It would really suck if someone picked that moment to walk out to their car.
“Never did know my Paw, he got killed by an indestructible barrel. I like to think he died in the name of science.”
STEEL BARREL TESTED IN 200-FOOT DROP
An eighteen-story plunge in Detroit, Mich., recently tested the strength of a new-type beer barrel. Made of steel, the barrel was filled with water and carried to the eighteenth floor of a hotel. Here it was dropped from a window, plunging more than 200 feet to a hard-packed gravel parking space at the rear of the building. The barrel is said to have survived the shock without springing a leak, although the side was badly dented. In a second test, another barrel was not even dented by the long drop, according to the manufacturer.
Obviously he solved the problem so well that almost all modern helicopters look just like this.
How I Solved the Helicopter Problem
by MAITLAND B. BLEECKER
(As told to Alfred Albelli)
The problem of vertical flight has been solved at last! Long the subject of experiment by eminent scientist and amateur inventor, the mystery of the helicopter has been unravelled by M. B. Bleecker, young engineer.
I WAS first smitten with the helicopter bug six years ago. Today I am thrilled by the view of the finished product, the first genuine, full fledged helicopter in existence. Now I am ready to explain the mystery of the helicopter.
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Keeping Clocks RIGHT by Wire
NEW apparatus, of almost human intelligence, aids in transmitting the Western Union Telegraph Company’s time service to subscribers in all parts of the country. Improved synchronizing and testing machines have recently been installed in the telegraph company’s new building in New York City. Time reports go out electrically from the New York master clocks to other master clocks in all the larger cities. Thence they are distributed to subscribers by branch lines. In other parts of the New York building are electrical devices that automatically wind and set at regular intervals the 120.000 clocks of the system.
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Torture Devices of the Old Convict Ships
By C. Moran
Methods of torture used to punish convicts, in vogue in the last century, are graphically displayed aboard the old prison ship, “Success, ” used in the 1850’s to transport British convicts to Australia. The ship is now touring various American ports.
WHEN the jails of England overflowed with prisoners nearly 130 years ago, Great Britain sought to relieve the situation by chartering a fleet of convict ships to transport the “criminals” to Australia. For fifty years this practice was continued, until public revulsion against the inhumanities to which the prisoners on these ships were subjected caused its abandonment.
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With plug-in programs, anybody can use these personal computers
Newest home computers can do special work or use “canned” programs
By WILLIAM J. HAWKINS
“Have a seat,” said Ted Jernigan of Texas Instruments. I was about to get a demo of the newest computer designed for the home.
A simple gray box, resembling a portable typewriter, but smaller, sat on the corner of a desk. A single cable connected it to the TV set in front of me. Electronic music was coming from the TV speaker, and on the screen a color cartoon, also created by the computer, showed an animated hand pressing the space bar of a simulated typewriter console.
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This looks like it’s the first “star” trailer.
Travelling Dressing Room—Movie Star Introduces Her “Dressmobile”
KEEPING temperamental moving picture stars happy and comfortable while on location has long been a serious problem with directors, but Metro-Goldwyn seems to be on the right track in the solution of this problem by providing luxurious traveling dressing rooms for the expensive talent.
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The Fighting NORTHLAND RESCUE SHIP of the Arctic
by CLARENCE EBEY
TRAPPED in a field of treacherous pack-ice twenty miles off the Alaskan coast, the freighter Anyox, two gaping holes in her ice-crushed bow, was slowly settling to her doom.
Twenty-eight hours earlier the ship’s imperative distress call had crackled through the arctic ether as desperate men had leaped to lash tarpaulins over the battered bow. The initial rush of the hungry waters had been checked; but not before the hold had partially filled and one of the engine fires had been extinguished. Doggedly the men fought the inevitable, but it was a losing battle. Slowly, inexorably, the clutching waters inched their way upward along the freighter’s hull, pulling her ever lower into the trough of the sea. It was the end. The Anyox was doomed.
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Sure, it’s a Compuserve style walled garden, but there was a pretty impressive amount of information available online in 1979.
Over-the-phone computer data bank
Telecomputing Corp. of America is now offering a computer information service called The Source. Actually a large computer located in Virginia that contains some 2000 programs, The Source includes a tie-in with the UPI and New York Times news and data banks. Type in your question and you get answers on everything from the latest news and stock-market reports to methods of conserving energy.
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Packing Thrills in a Motorcycle T.T. Track
by WALTER E. BURTON
ONE of America’s newest and most exciting sports is misnamed: there should be an “N” between the initials of T. T. racing, for there are few forms of excitement that contain more high-explosive qualities than this motorcycle pastime.
A T. T. race is an American, and usually a miniature, version of the famous Tourist Trophy races held yearly on the Isle of Man. It is a motorcycle contest packed with thrills, spills, dust, speed, breath-taking moments and a lot of fun for everyone concerned. It looks like an elaborate and noisy way of committing suicide; but surprisingly few bones have been broken in such competitions. In fact, women riders frequently tackle the milder parts of a T. T. course.
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