If Thomas Edison made better light bulbs, Erwin Perzy might never have invented the snow globe.
More:
“A Brief History of Snow Globes,” Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, Mental Floss
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Wearing a mask minimizes the spread of the coronavirus, but some resist, in the name of … whatever. Allen Pan invented a gun that shoots a mask on to the faces of those suckers.
More:
“The Hero We Need Built a Gun That Shoots Masks Onto People’s Faces,” Andrew Liszewski, Gizmodo
Related:
“Fed up with anti-maskers, mask advocates are demanding mandates, fines — and common courtesy.” Marc Fisher, Washington Post
“To Get People to Wear Masks, Try Comparing Them to Seatbelts and Helmets,” Alex Wittenberg, CityLab
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What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine.
“Thank you, industrialization. Thank you, steel mill. And thank you, chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books.”
Related:
“Hans Rosling, statistician and sword-swallower, has died,” The Economist
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Most consumers believe that Nutella hazelnut-chocolate spread is sold in single-serving containers — as soon as they open the 35-ounce jar, they finish the whole thing. Thankfully most consumers can’t buy the 6-pound foodservice size. The gooey stuff is addictively tasty but it’s mostly sugar and palm oil, so it’s pretty unhealthy.
Help is on the way. Germany’s Daniel Schobloch has designed the Nutella Lock, an acrylic device that fits over the jar lid so it can only be opened with a key. He says it’s so your kids won’t eat all the Nutella, but we know better, don’t we?
Nearly 1000 of the gadgets have already been sold on German eBay at €9.99 ( $11) each. We expect to see a high-performance alloy version at Williams-Sonoma any day now.
More:
“A Nutella Lock For When You Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” Suzy Strutner, Huffington Post
“German Designer Builds a Lock for Your Nutella Jar,” Jennifer M Wood, Mental Floss
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Image (“Still Life with Pewter Jug and Nutella, after Cezanne”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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This week marks the 50th Anniversary of a, um, highlight of Sixties psychedelic paraphernalia, the Lava Lamp. Created by inventor, RAF pilot, and nudist Edward Craven-Walker (1918 – 2000), the glowing glass of goop was first brought to market in the UK as the Mathmos Astro Lamp in 1963. In Sixties America, no dorm room or hippie crashpad was home without a Lava Lamp. Just ask your groovy grandma, youngster.
On July 7, 1928 the Chillicothe Baking Company began selling pre-sliced loaves of Kleen-Maid Bread. Iowa inventor Otto Rohwedder had recently invented a machine that sliced bread into uniform slices and wrapped each loaf. “Just think of it!” read an advertisement:
“Every slice perfect and CORRECT, far better than you could cut it yourself….There was a time when you ground coffee. Now you buy it ground. Well, this is the same sort of sensible, logical improvement.”
One result: New-fanged electric toasters began, um, popping up on kitchen counters all over America.
More:
“A Brief History of Sliced Bread,” Kaitlyn Boettcher, Mental Floss
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This Sunday the iPod personal music player turns 10 years old. Devised by Apple CEO Steve Jobs and engineers including Tony Fadell and Jon Rubinstein, the device let users download files from Apple’s iTunes site and organize their music in “playlists.” The device dominated the market, “iPod” is now a generic term for any portable MP3 player, and audio download “podcasts” are a feature of many websites.
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