A list member sent the following to me for possible posting to this list. I don't want to get a big discussion, started, on copy rights/ on rather and how to download the following are not to download. If you are interested in the following, download and listen. if not just delete and go on to other things. Message follows.
AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War Written by..........: Tom McNichol Read by.............: Malcolm Hillgartner Publisher...........: Blackstone Audio Copyrights..........: 2008-Audio ~~ 2008-Book Abr/Unabr...........: Unabridged Genre...............: Historical Non-Fiction Total Size..........: 359 Mb Total Runtime.......: Approximately 6.5 hours Description: Long before there was VHS versus Betamax, Windows versus Macintosh, or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, the first and nastiest standards war was fought over how electricity would be transmitted around the world: alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). The savage showdown between AC and DC changed the lives of billions of people, shaped the modern technological age, and set the stage for all standards wars to follow. AC/DC tells the little-known story of how Thomas Edison bet wrong in that war, eventually losing control over the "operating system" for his future inventions-not to mention the company he founded, which would later become General Electric. Today's Digital Age wizards can take lessons from Edison's fierce battle: control an invention's technical standard and you control the market. "Though a battle over electrical standards sounds dry, this tale is anything but..[The] book tantalizingly scratches the surface of Edison's ingenuity and force of will, Westinghouse's shrewd business sense, and most of all the sheer eccentricity of Nikola Tesla."-Publishers Weekly "A tale of astonishing genius and greed, a perfect reflection of the competing forces that built corporate America. McNichol offers us a ringside seat at the birth of a superpower, and it's a bloody, messy, and altogether fascinating spectacle."-Brooke Gladstone, cohost, NPR's On the Media "From the twisted copper wires of electricity's early years McNichol spins a story buzzing with genius and fraud, ambition and infamy, hilarity and humiliation. It's a joy to read: a comic operetta of American industrial history, full of great men, small minds and an alarming number of dead dogs."-Craig Stoltz, health editor, Washington Post ` TOM MCNICHOL is a contributing editor to Wired magazine, a highly regarded writer on technology and business, and a regular contributor to the New York Times and Washington Post. He has recorded segments for the public radio shows Marketplace and All Things Considered. You have successfully uploaded a file called ac-dc.rar (286 MB), to sendspace. You can use the following link to retrieve your file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/dsm7bq [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
