Word: arounders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...learned most of its skiing from the disciples of Austrian Hannes Schneider. Schneider's Arlberg method teaches beginners how to brake their speed, swoosh around trees, and turn -basing all movements on the snowplow (pointing the ski tips inwards to make a V) and the stem (pushing the back part of one ski out at an angle for a turn). Allais keeps his skis always parallel, controlling his speed by sideslipping, and turning by ruade (kicking the backs of the skis up and pivoting on the tips while rotating the body in the direction of the turn...
Control mechanisms are not new. The governor, which regulates steam engines, was invented by James Watt in 1788. The familiar thermostat has been around for decades. Both these are true control mechanisms. They accept information and directives and act upon them...
When combined in tightly cooperating teams, such mechanisms can run a whole manufacturing process, doing the directing as well as the acting, and leaving almost nothing for human operatives to do. Technologically (if not politically), wholly automatic factories are just around the corner. Squads of engineers are excitedly designing mechanisms for them...
Some modern calculators "remember" by means of electrical impulses circulating for long periods around closed circuits. One kind of human memory is believed to depend on a similar system: groups of neurons connected in rings. The memory impulses go round & round and are called upon when needed. Some calculators use "scanning" as in television. So does the brain. In place of the beam of electrons which scans a television tube, many physiologists believe, the brain has "alpha waves": electrical surges, ten per second, which question the circulating memories...
Accumulated disasters had NBC groggy but game. Said NBC Vice President Sid Eiges: "Nobody's sitting around worrying. We have new programs in the works-shows of all kinds, including comedy." Meanwhile, NBC is playing musical chairs with its disordered Sunday night schedule. Horace Heidt and his orchestra will be moved from 10:30 p.m. to Jack Benny's 7 p.m. slot; two new comics, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, will replace Heidt. Fred Allen switches from 8:30 to 8 p.m. But that still leaves holes to be plugged...