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.

To a wetter point

Since I did a blog on the humble pencil it’s only fair that I do one on the design and history of the pen as well, the word pen means feather in Latin and this makes since because the very first pens where simply large bird feathers dipped in the ink. This large bird feather was called the quill and was used for a very long time used through the 1800s in fact. It’s important to note that many Asian countries never used the quill they instead used a bamboo stick sharpened to a very fine point. Some say that Galileo Galilei designed the first ballpoint pen but this has yet to be accepted. The very first ballpoint pen patent was in 188 by a man named Kayleigh Loud who was trying to make a pen that would write on tanned leather. Although it was patented in 1888 the ball point pen didn’t become prominent until the early 20th century when mass production and precision machining made it possible to produce the pens in quantity. Even though ball points are super popular the fountain pen is still In use today. Some people even keep a quill on their desks as a decoration and perhaps as a reminder to how much we’ve advanced even in the simple things like a pen.