Every six months or so we hear that Paul Moller’s flying car is just a few years away! Too bad we’ve been hearing that for the past 40 years.
The Best “Psychic” Scam of All Time
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhy do we believe people can predict the future? Usually because we remember the hits and forget the misses. Or in some cases, the misses are hidden from us. Like in my favorite "psychic" scam ever, which also happens to be the plot of a classic 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "Mail Order Prophet."
If you were a psychic, astrologer, spiritualist or any other kind of charlatan in the 1920s, you had no greater enemy than the science and technology magazines of the era. Many publishers of the 1920s saw calling out bullshit peddlers as a natural part of their broader mission. And they did so in glorious fashion — by giving away the pseudo-supernatural secrets of countless frauds.
As sacred a hashtag as #tbt is on Instagram, the hashstag #nofilter is right there with it. If the selfie’s purpose is to crown your own face with likes, not using a filter on a picture and then bragging about it through a hashtag is to megaphone your arrival as an artist. Like saying you could totally be a photographer if you weren’t stuck in a cubicle all day. Like telling the whole world to look at you and then not look at you but really, look at you. Digital flexing. #nofilter