Our Type of Game

Here’s a sport some of you may be inclined to participate in: competitive typing. Via Boing Boing, Typing Bowl is a multiplayer game where online players are pitted against each other to type a quote as fast and accurately as possible.

The game gives everyone the same quote, and you have to type it out, making sure to include proper spacing and punctuation. The letters in the quote turn either blue or red as you type (depending on the accuracy), so you know where you are in the game. 

The Price May Be Right

Here’s an interesting packaging idea: print the price of the product right on the package. This will keep crafty supermarkets from artificially jacking up the price. Via Core77:

German grocery brand Penny has rolled out a new line of "Price Packs," which I consider to be brilliant packaging design. Across a line of their staples, the price is in big, fat numbers across the front of the packaging.

"In a world of constantly fluctuating prices, the Price Packs serve as a promise of price stability," AdAge writes. "And they are also designed to make it easier for consumers to spot a good deal, particularly next to the higher prices of big brands on the same shelves."

Of course, if the packaging is done digitally they can relatively easily change the price, and could prove to be an interesting case study in variable-data printing.

Food Flight

The next time you order in, your food may be delivered by some combination of drone and robot. Serve Robotics manufactures sidewalk delivery robots for restaurants. A worker loads one with an order, and the robot tools over to the orderer’s location. The robots have a range of up to 25 miles, but only travel at 6 MPH, so most deliveries are within a two-mile radius.

However, says Core 77, that may change.

now the company is partnering with Wing Aviation, a drone delivery provider. Under the arrangement, Serve's robots will transport the delivery to a Wing Autoloader station nearby. Then a Wing drone picks the order up and freaking flies it to your building.

The arrangement means they can offer "30 minute autonomous delivery across an entire city," says Serve CEO Dr. Ali Kashani.

The service, they say, will roll out “in the coming months,” though there is no indication where (three guesses, though; think Golden Gate Bridge).

Left Behind

We’ve all inadvertently left items behind in hotels, and even sometimes—when trade show swag won’t all fit in one’s luggage—advertently left things behind. Via Boing Boing, the Hotel Room Innsights Report rounds up some of the most unusual items left behind by hotel guests:

pet lizard, baby chick, a $6 million watch, car tire, and construction pipes. Absent-minded guests also "forgot two full-leg casts and 10% of hotels reported that guests left behind their dentures," the report states.

It also identifies some of the most unusual (or PITA, we’d be inclined to say) room service requests:

* An Evian-filled bathtub so a child can bathe in the purest water
* Customized allergen menu for their pet, i.e., gluten free, dairy free, etc.
* Burnt toast
* A caviar hot dog
* Fresh goat milk
* 4lbs of bananas
* A high five from a team member to ensure their room service request was read

Some people should not be allowed out of the house.

Phone Home

It was inevitable, but there is now a Mobile Phone Museum, “designed to safeguard this important collection of mobile technology heritage and help fund further growth.” It is virtual as far as visitors are concerned, but there is a physical repository of donated handsets.

The collection currently has over 2800 individual models from more than 250 different brands. There are over 6000 devices in total when duplicates are included.

It was the brainchild of Ben Wood who came up with the idea in 2004. In 2019, he partnered with another mobile phone collector, Matt Chatterley, and in 2020 they put together a small team to create a not-for-profit dedicated to preserving mobile communications history. The collection relies almost solely on donations.

When a device is donated, it is catalogued, labelled, photographed and moved to our secure storage facility. The flow of new devices continues on an almost daily basis. Each donor is recognised on the website.

We forget the past, but there were some really odd mobile phone designs over the years before they all started looking like the “black mirror.”

Snooze Fest

Speaking of phones, the modern smartphone has created a vast market for phone cases, ostensibly bought to protect the phone in question. Some can be quite durable indeed, as was demonstrated, via Laughing Squid, by artist Joseph Herscher of Joseph’s Machines and Caseify to make the “Ultimate Snooze Machine 2.0,” a Rube Goldberg-like alarm clock involving a boulder, a hammer, and tossing the phone around the room.

We’re not sure you would that every morning, as getting ready for bed could take all day.

Graphene Is Your Boyfriend Now, Nancy

Was it a good week for graphene news? It’s always a good week for graphene news! A graphene-based electronic tongue. From (who else?) Graphene-Info:

Researchers from Penn State University and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center recently developed an “electronic tongue” based on a graphene-based ion-sensitive field-effect transistor, capable of identifying differences in similar liquids, such as milk with varying water content; diverse products, including soda types and coffee blends; signs of spoilage in fruit juices; and instances of food safety concerns.

And one of the strangest sentences we’ve seen in a while:

The team also found that results were even more accurate when artificial intelligence (AI) used its own assessment parameters to interpret the data generated by the electronic tongue.

Tasty.

Rolling Along

If you have been to Las Vegas recently, you know that The Sphere is quite the tourist attraction. Whilst descending into LAS, people have been seen pointing out the windows and oohing and aahing at it. And it is impressive; it’s covered with 1.2 million LED lights an cost a reported $2.3 billion to build.

