H.P. Lovecraft, the beloved weirdo scifi writer who inspired countless horror flicks and metal bands died 75 years ago last Friday. He was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, RI, immediately adjacent to Butler Hospital, the insane asylum his father had perished in some forty years earlier.
1752
Mary Dixson Kies, the first woman to obtain a U.S. patent, was born on March 21st, 1752, in Killingly, Connecticut. After patenting a new method for weaving in straw hats, she found it difficult to reap a profit from her invention and despite her work, died penniless in Brooklyn in 1837. A similar design had been developed earlier by a woman, Betsy Metcalf, who refused to file a patent for shame of having her name, as a woman, appear before Congress.
1474
On March 19th, 1474, Venetian Patent Law declared that “each person who will make in this city any new and ingenious contrivance, not made heretofore in our dominion, as soon as it is reduced to perfection… It being forbidden to any other in any territory and place of ours to make any other contrivance in the form and resemblance thereof, without the consent and licence of the author up to ten years.” The first modern patent law of any kind, Venice was aiming to attract new business and invention to its city. The law set a precedent that spread like wildfire: England and France quickly followed suit and shortly afterwards nearly the whole of Europe had some sort of patent law enacted.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
