Communications
Animating Plants
Many people talk to their plants, but the plants don't talk back. However, a new invention allows the plants not to talk back, but at least to communicate, by moving. For instance, you could ask a plant if it needed to be watered, and the plant would shake up and down to indicate 'yes'.From the patent granted to Richard J. Maddocks et al:
The invention can provide an opportunity for retailers, distributors or gift givers to customize the behavior and content of the plant's behavior.
The present invention can provide a technique for the plant through its behavior to communicate its physiological needs for irrigation, light, fertilizer etc.
Posted By: Alex - Sun May 09, 2021 -
Comments (2)
Category: Communications, Inventions, Patents, Nature, Technology
Sea Mail
Posted By: Paul - Sun Aug 30, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Communications, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Regionalism, Europe
The Prix Guzman
Wikipedia explains:The Prix Pierre Guzman (Pierre Guzman Prize) was the name given to two prizes, one astronomical and one medical. Both were established by the will of Anne Emilie Clara Goguet (died June 30, 1891), wife of Marc Guzman, and named after her son Pierre Guzman. This prize was a sum of 100,000 francs, to be given to a person who succeeded in communicating with a celestial body, other than Mars, and receiving a response.
Did the Apollo 11 astronauts really "communicate" with another world to qualify for the prize?
Source of article.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 31, 2019 -
Comments (3)
Category: Aliens, Certificates, Diplomas, and Other Testaments of Achievement, Communications, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, 1960s, Europe, Nineteenth Century
The Radio Venus of 1939
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 17, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Communications, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, 1930s
Canadian Prime Minister Consults Ghost Dogs
Article:
William Lyon MacKenzie King (1874-1950), Canada’s 10th and longest serving Prime Minister was a devoted dog owner in life and in death.While active in politics King had an achingly dull public image, which was certainly at odds with the goings-on in his private life. What the Canadian populace wasn’t aware of was his séances, his consultations with spiritual mediums, table-rapping sessions, tea-leaf readings and communing with the spirits of the likes of former PM Wilfrid Laurier, his long-deceased mother, and of course his dear ghost dog, Pat. That he owned and frequently used both a Ouija board and a crystal ball was published in Time Magazine in 1953, news that shocked the nation. Rampant rumours circulated about King’s oddities, some true, most false. That King had Pat stuffed by a taxidermist so that the little dog would always be by his side turned out to be untrue. King’s detailed diary entries, published after his death in 1950 revealed that King consulted the dead Pats during these séance sessions in manners of international political policy, conscription, and Liberal Party Leadership.
King, obsessed with death and the afterlife, often expressed his wish to communicate with the living after he died, just as he hoped to be reunited forever in the spirit world with his three Pats; “we shall all be together in the Beyond,” he wrote, “of that I am perfectly sure”.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 30, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Communications, Eccentrics, Government, Officials, New Age, Paranormal, Dogs, Twentieth Century
Mystery Illustration 64
What are these two people doing?
The answer is here.
Or after the jump.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 12, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Communications, 1960s
Milton Metz, RIP
I never heard his radio show, but Milton Metz seems as if he were an amiably weird guy.
Obit here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 14, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: Celebrities, Communications, Radio, Regionalism
Just Imagine
The uproarious laughter by the human executive at the antics of Tommy Telephone, a plainly impossible vision, proclaims that the fellow is gratefully descending into the dark swamp of insanity due to the high stresses of his job.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 10, 2016 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Corporate Mascots, Icons and Spokesbeings, Products, Communications, Delusions, Fantasies and Other Tricks of the Imagination, Technology, Telephones, Cartoons, Stop-motion Animation, 1940s, Brain Damage
Which Way Did They Go?
You are out at an Easter egg hunt and you see a police helicopter searching the area. Then you see two men running away, what do you do? These kids knew just what to do. They formed an arrow on the ground to point the police in the right direction. Yes, the cops got the criminals. Great job kids!
Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 02, 2016 -
Comments (4)
Category: Communications, Cops, Crime, Children
The Zimphone
When telephones were the cutting-edge of technology, cheap knockoffs arose. This Radio-Shack-style wired intercom sought to cash in on Ma Bell's high standards. Imagine stringing one mile of wire from your house to your friend's home through the neighborhood.
There are several sets for sale on eBay as I post.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 16, 2014 -
Comments (4)
Category: Communications, Imitations, Forgeries, Rip-offs and Faux, Technology, 1950s
| Who We Are |
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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 |