Long lasting paint: 1905

It may have had some technical limitations, but they sure made up for it in artistry.

Useless: 1761

Q. What is electricity?

A. It is that property certain bodies, heated by friction, have of attracting and repelling, alternatively, other thin and light bodies, such as straw, bits of paper, gold-leaf, etc.

--From The Universal Magazine--

Can you believe people spent time and money researching this? On "electricity", what a waste!

Hipsters: 1902

Advice by cable from the foreign centers of style guide the artists and highly trained workers who are creating Wooltex styles. That's why they lead. That's why a Wooltex garment can be worn in any city in America or Europe with the certainty that it is au fait.

--From The Delineator--

Information is a commodity so valuable that people can be impressed if they merely think you have it.

Breast augmentation: 1661

That Womens Breasts may be made like to Virgins Breasts.

...it is proved by experience, that a scale Fish laid to Womens breasts, will so bind them together, that they will look like Virgins breasts. The same may be done to the Secrets [We know what that word means!]. Let those who are given to pleasure and ornament prick up their ears.

--From Eighteen books of the secrets of art and nature--

 Over the past few day's reading I've come to the conclusion that many of the medical technologies we have qualms about today--breast (and vaginal) cosmetic surgery, genetic engineering of offspring, chemical castration--would have been used in the past. They even tried using them, they just didn't have the means to make them work.

Fire extinguishers: 1668

How to make dainty sport with a Cat.

"Dainty"; this should be nice.

If you will have some sport with a Cat, then get a little Bell, such as the tame Hawkes have at their legs, and tye the Bell something hard...

Uh oh!

...at the end of the Cats taile, and let her go, the feeling, of her tail smart, and hearing of the Bell gingle, she will run up and down as if she were mad, flying against the walls and windows...

Okay, that was pretty awful.

Some have shod a Cat round, with putting melted Pitch into four Walnut-shels, and placing her feet therein, and she will make pretty sport.

Oh My God!

I was told of a merry Fellow that came into an Ale-house in cold weather, and finding but a reasonable Fire, said, He would make the Cat piss it out, and watching his oppertunity, he getteth his Hostesses Cat, putting her head betwixt his thighs, and holding her four feet fast in one hand, and with the other hand held up her taile near the fire, and did piss such aboundance that she quite quenched the same.

Ha!

--From A Rich Cabinet--

Encrypted email: 1668

How to write Love-letters secretly, or From one Friend to another, that cannot be discovered.

Take a sheet of white Paper, and double it in the middle, then cut holes through both the half-sheets, let the holes be cut like panes of Glass-windows, or other forms that you best fancy, and then pin prick holes at each end, and cut your paper in two halfs, give one to your Friend... ...the other half keep to your self: Now when you do write, lay your cut paper on a half sheet of writing Paper, and stick two Pins through the two holes that it stir not, then through those holes that you did cut, write your minde to your Friend; when you have done, take off your Paper with the holes again, and then write some other idle words both before and after your lines, but if they were written to make some little sense, it would carry the less suspicion; then seal it up, and send it.

--From A Rich Cabinet--

I take it by "Love-letters" they mean "Plots to overthrow the king" and by "Friends" they mean "Conspirators". Does this mean I have the mind of a jailer or a revolutionary? I suppose when someone in government has these thoughts they are those of a jailer, and when a citizen, they are the thoughts of a revolutionary.

Kitchen gadgets: 1668

An excellent way for baking of Bread, that it shall not be hard crusted, nor yield so many crums.

Goe to the Plate-worker, (such as maketh ordinary Dripping-pans) and cause him to make a Pot... ...according as you mean the bigness of your Loaf shall be... ...when it is done, take a little Butter, and annoint the in-side of the pot there-with, and when your Dow is moulded put it in the same...

--From A Rich Cabinet--

While I like a hard crust, it's funny to learn that all the people who don't are the ones who have traditional taste buds, because having a soft crust on bread was a selling point in 1668.

Rocket propulsion: 1668

You may make Figures of what shape your fancy best pleaseth: the body must be made of light wicker rods, and in the midst of the body let there be placed an axel-tree, having two Wheels coming into the water, yet so as they may not be seen: these Wheels must be made hollow, to contain a quantity of sand or water: the use of it is to keep the body of your Figure upright, and able to sink it so far into the water as is needful, and likewise to make it swim more steady: note that these Wheels must be lose, and the axel-tree fast: in the midst of the axel-tree place three or four Rockets one by another, with their mouths all one way: yet so provided that there may be such a distance between each Rocket, that there may come a vent from the tayl of the first to the mouth of the second, and from the second to the third. And to the end that may continue the longer in motion, you may place divers lights about the Body, to make it more beautiful; every of which lights extinguishing shall give a report, and so conclude.

--From A Rich Cabinet--

If you were watching a fireworks display in 1668 you might be sitting on a boat, or on the shore of a river. Rocket-propelled mermaids and whales would float by, covered in lights that made loud noises as they went out. Someone would have built a small castle, from the door of which a dragon would emerge, spitting flames. Then Neptune, riding on a sea-horse would fight him. There would be fountains of fire, and other such wonders, but there also would be a real story and a clear demonstration of art involved.

With our high-flying fireworks displays of today, that's something we hardly ever see. I can only imagine what it must have been like, because I've never seen a fireworks display that sounds half as good as one of theirs. Fireworks just seem kind of boring to me, and compared to what used to be done with them, they are.

Fireworks: 1666

Above twelve thousand houses were burnt down, with the greatest part of the furniture and merchandise that was in them. All means used to stop it proved ineffectual; though the blowing up of houses was the most effectual of any.

