It did survive in a way: Huffy apparently owns the rights to it now and makes a modernized version with a hand brake. It looks like this.
By the comments further in the thread, everybody is going, “Had one, suffered lots of injuries, totally worth it though!” So probably a safe bet that many injuries were sustained from these. On the plus side, it doesn’t look very easy to flip when you skid it out.
Interesting. From your link, it seems our modern usage of cypher stemmed from this!
The word came to Europe with Arabic numerals. From “zero,” it came to mean “any numeral” (early 15c.), then (first in French and Italian) “secret way of writing; coded message” (a sense first attested in English 1520s), because early codes often substituted numbers for letters.
About zeros, my guess would be that the ad doesn’t mean zero in the literal sense, but in the sense of how many places to shift intermediate products by during a multiplication. You’d add zeros to the right of each term, to get the power of 10 right for the intermediate products. Normally doing a hand multiplication you just don’t write those down, merely imply it with alignment. But in principle, the zeros are there, and you have to get the count of them right.
But that’s just guessing. I have never used a machine like that before!
Jackass I think. It was on MTV 20 years ago, a show about idiots doing dumb things (not being judgmental; I think the people in the show would describe it that way too). I never watched it but I remember some quotes.
I seem to remember that people with arthritis and other kinds of chronic pain are going into old mines where radon accumulates and “hang out” for pain treatment. Doctors recommendations. But hey, homeopathy and all that. So that doesn’t carry any value sadly.
Let’s hope there is some real science behind that idea.
Yeah. Before I made the post I’d actually attempted to look a few up on Wikipedia, but came up empty handed. I didn’t try very hard though! There might be better places around the web for old timey Seattle musicians.
Oh, I see. I wonder if that could’ve been blocked by some filters? When I made the OP I ran across a photo of Eben Byers after his jaw issue, and it was rather… gruesome. I decided against putting it in the post, even with a NSFW marker, but I’m not sure what would have happened if I tried.
For sure, the damage over time is an interesting subject. Like lead has a direct exposure effect (IQ loss) but I’m not sure if that passes down to subsequent generations. Maybe though… in epigenetics, there are multi generation effects. Even it doesn’t, there might still be indirect impacts. Like your society makes worse choices for itself on average, and the effects of those choices go on to cause multi generational damage in other ways.
It must’ve been studied a lot by now, but I don’t know much about it.
I think we’re paying for lead to this day! It causes intellectual impairment and all kinds of other lasting nastiness. At least we’ve taken big steps to remove it from our lived environment, so the effects are less today than in the 70s, and it should continue to get better in the future.
We still have a TON of pseudoscience “medicine” around today of course. Homeopathy, using magnets to “cure” things magnets cannot possible cure, “crystal healing”, techno-babble quackery like “quantum healing”, etc. But most of it at least is on the “useless but harmless” end of the scale, not the “makes your jaw fall off” end! Although, if it stops people from getting legit health care and treating their cancer with sham cures rather than evidence based medicine, that is a type of harm too.
I tried and tried to get my kid to ride bikes without training wheels and he refused, always preferred his scooter. Then his friends got annoyed that he couldn’t keep up and BOOM. He knows.
Edit: I worded that poorly. His friends taught him in like 2 days to ride without at age 10, when I’d been trying for like 5 years.
Because that shit was cool as hell. I had one as a kid (not the original, but a 2000s variant). Unwieldy as hell but man was it fun as a kid to make turns that sharp while sitting that low to the ground.
For comparison, big wheels were advertised 4 - 9, so quite a bit younger range. But there was also a little wheel for 2 1/2 - 4, and a mini wheel for tots 1 1/2 - 3.
For bikes, pediatric groups have fuzzy ranges and say most children learn some time between 3-9. Random web site claims ahead -> The fraction of children who learn to ride a bike is 75% (UK numbers) where their parents were at 95%. The US was on a similar trend, but since 2018 it has reversed, and there is a surge of children (and adults!) riding bikes.
