[geeks] D'OH!

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Sunday, February 3, 2002 at 19:47:45 (-0600), Bill Bradford wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] D'OH!
>
> On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 07:46:16PM -0600, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > And realvideo or shockwave of the event:
> > http://www.theelectricchair.com/videos.htm
> > Second down on the left.
> 
> More details:
> 
> http://www.roadsideamerica.com/pet/topsy.html
> 
> He definitely fried an elephant.

No, not Edison.  If  you read the text you'll see that it was owners of
the park who did that:

     All right, said Thompson and Dundy. Coney Island has a powerful
     electrical plant ? we'll FRY Topsy! But to pull it off, they needed
     top-shelf technical support. And that's where Thomas Edison came
     in.

The rest of the text leaves out a few pertinent facts, such as the fact
that the first execution by electrocution was three years earlier, of a
convicted axe murderer, William Kemmler, and that the idea of
electrocution as a form of execution was very forefront in the public's
mind at the time.

In fact given that at the time only Westinghouse was manufacturing
serious alternating current generators under Tesla's patents.....  :-)
 
Edison can't even be credited with the idea of using electrocution to
execute criminals (animal or human), though he did do pretty much
everything in his power at the time to help the cause.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods at acm.org>;  <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;  <woods at robohack.ca>
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