Posts Tagged ‘Roundheads’
Patently ridiculous…
From Donna Kossy and her Hysterical Patents, a selection of “unusual patents from the collection of a deceased patent attorney”; e.g.,
Inventor: Bernard H. Nichols, Ravenna, Ohio
Date: May 20, 1913
U.S. Patent Number: 1,062,025Description: Hat to prevent premature baldness. The hat is “adapted to fit upon the head in such a manner as not to interfere with the free circulation of blood to the scalp, and at the same time so constructed as to be worn without discomfort, and without causing a temporary unseemly marking on the forehead or scalp of the wearer where it comes in contact therewith, when the hat is removed.”
More human ingenuity at its most unrestrained at Hysterical Patents. (Thanks to reader SS for the lead!)
As we muse on the “intellectual” in “intellectual property,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1661 that the body of Oliver Cromwell– leader of the Roundhead “New Model Army” that defeated Royalist forces in the English Civil War, and subsequently the Lord Protector of the short-lived Commonwealth of England– was exhumed (he’d died of natural causes two years earlier) and ritually beheaded– on the anniversary of the 1649 execution and beheading of the king, Charles I, he’d overthrown.
Cromwell’s death mask (source)
Experiments you can eat!…
From io9, “Use Your Microwave to Measure the Speed of Light“…
Can your microwave oven really measure the speed of light? Yes, it can be done. And since many of the suggested experiments also involve chocolate, it will be done. Oh yes, it will be done.
Step-by-step instructions (and an accessible account of the physics involved) here.
Also from io9, “A Drug That Causes One Animal’s Brain to Transform Into Another.”– “Does this mean you could treat a chimp embryo and make its brain human? Possibly – as long as you started very early in the process of development.” Fascinating.
And further to yesterday’s Evolution Timeline, a tee-shirt that sums up the whole process concisely:
As we say “Hello, Mr. Wizard,” we might recall that it was on this date in in 1671 that Thomas Blood, an Irish Colonel and a “noted bravo and desperado,” dressed as a clergyman and attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
Blood was frustrated in the attempt, apprehended, and taken in chains before King Charles. Despite the attempted robbery, prior involvements in kidnapping and attempted murder, and the fact that Blood had forsaken the Royalist cause for the Roundheads, the King not only pardoned Blood, but endowed him with land in Ireland. Blood died of natural causes nine years later.
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