On May 2,1845, the Yarmouth suspension bridge in Norfolk, England collapsed, killing 79 people of whom 59 were children.

The bridge had become overloaded as a result of hundreds of people gathering on it, to get a better view of a circus clown named Arthur Nelson, in a washtub, being pulled up the river by four geese.

 

In 1949 Los Angeles, they built a drive-in where robots replaced roller-skating waitresses. It served 3,000 meals on opening day. Within three years, every location was dead.





Los Angeles, 1948.

Post-war America was in love with two things: cars and speed. Drive-in restaurants were everywhere, and they all worked the same way: you pulled up, a roller-skating carhop took your order, skated back with your food, and you hoped nothing spilled.

Kenneth C. Purdy looked at this system and saw inefficiency.

Wait times. Human error. Tips. Weather delays. Carhops getting tired. Food getting cold. What if you could eliminate all of it?

Purdy was an inventor and automotive journalist. He loved cars, loved speed, loved automation. And he had an idea that would revolutionize drive-in dining.

What if the food came to you on a conveyor belt?

No waitresses. No skating. No tips. Just pure mechanical efficiency.

He called it the Motormat. And in 1948, he patented the most ambitious drive-in restaurant concept America had ever seen.





The first Motormat location opened in 1949 at 8201 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. They called it "The Track"—a reference to racetracks, since the whole thing was designed like a wheel with 20 spokes.




Here's how it worked:

You pulled into one of 20 parking stalls arranged in a circle around a central kitchen building. Each stall had a small awning to protect you from sun or rain.






When you rolled down your window, a stainless steel bin on rails slid up to your car door, perfectly flush with the window. Inside the bin: plastic cups, a water bottle, a menu, an order pad, and a pencil.






You wrote down what you wanted. Then you pushed a button.

The bin went whooshing back toward the kitchen on rails at 120 feet per minute—less than 1.5 mph, to avoid spills.

At the kitchen, staff read your order, calculated your bill, and sent the bin back with the total.

You put your money in the bin. Pushed the button again.




While the bin traveled back to the kitchen with your payment, cooks prepared your burger, fries, and shake.

By the time the bin returned to you—loaded with hot food, condiments, and your change—your meal was ready.




No human interaction. No waiting for a carhop to finish with another table. No awkward exchanges about the bill.

Each bin was named after a famous racehorse—because at The Track, your food was racing to you.

On paper, it was genius.

Purdy claimed the spoke-and-wheel arrangement sped service by 20-25%. He told newspapers it "saves 30 to 50% of the time it takes you to eat at an ordinary drive-in."

A sign above each window read: "NO TIPPING."

Opening day was a sensation. The Track served 3,000 customers—three days' worth of normal business in a single afternoon. In the first two weeks, they fed nearly 40,000 people.

The Los Angeles Times ran stories. Newsreels featured it. Everyone wanted to see the futuristic drive-in where robots replaced roller girls.

By 1950, Purdy had expanded to three Motormat locations across Los Angeles.

The future of dining had arrived.

Except it hadn't.

By 1952—just three years after opening—all the Motormat restaurants were closed.



What went wrong?

First, the technology was finicky. Those rails needed constant maintenance. The bins got stuck. Weather affected the mechanisms. Food spilled when the system malfunctioned. And when it broke down, the entire restaurant shut down—there was no backup plan.





Second, people missed the human touch. Roller-skating carhops weren't just functional—they were part of the experience. Teenage boys came to drive-ins to flirt with waitresses. Families enjoyed the friendly service. The automation removed something people didn't realize they valued: connection.





Third, tips were cultural. "NO TIPPING" might have seemed like a selling point, but many customers found it impersonal, even cold. Service felt better when someone smiled at you, even if it cost an extra quarter.

Fourth, the novelty wore off fast. Once you'd seen your burger arrive on a conveyor belt, it was just... a burger. The wow factor lasted one visit.

And finally, the economics didn't work. The Motormat system was expensive to install and maintain. Traditional carhops were cheap labor—mostly teenage girls who worked for tips. Automated bins required engineers, mechanics, and constant repairs.

Kenneth C. Purdy had built the future. But America wasn't ready to give up the past.

The Track and its sister locations closed quietly in 1952. The buildings were demolished or repurposed. The Motormat became a footnote in Los Angeles history—a curiosity, a "remember when?"

