Mechanical typewriters go back almost 200 years, or even longer depending on how you define "typewriter". In the early days, the design was not standardized, and many configurations were tried out. Letters were chosen on a slider in one style, on a disc in another. Another configuration was the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball (featured previously). Eventually, manufacturers settled on the QWERTY keyboard layout that we still use today, even though typewriters are rarely used anymore. See a variety of these early machines at Dark Roasted Blend. Link
In case you were busy when the link appeared, here's another chance to try out Neato-Puzzle #3!
Steven Johnson gave us the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Congratulations to winner NathanBBlu, who named the invention "Stalaglites," and explained why. And also to winner lolamouse, who came up with "Light in the Loafers" (used to tell interested observers which way you go). Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop!
Join us also at Facebook and Twitter for more contests, giveaways, discussions, and extra links. And look for lots more Halloween goodies in the coming week!
Some communities need residents. Some need jobs. Some need development. In order to get those things, a few communities will give you free land! These small communities want you to build a house and make yourself at home.
Several small cities in rural Kansas will give you a land lot if you agree to fashion housing of at least 1,000 square feet on it. Mobile homes are welcome, and we'll be sure to wave as yours flies by in the next tornado. If one lot isn't large enough and you'd like to garden, the city of Marquette, Kansas would be pleased as punch to just give you a second lot adjacent to the first, also for free, says its website. These are developed lots, by the way -- they already have water, sewer and electricity.
There are opportunities in Nebraska, Iowa, Maine, and Michigan as well. Link-Thanks, Steven Johnson!
Video games are great fun, until one day you run smack-dab into the natural order of things. Susanne Wohlfahrt and Marcus Blättermann created this during a four-day animation workshop. -via The Daily What
Theodore Gray (featuredpreviously at Neatorama) teaches us how stunt men can go around in flames. By setting himself on fire. On video.
There are a few perks to my job as a mad scientist, and one of them, as I recently learned, is being able to tell my colleagues that I can’t attend their terribly important meeting because I’m going to set my hand on fire. In the movies, people on fire stumble out of burning buildings all the time. If you look closely, however, you’ll notice that they are almost always fully dressed, and that they tend to keep moving. These are two important factors that make the stunt much easier.
Warning: do not try this at home. http://www.popsci.com/node/49107/?cmpid=enews102110 -via the Presurfer
Flintstones Vitamins continue to be popular, even though both the children who take them today and most of their parents are too young to remember when the television show that inspired them was on in prime time.
Perhaps some of the explanation for the Flintstone Vitamins continued success is in their nostalgia for the generations of children who grew up with them — and who are now parents themselves. There’s even a Facebook group for those who ate the vitamins as a kid. And then there’s that jingle — “Ten million strong and growing!” — which, incidentally, was composed by Martin O’Donnell, the same guy who composed the music for the intensely popular Halo video game series.
Mental_floss takes a look at how the vitamins came about and how they've changed over the years -including the saga of the Betty Rubble vitamin. Link
In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts became the setting for a series of trials in which 19 people were hanged for the crime of witchcraft. Another was pressed under heavy stones until he died, and at least four others died in prison. Over 300 years later, Salem is a very different place. Although some of the very same buildings survive, the residents of the 17th century would not recognize the town it has become.
1. Beginning in the 1970s, Salem began to actively embrace its past as a draw for tourism. The TV series Bewitched recorded six episodes in the town in 1970. As tourists came, more businesses sprung up to accommodate their interest in witches and witchcraft. Practitioners of Wicca and Neo-Paganism moved to Salem, at first to open businesses and later to be among those who shared the same beliefs and lifestyle. A rift grew between the townspeople who wanted to emphasize the town's historic sites and those who wanted to make money by giving tourists what they want. The controversy came to a head in 2005 when TV Land erected a statue of Samantha Stevens, the lead character of Bewitched, in the town center.
2. Salem has historic sites that have nothing to do with the witch trials. The House of the Seven Gables, also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, is an actual house built in 1668 that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his book The House of the Seven Gables. Salem was an important port in the trade with East India, and shipping merchants built lavish mansions in town. One, the Gardner Pingree House, is now owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. Both buildings are among many in Salem that are open for tours.
5. Salem takes advantage of its reputation with a dizzying schedule of Halloween events. You can watch a recreation of the events that led to the witch trials performed downtown, enjoy the festival of the dead, or listen to scary stories told at various locations everyday through the weeks leading up to Halloween. Every day in October is jammed with witchy events.
There are only so many hours in the day, and if you're an evil villain, there's too much dirty work to do.
So you get a henchman. But you can't just let him out there all alone. It's a big dark scary world, and he barely even has a name, much less any characterization! He needs a buddy.
