February 15, 2006

Learn How to HYPNOTIZE! (Jun, 1949)

Filed under: Advertisements, Just Weird, Scary — @ 11:38 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1949
| Buy on Ebay
Tags:

Learn How to HYPNOTIZE!

Develop your personal POWER!

NOW… revealed tor you … are the secrets of practical hypnotism … that strange, compelling force by which an expert operator can bring others under his power. He can sway people at will—issue commands and be obeyed—virtually cast a spell over his subjects. This sensational knowledge may make YOU a more dominant, masterful personality.

Illustrated SELF-INSTRUCTION COURSE in Useful Hypnotism

Amazing lessons in simple, easy-to-understand language. How to select a subject— how to hypnotize by telephone—how to make money from hypnotism—mental telepathy— stage hypnotism—self-hypnosis—how to use modern hypnotism to conquer inferiority complex, timidity, etc. Clear helpful pictures show operating positions, movements. Startling low price. Satisfaction guaranteed or money back.

Full price only $1.95 postpaid, nothing: more to pay. You will be amazed at what practical hypnotism can do for you! Use the no-risk coupon below . . . and mail it today.
Nelson-Hall Co., 1139 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago 5, III.

Flying BARREL to Carry 100 Passengers (Mar, 1933)

Filed under: Aviation, Impractical — @ 11:28 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1933
| Buy on Ebay

Flying BARREL to Carry 100 Passengers

Development of a huge “flying barrel” transport plane capable of carrying a hundred passengers inside its thick tubular hull is foreshadowed by recent successful test flights of the hollow fuselage plane shown in the photograph directly above, designed by Engineer Stipa of the Italian Caproni works. The picture shows: double cockpits placed on top of the cylindrical body, but in the refined version of the plane for large scale passenger traffic, the piloting compartment is faired into wing and propeller is driven through gears much like the dirigible Akron.

February 14, 2006

Sun Hat Has Built-in Radio (Jun, 1949)

Filed under: Impractical, Just Weird, Radio — @ 10:27 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1949
| Buy on Ebay

I love the two little vacuum tubes sticking out on top.

Sun Hat Has Built-in Radio

No, that’s not Buck Rogers. It’s just Victor T. Hoeflich and his Radio Hat. The hat works, too—it keeps the sun off your head while you listen to radio programs. The Radio Hat contains a real radio receiver-two miniature tubes, the volume control,
and the antenna (which looks like an oil-can handle) stick out on top. The rest of the circuit is inside the hat’s lining.
The hat weighs only 12 oz. The 7-oz. power supply—a flashlight cell and a B battery—is carried in the pocket. Mr. Hoeflich’s company, American Merri-Lei Corp., Brooklyn, N. Y., makes the talking benny.

Transistor Ad (Jul, 1952)

Filed under: Advertisements, Communications, Computers — @ 10:18 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1952
| Buy on Ebay
Tags:

THE TRANSISTOR

A picture report of progress

A tiny amplifying device first announced by Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1948 is about to appear as a versatile element in telephony.

Each step in the work on the transistor . . . from original theory to initial production technique . . . has been carried on within the Laboratories. Thus, Bell scientists demonstrate again how their skills in many fields, from theoretical physics to production engineering, help improve telephone service.
Read the rest of this entry »

February 13, 2006

Fan in Place of Light Bulb Makes Lamp Produce Breeze (Jan, 1955)

Filed under: Cool, General, Useful — @ 4:51 pm
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1955
| Buy on Ebay

This is actually a really good idea. Most fans have really irritating and balky aiming mechanisms. Where can I buy one of these?

Fan in Place of Light Bulb Makes Lamp Produce Breeze

You can turn a desk lamp into a ventilating unit with a recent German invention. It’s a compact fan that screws into any light-bulb socket. The three propeller blades are plastic and the device comes in a variety of colors.

Home Made TV Station (Aug, 1949)

Filed under: Ahead of its time, Communications, Cool, Impractical, Television — @ 3:03 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1949
| Buy on Ebay

Next time you bitch about trying to get your video blogging software to work, check out what this guy had to scrape together to get an amateur TV station running in 1949. He built a garage full of equipment and had three giant antennas.

Radio ‘Ham’ Builds TV Station

California amateur sends voice and picture over transmitter made from $500 worth of war-surplus parts.

By Andrew R. Boone

PULSING through the California skies from a weather-beaten back-yard shack, the image of a beautiful brunette flows into television receivers around San Francisco Bay. The boys who have seen her call the vision Gwendolyn.

Reproduced by a collection of secondhand tubes and war-surplus video equipment, Gwendolyn represents the first standard TV image broadcast successfully and repeatedly by an amateur. Soon, from the same station, W6JDI-TV, radio ham Clarence Wolfe, Jr. hopes to televise live images.
Read the rest of this entry »

Metal Lungs Give Life (Jul, 1938)

Filed under: General, Medical, Origins, Personal Appearance, Sign of the Times — @ 10:16 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1938
| Buy on Ebay

Words I never thought I’d say: “Wow, that girl in the Iron Lung looks sexy!”

