Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On April 3, 1981, the Osborne Computer Corporation unveiled its latest creation, the Osborne 1, the first portable computer to be commercially viable.  The grand daddy of all the laptops, tablets, pads and smartphones we have today started with this 24.5 pound chunk of electronics.  Despite the pioneering nature of the company, Osborne went out of business only 4 years later. Digging Deeper Costing a whopping $1795 (or equivalent to over $5000 today), the Osborne 1 had to be plugged in to a wall socket for power as it had no internal battery.  Although you could not…

A Brief History On April 1, 2016, we published an article using made up “scientific” names of fish in a pathetic effort to be funny.  (This author, according to most people, is not funny.  I beg to differ…)  Today, we take a look at the common name of some real life fish in fresh and salt water.  Feel free to nominate others that you believe should be on such a list.  Sometimes people butcher the names of fish and create their own stupid/funny names, a fact I learned working part-time at an aquarium store.  Examples are “African American Cichlids” when…

A Brief History On March 31, 2018, we published an article about “Jerks of the Month,” a topic we have touched upon from time to time.  Today, we modify our approach to discuss only those jerks as they relate to our coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that is killing people across the country and the world and threatens to destroy our economy.  This pandemic is serious business and it needs serious people to beat the sneaky illness, NOT Jerks!  (Feel free to add your own nominees to our list or to dispute those persons we have cited.)  See our other article “What…

A Brief History On March 28, 1920, Palm Sunday for Christians that are keeping track, a flurry of tornadoes swept across the Midwest and Southern United States, 37 of the terrible storms that left 380 Americans dead in their paths!  Some people see such tragic natural events as just nature being nature, while others see the hand of God in the event, thus describing tornados, severe hail storms, hurricanes, lightning strikes, earthquakes, floods and other nature related events as “An Act of God.”  Here is the Merriam-Webster’s online definition: “an extraordinary interruption by a natural cause (such as a flood…

A Brief History On March 25, 1958, the Canadian supersonic interceptor, the Avro Arrow made its first flight. Designed to fly at Mach 2+ it seemed like a good airplane, but was mysteriously cancelled prior to production, with all partly assembled units and prototypes destroyed.  Other promising weapons have suffered the same fate, some of which may well have been effective while others faded away due to insurmountable problems.  Today we list 10 more military weapons that failed to make it into mass production or widespread issue, expanding on our original article “10 Weapons That Never (Or Barely) Went into…