Ben Franklin's DEATH RAY

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Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

Nate Dimeo, an NPR reporter, has been creating some fascinating audio at a site he called The Memory Palace. These are highly textured historical narratives about stuff we might not know or remember.

My favorite is a piece on a widespread fear among the British that Franklin had invented a lightning-bolt gun – and such rumors led many to shun lightning rods on their homes, in turn leading to countless unnecessary fires.

The Memory Palace