May 2, 2007

Use of Electric Shaver Sold by Slot Machine (Jun, 1940)

Filed under: Impractical, Personal Appearance — @ 12:04 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1940
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Yuck.

Use of Electric Shaver Sold by Slot Machine
FOR men who want a quick shave away from home, a novel coin-operated machine recently introduced provides an electric shaver and a well-lighted mirror. When a coin is dropped into a slot in the machine, the current for the shaver is turned on. When not in use, the electric razor is placed in a receptacle where it is thoroughly sterilized for the next customer by rays from a built-in ultra-violet lamp. The machine is intended for installation in office buildings, bus and train terminals, and other public places.

Portable Pumps Let You Fill ‘Er Up While You Shop (Jun, 1959)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 12:04 am
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1959
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Portable Pumps Let You Fill ‘Er Up While You Shop

YOU’LL soon be able to fill up the gas tank at your favorite shopping center—while you’re buying the groceries.

A portable gasoline service station, which can also be used at airports, resorts, or parking lots, is now being tested in several states by American Petrofina Co.

Each unit consists of a modified golf cart which hauls two pumps containing 100 gallons of premium and 200 gallons of regular gas. It also holds an air compressor tank, motor oil, battery and radiator water, and windshield cleaning materials.

“It has all the features of a regular service station except complete lubrication and car washing” says its inventor, Joe S. Cline, of Oklahoma City, Okla.

Ten-Foot FIDDLES and Two-Story HARPS (Jun, 1938)

Filed under: Just Weird, Music — @ 12:03 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
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Ten-Foot FIDDLES and Two-Story HARPS

HOBBYIST BUILDS FREAK INSTRUMENTS FOR WORLD’S ODDEST ORCHESTRA

By EDWIN TEALE

FIDDLES with three necks instead of one; a harp so large you can play it from a second-story window ; a fourteen-foot bass viol, the biggest in the world; combined harps and fiddles which require two musicians to operate—such are the musical curiosities that Arthur K. Ferris, a landscape gardener of Flanders, N. J., has produced in his spare time. Eventually, he hopes to assemble a vast oddity orchestra comprising 126 unusual instruments. Read the rest of this entry »

PERISCOPE ON GOLF COURSE GIVES VIEW OVER LOW HILL (Jun, 1933)

Filed under: Sports — @ 12:03 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1933
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PERISCOPE ON GOLF COURSE GIVES VIEW OVER LOW HILL
Probably one of the most unusual golf devices in the world is on a Canadian course at Victoria, B. C. A small hill rises between the ninth and tenth holes, making it impossible for a golfer to see where to aim his ball. To remedy this difficulty, a periscope approximately twelve feet in height has been erected at the ninth hole, as illustrated at right. Before driving toward the hidden hole, a player gets his bearings by looking over the hill through the periscope.

SELF-LIGHTING CAMERA NOW USED IN MOVIES (Jun, 1933)

Filed under: Photography — @ 12:02 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1933
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And it’s a compact camera at that!

SELF-LIGHTING CAMERA NOW USED IN MOVIES
A movie camera that produces its own light is a recent innovation in a Hollywood, Calif., studio. It carries a detachable lamp with a 500-watt tubular frosted bulb upon a bracket at the front. In this way a continuous light is thrown on the face of an actress while the camera is moved around her for a close-up.

Berlin to New York in less than One Hour! (Nov, 1931)

Filed under: Ahead of its time, Space — @ 12:02 am
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1931
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Berlin to New York in less than One Hour!

By HUGO GERNSBACK

IT is a curious failing of human natrue that it is inclined to pooh-pooh new and scientific ideas, particularly if they deal with high speeds. If you had told that master of extravagant imagination, Jules Verne, at the time he wrote his story “Around the World in Eighty Days,” that in 1931 flyers would circle the earth in nine days, he probably would have taken it as a good joke. Nevertheless, facts speak for themselves; and the circumnavigation of the globe has actually been accomplished in nine days. That it will soon be circled in twenty-four hours, no one now doubts.
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