Maurice Collins, a retired businessman in London, has an extensive collection of odd historical gadgets, most of them from the 19th or early 20th Centuries. The Daily Mail has a photo gallery of sixteen of these inventions, such as the pictured mustache protector:
Having a bushy moustache has always been something of an obstacle to refined dining - particularly when it came to mulligatawny soup. The answer was to use a moustache protector, spoon or cup - designed with a hole for the mustachioed man to sip through.
Skylifter is an Australian start-up company that hopes to use enormous blimps to move pieces of equipment to places not easily accessible by roads:
Heavy-transport helicopters, such as the Mil Mi-26 or Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, address some of these difficulties, but their payloads are limited to 20 and nine tonnes, respectively, and the huge rotors create a powerful downdraft that makes handling that payload rather tricky. So people have long been looking for other ways round the problem. Now, Skylifter, an Australian aeronautical firm, thinks it has found the perfect solution.
The company is developing a piloted dirigible capable of carrying loads of up to 150 tonnes over distances as great as 2,000km (1,240 miles) at a speed of 45 knots (83kph). This would permit the craft to transport not just hefty components, but entire buildings, to remote areas. The company envisages modules ranging from rural hospitals and disaster-relief centres to luxury airborne cruise ships.
Neil Alan Smith, 48, was a dishwasher at a Crab Shack in St. Petersburg, Florida. When he was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver, the St. Petersburg Times reported the story. An online commenter to the story responded:
A man who is working as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack at the age of 48 is surely better off dead.
The newspaper editors were deeply offended at this gross dismissal of the value of a human life, and responded by publishing a full obituary for Mr. Smith. He was a private man, but noted among a small circle of friends for working hard and sharing with those in need:
"He set his boundaries," said Peggy Rogers, 56, his roommate of six years. "He didn't pry into your business, so you just kind of respected that and you didn't do that to him."
He told friends he had been married and divorced, had managed a gas station in New Hampshire before moving to Florida in 1999. He got a concession stand job at Derby Lane, then started working at the Crab Shack.
He lived in a mobile home near the restaurant and paid rent to the owner, Bonnie Schaeffer-Mott. Once, when she feared the power company would shut off the electricity, she asked Mr. Smith for help.
He gave her more than what she had asked to borrow and insisted she take it. "I'll never forget that," said Schaeffer-Mott, 51.
"Work" is a short film by Michael Rianda about a young boy who wants a pair of shoes. He wants them so badly that he's willing to slowly die in a cubicle trying to earn money for them.
For unknown reasons, Austin Horries Purifoy, 19, wanted to relieve himself in the backseat of his girlfriend's car. Unfortunately, he selected the wrong car:
Leaving work late the night of March 11, the car's owner reported finding Purifoy in the back seat of his Honda Civic, pulling up his underwear.
"This is your car?" Purifoy said before bolting the scene, according to documents filed in court. "I thought this was Desiree's car."
Link via Althouse | Photo of unrelated Honda Civic via Flickr user Dave_7 used under Creative Commons license
Japanese artist Mio I-zawa, the man responsible for the mechanical tumor computer peripheral, made this umbilical cord for the iPhone. It recharges a phone while quivering ominously.
Have you ever had to cut open an animal and crawl inside in order to survive during a storm? You know -- like how Han Solo cut open a tauntaun and shoved Luke Skywalker inside during a snowstorm on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back?
No? Well then, have I got a blog for you! Cutting Open an Animal and Crawling Inside to Survive a Storm in the Wild is a blog devoted entirely providing practical instructions on choosing the right animal, the right blade, and making the most of your gushy, gory survival experience. There are many animals to choose from, including the luckdragon -- a creature from the book and movie The Neverending Story. Approach the luckdragon with the right bait:
Falkor in particular is trusting of human children. Thus, if you get lost taking a class of kindergarteners to search for Uyulala the Southern Oracle, and a storm that may or may not be the work of the evil sorceress Xayide is rolling in from the north, have one of them summon Falkor.
With luck, he will find you, and when he does, his luck will run out. Use a long serrated blade to saw him open from chin to tail. Work fast, this will be a traumatic moment for the kids. Consider distracting them by pretending that a rock in the distance is the werewolf Gmork coming to steal their souls.
