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Lyle Zapato

AFDBs Potentially Subject To Patents?

Lyle Zapato | 2008-12-05.9140 LMT | Mind Control | Paraterrestrials | Aluminum

Yutaka Yoshinouchi has filed a Japanese patent application (JP2008038574) that at first glance appears to cover both Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanies (AFDBs) and Aluminum-Shielded Enclosures (ASEs), but there are some key differences that should allay fears of lawsuits against AFDB/ASE builders and advocates. Here is the official English translation of the abstract:

INVENTION FOR ANSWER COPING WITH MIND CONTROL

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem wherein an answer coping with mind control by aliens from the sky is desired because mind control by a vicious Gray Orion interfering with free mind of human beings should never be allowed, and leaving as it is leads to the satisfaction of the aliens watching vigilantly for a chance of earth invasion.

SOLUTION: Indoor defense is carried out by using an irregularly reflecting material for a wall, using a radio wave absorber/lead, and disturbing signal pulses by laser or the like to disturb Tesla wave pulses. Outdoor defense is carried out by wearing a helmet covered with the irregularly reflecting material, a helmet with laser spread around, or a helmet covered with the radio wave absorber/lead. On the other hand, defense is carried out by rotating laser horizontally and obliquely upward from high-rise buildings, parks, facilities, and the like in each area.


Fig. 2: Helmet configurations.

First of all, note the scope of the mind-control protection claims only applies to the primitive radio-based technology used by the vicious Gray Orions (who are not related to the psychotronics-using Reticulans, a.k.a. "Greys", whose center of civilization is in the Zeta Reticuli system). The Gray Orions are one of a multitude of Paraterrestrial Entity Factions (PEFs) seeking influence in the Sol system. They are a little-heard-of PEF precisely because of their backwards mind-control technology, which is easily overwhelmed by the psychotronic smog of the Earth's noosphere. Mr. Yoshinouchi must have had some run-in with an agent of the Gray Orions and made a personal enemy to even bother with developing paranoid technology to counter them.


Fig. 3: Tesla-wave-pulse disrupting laser configurations.

Next note that Mr. Yoshinouchi's invention goes beyond passive deflective shielding and incorporates lasers. As I understand it, the lasers are integral to the anti-mind-control system that he is patenting, meaning that AFDBs/ASEs on their own would not be covered. To the best of my knowledge, no paranoid researcher has thought to use AFDB-mounted lasers to counter Tesla-wave pulses. This truly is an innovative development, even if it will only work on Gray Orion radio signals (and will undoubtedly reveal your paranoid status to government spy satellites).

Finally, note that the patent application specifically calls for "radio wave absorber/lead", not psychotronically deflective aluminum. This obviously exempts AFDBs/ASEs, although lead- or Velostat-based derivative technologies, if used in conjunction with lasers, might fall under the patent's scope.

Unfortunately only the abstract was translated into English. The text of the full description and claims is in image format so I can't machine translate it easily. I would be very interested in a full translation, both to see the details of his unique design and perhaps learn a bit of Mr. Yoshinouchi's history with the Gray Orions.

Lyle Zapato

Look Out For Falling Podcars

Lyle Zapato | 2008-09-13.2105 LMT | Monorail Danger | Pneumatics

Speaking of menacing pods, the Monorailists have a new scheme to get us all traveling on dangerous monorails -- the Podcar:

Podcar
The Podcar: teetering over your home town soon?

It's a "podcar," also called "personal rapid transit" -- a system of vehicles that provide on-demand, private, nonstop travel. These vehicles can carry people or light freight. They ride on small, overhead guideways -- like a monorail or people mover -- above existing roads, and are powered entirely by electricity. Picture the car as an elevated, driverless taxi. It's under computer control, so there would be no accidents, thereby saving lives and lowering insurance costs.

Podcars operate on demand, waiting at off-line stations; they can be summoned if one is not available when you arrive at the station. Each vehicle can hold four people, yet the system can be cost-effective even with a single rider for each trip.

Benefits that monorail podcars have over traditional monorail trains are that when one bursts into flames, only four people will be roasted alive, and you won't be able to fit a frightened elephant inside one. Also, when they stall (and they will), you can get out and push.

Podcars are a poor mimicry of the superior Inteli-Tube pneumatic transportation system* and were designed to confuse the car-obsessed public into building more dangerous monorails. But the sinister ambitions of the Monorailists don't stop with preying on automobilophiles, they also want to replace bicycles with a monorailular version! Will the monorail madness never end?

