Most days, 6-year-old Aubrey Matthews spends her energy fighting a brain tumor growing behind her eyes. But the first-grader managed to foil crimes and chase an arch-nemesis through Boise on Friday, serving the city as the superhero “Star” with assistance from the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Idaho, The Idaho Statesman reported.
(Originally appeared in Mental_floss magazine, vol.5, issue 3, cover dated May-June 2006; also available online at http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10324)
In 1869, French craftsman Rousseau of Marseilles built the first in history’s line of unsuccessful monocycles. Sitting inside the monowheel, a rider steered the contraption by shifting his or her weight in the desired direction. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, the massive outer wheel remained directly in the rider’s line of sight at all times. Braking was also potentially hazardous, as stopping too abruptly would cause the rider to be propelled forward along with the outer wheel. But perhaps the biggest strike against the monowheel was the immediate comparison of any rider to a gerbil—something even the French wouldn’t tolerate.
It’s a car! It’s a bed! It looks suspiciously like a child’s toy! For the outdoorsman who has everything except a really expensive Big Wheel, there was the Daihatsu Trek. A single-passenger off-road vehicle, the Trek not only allowed drivers to travel to remote areas, it also gave them a place to bed down for the evening. With its collapsible seat, steering wheel, and roll bar, the boxy monstrosity from 1990 offered all the comforts of a really cheap motel room. And while we can’t be sure why the car never made it past the concept stage at Daihatsu, we can only guess members of the off-road focus groups felt silly driving a Transformer.
Much more after the jump.
A quasi hot potato of international engineering, the Avrocar was initially funded by the Canadian government, designed by a British engineer, and eventually assumed by the U.S. Defense Department as part of the Cold War weapons race. The UFO-like contraption was 18 feet in diameter, but only 3 feet thick. It featured vertical takeoff and landing and was designed to reach speeds up to 300 mph while remaining elusive to radar. Unfortunately, the two-person craft was never able to stabilize at heights above 8 feet, nor travel faster than 35 mph. After eight years and more than $10 million, the project was abandoned in 1960.
Buckminster Fuller was many things—inventor, philosopher, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and bearer of a name that makes Frank Zappa’s kids feel average. Among his many architectural and engineering creations, Bucky tried his hand at automobiles. In 1933, using a V-8 engine loaned to him by Henry Ford, Fuller built the Dymaxion car. Truly a wonder to behold, the Dymaxion was nearly 20 feet long, got 30-plus miles to the gallon, held up to 12 people, had a maximum speed of 120 mph, and could do a U-turn in 20 feet, thanks to a single rear wheel that controlled the steering. Unfortunately, the car’s steering appears to be at fault for a fatal accident at the 1933 World’s Fair, when the Dymaxion was rubbernecked by another car. Although later evidence placed fault on the driver of the other car, negative publicity surrounding the wreck caused investors to pull away from the project, and Fuller was freed up to build geodesic domes and work on his friendship with John Denver. The fortunate outcome of the Dymaxion’s failure? Denver’s hit tune, “What One Man Can Do,” which was written for Fuller.
Leonardo da Vinci is renowned for his forward-thinking sketches and intricate designs, which included blueprints for a bicycle, a submarine, and a helicopter. But you can’t win ’em all. Da Vinci also designed a three-wheeled wagon-like device—often referred to as the clockwork car—that never really lived up to the hype. Its spring-operated design makes it the first-known concept for a self-propelled vehicle. And because it was designed without a driver’s seat (though a secondary steering column was present) and was meant to be programmed along a specific course, the clockwork car is also thought to be one of the world’s first robots. Some speculate that faulty interpretations of da Vinci’s notes prevented the success of his ideas, but there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. When engineers finally constructed a working model of the car in the late 1990s, it only traveled 40 feet.
Originally designed in 2001 to push the limits of electric automotive technology, the KAZ (Keio Advanced Zero-emission) vehicle is part science-fiction, part sports car, part limousine, and entirely unattractive. But the beauty of the KAZ lies in its eight wheels, each powered by its own battery, which allow the luxury concept car to reach speeds in excess of 190 mph without emitting any pollution. The car’s design also makes for a safe ride because what would normally be the engine compartment is a crushable zone, reducing risk to the driver. Sadly, the KAZ came off as less luxury automobile and more cartoon, sending the designers back to their drawing boards.
Everyone who grew up watching “The Jetsons” and playing with the Steve Austin action figure dreamed of a day when people travelled to and from work via jet pack. The tease: a rocket belt developed under military contract by Bell Aerosystems in 1959. The hydrogen peroxide-powered Small Rocket Lift Device (SRLD), also known as the Bell Rocket Belt, was flown successfully throughout the 1960s. Unfortunately, the contract was later dropped, due largely to its limited flight duration (it held only 21.5 seconds worth of fuel). Although the belts are still used occasionally for entertainment (the opening of the 1984 Olympics and, most memorably, in the film “Thunderball”), our adolescent dreams of rocket-powered backpack flight will be confined to the silver screen and the funny pages for a while longer.
