Wednesday links

June 6 is the 75th anniversary of D-Day: quotes (Shakespeare, Eisenhower, Churchill), videos (footage, FDR's and Reagan's speeches, a Lego re-enactment), lots of links.

‘Botanical Sexism’ Could Be Behind Your Seasonal Allergies: Male trees dominate city plantings, and "they’re indiscriminate, spewing their gametes in every direction."

When Cyclists Made Up an Entire Political Bloc.

Earlier this week was the anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk by a flotilla of small boats.- the inspiration for Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches...we shall never surrender" speech.

Design Regulations Helped Ruin American Cars. Related: A Design Engineer Explains Exactly Why Your Car Is So Boring

Well, that's handy, I guess: Butterflies Have an Extra Stomach Attached to Their Vaginas.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the 1453 fall of Constantinople, differences between moths and butterflies, weight loss via tequila drinking, determining whether snails fart, and Kurt Vonnegut's letter home after imprisonment in an underground slaughterhouse (Slaughterhouse Five) during the Dresden bombing.

Early attempts to produce the flying car we were supposed to have by now

Hobbes: "A new decade is coming up."

Calvin: "You call this the future?? HA! Where are the rocket packs? Where are the disintegration rays? Where are the flying cars?"

~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (wiki) December 30, 1989

Mark my word: a combination airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile, but it will come. 

~ Henry Ford, 1940 

By 1953 motor-cars will be obsolete, because aeroplanes will run along the ground as well as fly over it.

~ Sir Philip Gibbs,  1928.

Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a "copter". These tiny "copters", when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads.

~ Harry Bruno, 1943

Weren't we supposed to have flying cars (wiki) by now? Below are some early attempts:

Nov 1947:

A ConVair Car Model 118 flying car during a test flight. The hybrid vehicle was designed by Theodore P. Hall for the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Company of San Diego, California, but never went into production. A test pilot had to make a crash landing after the vehicle unexpectedly ran out of fuel — he'd been reading from the car's fuel gauge, not the plane's. 

 April 1924:

A car with wings and a propeller protruding from the radiator grille drives through Times Square, New York. It was the invention of A.H. Russell of Nutley, New Jersey.

1928:

An aerocar, unconfirmed as being able to fly, which had a triple function: a combined car, airplane and boat.

Jan. 1946:

Ted Hall's NX59711. It had a top road speed of 60mph and flight speed of 110mph. Hall developed it as a design for paratroopers and commandos.

Lots more at Mashable, Daily Beast, and Smithsonian.

Thursday links

Whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass; the summer solstice is this morning (June 21) at 6:07 AM Eastern Time. Related, Fridgehenge: to celebrate the solstice, British guy recreated Stonehenge using old refrigerators. 

Gallery: Cars with Propellers.

During the Great Depression, ‘Penny Restaurants’ Fed the Unemployed.

How to Have a Healthy Summer: Advice from 1656: you'll need to drink feebl green Wine and eschue the company of women.

Operation Acoustic Kitty: (Unsuccessful) Cold War attempt to eavesdrop via transmitters implanted into cats. 

"CIA staffers drove Acoustic Kitty to the park and tasked it with capturing the conversation of two men sitting on a bench. Instead, the cat wandered into the street, where it was promptly squashed by a taxi."

Alcohol - is there anything it can't do? Drunk People Are Better at Creative Problem Solving.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include the anniversary of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo (including, of course, a Lego re-enactment), the sport of motor-ball (AKA soccer on motorcycles), prayers to stop a dog from barking, and where to hit someone to do the most damage.

Friday links

March 17 is Saint Patrick’s Day: origin, history, videos, and how to make your own green beer. Related: From Slave to Saint, The Story of Patrick and why are four-leaf clovers lucky?

The first American woman to command a ship was a pregnant 19 year old. She did it while fighting off a mutiny, nursing an incapacitated husband, and braving gale-force winds.

The United States v. Paramount and How Movie Theater Concessions Got So Expensive.

This is nuts - watch these guys changing tires while driving.

The Long Linguistic Journey to ‘Dagnabbit’

Why it’s Impossible to Accurately Measure a Coastline.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include the Ides of March, a history of hair transplants, what antibiotics are made of, shoe rationing in the U.S. during WWII, and, since Stephen Hawking died on Einstein's birthday, the Hawking vs Einstein rap battle.

