Victory Through Air Power

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, science fiction, weapons, wisdom, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 012021
 

The most recent APR rewards included a CAD diagram I created of the “Disney Bomb.” This little known weapon was created by the British in WWII, but dropped by USAAF B-17’s in the last months of the war in Europe. The reason for the unusual name: in 1942 Disney produced an animated propaganda film on the history and potential or military air power. This film included sequences of the war to come, depicting some kinda-sorta sci-fi thinking. Included here is a bomb with a rocket motor, used to penetrate the reinforced concrete roof of a submarine pen. This gave some British engineers ideas… and they made it reality. The Disney bomb was imperfect, but damned if it didn’t work. Next time someone argues that sci-fi doesn’t actually directly inspire engineers to create the future, remember the Disney bomb.

The YouTube version of “Victory” linked below is pretty awful in reproduction quality, but it’s the best I’ve seen (it was released on DVD some years ago).

 Posted by at 12:19 pm

“This is stupid but I love it”

 art, awesomeness, Crazy, dumbassery, history, humor, rockets, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 242021
 

Where we watch a guy react to “Moonraker” for the first time:

By many metrics, “Moonraker” is a bad movie. By any metric it is the goofiest, most ludicrous Bond movie. And yet it’s my favorite Bond movie; I have watched it *many* times. First on HBO back in the day, then on laserdisk, then VHS, then DVD, then Blu Ray, then streaming and one of these days on 4K if it’s ever released on that format. It’s bonkers, it’s dumb, the physics is just *awful.* And yet it has some of the awesomest bits of Bond ever: Hugo Drax is far and away the best Bond villain ever; Jaws returns and steals every scene. And Jaws’ love interest Dolly? The two make the best couple in all of the Bond movies with a love story for the ages.

And the Space Marines? Stupid, but I love it.

I have a 1/72 “4D Vision” cutaway model of the Space Shuttle (purchased long, long ago when they were affordable) set aside for the specific purpose of turning it into Moonraker 5, complete with laser and ark cargo. Some day…

 

 Posted by at 4:44 pm

First five minutes of “Jurassic World: Dominion”

 art, awesomeness, critters, paleo, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 242021
 

Can’t speak to the plot, but it sure looks pretty:

Finally gave the t rex some fuzz.

At the end of the last movie, a bunch of dinosaurs were released in the forests of northern California. This would be a problem that would last a very short time: most of the dinosaurs seemed to be lone examples of their species, so breeding will be minimal. In this world, people have known about real live dinosaurs for decades, so there would not be a lot of time lost on disbelief. And once people found out that there are velociraptors and Tyranosaurs running around, every hunter in a 2,000 mile radius would race to the scene.

 

 Posted by at 9:24 am

This seems depressingly accurate

 AARRRGH, humor, politics, science fiction, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 162021
 

“Don’t Look Up” is a forthcoming netflix movie where astronomers discover a comet on a direct impact course with Earth… and neither the government nor the media seem to care. In an era of “Russia collusion” and “mostly peaceful protests” and “wage gaps” and all the other bits of misinformation , propaganda and outright lies that people in the media and government just shrug at, I can see indifference being the response to the end of the world.

 

 Posted by at 11:10 pm

Janeway ain’t wrong

 AARRRGH, art, blather, Forward!, Gah., Meh., science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 112021
 

Back before the yammering yahoos were forever going on about the need for “strong women characters,” pop culture was *full* of strong women characters. Star Trek: Voyager ended up kinda jam-packed with them… Janeway, Torres, Seven of Nine all ended up being well-written, well acted characters with distinct respectable personalities. Kes… meh, not so much. Modern live action Trek, sadly, has failed spectacularly in that regard, producing characters (both male and female) who run the short gamut from utterly forgettable to incredibly childish and annoying. Honestly: the bridge crew of the Discovery is *loaded* with women. How many of them do you even know the names of?

Janeway was a *proper* Starfleet captain: she commanded respect without having to berate people; she was emotionally affected by the things that happened around her and to her crew, but she was Captain enough to know when to keep it together. But then there’s “Michael Burnham.” Gah.

Burnham deserves no respect. Nor do the talentless hacks who write her.

 Posted by at 11:45 pm

Lovecraft: bulletproof

 art, awesomeness, Forward!, history, politics, science fiction, War With The Deep Ones, youtube, YouTubers worth watching  No Responses »
Nov 092021
 

Arkham Reporter, one of the more sadly underappreciated YouTube channels, discusses matters related to H.P Lovecraft, cosmic horror, etc. Refreshingly, he has not knuckled under to the woke mob, and has put out a number of videos over the years discussing various efforts to smear, cancel, erase, mutilate or subvert Lovecraftian horror. But his latest video provides a large measure of hope that Lovecraft will be able to survive in a way that Star Wars and Star trek have not: Lovecraft is in the public domain. There is no Controller of The IP. nobody dictates canon. This means that *anyone* can write stories along the same lines as Lovecrafts; anyone can use his ideas, even his characters. Good writers or bad,  people who respect Lovecrafts work, or people who hate it and him, it’s open to all. And the only thing that elevates one story and buries another is the fandom. If your work sucks… it’s gone. HBO can crank out as many hours of nonsense where The True Monsters are not deep-sea abominations or uncaring cosmic gods… but white people. And the fandom, if it decides that that’s crap, can ignore it. HBO can’t declare their rubbish to be *the* canon. My own “War With The Deep Ones” tales can be worthy of either the Nobel or the dumpster; it’s not up to some cabal of progressive-infected corporations to decide.

 Posted by at 6:25 pm
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