Category: True Stories

Collect Them All!


“These stickers are not easy to drop off; they’re non-reflective and even waterproof. I’m willing to call them the most successful invention of 2023!”

Some Chinese news outlets credited the unexpected popularity of belly button stickers to Chinese traditional medicine, which states that the lower abdomen must be kept warm to preserve the overall health of the body. By keeping the fake navel exposed, users can wear high-waisted pants that cover much of the stomach, while still rocking garments like crop-tops.

ONLY 1/2¢ PER BB!
A pack of 96  3/4″ x  1″ Chinese belly button decals for only 50 cents is one helluva deal. Confuse people by moving them around, or wear several at the same time and claim as many birthdays as you want. So many possibilities.

[Images and story found here.]

Housetrained

Bruce St. and Ritson Rd., Oshowa, Ontario. The track was removed sometime in the 1990s.

[Found here, location found here, bottom image via Google Maps.]

America Indian Chiefs Cigarette Cards – Pt. 2

[See Part 1 for more. Source: Allen & Ginter Cigarette Cards 1888-1889]

American Indian Chiefs Cigarette Cards – Pt. 1

[Source: Allen & Ginter Cigarette Cards 1888-1889]

Art

Silent film actress Alberta Vaughn was featured in a surrealist artwork by Persian artist Jon  S. Oshanna (1895-1980) circa 1924. Oshanna was a muralist and commercial artist, active in California.

[Found here.]

The Nutria Buyer

Louis Petre, a nutria buyer (ca. 1970). National Archives and Records Administration

Nutrias are bigass swamp rats and Mr. Petre was likely a fur trader in the 1970s before the rodent was classified as an invasive species in the U.S. Besides being environmentally destructive, nutrias are such prolific breeders that they outstripped the demand tor their fur, the nutria fur trade business collapsed, trapping and killing stopped… then their populations exploded.

[Photo found here. Video and more about nutrias here.]

Muskrat Love

Spanish trapper hanging muskrats up to dry their fur before skinning. Stretching and drying the pelt follows this. His camp is in the marshes nearby. Delacroix Island, Saint Bernard Parrish, Louisana, 1941.

[Image and caption found here.]

Electrical Experimenter Magazine 1918

Related posts here. Complete archived issues of Electrical Experimenter may be viewed and downloaded here.

1965 NASA PDAD Robot

The ‘Power Driven Articulated Dummy’ project was under Contract No. NAS 9-1370 and ran from May 22, 1963 through July 31, 1965. It was originally built for Nasa’s Manned Spacecraft Center by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The reason for a test dummy was officials hoped to use it during design and testing of a spacesuits, which might otherwise be painful, tedious or even dangerous for human beings.

The 1965 robot was able to simulate 35 basic human motions and used sensors to gather data on how the human body acted in a pressurized suit – but it never made it off the ground due to its tendency to leak oil.

Only two of these robots were created, the one selling for $80,000 and another that is owned by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

[Found here; story with video here. More robot stuff here.]

My WebEx Meeting Notes 08 March – 06 July 2023

9am daily. Pen on paper, 8-1/2 x 11, approx. 2 square inches per each 30 minute teleconference.