Metal Lungs Give Life

DEATH stands at the hospital bedside, waiting. Beneath the covers, a gasping youngster rights for breath. He is a’victim of infantile paralysis. Slowly, cruelly, the dreadful fingers of paralysis clutch at the chest muscles which pump the breath of life through his body. Soon those muscles will cease to function and the youngster will cease to breathe.

But death has not reckoned with the mechanical ingenuity of man.
Read the rest of this entry »

February 9, 2006

Inflatable Shorts (Aug, 1971)

Filed under: Advertisements, Personal Appearance, Scary, Useless Tech — @ 2:39 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1971
| Buy on Ebay

Here’s the easy, effective way to trim down waist, abdomen, hips, thighs!

New Inflatable Air Shorts provide pneumatic support plus massage to help you slenderize where you need it most!

This may well be the easiest, most comfortable trim-down method you’ve ever tried. All you do is slip into these astounding new slenderizing shorts and inflate them with the little hand pump we provide. Then merely do a few simple exercises, housework or any usual daily activity. What happens after that is likely to amaze you. The puffy, snug-fitting pockets of air which surround you actually work to provide gentle pneumatic support plus effective massage while they generate additional body heat.

Guaranteed Results!

You’ll notice the improvement almost immediately in four vital areas. Yes, we guarantee it! Your Inflatable Air Shorts must help you trim down your waist, abdomen, hips and thighs . . . must help you look slimmer and younger, faster than you’d believe possible — or your purchase price refunded without question!
Save $3.00! Send Now!

Take advantage of this unusual no-risk opportunity. Inflatable Air Shorts were originally sold at $9.99. Our direct-by-mail price is only $6.99. (You save $3.00!) One size fits both men and women.
Send coupon today!

Metalized Window Curtain Aids in A-Bomb Protection (Jul, 1951)

Filed under: Scary, Sign of the Times, War — @ 1:01 pm
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1951
| Buy on Ebay

Metalized Window Curtain Aids in A-Bomb Protection

Heavy canvas window curtains, specially treated, are designed to give partial protection from the effects of an A-bomb blast. The curtains are metalized with aluminum and lead. They will help protect persons inside a building from flying glass, radioactive dust and flash burns, according to the manufacturer. They are said to be effective at distances beyond 2600 feet of the explosion. When not in use, the curtain rolls against the upper part of the casement like a window shade.

February 8, 2006

Soldiers Wear Camouflage (Jul, 1939)

Filed under: Impractical, Personal Appearance, Useless Tech, War — @ 4:51 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1939
| Buy on Ebay

That is some pretty amazing camouflage there. Why, I almost mistook them for trees. Trees with binoculars and handguns….

Soldiers Wear Camouflage
The men in the above picture are not inhavitants of Mars. They are only British soldiers, wearing camouflage in their helmets during a mimic battle.

The New Attack On Venereal Disease (Jan, 1949)

Filed under: History, How to, Medical, Sign of the Times — @ 10:45 am
Source: Science Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1949
| Buy on Ebay

Really interesting article from the 40’s about combating VD. Both in terms of medical treatment (the new wonder drug penicillin) and in terms of health education (removing the taboo from talking about VD). It’s also really interesting to see the how little has changed in regards to the balance between curing illness and “promoting sexuality”. This quote from the article:

Not all experts see this as an unmixed blessing. Dr. John Stokes, syphilologist of the University of Pennsylvania, is worried about the effect on morals. “If extramarital sexual relations,” he has said, “lead neither to significant illness nor unwanted parenthood, only a few intangibles of the spirit remain to guide children of the new era from an outmoded past into an unbridled future.”

Is very similar to this one regarding the recent HPV vaccine

“Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV. Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.” – Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council

The basic idea being that people should be punished for having sex outside of marriage.

The New Attack On Venereal Disease

Tent shows, hill-billies and a new drug are some of the weapons which may relegate syphilis and gonorrhea to the text-books in a few years

A carnival tent show in a Michigan State Fair (top photograph and opposite page) and a little bottle of creamy white liquid (above) are the new shock troops in a two-front war against venereal disease. Between them, they may wipe out this scourge of mankind within the next ten or twenty years.
Read the rest of this entry »

February 7, 2006

Black Light and the Criminal (Jun, 1938)

Filed under: Crime and Police, Useful — @ 12:55 pm
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
| Buy on Ebay

Black Light and the Criminal

Ultra-violet rays, now readily accessible to law enforcing bodies, adds another weapon to the arsenal of the government’s war on lawlessness.

THE use of filtered ultra-violet light for crime detection and identification purposes has been made available by the presentation of a comparatively low cost, yet powerful, efficient and portable black-ray quartz lamp. Specially formulated dark-colored Wood’s glass filters in the front of lamp hold back the visible light emitted by the mercury arc and allow only a concentrated beam of invisible ultra-violet, or “black light,” to pass. This ray cannot be seen by the eye, even in the dark or semi-dark, yet its radiations are absorbed by a wide variety of substances and instantly re-emitted as visible light of constant intensity and color.
Read the rest of this entry »

20 queries. 0.924 seconds.