However, rather misleading headline, from Boing Boing, caught our eye: “The Las Vegas Sphere is rolling to a new location.” One’s mind is immediately riven by images of it physically being rolled through the city to a new location in Vegas itself, perhaps crushing cars and pedestrians like a juggernaut. Alas, all it meant was that they are building another one in the United Arab Emirates.

Accordion to The Guardian…

The end of an era perhaps: the last French accordion manufacturer has gone out of business. Says The Guardian:

But it seems the traditional French-made accordéon à bretelles (strap accordion) has been squeezed out of existence after Maugein, the country’s last manufacturer, was forced into liquidation after 105 years of making the instrument, known as the “poor person’s piano”.

The cause? COVID and competition from China, although the decline started long beforehand.

Founded in 1919 by Jean Maugein, who made the instruments in a former first world war munitions factory, the company originally employed 290 people in the town of Tulle in the Corrèze in central France. Business boomed after the second world war when the arrival in France of jazz and swing boosted sales, but the company began to decline in the 1970s.

The accordion also had a place in politics.

Former president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who died in 2020 and was a keen accordionist, is credited with using the instrument to revolutionise political communication.

…“If all politicians played the accordion we’d get along much better,” he told reporters.

“Weird Al” for high office!

Head Case

Here’s a question you may have wondered about: why is it called a “Phillips head screwdriver”? The obvious answer is “Duh, it was invented by a guy named Phillips.” And that’s sort of true: it was indeed named for Henry Phillips but, via Mental Floss, it has a bit of a screwy history.

In 1933, Phillips obtained the rights to a socket screw invented by John Thompson that had a cross-slotted rather than slit head. To turn the screw, one had to use a tool that resembled an arrow at the end. (This wasn’t entirely a novel concept, as an inventor named John Frearson patented a cruciform screw in the late 1800s.)

Why did Thompson sell the patent? Apparently, manufacturers were not interested, fearing the screw could be easily damaged during production. (This was before the advent of cheap-ass screws that get stripped just by looking at them.) Phillips improved on the design:

Phillips tweaked Thompson’s design further, implementing what the NIHF calls a “cruciform recess” in the head that was shallower than Thompson’s invention, making it both easier to mass-produce as well as turn by hand. He formed the Phillips Screw Company and eventually convinced major manufacturers to switch to his now-patented design.

We always thought “cruciform recess” was an official term for a part of a cathedral. Anyway, it was a superior design:

Phillips was so enthusiastic about his design because the screw could be self-centered. As anyone who has driven in a flathead screw can testify, slotted screws need to be centered in their hole and the screwdriver aligned with the head before pressure can be applied. With a Phillips head, the crosshead doesn’t allow for slippage, and the screw is automatically centered.

Phillips was also a bit of a screw visionary.

Phillips (correctly) anticipated a rise in automated manufacturing, particularly with automobiles, in the coming decades. Having a screw driven in automatically is far easier when a crosshead is used, as the end of the tool can quickly find its place. General Motors was among the first carmakers to be convinced of Phillips’s argument, crafting its 1937 Cadillac with Phillips-style fasteners. The screw became available to the public at large around the same time.

And if you use a drill to screw in bolts it’s easier with a Phillips head, although we learned recently that there are a bunch of alternative head configurations, such as star, square, and others, just to make home improvement projects more complicated.

There is also no truth to the rumor that Phillips parted his hair in four directions.

New Traditionalists

You know what they say: there’s no tradition like a new tradition. And indeed many of America’s most “traditional” food recipes were not grandma-based but rather started as marketing ploys. Via Atlas Obscura, a case in point is the “fluffernutter.” This may just be a New England thing, but no 70s kid’s lunch box was without the infamous sandwich comprising peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff.

Emma Curtis, who co-founded the Curtis Marshmallow Company with her brother, first created a recipe for “Liberty Sandwiches” made with peanut butter and their trademarked Snowflake Marshmallow Creme in 1918. The creme was essentially the same as marshmallows, but minus the gelatin needed for the amorphous mass of corn syrup and egg whites to hold a solid shape.

Curtis invented the sandwich, yes, but not the key ingredient.

Joseph Archibald Query, a Canadian living in Somerville, Massachusetts, invented Marshmallow Fluff the year prior, only to sell it in 1920 to the Durkee-Mower candy company when wartime sugar rationing made it too tough to make a profit.

Durkee-Mower had a heck of a time selling Marshmallow Fluff—they even tried a 1930s radio show with dancing girls called the Flufferettes. It wasn’t until the 1960s that a branding agency coined the term “fluffernutter.” They launched a nationwide ad campaign, and they were off to the races.

Other American traditions came about in a similar fashion.

