June 7, 2008

Do You Remember Your First Bottle?

Here are a few things that I've learned after reading the articles.

I'm not summing up the entire history, just part of it. So, here is a bit of the early history in the 17th to the 19th century. I'd like to note that this is not an official site. It's a collector site.

In 17th century, leather and wood feeding bottles were used in Europe. Later they evolved into pewters feeding bottles and pap boats. Many of them had a flask shape. As the bottles evolved through the next 400 years, one thing remain common. They were not hygienic, mostly because it was not possible to entirely clean these bottles. So, the mortality rate among babies under 2 years old was quite high.

The pap boats (there are photos of them) and the cups were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1880's the bottles were made by potteries, but they were difficult to clean as well. Later, the glass blowers used the same design to make free blown bottles instead of pottery.

To read further and learn more, take a look at the articles. Besides the articles, there are galleries and collections. There is also a page about pacifiers. There are links too, but I have not checked them. So I don't know if they are safe and/or are updated.

There are a few minor problems with the navigation. Nothing major. However, there is a big problem viewing the "collections" pages. You can't enlarge the images (you supposed to be able to so). You'll get a 404 error message instead. I don't know what's going on over there, but I hope it'll get fixed. What a bummer, but you can at least still see their thumbnails (the little images).

By the way, there a few images of ancient cups from the "B.C centuries".

Baby Bottles History

June 6, 2008

blog - ARTECT

This blog has awesome posts. It features modern architecture (Gaudi for example), futuristic, design, books, art, environment, retro and more.


June 5, 2008

Do You Think The Fortune Cookie Is From China?

Do you know the real story behind the origin of the Fortune Cookie? Decide for yourself. Surprise! Even though you'll see them in many countries, you won't find any in China. It was not originated in China at all. Fascinating! They are apparently of Japanese origin, and may have been invented in San Francisco Tea Garden and/or Los Angeles.

You'll find all this information in the The New York Times' site. There is a good article called "Solving A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery".


There is another short version from the "Chinese Historical and Cultural Project's site"

Fortune Cookie

There is more from Answers.com


A Microcar Museum

Wow, I had no idea that there were that MANY of them through out the decades. There are even a few from the 1930's and the 1940's. These cars also include the bubble cars. This is a really nice museum micro car's collection. It's practically a micro feast. I enjoyed the virtual tour. So much creativity and imagination.

Use the virtual tour (on top of the museum's page) to view them.

The Microcar Museum

June 4, 2008

Bernard Collet

Bernard Collet is a French artist who has distinctive artwork in a few mediums. In this site, you'll see artwork that also target children. This site is in French. So, if you don't speak French use the Google Translator (or any other that you like) to translate. The second link is for the Google Translator tools.

Bernard Collet

Google Language Tools

Hey! Where Is The Car's Logo At?

There are a lot of logos here. A few of them have their car history mentioned. Some only have pictures of the logo (so you'd have to do your own research if you want to learn more). For example, the INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER, which I never heard of. Out of curiosity, I researched it and found an article at The New York Time. I added the article link below if you are interested.

Car Logos Biggest Archive

The New York Time article

June 3, 2008

You Tube - 1930s Futuristic Fashion Predictions

This short clip shows how the fashion designers from the 1930's predicted the fashion of the year 2000. I'd say, that most of it is really totally off base and funny. I guess they watched too much Flash Gordon (and the Bride of Frankenstein). ;-)


Flickr - Miss Retro Modern's Fashion

I really liked the " Eaton's Fall and Winter, 1975" because the clothes that are featured in the catalog are nostalgic. They bring me childhood memories. Lots of people say that these clothes were terrible. But I did like them. I don't think they were that bad, I'd say that they were "creative" and "daring". However, I did not like the bell bottom pants. For some reason, I had a deep aversion to them. They just looked too weird to me. They looked like sail boats. Almost anyway. You could practically hide a kitty inside them, and nobody would even know.

Miss Retro Modern's Eaton's Fall and Winter, 1975

June 2, 2008

A Chewing Gum Artist - Maurizio Savini

I'm surprised, I thought I've posted about this artist already, but I can't find him in my blog. Well, I guess I'm behind then. Anyhow, this amazing artist, Maurizio Savini, has an unusual and distinctive talent! He makes sculpture using chewing gum. Now, that's some medium. The bear is definitely my favorite. I'd really love to see his art in person some day.

Here you'll find his long resume and additional photos for Maurizio Savini.


and even MORE artwork pieces in this blog.

kanYe West blog

June 1, 2008


Have you ever wondered how the battery was originally developed? It has more history than I thought. I mean, I knew it started back a few centuries ago, but it didn't occure to me that it went through that many steps, and inventors before the first dry cell battery appeared. I just hadn't thought of it before. It went through several stages with 11 inventors.

Basically, the battery "business" really started in 1780's with Luigi Galvani, who was a biologist. It all started with a frog. As he was dissecting the frog's leg, the steel scalpel that he was holding touched a brass hook that held the leg. After seeing the leg twitching, he conducted more experiments about the effects. Galvani eventually believed that what he was witnessing, was the effect of animal electricity.

Later his colleague, Alessandro Volta, was able to produced the same effects. But unlike Galvani, he believed that it was the result of the two dissimilar metals that caused the electricity. His experiments were just the beginning. The dry cell battery didn't become reality until about 100 years later, during the late 1880's thanks to Carl Gassner.

Now, that was just the beginning. Go visit the site for the rest of the story. See the battery history unfolding all the way to the 1950's ;-) It's quite fascinating.

If you are looking for pictures, you won't find many. Asides from the text, there several technical battery illustrations . So, I guess this site will only interest people who don't mind doing some reading ;-) I did try to find a site on the net with picture of old batteries, but have had no luck. I've only seen a picture here and there. Nothing worth posting.

History of the Battery

The BMX!

That's interesting. I have absolutely no memory of seeing the BMX bikes during the 70's. That's pretty far back. I thought they came out early '80s. Well, what do I know? I am not a BMX expert. The only bike that I remember very well is the classic banana seat bike. We had one. I loved it. I wonder whatever happened to it. I now recall three other (non- BMX) bikes, the Big Wheel, Raleigh and the Schwinn that had 3 speeds. Do they even make 3 speed bikes anymore?

Now there are newer versions of the Big Wheel and the banana seat bikes, but they aren't as cool as the original ones. It's just not the "same" thing. No nostalgia. They feel like a "copy" to me. Kinda like an "updated" version.

Back to the site, the years that are listed here are from 1970 - 2008. This site also has a forum and news.

BMX Museum