Bonus points if the buddy is the physical opposite of the other, skinny where he is fat, or short where he is tall. Extra bonus points if you can use them as stand-ins to personify a much larger fighting force.
Often they are the funniest part of the story, and certainly have more personality than the evil overlord they work for. Revisit some of your favorites in this expandable list from Geekosystem. Link
In case you're not a pro at this, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal has explicit instructions for how to pet a kitty. And don't even think you'll be able to get out of it, or delegate the job to someone else, if you live with a cat! Link
Combine a graceful sea creature in its natural environment with some ethereal music and you've got this video. From the YouTube link:
Making a rare appearance just in time for Halloween, this ghostly-looking orange cirrate octopus was recently observed by MBARI's ROV Doc Ricketts swimming over the Taney Seamounts. These finned octopuses belong to an order of animals called Cirrata named for the presence of hair-like structures called 'cirri' which may aid these animals in the capture of food.
Plimsolls put the town shoemaker out of business. As the first mass-produced shoes, plimsolls were crafted on an assembly line using canvas and vulcanized rubber. But don't let the "inspected by No. 35" tag fool you. These mid-19th century kicks were so crude that they didn't even differentiate between the right and left foot.
2. Keds: When the Rubber Met the Road
Tires and sneakers are both made of rubber and fabric, so it was only a matter of time before tire companies got into the shoe business. In 1892, Goodyear took on Plimsolls by manufacturing a more sophisticated rubber-and-canvas sneaker. The company decided on the name Peds, but someone else already held the trademark. So, Goodyear went with Keds. The rest of the world, however, started calling them "sneakers," after an ad man remarked the shoes' soles were quiet on most surfaces.
3. Converse All Stars: A Love Affair with Chuck Taylor
The original Converse All Star was the first shoe designed for a specific sport-basketball. After pro athlete Chuck Taylor began endorsing the shoe, he became such an effective spokesman that his name was permanently added to the ankle patch in 1923. The classic black-and-white model debuted in 1949, setting the sneaker standard for the next 25 years. In fact, All Stars haven't changed since then, and they remain the best-selling athletic shoes of all time.
4. Adidas and Puma: A True Sibling Rivalry
German brother Adi and Rudolf Dassler founded their shoemaking firm in 1924. Twelve years later, Adi drove cross-country to Berlin, where he convinced Jesse Owens to wear his handmade running shoes in the Olympics. Owens won four gold medals, and the Dasslers' white shoes became coveted by runners everywhere. But in 1948, after many years of feuding, the brothers split. Rudolph opened up a shop across the river and named his new enterprise Puma, while Adi renamed his company Adidas (the first three letters of his first and last names). A natural -and lasting- rivalry was born.
5. Nike: Forged in a Waffle-maker
In 1972, University of Oregon track-and-field coach Bill Bowerman began experimenting with ways to make a better running shoe. One night on a whim, he poured a urethane mixture into his wife's waffle iron. The result was a shoe sole with protruding square segments that offered greater impact absorption. Conveniently, Bowerman's revelation came precisely when one of his former track stars was trying to launch a fledgling shoe company. His name was Phil Knight. With a simple handshake, the two men formed the most successful sneaker company in history.
6. Run-DMC and Adidas: Hip-Hop's Comeback
Although Adidas Superstars were all the rage with NBA players in the 1970s, they were passe by the time Run-DMC hit the scene in the mid-1980s. But the rappers brought them back-big time. They sported them without laces (as the prison population did) and even wrote a hit song about them called "My Adidas". Adidas gave Run-DMC an endorsement contract for $1 million-the first one granted to non-athletes.
Hitting the market in 1989 at $170 a pair, the Pump was the most expensive gym shoe to date. But many consumers were happy to pay the price, finally giving Reebok a foothold in Nike's basketball monopoly. The high point came in 1991 when NBA star Dee Brown won the Slam Dunk Contest. Just before his final attempt, he bent over and dramatically pumped up his shoes. he then slammed home a no-look dunk, forever linking himself with Reebok's hi-tech shoes.
8. You: the Consumer
The watchword in today's sneaker market is individualization. Online, customers can design their own shoes, selecting colors, patterns, and materials. Retro is in. Limited release is in. Affordability is out. If you really want to, you can design a shoe that doesn't differentiate between the right foot and the left. Or, you can just find an old pair of plimsolls on eBay. It's all up to you, the consumer.
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The above article by Eric Furman is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
The "How It Should Have Ended" series tackles the weird disconnect from reality most of us noticed in the Star Wars saga. Put yourself in Darth Vader's place and see what really should have happened in the movie The Empire Strikes Back at Geeks Are Sexy. Link
