Tidbits

In 1990s, California, headed by Gov. Davis introduced Power Exchange (PX) program - deregulation of market for price competition and transparency. This was lobbied by Enron.

Enron, power generators and George Backus, a consultant with Perot Systems (who developed the systems to manage PX) explored loopholes to artificially +/- production of electricity, leading to state wide blackouts and high volatility in prices. Enron secured $1.7 billions in profits. Prices rocketed off - leading to “California Power Crisis of 2001”. Govt. agreed to pay $47 billion to purchase electricity at a 20 year contract - a huge loss.

All this went very bad for Gov. Davis which paved the way for Arnold to take over and win the California elections in 2003.

In 1953, General Mills, through its Mechanical Division collaborated with James Ryan to develop the first indigenous “Flight Recorder” or Black Box for airplanes. James would go on to develop the first auto retractable seat belt for cars.

Its Electronics division developed Alvin, a deep underwater exploration sub that was the first used to investigate Titanic wreckage in 1960s.

It acquired Pillsbury, world’s largest cake manufacturer & developed space foods for NASA including Space Food Sticks that would become the world’s first Energy Bars.

In 1960s, it acquired Parker Brothers who sold the famous game “Monopoly” and also Kerner, who developed the first Star Wars toys. General Mills became the largest toy company in the 1970s.

Apollo 11 program was the first space program that landed the humans on Moon. It was headed by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

After spending more than 2.5 hours on the surface, they were ready to liftoff from the Moon. Yet, Aldrin had accidentally damaged a circuit breaker inside the module, leading to main engine not being able to start. Aldrin later used a marker pen to complete the circuit and start the engine for takeoff.

Funnily, Buzz Aldrin was also popular for his temper. He was once confronted by a moon-conspiracy theorist who said that moon landings were fake. Buzz was upset and punched him right in the face.

MCD, the billion dollar fast food chain has more than 15,000 franchise outlets globally. Yet, McDonald’s is perhaps one of the unluckiest in establishing a unique space franchise outlet.

In 1899, a couple of German scientists discovered an asteroid and decided to name it as 449 Hamburga, after Hamburg, a city in Germany.

In the early 1990s, NASA along with its affiliate, Jet Propulsion Lab, attempted to land a spacecraft on 449 Hamburga. Since McDonald’s hamburgers were quite popular and the names shared similarity, the company chose to act as the sponsor for the project. It was part of a PR campaign.

Yet, the project went beyond its initial estimated budget and was abandoned. And that’s how, MCD lost a golden opportunity to franchise an asteroid!

There are some curious facts about Xbox and PS like…

In 2010, the US Air Force built the 33rd largest Supercomputer core using 1760 Playstation consoles. The “Condor Cluster” had an overall cost of just 5-10% of an equivalent system created from computer parts. It was used for image processing, radar & AI.

In 2018, US Navy launched a highly upgraded version of submarines that contained modern periscopes operated via Xbox controllers as they were cheaper and quite familiar among young sailors.

The original Xbox contained edited whispers & transmissions from Apollo space missions that could be heard if you left the console on Home Screen for some time.

Judith Love Cohen, was a post-graduate in Electrical engineering from USC. She always had a love for astronomy. She joined Space Texhnology Laboratories, a contractor for NASA.

In there, she worked on interesting projects like developing guidance system for missiles, system for tracking data and Relay Satellite system. One such was the Abort Guidance System that helped the Apollo 13 astronauts to travel back to earth after the on-board navigation system collapsed.

It so happened, that she was due to give birth to her fourth child, Jack when she was busy with the project. She then took a printout of the problem to the hospital and worked out the solution in there.

Fun fact: Her fourth child, Jack Black, became a Hollywood actor!

The 1960s were famous for the US - Apollo Space Missions that put humans on Moon. Six missions were successful in it.

Ronald Hunkeler, a NASA engineer helped in these to patent a technology that made spacecrafts withstand the extreme spatial heat & provide a mechanical support.

Little known that Ronald was a victim of “demonic possession” in 1949. He was put through a series of medical tests. The family also brought in a pastor to exorcise him & was later admitted to a hospital in St. Louis where he got healed.

In fact, a young author, William Peter Blatty, took Ronald’s example for his famous horror novel - “The Exorcist” that sold more than 14 million copies worldwide. Later, its movie went on to win a Golden Globe and two Oscars in 1974!

In 2011, Nick Huzar was frustrated with eBay for a bad UX. So, he along with his friend started OfferUp - a smartphone based C2C online marketplace.

The app allowed interaction without revealing personal info. Sellers can list items by just uploading pics & buyers can quickly select items to buy. It also has public MeetUp spots near police stations where users transact face to face.

Due to its popularity, its “Screen Time” rocketed to 25 mins/day - same as Instagram & Snapchat. It had more P2P transactions than eBay had in 10 years. By 2020, it had a valuation of $10 billion.

Today, it is one of the top 50 apps on Android & iOS with 20 million active users per month!