Portal #12 Gizmo Widget Gadget

Top Mac Desktop Widgets

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first there was “gadget”

francaise- then “gizmo” to quirk

you to “widget’s” way!

noun: widget; plural noun: widgets
a small gadget or mechanical device, especially one whose name is unknown or unspecified.
Computing:
an application, or a component of an interface, that enables a user to perform a function or access a service.

(reached its heaviest use in the 1980’s)

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noun: gizmo; plural noun: gizmos;
a gadget, especially one whose name the speaker does not know or cannot recall.
“the latest multimedia gizmo”
Origin
1940s (originally US): of unknown origin.
(still reaching its heaviest use in 2016)

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noun: gadget; plural noun: gadgets
a small mechanical device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.
“a state-of-the-art kitchen with every conceivable gadget”
synonyms:    appliance, apparatus, instrument, implement, tool, utensil, contrivance, contraption, machine, mechanism, device, labor-saving device, convenience, invention; More
informal gizmo, widget
Origin: French
 (19th century nautical use “gagee” or tool)

(heaviest use: 1950’s)

 

Portal #11 This is God (Otis Redding) coming on stage here…

It was when he agreed to drive his friend Johnny Jenkins to a recording session at Stax Studios in Memphis that his life changed. Jenkins’s session fell flat, and Redding convinced the producers to let him have a turn. He sang “These Arms of Mine.” Jim Stewart, the studio chief, said: “There was something different about [the ballad]. He really poured his soul into it.” The song was released in 1962 and sold more than 800,000 copies.

Otis Redding recorded six albums during the 1960s. He became so successful that he bought a 300-acre ranch in Georgia and named it “Mr. Pitiful” after one of his ballads. He owned 200 suits and 400 pairs of shoes and when he performed at the Monterey Pop Festival during the Summer of Love (1967), Janis Joplin introduced him by saying, “This is God that’s coming on stage here.”

He wrote one of his most famous songs, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” after listening to the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He added a distinctive whistle at the end. Three days after recording the song, Otis Redding died (1967) when his plane crashed outside Madison, Wisconsin. He was 26 years old. Some 4,500 people came to his funeral. “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was released after his death and sold over a million copies.

Portal #11 Putting David in his place

It was on this day in 1504 that Michelangelo unveiled his sculpture David. The project was first imagined more than 30 years earlier, in 1463, when the sculptor Agostino di Duccio accepted a commission to sculpt a biblical figure for one of the buttresses of the Santa Maria del Fiore, a cathedral in Florence. Duccio was given a block of marble more than 19 feet high, but he gave up after a rough attempt at the feet and legs. The commission was passed to another sculptor, Antonio Rossellino, who also gave up.

The piece was forgotten for a while, and the hunk of marble sat in a courtyard until 1501, when the Church authorities revived their project. It was about that time that they started referring to the sculpture as David. The Church settled on awarding the commission to 26-year-old Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. Michelangelo was undaunted by the huge piece of marble, even though it had the mistakes of the two previous sculptors already carved into it. He began sculpting in the fall of 1501 and finished less than two years later, in the summer of 1503. A group of artists — including Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Leonardo da Vinci — assembled to decide where to move the statue, since the idea of using it as a buttress for the cathedral seemed less practical now that the marble was weakened from years of exposure to the elements, and because the statue was 17 feet tall and weighed several tons. It took a huge effort to move David to its new location outside the Palazzo della Signoria. The diarist Luca Landucci wrote about the David, which he called ‘the giant,’ in his diary: “During the night stones were thrown at the giant to injure it, therefore it was necessary to keep watch over it. It went very slowly, being bound in an erect position, and suspended so that it did not touch the ground with its feet. There were immensely strong beams, constructed with great skill; and it took four days to reach the Piazza […] It was moved along by more than 40 men. Beneath it there were 14 greased beams, which were changed from hand to hand; and they labored till the 8th July, 1504, to place it on the ringhiera.”Duccio,Rossellino,Michelangelo

Portal #10 Portal to Invention

world community

pushes its oceans around-

enhances progress

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Philo T Farnsworth
continued to refine his technology. But he was not the only inventor who had been working on electronic television, and the powerful RCA (Radio Corp of America) tried to claim that its own chief engineer, a Russian-born scientist with a Ph.D., had invented it. The patent battle lasted many years, and the key piece of evidence to determine who had invented the television first turned out to be the teenage Farnsworth’s old sketches, which had been kept all that time by his high school chemistry teacher. The court sided with Farnsworth, but even though he had legally won, RCA’s publicity totally overshadowed his, and he never made much money on his patents. He was actually ambivalent about television, which he thought was generally a waste of time.

Farnsworth died of pneumonia in 1971. His final years had been marred by alcohol abuse and debt, and he died virtually unknown. The average television set sold that same year included about 100 items that had been first patented by Farnsworth.

Portal #9 In the Now

Orleans, Cape Cod

when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.

“This Shining Moment in the Now” by David Budbill from While We’ve Still Got Feet. © Copper Canyon Press, 2012.

Portal #8 Trust

head-on   eye-level   all

embracing look from inner space

trust’s own child divine

Portal #7 Out of racism

Flying on Cape Cod

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black toes-white toes throw

 the sand out of  hearts and souls-

into sea to change!

Portal 6: Movie Star Upcoming

Shit-Eating Grin

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movie-maker Mom

plus Dad: tech www ex-

plorer / media!

Portal to Imagination 5

Koessler’s illustration

Is it a white cat

with spilled black ink or a sev-

en legged shadow?

Portals 4

illustrator: Walter Koessler

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Always wanted to

be a black bird a-top a

raccoon-donkey smile!

Not to worry: Walter promised to name his next bird: Jeanne