* The ITPTS was developed by Lyle Zapato & ZPi Laboratories.

Lyle Zapato

The Citizen Pods Are Here

Lyle Zapato | 2008-09-13.1170 LMT | Belgian Conspiracy | NWO

As readers of my site know, Belgian "citizens" are really kidnap victims who have been brought to a chamber under Euro-Disneyland in France, where they're hooked up to a computer simulation of "Belgium" (a country that does not exist) and brain-formatted to believe they are "Belgians". The interfacing of the "citizens" with the Belgian construct takes place through a Citizen Pod, a cocoon-like device that keeps a physical body alive and immobile while cybernetic probes inserted into the brain replace all sensory input with Belgian lies.

The Belgian Conspiracy has been planning to decentralize its Citizen Pod collection currently held in that single chamber, where rapidly diminishing pod-space is kept in check only by a black mold infestation that has been ravaging the physically moribund pod prisoners. The original plan was for a second chamber under a new Disneyland in Shanghai, but that plan has been proceeding slower than expected.

Now the Conspiracy has come up with a disturbing new solution to their pod-housing problems: they are marketing a Citizen Pod for use in public spaces around the world. The Immersive Cocoon (or, excuse my iRoll, the "iCocoon") isn't as advanced as the true Belgian Citizen Pods since it only projects images on the inside walls, not through a brain-computer interface. This is intentional as the true purpose of the iCocoon is to slowly acclimatize society to accept the existence of, and submission to, Citizen Pods.

Immersive Cocoon
Coming soon to your home.
Soon to be your home.

When complete, the Immersive Cocoon will be a sleek and shiny human-sized dome. Step inside and you'll be enveloped by a 360° display screen and full surround sound.

When the software boots up, instead of using a joystick or mouse to navigate the screens, motion-tracking cameras will follow the movement of your arms, legs and face, and a motion-sensitive platform will detect if you're walking or jumping.

"You've got display, sound and interaction all combined to create this fully immersed digital experience," explains Tino Schaedler, the architect-turned-film designer who is one third of NAU.

"It is completely different from me sitting in front of a screen, looking at a little picture and typing something in -- almost like the experience is reduced to my brain and my fingers. In the Cocoon we have the whole body immersed inside."

NAU, the front company marketing the device on behalf of the Belgian Conspiracy, happily notes that the iCocoon tracks the physical movements of the user with the same technology used by the oppressive, all-knowing government in the film Minority Report. If that doesn't sound alarms, the technology is based on the work of John Underkoffler of MIT's Media Lab, where they research mind-reading devices and spread FUD against personal mind-control protection.

According to NAU's timetable, a working prototype will be shown next year, with commercial models available in 2014. While they will first appear in public spaces, such as museums or malls, eventually NAU will introduce a special "consumer model" more like the ones found under Euro-Disneyland, allowing Belgian Citizen Pods to be distributed throughout the world in people's homes. Once the goal of total home market saturation is achieved, only then will the hidden brain-probe spikes shoot out of the iCocoon's walls into the base of the user's skull to immobilize them, forcefully reprogram their sense of identity, and immerse them in the inescapable fictitious land of Belgium. Soon enough, everyone will be a Belgian "citizen".

(With this and the danger from mind-controlling iPods, one might begin to be suspect of all podular forms of consumer gadgetry. However, rest assured that the Inteli-Tube Personal Pneumatic Tube Pod will not subvert your senses or mind. In fact, its psychotronically deflective aluminum shell will make it the perfect escape vehicle for paranoids once the Belgian Conspiracy moves to take over cities depopulated through Belgian Citizen Podification.)

Lyle Zapato

Juvenile Black Helicopter Learns To Fly

Lyle Zapato | 2008-09-02.9350 LMT | Black Helicopters | NWO

The gradual acclimation of the public to the coming swarms of black helicopters observing and policing society continues apace. We are now told to accept that helicopters are teaching themselves to fly:


"Oh look, it's flying upside down! Isn't that so cute? Let's not protect ourselves with swatters!"

A new artificial intelligence system allows a robotic helicopter to teach itself how to fly and even do challenging stunts, just by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers.

The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own, its inventors say.

