Air Hammer versus Rivet Gun

Called to ACTION! How Women Manufactured Victory in WW2
The Doubtful Technician

Very enjoyable video about a WW2 era rivet gun and the people who used them.

The Duel That Wasn't

Photo reconstruction of the famous duel between Princess Pauline Metternich and Countess Kielmannsegg, chaired by Pavel Kurmilev Baronne Lubinska

Cool picture, girls taking bitchiness to the next level, but it's a reconstruction of an imaginary event. So, historical fiction.

Wikipedia has this to say about Princess Pauline:

Pauline Clémentine Marie Walburga, Princess of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein (1836 – 1921) was a famous Austrian socialite, mainly active in Vienna and Paris. Known for her great charm and elegance as well as for her social commitment, she was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. She was also instrumental to the creation of the haute couture industry.

. . . 

It is claimed that in August 1892 Pauline took part in a sword duel with Countess Anastasia von Kielmannsegg. The disagreement supposedly stemmed from a dispute over a floral arrangement at the Vienna Musical and Theatre Exposition, of which the nobles were honorary president and president of the exhibition, respectively. The supposed duel involved the participants stripping to the waist to reduce the risk of a wound becoming infected; the image of two topless nobles captured the imagination of artists and scandalized Victorians. However there are no primary sources for the story, only accounts from foreign newspapers; furthermore, not long after the first accounts were published, a French newspaper printed a denial by the Princess, in which she calls the story a "ridiculous invention by Italian journalists".

More pics here.

Via Liberalguy

 

The Good Old Days Part 2

1888 Bertha Benz with two sons on the Patent Motorwagen

I posted a Mercedes Benz ad featuring Bertha a few weeks ago, and now she pops up in an old photograph.

Via Just A Car Guy

Intelligent Speed Bump

The intelligent Speed bump by Badennova.avi
It's not really smart, like computerized, it's more like an intelligent application of cornstarch. It's kind of a cute idea, though I suspect it won't hold up on a high traffic road and then you'll have yellow goop running in the streets. But the important part is the model who demonstrates the how the working fluid does its job. She is like a bolt from the blue. Or maybe it's just too early for me to be watching things like this.

Via Detroit Steve

Women at Work Way Back When

Rosaries being made in French factory circa 1910
Via Posthip Scott

Bicycle Factory in Coventry, England, circa 1895

Posthip Scott sent me the first image. I came across the second one a day or two ago. I figured even a minor coincidence like that rates a post, especially since it doesn't take much work. But then I noticed that the second one has very thin diagonal lines running between opposite corners. They are probably some kind of watermarking or theft prevention, so I went looking for an unmarked copy. I didn't find one, but I did find a whole boatload of similar scenes.

Showgirl

Leda Petit by Jocelen Janon

The photo of this woman is exceptional. I am not sure if the cabaret setting contributes much, but it certainly doesn't hurt. I came across this photo while looking for one for an earlier post. I like to cite the source for photos I post, but this one I found on Pinterest, that members-only den of inequity. I wasn't going to get any source info there, so I asked Google, which delivered up a copy with a watermark, which was a pretty good indicator of being the original. Couldn't find any info about the pic. An inquiry produced a link to a very entertaining and enlightening story about photography in the age of the internet. You can read the whole thing here.

You can buy a print of the photo here. It's a couple of bucks, but then it's a heck of picture.

Update September 2024 replaced missing photo.

Space Suit

1952 Demonstrating the dexterity of a remote manipulator.

Space suits are a pain. There are only a couple of reasons to have them. One is if you need to go outside when you are in space. These days this is typically only done to make repairs. Another is to send images of a man in a spacesuit back home so the public can see that we actually have men in space. The last is in case of emergency and something goes wrong with your spaceship. Space suits are difficult to make, to put on, to work in. If there was any way to avoid using them we would.

