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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 353

Friday, March 19th, 2021

I was thinking about insurance.

This is a short film from the 1980s about Lloyd’s of London and how it works.

Something that I find kind of interesting is the Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF). The basic idea is: if something comes up at sea that requires a salvage operation, the two parties (the one being salvaged and the one doing the salvaging) sign a LOF.

The LOF is called “open” because it specifies no particular sum for the salvage job. Indeed it may not specify a sum, as salvage is not a “contract for services”, but an agreement to provide a service in the hope of a “reward” to be determined later by an arbitration hearing in London, where several QCs practising at the Admiralty Bar specialise as maritime arbitrators.

One of the key aspects of the LOF is: “No Cure, No Pay.”

Traditionally, the salvage reward has been subject to the salvor successfully saving the ship or cargo, and if neither is saved, the salvor gets nothing, however much time and money has been spent on the project.

Back in 1978, an oil tanker, the Amoco Cadiz, ran into some problems: it encountered a storm that damaged the rudder and caused a hydraulic fluid leak. The captain called for assistance: the responding salvor wanted the captain to agree to a LOF.

One of the books I’ve read on the subject states that the captain was resistant to signing a LOF, as he felt he’d be signing an open-ended commitment, while the salvors were reluctant to proceed without a LOF. Ultimately, the captain agreed, but the situation had deteriorated…

…and the Amoco Cadiz ran aground off the coast of Brittany and dumped over 220,000 tons (metric) of oil into the sea.

Semi-related, because we’re talking about oil: “Fires of Kuwait”. For once, something in high-res.

Posted in History, Ships | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 352

Thursday, March 18th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

I’ve been neglecting the United States. Technically, I still am, as today’s presentation is a place that isn’t a state: the place that my sister and her family refer to as “WashingtonDCOurNation’sCapital” (all one word).

From 1945, “The District of Columbia”, part of the “This Land Of Ours” series.

Bonus: and if you liked that one, here’s another one from 1954 and Esso (aka “Standard Oil Company of New Jersey”). “Welcome to Washington”.

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 351

Wednesday, March 17th, 2021

Today, some real history.

A while back, when Morlock Publishing’s Twitter feed was public, he retweeted a fascinating quote from someone’s book.

“The meteorite itself was so massive that it didn’t notice any atmosphere whatsoever,” said Rebolledo. “It was traveling 20 to 40 kilometers per second, 10 kilometers — probably 14 kilometers — wide, pushing the atmosphere and building such incredible pressure that the ocean in front of it just went away.”
These numbers are precise without usefully conveying the scale of the calamity. What they mean is that a rock larger than Mount Everest hit planet Earth traveling twenty times faster than a bullet. This is so fast that it would have traversed the distance from the cruising altitude of a 747 to the ground in 0.3 seconds. The asteroid itself was so large that, even at the moment of impact, the top of it might have still towered more than a mile above the cruising altitude of a 747. In its nearly instantaneous descent, it compressed the air below it so violently that it briefly became several times hotter than the surface of the sun.

That someone turned out to Peter Brannen, and his book is The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions (affiliate link).

Here’s a talk at Google from 2017. He does go off into climate change about 25 minutes in, so you could maybe punch out when you’ve had enough. I think his discussion of things like Chicxulub make this worth it. (I was actually not aware that there was a controversy over whether that killed the dinosaurs: I thought the science was settled.)

Bonus: since the Ides of March have just passed, how about an episode of “Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall Of An Empire” on Caesar?

Bonus #2: while I guess this is semi-thematically appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day, I’m bookmarking this here because of my interest in crime, law, and prison breaks.

“Unlocking the Maze”, about the escape of 38 IRA prisoners from the maximum security Long Kesh prison on September 25, 1983. Again, I am not making a political statement here: I just find prison breaks fascinating.

Posted in Bookmarks, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 350

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021

I got dragged into a meeting that took a lot longer than I expected. Which means I’m starting my lunch a lot later than I expected. Which means I’m queuing up this post a lot later than I expected. Which means a handful of random today.

First off, you know I had to include this, even if it does draw a little too much on random gun crankery: Lena Miculek shoots her mom’s “Space Gun”. Which is actually a custom Remington XP-100 chambered in 6mm BR.

Bonus: here’s something for Lawrence, and for other “Simpsons” fans: “Worker and Parasite” exists. No, really. And I’m not talking about this:

This is something called “The Millionaire”, an animated Soviet propaganda cartoon.

