TALKING BY NUMBERS (Feb, 1959)
I don’t see how this would work. It assumes that all of the words have equivalents in all the languages and that there is no such thing as grammar or context.
The other difference between this and other artificial languages like Esperanto is that you can actually learn to speak those. The only time you see someone walking around spouting a string of numbers is in movies where an android goes haywire.
TALKING BY NUMBERS
3283 1621 1 2047 1705 467 1800.
The above sentence in Logography, a new international language devised by Dr. Hans Binem of Denmark (photo above), means “This is a new language called Logography.”
The beauty of Logography is its simplicity. The first sentence of numbers in this article means the same thing in English as it does in French, German, Spanish and Scandinavian languages— and can easily be extended to include Chinese or any other language.
Dr. Binem’s slogan, “Nothing to learn, nothing to remember” just about sums it up. Note the illustration at the top of this page. It is a section of a page from the inventor’s American-English list of words using the Logography system.
Climate Control Is Coming (Apr, 1958)
The catalog of techniques on the third page just looks like a list of environmental disasters nowadays.
Climate Control Is Coming
If Spain could have subdued the devastating storm that swept its Armada from the English Channel in July 1588. would all the Americas be speaking Spanish today?
If Napoleon’s proud legions could have neutralized Russia’s secret ally, “General Snow” how would the map of Europe look now?
If the Nazis could have ordered gales to batter Gen. Eisenhower’s vast invasion force off Normandy on June 6, 1944, what would historians now be writing about World War II?
Armchair strategists have long de- bated the tantalizing “ifs” introduced into history by the vagaries of weather. In military operations, weather is usually a potent foe or a mighty ally.
NOW — POWER IS BROADCAST! (Jan, 1942)
Besides the obvious impracticality of broadcast power the “one frequency per person” cell phone service is totally unfeasible. Car phones worked using one frequency per call (not receiver) up until cell phones came out, but it was able to handle about 30 simultaneous calls per city.
The idea that your calls are safe from eavesdropping because you have a specially tuned radio is also incredibly naive. All you’d need was a general radio with a tuner and you could listen to all the calls.
NOW — POWER IS BROADCAST!
by Thomas J. Naughton
The Klystron, greatest radio advance, transmits energy without use of wires!
LIKE schoolboys in a classroom, more than 100 deans and professors of Eastern universities stood in a laboratory of the Westing-house plant at Bloomfield, N. J. Each of the learned gentlemen held in his hand a light-bulb with a few inches of bare wire attached; all of them expectantly watched the Westing-house engineer who was tinkering with two small doughnut-shaped, contraptions, connected to a six-foot loudspeaker-like horn, at the front of the room. The engineer straightened up.
Bazooka Bomb: Newest Sub-Killer (Nov, 1950)
You would need to drop an absurd number of these to have any chance at all of actually hitting a sub.
Bazooka Bomb: Newest Sub-Killer
IN World War II the German commanders of the Panzer divisions were mystified by a new American weapon which effectively was knocking out their tanks. At first they thought it might be a new kind of mortar. Actually they were being introduced to our bazooka and its shaped-charge shell. In the Korean war this same weapon proved to be a potent threat to the Communists’ heavy armor.
New Flying Machine Patterned After Structure of an Owl (Feb, 1930)
Those wings look awfully small…
New Flying Machine Patterned After Structure of an Owl
AS THE result of intensive study of the flights and structure of heavy birds, Robert Myers, of Rockford, 111., has designed and built an ornithopter from which he expects to develop ideas for further experiments with such ships. The strange ship has wings crisscrossed with rib structure and hinged to the body in such a way that the wings can be flapped to propel it. Myers, like many before him, believes that it may be possible to learn secrets of flight from birds that will enable man to perfect highly developed flying wings; a type of aircraft radically different from the rigid type of winged ships now in use.
Crutch for Paralyzed Eyelids (Mar, 1932)
Wouldn’t the eye dry out?
Crutch for Paralyzed Eyelids
An eyelid crutch for use in cases of a paralysis of the eyelids, leading to a complete or partial loss of sight, has been developed by Dr. John C. Neill of the Pennsylvania State College of Optometry. The crutch consists of a thin gold half wire loop fitted to the contour of the patient’s eyes and welded to the nose piece of the glasses.
Hand-held Microwriter (Feb, 1980)
“An electronic substitute for the fountain pen” is not exactly how I’d pitch a new invention in 1980. The replacement for the fountain pen was the ball point. On the other hand, if any investors are interested in my new digital replacement for the 8-Track cassette, you know where to find me.
If you can’t type, yet want to write perfect letters or memos without the help of a secretary, Microwriter could be the answer. It resembles a large pocket calculator, but has only five main keys, which fit the relaxed finger positions of your right hand. Individual alphabet letters are formed by an easily learned finger code, in which one or more keys are pressed for each character.