It's all for entertainment in airshows, of course! We will, no doubt, learn to enjoy watching the charming antics of the protosentient helicopters as they frolic about during government-sanctioned Patriotic Events, and won't be the least fazed when they start buzzing through our neighborhoods on behalf of law enforcement. In fact, we'll welcome the little scamps! "Isn't that adorable how it follows us around constantly, mimicking our every move? It thinks it's people!"

The helicopter is being trained for eventual release by the Stanford University Autonomous Helicopter project, led by Professor Andrew Y. Ng. Their work follows in the contrails of the black helicopter swarming technology leaked from MIT a couple of years ago.

For a preview of what you'll soon be seeing in the sky over your house at all hours of the day, click below for a video showing JUVENILE BLACK HELICOPTER CHAOS!

Read more...

Lyle Zapato

Lord Kelvin & The Olympic Water Cube

Lyle Zapato | 2008-08-05.0220 LMT | Kelviniana | Entertainment

In 1887, Lord Kelvin, in a paper titled "On the Division of Space with Minimum Partitional Area", sought a way of partitioning space using a foam of equal-sized cells with a minimum surface area. His solution, known as the Kelvin structure, consisted of repeating tetrakaidecahedra with slightly curved faces.


Stereoscopic photo of a tetrakaidecahedron, constructed out of soldered wire, from Kelvin's 1894 "On Homogeneous Division of Space". (Cross eyes to view in 3D.) Also, I have a paper model approximation of a Kelvin cell available for download [PDF].

It wasn't until 106 years later that Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan discovered (aided by advanced computer software that would have taken millions of years of run time on a standard Victorian era difference engine,) a solution that had 0.3 percent less surface area than the Kelvin structure. However, their solution, the Weaire-Phelan structure, uses two different shaped cells instead of Kelvin's simpler single cell solution.

As the New York Times reports, the wall and roof structure of the new Beijing National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube, is based on the Weaire-Phelan solution to the Kelvin Problem. The building's designer, Tristram Carfrae, tilted the structure 60° to give the surface an almost random look (although it does repeat its pattern). According to this 2004 article, it was for this pseudo-irregular "organic quality" that the Weaire-Phelan structure was chosen over the Kelvin structure, which was originally considered.


The Water Cube during construction.

Lyle Zapato

Lord Kelvin & Color Codes

Lyle Zapato | 2008-07-29.1140 LMT | Kelviniana | Crass Commercialism

In his 1899 speech given after Sir George Stokes read his paper "On the Perception of Colour" at the Victoria Institute, Lord Kelvin casually predicted the future:

Now I spoke of scientific men. There are scientific ladies also—and ladies who are not scientific—and I am sure they will all thoroughly sympathise with scientific men in their appreciation of this beautiful theory.

Sir George Stokes told us that every variety of colour may be produced by the mixture of red, green and violet, and in Maxwell's practical work on the subject of which he spoke, white and black are added in the mixture, white to dilute the intensity of the colour; and black to diminish the total light emitted by a body exposed to sunlight.

Now in these times when ladies are so well occupied with important work that they scarcely have time for shopping, it would be a great comfort to them, if when they wanted a beautiful blue ribbon, they could simply write down on a piece of paper 2.5.7.3.4. and put it in an envelope and send it to the shop; or 3.4.0.2.0 a brilliant yellow, no black in it—3 of red, 4 of green, 0 of violet, 2 of white to brighten it up a little and dilute some of the colour. Do not imagine that you will get green by mixing yellow and blue—on the contrary, you get yellow by mixing red and green, as was first taught by Young, enforced by Helmholtz, and splendidly put in practice by Maxwell.

That's right, Lord Kelvin foresaw the common use of color codes on the Web! Kelvin's idea went even further though, to real world color specification via numerical strings. Unfortunately, the average consumer still can't purchase pretty ribbons or other such things custom dyed from an RGBLK string sent to the shop. (I smell a Web 2.0 business potential...)

Lyle Zapato

Secure Beneath The Watchful Monorails

Lyle Zapato | 2008-06-16.7620 LMT | Monorail Danger | Mind Control

Monorailists have always claimed that their beloved technology is merely a panacea for public transportation needs, regardless of the constant spontaneous combustions and elephant suicides. Well, now the real agenda of the Monorailists has been revealed: Total Information Awareness through a Monorailular Panopticon!


THE MONORAILS ARE WATCHING!

