2024 APRIL 07 / Elektromesstechnik, Marcello, Ponzi
Good People, For all of you with inquisitive minds : this is a small set of conversations that have occurred this week in the world of design, technology, business, human endeavour and human interest. best, hemmant
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A DIGITAL CAMERA FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE FILM CAMERAS / EPSON R-D1
"What is probably most surprising is that all these camera world firsts were achieved by Epson, a company known more for their printing, scanning, and projector products, rather than a company like Leica. Because the Epson R-D1 was the first of its kind, it has the distinct privilege, at least in my book of standing out in photographic history as a monument to beautiful, classic camera design while simultaneously stepping forward into the burgeoning bloom of the digital age."
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THE BILLION-DOLLAR PONZI SCHEME / DC SOLAR
"Carpoff was a paunchy man with blue eyes and apple cheeks—a “big chipmunk,” as a colleague called him—who gulped rather than spit his chewing tobacco and spent Sundays watching NASCAR. In March 2011, he was singing the national anthem at a local baseball game when he got a text that he’d made his first major sale: The paint company Sherwin-Williams had bought 192 of his generators, for nearly $29 million. Twenty-nine frickin’ million. It reduced him to tears. That’s how Carpoff told the story of the day his life changed."
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A DUTCH MASTER’S RESTORATIONS / VINTAGE EMT BROADCAST TURNTABLES
"Who can forget the first time they saw one? Squat, massive, monochromatic, intimidating – nothing like the delicate objet d’art most are accustomed to associating with the act of acoustic-mechanical playback. There is something formidable about a vintage Elektromesstechnik 927 or 930 broadcast turntable. They look the business."
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R.I.P. / HIS MOST BRILLIANT DESIGNS IN PICTURES / MARCELLO GANDINI 1938-2024
"The legendary car designer Marcello Gandini, who shaped some of the best known and most revered Italian cars of all time, and many beyond Italy too, has died at the age of 85. The Turin native, widely recognised as one of the most prolific and influential car designers of his era, made a name for himself in the mid-1960s while working for the storied Bertone design house, where he was responsible for such icons as the Lamborghini Miura, Lancia Stratos and Ferrari 308/GT4."
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PHOTO ESSAY / [INSIDE THE MASSIVE REPAIR SHOPS] WHERE SUBWAY CARS GO FOR A MAKEOVER
"The average New York City subway car travels roughly 53,000 miles per year across some of the oldest transit infrastructure in the world. Every single wheel, motor, brake, axle, wire and door on every subway car gets completely refurbished every six to 12 years at the Coney Island Overhaul Shop in Brooklyn or its sister facility at 207th Street in Manhattan. The system works much like a scheduled tuneup on an automobile. Trains roll into the facilities, where they are disassembled, reconditioned to near-factory specifications, and then sent back out into a railroad that functions as New York’s vascular system, pumping more than a billion riders across 345 million miles each year, 24 hours a day, every day."
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