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The Philatelist

Stamp Nook: Posta Pneumatica

The Philatelist | 2005-01-02.2500 LMT | Philately | Pneumatics

Good day and welcome to the second edition of Stamp Nook. Today we will be looking at pneumatic postal systems.

stamp

While a number of countries had pneumatic message delivery systems of some sort -- most notably the French Carte Pneumatique (or "pneu"), which was popular for sending love letters -- Italy is the only one to have issued stamps specifically for their pneumatic post. (Other countries instead used normal postal stamps or special stationary. Pity.) Italy started issuing pneumatic post stamps in 1913 for their five-city system and continued issuing until 1966, for a total of twenty-three stamps, including minor variations.

The stamp shown here is a 1945 Italian posta pneumatica issue (Scott D18) with a suspicious looking portrait of Galileo Galilei, based on Justus Sustermans' 1636 painting of Galileo at age 72. Galileo presumably was featured on a pneumatic post stamp for his work determining the vertical limit on suction pumps, which he set at 18 braccia. A similar design was previously used on an issue from 1933 (D16), and both were accompanied by issues of lesser face value that featured Dante Alighieri (D15 & D17), no doubt in honour of his literary contributions on the subject of subterranean travel.

Although Italy stopped issuing new pneumatic stamp designs in 1966, their system was apparently still in operation in 1974, but I am unable to find any more information on it.

Not including the heavily modernized system operated by the Republic of Cascadia Postal Authority (which hasn't issued any pneumatic stamps yet, but there's always hoping...), the only remaining pneumatic post system from the Golden Age of Pneumatic Tubes is in Prague. The Prague Pneumatic Mail System entered operation in 1899 for use in sending telegrams and was still in operation until the floods of 2002 (it is undergoing repairs). In it's later years the system has been used primarily by banks for sending original documents and by Czech Telecom to detect leaks in the adjacent gas lines. Quite a sad state of affairs. For more details, see: "I got root on the Prague Pneumatic Post".

Lyle Zapato

Seasonal Aluminum Deflection Tree

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-25.1300 LMT | Aluminum | Mind Control | NWO | General Paranoia
Aluminum Tree

Paranoids are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain vintage Seasonal Aluminum Deflection Trees (SADTs), with prices currently starting at over US$400 and supplies dwindling.

Originally manufactured in the late 1950s as a way to arborescentally deflect multiple signals from stop-motion TV specials at the back of viewers' heads, thereby creating a holographic mind-control effect, a serious flaw in their design was discovered by paranoid researchers that allowed them to be used as psychotronic dampeners by simply adjusting the branch angles based on the Fibonacci numbers. Realizing their mistake, the NWO used negative propaganda in Charley Brown cartoons to dissuade the mass consumption of aluminum trees, but paranoids in the know were still able to obtain used ones cheaply through the black market.

In an apparent attempt to stop this, the NWO is using it's control over the affluent hipster and kitschophile communities (through such fronts as Hammacher Schlemmer and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.) to artificially increase the demand, making vintage devices difficult to come by. Furthermore, I suspect that they have figured a way around the Fibonacci bug and are manufacturing new, unafflicted versions, which, because of their crowd madness management, will sell like hot cakes next year when the prices are lowered. Paranoids should avoid these newer models.

What's so great about SADTs? Professor Hans Delbruck, in the ZPi guestbook, explains:

Aluminum trees have a para-branch effect which blocks the increased commercial psychotronic radiation at this time of year. Aluminum trees conserve habitat for the tree octopus and the Sasquatch. The Austin Powers-like effect of the revolving colored light box that one places under the tree has a soothing effect on the advanced paranoid hominoid, which is particularly valuable when used with full AFDBification and wrapping of gifts in aluminium foil.

Some links:

UPDATE 2008-12-17: Gather 'round your Seasonal Aluminum Deflection Tree and sing that classic paranoid tune, O Alumbaum!.

Lyle Zapato

"Aluminum Thieves" Targeting Cascadia

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-20.5400 LMT | Aluminum | Cascadia | NWO | General Paranoia

The Columbian is reporting that South Central Cascadia is being hit by a wave of aluminum theft targeting guardrails, manhole covers, and baseball bleachers. While the explanation being given by NWO-aligned government officials is that the thieves are selling the metal for scrap to buy drugs, the obvious real reason is that the NWO is trying to limit the amount of aluminum barriers in the environment that could be blocking their psychotronic signals along roads and at ballparks. Government officials expressed kabuki-esque surprise that the thieves could manage to steal the large, bolted pieces of aluminum without anyone noticing. Conveniently, the "stolen" aluminum manhole covers are being replaced with psychotronically translucent steel ones, thereby allowing NWO agents lurking in our storm drains and sewers to freely target pedestrians.