Linceus GmbH is promoting technology that it calls "Sensors in Motion", which consists of an unmanned monorail drone armed with sensors and "countermeasures" designed to zip through cities at 50mph along an omni-present network of monorail tracks to keep citizens surveilled and in line:

Drive Technology

Linceus implements a "state-of-the-art" high-speed and all-weather application of contactless magnetic drive technology. This technology developed by SEW guarantees durability for many years of minimal maintenance.

The Linceus system comprises high-velocity mobile sensors and active measure packages driven along slim aluminum monorails. The advanced "contactless" technology used for the induced magnetic motorization system is unique and most reliable.

The induced magnetic motorization system of Linceus ensures high reliability and silent "frictionless" operation. It carries the required sensor and countermeasure payload

Command and Control Center

The Linceus system comprises an open architecture command & control software that enables full control and remote event management of an unlimited number of riders and payloads. It can also be integrated with higher-level command & control systems.

The system's command and control software enables the user to pre-program the rider's surveillance pattern as well as to auto-track detected moving targets. The system features shunting tracks for rapid launching of riders to sensitive areas.

Linceus is an open system that can be integrated with any C&C of the customer. Integration with other sensors, such as radar, EO, UAV, etc., is also possible. The system can handle GIS, video analysis and GPS. It offers the flexibility of tailor-made controlling of as many riders as required and different modes of operation.

According to Wired's Danger Room, the revealed countermeasures include "dazzling spotlights, high-decibel acoustics and other nonlethal means of warning the unwitting" as well as optional laser pointers and laser rangefinders. This last option will make it possible to use the system to "paint" subversives for liquidation from afar via smart-missiles:

While optimized for independent operations, the robotic patrols also work in support of ground patrols and anti-infiltration squads. And in cases of extreme threats to sensitive border areas or high-value installations, the system can be linked into external sensors and ground-, sea- or air-based shooters.

While they won't admit it, I think it's safe to assume that system's countermeasures includes an on-board psychotron, allowing it to not only observe, but to obligate behavior. Also, the choice of aluminum rails is no coincidence, as these will act as circumambient psychotronic deflector surfaces to better target mind-control transmissions at unbeanied citizens hiding in the city's nooks and crannies.

Much like with the Monorailists' work on the Puppy Mover and Monorail Cat, the sinister nature of these monorail spies is being memetically hidden using "cuteness". Who could possibly fear a drone that looks like a cartoonish smiling head riding on a cartoonish caterpillar? (Note how the drone bears an uncanny resemblance to "beloved" fast-food executive "Jack", whose smiling head can be seen on millions of car antennas. As every paranoid knows, those "antenna balls" are really RFID markers designed to help identify consumers who haven't yet bought into Jack in the Box, Inc's pro-Corporatist propaganda. Obviously Linceus GmbH has licensed JBX's memetic engineering technology to induce the same sort of voluntary compliance as exhibited by those who willingly place the markers on their cars.)


Monorail spies: winding their way through your neighborhood soon.

Linceus' first evaluation system will be deployed at the Ben-Gurion-Airport in Tel Aviv. Eventually all major cities will be completely enthreaded with monorail surveillance. Move to the wilderness before it's too late!

Lyle Zapato

The State Of The Russian Psychotronic State

Lyle Zapato | 2008-05-20.1590 LMT | Mind Control | Aluminum

Dmitry Medvedev, president of your mind?
Recently installed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, shown
here weilding a portable psychotron "pistol" (target unknown).

Rasputnik VI Psychotron pistol diagram.

The Rasputnik VI mind-control pistol: The psychotron core (A) is housed inside a containment tube (B) and is connected to the integrated engramputer and powersupply module (C) through a ring of back-scatter nubbins (D) to protect the user from self-inflicted brain-washing. The business end of the psychotron is capped with a removable psychotronic polarizing plate (E) which keeps the mind-control ray focused along a narrow path, allowing for single-brain targeting. The ruggedized design uses only passive cooling fins (F), thereby limiting moving parts. A unique feature of Russian portable psychotron technology is the perpendicular transceiver channel (G), which allows the pistol to deflectively relay inductively amplified satellite signals to targets hidden under aluminum roofs.

A formidable mind-control weapon in the hands of President Medvedev. Fortunately, Russian paranoids have developed effective countermeasures:

Natalya Polovko Natalya Polovko
Natalya Polovko models her anti-psychotronic clothing.

