Out of This World

Tragedy or Hope?

Ahead of its Time #1

Of course, not everyone had bad ideas in those old issues of Popular Science. Many of the ideas for new products were quite brilliant. This series will look at ideas that were ahead of their time. Today's lesson: In Car Tape Deck.



(from the March 1954 issue of Popular Science)

For a little background, the modern tape recorder came about in 1939, but it wasn't refined enough for commercial use until the late 1940s. Reel to reel tape recorders started to become common home recording machines in the mid 1950s and as a professional home audio format in the late 1950s. The first automobile tape player was the Muntz Stereo-Pak of 1962 which evolved in the Lear Jet Stereo 8 (better known as 8 Track) in 1964. Even so, 8 track players didn't become common in cars until the late 1960s, so unfortunately A. P. Sabol had another fifteen years to wait before his request was answered...

Shock Asylum

One of my college courses this year is called "Posthumanism in Science Fiction" (it actually counts towards the core classes needed to graduate). The instructor, Dan Dinello, used to work with Stephen Colbert back in the 1990s, and recently he decided to show the class one of the short films he made with Colbert, a strange dark comedy called Shock Asylum. Like everything else, it happened to be on YouTube (though this version is shorter than the one I saw), so enjoy:

30 Dumb Inventions

This has been making its way around the internet over the past few days, but it is still interesting. The Life website has a photo gallery of 30 dumb inventions. Most of them are just terrible, like an external baby cage for your (high rise) apartment window or a phone answering robot (who just happens to be mute), but this one in particular just strikes me as a great idea: Illuminated tires.



If these were actually available, which doesn't seem likely, I would definitely buy some. They just look so cool, especially on vintage cars like the one pictured above.

What Were They Thinking? #2

I don't know, to me large amounts of DDT and small glass boxes don't seem like a good combination...


(from the May 1963 issue of Popular Science)

Key to Our Horizons

As we contemplate Peak Oil and other scary scenarios, here's a look back at a time when the automobile was king.

Mother Takes a Holiday

Max Fleischer’s News Sketches

Was this one of Chuck's inspirations for NEWS OF THE WEIRD...?

SelectaVision

Once upon a time, before laser-read discs, there was SelectaVision: movie discs that were interpreted by a mechanical stylus, just like vinyl records.

Read about the technology here.

And there are plenty of players and discs for sale cheap on eBay, if you want to go retro!

The first four minutes of the video below show lots of period films offered in the medium. Starting at the four-minute mark, you see the player and how it works.

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.