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Oct. 14, 1858: This History Might Ring a Bell more»»
1858: Manual labor hoists the great hour bell into place high in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London. Some people are already calling the 14.33-ton bell "Big Ben."
Fire had destroyed most of the ancient Palace of Westminster, seat of the British government, in 1834. Parliament resolved to build a new home for itself, complete with a giant tower. The new Houses of Parliament (still officially the Royal Palace of Westminster), designed by A.W.N. Pugin and Charles Barry, rose in neo-Gothic splendor along the Thames. The building was not completed until 1870.
The giant tower was to have a giant clock (with a 23-foot-diameter face on each of the tower's four sides) and a giant bell to toll the hours. The clock — with its 14-foot minute hands — was completed in 1854, but the 314-foot-high tower wasn't ready for it yet.
The first giant bell was cast for the tower at Stockton-on-Tees in 1856 and shipped to Westminster. It was oversize, at 16 tons. Worse, it cracked when they tested it. Back to the drawing board.
More precisely, back to the melting pot. The big bell was broken up, and the pieces taken to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in East London, where Philadelphia's Liberty Bell had been cast. The metal was melted down and poured into a new mold April 10, 1858.
After extensive testing, the bell was placed on a special trolley and drawn by 16 beribboned horses to Westminster, by way of Southwark on the opposite side of the Thames....
Wired.com
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Gallery: Golden Age of Trains in Black and White, by Photographer Jim Shaughnessy more»»
: Photo: Jim Shaughnessy
Photographer Jim Shaughnessy first turned his lens on trains in 1946 at age 13. Over the following 20 years, he chased trains around New England and Canada, documenting the fall of steam engines and the rise of diesel locomotives — all in gorgeous black and white.
Shaughnessy approaches the machines with a documentary eye, with art as a welcome byproduct. His extensive body of work includes some of the most important historical photographs of locomotives from the era.
Still an avid train photographer, Shaughnessy lives in his hometown of Troy, New York, a formerly bustling railroad hub that shrank as railway use dwindled. Wired.com talked with him about his photography and his fascination with trains. Click through the gallery to read the interview and see selections from Shaughnessy's upcoming book, The Call of Trains, to be released Nov. 3.
Left: Canadian National Spadina Avenue engine-servicing facility in Toronto, Ontario, 1957
"This is an arty picture which I normally wouldn't have taken," Shaughnessy said. "But I had taken every other possible angle so I thought this would be good. And it turns out it really fills the bill for people who like arty photos.
"And the more I look at it, the more I like it. It's just a big industrial-type scene and the fact that it's backlit only increases the drama and enhances its dirty effect.
"A lot of the pictures we used in the book have never been printed by me before for any...
Wired.com
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10 Movies That Shouldn't Have Come Out on Blu-ray more»»
What Happens in Vegas ... shouldn't have happened at all. Meet the Spartans Type "kicked in nuts" into YouTube — you'll get more laughs in 30 seconds. Daddy Day Camp Should have gone straight to HD DVD, since HD DVD players will never, ever be manufactured again. Zombie Strippers Zombies in Blu-ray? Sure. Strippers in Blu-ray? Totally. Together in Blu-ray? Um ... no. Little Man The pioneering special effects that turn a Wayans into an infant somehow don't hold up in hi-def. Dude, Where's My Car? Where you left it — in the $1 bin at Blockbuster. Manilow Live! Blu-ray boasts unparalleled sound quality. Bummer. The Love Guru If you look closely, you can see the last shred of Ben Kingsley's dignity fade away. Norbit Fat suits and high pixel counts? Yuck. Rambo Only for collectors of movies where a guy seems to punch someone's head off.
Wired.com
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Get Started With Greasemonkey more»»
Learn how to monkey around with your favorite websites by writing your first Greasemonkey script. These simple scripts for Firefox can be used to alter the behavior or display of just about any site on the web, like adding extra buttons to Yahoo mail, axing AdSense ads from search results or eliminating excessive exclamation points from YouTube comments.
Wired.com
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