Anathem Spacesuit

    Maybe there is. In Neal Stephenson's Anathem, our hero, along with his cohort, don some spacesuits that were designed 6,000 years ago. One of the features of these suits was they didn't have any gloves. The arms of the suits ended in a small sphere that had room for your hand to flex. On the outside of this ball was mounted a mechanical hand and on the inside was a control for this hand. You manipulate the control on the inside and the mechanical hand on the outside echos your movements. No glove required.
    If you are going to use a remote manipulator, there is no reason to have it mounted adjacent to the control. Given the speed of electronic communication, anywhere within a thousand miles would be just fine. You get farther away than that and the delay due to lightspeed is going to be noticeable.

DARPA's BEBIONIC3 Prosthetic Hand

    The remote manipulator is key. I don't know if hands are really the best devices for manipulating other objects, but they are most versatile ones we have and we are certainly accustomed to them. Modeling remote manipulators on hands is probably our best bet. Arms are much easier and much simpler to build and control. From an amazed perspective, hands are wonderfully complex. From an engineering perspective, hands are horribly complex. The work being done with prosthetics is making the most progress. (There's even Lego versions out there.)

Weyland Yutani's shuttle failed to escape from LV-426 by Benoit Godde

Once you have a decent remote manipulator there is no reason to go outside your spaceship anymore, which got me to thinking that instead of individual space suits, maybe what we need is individual space ships. Space is a dangerous place. You are in constant danger of being struck by a deranged bit of matter that will poke a hole through you and your ship as if you were cheesecake. If you have a group of people, everyone having their own ship could increase the group's odds of surviving such a collision. An individual might be lost, but the group would survive.
    You would want an airlock on your personal ship so you could visit other people in your party, but you wouldn't want too many people to all be in one place at one time to the avoid the possibility of catastrophe. For a large group of people you would need an airlock hall so several people could dock their ships at the same time.

Spaceship art by Francis Tsai

    Originally I was envisioning these personal space ships to be like escape pods, maybe the size of a mini-van, just big enough for you to carry out daily chores without tying yourself in knots. Then I got to thinking that these are going to be for long term habitation, so they should be self sufficient, with power, lights, hydroponic gardens, recycling, reaction mass and engines. So now I'm thinking something along the size of a destroyer.

Update May 2018 replaced one missing picture and then another when Blogger "fixed" some old mystery stuff.

Report from Arizona

Iaman reports on his daughter's car:

Yes, I did drive from Iowa, I enjoyed it, I really like the Toyota Corolla,  like a nimble sports car,  easier to park anywhere than the Tundra,  good on the highway (it is a much smaller target), very ergonomic and clean crisp logical driver controls.  In my mind it is a much improved design on the motorcycle and golfcart.
. . .
I had Corolla advertized in Iowa on 2 CL listings for months where I received  10 scammer come-ons.  In AZ I has 3 legitimate bona fide offers in the first week,  the last full price. And supposedly AZ economy worse that IA.

His efforts in personal maintenance:

The swimming is my salvation,  I can push my self as hard as I can without  joint pain,  the "runners high' is something I can count on after 20 laps.   I've resolved the boredom with a Finis Neptune. Good big googles, earplugs, swim cap and a Tyr snorkel complete my isolation tank exercise  outfit. 

Finis Neptune Waterproof, Bone-Conduction, MP3 Player

And his experience with corticosteroids:

Just found this about my medication:  Therapeutic doses may cause a feeling of artificial well-being ("steroid euphoria"). The neuropsychiatric effects are partly mediated by sensitization of the body to the actions of adrenaline. Therapeutically, the bulk of corticosteroid dose is given in the morning to mimic the body's diurnal rhythm; if given at night, the feeling of being energized will interfere with sleep.  Maybe why I was up till 1:30 AM house cleaning.....but damn I felt good! :)

Boeing Turbine Truck

Boeing Turbine Truck

In the 1950's Boeing installed a turbine engine in a Kenworth truck and put it into service with a freight hauling company. The engine weighed about 200lbs, 2800lbs LESS than the diesel it replaced. It worked well for a couple of years but it had one draw back, fuel economy. It literally got 1.5mpg! Diesels of the day would average 4mpg, a colossal leap. - Swishy

