Although for long, many thought that Thomas Edison was the father of recorded sound, in 2008 it was discovered that somebody else had already succeeded in doing that almost 20 years early, on April 9, 1860.
Moron question of the day!
Is it Jesus rapping ?
No. Jesus was not a rapper, he was more into dubstep. It is a 10 second recording of a woman singing “Au Clair de la Lune” a french folksong from the 18th Century. It was discovered in an archive in Paris in 2008 by a group of American audio historians. Made on a phonautograph, which was invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville it ironically recorded sounds visually but did not play them back. So, the inventor of sound recording sadly never heard his own work…
Luckily clever scientists nowadays have been smart enough to deploy modern technology for unveiling a sound that had been in capture for almost 150 years! Enjoy!
Many sources report the first joke ever recorded to have been a Sumerian proverb ( now South Iraq). It is said to be more than 3900 years old.
Moron question of the day!
Was it a fart joke?
Actually,yes it was ! It goes like this: ‘‘ Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap,” . It also proves that humans have been immature at least since the invention of writing. Despite finding another source saying that the oldest joke in history originated in China around 5000 years ago, judging by the website I would not count on it too much. It was supposedly written on ceramic urns in the Bling-Bling Dynasty (which sounds like a joke itself).
‘Two silk worms were in an obstacle-course race. What was the result?
… A tie.”
Although it is hard to prove if this is the oldest joke judging by the website it must be ancient 😀 I added a video from a youtube channel called Vsauce. Check it out, this guy has some interesting things to say !
The first mammal ever to have been successfully cloned was Dolly the sheep. After years of work by Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute (and at the biotechnology company PPL) the sheep was born on July 5th 1996. She was born near Edinburgh, Scotland and lived until the age of 6 years. The interesting fact is that technically Dolly had 3 mothers.
Moron question of the day!
Was Dolly born after a foursome?
Nope. She is said to have had three mothers just because the egg and the DNA, which was used to create her was provided by two separate sheep, and the third one had to carry the embryo and eventually give birth to Dolly. The modern family one could say (somehow reminds me of Charlie Sheen :D). Now because I am not a scientist, I will not even try to explain the process of cloning, so for all the biology nerds out there click on the ‘nerd’ button > nerd. I can only tell you the end of the story. Dolly reached only half of the average life expectancy for a Finn Dorset (her breed), which is usually 12 years, and there have been many speculations about her having been born ‘old’ (genetically, not like Benjamin Button). However, the Roslin Institute denies this possibility because the cause of death was a form of lung cancer, which is very common amongst this sheep breed (especially if they live indoors, which Dolly had to because of security reasons). In addition, the health screening regularly performed by the doctors did not reveal any abnormalities, which could have been explained by advanced aging. But I think that 3 moms and 6 grannies definitely help keeping stress levels high enough to die early …
The first handheld mobile phone call was conducted on April 3, 1973 by Martin Cooper. It was a Motorola phone (yes if you have never heard of them that is a cell phone company) and Cooper called their biggest rivals at that time AT&T (wonder how they could receive the call judging by their service quality 39 years later) to basically rub it into their faces. This is also where trolling started 😀
Moron question of the day!
Is Cooper just a trimmed Santa Claus during summer ?
Although the first computer games appeared already in the 1950s it was not until 1972 that the first video game console, which could be connected to the TV arrived. It was called the Magnavox Odyssey, invented by Ralph H. Baer. Unfortunately, the gaming machine was a flop selling only 300 000 units because of bad marketing and the belief that you could only use it on a Magnavox TV. Realizing the potential of this idea ‘Atari’ later that year released Pong, the mother of all games. As this primitive tennis imitation was based on one of the games in the Magnavox console, they filed a lawsuit against Atari, however the dispute was settled in a fairly peaceful way.
Moron question of the day!
Why didn’t Apple sue Atari?They invented everything!
As I am lazy again today I will just put a video of an old advertisement of the console. Enjoy and always remember, without this console you would have a girlfriend and a social life right now 😉
Although steam powered modified bicycles resembling a motorcycle (which would shake your bones till it hurt) emerged in the late 1800s it was not until 1885 that the first gas fuelled bike as we know it cruised down the road. It was called ‘Daimler Reitwagen’ and was invented by two names (German as so many in the history of movement), which are more known in the car industry nowadays – Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach.
Moron question of the day!
Wasn’t the bicycle invented after the motorcycle?