What the Hell was that?

Bonus #2: “Inside The F1 Medical Car”. This is fairly recent, and also fairly short.

Bonus #3: I’m not a real big car guy, but I found this video weirdly compelling. I think there’s actually something compelling in general (well, at least for me, but it seems like I hear this from other folks, too) about watching people do teardowns. In this case, the presenter is tearing down a Corvette LS7 engine that is totally locked up: it won’t even turn. But why?

Bonus #4: “C’est un Nagra. C’est suisse, et tres, tres precis.”

Posted in Cars, Guns, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 349

Monday, March 15th, 2021

Military History Monday!

I have a long one today, but let’s start off with something that’s a little shorter.

We’re pretty much right in the middle of the anniversary of the Battle of Khe Sanh, so please to enjoy this Marine Corps documentary (“in color!”). I’m not totally happy with the quality of this, but I feel like it is appropriate to post something in remembrance of the battle.

Long bonus, so you’re only getting two today: I’ve got to save something for next week. “The Foreign Legion : Men Without a Past”, about the current (as of 2005 or thereabouts) French Foreign Legion.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 348

Sunday, March 14th, 2021

Science Sunday! And Happy Pi Day!

I was hoping to find some good Pi related videos on YouTube. Instead, I turned up a lot of crap about something called “Pi Coin”, which sounds to me like a scam cryptocurrency. (Is “scam cryptocurrency” redundant? In any case, I’m putting my money into DogeCoin.)

I thought about posting some pie related videos, but I can’t quite stretch my definition of science that far.

So maybe a grab bag of science randomness?

“I Make Guncotton (Nitrocellulose) With Hardware Store Ingredients, Again.” Never know when this might come in handy.

Bonus #1: “The Rocket: Solid and Liquid Propellant Motors”. Vintage 1947, and a nice explanation of how solid and liquid propellant rockets work.

Bonus #2: This is a little on the darker side, but I feel like there’s at least one person (besides me) who might find it interesting: “A History of Nerve Agents” with Dan Kaszeta, the author of Toxic: A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin’s Russia (affiliate link, but since this is from Oxford University Press, it’s a bit on the pricy side).

Posted in Explosives, Geek, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 347

Saturday, March 13th, 2021

Talk, talk, it’s only talk. Elephant talk.

But seriously, folks: from our pals at the National Security Agency, “The Last Elephant Cage”, a short documentary on the FLR-9 antenna in Alaska.

Bonus #1: in keeping with today’s radio theme, and crossing over with some other folks, from the OH8STN Ham Radio channel, “Grid Down Comms Ham Radio & Texas”.

Bonus #2: and along the same lines, but longer: “Mike Glover Talks Ham Radio and Preparedness” with Josh from the Ham Radio Crash Course channel.

Noted: the Ham Radio Crash Course channel has a video coming up on “Building A Communications Go Bag or Get Home Bag“. Might be of interest to some folks in my audience.

Posted in History, Radio | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 346

Friday, March 12th, 2021

Today’s videos go out to FotB Andrew, because.

“The Original Mackinac Bridge Story”, about the history and construction of the bridge.

Opened in 1957, the 26,372-foot-long (4.995 mi; 8.038 km) bridge (familiarly known as “Big Mac” and “Mighty Mac”) is the world’s 24th-longest main span and the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere.

Bonus #1: because one bridge documentary isn’t enough. “Building the Mighty Mac”. This one is a little better quality, I believe.

To the best of my recollection, I have never been on the Mackinac Bridge. I wouldn’t mind making that drive someday, but the last time I was in Michigan, I wasn’t anywhere near the bridge.

Bonus #2: “Challenge at Glen Canyon”. Back in 1983, the Glen Canyon Dam had a problem. There’d been a heavier than expected snowfall that winter, which in turn led to more runoff as the snow melted. This in turn required the dam operators to open the spillways.

At the beginning of June, dam operators opened the gates on the left spillway, sending 10,000 cubic feet per second (280 m3/s), less than one-tenth of capacity, down the tunnel into the river below. After a few days, the entire dam suddenly began to shake violently. The spillway was closed down for inspections and workers discovered that the flow of water was causing cavitation – the explosive collapse of vacuum pockets in water moving at high speed – which was damaging the concrete lining and eroding the rock spillway tunnels from the upper ends of the diversion tunnels, which connect to the bottom of the reservoir. This was rapidly being destroyed by the cavitation and it was feared that a connection would be made to the bottom of Lake Powell, compromising the dam’s foundation and causing the dam to fail.

