My show, History Hacker, will be on TV tonight! It’s is all about exploring our technological history by hacking the inventions of the past. If you can, I’d love it if you can watch it with your kids! While making it, I imagined families watching the show and enjoying it together!
I really pushed hard to make the show fresh. There are a billion jumpcuts in this show and we achieved some special split screen and in-camera effects. It’s an hour long, so I have time to get into some projects to break down some of the principles that Tesla pioneered and fought for in the war of the currents. I make a neon bulb, AC generator from a bike and muck about with an old telephone magneto. I also go check out the power plant in the basement of the New Yorker and the space systems lab at MIT to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being used today.
Tonight, this show is really in you and your family and friend’s hands. It’s a pilot and so it will only go forward if it gets the ratings and response from viewers like you! If you feel so moved, write an email with your feedback, ideas for future episodes, or just what you think of the show! I’ve set up an email address that goes to the people at the network who need to hear your feedback.
I’ll be posting live backchannel commentary on twitter and I’ll be reading all the twitters with the words “history hacker” and “bre” in them. I’ll also be reading all the responses in the History Hacker Facebook group. I am also going to be checking out all the photos that folks post of themselves watching the show in the History Hacker flickr group.
Tonight!!!!!
History Hacker on History
8PM and Midnight
In the guide data that my Tivo uses the show is listed as Hacking History with the episode title History Hacker. I almost gave up but went looking by time and channel instead. Also, congratulations!
Any chance the show will be viewable on the net? Maybe hulu or on the history channel’s own website? I’d love to see it but I don’t have cable.
This sounds really interesting, but unfortunately I live in the UK. Is there any way to download or watch a stream of it?
I had a lot of fun building those “Jabbin’ Geniuses”!
I’m not from US but i’ll manage to get the show, i think this could be a amazing show for me to learn and entretein at the same time.
I love DIY…
“I’ll be reading all the twitters with the words “history hacker” and “bre” in them.”
Won’t you get every message that’s about breasts and bread?
I Just wanted to confirm for you that the show is called “Hacking History” and the episode is called “History Hacker”.
http://www3.tivo.com/tivo-tco/search.do?dispatch=simplesearch&searchCategory=&searchFor=hacking+history
9/26/08
08:00 PM Hacking History “History Hacker” Host Bre Pettis breaks the history of electricity down to its nuts and bolts; a journey from New York’s ultramodern power plants to one of the world’s most-advanced satellite research labs. HISTORY
I thought your your online episodes were great and look forward to watching your show tonight. Hopefully you will get some great ratings and well see more than a pilot :). Gives me something to watch while waiting for the debates to start
i jumped to the history channel, and see bre pettis on tv.
the show’s ace.
great show!
Congratulations on that great pilot!
For everyone outside the US (or not having cable) .. look for it at the “bay of the pirates”
The email address above for feedback gets me an error message. Please sir, another address?
(”This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you have sent could not be delivered to one or more
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address failed:
: 550 5.7.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox not available)
I tried to email you to that address, but I kept getting these errors:
Mail Delivery System
to me
show details 9:13 PM (0 minutes ago)
Reply
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you have sent could not be delivered to one or more
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address failed:
: 550 5.7.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox not available
History Hacker was absolutely awesome, congrats. I’m being totally serious when I say that I think this is the best show on History Channel right now, and here’s why. Most of the other science shows they carry tend to talk down to the audience, and I was severely disappointed with the way that shows seriously oversimplified topics. History Hacker didn’t, and that made me enjoy the show more than any show recently. As a fan of the Make Weekend Projects podcast (back when you hosted it), and as someone that’s met you in person (maker faire) I have to say that I might be a bit biased, but as a viewer, I think you captured the spirit of tinkering and science much better than any other show out there. Good luck and here’s to hoping that History Hacker get’s picked up for more episodes.
Cheers,
-E-
Oh Nooooooo!
I missed it!
How can I watch it?
Loved the show, took me a bit to find it on the History Channel website, I hope you put out more.
One thing you missed on Tesla , he was the president of IEEE , a company which my wife works for who sets the standards for the electronic world.
Great show look forward to more
It was so good! I hope the network and the numbers agreed; I can’t wait to see what else is in store.
I thought the show was interesting, that being said I did find it lacked a certain amount of basic explanation in some areas and then in others it went to deep. As for the projects I did like the glass blowing but the ending was kinda lame. All that being said I do think that producing a show about hardware hacking for the general public is not an easy task and they have done a good job. I also did not like the all white work space it lacked a certain amount of depth. If possible nix the jumping around and the odd camera views it makes it very hard to follow the show and takes away from the projects.
Keep up the good work and hack on.
Ciric Tech
Really enjoyed the show. You could probably do 20 episodes on Tesla, there is so much to talk about with that guy.
Anyways, it was awesome. Loved the blowing your own neon tubes from scratch. Can’t wait for the next episode.
Fantastic show Bre! Very good on distributing the topic over several sub-topics. You’ve got somethings to improve on, but I found it a easy show to concentrate on, and learn things at the same time. I will certainly be looking for future episodes of your show.
Tanner Smith
I remember Bre from Evergreen State College. As I recall, Mr. Pettis was always the guy who actually studied.
I think the show will do exceptionally well, it’s just too bad that it had to air on the night of the first presidential debate. Very poor timing on the part of the History Channel.
Bre,
As a long time fan from the Make mag days I’m thrilled you have your own show. The pilot was great and I’m really hoping to see the full season run.
As always..Bre rules!
Bre,
I caught the show the other night. You’ve got a great approach there in mixing actual hacks with a compelling historical storyline. And Tesla certainly deserves the recognition you gave him. Well done!
I look forward to more episodes.
All the Best,
Dug North
Great show — I hope the History Channel continues the series!
Loved the artwork - Tesla vs. Edison. Any chance that will be made available online?
Crap! I missed it and there website doesn’t seem to show it showing again soon. Any idea when it will hit the airwaves again? Hmm, is it on iTunes like some of there stuff?
Bre - as advised I sent my following review of your excellent show to
historyhackerfeedback@brepettis.com — and the email came back saying “Mail Delivery Failed” — anyway KUDOS to your awesome premiere and please forward my thoughts to the Network.
———————————–
Channel surfers did stop and will in the future stop at the show,
because of the video production (particularly the ‘white room’) –
the shows editing, locations, the action, and most important
‘totally cool’ content — ‘edutainment’ something that is sadly
missing in the vast majority of the about-stuff shows.
And if you want to build an ongoing interested audience –
the field of electricity generation is on the verge of exploding,
with many ‘over-unity’ / ‘free energy’ inventions now coming
out of the closet.
The Discovery Channel’s Myth Busters show attempted in a
recent episode to debunk ‘free energy’ and inadvertantly
proved the vast sea of charged particles being absorbed
into the Earth sent from the Sun — and one only needs to
harvest these energized particles with any number of low
or hi-tech generation devices.
Electricity generation is now, and will be increasingly popular,
and a show devoted to explaining any number of the new
(or in Tesla’s case old) devices would grow a huge following.
Look forward to the next episode of “Hacking History” into the
future present!
Regards,
John Donohue
Ditto as above; tried to email, got an error. Just wanted to say I loved what part of the show I could watch. Had to leave half-way through. Looking forward to the re-air so I can catch the rest!