A classic children’s TV show that I remember, but had forgotten all about until someone sent me this vintage video.
A classic children’s TV show that I remember, but had forgotten all about until someone sent me this vintage video.
I almost forgot about this show, but I can still sing the theme song.
I’m glad a friend of mine shared this video on Twitter.
By Rosa Golijan
If it weren’t for Eugene J. Polley, flipping TV channels would be an exhausting and tedious undertaking. Polley, after all, invented the world’s first wireless TV remote. He died of natural causes on Sunday, at the age of 96.
According to a press release put out by Zenith — the company with which Polley started his 47-year engineering career in 1935 — the innovator earned 18 U.S. patents for his inventions, which include the “Flash-matic” remote control. This device, introduced in 1955, “used a flashlight-like device to activate photo cells on the television set to change channels.”
Because the remote shined visible light, TVs could be confused by other light sources. In spite of its quirkiness, the Flash-matic was a revolution, and the reason Polley was bestowed with humorous titles ranging from “the founding father of the couch potato” to “the czar of zapping” to “the beach boy of channel surfing.”
The Flash-Matic was followed by the Space Command — a “next-generation wireless TV remote based on ultrasonic technology” — which was developed by the late Dr. Robert Adler, a fellow Zenith engineer who built upon Polley’s invention. Of course, by the time the 1980s came around, ultrasonic remotes had given way to infrared (or IR) remotes. The most recent ones use radio frequency, so you don’t have to point them directly at anything.
Wireless remote controls, which were a luxury in their early days, are now a standard accompaniment to any TV, set-top box, DVD player, DVR, stereo, and just about any other home entertainment device you might encounter. All because of the work tracing back to one Eugene J. Polley.
So pause for a moment the next time you sit on the couch, idly surfing channels on a TV that’s 8 feet away, and think of the brilliant engineer who made your exquisite laziness possible.
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You’ll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.
If you watch TV’s Parks and Recreation, you probably know that Ron Swanson is one of the greatest characters ever to appear on television. Here he is drunk, infinitely so. On my screen, he’s currently been drunk and dancing for 842 seconds. (It has a timer).
I’m watching season 2 now, on Netflix (my girlfriend subscribes to Netflix, I use Blockbuster still). This episode should be good, it has guest star Louis CK…and Ron Swanson is a pirate for halloween.
Actor Karl Slover, best known for playing a Munchkin in the 1939 classic ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ passed away Tuesday. He was 93. You can see Slover playing the lead trumpet when the Munchkin mayor arrives in the land of Oz. According to the AP, the actor was born Karl Kosiczky in what is now the Czech Republic. He moved to the United States in his late 20s and joined a circus vaudeville group called the Singer Midgets; the group would later be cast as Munchkins. Over the years, Slover has made appearances at ‘Wizard of Oz’ reunions and fan festivals.
via Karl Slover Dead: ‘Wizard of Oz’ Munchkin Dies at 93 – The Moviefone Blog.
Watching this now. I’ve seen the first and second seasons, but I think there’s a third season out now, which I haven’t seen any of due to not having full cable…but I have Netflix streaming! My girlfriend hasn’t seen the show, so that’s why I’m re-watching episodes I’ve already seen.
Another awesome documentary I just watched streaming on Netflix.
Before the Civil War, preparing the dead for burial and funeral rites generally fell to friends and family members of the deceased. The 20th century saw the rise of the professional undertaker, a trend that changed American attitudes toward death and distanced grievers from their loved ones. This eye-opening film uncovers a growing movement advocating a return to a more traditional, personal approach to honoring the dead.
“Although television gets a bad rap for its association with inactivity, mindless snacking, and weight gain, there is an oft-overlooked upside to tuning into many of today’s popular programs: health education. “In 2004, just over half of top primetime shows featured health-related storylines. In 2010, about 80 percent of shows did,” says Sandra Buffington, director of the Hollywood, Health & Society (HHS) organization, which, through its partnerships with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the University of Southern California Annenberg Norman Lear Center, works with entertainment writers to responsibly portray health storylines on television and in film.
Fans are paying attention to the plots, which address everything from Asperger’s syndrome to cancer. “According to our research, more than two-thirds of viewers learn something about health from the shows they watch, and one-third of those viewers take action,” says Buffington, such as scheduling a doctor’s appointment to get their own symptoms checked out. Here, experts point out the most informative and inspiring health-related shows on the tube today, and why you should tune in — or add them to your Netflix queue.”
READ MORE via A Healthy Dose of Primetime Drama – EverydayHealth.com.
When Netflix started up more than 10 years ago, its sales pitch was pretty simple: Hey, subscribe to us, and we’ll mail you DVDs that you can then mail back to us without worrying about any late fees. But as the rental market moves toward online and on-demand models, Netflix’s iconic red envelopes may eventually become as antiquated as VHS tapes. Beefing up their streaming business, Netflix has predicted…
via Netflix Is Abandoning DVDs, Customers Who Prefer DVDs – MOVIE TALK on Yahoo! Movies.
I’ve been busy, if it’s not one thing it’s another, as they say. The biggest problem though, was that someone hacked the blog and screwed it up pretty good, and I didn’t have the time to sit down and fix it right away. Fortunately, I was finally able to take the time needed, and lucked upon finding out what the problem was and corrected it. Hooray. So now I should be able to post more often again.
South Park
Hells Kitchen
Watching documentary on History International about The Holy Grail.
Half Pint Brawlers on SpikeTV
Persons Unknown