[geeks] D'OH!

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Sunday, February 3, 2002 at 21:08:28 (-0600), Bill Bradford wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] D'OH!
>
> On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 10:04:29PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> > "Footage"?  The electrocution demonstrations of alternating current
> > happened in 1888 and 1889.  Though Edison did claim to have thought of
> > the kinetoscope in 1887, and though a model may have been built in 1889,
> > it's almost impossible for anyone to have any "footage" of any but the
> > fake kind of the electrocution demonstrations by Edison and Brown!
> 
> Uh, then whats in those links I posted earlier?  THe elephant electrocution
> *was* filmed, and it is on the net.

Indeed -- eleven years after Edison and Brown did their demonstrations
on dogs, calves, and a horse, ten years after the first execution by
electrocution (at least in the USA), and about six years after Edison
was actually in the business of manufacturing kinetiscopes (i.e. the
type of camera that probably took the film).

I've seen reprints of newspaper articles about the elephant before, but
I've never seen anyone before even try to suggest that Edison was
responsible for either suggesting its electrocution, or for doing it
himself, or even for having provided the equipment to do it (the latter
is possible -- even though by then Edison himself was thoroughly
disgusted with the use of electrocution, especially for humans).

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods at acm.org>;  <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;  <woods at robohack.ca>
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