If you’ve been looking to practice your spy skills, this is your toy. The Amfibidiver is a car that’s also a boat that’s also a submarine. All you have to do is find a way to fit your tuxedo underneath your scuba suit. Of designing the 007-mobile, Belgian inventor René Baldewijns says it was easy. “Just take one dream, the fuel tank of an airplane, two bicycles, the motors from five electric wheelchairs, the hull of a sailing boat, seven drink containers (a real justification for that empty bottle collection), several kilos of resin, a few garden seats, and several miles of electrical cables.” Voilà! You’ve got an Amfibidiver! Baldewijns built a prototype for the machine, but his health problems caused the project to be shelved before it found commercial realization.
In 1988, Czech-born architect Jan Kaplicky attempted a feat that flew in the face of all odds: bringing change to Britain. The Superbus was a sleek, aluminum-bodied craft that charged itself at bus terminals and had the ability to lower its frame at stops to make it easier for passengers to enter and exit. The design was rejected in favor of the traditional red, double-decker Routemaster buses long associated with London’s public transportation system. Was the Superbus truly hideous, or was it just one step closer to the 20th century and a decent dental plan? We may never know.
You know the movie you’ve just seen is bad when you have better memories of the trailer for Ghost Rider (a movie starring Nick Cage about a flaming skeleton demon crime fighting biker — chew on that for a bit) than the movie itself. When that movie is the third and final installment in a trilogy that has been, up until now, a brilliant and shining example of how comic books can successfully transition from print to screen, it’s crushing. And when that trilogy is about the X-Men, the linchpin of your inner nerd, it’s as memorably traumatic as having your original Mint on Card Star Wars figure collection sold as the penalty for making a B on your physics test.
I’m kidding, of course, about that last part, and it’s obvious to anyone who’s known me for long enough. I never made above a C in physics.
Needless to say, spoilers are rich in abundance, much like my hatred for the collective team behind X3: The Last Stand.
BBC – Radio 4 – Frontiers 17/05/2006
When time seems to fly or drag, it’s nothing to do with our internal clock speeding up or slowing down. It’s how the brain processes time-related information that generates the illusion.
When a person’s life is in danger, a phenomenon known as ‘time-dilation’ can occur. This is when, during a car crash for example, time seems to slow down or become frozen.
In these cases the body’s internal clock speeds up when facing a potential catastrophe, so that it can take in more information more quickly and function more effectively in an emergency.
This is also a phenomenon actively sought by elite sportspeople, when they get ‘in the zone’.
Some of the chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine, can affect our perception of time. Deficiencies in these chemicals can lead to brain disorders.
Can I cause another person to dream?
Studies show that you can bring about a dream in another person. One way is by holding an open bottle of perfume under the sleeper’s nose. Another is by whistling. A third way is by blowing air across the sleeper’s face with a fan. Someone else can also affect the content of a sleeper’s dream. For example, turning on a light produces happier dreams. And darkening an already bright room can induce nightmares.
I know that you’re away
But you’re not gone
– Howie Day, Kristina
There’s a lot on my mind right now. Meaningful stuff, like trying to figure out what to do about my money situation, my time situation, what career path I should choose and follow. Things beyond my control, like the Iran situation and an eventual change in scenery. Stupid things, like the ridiculous amount of work staring me in the face over the coming weeks.
But tonight, all that is gone. I had to really focus to make that list, in fact.
A first kiss experienced in real time is wonderful, perhaps my favorite thing in the entire world. A first kiss slowed down to the speed of liquid glass…
Echoes fill my head.
I promise that more entertaining reading will return soon. But for now, be content to live vicariously through me as I enjoy the temporal ricochet of the better things the universe has to offer.
See also: An Amber Worth Seeking
Things between myself and Red have been moving slowly. Over the past few weeks, since intentions and motives have been discussed and made clearer, we’ve been taking things one day at a time, progressing and moving forward, but at what would seem from the outside as a deliberate pace. To my eyes, at times, I would use the word glacial to describe it; but then, I’m a runner, not a walker.
Tonight, though, it became so very clear to me that there is a magic — not a parlor trick or an illusion, but a real, live, honest-to-goodness magic (spell it with a k if you wish, or even a j) — in taking a different approach than what feels natural.
