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An Absurd Device to Add Dialogue to Silent Films

The motion picture industry was in full swing years before synchronized sound was developed. Many engineers were working on adding sound to movies, but one of the strangest ideas came from romance novelist and amateur engineer Charles Felton Pidgin. In 1917 he patented an idea for adding word balloons to movies by having the actors blow into inflatable tubes that had the words on them! Think of the noisemakers at children’s birthday parties that unroll a paper tube when you blow in them -yeah, that’s the idea. I’ve seen no evidence that this technique was ever actually tried on the big screen, but I can imagine that it would be way more trouble than it was worth. Read more about the Beauty of Timelessly Bad Ideas at Ptak Science Books. -via Boing Boing


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I can just imagine some of the classic movie lines done like this:

"Frankly, Scarlet: (puff puff) I don't give (puff) a damn"

“The truth?!" (puff puff) You can't han (puff puff) dle the truth!”

Or Roy Batty's "Tears in Rain" soliloquy.
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Its a 'Candle Winder'. At least that's what it was sold as, discreetly from underneath counter at the local dry goods and feed store. Those crazy victorians and their pre electric battery sex toys.

Don't Blink -Med Grey t shirt (Daughter just discovered Dr. Who)
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Remember the tabletop game from our youth, Battling Tops ™? Well, it turns out that the original wasn’t a game. The original was a Ninja weapon called a “Topei Shinjuru” (戦争ヨーヨー)(literally “War YoYo”). This is a seventeenth century (Norris Dynasty) Samurai Shinjuru launcher.

Big Minion Theory, Ladies Cut Large
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It's the original prototype Sonic Screwdriver; it was called the Sonic SCREWDRIVER because of the flathead at the end of this; those prongs are from an attempt to turn the screwdriver into a batarang-like grappling hook. The wire was the source of power for the screwdriver; the Doctors do need exercise occasionally.

And all of you copycats who are reading that will use this response, back off! This answer's mine!

LIFE T-Shirt, Black L
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A prototype Newton Meter - you know, the weight meters that you put an object on, and it drags it down a certain number of Newtons?
First, you take off the (removable) side sticking out, and put the thing you're measuring on a rope/string that is hooked in, replacing the part you took off to clamp it in place. Then, you drag the wheel like part to the zipper-end, and grab the zipper, and lift it up, so that gravity pulls down the wheel a certain number of grooves. That's the weight.

Pandemic T-Shirt, Black L
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