 

https://share.google/EFcRIA6Vnw6A6aud9

Huge pod of dolphins off the coast of San Diego

 

This one is a departure from my usual. It's gruesome and horrible and morally perplexing, and I promise you there's a reason it belongs in this particular thread.

On the left, we have 32 year old Sonia Exelby, a UK citizen from Portsmouth in Hampshire. On the right is Dwain Hall, a resident of Ocala, Florida.





Mr. Hall is presently enjoying complimentary accommodations at the Marion County Bed-n-Breakfast, as he awaits trial for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Ms. Exelby.

That's not the weird part.




The weird part is that she paid him to do it.





Exelby apparently suffered from some fairly serious mental illnesses, and expressed a desire to be violently killed, among other things.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Ms. Exelby came into contact with Mr. Hall via the website Motherless.com (trust me, do NOT go there), where she had posted that she was looking for someone to torture and kill her.

In writings left on her computer, Exelby indicated she was "suicidal and traveling to the United States to be sexually abused, tortured, and possibly murdered." She connected with various people in the U.S. in furtherance of her apparent mission.

British investigators also found evidence of a suicidal letter she wrote, in which she anticipated being "mutilated and disabled for the rest of my life" in the event that she "manage to get to him". She had also communicated with several people on the Telegram app in the recent past for the same purpose.


So, on October 10, Exelby flew from the UK to the US, ultimately landing at the Gainesville Regional Airport. Hall picked her up at the airport, and the two drove to an Airbnb along with a shovel, rope, paracord, and some other supplies which Hall had purchased earlier in the day.

The following day, the couple made a 4 minute video in which Exelby repeatedly expressed her desire and consent to be beaten and stabbed to death. “I need to be beaten and suffer ’cause I’m such a piece of ****.” she says.

Over the course of several hours, Hall beat her and raped her multiple times. At some point, Exelby sent a friend a message over Discord expressing regret over her decision, including, "I’m so, so scared. I’m so broken and in so much pain," and "I thought he’d do it quick and not give my mind time to stew." Eventually, Hall fatally stabbed her four times, and then disposed of her body in a shallow grave as per their original agreement.



Now, all of that is just background. What I am really interested in here is the fundamental concept of Consent.


I tend to think of myself as being very heavily Libertarian-leaning. In my world view, anyone who is of the Age of Consent should be allowed to smoke whatever they please, have weird kinky sex with anyone else who is also a consenting adult, pierce or tattoo whatever they wish to have pierced or tattoed, worship whatever deities they believe in, and so on. Basically, if it does not harm someone else's life, liberty or property, then have at it.

A strict, literal interpretation of this philosophy would support the notion that if Ms. Exelby formed a contract with Mr. Hall in which he agreed to violently rape, beat, and kill her in exchange for money, and she paid him this money and clearly gave consent to be tortured and killed by him, then this should be an entirely legitimate transaction.

... right?


Laws vary from state to state and country to country. But, as a broad generalization, there seems to be a trend towards increased permissiveness. Even focusing just on the US, there are states and cities in which it is legal to:
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And I am 100% on board with all of that, and more.



So, why does this seem... different?


I really cannot formulate a satisfactory answer to this.

I mean, sure, this is definitely a case in which a person made a stupid decision likely based on a fantasy illusion, only to find out once it was too late that the real-life consequences did not at all match their expectations.

And yet how is that any different from paying a doctor to chop off your dick, or to remove your **** and then slice off a big section of skin from your forearm and turn it into a faux-*******? I think that the gender-changers are just as mentally ill as poor Ms. Exelby here, and yet if an adult wants to have their genitals mutilated, and they're not expecting me to pay for it, then go right ahead. Your body = your choice.

But this case has shown me that there are limits to my previously-thought-absolute believe in self-determination and individual liberty.


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‎

 

I have conflicting thoughts and am empathetically disturbed regarding what Joe posted.

I believe in personal freedom and believe the ownership of one's body is supremely important. I also recognize that mental illness or defectiveness exists and that some individuals might warrant protection from self-harm. The rub exists with the question of who might decide and by what criteria intervention would be undertaken.

Some would argue that individuals choosing to avoid a possible life-saving vaccination would be engaging in illogical self harm, therefore requiring sheparding. Others understand self-determination to be a foundational pillar of freedom, that loss of ownership of self is giving oneself over to slavery or tyranny and antithetical to the idea of liberty.

