1951 manual: How To Use a Dial Telephone
IN 1951: anyone uncertain of how to use a telephone was being educated:
Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Mickey Mouse gasmask was utterly terrifying in 1942 – and it still is
WAR is utterly terrifying. It’s ugly. But in 1942, T.W. Smith, Jr., owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and designer, Dietrich Rempel, created something to give children nightmares: the Mickey Mouse gas mask, as approved by Walt Disney.
Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
1936: How to die by electrocution in 30 pictures
AUSTRIAN physician Stefan Jellinek founded The Electro-Pathological Museum in 1936. Hr provided the content in Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Protection in 132 Pictures). DEath and electricity went hand-in-hand. But with this book, you would be forewarned.
If you can identify all the contraptions, let us know.
Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The entirely insane new tax in France on smartphones, laptops, TVs and tablets
THE French have decided it would be a good idea to tax all the smartphones, TVs, tablets and the rest in order to subsidise the creation of French movies n’ stuff that people can watch on their smartphones, tablets and TVs. This is truly insane:
The French government is considering creating a new tax on smartphones and tablets in a bid to raise millions to support the creation of digital cultural content inside France.
The proposal, handed to President Francois Hollande today, outlines a one per cent tax on the sale of Internet-compatible devices, targeting companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon.
The tax would yield about 86 million euros per year. The revenue would help cultural industries create French content such as music, images and videos.
Posted: 15th, May 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Great car driving music with a film car chase montage (video)
CAR driving music with a film car chase montage. Can you name the films?
Posted: 14th, May 2013 | In: Cars, Film | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Things that existed: the Phone Relief Ultimate Hands-Free Headset
IN the early 1990s, the world was in peril. Telephones were falling into pies, to the floor from desks and very possibly being mistaken for carrots. But help was at hand. The Phone Relief Ultimate Hands-Free Headset was here.
Posted: 13th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Bang With Friends: the only people anonymous are the sex site’s creators
BANG WITH FRIENDS is a site that boasts:
The anonymous, simple, fun way to find friends who are down for the night.
Your friends will never know you’re interested unless they are too! (Completely private & discreet until both friends are down to bang!)
Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
IN 1881, the London St James’s Gazette reported on the end of life on Earth. The news was picked up by Australia’s Bendigo Advertiser:
STARTLING THEORY.
The London St James’s Gazette writes :—
” This planet, it seems, is threatened with serious changes by the extension of the telegraphic system. A timely note of warning to this effect is given by one of the American papers. Polarity, it observes, depends upon a current of electricity passing at right angles to the direction of the poles. The polarity of the earth depends upon the electric or heat currents of the sun, and it is highly probable that the earth’s inclination to the ecliptic is governed by its polarity. If, therefore, there were instantly established sufficient electrical connection by wires around the earth, with the earth itself, to instantly equalize the current and produce a complete reduction of all electrical excitement, what would be the effect on the polarity, and secondly on the inclination to the ecliptic ? May there not be a sudden change of polarities — the Arctic region becoming equatorial, and the tropics suddenly changed to polar temperature? The sudden melting of the vast ice fields would produce another glacial flood ; the present race would disappear, and the man of the quaternary would begin life ever again at the antipodes. All this is to be accomplished by the continuation of complete circuits for telegraphing around the globe. Of course tremendous earthquakes would follow, as the polar diameter is twenty-six miles too short and the equatorial twenty-six miles too long. Whether this theory prove correct or not, there cannot be a doubt that something has of late gone wrong with atmospherical arrangements, and perhaps the telegraph wires are not wholly blameless in the matter.”
Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
78,000 apply to live and die on Mars, because they hate Earth, clearly
SOME people hate Earth so much that they’ve applied to live on Mars, even though Mars looks like an arid death hole. More than 78,000 people from 120 different countries have applied to leave Earth, which frankly makes them traitors and we should round them up and boo them into oblivion.
The openings come from a new reality TV series from Dutch non-profit organisation Mars One.
