When I received this book, I was amazed at the quality of the embossed cut outs and the beautiful illustrations and instructions on how to decoupage boxes, trays etc. I highly recommend this book to all Victorian Decoupage lovers. You will not be disappointed!

One of the inventions of the twentieth century that had the greatest impact on how we live was television. And yet very few really know who was the "father of television?" I certainly didn't until I read this book. None other than Philo T Farnsworth was the man who at age 14 first thought up the ideas in a sketch that would later lead to the invention of the "boob tube" we know and love today. This book (a project some 25 years in the making as the author describes it), describes Philo's struggles with bringing his invention to fruition, his battles with RCA over patents relating to his invention, and his lack of deserved recognition, and later his frustrating attempts to harness fusion energy as a source of electrical power.

One thing I wondered about as I read the book was how many other inventors through time have faced the same struggles that Philo did, and how some of them dealt with that struggle. I can only imagine the stress and strain Philo went through and what he might think of how his invention is being used today, some 75 years after his first experiments.

Hopefully this book will help in recognizing the man who invented an appliance we all take for granted in today's world.

Paul Schatzkin may have spent longer researching the subject of this fine new biography of Philo T. Farnsworth than any other single writer. He has spent years of intensive research, finessing all the data and finally producing one of the more entertaining yet fully factual stories of a relatively uncelebrated man. Philo Farnsworth very quietly invented Television, and while much intrique and quasi-scandal surrounds the facts of this 20th century giant, Farnsworth is finally gaining the recognition he deserves for his miraculous invention. The author allows the story of his hero to unfold simply and without brouhaha, introducing this strange young inventor in a way that fully suits his life style. There is much to be learned here about the very physics and technical aspects of the miracle of television - how the idea was born, tested, then all but stolen. We come away from this fine book with a sense of the underdog genius who represents the finest aspect of 'The American Dream' and Schatzkin aptly subtitles his book 'A Story of Inspiration, Persistence, and Quiet Passion.' That about says it all. A must read for curious minds who thought they could never understand how television works.

The story of television known to most people is a lie. An example of corporate greed kept down the inventor of electronic TV and stifled the potential of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Philo Farnsworth is one amazing man and this book fills us with the excitement of his life and discoveries. Whether it was author Paul Schatzkin style or Philo's adventures, I was drawn to keep reading this book long after I should have been asleep.
The triumphs are all marked as well as the tribulations as Philo struggled against the odds as a "lone inventor". You get a sense of how advanced he was in his thinking and how his love of Pem brought him back on track after his disappointments. Philo's life is an inspiration and I feel that Paul Schatzkin captured it well in this book. I fully recommend it to anyone interested in human nature.

Apparently van Dine's nursery rhyme mystery is a forerunner of Dame Christie's. However, there's no Christie's playful tone in van Dine's novel, where a sinister and evil atmosphere prevails throughout the pages.

Taking place in a circle of talented math physicists, the murders were most eerie and anyone of the physicists could be the evil genius behind them, yet van Dine, indulged in his dramatic sense, supplied the most incompetent, if not disastrous, finale in spite of the existence of a much more likely one. Aged and handicapped by disability, van Dine's murderer knocked out 3 men in their prime ages without fail and ran back and forth between murder scenes and his own house like a Kung Fu master.

As if 3 had not been enough, van Dine's macabre sense pointlessly sacrificed a 4th victim, whose death neither coincided with any nursery rhyme nor threw suspicion to the intended scapegoat. On the contrary, the staged suicide had almost successfully freed the scapegoat from any suspicion if not for our marvelous Mr. Vance, whose art of detection climaxed in this novel and can be summarized as: let all but one suspects die, whoever left must be the bad guy. Now everyone can start to pity M. Poirot for wasting his "little gray cells".

The Bishop Murder book focuses around a series of murders that are connected to nursery rhymes in the house of a mathematics professor. All of the victims are themselves mathematicians, and Philo Vance is attracted to this case because of mathematics solutions are connected to these nursery rhymes. He solves the equations, thereby producing the murderer.

Philo Vance in his complex explanation of the crime says, "In order to understand these . . . we must consider the stock-in-trade of the mathematician, for all his speculations and computations tend to emphasize the relative insignificance of this planet and the unimportance of human life." This is the focus of the mind and personality of Philo Vance, the human intellect at work solving the crime.