After the incision is made, remove the guts and herd the children inside.
Green Street Media is a British ad agency that emphasizes eco-friendly advertising. One medium that it uses consists of applying stenciled designs and a power washer to dirty London sidewalks. The company estimates that an ad should remain legible for 3-5 months.
Link via DudeCraft | Company Website | Photo: Core77
Google Street View began in 2007 with images from 5 U.S. cities. Now the project is starting its photographic mapping of Antarctica:
Three years later, we’re happy to announce that you can now explore Street View imagery on all seven continents, with the addition today of Brazil, Ireland and Antarctica. You can now see images from around the world spanning from the beaches of Brazil, to the moors of Ireland, to the icy terrain in Antarctica.
A Japanese company is considering using submarines to diminish the power of typhoons that hit that nation:
The idea is to use a fleet of around 20 submarines in front of the gathering storm, each fitted with eight pumps capable of shooting 480 tonnes of cold water a minute. The submarines would dive to a depth of 30 meters and pump water from that depth onto the surface of the sea to lower the surface temperature.
Company executive Koichi Kitamura, who came up with the idea, said that in an hour a fleet of 20 submarines could lower the temperature of 57,000 square meters of surface water enough to diminish the strength of the typhoon, which needs an ocean temperature of 25 to 27 degrees Celsius to form and keep spinning. He said the scheme should be able to stop a typhoon in its tracks.
Link via Popular Science | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user DVIDSHUB used under Creative Commons license
Fred Geller and Judy Foster of Anchorage, Alaska, needed a retirement project. They settled on building a giant version of the classic Radio Flyer toy wagon. It's built on the chassis of a 1976 Mazda pickup truck, so it can move under its own power.
Fred Keller and Judy Foster worked on the car for 11 months, and finished in August of this year, and their ride has been turning heads.[...]
The wheels are made from hub caps and detergent bottles, and the steering wheel is the actual wheel from a wagon. The handle rises eight feet high.
At the photo gallery link, you can view eight pictures of the wagon under construction.
Story Link and Photo Gallery via Geekologie | Photo: KTUU
There's a store in Clearwater, Florida that has a unique sign. It reads "DUI Scooters". This scooter dealership caters to people who have lost their driver's licenses, but need transportation. Under the law, riders of low-powered scooters don't need a license:
They have pedals, which may or may not be used, and run for up to 25 miles on an electric charge. They fit a state and federal description of "low-speed electric bicycles." Sunset Scooters gives customers copies of the law, recommending they laminate it and keep it with them.
"At first, we had some trouble with law enforcement basically not understanding what these were," Vitello said. "Even some judges were completely mystified. But now they all seem to be on board.
India has deployed large langur monkeys in Delhi to serve as security guards during the upcoming Commonwealth Games. They will chase smaller monkeys away from sporting venues in the city:
From Wednesday, 10 langurs will be put on duty outside several Games venues in the Indian capital, with the swimming complex seen as particularly vulnerable to monkey misbehavior, an official said.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has a regular team of 28 langurs which are used to scare away their weaker brethren in VIP areas of the city.[...]
Monkeys are a common sight in the verdant Indian capital, where they routinely scamper through government offices, courts and even police stations and hospitals.
Link via Hit & Run | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user mckaysavage used under Creative Commons license
Joseph Karam, a fan of Koji Kondo's musical score for Super Mario Bros., discovered that there is no complete body of sheet music for the game. So he decided to create a professional-level transcription:
[...] I pulled out my professional engraving software and embarked on a meticulous and uncompromising transcription project that involved (i) transcribing every pitch and rhythm while listening to the original 8-bit NES recordings hundreds of times, voice by voice, note by note, in a loop, (ii) rigorously cross-checking my work with several of the best transcription attempts out there, (iii) arranging the visual layout and pagination for clear readability, and (iv) optimizing the piano fingering by learning the pieces myself and playing them every day for several months.
Last weekend, American Bobby Cleveland took his lawn mower out to the Bonneville Salt Flats and accelerated to a record-breaking 96.529 MPH. This performance took the title away from British driver Don Wales, who had reached a speed of 87.833 MPH on his lawn mower.