The increase in "thefts" and attendant excuses by government officials point to a ramped-up mind control campaign by the combined forces of the DOT (possibly related to monorails) and the Minor League Baseball Cartel. Paranoids should be warned to wear extra aluminum protection while driving and pedestring and to not attend baseball games without first lining the seat of their pants with foil to thwart subbleacher psychotrons.

UPDATE: Newer report on aluminum "theft".

Lyle Zapato

Meet Ms. Red Ant

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-18.0520 LMT | Art | Nature
Red Ant icon

Another SVG icon, this time of a red ant.

Lyle Zapato

Experimental SVG Icons

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-16.8500 LMT | Art | Nature

African penguin icon Emperor penguin icon Treehopper icon

I've created two more vector icons -- an African and an Emperor penguin -- and have added SVG and PNG versions of all three on the Zapaticons page. These are still experimental and are subject to change. If your OS or desktop environment supports SVG icons, let me know if they work or if there's any issues with them. I'll add more once I'm satisfied with the format.

Lyle Zapato

Treehopper Vector Icon Preview

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-15.8220 LMT | Art | Nature
Treehopper icon

Thinking about my icons in the previous post reminded me of an idea I had a while back to make vectorized versions of some of them for use with newer operating systems and desktop environments that support that sort of thing. So I whipped up a take on my thorn-mimic treehopper icon. It's more cartoony and simplified, yet bold like the mighty treehopper himself! I'm undecided as to whether I should add vein lines in the wings -- if I do other insects, some, like dragonflies, will look better with them so I might add them for consistency's sake.

I'll put a vector version of it, and any other's I do, on the Zapaticons page when I figure out the best way to save it for use by OSs/DEs. Currently it's in SVG, but Inkscape adds extra info to the file that's unnecessary. (Anyone with any suggestions on this, feel free to email me.)

In the mean time, you can enjoy this rastorized version, which coincidentally makes the front page look more festive... Feliz Navibug!

Lyle Zapato

Penguiniconic Mystery

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-15.5900 LMT | Art | Crass Commercialism | Nature
Penguin T-Shirt

For some odd reason, lately people (11 to be precise) have been buying the Penguin t-shirt from my Zapaticons store. I say "odd reason" because it's the only thing from that store that anyone has bought in the almost one year that it's been there and people only started buying it in October. I haven't done any advertising of it other than the banner ad on the Zapaticons page that has been there since I added the store. I thought maybe it was because of the shirt's placing on Cafepress's search, but it only shows up on the third page for "penguin". I also thought it might have something to do with the increase in Cascadia sticker sales around the same time, but the only place where the two stores are mentioned together is on the front page sidebar, so that doesn't make sense.

What gives? Has there been a sudden outbreak of penguinophilia? Some sort of joint Penguin-Belgium psy-op campaign aimed at influencing my website?

Anyway, the Zapaticons store is a hodgepodge mess of random icons on random items; however, if penguins are so very, very popular (does no one appreciate the homopterrific cuteness of the thorn mimic treehopper?) I could increase the penguin-to-nonpenguin ratio there (I already added a second penguin shirt and two penguin ornaments), or add a separate penguinicon store with a full complement of penguiny products (unless that's what THEY want!) If anyone has any requests or suggestions regarding this, email me and I'll take it under advisement.

Lyle Zapato

French Monorail Trash

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-11.4840 LMT | Monorail Danger

Here's a look at the glorious future monorails offer...

Discarded monorail train
Old monorail train rotting in French garbage dumb, home to vagabonds and marmots since late 1960s.

This train was part of the SAFEGE suspended monorail, built in Saran, France in 1959 and discarded a mere decade later. Since that picture was smuggled out of France, the train remains have been recovered and transported to an abandoned military base, where they are under close guard by government officials. (More pictures of a SAFEGE train in disrepair here.)

Scene from 'Fahrenheit 451'
Deceptively futuristic looking images, common with monorail propaganda.

