Rob Beschizza

Paper Jam Boy!

Joel Johnson

The Day Before Tomorrow, 1/22

Joel Johnson

The Day Before Tomorrow, January 21st, 2009

Joel Johnson

The Day That Was, January 20th, 2009

Animal Collective's new album uses a popular optical illusion for its cover ⌁ A local news station interviews interim Apple head Tim Cook's parents, which is a little strange ⌁ Samsung will go Android on at least one phone ⌁ Asus's Eee PC Touch UI, what using their tablet netbook will be like ⌁ New Sony TVs will shut themselves off if no one is in the room

John Brownlee

RFID shrines for graying Japan

A graying Japanese woman, injected with liquid Smilex at key muscular intersections, walks up to her husband's futuristic shrine, flashing an RFID chip at a card reader. Thirty seconds later, the entombed ashes of her late husband are brought up via elevator from the sepulchral Japanese netherworld. A translation of their conversation follows.

Woman: Husband!

Ashes: Wife! It is hell down there. The urns never stop weeping and screaming. Why won't you put me on your mantle?

Woman: I am sleeping with a new man now.

Ashes: You whore.

Woman: I am glad you are dead.

The technology that allows this post-mortem moment of marital fidelity: a space-saving RFID solution for automatically displaying your loved one's remains in the crowded shrines of Japan. Remains are stored in an underground vault, hiccoughed up for attractive ornamental display only when a loved one remembers you once existed and deigns to come for a visit.

Actually, a rather ingenious solution to the overcrowded, expensive shrines of a graying Japan, but I still personally have an affinity for the Lebowski method of corpse disposal.

Japanese Graves Use Technology for Limited Space [Trends in Japan]

John Brownlee

Apple R&D building erupts into flames

Earlier this morning, an Apple R&D facility went up in flame, causing some portion of its 100-strong staff to evacuate the building. Over 66 firefighters rushed to the scene to put out the blaze. Early reports blame "faulty air conditioning." Our guess: faulty air conditioning on hot Cupertino day causes MacBook Air explosion, conflagration.

Fire contained at Apple headquarters [ABC via Cult of Mac]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Recently on Modern Mechanix we looked at the Heli-Vector, which had everyone asking "Will he blend?", Time Magazine's 1956 round up of the state of factory Automation, a bicycle powered hair salon, a man who claims to own outer space, a UCLA lab where they put people in ovens at over 260° F just to see what happens, an unintentionally ironic Lucky Strikes ad, a bank teller's cage with fourteen ways to foil robbers and a rather bizzare family bicycle/sewing machine.

Also, we learned how to roast weinies when all you have is wood, nails and an outlet, the origins of NASCAR and how to build a pedal powered airplane swing for your back yard. Plus, the birth of the ethanol lobby.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Over at Modern Mechanix we're currently in the middle of series of posts about technologies that were invented earlier than you might have thought. We've already done fax machines, answering machines and televisions and have more coming later this week. (At right is a color fax machine from 1946)

We've also posted articles about a man who designed magic tricks for famous magicians, designs for floating airports, extremes in sexual behavior (of the time, pretty mild by today's standards), a truck that walks on metal feet, the $125,000,000 (1931 dollars) mini-golf industry, how to disarm a gun toting attacker, self lighting cigarettes, a photographer who poses as a cactus, Wile Coyote style, a collection of strange bridges, one man helicopters, rocket planes that'll get your from NYC to LA in 40 minutes, leg falsies, a nicotine remover for cigarettes, 3D-movies, camouflaged military pigeons, a self dialing directory driven phone and a look at where television stands today (today being 1931).

In the computer section we also looked at Byte magazine's review of the original Macintosh, and their much more interesting interview with the design team (hint: even in 1984 Jobs was arrogant and irritatingly right), an ad for a 1983 "64-bit" computer, and in 1968 Look magazine asked the question "The Computer Data Bank, Will it Kill Your Freedom?"

John Brownlee

We-Vibe sex toy is rechargeable, "easily accommodates" other stimulators

From the We-Vibe's official site, some of the most beautiful marketing prose ever written:

The We-Vibe replaces an entire selection of adult toys because it is extremely versatile. It has the power of a large vibe but is small enough to fit into a women’s contours and deliver stimulation directly to the clitoris and G-spot. The We-Vibe has no wires or straps to get in the way or ruin the mood. Leave your We-Vibe plugged in and charging so it will always be ready when you are.

The We-Vibe fits women anatomically and is so slender and conforming that a penis or dildo can easily fit into the vagina along with the We-Vibe.

Well, one would certainly hope so. The We-Vibe costs £74.99 from UK retailer Love Honey, although you can purchase an artfully named knock-off called The Snugglepuss for a third the price.