This book is the first of Van Dine's mysteries, and it introduces Van Dine's sleuth, Philo Vance. Vance is a wealthy, but rather cynical, connoisseur in the arts and finer things of life. He has another hobby, though, helping the New York assistant district attorney solve complex murders.

This book focuses more on Philo Vance, showing the reader what to expect in the mysteries to follow. S.S. Van Dine, whose real name was Willard Hunting Wright, while writing mysteries, was also an art critic, and it shows in this book. The whole first chapter concerns Vance's view of the art world.

This book plot, though, focuses around a series of murders that are connected to nursery rhymes in the house of a mathematics professor. All of the victims are themselves mathematicians, and Philo Vance is attracted to this case because of mathematics solutions are connected to these nursery rhymes. He solves the equations, thereby producing the murderer.

Philo Vance in his complex explanation of the crime says, "In order to understand these . . . we must consider the stock-in-trade of the mathematician, for all his speculations and computations tend to emphasize the relative insignificance of this planet and the unimportance of human life." This is the focus of the mind and personality of Philo Vance, the human intellect at work solving the crime.

The writings of Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria, c20 BC - c50 AD) are important to the historical examination of late Second Temple Judaism, the religious 'world' into which Christ came. A prominent scholar and exegete, Philo's writings are considered the most thorough and most representative documents illuminating Hellenistic Judaism. Philo is interesting to Christians because, like Saul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle), he was a Pharisee, a student and interpreter of Hebrew Scripture. (The Pharisees were a rabbinical sect particularly known for their studies of Moses. Their exegetic work was esteemed such that they were held to be the spiritual "rulers" of Judaism. They are generally criticized by Christians but it should be noted that they shared some important beliefs with Christianity, namely the promise of the Messiah and of the Divine gift of eternal existence for those who enter a right relationship with God.) Not only a Hebrew scholar but a noted scholar within Alexandrian academe, Philo is an interesting expositor of Greek philosophy and mathematics of the period, showing a great fondness for Euclidean geometry and number theory. However, the exegesis of the scriptural Creation account and of the special laws and the Decalogue is the author's central focus. This complete and unabridged volume is no trivial work, perhaps only approached by the most serious-minded student.
From Philo's examination of the Creation account we learn that [two millennia ago] leading scholarship did not hold Genesis 1 to be a literal (i.e., scientific) accounting. Philo expresses certainty that Genesis 1 can only be rightly understood as spiritual allegory. "Literal" interpretations of Moses' language [within Genesis 1] must produce a god with a localized body, nostrils, mouth, hands, etc., wholly incompatible with the incorporeal God revealed in scripture (and required by reason, what kind of matter could the Maker of matter be made of?). The Creation account is rather understood as describing the relationship of Creator and creation -- God's intimacy ("hovering", Gen 1:2) and God's ultimacy ("above" the abyss, Gen 1:2). Philo's rejection of literal interpretations is often strongly worded: "let us take care that we are never filled with such absurdity..." and "let not such fabulous nonsense ever enter our minds."
We note that the ideas contained in language today are not the concepts which were understood in earlier ages. For example, the phrase "heaven and earth" was understood to mean three-dimensional space itself plus time -- as "heaven", and the constituents of all matter contained within space and time -- as "earth". Thus Genesis 1:1 speaks of creation ex nihilo, everything from nothing [interestingly, as does the inflationary big bang theory]. The creation of light, the "separation" of light and darkness; God's "breath", "image", "likeness", speech, sight -- all of these expressions are understood as spiritual revelations into the nature of God's relationship to his creation (and not as a science text). The modern fundamentalist "literal" interpretation of Genesis 1 tends to overlook significant theological and linguistic issues and ignores expositors like Philo, Augustine, and Aquinas, disingenuously [or ignorantly] claiming that interpretations other than the "obvious" one are modern inventions. Philo examines several allegorical interpretations in depth. Of comparisons of man to God, Philo states: "Moses says that man was made in the image and likeness of God. And he says well; for nothing that is born on earth is more resembling God than man. And let no one think that he is able to judge of this likeness from the characters of the body: for neither is God a being with the form of a man, nor is the human body like the form of God; but the resemblance is spoken of with reference to the most important part of the soul, namely the mind: for the mind which exists in each individual has been created after the likeness of that one mind which is in the universe as its primitive model, being in some sort the god of that body which carries it about and bears its image within it."