In this case, I believe the psychological issues could have been ameliorated given time and proper counseling, as evidenced by her reconsidering her position once being exposed to significant actual strife.

It's amazing to me how much people aggrandize molehills when they've never actually seen mountains. It's a very human condition. As Shakespeare says in certain adaptations of Othello, "If I were to taste sour wine I would think it sweet, if I had never tasted better." Survivors of severe torture, imprisonment, and deprivation seldom seek it out again as a pastime. Likewise, people who have seen real oppression are not sleuthing for microaggressions at every turn. I propose that a man who lost both feet due to extreme frostbite does not typically complain of injustice if an office building is slightly chilly.

 

https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/th...-civilisations
A brief video by British scholar Dominic Frisby recounting the top slaving societies throughout known history. It is short, well produced, and non-political. There were several civilizations or dynasties that I was unfamiliar with.

 

I am also dismayed by the article Joe posted. That someone even thinks that way, much less acts on it is very disconcerting.

I also agree 100% with your first sentence quoted above. However, I disagree 100% with the second one. No one should dictate another person's actions, including self-harm. If it doesn't cause actual injury to another, then that should be their own decision.

Think about the concept of "self-harm". Getting your nose pierced is the very definition of harm. You are literally poking holes in yourself. Does it hurt anyone? Other than the pain of the piercing itself, and the fact that I think it makes you look like an idiot, not really. Facial tattoos are probably going to mean you don't get a cushy executive job, but no one is going to urgent care because you did it. So, if both these examples are okay according to society at large, where do you draw the line? That slippery slope of "we need to do something" infringes on the next moronic fashion trend, or eventually on the terminally ill person who would rather face death by their own hand than suffer for months because it offends someone else's sense of decency.

 

Yep. I agree. My second line was just bringing the other side of the argument to the table. I do not like that someone would have to decide whether or not you are mentally capable of owning yourself and your actions because that will always be a subjective, sliding scale. It's just like the idiots that say we need to have a litmus test for gun ownership. 23 seconds after that law gets enacted some judge will find zero people mentally fit for gun ownership and possession. It is not a slippery slope, it is a cliff.

 

This video speaks for itself.





The entire channel is worth watching, if this sort of thing interests you: https://www.youtube.com/@sugoumajapanfood/videos

 

It made me hungry.

 

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/peterm...droid&r=568kp1

"Coffee may "cancel out" the increased mortality risk seen in sedentary individuals that sit for long periods of time."

Sitting more than 8 hours/day was linked to a 46% higher all-cause mortality risk and 79% higher cardiovascular mortality risk, compared with sitting less than 4 hours/day.

Compared with non-coffee consumers, the highest coffee intake group had 33% lower all-cause mortality and 54% lower cardiovascular mortality.

Among adults sitting more than 6 hours/day, coffee drinkers had ~23% lower all-cause death hazard than non-coffee drinkers"

 

8)

 

When Squirrels Ruled America’s Homes as Favorite Pets

by Piya Sengupta







A children's encyclopedia published in 1910 has a paragraph on how to secure and care for pet squirrels. The instructions mention how it is advisable to obtain the animal in September when its coat is in the best condition. It also tells what kind of cages should be used, plus a warning that if the teeth are yellow, it means the squirrel is old and should be rejected. The seriousness of the details sounds odd and almost funny, considering squirrels today are mostly untamed and wild, and keeping them as pets is quite rare. The picture was entirely different during the 18th and the 19th century. Squirrels at that time ruled America's homes as favorite pets.

This fascinating history of how squirrels became America's pet obsession started more than two hundred years ago. It is an interesting story of companionship, status, possession, and a thriving- flourishing industry that grew because of it.





Squirrels were a charming yet tricky affair in the past, as portrayed in Axel Scheffler's illustrated gem, How to Keep a Red Squirrel. This book draws on advice from the encyclopedia, revealing quirky advice on how to care for pet squirrels. Squirrels should be obtained when young, best if born in captivity, the book says. These critters are difficult to tame and might occasionally give our fingers a nasty nip with their teeth.

Colonial America loved their pet squirrels, as evident from portraits, especially of affluent children, as well as portrayed in period literature. Paintings show squirrels on leashes or collars perched near, or sometimes on, their owners. Flying squirrels were tamed by young boys, as they sat on their shoulders, or followed them everywhere. According to writer Edward Topsell, squirrels were extremely pleasant as household playthings.