UPDATE 2009-02-15: Ms. Polovko's website has gone missing! Hopefully Medvedev hasn't gotten to her with the new Rasputnik VII. Until she surfaces again, you can read an article by her (in Russian, but no pictures) at the Psychotronic Terrorism site (also in Russian, and worth exploring).

Lyle Zapato

Nanotube Nanomonorails

Lyle Zapato | 2008-04-12.1780 LMT | Monorail Danger | Black Helicopters

Back in 2005, I reported that monorailists were threatening to weave nanomonorails into our clothing. At the time these nanomonorails were constructed using nanobiotechnology adapted from Black Helicopter research. The Monorailists used ATP and kinesin, two biological molecules found in our cells, thus making a nanomonorail that was a sort of human/nanomonorail chimera -- a "manomonorail", if you will.

Copyright A. Barreiro et al., Science
Nanomonorail stalled in middle of track -- just like a real monorail!

Now Monorailsts in Spain -- presumably following some sort of disagreement with the Black Helicopter nano­bio­tech­nicians -- have devised a new form of non-biological nano­monorail technology which they claim has the theoretical ability to move 100 million times faster than those using biological motor proteins.

Both the rail and the shuttle of their nanomonorail are built from carbon nanotubes, the car sliding over the rail like a sleeve. Movement comes from thermomechanical action instead of through a perversion of biology:

They attached each end of the nanotube track, about 300 nanometres long, to metal platforms, so that the tube stretched between them through empty space. Then they fixed a flake of gold to the shuttle tube, which was intended to hold molecular cargo.

When the researchers passed an electrical current through the bridging nanotube, which acts like a 'wire' connecting the metal plates, they found that some shuttle tubes moved towards the nearest plate. Others simply revolved at a fixed location.

"At first we thought it was the electrons that were moving the nanotube," says Bachtold. But the direction of motion didn't depend on the direction of the current.

Instead, the researchers concluded that the current was simply heating up the device, and that this was what was moving the shuttle. This mechanism "came as a surprise", says Bachtold.

Because heat is conducted out of the nanotube by the metal plates, the system is hottest in the middle and cooler at the ends. This means that the thermal shaking of the track tube is strongest in the middle -- which makes the sleeve tube move towards whichever end is nearer. It is a little like shaking the free end of a rope tied to a tree, with a hoop threaded onto the rope. The waves in the rope will usher the hoop towards the tree.

Fortunately for those dreading the day when nanomonorails bind the entire biosphere into a fine, homogeneous gray mesh, there's a major problem the Monorailists need to work out: their shuttle gets hot enough to destroy any cargo on board. Not surprising considering the same problem is too-often exhibited by macromonorails.

Lyle Zapato

Edison & Kelvin: A Contrast In Cruelty

Lyle Zapato | 2008-01-04.3520 LMT | Kelviniana | Elephants

Wired notes that on this day in 1903 Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to death as part of his smear campaign against alternating current, a system in competition with his patented direct current system. As the War of Currents raged, Edison grew increasingly alarmed at the acceptance of AC as the electrical distribution standard, and so set out to scare the public into believing it was too dangerous through a series of publicized animal executions using AC. Topsy the elephant was merely a notable exception in a long string of fried dogs and cats. (Edison also promoted the use of an AC electric chair for human executions, even though he was opposed to capital punishment; such was his desire to tarnish the image of a competitor at any cost.)

It should not surprise readers of this site that the decision that led to AC beating out DC came from none other than the Lord Kelvin.

1895 International
Niagara Falls Commission
The International Niagara Falls Commission, headed by Lord Kelvin (center).

It was Lord Kelvin who headed the 1895 International Niagara Falls Commission that chose Nikola Tesla's alternating current system over other proposals, including the Edison-backed DC system from General Electric, and awarded Westinghouse the contract to construct the hydroelectric generators at Niagara Falls. This highly-visible project showed the practicality of the system and turned the tide in favor of AC.

Kelvin had originally been opposed to alternating current before being swayed at the 1893 Chicago Exposition. His acceptance of Tesla's system actually completed a circuit, since an inspiration for much of Tesla's research was Kelvin's 1853 paper "On Transient Electric Currents". Kelvin, who had long been a promoter of electric lighting -- his house in Glasgow was the first in the world to by fully lit by electricity -- saw in AC the potential to bring about a dream of his, that he reiterated on a visit in 1902 (quoted in The Post-Standard, April 22, 1902, p. 1):

It has been so great, so marvelous, that I hope to live to see the day when a dream I have had may come true. I fervently hope to see the day when we shall have the transmission of electric power over 300 miles with a voltage of 40,000. When I first talked of that fifteen years ago I was laughed at. But with the wonderful transmission of power at Niagara Falls, my dream looks to be near fulfillment in the close future.

