[NJARC] A new TV show pilot called "History Hacker"

[John Dilks K2TQN]

Hi Guys,
Worth watching on TV.
73, John
A new TV show pilot called "History Hacker" airs this Friday 
September 26th at 8PM and Midnight on the History Channel.  Bre 
Pettis is the host of the show and he checks out inventors in history 
and take a hands-on look at their inventions and then break it on 
down and hack the inventions together.  He needs your help to make 
the show go from a pilot to a real TV show.
The pilot is all about Nikola Tesla and the war of the currents 
between Tesla and Edison.  In the show he learns how to blow a neon 
tube, explore wireless electricity and build an AC generator from a 
bike. He also goes to Boston to visit an MIT space lab to see how the 
principles that Tesla pioneered are being applied to space propulsion.
The look of the show is awesome. The folks at History gave the 
producer, director, and director of photography permission to take 
his DIY style of making videos with lots of jump cuts and direct 
talking to the camera and push it forward into a longer format. It 
doesn't look like anything else on TV.

Pettis, formerly of MAKE and currently a video maker for 
<http://www.etsy.com/>Etsy, is known for his ability to explain 
technical subjects to a non-technical audience, and make them want to 
learn that subject! His "weekend projects" videos for the MAKE blog 
fascinated viewers with subjects ranging from potato cannons to 
t-shirt stencils.

So what's his show about? 
<http://brepettis.com/blog/2008/09/04/history-hacker-history-channel/>History 
Hacker features Pettis describing technical innovations through 
history... maybe a little NOVA meets Connections with a splash of Mythbusters?

Over the course of the show you learn about the inventors and 
inventions of the past and then hack the inventions together out of 
stuff in his closet.
The first pilot episode is all about Nikola Tesla who is an amazing 
character. He's the man responsible for the current that comes out of 
your wall sockets. He battled Thomas Edison in the war of currents 
and won.  He had over 300 patents and besides figuring out AC power, 
he came up with radio control and mucked about with electricity more 
than anybody.
He's really excited that his show will be airing, but he's a bit 
nervous because the show basically will live or die based on Nielsen 
ratings. Nielsen is a company that tries to figure out how many 
people are watching a show and if they like it. They do this by 
compiling numbers from Tivo, installing Nielsen "go-boxes" in some 
family homes which document viewing habits, and choosing some 
households to document their tv views in a little journal. If Nielsen 
gives a good report, it's more likely that the show will go to season 
and he'll get to make more.

The pilot appears on the History Channel on September 26th at 9pm. 
Watch it. Enjoy it. And if you like the show, make sure to let the 
History Channel know!