Weird Universe Blog — February 12, 2025
Rodent Tape
Rodent tape is tape that's been coated with capsaicin (the active component in chili peppers) so that rodents won't want to chew through it.If you have to park your car in a place where there are rodents (the countryside, or a rat-infested garage), you can use it to wrap the cables in your car. I can definitely see the utility of that, but it still strikes me as an odd product.
A blogger who decided to taste it reports:
It smelled like a Band-Aid-flavored Rockstar Energy drink. It tasted like… heat. The capsaicin was subtler than I expected: nothing abrasive or punishing, just a blushing, ambient warmth like a string of white Christmas lights. There was almost a numbing, mala element, in the vein of a Sichuan peppercorn.
Available from Honda for $45.90 a roll.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 12, 2025 -
Comments (4)
Category: Animals | Pests, Plagues and Infestations | Cars
Kazuya Kosaka & The Wagon Masters
Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 12, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music | Cultural Borrowings, Appropriations, Overlays and Transformations | 1950s | Asia | Mistranslations
February 11, 2025
Human Authored
The Authors Guild is now offering a certificate that an author can display on their book "to certify that their book is created by a human."More specifically:
"Human Authored" means that the text of the book was written by a human and not generated by AI, with the exception of minimal, trivial uses, such as AI applications that check spelling and grammar or for brainstorming or research.
I wonder if an author will first have to pass a Voight-Kampff test to prove they're human and not a replicant.
More info: Authors Guild
Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 11, 2025 -
Comments (4)
Category: AI, Robots and Other Automatons | Books
Azoth: The Occult Magazine of America
Please treat yourself to 53 issues of Azoth: The Occult Magazine of America.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 11, 2025 -
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Category: Magazines | Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal | Twentieth Century
February 10, 2025
Judge Noel Cannon, the “Miniskirt Judge”
Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Noel Cannon gained national fame due to her flamboyant fashion style and eccentric habits. She liked to wear babydoll dresses and miniskirts. So she became known as the "miniskirt judge."
Her eccentric habits included decorating her judicial chambers entirely in pink, holding her pet chihuahua on her lap during cases, and keeping a mechanical canary in her chambers whose chirping could be heard during court proceedings.
She reached the peak of her fame in 1967 thanks to a widely published picture of her brandishing a pearl-handled Derringer revolver. She was demonstrating to the press how she would defend herself if attacked.
Her downfall started in 1972 when a police officer pulled up beside her while she was driving and told her she was using her horn excessively. She was, and he was right to tell her so, but he didn't know she was a judge. She cursed him out, drove off, and later ordered him into her court and threatened that if he ever crossed her again she would give him "a .38 caliber vasectomy."
By 1975, the California Supreme Court had removed her from the bench. The incident with the police officer wasn't the only reason. She was also accused of "abusing her contempt power, interfering with the attorney-client relationship by arbitrarily appointing new counsel, interfering with bail and bench warrants, setting unreasonable bail amounts, intimidating defense attorneys, abusing the prerogatives of her high office, engaging in curt and rude conduct, [and] engaging in 'bizarre' behavior."
She subsequently disappeared from public life and died in 1998.
For more details, the Los Angeles Public Library has a two-part article that tracks her rise and fall: "Loose Cannon: Reassessing Los Angeles Municipal Judge Noel Cannon" Part 1, Part 2
Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 10, 2025 -
Comments (4)
Category: Law | Judges | 1960s | 1970s
The Hi Neighbor Queen
Hi Neighbor Queen candidates, June 27, 1951. Neva Milligan; Ginger Smith; Carolyn Rennick; Ruth Phillips; Ellyn Lederer; Suzanne Cook; Ginger De Lisio; Jeanne Darr; Helen Rizio.
(Not sure why we have ten candidates and only nine names.)
Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 10, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests | Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues | Regionalism | 1950s
February 9, 2025
A radical solution to global warming
In an article published on arXiv.org, Andy Haverly of the Rochester Institute of Technology has proposed a radical solution to global warming. His idea is to detonate an 81 Gt nuclear bomb three kilometers beneath the Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean.By way of comparison, an 81 Gt bomb would be 1600 times larger than the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever exploded to date.
According to Haverly's calculations, the explosion would pulverize 3.86 trillions tons of basalt, which would in turn then soak up 1.08 trillion tons of carbon dioxide. That's about 30 years worth of carbon dioxide emissions.
As for safety:
Nuclear explosions are inherently unsafe. They release vast amounts of uncontrolled energy. However, by detonating this nuclear device in a controlled environment we can minimize the impacts. By detonating this nuclear device in a remote location deep in the ocean, the only expected effect on humans is from nuclear radiation. First, this comes in the form of surface radiation and fallout. Because this explosion is so remote and can be timed favorably with the weather, there is little to no expected loss of life from the immediate radiation effects. The long-term effects of global radiation will impact humans and will cause loss of life, but this increased global radiation is “just a drop in the bucket”. Every year, we emit more radiation from coal power plants and we have already detonated over 2000 nuclear devices. Adding one more bomb should have minimal impact on the world.
An interesting idea, but I wonder if we would then be exploding one of these things every thirty years?
Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 09, 2025 -
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Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters | Environmentalism and Ecology
The Phoenix Bird
Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 09, 2025 -
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Category: Surrealism | Cartoons | Stop-motion Animation | 1960s
February 8, 2025
The Tel-Tech Multiplexer is like the ideal wife
The ad below reminded me of the "How to choose a pot like you choose a husband" ad we posted recently.The requirements for a good husband were: One you don't have to replace every few years (durable), not flashy, not troublesome, steady and well-balanced.
The ideal wife, on the other hand (according to the Tel-Tech Corporation), was exciting and beautiful in the integrity of design, required no periodic maintenance, and served you with absolute trust and dependability year after year.
Also: "You recover the cost in just a few months and then you are dollars ahead every day. Perfect host to any terminal, handles intermixed speeds, and adapts easily from 2 to 38 channels. Available immediately. Just plug in and go."
Sounds like a sexbot.
Computerworld - Sep 10, 1969
Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 08, 2025 -
Comments (3)
Category: Technology | Wives | Marriage | 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #615
Angelic child, dedicated office worker, or demonically possessed average white guy--Nujol is for you!
Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 08, 2025 -
Comments (3)
Category: Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal | Offices, Business Supplies, Institutional Regulations | Advertising | Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil | Children | Excrement
