Schemes

The first handmade material that humans created to make into clothing was felt, which was made by intermeshing animal fibers under heat and pressure. Felt lacked the necessary durability, however, and the real textile breakthrough came later with weaving. Weaving is accomplished with a loom, a frame that holds vertical threads taut while the weaver interlaces a horizontal thread. The thread itself is obtained through spinning, in which animal or plant fibers are twisted together by hand or machine. The earliest evidence of weaving was discovered in 1962, in the town of Catalhoyuk, Turkey. A piece of carbonized cloth, it was found to date from 6500 B.C.E. It is unclear whether the cloth was made from flax (a wild Mediterranean plant) or from sheep's wool. A more recent piece of linen, dating from 5000 B.C.E. and woven from flax, was discovered in Egypt prior to this find, and it seemed more...

"They stretched the cables by twisting them taut with wooden windlasses." Herodotus of Halicarnassus, historian The first known reference to a winch is made in the writings of Herodotus of Halicarnassus on the Persian Wars in 480 B.C.E., in which wooden winches were used to tighten cables used in a bridge that crossed the Hellespont. The idea caught on quickly and within a hundred or so years the winch had reached Greek construction sites, though evidence suggests that it was invented by the Assyrians in the fifth century B.C.E. A simple winch is used to wind rope or cable, but the tool has many more applications when fitted with a cleat to maintain tension and prevent the rope or cable from unwinding. Cleated winches have long served on boats and harborsides to keep ships and boats closely moored to docksides. They are important for lifting work on construction sites, enabling more...

The first specific reference to a quill pen is found in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville around 580, although pens made of bird feathers are likely to have been used even earlier. The q-uill pen was the main writing tool in the Western world until the invention of the fountain pen in the nineteenth century. The quill's development was assisted by the rise of Christianity because its fine script was suitable for the promulgation of religion, as well as lending itself to other documents in increasingly dense text. Although the outer wing feathers of many birds could be used, those of the goose and crow were preferred. A slit would be made in the base of the quill to allow ink to flow to the nib, with goose quills especially adept at holding the ink. The composition and size of goose quills also allowed the nib to be more...

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin The invention of the unassuming rotary clothes line—also known as the "Hills Hoist"—has a controversial and confusing history. It is named after Lance Hill, an Australian who developed the device in 1946.The Hills Hoist is considered an Australian icon and a symbol of Australian culture. With a winding mechanism that allowed the frame to be raised and lowered, it was extremely useful in the days of the baby boom when cloth diapers were abundant. Many believe that this was the first rotary clothes line, but the invention was built upon earlier, less efficient, and more expensive models. Prior renditions of the clothes line include the James Hardie Company's 1925 clothes line called the "Drywell." In 1914 both a U.S. and an Australian company had come up with different versions of a rotary clothes line. Gilbert more...

I am a good player. Hence I take part in all the out door games. each one has his own choice. Some like hockey, others like football, while many others consider cricket to be their best game. The game I like most is football. Now you can ask me why I prefer football to any other game. It can be easily explained. The main object of all games is to give us some exercise. This is one reason why football is my favourite game. It helps our body to grow. It brings a sense of discipline and a habit of endurance in us. A good football player is sure to succeed in any walk of life. He can make himself a great soldier to defend his country. He can be a clever statesman to run the government. But is there no other game which gives hard exercise ? Surely none more...

"Today, Ethernet stands as the dominant networking technology..." The Economist (2003) In 1973, Bob Metcaife (b. 1946) of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) faced a problem. Increasing numbers of computers were springing up around him, all of which needed to be connected to each other. Just down the hallway the world's first laser printer, invented at PARC in 1971, was hungry for documents. Computer networking was in its infancy. The hardware was expensive, and the wiring at PARC looked like an explosion in a spaghetti factory. Any glitch in the computers or the cabling would bring down the whole-system. Metcaife was given the job of building a simpler, more reliable computer network. Desperate for inspiration from any source, he stumbled across the University of Hawaii's ALOHAnet, a radio network. Unlike most computer networks, which were carefully regulated so only one computercould talk to another at any given moment, ALOHAnet more...

Eager to boost orders for his teas. New York tea merchant Thomas Sullivan devised a new method of distributing samples of tea to his customers. He stitched them into small silk muslin bags, making them easy to ship and less messy for the recipient to unpack. Some customers did not bother opening the cloth bag and simply poured boiling water over them. Sullivan was inundated with orders for more tea packaged in this way. Responding to suggestions that the silk mesh was too fine, Sullivan used cotton gauze instead and began to sell the bags commercially, The patent for the tea bag was registered by Sullivan in 1903. By 1920, tea bags were in wide use by the catering trade in the United States. Later, paper was used instead of cotton and a fine string and decorated tag were sometimes added, making them more convenient for drinkers making a single more...

"It is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable, lam ...a nail maker." Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president, in a letter Nails were among the first metal objects made by hand. In Roman times, any sizable fortress would have a workshop where workmen fashioned the metal items required by the army. Here, workmen called "slitters" cut up iron bars for the attention of "nailers," who gave them a head and a point. Early nails were usually square in section, and the head of each was formed simply by turning over one end to make an L-shape. Such nails were expensive to produce, and they were so valued that people sometimes burned their houses when moving in order to retrieve nails from the ashes for reuse. In 1590 water-powered slitting mills were introduced into England. After rolling the hot iron into sheets, each sheet was slit into long, narrow, more...

The sun travels across the sky at the rate of 15 degrees per hour (reappearing at a given point after one day) and the shadow that it casts moves at a similar rate. In sunny climes the shadow has been used as a clock. The most ancient clock was the vertical obelisk. This tapering column, rather like Cleopatra's Needle in London, cast a shadow that varied in its length and orientation as the day progressed. The Egyptians had a small, portable shadow clock. It consisted of a T-shaped bar that lay on the ground, except that close to the shorter crossbar was a 90-degree bend that lifted the crossbar above the long horizontal stem so that its shadow would fall on the stem. The long stem was pointed directly toward the west point on the horizon in the morning. At noon, it was pointed in the reverse direction, toward the more...

Co-education means education of boys and girls together in the same school or college at the same time. In india it has recently become popular. Co-education is not a new thing for us. In the good old days when 'Ashrams' were the seats of learning, co-education was in practice. In the Hindu scriptures, old records and legends we find a number of examples which show that co-education was all over the country. Practice continued till the coming of Muslims in India. The Purdah system put an end to co-education. From the very beginning voices have been raised against co- education. Stephen Lealock, an American educationist declares, "Men cannot read when women are around". There are many charges against Co-education. First, it lowers the tone of discipline. Secondly, it brings about a shift in the minds of students. Learning goes to the background and 'sex attraction reigns supreme'. Thirdly, it creates more...