Not just a pretty face

We watched a Hedy Lamarr film last night called 'Experiment Perilous'. I am not going to do a critique of it other than to say that I really enjoyed it. The lavish interiors, snow scenes in old NYC, the filming and the acting were a real treat.

Only a couple of days ago, I learned that Hedy Lamarr was much more than an extremely good-looking and gifted actress. She was also an inventor and engineer who is credited with creating a prototype Wi Fi system in the form of a 'frequency hopping' radio signal system capable of preventing the jamming of electrically-guided torpedoes. She felt guilty about escaping the war by making a lot of money in Hollywood, so she did her best to contribute to the effort by designing things which would help the Allied cause. She would bring her designs and calculations on set to work on them between takes. Who would have thought it?

One of her less successful inventions was a carbonated soft drink which even she described as tasting like Alka Seltzer. She described herself as having 'hobbies'. Maybe you knew of this already, but I don't know how I have got through all my life without.

I love finding out surprising and uplifting things like this about people.

While I am here, I want to make a tiny complaint (it would not seem right if I didn't). I follow quite a few people in Blogland who used to write posts almost every day, but now it seems all the work in our circle is being done by a handful of us. My reading list has gone from a bit too much to about four contributors, and I may have to widen my circle if I want to be entertained by others for longer than three minutes. Get writing.