I am imagining many shins getting thwacked by madly spinning pedals as it barrels down a steep hill. No ability to coast (right?) So if it goes too fast on a steep hill, you’d have to remove your feet from the pedals and try not to get beat up by it.
We used to play stuntman on our big wheels. We had a hill with grass on it. We’d watch Evil Kneival specials, The 6 Million Dollar Man, and then we’d go launch ourselves off our big wheels into the bushes, inadvertantly finding rocks with our kneecaps and the like. I still have the scars to prove it.
These Green Machines were for the fancy kids. I still don’t understand them. you’re using the sticks to turn? What? Why did they make it more complicated than a tractor? There’s no brake. You have your pedals. That’s it. Big Wheels had a big ol brake you could slam onto one rear tire, force a drifting effect or even spin completely 180 degrees around. I’m surely distorting the facts with my version of memories here.
For sure. Especially because those penny farthings were not exactly safe machines, and he survived his whole bicycle career. It was very easy to be pitched over the front and sustain a head injury. Severe injuries and fatalities were common.
I feel like part of it is its an awful lot of moving parts that are all put under pretty heavy load. And you can only cut logs that are horizontal with adequate level ground around them. A regular old saw is a bit slower im sure but it would be cheaper, more versatile and more reliable. So I guess this product occupied a niche between hand saws and sawmills that wasn’t all that big.
Dunno, sounds like they were marketing more towards farmers/homesteaders that were cutting lots of firewood and fence posts.
They were probably popular enough but yeah steam and especially gasoline engine powered equipment made those obsolete. Seems like a useful tool, they could be taken apart and brought into the woods so you could also get the pieces cut up to be easier to haul out by whatever pack animals or team or yourself.
Couldn’t tell you for sure how popular they were but popular enough the guy who patented it has his own Wikipedia article.
For sure. It seems like a solid idea. Well not the tophat part, but the rest. Much better than just your arms.
I never knew of them either. But I don’t know if that’s because they never caught on, or because I don’t know shit about 1800’s lumberjacking. I wonder if maybe steam power destroyed the market for these. But feels like it could’ve had a niche. A water or steam powered sawmill beats it, but you have to get the logs there. You could set up one of these on-prem to segment logs too big to easily move to a mill. But I’m speculating. Maybe it was too narrow a niche, or came too late, to find a market?
That’s a pretty cool invention. I didn’t even know about these things, imagine riding a see saw except you’re also peddling a bike to saw a log. Crazy.
The little building off to the side, in the photo above, is a mini McD’s museum that the company built. Seems like this store wasn’t financially worth keeping open, but restored it for history reasons.
With low sales, damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and the lack of a drive-up window and indoor seating, the restaurant was closed, and McDonald’s planned to demolish it and incorporate some of its features in a modern “retro” restaurant nearby. ….. With both the public and preservationists demanding the restaurant be saved, McDonald’s spent two years restoring the restaurant and reopened it. The restaurant now features an adjacent museum and gift shop housed in a replica of the original McDonald’s location in San Bernardino.
I drove past a new-ish modern-ish modernism version with that aesthetic in Ohio in a huge vehicle that’s hard to stop and at the crosswalk the light changed and I had to brake a little hard especially when I saw a duck there and someone was staring at me and then several baby ducks materialized behind the adult duck which was apparently just waiting to cross. I didn’t run over any baby ducks at the stupid McDonalds.
RetroFed
Adjusted for inflation, this device cost five hundred dollars.
It did survive in a way: Huffy apparently owns the rights to it now and makes a modernized version with a hand brake. It looks like this.
By the comments further in the thread, everybody is going, “Had one, suffered lots of injuries, totally worth it though!” So probably a safe bet that many injuries were sustained from these. On the plus side, it doesn’t look very easy to flip when you skid it out.
Clearly not that obvious, as no one seems to know what you’re referencing.
Those look like a blast! Also I could prolly kill myself on one of those but it would be fun!
Even in 1972, the idea of “you won’t carry a calculator with you everywhere” was bullshit.
Gotcha thanks! I never watched it either. I think I’ve seen clips?
Interesting. From your link, it seems our modern usage of cypher stemmed from this!
