The first elevators designed expressly for passenger use were introduced in the 1850s. In 1854, in a dramatic demonstration at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, Elisha Graves Otis demonstrated the first “safety elevator.” With the elevator set up in a prominent part of the exhibition hall, he stood on the elevator platform as it was raised four stories. He then had the suspension rope cut. The audience gasped, but the platform did not hurtle to the ground. Instead it stood locked and safely suspended above the ground. Four years later in 1857, Otis installed the first passenger elevator in E.V. Haughwout & Co., a store located on Broadway in New York, NY. Powered by a steam engine, the elevator at Haughwout was the talk of the city, as thousands of curious visitors flocked to the store. http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/The_Electric_Elevator

Grain elevators serve as a monument to a bygone era; monolithic structures standing on water's edge waiting for lake and canal freighters that will no longer come to Buffalo, New York. Today all except a few of these enormous buildings are abandoned and no longer serve the industry for which they were designed. As they stand in their decrepit state they remain a mystery to those who view them. Few venture close to investigate their design and operation. At one time in Buffalo's history, the grain elevators dominated the skyline of the waterfront and served as a symbol of Buffalo's industrial importance as the largest supplier of grain in the world. Prior to the year 1827 there was no grain handled in Buffalo. Surplus grain grown in the American Midwest reached markets in the East only after transportation over long and often impossible routes. Grain from the midwest was shipped on flatboards down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans where it was then loaded onto sailing vessels that carried it to its eventual destination in the East or in Europe. http://www.buffalohistoryworks.com/grain/history/history.htm

Frito-Lay makes a lot of noise marketing its Sun Chips snacks as "green." They are cookedwith steam from solar energy, the message goes. But its latest effort—making the bags out of biodegradable plant material instead of plastic—is creating a different kind of racket. Chip eaters are griping about the loud crackling sounds the new bag makes. Some have compared it to a "revving motorcycle" and "glass breaking." It is louder than "the cockpit of my jet," said J. Scot Heathman, an Air Force pilot, in a video probing the issue that he posted on his blog under the headline "Potato Chip Technology That Destroys Your Hearing." Mr. Heathman tested the loudness using a RadioShack sound meter. He squeezed the bag and recorded a 95 decibel level. A bag of Tostitos Scoops chips (another Frito-Lay brand, in bags made from plastic) measured 77. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960004575427150103293906.html

luddite (LUHD-yt) noun One who opposes or avoids the use of new technology.
After the Luddites, name taken by textile workers in England during 1811-1816 who destroyed machinery that was displacing them. They took the name after one Ned Ludd, whose identity is not clear. Ned Ludd is said to have destroyed, in a fit of insanity, a knitting frame in 1779. In response to the Luddites, the British parliament passed the Frame Breaking Act which made the destroying of knitting frames punishable by death. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Toponyms (from the Greek, "place" + "name")
Hieronymus Bosch (or Jerome Bosch or Jeroen van Aken) (c. 1453-1516) lived and worked in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch), a Dutch city.
Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, of Vinci") was named for his town of birth in the Italian region of Tuscany. (1452-1519)
Chicago is first recorded in 1688 in a French document, where it appears as Chigagou, an Algonquian word meaning 'onion field.'
tuxedo (Tuxedo Park, New York)
marathon (from the battle of Marathon, Greece)
spartan (from Sparta in ancient Greece)

Unusual uses for jute twine
In a pinch, replace a broken shoelace with a piece of twine. Retrieve dropped metal objects with a magnet knotted to the end of a length of twine. Dip wet piece of twine into a bag of tiny seeds, then plant the seed-covered string in a line.
This Old House magazine November 2010