--From History of his own Times--

Sometimes you fight fire with fire, sometimes you fight fire with explosives.

Forklifts: 1681

Sometimes they were used as pictured above and sometimes they were used thus:

The Keepers of the Kings Elephants sometimes make a sport with them after this manner. They will command an Elephant to take up water, which he does, and stands with it in his Trunk, till they command him to squirt it out at some body, which he immediately will do, it may be a whole paleful together, and with such a force, that a man can hardly stand against it.

--From An historical relation of the island Ceylon--

Things can be both horrifying and humorous, but if you treat everything as a joke, shielding your mind from the existence of horrors, you may find yourself facing some terrifying possibilities.

Cell phone towers: 1794

The original telegraph was a series of towers built across France (see map). The aerials on top of the towers could be used to make shapes. Each shape could be looked up in a code book and deciphered into letters, words, or numbers.

Messages could be sent across vast distances in this manner, passed from operators in one tower to the next. Reception was limited to line of site, but this system had obvious advantages in detecting and responding to foreign military operations.

More information is available here and here.

Car reviews: 1835

They performed a road test:

I find on this hard road the wheels are severely tried; but this road, hard as it is, has been of inestimable value to me in regard to experience, pointing out, with unerring certainty, where more strength is wanting.

Reported on reliability:

The crank shaft severed at a bad part of the bad pavement in Finsbury-square a day or two after she commenced running; but this was replaced, and the carriage started the next morning at the usual hour, and has ever since continued at work, with the omission of only one journey...

On mileage:

The consumption of coke has hitherto been from 8 to 12 lbs. a mile, and about 100 lbs. of water for the same distance.

And safety:

We have, up to this time, carried nearly 4,000 passengers in perfect safety.

--From Arcana of science and art--

Chevy Volt: 1640

This painting is supposedly illustrating Tulip Mania. I guess financial bubbles make people dream of alternative energy vehicles; everything is possible when money isn't an issue.

Microwave ovens: 1888

After a winter of "light housekeeping " over a diminutive lamp stove—the size costing one dollar, or a trifle more or less, and which holds a quart of kerosene— Abbie Fletcher would have no more parted with it than would Aladdin with the lamp that so readily summoned a powerful genie to his aid....

A lamp stove?

...During the winter, the lamp—with one or two utensils such as a small frying pan, double boiler, etc.,—had been sufficient to provide due variety of food for two or three persons, as excellent bakeries were close at hand to supply deficiencies...

It was a tiny stove, powered by a lamp, that you could use to cook small, convenient meals.

...Water may thus be quickly heated at all hours, in case of sickness, or to warm a baby's food ; tea is quickly prepared for any belated traveler who comes after the range fire is out; a flatiron can always be ready for the dressmaker....

You could use it for simple things, like heating water or making tea.

...Being a wise woman, Miss Fletcher did not attempt great reforms in the family routine at first, but let her favorite introduce itself gradually. It was first used to make tea on hot summer nights, and once when bread failed she made biscuit for supper thus: One pint of flour,...

...True, they required half an hour for baking, while fifteen or twenty minutes would have sufficed in a range oven...

They had special recipes with special cooking times.

...it was necessary to turn them à la griddle cake that they might brown well on top...

And browning was an issue.

--From Good Housekeeping--

Pirating: 1898

Every reader of The Black Cat and every publisher knows that its stories are copyrighted, and that each number gives due notice of such legal protection. No better evidence of the superior excellence of The Black Cat stories is needed than the fact that the property of no other periodical has been so widely pirated. In their anxiety to publish the cleverest short stories of the day, a number of the foremost papers have repeatedly been led to disregard the Eighth Commandment.

--From The Black Cat--

Is the pirating of intellectual property a major problem of the internet age, or is it only a problem that is easier to see with the use of the internet (because you can google your own copyrighted material)?

Flying: 1893

If you wanted to do it without a balloon, you needed a hill to jump off of.

The pilot died three years after this, from breaking his spine in a flying accident.

We always say how sad it is when people die in stunts, but people like this weren't in it for just the thrill, they were really doing something!

--From Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution--

Computing: 1617

Napier's bones were a series of rods which could be used to perform mathematical functions. Here's what a biographer, writing in 1787, had to say about them:

Napier's arithmetical machines and those afterwards invented, a few of which we shall enumerate, although the monuments of genius, must, in general, be regarded as mathematical curiosities of no use.

--From An account of the life, writings, and inventions of John Napier--

Text messaging: 1849

TALKING BY TELEGRAPH

Not content with the wonders the Electric Telegraph performs--not satisfied with its facility in announcing outbreaks--aye, and making them also, now and then--it has been proposed to apply its powers to the operations of every-day life, and to carry on ordinary conversations by means of the Electric Telegraph....

...We should be glad to see speakers in the House of Commons limited to the use of the machine, which would prevent the other Members from being overwhelmed by the drowsiness which the soporific qualities of tone and style will induce...

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

Can you imagine people sending text messages for everyday conversations? Ridiculous!

Product life cycles: 1620

Whereas in the mechanical arts, which are founded on nature and the light of experience, we see the contrary happen, for these (as long as they are popular) are continually thriving and growing, as having in them a breath of life; at first rude, then convenient, afterwards adorned, and at all times advancing.

--From The New Organum--

Bacon isn't inspired by Greek philosophies, in fact he points out the lack of progress they have achieved over their two thousand years of existence.  Instead he is inspired by the product life cycle of machines, which he is able to notice in 1620.  He wants to let human senses and understanding improve in the same way he sees technology improving around him.