Nope. The first motorcycle was basically an edited bicycle. Daimler was a technical manager at an orphanage in Bruderhausat, Germany where he befriended Maybach. Both strongly believed that the out of date steam engine should be replaced by a petroleum powered mechanism in the vehicle industry. While being the technical director of a gas company called ‘Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik’ Daimler with the help of Maybach worked on a new engine invented by Nicolaus Otto the owner of the company in 1876. It was the first ’Four-Stroke Internal-Combustion Engine’. The engine produced 130 revolutions per minute. Seeing that Otto was not interested in developing these low performance engines Daimler and Maybach decided to separate from the company and pursue their own dream of a high performance motor. After several years both inventors came out with a developed version, which was able to achieve 900 RPS. This was because of the fresh designed surface carburetor, which was a minor improvement because of vaporizing the petroleum fuel and mixing it with air allowed it to work faster. To test this invention both friends decided to use the engine on a wooden bike. Although some argue that this construction was not technically a ‘motorcycle’ because it had two small supporting wheels making it a four wheel vehicle, these were most probably only used for safety reasons when testing out the engine. Therefore, this can be called the first motorcycle ever made and one of the first self-propelled vehicles of all time. Even though the vehicle could generate a maximum speed of only 16kph (9mph) it was still one of the most important sparkles of genius in our transportation history.
As I am fairly tired and lazy today I will just post the first music video ever aired on MTV. Its a song by Buggles ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. Enjoy !
On August 6th 1991 the way we used and understood the internet changed forever. The first website as we know it was launched on the fresh invented World Wide Web.
Moron question of the day!
Isn’t the World Wide Web part of Facebook ?
Nope. The World Wide Web is a way of accessing information on the internet. Many people use both terms as synonyms, which is wrong, because the WWW makes up just a small proportion of the whole internet (see The Deep Web or Dark Net). So why are we ‘trapped’ in a small cornet of the much larger network of interconnected computers and mobile devices around the world? Because it is the most simple system even after 21 years have passed. The Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents, easy to explore with web browsers. It is easy to add content and provides relative safety for the average user. Originally the world wide web was proposed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee a computer scientist at CERN, the place where they make black holes and travel in time. He and his colleague a Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau proposed to use hypertext to link different sources or web of nodes in which users could browse at their will. So this was the first concept of creating a network for any computer and user to be able to browse within a simple interface by clicking on hyperlinks and being able to add content easily. I wanted to put up a screenshot of the website here but then found out that there is a better way. Although there is no original copy of the website an updated version of it can be viewed here – first website ever.
The site served to provide users with information of how to use and help developing the web.
This is the oldest surviving photograp ever taken. It was captured by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. As he could not draw well, he developed a fascination for lithography and started engraving forms and pictures, made transparent, onto stone and glass plates. After experimenting for 10 years this picture emerged.
Niépce himself called this method ‘Heliography’. He died only 7 years after his invention without any recognition. After travelling from hand to hand it was real value was appreciated by Harry Ransom who purchased it for the Gernsheim Collection. It was subsequently donated to The University of Texas at Austin by Helmu Gernsheim in 1963. It still rests in the university in its original frame.
I had seen this picture before I read about it a few times and I was completely convinced that there is a person in it, on the left side. Maybe I am just imagining it because of the millions of ‘duckfaces’ and mirror self portraits on facebook. But I like to think that it could be the inventor himself who snuck into the picture to finally get the credit he deserves after all.
For most people using the World Wide Web nowadays, youtube is one of the main ways of expressing themselves and consuming content of others. It has become the main centre of visual communication around the world. Regardless of what you want to watch, this is the place where you will find it. Although around 30% of videos account for 99% of views on the site it is still estimated that users upload an hour of video content every second. Yes I also thought that those other 70% must be junk then. However, if we look at the most viewed video on the site ever (‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber) or at the top ten most subscribed channels like ‘smosh’, ‘JennaMarbles’ or ‘nigahiga’ the collective selection of internet users seems like a disappointment. Do not get me wrong – Ray William Johnson videos cheer me up too and I love the ‘Simple Pickup’ guys. I just think that there should be a normal balance between home – made jokers and public intelligence influencing the interests and opinions of viewers. A video like this ,which deserves a post as for example should get at least more than 10 million views and a channel like TED should be in the top 10 of subscribed channels and not have 5 times less subscribers than ‘The Annoying Orange’. That is just my opinion and hopefully the new search rank in youtube will improve what we find.
Ok, now what was the first video ever uploaded on youtube?
Moron question of the day!
Was the first video on youtube black and white?
Nope. Youtube is not as old as your mom! The first video was uploaded on the site at 8.27 PM on Saturday April 23rd 2005, yes really it only started in 2005! It is called ‘Me at the zoo ‘and just shows the co-founder of the site Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo talking about the really, really, really long trunks of elephants.
Now do not be disappointed. This extremely boring video was just the beginning of a virtual universe where now you can find whatever you want. And if you are hungry for original and visually beautiful content there is always vimeo. (youtube is going to find and kill me for this :D).
Firstopedia 