Philo of Alexandria was a contemporary of both Paul and Christ. Though he did not know them, it cannot be doubted that the Jewish philosopher made a significant impact on the early Christian world. He has been styled the first theologian on account of his hellenized Judaism, and for the fact that he espoused the concept of God's creating force - the Logos - as found in the Gospel of John, which was written nearly a half-century later. Philo's works may be divided into two groups: works that deal directly with the biblical texts, and those that do not. In the former works Philo links philosophy to the Pentateuch by the use of allegory, which uncovers how the Stoic concept of the Logos, and the Platonistic World of Forms are already present in the Old Testament; and in the later he describes the monastic order of the Therapeutae - mystics who claimed they saw the vision of God - the Essenes, and also defends the Jews against anti-Jewish acts by Gaius Caligula in an apologetic work "Embassy to Gaius." These works are a culmination of many divergent areas of thought; and to discover these works will be to discover the general milieu of Hellenistic ideas so pervasive in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century.

As tantalized and delighted as I was by the Classics of Western Spirituality anthology of Philo selections, I avoided buying this Hendrickson edition of the C.D. Yonge translation of the complete works of Philo of Alexandria until I could stand it no longer. Because Yonge worked in the 19th century, I thought his work would be as stilted as Hendrickson's Josephus by Whiston. I was wrong. Yonge's translation has been updated here by David Scholer to accord with a text discovered after Yonge wrote, keyed to Loeb Library numbers, with passages unavailable to Yonge newly translated. The text occasionally creaks, but it generally very readable, and actually enjoyable (not something that can be said of most ancient philosophical/theological texts!). The more modern Winston selections from the texts and their superior notes in the CWS edition are still excellent to have, but you really need to read more complete treatises to get into Philo's remarkable, even amusing, mind.

For those of us who want to draw, but have little or no actula experience, this book is invaluable. By going through the fundamentals of the proper procedures of drawing Ariel and her friends, one will be able to achieve artwork that really looks like her, instead of being an incredible simulation. The only drawback is that there are not enough drawings of Ariel, but you get a sense of body position, facial reactions and making the drawing flow. It works for me

Even though this book is meant for kids, I bought it anyway. I'm 16 and I really want to be an animator when I'm older, and surprisingly this book really helped me learn to draw all the "Little Mermaid" characters on my own, and helped me get a basic grasp of the cartoon anatomy. I have all the books in this series and I LOVE them all, they really helped my cartooning skills & they're fun to use as well.

This is a loving biography of television pioneer Philo Farnsworth by his widow. Her affection and admiration for him do not allow for much admission of errors of judgement in technical, personal, or business matters. Still, the man's brilliance is clear, as well as the stubbornness which cost him so much.

This is principally a story of a man's life. There is little in the way of technical information or photographs of the technologies that Farnsworth invented and developed, nor are there references for the interested reader to follow up on. The writing is only fair. But the story and the man are interesting enough to fit this book in the library of popular inventors' biographies.

For everyone who has ever looked at television, you owe it to both yourself and the inventor to read this book!
Written from the perspective of one who knew the Father of Television almost better than he knew himself, his wife, Elma Gardner Farnsworth.
You get a widescreen look at how TV got its start right through production and even into some of Philo Farnsworth's other inventions.
This is a must read book! Why hasn't it been made into a made-for TV-movie yet??

"The Story of Television" is a reprint of a book originally published in 1949 when television was just becoming a commercial reality. It provides a historical perspective that is well worth reading for several reasons. First, RCA, having won the battle to commercialize television also claimed credit for its invention. With the demise of RCA, we are rediscovering the accomplishments of Philo Farrnsworth. Second, the author, George Everson, was one of Farnsworth's financial backers and close associates who witnessed first hand the birth of television. Third, the current books about the life of Farnsworth depict him as the struggling inventor battling the giants of industry only to be crushed by them. Everson portrays him as a well know and respected scientist who despite enormous technical odds was eventually able to triumph.

STUPID EVEN A 5 YEAR OLD CAN WRITE BETTER

Looking for precedence in the desktop PC operating system wars? The battle for television standard supremacy is exhibit ABC!

Similar to Microsoft's grab for OS hegemony in the 1980s and 1990s, RCA outmaneuvered archrivals AT&T, Westinghouse, Philco to capture the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of the American public. And while the battle was fought by the best minds Corporate America could muster, it was a lone inventor by the name of Philo T Farnsworth who gave RCA all it could handle on the innovation front, but was eventually outgunned by RCA honcho and master marketeer David Sarnoff, who perfectly played the courts to outlast the brilliant but business-challenged entrepreneur.