I move quickly not out of a need for instant gratification per se. I’m certainly not opposed to things coming to me quickly, but I’m willing to work as much as I have to for them, to earn the good things in life. I am, however, scared of dying in the middle of something. I can’t stand the thought that I will die regretting having not done something, or completed a given project, or having not taken that chance when I had it. It’s my own version of seizing the day.
And Red has her reasons for moving slowly (perfectly valid, and flattering, down the line), and she’s wonderful about reassuring me when the unusual pacing brings up those little demon voices in my head that have such disdain for rational thought. It’s against the grain of what I’m used to, what I’ve experienced, what I am, at the core, but I have no problems finding the patience, because we’re moving forward, at whatever rate. That’s the key thing in this to me.
Tonight, driving around and listening to music, she took my hand in hers. A small moment, perhaps meaningless in any other context, something that you might glaze over with a passing glance, at best. But it took my breath away, gave me that roller coaster gut-in-my-throat feeling: her hand on mine, her skin against mine, her choice. There is a world of difference between passive acceptance and active initiation.
And in that moment, that small moment, meaningless in any other context, I saw time from the outside, as it would have been in any other context. Every other context. All the small moments sweeping past in an unmistakeable arc, rushing headlong toward the natural conclusion, unappreciated and lost to the highway behind me. But in this world, in this time: a simple gesture, tiny, something that will one day become commonplace, but in the here and now holding every bit as much awe and power as that first kiss, the first I love you, the first anything.
The moment, the small moment, trapped in amber, and in no way meaningless or lost.
When you tell yourself that you won’t be distracted by external stimuli, that you want to see and remember and capture in your mind’s eye every detail of a movie that you’ve seen before, you begin to notice so much detail, and you find it sticking this time. If you go into a movie with no special attenion, but the projector is running at one quarter speed, you being to notice little things outside the center of the frame, hidden details put there for the most intent watcher.
Combine those two, and you have the time and the attention to drink in every last drop, every subtle nuance. It’s like watching a film filtered through a perfect amber, stretching time to maximize the moment.
I still have issues with impatience, and wanting to know that if something happens to me tomorrow, I won’t regret having taken things as far as I could with Red. But I have a new point of reference now, and I can so much better appreciate that no matter what, I will always treasure the woman that taught me how to slow and stretch time in the important moments.
Watching the universe unfold as it will in hindsight makes you appreciate that Southern tradition of sitting on the front porch at sundown, no matter how hard your ADD might fight you.
If you ever fear
Someday we might lose this
Come back here
To this moment that will last
And time can go so fast
When everything’s exactly where it’s at its very best
– k’s choice, Favorite Adventure
Life is wonderful when someone calls you theirs.
I’m not a big fan of the possessive aspects of romance; that’s one of the parts that can get so ugly. But there is, too, something wonderful about being claimed.
Even better when you slip and call someone your girl, and she smiles.
That’s the stuff that beautiful days are made of.
Laying on his roof over the front patio, the sounds of the city night are distant whispers. He stares up into the night sky, thinking, wondering, dreaming.
All about her.
The way her skin feels beneath his fingers echoes through his mind, bouncing madly off of the walls of his skull, tracing narrow arcs of blue flame where they travel. Her scent, the way the smell of her clings to his clothes and his cheek where she pressed against him. The look in her eyes, piercing his soul to let the sound of her laughter in.
He dreams of things he has no business dreaming: of walks so calm that the rest of the world is washed away in the deafening silence, and of the sound of the ocean crashing around them as they laugh together. Of summer nights in front of a flickering screen, hours on end, of music shared loudly, of winter nights curled together, sharing warmth and comfort. He dreams of pulling the stars and sky from above, and boxing them into a pendant that she can carry around her neck forever.
But he is only human, and dreams and desires come as they will to him, outside of his control. And he smiles to himself, suddenly feeling the urge to stand, to climb to the highest point on his roof, to shout to the world and the stars and the gods that he has known her all his life, that she has waited for him all of hers, and that no matter what else, they have found each other.
He does not stand, or climb, or shout, but only lays there, dreaming his dreams, smiling, imagining her there next to him, working out the logistics of capturing the stars and the sky for her.
It can be no more improbable, he thinks, than his hope of grasping the feelings inside of him and showing the world that dreams exist outside of the sleeping world.
There is truly nothing better in this world than seeing the sincere appreciation on the face of someone to whom you’ve given a gift — nothing big, nothing expensive, nothing more than the culmination of paying attention to what they like and a little effort on my part. But it’s a rare occasion when someone is thankful for such things — no matter how small or big — and it’s a very nice feeling. A gift in and of itself, in fact. I don’t think you should live to make other people happy, but there’s a genuine heartswell when something I’ve done for someone makes them smile.
There’s polite, and then there’s sincere. If more people were the latter, maybe the world would be a better place. Definitely would be for me, at least. It is tonight.