Forbidden Zones

Slate’s Vault highlights a 1955 map of forbidden areas for Soviet travelers. Like all good things from the Cold War, it’s born out the absurdity, childish tit-for-tat, and fear.

In 1952, the US passed a law baring pinkos from entering the country. The next year, the Soviets decided to how much better they were by letting capitalist pig dogs into the 70% of Soviet Union. So in 1955, the US decided to mimic the Soviet travel restrictions by opening up 70% of the US and 70% of cities of population greater than 100,000 to the Soviets. Ports and military installations were forbidden, but must of it is just arbitrary nonsense. You can visit Minneapolis, but not St. Paul. KCK is fine, but KCMO is not. Also, don’t even think about leaving Kansas City, Kansas. Texas Panhandle? Not a chance. And don’t even think about visiting Southern Illinois.

It’s just stupid.

This map held until Kennedy removed all travel restrictions in 1962.

Razy2’s Tab Table

Design group Razy2 (Paulina and Jacek RyÅ„)’s Tab table, features sliding panels on top that hide storage containers under the top.

I’ve become curious about desk and table tops that appear seamless, yet conceal storage and ports. it’s an interesting idea. If I was to do this, I’d hold the panels in place with rare earth magnets, but main problem is that if you put the panel in the middle of the top, then you have to have a way to pull the lid  off, which means either a handle, or a scoop to lift it out. Placing the lids around the edge allows the lids to be lifted off (assuming the lid overlaps the edge) eleminates this problem.

Of course, placing the storage along the side in little concealable drawers is also a solution.

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Tumblr Revisited

I find it hard to use tumblr with a blog. Sure tumblr is a great way to find random pics (as I said back in September), but the lack of context is driving me insane. Also every time something is rebloged on tumblr, all the existing tags are lost, thus either encouraging less context or encouraging posts to be recontextualized. (Ha!) I feel compelled to track down the sources to the pictures, to tag them correctly with who drew what, who built that, sometimes even comment on them. However, you it seem very difficult to combine separate posts posts together into a single worthwhile post.

Then again, maybe that’s not the point. Tumblr is for random stuff. It’s for short comments if any. Blogs are for “big” things (where “big” is defined as anything over 120 characters.) Maybe I should just start collecting tumblr stuff together and reblog it here in the vein of Dark Roasted Blend.

Partridge Family 2200 AD

Just when I thought 70s Hanna-Barbera couldn’t get more derivative, they came out with an animated spinoff of a crappy tv show with the entire style recycled from their crappy retread of a crappy animated knock off of a successful tv show.

Of course something as synergistic as the Partridge Family 2200 AD doesn’t come from just one boardroom. The story is that Hanna-Barbera was developing a spin-off of The Jetsons where Elroy would be a teenager, and I guess Judy would be a sorority girl at Universe University or some such nonsense. Anyway, when HB was shopping this idea to CBS, the CBS execu-bots, said they’d take it, but only if they added more Danny Bonaduce. So a few superficial changes later, and whoala!

I stand by my long held belief that the 1970s was the worst cultural decade in American history.

via superpunch2

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