This is nuts - changing tires while driving

Watching this, one would assume that alcohol was involved, but these gentlemen appear to be in Saudi Arabia so perhaps their only inebriant is the "clear ether of youth itself"*:

h/t Dark Roasted Blend

*My favorite opening paragraph ever, from The Atlantic in an article entitled The Dark Power of Fraternities. I haven't read the whole article, but this is a world class opening paragraph: 

One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Marshall University, in West Virginia, and was struck by what seemed to him—under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself—to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air. And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.

Friday links

March 10th is Chuck Norris' 78th birthday: his 5 most badass movies and a bunch of Norris "facts" plus a supercut of Norris's best kicks. Related: UK scientists recreated Neanderthal man, who looks just like Chuck Norris.

Check out this Street-Legal Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle.

How Knot Analysis Can Reveal the Perpetrator of a Crime.

Daylight Saving Time starts this weekend: here's some DST history (including Ben Franklin's proposal), stories and video. Related: How daylight saving time works and why these states want to ditch it.

The Unlikely Friendship Between Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin.

The golden age of false rumps.

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include a map of how butterflies are related to each other, a roundup of funny colonoscopy videos, when you grow up never realizing you're on the run from the Mob, and, for Michelangelo's birthday, his illustrated grocery list.

Monday links

Spring is here - The vernal equinox is on March 20th at 6:29 a.m. EDT. Here's Vivaldi, science, myths, "spring spheres" and more.

How Movie Effects Were Done in the Silent Film Era.

Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness for 27 years.

Blowing up a watermelon with 20,000 volts of electricity, in slow motion.

17 ridiculous 'smart' gadgets that really exist.

A gallery of vintage armored cars.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include a map of New York’s earliest skyscrapers, dozens of nuclear test videos that have been declassified and uploaded to YouTube, forged art that fooled the Metropolitan Museum for decades, and lots of information on Saint Patrick. 

Tuesday links

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879: here's a short bio, video, an explanation of gravitational waves, and the strange post-mortem saga of his brain.

New Zealand Could Have Been Part of the United States.

Project Habakkuk: Britain’s Secret Ship Made of Ice.

3.14: Happy Pi Day.

National Geographic Infographics, A Pictorial History.

Why Some Cars Have Gas Tank Fillers On The Left Or The Right.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include Chuck Norris' 77th birthday, Japanese equipment for clearing a path through 60 feet of snow, Daylight Saving Time history (including Ben Franklin's proposal), how Mickey Mouse evades the public domain, and how to make prescription eyeglasses from scratch.

Monday links

Interesting bit of history: the readers who entertained cigar factory workers in the early 20th century.

Buddhist Kung Fu nuns (and yes, that would be an excellent name for a rock band) are biking the Himalayas to oppose human trafficking.

Napoleon Harris III - entrepreneur, state senator and former NFL linebacker - delivers pizza, fights off bad guys, helps solve a murder. Related story.

Columbia grad: I was reported for gender misconduct for calling myself handsome in class.

The Flyway Code: How birds avoid crashing into each other in mid-air.

Beyond Thunderdome: Vintage images of the death-defying sport known as ‘Auto Polo’.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the benefits of going bald, why coffee makes you poop (and maybe deaf), the planes full of babies flown from Vietnam to the U.S., a set of roadside curiosities, and all about hypnotic breast enlargement.

Tuesday links

How to fight off an invasive species: Shooting Lionfish With A Glock 9mm.

Churches and their Hidden Basement Bowling Alleys.

This Guy Gets Punched in the Stomach for a Living.

Women are teachable: 1940's booklet to “assist male bosses in supervising their new female employees"

How to Build Your Own Car in Just 400 Easy Steps.

The Best Sport Of The Early 1900s Involved Pushing Around An Elephant-Sized Ball.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include Australia's biggest dog, a Nazi’s documentary photos of Polish Jews in 1940, what happens when you hiccup, and the first day of Fall.

Here's What Happens When You Crash-Test a Shopping Cart at 73 MPH

How well does a shopping cart protect your groceries at highway speeds?​

Popular Mechanics:

Sweden's Dynamic Test Center is known for running unusual crash simulations. Simply put, these technicians like to have fun. There's a purpose to this test beyond just watching stuff get smashed—in this case, DTC shows how much damage a runaway shopping cart can do to the side of your car.

