Category Archives: Misc.

Pulling Teeth and Cutting Colons: the Weird Early 20th Century Obsession With Surgically Removing Perfectly Healthy Body Parts

In today’s world of high-tech medicine, it is easy to take for granted the ease, regularity, and relative safety with which modern surgery is performed. For most of human history surgery was a bloody, painful, and dangerous affair. Without the benefit of antiseptic techniques or anaesthesia, surgeons had to work fast, racing against the clock to amputate a limb or […]

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The Race to Create Working, Practical Personal Jetpacks

In the opening sequence of the 1965’s Thunderball, James Bond, having just dispatched the villainous SPECTRE agent Colonel Jacques Bouvar, flees to the rooftop of Bouvar’s French chateau, dons a futuristic-looking jetpack, and makes his dramatic escape. Given its fantastical, over-the-top nature, this scene was obviously accomplished via the magic of Hollywood special effects, right? Well, no, actually. As incredible […]

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The Largely Forgotten Entirely Mad Adventure of Half Safe The Amphibious Car That Could

If you suddenly decided to travel around the world, what sort of vehicle would you choose? Likely a sailboat, or – of you’re feeling particularly ambitious – an aeroplane. Well if so, then you’re a far more reasonable person than Ben Carlin. When this former Australian mining engineer began planning his own round-the-world trip in the early 1950s, he decided […]

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The Truth About Blockbuster Turning Down Purchasing Netflix and What Seemingly Everyone Gets Wrong

Considering the near total market-dominance and unparalleled level of brand recognition Netflix enjoys in today’s entertainment landscape, it’s hard to believe that at one point in time the company was considered a “niche” service. In fact, it is in part for this reason that in 2000 the then CEO of Blockbuster almost literally laughed in the face of Netflix’s co-founders […]

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The Popular Cocktail That Includes a Dehydrated Human Toe

The world of alcoholic cocktails is dizzyingly diverse, with as many potential drink combinations as there are varieties of alcohol and mixers. Some, like the Cuba Libre – rum mixed with Coca-Cola – are very simple, while others, like the Commonwealth – a monstrous, record-braking concoction boasting an astounding 71 ingredients sourced from every nation in the British Commonwealth – […]

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The Secret Code of Hobos

The Great Depression of the 1930s brought sweeping changes to American life and culture, not least to the American vocabulary. As Americans increasingly blamed freefalling wages and skyrocketing unemployment on president Herbert Hoover, more and more common objects were derisively renamed in his honour. Sprawling “Hooverville” shanty towns popped up in nearly every city, the homeless slept under newspaper “Hoover […]

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The Curious Case of the Last Witch in Britain

In the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, Europe found itself gripped by witch mania. After centuries of denying the existence of witchcraft, Church leaders incredibly came to believe that misfortunes such as plagues and crop failures were causes not by God’s will but rather individuals acting in league with the Devil. The resulting hysteria, stoked by the political turmoil […]

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