Today in History: April 2

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Sir Robert Watson-Watt was awarded a patent on this date in 1935 for a radio device to detect and locate a flying aircraft. The term RADAR was not coined until five years later by the U.S. Navy as the acronym for “RAdio Detection And Ranging,” but this was the first patent for a radar device.

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“2001: A Space Odyssey,” the film directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, made its world premiere at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC, on this date in 1968. The title sequence (below the fold):
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Coloring Outside

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

(A re-run while I have a staring contest with my poor cell phone.)

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For those with synesthesia, the world seems no more interconnected than they assume it always is for the rest of us, until the person with the condition casually mentions how lively and bright blue the letter K always is to a playmate, who then reacts in a baffled way.

It is a condition that an unknown number of people have, but it is a condition to which the modifier “suffers” can not be added, because it does not often have negative effects on an individual’s life. (For some, it must have negative effects, just as any condition might.) It is not known how many people have or might have some form of synesthesia because not many people take the time or are offered the opportunity to describe the way they perceive how they perceive the things they perceive.
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Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Unveils PineApple, an Apple Competitor

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

SAN FRANCISCO—Following Friday’s unveiling of the much un-anticipated PineApple, a bemused tech press is left scratching its head over Steve Wozniak’s next big idea.

Wozniak, who co-founded tech giant Apple in a garage along with his pal Steve Jobs, is going head-to-head with his old company with his new startup, dubbed PineApple. Apple was named after Newton’s apple, which disrupted his thought process and led to his development of the theory of gravity. PineApple is a fruit of a different color, its spiky exterior giving no hint of the sweetness within.
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