Sunday Sunshine: 10 weird and wonderful items

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Hex-nut-shaped ring is a six-sided die
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

Individual Icons’s “Nut Dice Ring” is a ring shaped like a hex-nut, which functions as a six-sided dice, for those moments of indecision and romance.

This ring is a perfect piece of jewellery for people who say that they don’t wear jewelry. It really does help with decisions (odds I stay home, evens I go out). As proper dice should, each pair of opposing sides adds up to seven. Comfort fit inside, available in standard sizes 6 through 10. Sterling silver. 1/4" (6mm) wide.

Nut Dice Ring via Neatorama)

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Darwin thought sexual selection shaped our taste and talent for music. So did bone flutists live the lives of prehistoric rock stars?... more

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Incredibly-detailed scale model of 1930s cinema
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Birmingham, England’s Cyril Barbier, 82, built a scale model of the huge Odeon New Street 1930s movie theater, complete with 2,600 seats, an organ that raises and lowers, and a curtain surrounding a 15" LCD to play movies of the era. The project has taken him nearly 30 years and it’s so big, it can’t even fit out of his bedroom door. The p;Birmingham Mail has a lovely slideshow of the model and brief article about it. According to Metro, Barbier hopes to sell it. “I would hate for it to end up in a skip,” he said. “Deep down, I built it to go into a museum.”

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First daisy-wheel typewriter, 1889
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

AntiqueTypewriters.com has just added this lovely 1889 Victor index typewriter:

This was the first typewriter to use a daisy wheel, which would be a common design feature on 1980s typewriters. The daisy wheel is made of thin brass, cut with narrow radial fingers, one for each character. At the end of each finger is an embossed rubber character.
To operate the Victor one puts the tip of one’s index finger in the little cup at the end of the pointer, then swings the pointer up to a full 180 degrees to select the characters. The pointer is connected by a gear to the central vertical wheel that holds the daisy wheel. As the pointer swings, the daisy wheel rotates into position. A spring-loaded hammer then pushes the brass finger in the daisy wheel against the paper.

Victor index (Thanks, Martin!)

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
So you've reached middle age. You’re wrinkly and perhaps thick around the middle. Think of it this way: You’re not declining, you’re developing... more

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Banana Boat: 1903
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive - Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Circa 1903
“Unloading bananas at New Orleans, Louisiana”
An alternate view of this scene.
8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co
View original post (where you can see a larger view and the always informative comments)

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Gardening on the Moon
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Frycook posted this fascinating video from the Apollo era on the BoingBoing Submitterator. The basic gist: Back in the day, NASA scientists tried exposing various crops – corn, lettuce, tobacco ... you know, the essentials – to moon dust. The plants weren’t grown in the dust, exactly. Instead, it was scattered in their pots or rubbed on some of their leaves. In this study, the plants that were exposed seemed to grow faster than unexposed plants.
That’s pretty interesting, so I dug around a little to find out more about these studies. Turns out, growing plants in lunar soil isn’t quite as promising as the video makes it sound, but it’s not a ridiculous idea, either. In 2010, scientists at the University of Florida published a review of all the Apollo-era research on this subject, which amounted to exactly three published studies. From that data, we can say that the plants weren’t obviously affected in any seriously negative ways by their exposure to lunar soils – which is good – but we can’t really say the plants grew better than their terrestrial-only cousins, either.
Read the rest of the blog post here, watch the video [sound quality quite poor] and learn about other experiments as well.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Locke, Tocqueville, and Burke invoked the idea of civil society. So did Nathan Glazer and Robert Putnam. All of that is admirable, but also cause for suspicion... more

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The World’s Most and Least Peaceful Countries
via Big Think by Orion Jones
Article written by guest writer Rin Mitchell
According to the recently released Global Peace Index, Iceland is the most peaceful country in the world. Denmark and New Zealand are tied for second; Canada is third, with Japan coming in right behind in fourth place.
Read More

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Grams to Pounds: A Domino Chain Reaction [Video]
via How-To Geek by Jason Fitzpatrick
Most of us have seen a domino knock down or two in our day, but this demonstration video shows how a series of increasingly larger dominoes allow a tiny domino to knock over a 100 pound domino.
A domino can knock over another domino about 50% larger than itself. A chain of dominos of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino.
The only question we have after watching the video is: where can we find 29 appropriately sized dominoes?
[via Neatorama]

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