For a journey of 500 miles the turbine would have a weight advantage: the total weight of the engine and required fuel for the diesel would be more than 1,000 pounds greater than for the turbine. So if weight is a critical factor, you are only traveling short distances and cost is no object, a turbine is the engine to use. Boost the distance to 840 miles and the turbine's greater fuel consumption causes the weight advantage disappear and by the time you've gotten to 1,000 miles the advantage is squarely on the side of the diesel.


The same logic can be applied to small aircraft. Bigger airplanes require more power, which requires bigger engines. When you start increasing the size of piston engines, I suspect that the weight grows much faster than the power output. We can build big, powerful diesel engines, but the only place we use them is in steamships.

Inspired by an ad on Craigslist for a turbine powered go-kart,  via Posthip Scott.

How Mirrors Work

How Mirrors Work | A Moment of Science | PBS AMomentofSciencePBS
I've been wondering about this off and on for years, and I've never gotten a good answer until today.

Pic of the Day

Hostile Takeover by OmeN2501

Axis Women

Concentration Camp Guards

German Anti-Aircraft Gun Auxiliary

Japanese Ammo Inspection

Luftwaffe Training

Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl

German Aviatrix Captain Hanna Reitsch Awarded the Iron Cross

Collaborationist Hair Shearing

Elisabeth Lilo Gloeden

I found these photos on The Atlantic dot com - World War II: Women at War. Most of the pictures are of Allied women, but these eight are not. Three of these pictures are of rather famous German women whom I had never heard of:

• Leni Riefenstahl
• Captain Hanna Reitsch
• Elisabeth "Lilo" Gloeden

 Opened a whole new section of history for me.

Update March 2016. Replaced pictures that vanished when Flickr account vanished.

Hanna

Movie website.

A pretty interesting movie, especially the first half when you don't really know what is going on. After a while it becomes apparent that we have an evil agent working for an evil government agency that is out to kill our two heroes in order to eliminate any evidence that the evil agency, whoever they are, were ever involved in some reprehensible scientific research, or whatever they were doing. Cate Blancett plays the role of evil agent, and she plays her role well. She pulls out this West Texas accent whenever she want to convince someone of her good intentions, which I did not understand. Is that accent supposed to be folksy and downhome? Wouldn't a pleasant tone of voice do as well? Why use the Texas accent, unless we are trying to pass along the message that maybe you shouldn't trust someone just because he has folksy, downhome accent?

The longer the movie plays, the less things make sense. When Hanna is initally captured she has no trouble killing everyone within sight, but soon after that she starts letting people off. Some are reasonable, they were no immediate threat, had not harmed her, and did not appear they would be able to hurt her. Others were obviously bad guys, they were a serious threat, she had the means to take them out, but she lets them go. As near as I can tell, this was only to prolong the chase scenes. And then there's the old sneaking up while the camera isn't looking business. I hate that shit. Once in a while, it's okay, especially if it is believable, but you only get to do it once per movie. You pull it more than once and you are being a jerk.

And then there's the denouement. Cate in dress shoes (at least they weren't spike heels) and business dress chasing a teenager around an abandoned amusement park, and she catches her? Who are you kidding? At that point it has pretty much fallen completely apart, but don't fret, it's almost over.

The first part of the movie, set in some snow bound woods, was really good. The parts with the hippiesque family were pretty good. We don't find out what happens to them, but given how evil these evil agents have been up to this point, it's probably not good. There was a chase sequence in some concrete tunnels that I think may have been shot in the old Nazi wind tunnel in Berlin. That was kind of cool.

Update October 2015. Replaced movie site link, replace missing picture.

Girl of my Dreams

She's cute, she's brunette, and best of all ...

she's got this awesome motorcycle.

Found on Marty North & Greenfield Park.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.