To accommodate their chewing habits, tinsmiths sold specially made cages with metal bars and tin lining. When they discovered that their furry friends could run on exercise wheels, more elaborate cages were made, resembling mills with waterwheels.

The Book of Household Pets delved into how to breed, manage, and train squirrels. The book advocated for spacious cages for the pet squirrels and criticized owners who confined them to a “small space of a square foot.” Their cages should be at least six feet long and four feet high, with perches like tree branches, a sleep box, and a water pan, the book suggested

Katherine C Grier's book Pets in America states squirrels were pretty and lively, and if caught young, easy to tame, too. Squirrel nests were often raided for babies, and baby squirrels were sold in city markets as pets. Gray squirrels were the most common, although red squirrels and flying squirrels were also obtained as pets.





Benjamin Franklin was known to give gifts that captured the American spirit. One such gift was the common American gray squirrel, which he asked his wife to ship from America for his young friend, Georgiana, in Winchester, U.K. Mungo, as the squirrel was later named, was put on a ship and traveled across the ocean. Along with its safety, the ship's captain oversaw its comfort. But the beloved American squirrel met an untimely demise at the hands of a dog. In his eulogy, Benjamin Franklin wrote,
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U.S. presidents Warren Harding and Harry Truman both had a pet squirrel named Pete while living in the White House. Moving on to more modern times, squirrels, even though they declined in popularity as pets, continued to occasionally become famous. Twiggy, the Water-Skiing Squirrel, was rescued by the Best family during a Florida Hurricane in 1978. And, of course, everyone remembers Peapod, the cute little squirrel of Bob Ross, the American painter. Even today, we often see squirrels, mostly rescued pets, on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, as they quickly earn fame and popularity on social media.





Jane Loudon’s book Domestic Pets (1851) says that the squirrels, “though not so intelligent as a dog,” can be easily trained to jump from one hand to another to look for hidden nuts. If a squirrel was acquired early, it can be domesticated and even capable of affection. Such a squirrel can also recognize its name and roam within the confines of a room, climb up curtains, and run around the cornice.





She describes a pet squirrel as a “beautiful little creature, very agile and graceful in its movements.” In fact, by the 1700s, America's pet squirrel obsession had already reached its crescendo. They were sold in markets, had specially made pet bags, and cages with wheels, and sometimes even dressed by their owners. One such well-dressed squirrel was Tommy Tucker, the orphaned, celebrated squirrel belonging to Mrs. Mark Bullis of Washington, D.C., who adopted Tommy “before his eyes were open when his mother died and left him in a tree.”

But it was not that easy to tame an animal that had been free and wild by nature. Gradually, people viewed them as pests with sharp teeth that could gnaw through almost everything. Squirrels obtained from the wild mainly remained so, despite best efforts. As pets, they were finicky eaters, often unintentionally injuring owners with their sharp claws. They destroyed furniture and other household items. Even when they learned to be comfortable around owners, they did not usually take kindly to house guests, visitors, or new people. Slowly, as difficulties arose, squirrels became less favored as pets, and the obsession faded. Squirrels were also carriers of diseases that arose from captivity, overfeeding, and lack of cleanliness. If they became ill, they soon died.




Today, squirrels are considered exotic pets, governed by laws and rules. A few states, like Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana among others, allow residents to own pet squirrels. Nebraska has an additional law that squirrels cannot be captured from the wild and kept as legal pets. New Jersey allows red squirrels and flying squirrels as pets, whereas in South Dakota, you need to purchase them from states where they are legal. Still, owning flying squirrels is illegal in 26 states. If you want to experience the joys of keeping a pet squirrel, be aware of the law in your state.

The era of squirrels as America's favorite pets is a peculiar chapter in its history that has been largely forgotten today. It was an era where squirrel-keeping was an art, unveiling the endearing yet intricate relationship between humans and animals. Though largely forgotten, it is a testimony to a significant, whimsical episode in the tapestry of the American pet culture.


https://unbelievable-facts.com/2023/...cas-homes.html

 

Interesting timing, as we have just discovered a squirrel has made a home in my crawl space via a hole chewed in the facia board. I intend to remove it using my PestZilla trap.