About zeros, my guess would be that the ad doesn’t mean zero in the literal sense, but in the sense of how many places to shift intermediate products by during a multiplication. You’d add zeros to the right of each term, to get the power of 10 right for the intermediate products. Normally doing a hand multiplication you just don’t write those down, merely imply it with alignment. But in principle, the zeros are there, and you have to get the count of them right.
But that’s just guessing. I have never used a machine like that before!
I had to look up the term ‘ciphers’ in the context of this ad, since its usual usage is in cryptography. It turns out this is an old term for the 0 digit in Arabic numerals per https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/confused-about-ciphers-in-the-book-arithmetic-for-the-practical-man.1078238/
A version of them actually had a resurgence lately:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_trike
You can also find fun looking videos on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u9aHWDpJxU
A version of them actually had a resurgence lately:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_trike
You can also find fun looking videos on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u9aHWDpJxU
Did this toy injure a bunch of kids or something? It didn’t survive the natural selection process of toy brands.
I really, really wanted one of these. But it wasn’t to be.
Jackass I think. It was on MTV 20 years ago, a show about idiots doing dumb things (not being judgmental; I think the people in the show would describe it that way too). I never watched it but I remember some quotes.
I seem to remember that people with arthritis and other kinds of chronic pain are going into old mines where radon accumulates and “hang out” for pain treatment. Doctors recommendations. But hey, homeopathy and all that. So that doesn’t carry any value sadly.
Let’s hope there is some real science behind that idea.
Thanks for trying and for the post too.
Yeah. Before I made the post I’d actually attempted to look a few up on Wikipedia, but came up empty handed. I didn’t try very hard though! There might be better places around the web for old timey Seattle musicians.
Would be interesting to find out what happened to each of those “prominent musicians” in the OP thumbnail.
No, it think it may be the instance or my app because I was trying to upload and not embed them.
Oh, I see. I wonder if that could’ve been blocked by some filters? When I made the OP I ran across a photo of Eben Byers after his jaw issue, and it was rather… gruesome. I decided against putting it in the post, even with a NSFW marker, but I’m not sure what would have happened if I tried.
I was thinking one with more tumors.
Here’s the wikipedia photo of them anyway. 1922.
Tried to upload photos of the radium girls, but the instance wouldn’t let me.
Looks cooler than the recliner bikes they make these days. Does it come in adult size?
For sure, the damage over time is an interesting subject. Like lead has a direct exposure effect (IQ loss) but I’m not sure if that passes down to subsequent generations. Maybe though… in epigenetics, there are multi generation effects. Even it doesn’t, there might still be indirect impacts. Like your society makes worse choices for itself on average, and the effects of those choices go on to cause multi generational damage in other ways.
It must’ve been studied a lot by now, but I don’t know much about it.
Soon to be FDA approved.
I think we’re paying for lead to this day! It causes intellectual impairment and all kinds of other lasting nastiness. At least we’ve taken big steps to remove it from our lived environment, so the effects are less today than in the 70s, and it should continue to get better in the future.
We still have a TON of pseudoscience “medicine” around today of course. Homeopathy, using magnets to “cure” things magnets cannot possible cure, “crystal healing”, techno-babble quackery like “quantum healing”, etc. But most of it at least is on the “useless but harmless” end of the scale, not the “makes your jaw fall off” end! Although, if it stops people from getting legit health care and treating their cancer with sham cures rather than evidence based medicine, that is a type of harm too.
It would be cool to have one of those bottles as a conversation piece
I HAD ONE. IT WAS LEGENDARY.
Well, my family had one… That counts. Had to share it.
Is this how Hexbear got started?
It’s just like racing pods back home on Tatooine.
Especially if you left it outside in the hot Arizona sun.
I couldn’t remember what it was from, but I 100% pictures this entire fake commercial in my head when I saw this thing. lol
Like I said, many injuries. Plus, your feet were the brakes/stabilizers, so they were too busy keeping you alive to pedal.
I tried and tried to get my kid to ride bikes without training wheels and he refused, always preferred his scooter. Then his friends got annoyed that he couldn’t keep up and BOOM. He knows.
