A Short History of the Ball of Goo Called Silly Putty

A Short History of the Ball of Goo Called Silly Putty Silly Putty, one of the most popular toys of the 20th century, was invented accidentally. Find out what a war, an indebted advertising consultant, and a ball of goo have in common. Rationing Rubber One of the most important resources needed for World War II war production was rubber. It was essential for tires (which kept the trucks moving) and boots (which kept the soldiers moving). It was also important for gas masks, life rafts, and even bombers. Beginning early in the war, the Japanese attacked many of the rubber-producing countries in Asia, drastically affecting the supply route. To conserve rubber, civilians in the United States were asked to donate old rubber tires, rubber raincoats, rubber boots, and anything else that consisted at least in part of rubber. Rations were placed on gasoline to hinder people from driving their cars. Propaganda posters instructed people in the importance of carpooling and showed them how to care for their household rubber products so they would last the duration of the war. Inventing a Synthetic Rubber Even with this home-front effort, the rubber shortage threatened war production. The government decided to ask U.S. companies to invent a synthetic rubber that had similar properties but that could be made with non-restricted ingredients. In 1943, engineer James Wright was attempting to discover a synthetic rubber while working in General Electrics laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut when he discovered something unusual. In a test tube, Wright had combined boric acid and silicone oil, producing an interesting gob of goo. Wright conducted a multitude of tests on the substance and discovered it could bounce when dropped, stretch farther than regular rubber, didnt collect mold, and had a very high melting temperature. Unfortunately, though it was a fascinating substance, it didnt contain the properties needed to replace rubber. Still, Wright assumed there had to be some practical use for the interesting putty. Unable to come up with an idea himself, Wright sent samples of the putty to scientists around the world. However, none of them found a use for the substance either. An Entertaining Substance Though perhaps not practical, the substance continued to be entertaining. The nutty putty began to be passed around to family and friends and even taken to parties to be dropped, stretched, and molded to the delight of many. In 1949, the ball of goo found its way to Ruth Fallgatter, an owner of a toy store who regularly produced a catalog of toys. Advertising consultant Peter Hodgson convinced Fallgatter to place globs of the goo in plastic cases and add it to her catalog. Selling for $2 each, the bouncing putty outsold everything else in the catalog except for a set of 50-cent Crayola crayons. After a year of strong sales, Fallgatter decided to drop the bouncing putty from her catalog. The Goo Becomes Silly Putty Hodgson saw an opportunity. Already $12,000 in debt, Hodgson borrowed another $147 and bought a large quantity of the putty in 1950. He then had Yale students separate the putty into one-ounce balls and place them inside red plastic eggs. Since bouncing putty didnt describe all of the puttys unusual and entertaining attributes, Hodgson thought hard about what to call the substance. After much contemplation and numerous options suggested, he decided to name the goo Silly Putty and to sell each egg for $1. In February 1950, Hodgson took Silly Putty to the International Toy Fair in New York, but most people there did not see the potential for the new toy. Luckily, Hodgson did manage to get Silly Putty stocked at both Nieman-Marcus and Doubleday bookstores. A few months later, a reporter for The New Yorker stumbled across Silly Putty at a Doubleday bookstore and took home an egg. Fascinated, the writer wrote an article in the Talk of the Town section that appeared on August 26, 1950. Immediately, orders for Silly Putty started pouring in. Adults First, Then Children Silly Putty, marked as The Real Solid Liquid, was at first considered a novelty item (i.e. a toy for adults). However, by 1955 the market shifted and the toy became a huge success with children. Added to bouncing, stretching, and molding, kids could spend hours using the putty to copy images from comics and then distort the images by bending and stretching. In 1957, kids could watch Silly Putty T.V. commercials that were strategically placed during The Howdy Doody Show and Captain Kangaroo. From there, there was no end to the popularity of Silly Putty. Children continue to play with the simple gob of goo often referred to as the toy with one moving part. Did You Know... Did you know that astronauts on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission took Silly Putty with them to the moon?Did you know that the Smithsonian Institution included Silly Putty in its exhibit on the 1950s?Did you know that Binney Smith, the makers of Crayola, bought the rights to Silly Putty in 1977 (after Peter Hodgson passed away)?Did you know that you can no longer copy images onto Silly Putty from the comics because of the change in the inking process?Did you know that people did finally discover numerous practical uses for Silly Putty, including as a balance for a wobbly piece of furniture, lint remover, hole stopper, and a stress reliever?

Advanced Mouse Processing in Delphi Applications

Advanced Mouse Processing in Delphi Applications You might already know how to handle some basic mouse events like MouseUp/MouseDown and MouseMove. However, there are times when you want your mouse to do what you tell it. Basic API stuff Many of us write programs that are designed to work only with the mouse. If we are writing programs that require mouse presence and/or are dependent on the mouse we have to be sure that various things are set up the right way. Is Mouse Present? The quickest way to see if the mouse is present: Animated Mouse Cursor Heres how to use animated cursors (or even how to use a BMP as a CUR): Positioning the Mouse The SetCursorPos API function moves the cursor to the specified screen coordinates. Since this function does not get a windows handle as a parameter, x/y have to be screen coordinates. Your component does use relative coordinates, e.g. relative to a TForm. You have to use the ClientToScreen function to calculate the proper screen coordinates. Simulations On most occasions we want the mouse to move to a certain position on the screen. We know that some components do not respond to a cursor change until the user moves the mouse, we have to provide some small move-from-code technique. And what about simulation mouse clicks without calling the OnClick event handler? The following example will simulate mouse click event on Button2 after the click to Button1. We have to use mouse_event() API call. The mouse_event function synthesizes mouse motion and button clicks. Mouse coordinates given are in Mickeys, where there are 65535 Mickeys to a screens width. Restrict The Mouse Movement Using the Windows API function ClipCursor, it is possible to restrict the movement of the mouse to a specific rectangular region on the screen: Mouse Enter, Mouse Leave? Detecting entering and exiting of the mouse pointer over a component is often coming up when writing your own component. All descendants of TComponent send a CM_MOUSEENTER and CM_MOUSELEAVE message when the mouse enters and leaves the bounds of the component. You will need to write a message handler for the respective messages if we wish to respond to them.