That’s just the first page of a 100-question test given to an eighth-grade class in 1954 USA. Be sure to check out the rest and see if you can answer them with present-day figures. While the question remains whether or not this was an open book test, and I wonder about the ultimate utility of the information the kids had to memorize, from the comments on the source it is apparent that our present-day eighth graders are not receiving this level of civic/government education. Via BlackInformant.

Internet Archaeology is a website that you’ll be able waste a majority of your day on.  Welcome back to mid-90’s internet!

by: PeteChicago

One day, you’ll wish they were all as simple minded as these…

Peruse this massive robot collection

via Hey Look What I Can Do

Complex did a great job with this story.  I had totally forgotten about The Bomb, plus there are great looks inside of all these old mags.

See it all here

On July 21st, 1971 the headline ‘Taki 183′ Spawns Pen Pals appeared in the NY Times.  On May 13th, 2009, Taki 183 got a website.  The first two lines of the Times article read as such “Taki is a Manhattan teenager who writes his name and his street number everywhere he goes. He says it is something he just has to do.”  I didn’t want to pay for the rest of the article but, you can (or if you’re smart, download it from his site or peep it after the jump.)  I am more concerned with spending my money on one of the spraypainted prints that are for sale on his website.  Yes, that tag above is original, and spraypainted by Taki himself.  True graffiti history.

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I can credit Roger Gastman for first introducing me to Shepard Fairey.  His magazine While You Were Sleeping was ahead of its time in all aspects of culture and taste (or lack thereof).  I dug through my old stacks recently and decided to reproduce this great interview with Shepard Fairey from the 4th issue of WYWS.  Long before Museum Retrospectives and Obama posters, Fairey was paying his dues just like every other artist.

Enjoy.

From: While You Were Sleeping, Issue 4, 1998

Why Andre The Giant?

I saw his picture in the newspaper and saw it as something that I could show my friend how to cut a stencil. I was just amused by it and we decided to make it our inside joke, that it was going to be the new cool skate posse. It makes fun of the popular culture, but it is a popular  culture phenomenon. It makes fun of consumerism but then I encourage people to buy a t-shirt because it funds me making more stickers. It was just a really funny memorable picture. He is an oddity. This was around 1989. We put the stickers around town. I thought it would just be a joke that lasted a few weeks. I made the original sticker with a ball point pen and a photo copy machine. For some reason people kept asking where that sticker came from. They wanted to know if it was a band, a cult or what? I was even in the line at the super market and heard people talking about. That’s when the plan started to unfold. The more you put out there, the more people are going to think it means something important. It was just something funny to do. The local indie paper had a contest that anyone who writes in and says what the Andre the Giant sticker campaign was really about would win tickets to a show. This was going on in Providence, Rhode Island. I had a few friends who were doing it for me in their cities.

You don’t have a sick fascination with giants?

Not at all. It’s just the power of propaganda.

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Bringing you a little web history, Bert is Evil. The site has been around as long as I can remember. Enjoy.