Links for February 11, 2017

Victorian Era Drones: How Model Trains Transformed From Cutting-Edge to Quaint

But the craziest, and most perilous, model-train power source of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was electro-chemical, involving glass jars, water, live direct-current electricity hot-wired from a lamp cord, sheets of toxic-to-the-touch lead cut into jar-size rectangles, and sulphuric acid, which had to be poured on top of the water in the lead-filled jars, but never the other way around because water poured into a container of sulphuric acid will bubble, hiss, and splatter in every direction, burning holes in clothing and flesh alike. “It was not recommended for the clumsy boy,” Souter says in his best deadpan.


W. E. B. Du Bois’ Hand-Drawn Infographics of African-American Life (1900)


Artistic Knitting of Sam Barsky – Sam Barsky knits sweaters of scenes and takes photos of himself wearing those sweaters in front of those scenes.