Tiny Blimps Carry Flying Electric Signs
BILLBOARD blimps, carrying” flashing neon signs through the night sky above big cities, form the latest innovation in spectacular advertising. The aerial electric signs, developed and patented by Goodyear Rubber Co. experts, spell out sentences a word at a time like many of the big displays on New York’s Great White Way.
Ten lighting units, each approximately six feet high and four feet wide and formed of a maze of curving and zigzag neon tubes, are attached to the side of the semirigid dirigible before the take-off. An ingenious hooking arrangement permits them to be attached or removed in a few minutes. Each unit is capable of producing any number or any letter of the alphabet.
During the flight, an automatic mechar nism makes the proper contacts to spell out the desired words on the side of the blimp. Perforated tape, similar to that used in player pianos, runs through the switching mechanism, the perforations tripping mechanical fingers to make the electrical connections. The sign remains the same until the next series of perforations is encountered, flashing on another series of letters.
Read the rest of this entry »
How Firebugs Burn Millions
Criminal Torch Starts One Fourth of All Fires—This Costs You Money
By MICHEL MOK
STORES in a big town in western New York had closed for the day when a small delivery truck drew up at the curb of one of the main shopping streets. A few minutes later two men, one of whom carried a bundle, stopped in front of a furniture store just across the street, looked about as if to make sure they were unobserved, and went inside. After a little while, one of them came out, carefully locked the door, and walked away.
The instant he was out of sight, the driver of the truck leaped from his cab and dashed to the back of the store. Soon he returned, dragging by the arm the man who had carried the bundle—a well-dressed, middle-aged individual. The package now was held by the driver, a powerful fellow who, with his free hand, forced the other into the truck.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is actually a really cool idea. I doubt it would be practical with the variety of modern body and wheel types, not to mention the fact that modern tires need air far less frequently, but it’s still nifty.
TIRE INFLATOR WORKS WITHOUT HUMAN AID
Putting air in the tires of your car should be a pleasure instead of a nuisance,according to Ellis E. White, of Los Angeles, who has just perfected an automatic tire inflator. To get air in the tires of his car, the driver need not get out from behind the wheel.
When his tires need air, he drives up a runway at the service station. He passes a box with a lever and a graduated scale, and with a touch of his hand he sets the lever to the number of pounds pressure he wishes in his tires.
At a certain point on the runway his wheels drop into a groove and close an electric contact, setting the intlator in action. Air nozzles advance from each side and press against special connections on the wheel’s hubs. Air flows into the tires. When the tire is full a bell rings and the air is shut off. To use the novel service, a car must have special air nipples that fit over the hub of his car’s wheels and have a pipe connection to the tire valve to complete the operation.
G-MEN Fight Crime With Science
J. Edgar Hoover tells how science penetrates the dark corners of criminality to reveal solutions not before known in law enforcement.
by Stanley Gerstin an interview with J. Edgar Hoover
ON AUGUST 16, 1937, two men and a woman were sitting in an automobile in a remote section of the Chickamauga — a national military park in Georgia. Suddenly one of the men crashed an automobile crank over the head of the other and as the victim slumped, a pocket knife flashed and the sharp blade sank again and again into the bleeding body of the stunned man. In an effort to dispose of the car, it was set on fire in Chattanooga, where the partly destroyed machine was found the next day by authorities. On the same day that the mutilated body of the victim, James C. Revels, was found, Roy Weathers and his wife. Virgie, were picked up by authorities for questioning, and on August 21, they admitted the crime which they later repudiated in part. In the subsequent investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau’s crime laboratory established that soil picked up at the scene of the murder contained human blood. The clothing of the defendants and the automobile crank were also shown to contain blood and the pocket knife fitted rents in the victim’s clothing. Minute bloodstains were found on parts of the automobile, in spite of its burned condition, and this evidence resulted in the conviction of the defendants.
Read the rest of this entry »
Highway “Beam” For Motorists
War-born device will guide peacetime motorists unerringly to their destinations —or plot their course as they go along.
EARLY one morning last year, just before sunrise, two men in a jeep found themselves lost in Washington. That is a horrible fate which can happen to anyone and often does, but in this case it was serious. In the back seat of the jeep was installed the first model of a secret new device which was being delivered under cover of darkness to the Army Engineer Board at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. It had to be there at 8:00 a. m. to be inspected by a full board of high Army officers. But the two men in the jeep, newcomers to Washington, were stymied.
Read the rest of this entry »
