Travel Thursday!
In honor of the late G. Gordon Liddy, how about a tour of the Watergate Hotel?
Bonus #1: I’m kind of bending one of my own rules here, but I’m thinking of this less as military history and more as “also inspired by current events”.
The Battleship New Jersey folks put up a video the other day about transiting the Suez and Panama canals.
Bonus #2: What the heck, let’s do some more ships. From the “Great British Royal Ships” series, “RMS Queen Mary”.
Man, one year of this. And I haven’t missed a day of being a lazy, shiftless blogger.
I thought today I’d do a sort of call back to the video that started it all, but from a different time – the 1980s – and a different source – the US Air Force. Even though it is an Air Force video, I consider it to be closer thematically to “Vehicle Ambush: Counterattacks”.
“Terrorism: A Survivable Threat”.
Bonus #1: “5 Police Cars Most Police Wish They Still Drove”.
Bonus #2: I’m not a huge fan of Jay Leno’s Garage, but since I’m doing cop stuff, and since I’ve written some in the past year about the California Highway Patrol, I thought I’d put this up: “Classic California Highway Patrol Cars”.
Here’s a little something for Military History Monday that’s at the intersection of military history and film history.
I’ve written before about Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War (affiliate link). Here’s another work from one of the five: Mister Wonderful Life himself, Frank Capra.
“Know Your Enemy: Japan”.
Bonus: “Prelude to War”, from the “Why We Fight” series, also directed by Capra.
The US National Archives has a “Why We Fight” playlist, if you’re interested.
Science Sunday!
I’ve got a few things for you today. First up: “ABCs of Radiation” with “Illinois EnergyProf“, which gives a nice explanation of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation for the uninitiated. You know, for kids.
Bonus #1: Some kind person appears to have uploaded all of Jonathan Miller‘s “The Body In Question” series to the ‘Tube. I wanted to see this when it was first run on PBS in America, but for some reason I don’t recall at the moment was unable to.
Here’s episode #1:
Bonus #2: Have you ever asked yourself, “How do atomic clocks work?”
Here’s how the The NIST-F2 Atomic Clock works:
And here’s a more general introduction:
Bonus #3: which, of course, was nicely set up by the previous videos. This guy’s voice is right on the ragged edge of annoying for me (he reminds me of Inspector Clouseau), but I thought the content was worthwhile for HP fans: the HP 5061A Cesium Clock.
When I win the lottery, one of the things I want to collect is a complete run of the “Notable British Trials” series. I have a few paperbacks which contain edited versions of some of the trials, but I don’t have any complete volumes, reprint or otherwise.
One of the paperbacks I do have contains the trial of William Joyce. Students of history may know him better as “Lord Haw Haw“.
“The Story of Lord Haw Haw and his Trial”, a 2015 BBC radio documentary. Since this is radio, you could put it on as background while you do something else.
Bonus: As long as we’re talking about trials, here’s a little something from the “Timeline” folks: “The Origins of Witch Trials”, part 1:
Part 2:
Here’s a two-parter for you. From 1966, and an old show for children called “Discovery“.
“The World Beneath the Sea”, part 1. This is mostly about marine animal life.
“The World Beneath the Sea”, part 2. This concentrates a lot on things like scuba diving, minisubs, and SeaLab II, which would have been right up my alley when I was a child (and is still right up my alley today).
Travel Thursday!
Today, we journey to the Outer Limit.
Well, actually, not that one, though these folks did manage to control the horizontal and the vertical.
This is a vintage (1969) promo film from Boeing, “The Outer Limit”, about the flight testing and introduction of the 747.
I’m fudging the definition of travel a bit with that one, but it is short. The next one is, admittedly, long, but it lets me cross another state off the list, and it is a place I enjoy visiting.
“The City of Las Vegas, the Early Years”. This covers the period from 1905 to 1920. See? Who says Vegas doesn’t have a sense of history?
Bonus: I’ve griped before about the hard hat tour of Hoover Dam (which I was lucky enough to go on) and how it was shut down after 9/11. Well, here’s a video (a little over 30 minutes long) of the hard hat tour from March 2001.
“If you’re going home by plane, wear the hard hat on the plane. It scares the heck out of the other passengers.” Man, wasn’t that a simpler time?
Let’s take a coffee break.
“The £299 Aldi Espresso Machine – How Bad Could It Be?”
Oddly enough, I don’t shop at Aldi either, and for the same reason: the nearest one to us is about 30 miles away.
Bonus #1: Since we’ve talked about an espresso machine, how about we talk about a can opener? A very specialized can opener, that is: this one opens powder cans for the 16″ guns on the Battleship New Jersey.
Bonus #2, and a little shout-out to the Saturday Night Movie Group. From the “Old Car Memories” channel, Jim Rockford’s Firebird.
I was talking with my brother about calculator watches recently, which reminded me of this video from Techmoan: “Hewlett Packard HP-01 1977’s Smartest Watch”.
As a HP geek, I would kind of like to have one of these: however, examples in good condition are expensive.
Bonus #1: I also thought it might be interesting to do some startup videos. Not tech startups, but starting up things. For example, an Airbus A320:
Bonus #2: Or a railroad locomotive.
Bonus #3: Or a DC-3.
Bonus #4: Or a tractor, “with a 12 guage shotgun shell”. I believe this gives new meaning to the term “shotgun start“.
Yeah, I think we’re doing Military History Monday. Also, I have a doctor’s appointment today, and expect to be pretty much useless afterwards, so I’m queuing up a couple of longer ones.
This is an OSS training film from 1944, “Undercover”.
Bonus: “Evading Capture in Enemy Territory” from 1957.
I have an idea that I’m still kicking around in my head for a post on a somewhat related topic: OPSEC, or operational security. You’d be surprised (unless you’re someone like Borepatch) how many people seem to have no concept of OPSEC and make basic stupid mistakes…
Science Sunday!
I’ve been fascinated by rocks and rock hunting and geology since I was a young child.
I’m just not very good at it. So instead, I enjoy reading the works of others, like John McPhee.
Mr. McPhee talks with Eldridge Moores, a University of California geologist (and collaborator with Mr. McPhee on Assembling California) and reads from Annals of the Former World (affiliate link).
Bonus #1: “A Brief History of Colorado Through Time”. I used to collect those “Roadside Geology of…” books. I should at least go out and replace my copy of Roadside Geology of Texas (affiliate link). Perhaps I will be able to use it soon.
Bonus #2: “Flood Basalts of the Pacific Northwest”. Or, giant lava flows!
I’m a Marxist.
But talking about flywheels…”F–k Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades“. Or in this case, five flywheels.
A flywheel trebuchet? Why not!
Okay, one more, sort of related to things that spin fast: “The Story of Hoover Dam”. Some nice turbine footage in this one.