You've really started something now...
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and,
whatever you hit,
call it the target.
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was
Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that
he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey.
Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph,
which could soon be found in thousands of American
homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
invented.
But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when
he invented the electric company.
Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the
simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity
through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity
back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends
it right back to the customer again.
This means that an electric company can sell a customer
the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never
get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine
their electricity closely.
In fact the last year any new electricity was generated
in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have been
merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much
free time to apply for rate increases.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
Here I sit, broken-hearted,
All logged in, but work unstarted.
First net.this and net.that,
And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
The boss comes by, and I play the game,
Then I turn back to net.flame.
Is there a cure (I need your views),
For someone trapped in net.news?
I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
"What's that thing?"
"Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument
we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't
grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four."
-- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
Snacktrek, n.:
The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of
constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something
new will have materialized.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives
the test first and the instruction afterward.
The people of Halifax invented the trampoline.
During the Victorian period the tripe-dressers of
Halifax stretched tripe across a
large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to
`tender and dress' it.
The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into
becoming the apparatus for a spectator sport.
The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium,
a device for castrating pigs during Sunday service.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
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