Core77’s editors spend time combing through the news so you don’t have to. Here’s a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
The Man Who Invented Intelligent Traffic Control a Century Too Early
Today I’m reading about Charles Adler, a visionary inventor who started developing automotive safety devices in the 1920s. Among other things, he came up with this electromagnetic apparatus that could be installed at dangerous curves; when a car drove past it, the magnets would trip a speed governor inside the car and automatically slow it down. This dude was basically inventing smart roads and smart cars almost 100 freaking years ago.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
A Brief History of the Haunted House
I was driving through my grandparents’ small town in Maryland over the weekend and noticed that every few houses or so would have a bright orange sign that read “Spooky Halloween House.” This got me thinking—what do rural towns do for Halloween when most people live on farms and their small town is…small? It looks like some places are keeping early 20th century traditions alive by letting people bounce from haunted house to haunted house—I’m into it. Now I’m wondering how this would go over in a bigger city.
—Emily Engle, editorial assistant
http://www.core77.com/posts/57406/A-Brief-History-of-the-Haunted-House-and-The-Original-Intelligent-Traffic-Control-SystemFrom-the-1920s