labours of Your real Friend and humble Servant, THOMAS SAVERY"

"I only just hint this to show what use this engine may be put to in working of mills, especially where coals are cheap. I have only this to urge, that water in its fall from any determinate height, has simply a force answerable and equal to the force that raises it."

"Amongst the several Engines which have been contriv'd for the raising of Water for the Supply of Houses and Gardens, none has been more justly surprising, than that for the raising of Water by Fire; the particular Contrivance and sole Invention of a Gentleman, with whom I had the Honour long since to be well acquainted; I mean, the ingenious Captain Savery, sometime since deceased, but then a most noted engineer, and one of the Commissioners of the Sick and Wounded. ...It was a considerable Time before this curious Person, who has been so great an Honour to his Country, could, (as he himself tells us) bring this his Design to Perfection, on account of the Aukwardness of the Workmen, who were necessarily to be imploy'd in the Affair; but at last he conquer'd all Difficulties, and procur'd a Recommendation of it from the Royal Society, in Transac. No. 252. and soon after, a Patent from the Crown, for the sole making this Engine; And I have heard him say my self, that the very first Time he play'd it, it was in a Potter's House at Lambeth, where, tho' it was a small Engine, yet it forc'd its Way thro' the Roof, and struck up the Tiles in a Manner that Surpris'd all the Spectators."

"I have endeavoured to attain this end (viz. the production of a vacuum in the cylinder) in another way. As water has the property of elasticity, when converted into steam by heat, and afterwards of being so completely recondensed by cold, that there does not remain the least appearance of this elasticity, I have thought that it would not be difficult to work machines in which, by means of a moderate heat and at a small cost, water might produce that perfect vacuum which has vainly been sought by means of gunpowder."

"Turning a small surface of water into vapour by fire, applied to the bottom of the cylinder that contains it; which vapour forces up the plug (or piston) in the cylinder to a considerable height, and which, as the vapour condenses, (as the water cools when taken from the fire,) descends again by air's pressure, and is applied to raise water out of the mine."

"What I say here is not to give room for believing, that Mr. Savery, who has since published this invention at London, is not actually the inventor. I do not doubt that the same thought may have occurred to him, as well as to others, without having learnt it elsewhere."

"My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior..."

"If the Steam Engine be the most powerful instrument in the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world, it operates, at the same time, as a powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilization. ...If ...we are now met to consider of placing a monument to the memory of Mr. Watt beside the monuments of those who fell in the splendid victories of the last war, let it not be said that there is no connexion between the services of this modest and unobtrusive benefactor of his country, and the triumphs of the heroes which those monuments are destined to commemorate. ...It has been often said, that many of the great discoveries in science are due to accident; but it was well remarked by [Humphry Davy]... that this cannot be the case with the principal discovery of Mr. Watt. ... Again, it has frequently happened that those philosophers, who have made brilliant and useful discoveries... have only been able to turn their discoveries to the purpose of averting evils threatening, and often destroying, the precarious tenure of human existence. Thus Franklin disarmed the thunderbolt, and conducted it innocuous through our buildings, and close to our fire-sides—thus Jenner stripped a loathsome and destructive disease of its virulence, and rendered it harmless of devastation—thus [Davy]... sent the safety lamp into our mines to save... their useful inhabitants from the awful explosion of the fire damp. But the discovery of Mr. Watt went further: he subdued and regulated the most terrific power in the universe,—that power which, by the joint operation of pressure and heat, probably produces those tremendous convulsions of the earth, which in a moment subvert whole cities, and almost change the face of the inhabited globe. This apparently ungovernable power Mr. Watt reduced to a state of such perfect organization and discipline... that it may now be safely manœuvred and brought into irresistible action—irresistible, but still regulated, measured, and ascertained—or lulled into the most complete and secure repose, at the will of man, and under the guidance of his feeble hand. Thus one man directs it into the bowels of the earth, to tear asunder its very elements, and bring to light its hidden treasures; another places it upon the surface of the waters, to control the winds of heaven, to stem the tides, to check the currents, and defy the waves of the ocean; a third, perhaps and a fourth, are destined to apply this mighty power to other purposes, still unthought of and unsuspected, but leading to consequences, possibly not less important than those which it has already produced. ... those benefits, conferred by Mr. Watt on the whole civilized world, have been most experienced by his own country, which owes a tribute of national gratitude to a man, who has thus honoured her by his genius, and promoted her well being by his discoveries."

"Dr. Denys Papin, a native of Blois, a man of great ingenuity, and of considerable acquirements as a philosopher, is considered by his countrymen to be the true inventor of the Steam Engine: a claim strongly contested by some English authors of eminence who have written on the subject,—but on grounds which appear to have been taken from very erroneous and prejudiced statements. It is due to Papin, to state, that no one, whose labours have produced so many important results, has in his writings shewn so little of the vanity and absurd enthusiasm proverbially characteristic of an inventor."

