Its it a dagger or is it a sword or is it a knife

So I’ve always wondered if the sword or dagger or knife came first so I figured it would make a great blog to find out. First was the knife the knife is the very first tool ever created by man. The dagger was slightly longer and developed alongside the battle axe. Like the battle axe the dagger was a formed by specializing the knife into a tool designed specifically for killing humans. The main difference between a knife and dagger is that a knife is a single edged cutting tool where as the dagger is a doubled edged weapon designed primarily for stabbing. The sword didn’t develop until after the invention of the metal known as bronze. The sword is a weapon that developed slowly from the lessons learned from the dagger. One of the biggest differences between swords and its other bladed counterparts is that swords are the only blades designed for military use only. Also the sword is very difficult to conceal and thus the

Toilets you know them but do you really know them

Toilet design is not something that most would want to make a blog on but you know what I like the odd stuff so off to Google let’s lift up the seat on the toilets history. The toilet has come a very long way since its first conception in Rome. The Romans simply used public benches with holes that had water running underneath them. The toilet disappeared for centuries and finally made an appearance in the form of a bucket in the late middle ages. The flushing toilet wasn’t conceived until the 1800s when a member of the royal court designed a toilet that had a dead drop with a simple valve. The only problem with this toilet was that the smell tended to creep back up to the bathroom and thus the toilet was still not completed. It wasn’t until later that the simple elbow was added that allowed a water barrier to form thus preventing the smell from reentering the bathroom.

CD DVD blue ray

The CD or compact disc has been with us since I can remember. Then again I’m only 20 but I wanted to know more about its design and where it came from the CD was not a spinoff of the record at all but actually a spin of the laserdisc. The laser disc was a record size silver disc that was created not to replace the cassette or record but instead to replace the VHS and was used for movies only. The compact disc was then developed from the knowledge learned from the laser disc. Phillips and sonly both designed the CD and thus began a revolution in digital technology. After the CD originally made for music only was created the technology was then used for data storage and thus CD-R , CD-WR, and CD-ROM. Sony was the first to use the disc for games and such the PS1 was the very first system to not use the cassettes as its storage. The CD finally developed into the DVD or Digital Video Disc which we used for movies and finally found the good replacement for the VHS. Once again Sony was the first to use the new format for use in video games. Today the Blue ray disc is the most modern disc based storage medium which beat out Hi-Def DVDs and as usual the Sony Playstation 3 is the only console to currently use the format.

Telephone calling

So yet another blog on a thing you take advantage of every day. The phone originally designed by Alexander Graham Bell has come a long way from its original design. First the telephone could only communicate through a line directly to another phone. The invention of the switch board in 1876 allowed for communication between many groups of phones and thus the telephone network was born the original telephones used a rotary dial to send electrical singles out in a specific sequence to produce a code for the switch board to read. Each single was assigned a number and the telephone number came of this. The modern day design of a phone only became possible after the invention of the chip. Not the potato chip but the microchip. The modern day phone takes many forms however the key principle of a keypad and two speakers still remains the same and thus our phone developed form a tube and dialer to what we know today.

Guitar

Guitar design had to of developed from somewhere. So I wondered where in the world it developed from and I went off to find out. The exact origin of the guitar is unknown but it is theorized that it was first created 3,300 years ago in Asia. This is based off of a stone carving found in India of a Hittite bard. The guitar first appears in the Europe after the crusades. Although the crusaders didn’t win in the sense they wanted to the amount of culture and technology they brought back from the Arab nations. The guitar in Europe slowly became its own unique design. The Spanish vihuela is considered one of the fathers of the modern guitar. It had six courses and resembled the shape of the modern guitar. The current design of the guitar varies greatly from the 10 string classical guitar to the 6 string electric guitar. This variety allows the guitar to be one of the most versatile instruments in the world today.

