Word: thumbtacks
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Hayhanen, in his richly accented voice, detailed the life and times of a modern spy. He made his first contact with "Mark" (Abel's code name) merely by sticking a thumbtack into a sign in a Manhattan park, met Abel later at a prearranged rendezvous in a theater smoking room. From then on, Hayhanen, Abel and a few underlings passed information and money to one another by using a variety of Hitch-cocky gimmicks. The agents slipped their material into hollowed-out coins, flashlight batteries, pencils and bolts, left them in such courier drops as a lamppost, phone-booth...
...battery of this sort, no bigger than the head of a thumbtack, produces 20 microwatts of electricity, which is more than enough to run an electronic watch that Elgin is working on. It will also operate small transistor radios, and Elgin researchers believe that it will eventually be used in hearing aids. When worn in close contact with the human body, the battery must be enclosed in a metal shield that makes it as big as a cough drop (0.2 in. thick, 0.6 in. in diameter). For use in military guided missiles, the atomic battery has the important advantage...
Should he dislike a teacher-and he frequently does-he may put a thumbtack on her chair. "However, when he is resisting some task such as learning the complications of English grammar and strenuously feels that he 'won't need to know these in life,' he is only further upset by a teacher who agrees with him. At that very moment he is almost begging for authority, an authority that says . . . that there are certain things you have to do in life whether you like it or not." Thirteen is a man of conscience, and though there...
...write . . . All my friends here in Combat Control would like to extend a formal invitation to the U.S.S.R. parachute-jumping team to a spot jumping contest. We don't think chalk crosses (so many feet wide) are quite sporting; we'd rather a silver dollar, thumbtack or playing card were used for a mark...
...also made Harry Truman as sore as a hoptoad in a thumbtack factory by suggesting in 1948 that the Democrats ought to get a better presidential candidate. After Truman was nominated, O'Dwyer gave him the biggest motorcycle escort ever assembled in New York, but the President, though virtually deafened by sirens, did not forgive...