"Present day knowledge of both the theory and the technique of steam engines has justified Watt in the principles which he laid down, which were that the greater the steam pressure and range of expansion, the greater will be the work obtained from a given weight of steam, and that the cylinder should be kept as hot as the steam which enters it. The main development of the steam engine since his time has consisted in an extension of the range of expansion and in an ever increasing degree of compounding. The separation of the condenser from the cylinder by Watt was followed by the division of the expansion into stages in separate cylinders, finally into four stages in the highest development of the reciprocating engine. The steam turbine carries this subdivision still further, the number of stages included in a reaction turbine of high efficiency being commonly sixty or more."

"A blacksmith, Thomas Newcomen, in collaboration with a plumber, John Calley, produced the first commercially successful machine for "raising water by fire." Newcomen could not have based his design on prevailing scientific theory, White argued, because his engine relied on the dissolution of air in steam, and "scientists in his day were not aware that air dissolves in water." Evidently "the mastery of steam power" was a product of empirical science and was "not influenced by Galilean science.""

"The industrial revolution was well underway before the steam-engine came into use for driving machinery. Only two prime-movers—the water wheel and the windmill—were widely available, and with very few exceptions these yielded no more than 10 h.p. and often less."

"Newcomen's invention was radically different from that of Savery or any other single person. Papin invented the cylinder and piston as a means for transforming energy into motion. At first he used the explosive force of gunpowder, and later the use of the expansive force of steam, to raise the piston, and then by removing the fire to cause it to fall again. He made no further use of this principle. Savery discovered that the sudden condensation of steam made a vacuum that he utilized to draw up water. His pumps were actually used to drain mines, but were never satisfactory. They had to be placed within the mine to be drained, not over forty feet from the bottom, and then could be used to force up water an additional height of perhaps 100 feet. Beyond this the process must be repeated. It will be noticed that the water to be forced came into direct contact with the steam, which was contained in a solid vessel. In addition tremendous pressures were necessary: as high as 1,200 pounds per square inch were secured, and with the materials for construction at hand frequent and disastrous explosions were the result. Newcomen used Papin's cylinder and piston, and Savery's principle of the condensation of steam to produce a vacuum. But unlike Papin he used the expansive force of steam to do his work, and unlike Savery he used a cylinder and piston actuated by alternate expansion and condensation of steam to transform heat into mechanical motion."

"Iron and heat are, as we know, the supporters, the bases, of the mechanic arts. It is doubtful if there be in England a single industrial establishment of which the existence does not depend on the use of these agents, and which does not freely employ them. To take away to-day from England her steam-engines would be to take away at the same time her coal and iron. It would be to dry up all her sources of wealth, to ruin all on which her prosperity depends, in short, to annihilate that colossal power. The destruction of her navy, which she considers her strongest defence, would perhaps be less fatal."

"At first [Newcomen] made a double cylinder, using the space between for condensing water. This was not very satisfactory. The vacuum was secured very slowly and imperfectly. In 1711 they attempted to erect an engine for draining a mine, but failed. The next year they succeeded... but it was slow and ineffective. To operate it, required two men and a boy. The boy's work was to alternately open and close the valves to the condensing water and to the boiler. One day the engine made two or three motions quickly and powerfully. Newcomen immediately examined the cylinder and found a small hole, through which a small jet from the water that was on top of the piston to make it steam tight, was spurting into the cylinder. He appreciated the significance... [and] dispensed with the outer water jacket and injected the water for condensation, through a small pipe in the bottom of the cylinder. It... increased the speed of the engine from eight to fifteen strokes a minute, besides getting the advantage of a good vacuum. In 1713 a pump was erected in , and the boy who was hired to open and shut the valves, in an effort to make his work easier, rigged up a contrivance of strings and levers that operated the valves from the motion of the working beam over head. This made the engine automatic and marked another stage in its evolution. This boy, Humphrey Potter... This valve motion was afterward improved by in 1718. This engine... continued to be until the days of Watt..."

"Modern industry is stated by some writers to have begun in 1738 when brought out a . Others place the period as between 1750 and 1800, when the and steam engine came into being. It was marked by the development of labor-saving machinery. It was brought about by the change from handicraft to manufacture."

"In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even the Principia, as Newton, with characteristic modesty entitled his great work, is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy, and no more an ultimate work than Watt's steam-engine, or Arkwright's spinning-machine."

"In essence, it [the report] says the world economy is breaking down and a continuation of current trends will lead to global chaos. . . . Double locks, armed guards and the fear of kidnapping and assassination are the new rewards for achievement almost everywhere ... War is often thought of in terms of military conflict or even annihilation. But there is a growing awareness that an equal danger might be chaos—as a result of mass hunger, economic disaster, environmental catastrophies and terrorism."

"To the angel of the congregation in Philadelphia write: These are the things he says who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens so that no one will shut and shuts so that no one opens."

"LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment."

"In brief, on net balance, machines, technological improvements, economies and efficiency do not throw men out of work."