Sex, Bombs, and Burgers: How War, Pornography, And Fast Food Have Shaped Modern Technology

by Peter Nowak

Overview

A fun and fascinating exploration of modern technology, Sex, Bombs, and Burgers reveals how these three billion-dollar industries have shaped our everyday lives. It's also a chronicle of popular culture, chock-full of surprising revelations. Take a look around your home. Your microwave? A British military scientist invented its technology by accident while trying to devise a death ray to blow up enemy planes. Your handheld video recorder? Developed by the military in World War II but adopted and made affordable by post-war pornographers. That vacuum robot on late-night infomercials? Born of a mine sniffer patrolling the caves of Afghanistan. From the unexpected origins of aerosols, silly putty, and the Internet to Saran Wrap, Tupperware, and video games, here is an engaging look at modern life as we know it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762772742
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/20/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Peter Nowak is the senior science writer and technology expert for CBC News Online. He has been writing about technology for more than a decade, and his work has appeared in top newspapers around the world, including the Boston Globe, Toronto Star, South China Morning Post, and New Zealand Herald. He won the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance Award for excellence in reporting and was named the technology journalist of the year by the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand. He lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Shameful Trinity 1

1 Weapons of Mass Consumption 27

2 Better Eating Through Chemistry 53

3 Arming the Amateurs 87

4 A Game of War 109

5 Food from the Heavens 143

6 The Naked Eye Goes Electronic 169

7 The internet: Military Made, Porn Perfected 197

8 Seeds of Conflict 225

9 Fully Functional Robots 255

10 Operation Desert Lab 287

Conclusion: The Benevolence of Vice 317

Notes 337

Acknowledgments 359

Index 363

Editorial Reviews

In this informative and entertaining cultural study, Nowak posits that most major technological advancements made in the last century can trace their origins to porn, military science, and fast food—"the shameful trinity." Nowak explains that the pornography industry is more likely to take risks with new technology to stay ahead of the curve: the military brought the first hand-held cameras to amateurs—so that soldiers could film battles for training purposes— and the porn industry ran with it. Later, pornography companies played a crucial role in developing the internet from a text-based experience to one replete with images and video, raising resolution standards along the way. Military technology also led to food-related inventions like the microwave, Teflon, and of course Spam, which proved invaluable to the Allied troops of WWII. Nowak notes that the first real video game—Tennis for Two—was invented in 1950 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a facility funded by the Manhattan Project to continue nuclear research. Having been consigned by the military to build a camera-equipped robot that could explore enemy territory, the iRobot company created the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner—rather disturbingly, Nowak (and others) posit a future wherein robots will not only clean the house, but also provide sexual favors. Nowak's study of the interconnectedness of the costs and consequences of technological and cultural innovation is occasionally troubling, but consistently entertaining. Photos. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"An entertaining and well-researched read, filled with surprising facts, Sex, Bombs, and Burgers offers a provocative alternate history of 20th-century progress."—Salon.com"Informative and entertaining ... Nowak's study of the interconnectedness of the costs and consequences of technological and cultural innovation is occasionally troubling but consistently entertaining."—Publishers Weekly "Hugely entertaining. Nowak—an experienced journalist—confidently treads where other historians of technology might avoid."—The New Scientist "An enjoyable and informative history of the surprising origins of some of the technological 'marvels' that underpin the modern world."—BBC Focus "Thought-provoking. You can think of it, if you wish, as a modern version of Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees, which proposed that society's vices are actually good for overall economic health."—The Guardian "Witty and well-researched ... An engaging read, leaving one with several 'I did not know that' moments."—The Globe and Mail "Moving effortlessly from the Slinky to space-age Kimchee, this book is packed with fun, fascinating facts. But don't be fooled: exploring the myriad ways the industrial-military complex has radically transformed human life is serious business. Peter Nowak has given us an impressive contribution to the study of how technology creates and fulfills age-old appetites."—Hal Niedzviecki, author of The Peep Diaries "Nowak marshals an impressive arsenal of humor and insight to reveal the surprising history behind some of our best known and most loved technologies and toys. Who knew that sex, fast food, and fighting formed such a powerful, shameful trinity?"—Craig Silverman, author of Regret the Error and coauthor of Mafiaboy "Nowak weaves a compelling and surprising tale of the profit, drive, and sheer accident that have created much of the technological world around us. From the Internet to Silly Putty, Nowak shows how deeply cultural technology really is. If you think of innovation as an objective process of rational invention, Nowak's look at the links amongst technology, war, sex, and the food industry, will blow your mind."—Nora Young, host of CBC Radio's Spark

From the Publisher