Via the lovely girls over at Shiny Shiny, who did not see fit to put their insufferable, auto-playing video sidebar to rare good use with an editorial review of the product.

The We-Vibe Vibrator [Love Honey via Shiny Shiny]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Sorry for the recent hiatus folks. Today we’re back with a Modern Mechanix Mega Round-UP.

Let’s start with the Computers section of the site. Recently we’ve looked at Byte magazine’s first reviews of the Apple IIe, Apple Lisa, a variety of early 80’s British computers and the original Compaq, which was the first PC clone. We learned that Compuserve once tried to trademark the word Email and that the catholic church invented modern database driven direct-mail fundraising.

In aviation we learned all about atomic planes, Northrup's B-49 flying wing bomber, vacuum dirigibles, spinning wing airliners, and a miraculous flying machine powered by the physics defying "gyradoscope".

On the plain old retrofuturism front we had a 1955 Mechanix Illustrated round-up of the Amazing Marvels of Tomorrow, Radio-Electronics magazine's 1967 House of Tomorrow, Popular Mechanics' 1939 Electric Home of the Future, some amazing 1931 movie miniatures portraying the cities of tomorrow, and what tomorrow's car will look like.

We also learned how to make an inflatable dome from a kit, how a modern hotel is run, how the world will end, how daredevils make a living, if sharks really bite, and how fancy electronic signs are made.

John Brownlee

Online encyclopedia of all Warner Bros. cartoon ACME brand products

Although exiled from memory now, there was but one name in gadgetry to be trusted from the 1930s through the 1960s: the storied and indefatigable inventing house of ACME Products. Who can forget their many technological triumphs? ACME Brand Dehydrated Boulders, which — with a single drop of water — would granoblastically engorge themselves from small pebbles? Or the ACME Brand Indestructo Steel Ball, which beat Volvo to the punch with the first nigh-invulnerable passenger vehicle? Or the patented ACME brand Instant Girl, a small capsule which, taken regularly, would fight off the loneliness of even the most introverted teenage boy? And let's not forget old stalwarts like the ACME Brand Jet Propelled Pogo Stick, the ACME Brand Iron Carrot, ACME Brand Strait-Jacketed Ejecting Bazookas and, of course, the timeless ACME Brand Giant Rubber Band.

Follow the link below to be whisked away to an online museum of ACME brand products, with links, images and descriptions detailing each and every invention in ACME's legendary arsenal of gadgets. It may be hard to imagine now, but we owe so many of our modern day tech industries to ACME's radical ingenuity. Bow your heads and usher forth to the museum of ACME with due reverence, gadget swine!

The Original Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products [Site via Oh Gizmo!]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we looked at these oh-so-cool sport binoculars, an advertisement for Harley Davidson's 1951 Hydra-Glide motorcycle, a centuries old automaton of an old woman that writes letters and learned that Canada is full of courteous people and fresh fish. This 1932 Modern Mechanix article documents the birth of the nascent US electronics industry, complete with a bunch of nifty photos. Also be sure to check out this 1968 Mechanix Illustrated article introducing the Boeing 747 and this 1934 piece about the construction of the Pan-American highway, stretching from Alaska to Argentina.

Charles Shopsin

Today on Modern Mechanix

Recently on Modern Mechanix we looked at this nifty wrist watch camera from 1939 that holds enough film for 36 photos, an odd cure for hay fever, a shipboard kennel located in a false funnel on the ocean liner Normandie , another "compact" hearing aid that isn't so compact, a 1914 amphibious vehicle called the Hidromobile that bares a striking resemblance to a clog and a tubby, well dressed robot that can dance. From 1939 we learned what Popular Mechanics thought a stay on Mars would be like, and Mechanix Illustrated asks the frightening question: "Will Polar Waves Swamp America?" along with some awesome illustrations in case the headline didn't sufficiently scare you.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Recently on Modern Mechanix we look at this cool little fish shaped submarine, a 1902 ad for an adding machine called the Comptometer, a 1936 Popular Science piece that explains why we might have another ice age, a dome light for Japanese cops, a comparison of the New York skyline from 1880 and 1930 (and today) as well as a 1977 Hewlett Packard computer advertisement touting their astoundingly inexpensive ECC RAM, just 5 cents (17 cents in 2007 dollars) per byte.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Recently on Modern Mechanix we looked at a 1950 Mechanix Illustrated article about how some of history's most famous inventions were discovered by accident. Pictured at right is Wilhelm von Roentgen's simultanious discovery of both the X-Ray and the electric razor. We made a brief stop in the seventies today with this Popular Science piece about preventing Skyjackers, and a trippy 1977 science fiction themed ad for Fairchild Semiconductor. We also looked at the booming business of balloon manufacturing, early abstract animations set to music, scientific highlights of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, phono/photo post cards, experiments with oxygen, a parachute jump tower and a 1961 ad for an IBM punched card modem. Lastly you really should check out this article about a co-ed crew of crazy miners in 1902 who built a sail powered car to cross the desert and gain access to their gold mine. The picture alone is worth the price of admission.

