A vision of more wondrously beautiful air travel... the windowless passenger compartment.

Fabulous... or hellish? To me, it's hellish.

Imagine! The "perfect jewel"!

That's an ad from page 67 of the September 18, 1960 issue of The New York Times — an issue I was reading yesterday, for my "Moscow Suspicious of Hillary" post.

I love paging through all the old ads. There's one in that issue for "Fantastic, magical: typewriter correction tape — "Type-Out" —  to "save hours of costly re-typing." And there's one for "Daylight Blue" TV that "Adds a Tint of Blue" to improve the clarity of black-and-white TV. The TV is "big... like a movie screen" when it's only 23". And I love that the elimination of glare is attributed to something called "Ultra-Vision Glarejector."

What got me thinking back the transistor radio I'd seen was this Tech Times article Meade just texted me:

Electrical engineers from the University of Wisconsin have developed a flexible silicon phototransistor, which to date is the fastest and most responsive ever created... Just like mammalian eyes, phototransistors collect light and then transform this into an electrical impulse. In mammals, this pulse is transported by the brain's nerves but in digital devices, the electrical charge becomes a binary code that software converts into a digital image. Many phototransistors are flat because they are fabricated on rigid surface but the new phototransistor is flexible so it can easily mimic the behavior of the eyes of mammals....

"A Running Skirt That Empowers You to Pee Standing Up."

"The Gotta Go Running Skirt... has 5.5-inch shorts underneath and a Velcro-secured flap that reveals a 'relief hatch' so you can pee when there's no bathroom...."

"You" = a woman.

Dead comedians on tour: Andy Kaufman and Redd Foxx, the holograms.

Alki David, the billionaire behind Hologram USA made the announcement and said his company is "working with other estates of famous funny guys and funny girls, these just happened to be amenable estates who see the vision."

Mr. David said that the hologram shows... say, Andy Kaufman lip-syncing the “Mighty Mouse” theme on... “Saturday Night Live”....

Noting that Malcolm X had known Foxx before his stand-up fame and described him as “the funniest dishwasher on this earth,” Mr. David said, “We’re going to have a scene with Malcolm X. We’re going to have various notable names featuring in his story.”...

The company is preparing holographic versions of Billie Holiday to perform at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and of Whitney Houston for a worldwide concert tour next year..... “There are an awful lot of dead celebrities,” [David] said. “There are an awful lot of dead people with a lot of followers. The fresher the memory, the bigger the star.”...

Bonus red meat for pedants: The director of the licensing agency said that the dead celebrities "literally come back from the dead."

I'm hesitating to publish this because it's pretty obvious that David wants to provoke those who find this kind of entertainment disgusting. It's a virality strategy, and it gets out the word for the kind of people who do think it's cool to have the illusion of somebody they love come back from the dead (and don't give a damn about the right and wrong uses of "literally").

So I'm going to distance myself. Oh, the absurdity of "amenable estates who see the vision" and the sad comic deafness of the phrase "famous funny guys and funny girls." They're dead. They're not funny at all. And Malcolm X isn't funny dead or alive.

"Less than 24 hours after Ahmed Mohamed met President Obama, his family decided it’s time to leave America for good."

"The 14-year-old Texas boy who was arrested for bringing to school a homemade clock that authorities said resembled a bomb will soon be living in Qatar." They're leaving next week.

According to the article, in The Washington Post, he family weighed various offers relating to the boy's education and career path, and Qatar's Young Innovators Program in the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development seemed best. And they liked Doha. Ahmed said praised it as "so modern," with "many amazing schools... many of them campuses of famous American universities." And his sister said: "Qatar is in the Arab world, but it also feels like Texas. It’s like Texas in Qatar."

One of the most-liked comments over there at WaPo is: "Qatar 'feels like Texas' because both are God-forsaken desert hellholes with obscenely rich oil barons and religious fundamentalists out the wazoo. You couldn't pay me enough to live in either." Another is: "'Young innovator'? He took the housing off of clock and put it in a box. A toddler could do this. WaPo, your political correctness blinds you!"

Looncup, the "smart" menstrual cup.

"Looncup is an old-fashioned silicone cup with a twist: It contains a sensor that collects information about the volume and color of your menstrual fluid and an antenna that sends that information to your smartphone, which alerts you when your cup is getting full...."

I am a woman of childbearing age who has never once wanted more information about the volume and color of my menstrual fluid. But maybe I’m missing something.... I am not so solipsistic that I believe that all women should share my personal concerns about the Looncup.... Maybe other women are far more fascinated by the volume and color of their menstrual fluid than I am....