Weird Universe Archive
September 2019
September 20, 2019
Monitor grandma’s health via her butt
A new gadget, the VISSEIRO Smart Chair Pad, promises to allow people to remotely monitor the health of loved ones via a seat cushion. When someone (a grandmother, for example) sits on the cushion, it's able to record various vital signs through her buttocks. It can then send this info to an app on the phone of the granddaughter, offering reassurance that grandma is still alive and doing well.My question is: if the vital signs flatline, how do you know if grandma is dead, or has simply stood up?
More info: visseiro.com
Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 20, 2019 -
Comments (7)
Category: Health, Inventions
Florida Ghost Towns
How does a Florida ghost town exist in one of the fastest growing states in our country? Many early Florida towns were located near natural resources. These communities grew up to house and support companies and people who turned the resources into products. There were towns that relied on fishing, clams, lumber, phosphate, citrus, cattle, oysters, watermelons, celery, and other products of sea and earth. There were also boom time towns that were really just lot sales programs. Many of these towns barely got off the ground when they collapsed during the Florida land sale bust that preceded the Great Depression. As natural resources were exhausted or economic depression, hurricanes, and freezes slammed into the state, many of these towns folded and mostly disappeared. Railroads closed, highways were built that bypassed the town, other things happened that made the town only a footnote in history.
Good article here.
Another article here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 20, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Buildings and Other Structures, Destruction, Regionalism
September 19, 2019
Project Rulison
Sep. 10 was the 50th anniversary of Project Rulison, which was an underground nuclear test conducted in Rulison, Colorado. Its purpose was to determine if a nuclear bomb, detonated underground, could be used to release natural gas.The answer was, not really, because the bomb will radiate the gas, making it unusable.
But what gave the test extra weirdness was that a handful of protesters tried to stop it by placing themselves on top of it. As an article on CBS Denver notes:
They believed the scientists wouldn’t actually detonate the bomb if people were inside the closure area above, they were wrong.
The protesters survived, but I'm assuming they must be the only people to have ever been directly on top of a nuclear explosion who lived to tell about it.
An article on vice.com offers a few details about what it felt like to be in the blast zone:
"There was this great rumble, and we were lifted about six or seven inches off the ground," he recalls. "There were a whole bunch of tremors reverberating through the ground. People down below described seeing ripples flow through the earth, like a rock that had been tossed in a pond."
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 19, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1960s
Nicholas Zoueff, Boy War Hero
News article source.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 19, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: War, Children, Asia, Russia, Twentieth Century
September 18, 2019
Belly or butt?
The ad below may look, at first glance, like it's showing a perfectly innocent scene of a child kissing his mother's pregnant belly. But when it ran in Florida papers back in 2010, a lot of people saw something completely different. They were convinced it was a picture of a man mooning a child. According to Adweek.com:"We were deluged," says a clinic rep. "Callers kept saying, 'You're disgusting! I can't believe you'd put that in the paper: a picture of a man mooning a child.' " Adds a second client rep: "This came out of nowhere. People were screaming at us about it, and none of us could fathom which ad they were talking about and what they were seeing."
It's like one of those gestalt shift images. Once you see the mooning man, it's obvious.
image source: deceptology.com
Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 18, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Advertising, Pareidolia
Follies of the Madmen #444
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 18, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Sex Symbols, 1960s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
September 17, 2019
Rock Music
Archaeologist Jean-Loup Ringot, specialist in prehistoric music, demonstrates a Lithophone.via TYWKIWDBI
Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 17, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Music
Bob Harter’s “The Atom”
Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 17, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, Politics, Propaganda, Thought Control and Brainwashing, PSA’s, War, Weapons, 1960s
September 16, 2019
Strange Self-Experiments
I just added a top 10 list of strange self-experiments to the site.This is more material that I wrote a while ago, but which no longer has a home. So I'm relocating it permanently to WU.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 16, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Science, Experiments
The Show Won’t Go On
I haven’t read the book yet, but the topic sounds like it would be of interest to WUvies. It's described as the first comprehensive study of the phenomenon of performers who died onstage:
From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved."
Amazon link.
The website for the book includes some examples of recent deaths while performing.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 16, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Death, Books
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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 books such as Elephants on Acid. 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. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