Charles Shopsin

Modern-Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we looked at this gasoline powered radio that gets 160 hours of playtime per gallon, a pretty precarious looking sled-bike, a lengthy 1931 Popular Science article about evolution, and a 1928 plan for passengers in a hurry to be loaded into bi-planes and catapulted off of the deck of ocean liners when they get within a couple of hundred miles of their destination. We also learned how scientists of 1947 planned to raid the ocean floor and that automobiles are not popular in Holland.

Charles Shopsin

Modern-Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at a wonderful 1954 article from Colliers magazine that predicted the huge changes coming due to solid-state electronics. Published just a few years after the invention of the transistor this article talks about color VCRs, touch-tone phones, solar power and many other inventions including the surprisingly modern looking flat screen TV at right. Today we also looked at a cute profile of a goofy inventor, a bar tender automat , the oh-so-stylish cigarette hat, and little house shaped motorbikes for home repairmen.

This weekend we learned about a government program to breed raccoons, how the greeting card industry works, and how crimes are solved by using hypnosis. We also looked at a doughnut handle, a rain coat that is also a map, a gas-raid shelter for pets, a monster bus that is also a movie theater, an expanding mobile home, a lip shaped stamp used to apply rouge and a rather scary looking cage mounted on the rumble seat of a car to take convicts off to prison.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have a 1956 Mechanix Illustrated article about scientist's plans to redesign the human body, including moving the mouth to the stomach and adding an eye to the tip of a finger. Showing that hucksters never miss a chance to exploit people's ignorance of new technology Popular Science wrote a 1939 expose about sham spiritualists using "Spirit Televisions" to fleece their marks. We also looked at an assembly line technique for rapidly developing color photos, a round-up of cool kids toys and a milk wagon towed by zebras. Lastly there is this theater impresario's 1929 prediction that future theaters will be shaped like an egg with multiple slide projectors providing "sets" for the films. Oddly, he doesn't even mention the idea of talkies.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this bizarre contraption designed to torture teach your baby how to walk, a "compact" gauge to measure the speed of baseball pitches, a round up of cool gadgets used in store windows to attract shoppers, a 1965 ad for Bell's Data-Phone which appears to be an early modem and a big truck that can transform into a complete airport. We also looked at Mechanix Illustrated's vision of future peace keepers in "Space Cops to Enforce World Peace". One commenter pointed out the similarity of this idea to the plot of H.G. Wells' 1936 movie "Things to Come". You can read a Modern Mechanix article about it here. Or watch the whole movie at archive.org.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this 1973 Popular Science article about the debut of the world's first cell phone, Motorola's Dynatac.

In super-dense Manhattan, for example, a transmitter and its antenna may be designed to cover a 15-block area. Another transmitter in a residential Brooklyn area may cover several miles. As the number of subscribers grows, more transmitters would be added.

Also today, a beard clinic that helps men develop their own custom shaving strategy, Polish dogs trained to lay telephone lines, deep sea divers used to solicit cash, an interesting approach to preventing bank robberies by using mirrors and a pretty nice looking home on a train.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look back to a simpler time when earstwhile wiretappers only needed a pair of vampire clips and a contact microphone to do their job instead of a bevy of wireless digital network sniffers. I imagine they also wouldn't have any trouble listening in on this cordless phone from 1970. It looks like it is just a standard bell telephone spliced onto a rather bulky radio base station. We also looked at Lady Nora Docker's pimped out 1956 Daimler complete with genuine zebra skin interior, a test to see if couples about to be married are compatible with one another, a cure for the cross-eyed and learned how to build your own very own Meditation thingy. Note: Meditation thingy is defined as a giant 12 sided plywood fort plastered with magazine pictures (or pholaged if you want to get fancy) that one gets inside to gently rock themselves to sleep while dreaming of a better world.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this cute little midget television set with a 2" screen, a $375 four-function 1970 calculator, an attempt to set the non-stop tractor riding record, a talking mailbox, and we learned how Disney made the soundtrack for Fantasia. In 1950 Mechanix Illustrated must have run themselves out of red ink publishing the sensationalist piece "Can Russia Defeat Us with Atom Bombs?"