Posted: 10th, May 2013 | In: News, Technology | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Skills of Defensive Driving – Episodes 1 to 5 (1973)
IN Skills of Defensive Driving, the Australia Department of Transport pops the sex comedy soundtrack into the player and keep your eyes on the road. This was made by Film Australia in 1973:
Episode 2: Easter Time
Episode 3: The Car Behind
Episode 4: The Head On Collision
Great intro. An inspiration for Police Squad.
Episode 5: Cross-roads crash
Spotter: Jalopnik
Posted: 8th, May 2013 | In: Cars, Flashback | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
In 1967 The Muppets worked as IBM instructors (video)
IN 1967, IMB hired Jim Henson to educate their staff. His Muppets were here to help. Cue the Cookie Monster:
Kermit:
Suits:
Ralph:
Posted: 6th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Liberator 3D gun secures victory for who owns the best printers
TEXAS University law student Cody Wilson has printed and fired a 3D gun. The gun was manufactured on a 3D printer that cost $8,000 (£5,140) from eBay.
Posted: 6th, May 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
POLICE forces will be beating a path to Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s door. She collects stray hair, dropped chewing gum, and discarded cigarettes, extracts the DNA and constructs models of the faces of the comber, chewer and smoker. One say this technology will be used to identify the dog that dropped a packet in the wrong place, the Singaporean who defied the rules and chewed the Bazooka Joe and the man in the balaclava who held up the bank.
From this sequence, Dewey-Hagborg gathers information about the person’s ancestry, gender, eye color, propensity to be overweight and other traits related to facial morphology, such as the space between one’s eyes. “I have a list of about 40 or 50 different traits that I have either successfully analyzed or I am in the process of working on right now,” she says.
Dewey-Hagborg then enters these parameters into a computer program to create a 3D model of the person’s face.” Ancestry gives you most of the generic picture of what someone is going to tend to look like. Then, the other traits point towards modifications on that kind of generic portrait,” she explains. The artist ultimately sends a file of the 3D model to a 3D printer on the campus of her alma mater, New York University, so that it can be transformed into sculpture.
Posted: 6th, May 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
21 vintage camera adverts for your inner voyeur
BEFORE the age of digital cameras in everything, buying a snapper was a call to loins. Men needed cameras for one reason: to record women (and in one instance below, other men). We’ve compiled 21 great images of what photography looked like before self shots and the internet.
Michael Landon did it was “flash”. The star of Little House on the Prairie was the wholesome and good Charles Ingalls, creating a myriad children from God’s will and hearty woodland walks. Then in the 1980s he got a Kodak Ektralite camera and went to film girls in their swimmers doing onto varnished hardwood flooring.
Going Beyond subtle.
Whipped hair and soup strainer, Tamon man was a serious photographer. The Playgirl ideal never smiled.
She’s looking at you. He’s looking to steal her necklace.
The name’s Bond. Basildon Bond. So shoot me!
Why flash at the beach? Because with brilliant light you can see through her swimsuit, that’s why. And you live in Bridlington.
a
It’s 1932. Women are free to watch.
The XL Addict has a raincoat and bins. He is a “man on the move”. He;’s looking at your “money maker”. He is the man your mother warned you about.
Five reasons. One… two… three… (or are they a pair?)… four…
Get a grip
An eyefull. Shoot.
Romance lives in upskirt shots.
Your Kodak dealer has lots of photos. You just need to aks the right questions.
That sort of man. And it’s not “small”, ok.
Also cooks, cleans, communicates with Mars and deflects Russian atom bombs. The camera is merely huge.
The man on the floor is a keen observer of the human condition.
The Nikkormat FTN is “bait”. Be the master of bait…
See that girl in the distance? Now take a look through a Soligor 80-200. Yeah, she’s that close.
Camera woman wears ideal photography kit.
It’s just like being there.
With the Vivitar Super 8 women are easy meat.
Talent
Posted: 30th, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology, The Consumer | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Was the Yugo the worst car ever made?
