“Besides black art, there is only automation and mechanization”*…
THE AUTOMATIC MOTORIST, a British short film from 1911, wants you to avoid self-driving cars at all costs. In it, a robot chauffeur is developed to drive a newly wedded couple to their honeymoon destination. But this robot malfunctions, and all of a sudden the couple is marooned in outer space (and then sinking underwater, and then flying through the sky—it’s complicated)…
More on the film and its maker at “This Bizarre 1911 Film Warns of the Perils of Self-Driving Cars.”
* Federico Garcia Lorca
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As we keep our eyes on the road, we might recall that it was on this date in 1873 that Samuel Clemens (the author known as Mark Twain) received a U.S. patent, his second, for a self-pasting Scrapbook (No. 140,245). His creation used a dried adhesive on its pages so that users need only moisten a page in order to attach pictures.
In 1871, Clemens had scored his first patent, for “an Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments”–an adjustable strap that could be used to tighten shirts at the waist that was later used on women’s corsets, and is considered by many to be the precursor of the adjustable bra strap. He earned his third patent in 1875 for a history trivia game,“Mark Twain’s Memory-Builder Game.”