This weekend we looked at a Playboy ad done in Ascii art, a food cooker that runs off of an automobile's exhaust, a sonic laundry cleaner, an odd insect resistant chair, a spinning house designed to withstand hurricanes, a crazy looking ad for "Auto Eyes", the original fishing video game, a waiting room for hitch-hikers, a giant truck designed to ship prefab housing kits, and a variety of gadgets for the home. We also learned how to get a career from the television boom, how UPS sorted packages, the inside story of rodeos, and that morning is not the best time for work. Also in 1931 Popular Science asked the question: "Can Soft Drinks Poison You?"

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we learn about a 1938 time capsule designed so that people of the distant future can learn about us and restore their shattered world to our glorious standards. This 1929 Modern Mechanics article chronicles inaugural flight of the Transcontinental Air Transport Corporation, piloted by Charles Lindberg. The T.A.T could take someone from Los Angeles to New York in under 48 hours via a combination of airplanes and sleeper trains. We also looked at an elevator that works without cables, an 80mph baby cycle car, a weird 1970 ad for rice, and a rather rotund long distance swimmer who demonstrates how to eat lunch in the water.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at the ridiculously impractical idea of Rocket Mail. When you absolutely have to get a document from New York to San Francisco in 2 hours, send it via ballistic missile! Or you could use a phone or fax for about one millionth the cost. This 1968 Life magazine piece titled "Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind" chronicles the author's (rather unhappy) experience with the organization. We also looked at a scheme to prevent birds from nesting in reservoirs that looks like it's computer generated, a selection of advertisements for "steam carriages" from a 1902 issue of Scientific American, the grandfather of the Ionic Breeze which looks like it would make a wicked bong, and an early camera that was capable of taking 60,000 pictures a second.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this ad for a 1968 electronics kit for children composed of little magnetic blocks with embedded electronic components. You just stick them together in different ways to make different devices like a radio or electronic organ. This cutting edge family all got hooked on a teletype installed in their house in 1970 using it for everything from meal planning to (of course), gaming. We also looked at a tiny hot-water bottle meant to alleviate tooth aches, an odd plane with a circular wing, a backpack mounted tv camera and transmitter and the tricks used by demolition crews.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at wonderfully illustrated exploration of what the scientists of 1951 thought aliens would look like, a tailless English plane, the biggest post office in the US, a locking bottle cap with a prestigious inventor, an eleven pound mushroom and an ad for IBM's new (in 1959) 1401 computer platform. Plus we learn how to loop the loop in a balloon.

This weekend we learned how industrial spies operate, how to make a Hollywood movie for $97, how to photograph the stars with a rocket, how to master your spin shot in ping pong and how to tell if someone is a Jew just by bending their knee. We also looked at an odd pair of single wheel roller skates, a serving tray for individual ice cubes, an early auto bumper and a pretty cool looking bicycle toboggan.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this entertaining, though wildly optimistic vision of a future where lazy Americans are coddled by robot slaves that do everything from parting their hair and catching rats around the house to melting snow by spraying cheap "atomic heat", whatever that means. This 1936 article titled "The World's Most Dangerous Job" documents what filmmakers had to go through to get movies of tigers in their native habitat. We also looked at a talking scare crow, a slide projector that is for some reason shaped like a pistol, an automatic trap-door for automobile roofs designed to prevent bashing one's head and a curt, stylish ad for Camel cigarettes.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at a 1929 round up of nutty patents including these somewhat impractical parachute pants, a bicycle built to be ridden by eleven blind men, an air purifier that looks like it would cause deafness, an aerial camera that can take pictures covering over 200 miles, a bizarre ad that has a family of four literally riding the RCA research building across the sky and the origin of windshield wiper fluid sprayers. We also learned all about the birth of Technicolor in a 1930 Modern Mechanix article which makes color film processing look like quite a pain in the ass.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at an article from a 1966 issue of Look magazine about the new craze among college kids for computer dating and the students at Yale and MIT making tons of money from it. Also a guaranteed way for a diner to alienate customers who are at all sensitive about their weight, a giant telephone dial designed to help unravel the "mysteries" of dialing, a see-saw bed that is supposed to help increase blood circulation, an automatic glove fitting device and a first hand account of a novice blimp driver titled "Anyone can fly a blimp".

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this revolving tooth brush from 1938 which looks a lot like an Oral-b with one critical difference: It's spring powered. This Popular Science from 1931 explains all of the techniques engineers used to win our "Endless Fight for Water". Also check out this acoustically guided missile, a thirty-foot periscope for golfers, a method to keep a cop's feet warm and a crazy Charles Atlas ad.