And let me tell you American people, there may be a time when the waters will flow no more over that great horseshoe, but instead there will be a beautiful growth of vegetation far more superb than any water flowing in torrents over the precipice, water that will find its way down countless turbines spreading light and power for hundreds of miles in all directions.

Edison's use of violence against animals to undermine Lord Kelvin's choice of AC was viciously ironic given Kelvin's concern for animal welfare. Kelvin, who was a vice-president of the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, publicly spoke out against animal cruelty. While he did allow that some vivisections might be necessary for the advancement of science in cases where new knowledge might be gained (he later resigned as SPALV vice-president when the Society united with the more hard-line International Association for the Total Suppression of Vivisection,) he firmly held that repeated vivisections merely for the edification of students was "altogether unnecessary" (source).

In a letter to the Scotsman on March 6, 1877 (quoted in S.P. Thompson's The Life of Lord Kelvin), he wrote:

SIR—In your print of this morning I see a report of Professor Rutherford's paper on "The Secretion of Bile," read at the meeting of the Royal Society yesterday evening, when, as president, I was in the chair. As chairman I did not feel that I had the right to express my opinion that experiments involving such torture to so large a number of sentient and intelligent animals are not justifiable by either the object proposed, or the results obtained, or obtainable, by such an investigation as that described by Professor Rutherford. I feel this opinion very strongly, after many years serious consideration of the general question of the advisableness or justifiableness of experiments involving cruel treatment of the lower animals. I trust you will kindly give me this opportunity of expressing it, as my presence without protest yesterday evening might seem to imply that I approved of the experiments which were described.

As to electrocuting animals, this anecdote (recounted in The Elyria Chronicle, Aug. 1, 1906, p. 4) clearly shows that he was against it:

Lord Kelvin once performed a daring experiment before a class of students. In the course of his lecture he said that while a voltage of 3,000 or so would be fatal to a man a voltage of some 300,000 would be harmless. He was going to give a practical illustration on himself, but the students cried out, "Try it on a dog!" Lord Kelvin cast a look of reproach at his class. "Didn't I figure it out myself?" he said quietly, as he walked to the apparatus and safely turned the tremendous voltage into himself.

Kelvin's fondness for his pet parrots, Doctor Redtail and Professor Papagaio, was typical of his concern for animals. S.P. Thompson notes:

Lord Kelvin was very fond of animal pets. His parrots have several times been mentioned. He had a horror of unnecessary slaughter of creatures, particularly of birds. He once seized the arm of a man who, while on board his yacht, was shooting a sea-gull, and he protested indignantly against such wanton cruelty.

In contrast, Edison's proclivity for animal abuse extends even to his arrogant self-promotions, as can be seen in Garrett P. Serviss's Edison's Conquest of Mars, an 1898 sci-fi newspaper serial that was officially authorized by Edison's PR machine. The story, which coincidently casts Lord Kelvin as a supporting player, contains the following scene that would have disturbed Kelvin:

TESTING THE "DISINTEGRATOR"

I had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. We had gone upon the roof of Mr. Edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. We looked about for some object on which to try its powers. On a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late fall, sat a disconsolate crow.

"Good," said Mr. Edison, "that will do." He touched a button at the side of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard. "Feathers," said Mr. Edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second."

He adjusted the index as he spoke. Then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird.

"Now watch," he said.

THE CROW'S FATE

Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white!

"Its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. Now, we will finish the crow."

Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow.

Furthermore, The Edison Papers' chronology page has this bizarre entry for April 6, 1877, suggesting the kind of violent work environment Edison fostered: "Laboratory staff's 'pet' bear gets loose and they kill it."

While I can find no record of Lord Kelvin commenting on Edison's public animal executions -- perhaps because Kelvin did not wish to appear biased, as with the incident in the Scotsman letter -- I find it hard to believe that he would have viewed Edison's elephanticidal barbarity, which contributed nothing to the advancement of knowledge, with anything less than abhorrence.

In the end, Edison's scare tactics didn't work; AC won out and elephants now know they have more to fear from monorails than from alternating current.