Edit: I worded that poorly. His friends taught him in like 2 days to ride without at age 10, when I’d been trying for like 5 years.
Because that shit was cool as hell. I had one as a kid (not the original, but a 2000s variant). Unwieldy as hell but man was it fun as a kid to make turns that sharp while sitting that low to the ground.
“Wild Wacky Action Bike is almost impossible to steer, and it glows in the dark!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc4bvrH6blM
For comparison, big wheels were advertised 4 - 9, so quite a bit younger range. But there was also a little wheel for 2 1/2 - 4, and a mini wheel for tots 1 1/2 - 3.
For bikes, pediatric groups have fuzzy ranges and say most children learn some time between 3-9. Random web site claims ahead -> The fraction of children who learn to ride a bike is 75% (UK numbers) where their parents were at 95%. The US was on a similar trend, but since 2018 it has reversed, and there is a surge of children (and adults!) riding bikes.
Rhymes with sassafras.
That looks hard to pedal.
I’m a little surprised it was marketed to “8, 9, 10 years old”. I’m pretty sure I’d graduated from a big wheeler to an actual bicycle by that age.
I need a hint
Dammit, now I want a silly historical figure kart racing game filled with wonderfully terrible lines like this.
I admit, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
This and that song by Кyuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_OYqsUzk8
Back in the day people used to pick up on obvious references
Back in the day, kids used to go outside and do fun things.
Feeling alive!
By feeling pain.
The wheels of production
I had a hand me down one, most uncomfortable backbreaking seat ever but good lord was it worth it.
Why would anyone ride that shit? Like what’s the reasoning?
I need to make more money asafp!
Don’t leave out “The Fall Guy” my brother and I hurt ourselves recreating those stunts.
Oh and the skid out lever on big wheels were the best! I destroyed more big wheels, skinned knees, mild concussions from that damn bar!
Had one, yes I’m that old :/
As it turns out…
I am imagining many shins getting thwacked by madly spinning pedals as it barrels down a steep hill. No ability to coast (right?) So if it goes too fast on a steep hill, you’d have to remove your feet from the pedals and try not to get beat up by it.
I so wanted one of these as a kid! I wonder if they make an adult version?
We used to play stuntman on our big wheels. We had a hill with grass on it. We’d watch Evil Kneival specials, The 6 Million Dollar Man, and then we’d go launch ourselves off our big wheels into the bushes, inadvertantly finding rocks with our kneecaps and the like. I still have the scars to prove it.
These Green Machines were for the fancy kids. I still don’t understand them. you’re using the sticks to turn? What? Why did they make it more complicated than a tractor? There’s no brake. You have your pedals. That’s it. Big Wheels had a big ol brake you could slam onto one rear tire, force a drifting effect or even spin completely 180 degrees around. I’m surely distorting the facts with my version of memories here.
No, the rear axle was on a swivel and the levers would cause the rear wheels to pivot. The front wheel has no steering at all.
Nah, the whole back axel would shift side to side
Did this just brake the rear wheels individually to steer?
One of the greatest toys ever. So many injuries. No regrets.
We could not afford it, but my cousin had one and we would take turns flinging ourselves down their ridiculously steep and long driveway.
From each, according to his ability to pedal!
And if I may…
To each, according to his need for speed!
Seize the means of propulsion!
~I’ll let myself out~
Some M’F’Rs are always trying to penny farthing uphill.
Woah!!
Taming The Bicycle, by Mark Twain.
Video of Berm Peak riding a modern 32" penny-farthing that’s merely kind of silly.
Video of Berm Peak riding a 52" penny-farthing that’s completely fricking ridiculous.
For sure. Especially because those penny farthings were not exactly safe machines, and he survived his whole bicycle career. It was very easy to be pitched over the front and sustain a head injury. Severe injuries and fatalities were common.
Sad and ironic, considering the ad compared his bicycle to the speed of a horse.
Ah yes, the ol’ Nut Buffer as we used to call them.
