The Edison Effect: What groundbreaking discovery did one of history's greatest inventors punt on?
Music on a Beam of Light: A precursor to CD players was this Philco turntable that played records using light and a photocell.
A bad reputation: Another mash-up of high-tech, marketing, and my hobby of antique radio restoration.
The $4 Billion Omelet: This one is not made of eggs, vegetables and cheese, but steel, concrete and massive amounts of innovation. The Engineering Mind has possibly never worked harder.
Part I, in which we examine the challenges
Part II, the solution(s)
The Back Bay, Boston's Original Big Dig
It was a project so big, it still boggles the mind. Two Boston entrepreneurs would stretch the limits of the era’s technology when, in the mid-1800s, they filled in 568 acres of fetid swampland, enabling its transformation into one of America’s great neighborhoods, the Back Bay...
The Slave Who Saved a City
The amazing true story of Onesimus, a slave in 17th century Boston who saved hundreds from a deadly Smallpox epidemic.
The Speed of Communication
From smoke signals to the telegraph, how the need for speed in communication drove innovation
Philo Radio and the Changing State-of-the-Art
In this piece I used my hobby of restoring antique radios to demonstrate how manufacturers - even of tube radios in the 1940s - have to balance the bottom line with the implementation of new technology
Was this man the world's first Disc-Jockey?
Was Reginald Fessenden the true antecedent of Wolfman Jack? Scholars and radio historians debate...
The Genuis Who Failed - A lot
Thomas Edison came to Boston in 1868 to make his fortune. He left without a dime. Here's what happened...
Thomas Edison and the elephant NOT in the room
A follow-up to my story of Edison's ill-fated residency in Boston deals with his battle with George Westinghouse and the AC vs. DC controversy
Shakespeare, Rumrunners, and Pearl Harbor
How a Chicago courtroom trial proving Francis Bacon as the true author of Shakespeare's works led to the breaking of the Japanese military code
The Day I Joined the Space Race
Ham Radio satellites have been hitching rides on a number of NASA rockets since the late 1960s. This is my story of the day I communicated through one of them...