Greetings!
A moment of silence for the passing of a great mind…
Inventor of the TV remote dies
BOISE, Idaho — Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died.
Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.
In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.
Adler joined Zenith’s research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1.
Adler is survived by his wife, Ingrid.
Then, a bit of weird news:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Police called to a Long Island man’s house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set. The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said on Saturday his body was discovered on Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.
“You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,” Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home’s low humidity had preserved the body.
Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005. Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.
Todays Tip for better living: Laugh so hard you wet your pants!