But what you really want to see is how a shopping cart holds up after crashing into a wall at 117.8 km/h (73 mph). Yes, that's a new shopping cart speed world record.

The test center also crash-tested a golf cart:

Ever wondered what would happen if a fully loaded tractor plowed through stopped traffic? They’ve tested that. Or just how much damage is caused when two skiiers collide? They’ve tested that too.

Wanna dress like a crash test dummy for Halloween, or just because? Amazon has a selection:

More at Popular Mechanics and Sploid.

Friday links

Australian weird wildlife update: football-sized goldfish invading waterways (with bonus Aussie wildlife links)

Why hackers are so obsessed with picking locks. Related: The MIT Guide to Lock picking.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Cars For Sale.

François Bourassa printed $250 million in counterfeit twenties before he was was caught. But $50 million of it is still missing, and he only spent six weeks in jail.

The Life of a Phone Sex Operator.

Temporary Tattoo Tells You When You’re Drunk.

16 Bizarre Victorian Inventions.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include Genghis Khan the climate change hero, trees communicating with each other, why the driver  doesn't get carsick, and what happens when a fly lands on your food.

Friday links

Early attempts to produce the flying car we were supposed to have by now

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about male lactation.

How to find out everything Google knows about you.

Why Do We Put Candles on a Birthday Cake?

The Bloody History of the Barber Pole.

At What Age Do People Get Married Around the World?

A collection of  rarely-used funny inventions from the past.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include Winston Churchill's "get out of prohibition free" doctor's note, the Floraphone (a WWI plan to turn trees into telephones), why we need a supervillain President, and  how monarch butterflies navigate.

Friday links

Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Why is Friday the 13th Considered Unlucky?

Mount Doom might be about to erupt: New Zealand warns hikers away from Mordor. Kind of related: Bikes were invented because a volcano killed all the horses. 

Why old statues have tiny penises.

A Supercut of Birds in Movies.

The physics of traffic flow: How a Single Car, Inadvertently Braking, Causes a Traffic Jam.

Railway Paradise, circa 1880: How a Fine-Dining Empire Made the Southwest Palatable to Outsiders.

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include the Smithsonian whale warehouse, horse and buggy parking at the Costco in Lancaster, PA, baby naming laws in European countries, and, for his birthday, clips of some of Fred Astaire's best dance scenes.

Advice from 1896: how to Drive an Electric Car

"Such a motor is odorless, almost without vibration, and is practically noiseless. It can run with great speed and climb almost any hill road so long as it is smooth... When the battery is empty it may be recharged again at electrical stations maintained for the purpose, after which the carriage is ready for its journey once more...

Aside from the device for supplying power to the wheels, there are numerous others for guiding and controlling the machine when it is under way. Near the seat of the driver are a number of switches and levers, which to one just learning how they operate are rather bewildering...

The driver must keep his eyes wide open and both his feet and hands busy. With his left hand he grasps the power lever which controls the speed, while with the right he manages the steering lever. He has one heel all the time on an emergency switch that cuts off the current, and at the same time must ring a gong to warn people of the approach of his pneumatic-tired conveyance. With the other foot he manages a reversing-switch that will back the carriage, while with his toes he applies a quick brake.

When he wishes to turn on the lights he presses a button under the seat. So it may be seen that he is rather busy, and can never go to sleep and let the old horse carry him home."

Henry Davenport Northrop, The Gem Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge

Related articles:  

Electric car wins the first auto race in the United States.

115 year old electric car gets same mileage as Chevy Volt

Early American Automobiles 1877-1899 Models

via Ask The Past.

Friday links

Got restless kids at stuck in the house recovering from snowy activities? Here's a roundup of links about snow - all kid-friendly.

Your Favorite Car Brand Histories, Illustrated With Just the Front Grill.

Eerie pictures of the abandoned New York leper colony.

These 3D Optical Illusion Body Paintings are rather impressive.

What 170-Year-Old Beer Uncovered From a Shipwreck Really Tasted Like.

The Weird World of Standard Reference Materials, From That $761 Jar of Peanut Butter to Whale Blubber

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include a history of impractical weapons of war, how cutlery affects out sense of taste, Sharknado 3 with Ann Coulter as VP, and what happens when a bunch of men pee on a beehive (hint: the bees attack the first body part they see).