When operational (or at least as operational as monorails can be) the SAFEGE was featured in the 1966 film Fahrenheit 451 (see right) in order to give both the film and the SAFEGE an air of near-futuricity. Director and crypto-monorailist François Truffaut had the driver crouch down while filming its scenes so as to give viewers the false impression that it operated automatically.

Oddly, French directors seem to have some special connection to the monorail proponents, the significance of which I haven't yet determined. Last April, Seattle's KIRO TV learned that French director Olivier Venturini would be flown into Cascadia to produce TV ads for a $1.3 million pro-monorail propaganda campaign for the extension of Cascadian monorails. When a KIRO investigative reporter tried to ask him questions about the ads he refused to talk, clearly hiding some agenda.

The French were suckered into adopting monorails in the late 1950s, but ended up throwing them away when they became disillusioned with the constant spontaneous combustions and elephant accidents. Ten years -- and who knows how many dead people and circus animals -- from now, will Cascadia's proposed national monorail system end up strewn along the I-5 corridor, providing taxpayer-supported housing for raccoons?

Thanks to "Frenchy" in the guestbook for bringing this to my attention.

Lyle Zapato

Instinctive Fear Of Monorails In Pachyderms

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-09.2400 LMT | Monorail Danger | Elephants | Nature | Retro

While monorailist literature insinuates that they are a futuristic technology, monorails are actually archaic devices that predate the airplane. Case in point: the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal, Germany. This suspended monorail was built in 1901 and is still in operation -- thanks to the backroom influence of the Monorail Industry -- even though it exhibits all the dangers common to monorails; there have been train collisions, trucks hitting piers, and four people died in 1999 when a train derailed and fell into the river. However, even in the storied annals of monorail dangers, the Schwebebahn manages to impress with an incident involving an innocent baby elephant named Tuffi.

Elephant leaping from monorail
Tuffi's daring escape from the clutches of dastardly monorailists.

On July 21, 1950, the 3-year-old elephant, enslaved by a cruel circus-director/monorail-fanatic named Franz Althoff, was forced to board the Schwebebahn as part of an ill-conceived monorail propaganda stunt. Tuffi had suffered through many degrading stunts in the past -- Althoff had her driving streetcars and marching through department stores -- but she balked at riding on that dangerous contraption (the Wuppertaler Todesfalle as it was secretly called by locals). One and a half minutes into the ride, Tuffi freaked out, no doubt sensing something was awry with the train (in other words: normal monorailular operating conditions). In her instinctual desperation to escape death and with no other safe means of egress, she smashed a hole in a side window and, rather taking her chances with the Wupper river 5 meters below, bravely leapt through.

Tuffi was not seriously injured in the fall and was unfortunately recaptured shortly after. There's no telling what would have happened if she had stayed in the train, which was understandably stopped after experiencing an unexpected elephantine defenestration. Perhaps the train would have derailed or spontaneously combusted. We will never know for sure, but it is highly likely that the actions of this monorail-doubting pachyderm might have saved the lives of the human passengers.

(Of course, had this monorail been constructed over city streets instead of a river, as many monorails are or are planned to be, she would have been killed and probably have taken out some pedestrians and small cars too. When will people learn what even baby elephants seem to understand: monorails are a menace.)

Photos from the incident:

Thanks to reader Crosbie for bringing this to my attention.

Lyle Zapato

RSS Update

Lyle Zapato | 2004-12-08.3300 LMT | Site | Pneumatics

Many, many pneumatic tubes
Now you too can get blog in a tube delivered fresh to your pneumatic port array.

This blog now has two RSS 2.0 feeds:

Normal Feed
<description> has only the first 40 words from the post, stripped of all HTML and images. Saves on bandwidth.
Verbose Feed
<description> has the complete post as seen on the site, including links and images. For the lazy.

Choose the feed that best suits your purpose.

Furthermore, being the cutting edge innovator of Internetting technology that I am, I have also added a pneumatic tube feed using my newly invented ZPi Tublog™ technology. If you have p-tube connectivity, available through the Cascadian Postal Authority or your local pneumatic tube provider, you can now get freshly printed hard copies of my blog posts delivered right to your home. Who needs Push when you can Suck! No longer must you suffer the inconvenience and potential electromagnetic dangers of using a computer to read my random musings. To use, simply make sure there's an autoprinter/encapsulator attached to your tube network and point your pneumatic aggrivator to: PTube