February 24, 2010

Blog - The INFOMERCANTILE


An interesting material from a blog called "The INFOMERCANTILE". I don't know how to describe this blog. It's about the past, but not like my blog which focuses more on popular culture. It focused on it a little differently. You'd have to visit it to figure it out.

There is a post called "Fallout Protection For Homes With Basements" that I like. It's the name of a booklet that was produced during the cold war. You can read each page from this booklet, or order a reprint. In the booklet's pages there are also illustrations of the shelter and specifications. The booklet is mostly technical. But it's interesting to see these type of booklets from those days.

There is an excerpt from the book (under the heading "HOW MUCH PROTECTION DOES YOUR BASEMENT PROVIDE AGAINST RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT?") that does say that "In homes, basement areas provide the best shelter against fallout because they are mostly below ground. This gives them a natural shield. This booklets tells you the amount of protection your basement offers and what you can do to increase this protection to provide your family's safety. Keep in mind that fallout shelter provides only limited protection against blast." I thought it was kinda interesting considering the paranoia at the time.

It's amazing that people believed that they were going to be really protected by those shelters.

In short, the post describes the booklet: "Fallout Protection For Homes With Basements is a 28-page pamphlet produced by the U.S Government during the Cold War, providing tips and instructions on how to harden an existing basement against radiation and fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion."

Fallout Protection For Homes With Basements
http://www.infomercantile.com/-/Fallout_Protection_For_Homes_With_Basements

Another post that I liked is called "Camera for the Year 2000, 1968." It does look kinda 'star treky'. Star Trek is one of my favorite shows. Maybe that's why I love the look of this gadget.



Camera for the Year 2000, 1968
http://www.infomercantile.com/blog/2009/10/camera-for-year-2000-1968.html

February 23, 2010

The First Airlines In The World Is...




The top airplane is an aeroflot Tupolev154m
The buttom airplane is an aeroflot Boeing767-300ER

Did you know that Aeroflot, the Russian airlines, are the world oldest scompany!? I never knew that! I always thought it was Braniff Airways. But Braniff Airways started in 1928. Five years after Aeroflot became operational in 1923. Braniff Airways ceased to exist in 1982 while Aeroflot Airline continued their services.

I am not even sure if I ever heard of Aeroflot. I've been in international airports many times, and can't even remember seeing their airplanes. There are always so many airplanes that I don't even know what country they came from. I am not very familiar with Russian airliners. When I came across this information by chance, I knew I wanted to post this. I don't know how well known this fact is in general, but I bet that lots of people that I know, don't know this fact, except for a couple of pilots that I know. I wonder if they have to learn that in flight school. I'll have to ask them. On the other hand maybe I knew and forgot. I always tell people my memory is like a Swiss cheese full of holes.

I know one thing for sure. It's easy. I saw the French and British Concorde five times. Two of them flew over my head when I was in college. I saw them while walking to class. I was so awesome! There was a golf competition nearby and the airport was about 10 minutes away. You just can't miss a Concorde!

History Of AEROFLOT
http://www.aeroflot.no/side2.html

If you wish to learn more about Aeroflot's background, you can watch their corporate video in English. There is one in Russian too, unfortunately, there are no closed captioning or subtitles. However, I was glad to see that there is an English for the same video. I wish that both were also closed captioned or subtitled. I rely on them. So, I can only tell you from a visual point of view that the early scenes of this video were a little boring for me, but it became interesting later on once they started to focus on the airplane services for the passengers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYLaxFaFo1I

I also saw a few commercials on YouTube, but thought they were a bit lame. But that's just me. They were all in Russian except one that was also subtitled. It went so fast I wasn't able to follow the subs all the way through. The font was difficult to follow. i watched it a few time, and still had trouble following the text. It seemed like an odd commercial or something like that.

UPDATE!

I was just informed that Aeroflot is NOT the oldest airline. The oldest airlines is KLM.

Wikipedia - KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM

It is confusing though, if you look at this link:

Wikipedia - List of airlines by foundation date
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airlines_by_foundation

If I get further information, I will post it.

February 22, 2010

Blog - American Airlines 707 Jet Stewardess

I just love anything about airplanes and flight attendants. This blog's title of the blog is pretty much self explanatory. ;-)

Blog - American Airline 707 Jet Stewardess
http://americanairlinesstewardess.blogspot.com

February 21, 2010

..And Your Destination Is?


Rate to go travel blog is a bit different from the common tourist sites. There are useful information, like tips and advises. But there are also fun posts about the world travel, and it also include the "10 best of.." type of posts, and other type of information you might not see in a regular tourism sites. They even have a post for coffee tourism destinations. I enjoyed best these three old posts down below, about weird signs from 2008. I know that some of these photos have been around the internet, like on Flickr, but it's still fun to see some of these again. As for myself, there are some that I've not seen before and this is from someone who thought she had pretty much seen nearly of those signs on the internet. But I was wrong.

Rates To Go
http://blog.ratestogo.com/

My favorite are the weird and wacky signs around the world series even though they are almost two years old posts.

Weird and Wacky Signs Around the World Part I
http://blog.ratestogo.com/12-weird-and-wacky-signs-around-the-world

Weird and Wacky Signs Around the World Part II

http://blog.ratestogo.com/12-more-weird-and-wacky-signs-around-the-world

Weird and Wacky Signs Around the World Part III

http://blog.ratestogo.com/weird-and-wacky-signs-around-the-world-part-iii

Weird and Wacky Signs Around the World Part IV
http://blog.ratestogo.com/weird-and-wacky-signs-around-the-world-part-iv