Observe The Banana

Today BBC News online had an interesting article on the history of the use of SOS as a call for help.
Early ships had no radio communication options and relied on flags, flares or signal lights to communicate with other ships. In a disaster situation ships were usually had to fend for themselves. When the radio was invented it was a great help, allowing communication over the horizon to other ships or land, and could be used to call for help in disasters. The early radio system could not modulate a voice signal and instead just produced a steady carrier wave than could only switched on or off, so morse code was used in a similar way to land based telegraph systems. In fact most ship radio operators came straight from land telegraph systems. The letters “CQ” were used to first call for attention when beginning a transmission. (as is still the case with HAM radio operators using morse code). In cases of emergency operators added a D and used “CQD”, which did not mean “come quick disaster” as some imagined, just “attention, disaster”. The problem was that in all the noise the D could easily be missed, and as “CQ” calls were so common many CQD calls were just missed. In 1906 the international telegraphy community got together to try to solve the problem in some way that was both internationaly acceptable, and impossible to mistake. The Germans suggested “SOE” (dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot) which was considered, but it was feared the single dot for the E could be too easily missed. Eventually the conference agreed upon “SOS” (dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot) which is hard to mistake for anything else. Interestingly enough, since the pattern was repeated without a pause it can just as easily be read as IJS, SMB, or VTB. SOS became the official call for assistance on July 1, 1908. Apparently the expressions “Save our Souls” or “Save Our Ship” are really just “backronyms” constructed later.
“It is believed the first ship to have sent out an SOS signal was the American steamer Arapahoe in 1909. When the Titanic was sinking in 1912, its operator first sent out CQD and then SOS, alternating. CQD persisted, particularly among British operators, for many years.”

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Today while browsing the very fun and informative retro pop culture site Duck Soup Retro I discovered the world of TV Lamps. Apparently when TV’s started getting popular in homes in the 50’s there was concern that watching TV in a dark room would cause eye damage, so the TV lamp was born. These decorative lamps were made to sit on top of the TV to provide some ambient light in the room (long before the Phillips Ambilight TV) and came in a wide variety of styles. These were probably purchased for their decorative value as much as for health concerns. The cool one at Duck Soup includes a painted mountain scene behind what appears to be a small fish tank. Upon some further searching I found www.tvlamps.net which includes more historical information and many photographs of a wide variety of TV lamps.

I recently learned some fun facts about Niagara falls that I had not known. First of all, as amazing as it appears now, apparently the current flow of water over the falls is a mere fraction of what was witnessed by the first europeans to discover the falls. Between 50% and 75% of the flow is now diverted through huge tunnels to hyrdoelectric plants. Second, the falls are slowing moving upriver due to erosion. They used to recede an average of 3 ft per year until the major diversion was done in the 1950’s to produce electricity. They now recede around 1 ft per ten years. Learn more at Wikipedia.