Feet
Control your mobile phone with your feet
Researchers are developing a way to input commands on your phone as you walk by altering your stride, or moving your feet in various ways. They call these "gait gestures."So if you see someone walking funny, perhaps they're just sending a text.
More info: "Gait Gestures: Examining Stride and Foot Strike Variation as an Input Method While Walking"; Waterloo News
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 26, 2025 -
Comments (6)
Category: Technology, Telephones, Feet
Slipper Hand Puppet
Full patent here.Either keep your feet warm, or stick your hand in a damp smelly slipper and have "fun." Your choice.
Truer words than those below were never spoken.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 06, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Inventions, Patents, Puppets and Automatons, Clothing, 1960s, Feet
Suction-Cup Bathtub Slipper
Instead of providing safety, these look likely to kill the wearer, as the bather struggles to break the grip of the suction cups.Full patent here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 02, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Domestic, Hygiene, Inventions, Patents, 1930s, Feet
Device to Cure Ingrown Toenail
This torture apparatus surely looks to provide worse pain than the malady it purports to cure. A metal hook goes under the toenail itself and yanks it up, whereupon it is strapped into position for permanent wear.Full patent here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 08, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Inventions, Patents, 1940s, Diseases, Feet
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 12
Source: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 17 Feb 1949, Thu Page 21
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 03, 2022 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, Death, Feet, Alcohol
Toe-Popper Returns
Olayinka Alege made the news (including News of the Weird) back in 2009. As Assistant Principal of Tampa's King High School, he was in the habit of disciplining students with sagging grades by "toe-popping" them. This involved having them remove their shoes and socks, then bending or pulling a toe until it made a popping noise. This didn't hurt, but the students understandably were weirded out by it. One student was toe-popped twenty times.Last month Alege was back in the news. He's now up in Providence, RI, but still working in the public school system. He's been charged with forcibly massaging a student's feet. For the record, he's pleading not guilty.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 26, 2021 -
Comments (1)
Category: Crime, School, Feet
Why aren’t your feet as sexy as the rest of you?
One of life's great mysteries.The ad ran in Cosmopolitan magazine (and probably other publications) in the late 1960s.
I found it in The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe (1976) by William A. Rossi.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 02, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, 1960s, Feet
The toenails of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emmanuel II, who was king of Italy from 1861 to 1878, had a strange habit which isn't recorded on his wikipedia page.Each year he would let the nail of his big toe grow. Then he would cut the nail off and have a jeweler polish it and frame it in gold. The king would then present this oddity to his mistress (and eventual wife), the Countess Rosa Mirafiori. She eventually accumulated fifteen royal toenails.
I assume these royal toenails must be preserved in a museum somewhere. But if so, I haven't been able to track down where. Nor can I find any pictures of them.
Unless, of course, the story is an urban legend. The lack of good sources does make me a bit suspicious.
Chicago Tribune - Mar 26, 1961
Nebraska Advertiser - May 15, 1896
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 27, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Royalty, Nineteenth Century, Feet
Are our feet turning to hoofs?
Source: Illustrated World - Apr 1920Something to worry about, if you have nothing else at all in your life to worry about.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 06, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: 1920s, Feet
Anti-Fut-Swet
It "Hardens the feet".
Chattanooga Daily Times - June 11, 1898
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 13, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Advertising, Nineteenth Century, Feet
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |