Search results for ""author charles pappas""

Every time you plug your phone into a wall socket, flick on a TV, withdraw money from an ATM, lick an ice-cream cone, switch on a computer, ride an escalator, play a DVR, watch a movie about dinosaurs, or pop a tranquilizer, you’re doing something that originated at a world’s fair or trade expo. And yet, it's a world invisible to most. In fact, each new technology and every novel product that rocked America and rolled the world, from the Colt revolver and the Corvette to fax machines and flush toilets, started at trade fairs, a $100 billion industry that includes world expos, trade shows, and state fairs. More than just promoting material things, however, trade fairs popularized and evangelized every social movement and cultural concept, too, including Manifest Destiny, the closing of the frontier, Nudism, Nazism, Fascism, eugenics, female suffrage, temperance, and technocracy. In Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords, you'll uncover this hidden world, with bizarre-but-true stories such as: *Female designers GM gave their own car show to--then dumped them like last year's model, though their ideas had been decades ahead of their time. *5,000-strong sham battles between native Americans and mock cavalry to dramatize the end of the frontier and subjugation of non-whites. *Russians who mobbed space-themed fairs in the 1920s, hoping desperately to sign up for interplanetary travel they believed was just months away. *A marketing-savvy eugenics movement using state agricultural fairs to sell America on the idea that breeding humans like livestock would rid us of "defectives." *Salvador Dali's half-naked lobster women, their virtue barely secured by well-placed crustaceans. Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords might change the way you see history--and look at the future.

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On July 20, 1969, Americans had their eyes and ears glued to their TVs and radios. NASA’s successful moon landing left the nation in awe. This moment inspired inventors and engineers across the nation. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, we share with you 20 patents that were inspired by the space race and how they reshaped the world. Featuring the original patent schematics from the US Patent and Trademark Office, blast off with the inventions inspired by the moon landing including: Memory foam Freeze-dried food Firefighting equipment Emergency "space blankets" DustBusters Cordless tools Protective paint (Used on both the Statue of Liberty, a gigantic Buddha in Hong Kong and the Golden Gate) Cochlear implants LZR Racer swimsuits CMOS image sensors Moon dust as fuel for space travel Carbon nanotubes Pocket calculators Other patents in the book reflect the general surge in space-related inventions in that era: Dispersed space based laser weapon Toy ray guns Flying saucers Propulsion systems Lasers The modem Integrated circuit Astro Lamp (Later called the Lava Lamp)

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On July 20, 1969, Americans had their eyes and ears glued to their TVs and radios. NASA’s successful moon landing left the nation in awe. This moment inspired inventors and engineers across the nation. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, we share with you 20 patents that were inspired by the space race and how they reshaped the world. Featuring the original patent schematics from the US Patent and Trademark Office, blast off with the inventions inspired by the moon landing including:Memory foam Freeze-dried food Firefighting equipmentEmergency "space blankets"DustBustersCordless toolsProtective paint (Used on both the Statue of Liberty, a gigantic Buddha in Hong Kong and the Golden Gate) Cochlear implantsLZR Racer swimsuitsCMOS image sensorsMoon dust as fuel for space travel Carbon nanotubesPocket calculatorsOther patents in the book reflect the general surge in space-related inventions in that era:Dispersed space based laser weaponToy ray gunsFlying saucersPropulsion systemsLasersThe modem Integrated circuitAstro Lamp (Later called the Lava Lamp)

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