In fact, the story is reminiscent of IBM's early 1980s investigation for a PC operating system. Computer geeks might remember that at that time Digital Research's CP/M was considered the best of breed PC operating system, and Big Blue was desperate to have it power its fledgling IBM PC. IBM execs, however, couldn't get a meeting with CP/M's inventor Gary Kildall (IBM had arranged to meet him at home, but Kildall was off flying his plane, leaving his wife Dorothy to negotiate a deal but she wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement.). So Big Blue sought alternatives, eventually striking a deal with Microsoft for an operating system the then infant company didn't yet have rights to (which was eventually called MS-DOS). And the rest, as they say ... is history!

Sarnoff bluffed, licensed and marketed his way into the television space. Farnsworth like Kildall, was almost too bright for his own good. He thought the game would be decided by the technical merits of his product. That wasn't the case then -- nor is it now. It's not who invents the better mousetrap that wins; it's who defines, controls and spins the battle to suit his ends. It's marketing muscle not technological superiority -- as Microsoft has proven time and again.

Kildall died battered and bruised (physically and emotionally) not unlike Farnsworth who passed on as a penniless and forgotten man.

I could easily see this book turned into a major motion picture: Johnnie Depp in the Farnsworth role; Bob Hoskins as Sarnoff. But don't wait for the movie. This book is a page-turner -- you won't be disappointed. Farnsworth, like Kildall, can't be forgotten. It's books like this that guarantee he won't.

In The Last Lone Inventor, Evan I. Schwarz shares the birth, growth and maturity of a great mind, and lends some insight into the television industry in its seminal stage.

To borrow against another famous inventor's metaphor, Schwarz effectively captures the wonder of inspiration, which is but a small percentage of the process of invention as a whole. From Filo Farnsworth's potato field vision as a mere grammer school teen, to his post-war struggles against competing (and much better financed) visionaries, we see that he posessed one of those rare intellects that is capable of seeing solutions long before "normal" technically inclined people, and with far greater clarity. Farnsworth handily out-classed almost all his TV pioneer contemporaries.

Schwarz' story is engaging and hard to put down until the final chapters, where the story loses its momentum a bit (the author provides follow-up on Farnsworth's less spectacular later years, which is interesting but not as intriguing as the discovery of electronic television). The book is also a fine "period piece," in that it reveals picturesque vignettes of the subject's personal life outside the laboratory. And to the author's point (and hence the book's title), it illustrates well the struggles faced by a poorly funded independent inventor, as compared to a well-paid corporate lab engineer working with far better resources.

Getting back to Edison's metaphor, while the book amply portrays inspiration, it (wisely perhaps for commercial reasons) ignors much of the "perspiration" that lies between a visionary and his grail. To have explored this deeply would have rendered mundane the main theme of breakneck competitive struggle. Nevertheless, the reader does not grasp the full impact of Farnsworth's triumph until this element is considered -- Farnsworth's success was far more spectacular than even Schwarz reveals!

The shortfall can be filled with minor difficulty by the lay reader, and with greater ease by those already familiar with analog electronic communication (i.e., early radio and television). In essence it is this: Normally a lab striving to invent a system of multiple components would do so in an evolutionary process. For example, given the existence of a complete, functional television transmitter, receiver, and picture display apparatus, it would be relatively simple to create, for the first time and with no existing technology from which to begin, a functional television camera. In fact, given that any three of these major elements were already functional, it would be far easier to create any one of the other three. But try to create any two, with just the remaining two from which to base experiments, and the task is exponentially more difficult -- how does the inventor tweak any part of the aparatus when he cannot be sure ALL the other elements are 100% functional? But now consider starting out with ALL FOUR elements missing! That Farnsworth leveraged his creation of electronic television from the period's crude radio technology alone, with no outside help to speak of, and in just a few years, is staggering. The "persperation" he (and by proximity, his helpers) endured must have been terrific!

So buy this book. Evan Schwarz does a great job entertaining readers of both genders with a story of inspiration, romance and above all, genesis -- the creation of a wondrous invention that has impacted all of civilization. The Filo Farnsworth story ranks, in some ways, right up there with the United States' moon shot in 1969 (if my last paragraph made the point, be sure to read books about that great achievement too -- you'll be even more awed).

