Tag Archives: telecommunications

Memories from the Microphone

Posted on May 19, 2025 by smellincoffee

Memories from the Microphone is a history of baseball broadcasting that begins with primitive radio and follows broadcasting into the maturation of radio and television networks. In this, it’s also a partial history of how radio and television developed as … Continue reading →

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Hello, Everybody!

Posted on November 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a host of technologies released that utterly transformed society, and few as dramatic as radio. Hello, Everybody! is an engaging history of the early decades of radio, filled with some dramatic, unbelievable … Continue reading →

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The Way to Go

Posted on March 6, 2024 by smellincoffee

Longtime readers here know that I love reading about transportation, and not just Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Ships, horses, bicycles — if it moves, I’ll follow and read books about it happily. A few years ago I delighted in the … Continue reading →

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The Network

Posted on February 11, 2021 by smellincoffee

The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age© 2015 Scottt Woolley280 pages Few things fascinate me as much as cities in the United States and Europe, circa 1880 – 1930: they were being remade … Continue reading →

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Exploding the Phone

Posted on May 25, 2018 by smellincoffee

Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell© Phil Lapsley 2013416 pages WANTED HARVARD MIT Fine Arts no. 13 notebook. (121 pages) & 40 page reply K.K. & C.R. plus 2,800; battery; m.f. … Continue reading →

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Infrastructure: A Field Guide

Posted on September 14, 2017 by smellincoffee

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape© 1999, 2014 Brian Hayes544 pages Here at last is a book for those of us who constantly gaze out the car window at the fixtures on utility poles, or drums mounted in … Continue reading →

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This week: Christmas reads, science in the city, and social telegraphy

Posted on December 24, 2013 by smellincoffee

Dear readers:             A blessed Yuletide and a merry Christmas to those of you in the northern hemisphere, as we celebrate the rebirth of the Sun – or the birth of the Son, if you prefer. The library is closing … Continue reading →

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