Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Without rubber and another kind of tree resin called gutta-percha, it would not have been possible to wire the world. Early telegraph lines were just naked conductors strung from pole to pole, but this worked poorly, especially in wet conditions, so some kind of flexible but durable insulation was needed. After much trial and error, rubber became t... See more
Wired • Mother Earth Mother Board
The Collected Works of Nicolai Gogol (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)
amazon.com
Until artificial rubber was invented by the colony-impaired Germans, no modern economy could exist without the natural stuff. All of the important powers had tropical colonies where rubber was produced. For the Netherlands, it was Indonesia; for France, it was Indochina; for the British, it was what they then called Malaya, as well as many other pl... See more
Wired • Mother Earth Mother Board
With this idea in mind, Fry went back to work the next week and began developing a solution to his bookmark problem. As luck would have it, Fry happened to be working at the perfect company. He was an employee at 3M and one of his co-workers, Spencer Silver, was an adhesives specialist.
James Clear • Smart People Should Create Things
The transcendence of surface-hugging technologies in transportation had a direct analogue in communication. Since 1844, when Samuel Morse had tapped out the question WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT in the world’s first telegram, wires had been a vital instrument of politics. Cables crossed the seas, acting as the nervous systems of large empires. The British
... See more