For science and invention-history buffs, this is a no-brainer, but even the non-technoid layperson will find this a fascinating and fast-paced read. The author does an excellent job of presenting the key characters' development and motiviation, interspersing very fluidly the important biographical details of both Farnsworth and Sarnoff with appropriate and necessary background information on the technological evolution that eventually drew their lives together.

Schwartz achieves an entertaining balance between the social history of television and radio, the scientific minutae of the early growth of these technologies, and the personal lives of the individuals involved. Without becoming self-righteous or dogmatic, he lets the reader know where he stands on the issue of scientific integrity versus commercial exploitation, and succeeds in proving his underlying thesis that Farnsworth was truly one of the last of his breed. Finely researched and tightly written, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Someone was shocked that I liked this old mystery, and called the writing "creakily dated". Hmmm, well, maybe you could say that. But when I read a crime novel from 1926, I don't expect Ed McBain or Joseph Wambaugh. I would like to be transported back to an earlier era, and the "creakily dated" style of S. S. Van Dine certainly helps do that.

Amateur sleuth Philo Vance makes a strong impression when you first meet him; with the arrogance of a Nero Wolfe, and the ability to be verbally disarming in an instant, like, uh, Uncle Fred, say, from a Wodehouse book. Characters do a lot of confering in this book, so there's a lot of drawing-room or lunchtime chat, as the crime against that rascal Benson is mulled over, but there are some wonderful moments in the story. The best may be when Vance presents what is an airtight case against a suspect, sells the idea completely to a confidant, and then tears the entire scenario to shreds a moment later, so as to prove the ridiculousness of circumstantial evidence.

As for the final revelation--Van Dine does weaken the shock at the end by choosing a certain structure to the book which, in my opinion, starts to point to the killer the farther along the novel progresses.

I don't feel this is five-star mystery-writing, but it will be hard to disregard Philo Vance after this introductory meeting.

This book is the first of Van Dine's mysteries, and it introduces Van Dine's sleuth, Philo Vance. Vance is a wealthy, but rather cynical, connoisseur in the arts and finer things of life. He has another hobby, though, helping the New York assistant district attorney solve complex murders.

This book focuses more on Philo Vance, showing the reader what to expect in the mysteries to follow. S.S. Van Dine, whose real name was Willard Hunting Wright, while writing mysteries, was also an art critic, and it shows in this book. The whole first chapter concerns Vance's view of the art world.

The plot involves that of Alvin Benson who found dea sitting in a chair in his living room. He still has a book in his hand and seems at first glance to be enjoying a leisurely read. It is up to Philo Vance to help the police discover who shot him at close range with a Colt 45 pistol.

The book is rather dated but is also an enjoyable read.

S.S. Van Dine is a pseudonym for Willard Huntington Wright. THE BENSON MURDER CASE is the first Philo Vance mystery. Vance is an amateur detective and young aristocrat who is a close friend of the new District Attorney, John F.X. Markham. Vance mentions to Markham that he may enjoy going with him on a murder investigation. When Alvin Benson is found slain, Markham invites Vance to join him while he inspects the crime scene. The story is set in a simpler New York City of the roaring twenties before the 1929 stock market crash. This may be the best of the mystery novels written by Van Dine.

Perhaps it is too much to ask that such a comprehensive attempt to summarize so many great philosophers into only a few hundred pages would be done in such as way that one could really have a goof philosophical background. Nonetheless, I feel that finishing the book leaves me barely scratching the surface of the issue.

I was particularly disappointed with the pre-Socratics, Plato and Aristole's chapters as they are so important as foundational philosophies for everyone else to follow. The ideas were summarized much too quickly and I did not feel that I really understood what Platonic thought really was.

Nonetheless, this is a useful text just to wet your appetite. It is by no means sufficient. The bibliographies at the end of each chapter are a great idea as they will likely be the best way to grasp more what each philosopher has to say. So, as a reference, I would say this book does serve a purpose.

I found this book to be most helpful in revising for my exams. It is relevant to every level of my degree and has helped me immensely. There are short, excellently structured and well-written chapters on many major philosophers, beginning with the Presocratics working right through to the twentieth century. Each philosopher is dealt with in 'easy-to-chew' segments and although they are afforded only 15 or 20 pages each, there is enough there to provide a good introduction to the philosopher's thoughts. I can't praise this book enough. My only regret is that it took me so long to find! I have to give a big 'Well Done!' to the authors of this book.