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Museum of Hoaxes
Easily fooled? In 1835 you might have been suckered into believing there is life on the moon. Today, you might stop using anti-perspirant for fear of getting breast cancer. At the Museum of Hoaxes, suckers are in good company as they trace the history of hoaxes as far back as 756 AD.
The site creator adheres to the 1808 definition of a hoax as "contriving wonderful stories for the publick," ruling out practical jokes but not scams. Great hoaxes can astonish and amuse us, but nasty ones can cause serious damage. Search hoaxes by century or by category, from anthropology (the Patagonian giants) to zoology (the jackaloupe), or check out sub-species like urban legends and April Fool's pranks.
museumofhoaxes.com
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Medicine and Madison Avenue
Bob Dole promoting Viagra may not be much different today than singer Rudy Vallee advertising Fleischmann's yeast as a way to "Put yourself across" in 1930. At Medicine and Madison Avenue, the relationship between medicine and advertising is explored through images and info for 600 health-related newspaper and magazine ads from 1910 through the 1950s.
Judging from the ads, body odor seems to be a timeless worry. The site lets users search by product, then delivers the ad image, date, company, target audience and publication that each ad appeared in, plus 35 historical documents about the influence of health-related ads, with teacher and student guides for the classroom.
scriptorium.lib.duke.edu
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Red Flags
Tired of today's dumb-and-dumber style of broadcast journalism, or newspapers that read like thought-free zones? Red Flags raises the flag on issues the public ought to be paying a bit more attention to, reading behind the headlines and listening past the sound-bites on medical, scientific, environmental, artistic and political issues.
Visitors can read columnists like Barbara Lewis and Mark Elliot opine about such heady ideas as freedom or alcoholism research, debate with other thinkers in Weekly Controversy, keep an eye out for media censorship or subscribe to a weekly e-newsletter for trends and hot spots. At Rumbles, step behind-the-scenes to hear the latest controversies in medicine, science, politics and the arts - then use your head and make up your own mind.
redflagsweekly.com
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MouseSite
It was the mouse that roared, and it's hard to believe that the least peripheral of all peripherals -- the invaluable computer mouse -- has been around since 1968. Its debut that year at Stanford University, along with hypertext and a host of other networking tools, is documented at MouseSite, a living repository of early computer history.
Visitors can see the 90-minute presentation of the first mouse by Stanford's Doug Engelbart and colleagues, and participate in history-making by viewing dozens of mostly black-and-white photos to help identify the people, equipment and concepts represented -- all to capture the devices and culture future geeks will revere.
sloan.stanford.edu
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Source for the above text: tricksandtrinkets.com |