Even most of the Norman Rockwell-esque Thanksgiving spread was born in American test kitchens belonging to General Mills (the faceless entity behind Betty Crocker), Campbell’s, and other corporations. In the early 20th century through the post-war years, Madison Avenue and the increasingly large food conglomerates it repped reshaped the ways in which Americans ate.

Think green bean casserole (Campbell’s), pineapple upside-down cake (Dole), and lemon pigs (lemon pigs?) (Alcoa—yes, the aluminum foil company).

As Gouda’s It Gets

Do you like Cheez-Its? We sort of do, but can take them or leave them, but for hardcore Cheez-It aficionados the brand is releasing two new flavors—thanks to TikTok (make of that what you will). Via (who else?) Food & Wine:

On Tuesday, the brand announced its new smoked flavor line, which includes both the Smoked Cheddar and Cheez-It Smoked Gouda flavors, inspired by social media users spicing up their own crackers at home, including Holmes Cooking, whose video showcasing homemade smoked Cheez-Its has garnered more than 242,000 likes to date. 

Here's a line for the ages:

“I've been seeing a lot of people smoke Cheez-Its,” the TikToker began. 

No doubt there are many examples on TikTok that involve all the various definitions of “smoke,” as perhaps implied by the term “TikToker.” Look for the new smoky Cheez-Its this November, available wherever fine snacks are sold.

Adds Food & Wine:

As for how it captured that smoky flavor, Cheez-It wouldn't reveal its secrets, noting it used a "proprietary process" to create the taste. 

Some combination of chemicals, no doubt.

This Week in Printing, Publishing, and Media History

October 14

1582: Because of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.

1884: George Eastman receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.

1888: Louis Le Prince films the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.

1894: American poet and playwright e. e. cummings born.

1912: The Power of Paper: Former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot and mildly wounded by John Flammang Schrank. Regardless, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech—the text of which in his coat pocket blunted the impact of the bullet.

1926: The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.

1947: Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to exceed the speed of sound.

1968: The first live TV broadcast by American astronauts in orbit is performed by the Apollo 7 crew.

October 15

99 BC (probable): Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius born.

70 BC: Roman poet Virgil born.

1582: Adoption of the Gregorian calendar begins, eventually leading to near-universal adoption.

1783: The Montgolfier brothers; hot air balloon makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.

1844: German composer, poet, and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche born.

1878: The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation.

1881: English novelist and playwright P. G. Wodehouse born.

1908: Canadian-American economist and diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith born.

1923: Italian novelist, short story writer, and journalist Italo Calvino born. 

1926: French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault born.

1939: The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) is dedicated (and has not been updated since).

1956: FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, is first shared with the coding community.

1964: American composer and songwriter Cole Porter dies (b. 1891).

October 16

1758: American lexicographer Noah Webster born.

1847: Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre is published in London.

1854: Irish playwright, novelist, and poet Oscar Wilde born.

1923: The Walt Disney Company is founded.

1927: German novelist, poet, playwright, and Nobel Prize laureate Günter Grass born.

1950: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis is published.

October 17

1558: Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, is founded.

1757: French entomologist and academic René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur dies (b. 1683). After observing wasps building their nests, Réaumur was the first to propose making paper out of wood.

1771: Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Mozart at age 15.

1814: Eight people die in the London Beer Flood.

1827: Bellini’s third opera, Il pirata, premieres in Milan.

1888: Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

1907: Marconi begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service.

1915: American playwright and screenwriter Arthur Miller born.

1919: RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.

1979: American humorist and screenwriter S. J. Perelman dies (b. 1904).

October 18

1851: Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale.

1871: English mathematician and engineer, invented the mechanical computer Charles Babbage dies (b. 1791).

1922: The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a national broadcasting service.

1931: Thomas Edison dies (b. 1847).

1947: American singer-songwriter and pianist Laura Nyro born.

1951: The Studio for Electronic Music was established at the West German Broadcasting facility in Cologne, making the first modern music studio.

1954: Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio.

1964: English journalist, author, and programmer Charles Stross born.

1979: The Federal Communications Commission begins allowing people to have home satellite earth stations without a federal government license.

2019: NASA Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch take part in the first all-female spacewalk when they venture out of the International Space Station to replace a power controller.

October 19

1386: The Universität Heidelberg holds its first lecture, making it the oldest German university.

1745: Irish satirist and essayist Jonathan Swift dies (b. 1667).

1900: Max Planck discovers Planck’s law of black-body radiation.

1903: Swedish wrestler and actor Tor Johnson born.

1931: English intelligence officer and author John le Carré (né David John Moore Cornwell) born.

October 20

1632: English physicist, mathematician, architect, and designer of St Paul's Cathedral Christopher Wren born.

1882: American actress Margaret Dumont born.

1882: Hungarian-American actor Bela Lugosi born.

1971: American rapper, producer, actor, and admirer of fine, digitally printed posters Snoop Dogg (né Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) born.

1973: The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.

2020: Canadian-American stage magician and author James Randi dies (b. 1928).