Weird Universe Archive

February 2025

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 (0)
Category: Law, Judges, 1960s, 1970s

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 - Comments (0)
Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, Environmentalism and Ecology

The Phoenix Bird

Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 09, 2025 - Comments (0)
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 (0)
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

February 7, 2025

Contagious Urination

Researchers have uncovered the "social dimensions of urination" among captive chimpanzees. This topic had previously been "largely unexplored."

They recorded urination events for a total of 604 hours and calculated urination frequency for each subject. They report:

Contagious urination, like other forms of behavioral and emotional state matching, may have important implications in establishing and maintaining social cohesion, in addition to potential roles in preparation for collective departure (i.e. voiding before long-distance travel) and territorial scent-marking (i.e. coordination of chemosensory signals)...

we find that in captive chimpanzees the act of urination is socially contagious. Further, low-dominance individuals had higher rates of contagion.

I guess the obvious question is whether humans also are susceptible to contagious urination. I haven't noticed it, if we are.

More info: "Socially contagious urination in chimpanzees"

Posted By: Alex - Fri Feb 07, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Experiments, Psychology, Body Fluids

Motel Automat

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 07, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Inventions, Shopping, Hotels, 1960s, United Kingdom

February 6, 2025

Interview Robot

Patent No. 12208507 recently granted to Fikret Korhan Turan and Gül Coruh of Istanbul.

The invention relates to a humanoid interview robot used in the field of human resources (HR), which can conduct job interviews.

Communication with the candidate interviewed by the interview robot according to the invention is provided via camera (U1), microphone (U2), odor sensor (U3), speaker (U4) and touch sensors (U5). The camera (U1) is preferably mounted on the eye of the interview robot, microphone (U2) is mounted on the ears, odor sensor (U3) is mounted on its nose, speaker (U4) is mounted on its mouth, and touch sensors (U5) are mounted on its chin or synthetic skin. These elements enable the candidate to respond verbally or in writing to the questions asked to determine the utility functions for economic, social and environmental qualities by specifying his/her identity information.

Apart from their technical capabilities, U1, U2, U3, U4 and U5 elements are customized to collect all kinds of visual, auditory, tactile, etc. data about the candidate so as to include qualifications or competencies such as the candidate's appearance, his/her self-care treatment, stress status, etc. in the decision-making process.

The interview robot has odor sensors. It can smell your fear.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 06, 2025 - Comments (3)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, Robots, Patents

“Peace At Last: The Afterdeath Experiences of John Lennon”

You can get a cheap used edition, or an inexpensive Kindle copy, if you want to learn what the ex-Beatle was up to.



Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 06, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Music, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, Books, 1980s

February 5, 2025

No Harshing of the WU Mellow

Esteemed WU-vies:

Alex and I noted some tiny, tiny flareups in the comments about who's being a jerk and who isn't. I refuse to believe that ANYONE in this select audience is an intentional jerk. Alex and I are extremely grateful to have you all as readers and commenters. We wouldn't be doing this blog without your support and the pleasure of your company.

Anyhow, everyone take a chill pill and stand by for more of the patented Weirdness you've come to know and love. I invoke this in the name of Saint Chuck Shepherd, long may his memory survive.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 05, 2025 - Comments (4)
Category: Weird Universe, Love & Romance

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Who We Are
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.

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