While some people might have enjoyed seeing the dam fail, it would have caused a lot of problems downstream. So the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had to fix the spillway issue. But how?

Posted in Bridges, History, Roads | 2 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 345

Thursday, March 11th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Have you ever considered exotic Pakistan as a destination? No? Let’s change that!

“New Horizons: Pakistan” from our friends at Pan Am sometime in the 1960s.

The film was made prior to the separation of East Pakistan into the nation of Bangladesh in the early 1970s, but primarily concentrates on West Pakistan.

Others prefer boating or deep-sea fishing on the Arabian Sea, or visits to the Khyber Pass or Himalayas.

I bet it was a lot easier to bring home a little souvenir from the Khyber Pass back then, too.

Bonus: “Flying with the KLM from Amsterdam to Paris in 1929 in color!” As I understand it from the YouTube description, this is originally from 1929, but the poster (Rick88888888) has done a lot of work: “motion-stabilized, speed-corrected, A.I. enhanced and A.I. colorized”.

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 344

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

I’m going to start out today with a little advertising.

From StudioCanalUK, “The Making of the Dam Busters”. I’m classifying this under “Movies” rather than “Military History”, so I can avoid having more than one military history per week. Also, I think it more appropriately belongs there.

Here’s the advertising: there’s a new US region blu-ray of “The Dam Busters”, which was released yesterday. This is something I think everyone in the Saturday Night Movie Group wants to see, and I will be ordering it directly. (There was a 2018 blu-ray, but it is region B/2 according to Amazon.)

(No, we do not have a region free blu-ray player.)

Bonus: since I want to stay away from military history, and sort of keeping thematically with the previous post: “This Is Triumph”.

I confess to a sneaking fondness for the TR7 back when I was a young lad…

Bonus #2: Why not? “Life In the Fast Lane”.

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. That was the wrong one. This one is from 1981, and discusses the US freeway system.

I may not be terribly bright, but honestly, I did not know about the odd/even numbering distinction. Or if I did know, I’d forgotten it.

Posted in Cars, History, Movies | Comments Closed

Things I did not know. (#5 in a series)

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

There is a National Historic Vehicle Register.

In March 2013, the HVA [Historic Vehicle Association – DB] entered into a collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior to explore how vehicles important in American and automotive history could be effectively documented and recognized. This project is the first of its type to create a permanent archive of significant historic automobiles within the Library of Congress.

In my humble personal opinion, this is really an aesthetically pleasing site that does justice to the vehicles in the registry. And I think almost all of the choices in the registry are good ones.

(This by way of the NYT obit for Bruce Meyers, inventor of the fiberglass dune buggy.)

Posted in Cars, History, Obits | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 343

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021

Great and good friend of the blog RoadRich pointed out that Ernesto Miranda was born on this date in 1941.

You may remember Mr. Miranda from Miranda v. Arizona. Today’s feature video: “Right to Remain Silent: Miranda v. Arizona” from AnnnenbergClassroom.org.

Bonus: well, the discussion of Mr. Miranda kind of went a little sideways, what with talk of trying to find autographed Miranda warning cards and semi-related matters. (I can’t turn up any of the autographed ones online.) Lawrence mentioned in passing that Carmen Miranda was only 46 when she died, which is a fact I was not conscious of, and it kind of shocked me.

Carmen Miranda’s last performance on “The Jimmy Durante Show” in 1955.

According to Durante, Miranda had complained of feeling unwell before filming; he offered to find her a replacement, but she declined. After completing “Jackson, Miranda, and Gomez”, a song-and-dance number with Durante, she fell to one knee. Durante later said, “I thought she had slipped. She got up and said she was outa breath. I told her I’ll take her lines. But she goes ahead with ’em. We finished work about 11 o’clock and she seemed happy.”
After the last take, Miranda and Durante gave an impromptu performance on the set for the cast and technicians. The singer took several cast members and some friends home with her for a small party. She went upstairs to bed at about 3 a.m. Miranda undressed, placed her platform shoes in a corner, lit a cigarette, placed it in an ashtray and went into her bathroom to remove her makeup. She apparently came from the bathroom with a small, round mirror in her hand; in the small hall which led to her bedroom, she collapsed with a fatal heart attack.

Posted in History, Law, TV | Comments Closed

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