Old Timey Ads

This is my favorite part about cryogenic fantasies: “People disgusted with the present times might have themselves kept for a more enlightened age.” This provokes so many unanswered questions! Who will freeze you? Who will thaw you? Who makes the decision when the age is “enlightened” enough to hit the defrost switch on your Popsicle-body? And why would the future want your old ass around anyway?

Now I really want to write a character called “Disappointed Victorian Cryonaut”: 

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EXT. CITY STREET - DAY

The Cryonaut looks around at traffic, his eyes wide.

CRYONAUT: Ah! The future! Surely this is a more enlightened age!

TAXI DRIVER: Get out of the road, you nutcase!

The taxi HONKS and speeds past. The Cryonaut’s face falls as a single tear runs down his face.

CRYONAUT: Bah! This age is as vulgar as the last!

He KICKS a piece of trash, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

CRYONAUT: I’m never gonna get to an enlightened age

I suppose this article’s doomsaying proved correct. Who puddles anymore? NOBODY, that’s who.

Puddling was an Industrial Revolution means of making iron and steel. In the original puddling technique, molten iron in a reverberatory furnace was stirred with rods, which were consumed in the process. It was one of the first processes for making bar iron without charcoal in Europe, although much earlier coal-based process had existed in China.

Later, it was also used to produce a good-quality carbon steel; this was a highly skilled art, but both high-carbon and low-carbon steels were successfully produced on a small scale, particularly for swords, knives and other weapons.

WHAT

So interesting to see complaints like this, back during the time when it seemed reasonable to address them comprehensively.

Makes me wonder what etiquette questions were successfully addressed, such that we don’t have to deal with them today? I suppose people used to drive all over the road in their motor-cars before some brainiac started painting lines on the streets.