A 1960s Krystal fast food training film included instructions such as:
– Keep your teeth clean and white. Anybody can have a pretty smile.
– Naturally, you don’t want to get too familiar with the customers, just be really pleasant and friendly. Let your personality show through.
– The customers aren’t interested in your private jokes. That kind of horseplay just won’t go.
– Keep your fingers off the food and don’t put the butter on top of the waffle.
[Found here. Unfortunately there’s no link to the video.]
The colorization of this photo shows you exactly what it was like to go night fishing in Hawaii years before it became an official state of the Union. At the time, Hawaiians used spears to catch fish in the shallow part of the ocean or along the more rocky terrain. The kukui-nut torch that this man is using isn’t just to light up his evening, it draws in fish to the his position.
In order to get a bright enough torch fishermen would wrap the kukui nut in leaves and attach them to a pole and light them on fire. To make them brighter they wrapped more leaves around the nut and then they would add roasted kukui nuts to a hollow sheath of bamboo and light those on fire as well. Even in the middle of the 20th century this was a way to remain close to nature while taking from the sea.
"The greatest difficulty that the human mind has to contend with is lack of concentration, mainly due to outside influences.
If, by one stroke, we can do away with these influences, we will not only be benefitted greatly thereby, but our work would be accomplished more quickly and the results would be vastly better.
[...]
It will be noted that the glass windows directly in front of the eyes are black. The construction involved the use of ordinary window glass, the outer glass being painted entirely black. Two small white lines were scratched into the paint, as shown. The idea of this is as follows:
The writer thought that shutting out the noises was not sufficient. The eye would still wander around, thereby distracting attention. By having the two white lines scratched on the glass, the field through which the eye can move is comparatively small."
Prescient satirical concept… or perhaps he was serious:
According to [Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, 2015] Gernsback himself may have been “an undiagnosed Aspergian”: “His peers regarded him as an unsociable figure who remained coolly distant from the communities he created. The people he counted as friends tended to be prominent scientists, influential politicians, and other notable figures with whom he corresponded by mail; historian James Gunn observed in Alternate Worlds that he was ‘a strange mixture of personal reserve and aggressive salesmanship’.
Silberman refers to the Isolator in particular as Gernsback’s “most blatantly autistic creation”.
Read the full description of The Isolator from the July 1925 edition of Science and Invention.
Bunkarina sent me a present last year – a Japanese moss ball. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I knew it needed a better home than a glass pentagon cage, so I put it in something a bit more respectful and named it Tosh.
I didn’t think much about Tosh until he “birthed” a baby and they became Toshi and Toshita. We became friends, and every two weeks they get fresh water to keep them happy.
More recently I learned that they’re sold as Japanese Lake Moss (or Marimo Moss Balls) but they’re not moss at all. They’re algae, Aegagropila linnaei, and they grow very slowly. They don’t like chlorinated water much, but they like a little salt. They turn bright green and blow bubbles when they’re content. The water changes coincide with something I’ve been going through for two years now, and I began taking photos every two weeks to mark time and progress. The moss give me a bit of inner peace, a zen tranquility of sorts.
And no, I don’t talk to them, smartass. You know who you are.
1100 sets of “Cheetos” were given to families in need from the Tula region of Russia. The snacks were provided by the food fund “Rus”. Families with many children and physically challenged children benefited from the action. Some sets included “Lays” chips. The families shared photos with “Cheetos” with the words of gratitude “for tasty snacks”.
Foodbank Rus collects food surplus from manufacturing and redistributes it to the needy. From the website:
“The Foundation is the first foodbank in Russia and regularly cooperates with the Russian Orthodox Church, charity organizations and governmental authorities. In 2016 the Foundation, jointly with the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation, launched the program of food assistance to low-income families with children “Food to Help Mum”.
Within the program, on a weekly basis, dairy goods are distributed among low-income families via the Department of Labor and Social Security of Moscow.”
In the early 1990s, a former Danish special forces soldier felt a calling from God to go to Bosnia and provide humanitarian aid during the Bosnian War.
With the help of the US Army, he was able to fulfil that mission, driving through dangerous conditions to deliver relief to citizens of the war-torn country with only his Bible and a tricked-out [1979] Camaro – the Ghost Car. War History Online
“And do you see that extra panel under the front of the car? Well, that’s not just a panel….it’s a mine-clearing blade. And if you take a closer look at the radiator grill, you’ll notice a cute yellow rubber duck.” Drivetribe
Links where I found the story are defunct / deleted for some reason. A search for Helge Meyer and/or Bosnian Ghost Car produces many results.
The Fokker D.VII is the only aircraft mentioned by name in the Armistice demands of November, 1918. Germany was ordered to surrender “1,700 airplanes (fighters, bombers – firstly, all of the D 7’S and all the night bombing machines)” (number of aircraft to surrender are not always the same).
In the end, not all D.VII’s were handed over. Some were flown back to Germany by their pilots and hidden in sheds. From the ones that were flown to the collection points of the Inter-Allied Control Commission, some were wrecked during landings or taxiing. After the war, some were sold abroad. Anthony Fokker flew from Germany and smuggled six trains with sixty wagons each full of aeroplanes and tools to Holland. Among these were 120 D.VII’s.
Inflating Bullock-skin Boats–for crossing the swift Himalayan River Sutlej, N. India. Copyright 1909 by Underwood & Underwood.Reverse side
This is some twenty miles from Maldera, up in the hill country of the Punjab. The mountain river here is deep and swift; you can see ahead how high, steep banks wall it in and you can judge how pouring rains, draining from such slopes, would turn this stream into a fiercely raging torrent.
These men are natives in their customary clothes, and the rather ghastly looking objects with which they are busy are the hides of cattle, sewed up tightly and inflated with air till they can be used like enormous life-preservers. Two of the men you notice, are still at work blowing their “boats” full of air; they have cords there all ready to tie up the end of the skin when it is sufficiently distended.
Another has done the blowing-up at home and is bringing his skin down over the rocky bank; it is bulky but naturally very light and comparatively easy to handle.
When they are ready to start each man will throw himself across one of the inflated skins, using his foot on one side and a short paddle on the other side to propel the queer craft. If his balance is no perfect of course the craft rolls over and he gats a ducking, but practice makes skilful, and, as a matter of fact, small loads of freight and even passengers are ferried across in safety. If several passengers are to be taken over, it is customary for two “boats” to start out side by side, the passengers on the different floats taking hold of each thr to help balance the queer craft.
From Notes of Travel, No. 7, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.
Inflating Bullok-Skin “Boats” for Crossing a Swift Himalayan River; India.
Source image unknown; Underwood & Underwood were publishers, not explorers. At one time, Underwood & Underwood was the largest publisher of stereoviews in the world, producing 10 million views a year.
[Found here. Original stereoscope photo found here via Tineye.]
Tacky Raccoons 