Smithsonian’s Around the Mall blog recently dug up an awesome FAO Schwarz catalog from 1911, found over at the Internet Archive. It’s filled with some pretty fantastic toys, including airship-themed board games, Kodak cameras, and carriages led by sheep. But these gifts didn’t come cheap.
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Here’s what it looks like to fire a weapon. Oh? You’re not impressed? Right. I understand. Because every first person shooter video game that kids play these days looks exactly like this. Hell, to be honest, the video games might look even more realistic than real life (if that makes any sense).
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What do you like to do in your free time? Play boardgames? Watch Netflix? Cook quinoa? These are all perfectly normal ways to while away your days—but German hobbyist Patrick Priebe builds laser guns. This is a perfectly awesome way to spend your free time.
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The Germans know a thing or two about building big guns
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Thanks to the ever-diligent men and women of the United States Transportation Security Administration, we can all rest a little bit easier tonight. Yesterday at approximately 17:00 hours, a one Mr. Rooster Monkburn was successfully disarmed when a TSA agent confiscated the monkey sock puppet’s two-inch, vaguely gun-shaped piece of plastic—and then threatened to call the police.
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For all the hubbub about California banning the use of lead in ammunition, there’s been less of a focus on safer alternatives—but designer Per Crowell has taken this to perhaps its most tongue-in-cheek extreme, proposing shotgun shells filled with seeds.
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Filed in things you now know are possible but should probably never try in your lifetime unless your life depended on it but maybe still shouldn’t: jump starting a dead car battery with an AK-47. Yes, you can do that. Watch these insane Iraqi soldiers use the metal of the AK-47 to bridge the two batteries. Metal conducts electricity! And I guess AK-47s are basically Swiss Army knives, right?
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Do you want to buy a house or a piece of Star Wars history? Would you like a Ferrari or the DL-44 Blaster that Harrison Ford used? A college education or a toy gun? The answer is obvious right? It’s Han Solo’s DL-44 Blaster every time. The blaster pistol made famous by Han Solo is up for auction and it’s expected to fetch more than $200,000. Let’s pool our money guys.
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We’ve all been encouraged to reduce, reuse, and recycle to help the environment, but helping Mother Nature can have its own consequences. Case in point: this simple block of wood called the Stix, which is strategically notched to let you reuse sticks or dried-up pens to construct a working elastic gun. Great for conserving our natural resources, but terrible for the poor co-workers caught in the crosshairs.
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Whoops, wish we could take that one back. This TED-Ed animation video teaches you the history of gunpowder. How it began as a Chinese invention for immortality, how it works in fireworks and how it morphed into the world destroyer and creator it is now. Watch it, you might learn a thing or two.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