The controller of games

So yes I play way to many games so I figure why not blog about the control I use all the time. I wanted to find out where the design of the controller came from and how and developed from nothing. So of to Google I went again. The original controllers were designed to mirror the arcade boxes and thus usually consisted of 2 or three buttons and a joystick. After the crash of the video game industry in the 1980s the joystick style controller disappeared from the consoles controllers. The first controller design after the crash was that of the NES also known as the Famicom in Japan. It consisted of the first D-pad (Directional pad) and two other buttons. This basic controller developed into the N64 controller and the Playstation controller also devoted at a similar time. The joystick made its comeback during this time as well both the N64 and mid generation PS controllers had one or two. Another noticeable difference in this generation of controllers was the introduction of shoulder buttons or triggers. The modern controller developed from these controllers, but they too have their own unique features. The PS3 and Wii controllers both have motion sensors built into them. The PS3s is nowhere near as sensitive as the Wii’s but it does have it. Back in history there also have been several unique controllers such as the light gun the Wii’s crossbow controller, the guitar hero controller, and oh yes the old classic the breast controller. Yes they created a controller like that.

Speak up speakers

You ever wonder why the speakers look the way they do. Is there any reason that speakers are always that parabolic shape? Well once again I went off to Google to find out some answers. Believe It or not the shape isn’t just pretty to look at it is acutely designed to enhance the sound output of the speakers. See sound is a mechanical wave that travels through the air and the parabolic shape of the speakers directs this sound causing an effect called constructive interference. To put it in easier to understand terms the sound waves align perfectly with each other thus they build on top of each other building greater energy and thus greater sound. Another reason for the parabolic design is that the magnets have a much greater freedom to vibrate this also adds to the sound quality. So the shape of those speakers isn’t just for looks it serves a very important purpose.

Rifle

So I finally got to do some shooting the other day and I began to wonder about the design of the rifle I was shooting. Other than the inner workings the overall design of the rifle hasn’t changed since its first appearance in the late 1700s. The musket has been with us for longer but rifles didn’t appear until later. The Design consists of a long pip set in a stock with a trigger set behind a firing chamber and a butt plate on the end of the stock. I wondered if there were any changes ever going to be made too this design is there any way we could improve it. So I went off to Google once again. I found many newer designs that although follow many of the same principle have one very distinct difference. The firing chamber on the new rifle designs is set behind the trigger instead of in front. This might seem a minor change but it in reality makes a huge difference. By having the trigger in front of the firing chamber the recoil of the gun is directed straight back into your shoulder making it much easier to handle. Funny how just moving something can make such a huge difference.

Christmas tree

Well its Christmas time and so I have to blog about one of the most known symbols the Christmas tree. I went on to Google to find out what I could and boy there’s a lot more to the Christmas tree than you would think. Apparently the Christmas tree all started when a monk from Crediton, Devonshire went to Germany to teach the people about God. He used the symbol of the triangular fir tree to represent the holy trinity. The tree was then revered as a religious symbol among those people however they did not decorate them the tree itself was considered a symbol of Christianity in general and not Christmas in particular. In the 16th century Martin Luther decorated the Christmas tree with candles. By the mid 16th century German Christmas markets were selling everything from knife sharpeners and wax ornaments to hang on your Christmas tree. The Christmas tree started in Germany and then spread to England in the late 1700s. Finally the Christmas tree was brought to America by German immigrants in the 18th century and the slightly different England version of the tree was brought over by the British in the 19th century. Thus your humble Christmas Tree has had a long journey to become what it is today.

Control this

This one is about the thing that we all take advantage of everyday the television remote. I wondered who thought of the crazy thing in the first place and whether or not it was necessity or just plain laziness that was the source of its creation. Well I went to Google to hunt down the answer. First funny fact I found out was that the concept for the remote control acutely predates the TV itself. The TV specific remote however was credited in the 1950s in which one model used ultrasound frequencies to change the channels and to change the volume. When you would hit the button to take the action it would make a clicking sound and thus the remote control was forever known as the clicker. The ultrasound remote had one disadvantage though other high frequencies could also change the station. In one funny case a child’s play toy actually changed the TV station. The remote that we recognize today I was first seen in 1977 to accommodate the BBCs Teletext system. Today however the remote has evolved into the universal remote which can not only control our TVs but our kitchen bathroom and sometimes our fellow humans. Well maybe not our fellow humans but it’s a thought.