In the postcard, it looks a little like a colossal jellyfish, with the lit up parachutes. That is sort of eerie!
I always find something eerie about these giant truss structures
Yes, but the ride is not. Hence, it (the parachute ride) was…
I included recent photos of the structure, and info about modern lighting, so I know the tower structure is still there!
It’s still there.
Apparently 80 years ago coffee was grown in DC. TIL
Swiss Miss was brand new tech at that point.
Is honey a syrup? Because honey on bread rocks. The thought of corn syrup on bread makes me gag, though
Especially since it’s probably just a packet of Swiss Miss and hot water.
Hasn’t changed that much, then.
Crazy that a cup of hot chocolate costs the same as a hamburger.
I think that’s what happens when you have to describe the product to the graphic designer via telegraph.
I feel like part of it is its an awful lot of moving parts that are all put under pretty heavy load. And you can only cut logs that are horizontal with adequate level ground around them. A regular old saw is a bit slower im sure but it would be cheaper, more versatile and more reliable. So I guess this product occupied a niche between hand saws and sawmills that wasn’t all that big.
Dunno, sounds like they were marketing more towards farmers/homesteaders that were cutting lots of firewood and fence posts.
They were probably popular enough but yeah steam and especially gasoline engine powered equipment made those obsolete. Seems like a useful tool, they could be taken apart and brought into the woods so you could also get the pieces cut up to be easier to haul out by whatever pack animals or team or yourself.
Couldn’t tell you for sure how popular they were but popular enough the guy who patented it has his own Wikipedia article.
For sure. It seems like a solid idea. Well not the tophat part, but the rest. Much better than just your arms.
I never knew of them either. But I don’t know if that’s because they never caught on, or because I don’t know shit about 1800’s lumberjacking. I wonder if maybe steam power destroyed the market for these. But feels like it could’ve had a niche. A water or steam powered sawmill beats it, but you have to get the logs there. You could set up one of these on-prem to segment logs too big to easily move to a mill. But I’m speculating. Maybe it was too narrow a niche, or came too late, to find a market?
https://patents.google.com/patent/US219635A/en
That’s a pretty cool invention. I didn’t even know about these things, imagine riding a see saw except you’re also peddling a bike to saw a log. Crazy.
I’ll double you if cats can run the machine
Good spot, I didn’t even notice the logo line!
The little building off to the side, in the photo above, is a mini McD’s museum that the company built. Seems like this store wasn’t financially worth keeping open, but restored it for history reasons.
Sounds like the guy that started Taco Bell. Originally he bought a hot dog stand, but tacos sold better. His last name was Bell.
I drove past a new-ish modern-ish modernism version with that aesthetic in Ohio in a huge vehicle that’s hard to stop and at the crosswalk the light changed and I had to brake a little hard especially when I saw a duck there and someone was staring at me and then several baby ducks materialized behind the adult duck which was apparently just waiting to cross. I didn’t run over any baby ducks at the stupid McDonalds.
If the Internet is to be believed, wages started $1.12/hr which would be $13.08/hr in 2026. Current starting pay is higher than that in most places.
But, current hamburger prices are about double the inflation adjusted price. Wages are not doubled. So, buying power is weaker than in 1958.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that McDonald’s logo with the line through it, like a silhouette of the building! Looks like it was used until 1968.
Really puts the current “Golden Arches” into perspective. No pun intended.
I wonder how the ratio of McD’s wage, to burger price, compares to today.
I have no idea how much they paid back then.
And it was probably significantly larger as well
Good detective work! I’ll update.
Can’t be that old. Fillet o fish didn’t exist until 1962, per Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet-O-Fish
Also, even just the name mcdouble didn’t exist until 1964
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDouble
Adjusted for inflation, that hamburger should cost $1.75, today.
“pure Columbian coffee”
I think it’s a fluffy scarf. Like a sable but not trying to look like animal fur here. I think ladies used to wear them with evening wear.
Don’t many cars use radar for adaptive cruise control?
Do you have any idea how dangerous these cars sound? 😆
Ahckshually, we got LiDAR instead.
https://exponenta.io/lidar-in-automotive/