The dream of flying is perhaps nearly as old as mankind itself. We do not know for how many casualties innumerable trial-and-error experiments are responsible. The myth of Daedalus, the sly old Greek and his boisterous son Icarus, became the stuff for serious text-book entries. With a merciless sun gradually sizzling away Icarus’s wings of wax, the poor devil plummeted right into the sea – having been robbed of life-saving aerodynamics. In reality, crash tests with astonishingly inventive contraptions operated by bright, adventurous minds formed a never-ending chain of often fatal accidents over the course of time. Thanks to the courage and relentless efforts by these pioneers, aircraft have become a fast, comfortable and comparatively safe means of transport.
Posts about Great Inventions
The Doppler Effect: Mysterious wavelengths
Zzzzzzzzzzp! Flash! There you go! A spiteful and cowardly camouflaged radar trap has lashed out at you once again, and another costly and questionably handsome snapshot is on its way into your post box. Fuming traffic offenders are said to have clandestinely returned to the place of crime to take revenge – fortified by a bunch of best-friends’ hercules’s and in order to punish the wicked contraption out of its wits. Ignoring, that there’s sure to be another invincible clone around the next corner. Instead of adding up on the offence front, avoiding speeding and/or respecting red traffic lights may actually do the trick fairly well and entail far less trouble: It allows short tempers to lie dormant just a little longer and lends bank statements a so much more encouraging appearance. Similar to police records …
Scotch Whisky: Sharing with Angels
Proper spelling first: Scotch whisky has no e between the k and the y! But if there is an e wedged between the k and the y, the respective whiskey variety usually originates from Ireland, the United States or even from far-away Japan. Whereas wiskey or wisky clearly derive from nowhere, except perhaps from the brains of committed non-whisky-drinkers or those battling with the effects of over-indulgence. The popular spirit’s name, by the way, was simplified in the course of history from the Gaelic Uisge Beatha – meaning water of life – to Whiskybae and finally to Whisky.
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Gadgets: Synthesising the sound of bananas
Assumedly, the main purpose of a banana (cucumber, zucchini, etc) is to be relished at some stage. Yet, young American inventors Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum have contrived a new means of putting them to use: by eliciting from them authentic musical sounds, like for instance, those of a piano.
A dollop of wobbly jello does work as well and a great number of other materials also prove to be conductive: most fruits and vegetables, shrimp or pizza pie (although some may consider that a bit yucky). Plants will do fine and play-doh (given a certain degree of moisture) and metal objects such as foil, cutlery or pots. Even simple thick lines drawn on a smooth surface with a soft graphite pencil can do the trick – so can live people. What in God’s name are we talking about? A kit called MaKey MaKey.
Sense of humour required: Beware of translation engines!
When looking for the easy way out, people come up with the most ludicrous of excuses to warrant their hornswoggle doing: house on fire, dog dead, car stolen, wrong place/time/mood, worst bad-hair day ever, princess all of a sudden. Once the procrastination pole has inevitably run out of length, the dreaded task just has to be tackled, no matter what. Translations, for instance, can develop into a painfully tedious exercise. Isn’t it perfectly legitimate then to employ one of those servile robots available online in order to alleviate detested assignments? It is – if you can live with the results. We have put some of these practical computerised interpreters to the test, feeding them with stretches of German articles published during the early stages of goodmeetings.com’s young history. The English-speaking majority of our readership will have to think in meanders to unravel and realign the contorted texts back to meaning. Even though some of the pidgin might remain a secret forever: as long as no-one has been harmed, reading complete nonsense once in a while can be a great pastime.