WAS the Yugo the worst care ever made? Known locally as the Zastava Koral, the Zastava corporation’s compact hatchback died in 2008, when the last horror rolling slowly off the Zastava factory in the Serbian town of Kragujevac.
Posted: 28th, April 2013 | In: Cars, Flashback | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Hyundai make staggeringly stupid advert where a bloke tries to kill himself with clean emissions
HYUNDAI have made a staggeringly stupid advert where a bloke tries to kill himself via “pipe job” locked inside one of their cars but fails because the emissions are too clean. Maybe the faceless Hyundai drove him to it?
Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Cars, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
New Kalq keyboard streamlines English language into a few easy-to-text words
BEHOLD the two-thumb operated keyboard. Evolution rules. Scientists at the University of St Andrews, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech have worked out what they say is the most efficient keyboard layout. It turns out that QWERTY is dead. On a tablet, the eight fingers are only useful for holding the device while the two thumbs type.
The boffins have called it Kalq, writing in a research paper:
An error-correction algrithm was added to help address linguistic and motor errors. Users reached a rate of 37 words per minute – with a five per cent error rate – after a training program.
…
Words like “on, see, you, read, dear, based”, frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only. This makes the typing process cumbersome and slow. This insight initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry that could speed up typing and minimise strain for the thumbs.
Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Patrick Kane’s remote control bionic hand can be programmed by a smart phone
FACE of the day: Patrick Kane 16, has become the first person in the UK to receive a revolutionary bionic hand which can be manipulated by remote control. He can control it with a smart phone app, which programmes the hand into a raft of pre-set grips.
Patrick, from London, lost his hand when he was a young child. He was fitted with the i-limb ultra revolution yesterday and has described its functions as “priceless“. It costs around $50,000.
Says Patrick:
It’s the little things that are important, like being able to hold a glass while you pour into it, or being able to cut up the food on my plate, rather than having someone else do it for me.
Says the company behind the wonder, Livingston’s Touch Bionics:
Utilizing its pulsing and vari-grip features, the i-limb ultra is the only prosthetic hand with the ability to gradually increase the strength of its grip on an object. This can be very useful in situations where a firmer grasp is required, such as tying shoelaces tightly or holding a heavy bag more securely.
We’ve come a long way, baby:
These prosthetics made by Felix B. Weinberg, in Baltimore, Md., include a manÂ’s hand, a womanÂ’s hand, two eyes, and an ear, shown May 10, 1951. The lifelike portions of the body are made of soft pliable plastics for use by the patient. Date: 10/05/1951
Posted: 24th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
AS we in the know know, the 1969 moon landing never happened. But in case what never happened, never happend badly and the mission failed, speechwriter William Safire wrote to President Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman. He wanted to outline a plan should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reach the moon’s surface but fail to return home. Buzz had a prayer. But the US needed a statement.
Posted: 22nd, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Woo Hoo! Apple’s new iPhone is coming!
THE new iphone. It’s coming! Aren’t you excited too? I know I am because it’ll be just fabulous allowing me to pose even more effectively as a cool and in touch sort of person. You know, rather than the fat middle aged man I actually am.
The knowledge that the new iPhone is coming is revealed to us by the Wall Street Journal:
TAIPEI—Foxconn Technology Group has resumed hiring assembly-line workers in China after a postholiday freeze, in the latest sign that customer Apple Inc. is gearing up for production of a new iPhone.
Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Every birthday celebrating on your Facebook Wall
YOU FACEBOOK friends want to wish you a happy birthday. Dan Hopper saves them the bother. This is what your Facebook wall looks like on your birthday:
Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Big Brother: Tiny wireless injectable device shines light on brains to generate a reward
THIS can only go well for anyone interested in controlling human thoughts. Researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a tiny device for triggering happy thoughts. It’s a tiny wireless injectable LED device that shines light on mice brains to generate a reward.
“Using a miniature electronic device implanted in the brain, scientists have tapped into the internal reward system of mice, prodding neurons to release dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure.”
What could go wrong?
Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
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