Marvin Hagler, middleweight champion.
…
Leon Gast, director of “When We Were Kings”, which I have heard is a swell documentary. (Amazon affiliate link: I actually did not know there was a Criterion edition of this.)
This is another one of those cases where the story behind the documentary is almost as interesting (if not more) than the documentary itself, but I will leave that for the obit. One tidbit:
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).
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.
Today’s videos go out to FotB Andrew, because.
“The Original Mackinac Bridge Story”, about the history and construction of the bridge.
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.
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?
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.
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”.
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.
There is a National Historic Vehicle Register.
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.)
I’ve been running behind on obits, so here’s a roundup.
Roger Mudd, CBS, NBC, and PBS anchorman and reporter. He was also a distant relative of Samuel Mudd (the doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg).
Norton Juster, author of “The Phantom Tollbooth”.
Carla Wallenda, of the Flying Wallendas. She was the last surviving child of Karl Wallenda.
By way of Lawrence, John “Bud” Cardos. IMDB describes him as a “B-movie Renaissance man“: he directed, acted, and did stunt work.
FotB RoadRich sent over some nice obits for Mike Collins. He sounds like a truly interesting guy: he worked for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) as technical editor and director of business operations. He was also a skilled photographer and amateur brewer.
Finally, Tony Hendra, “National Lampoon” and “Spy” guy, and “Ian Faith” in “This Is Spinal Tap”.
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.
Military History Monday? Maybe?
“DEW Line Story”, another one from the AT&T Archives, about building radar stations above the Arctic Circle. This looks…cold.
This is another one where I’ve set the start of the video to skip the introduction.
Bonus: Also by way of AT&T, “A 20-year History of Antiballistic Missile Systems”.
This film examines five different experimental and functional antiballistic missile systems worked on by Western Electric and Bell Labs in conjunction with the U.S. Army: the ABM studies, Nike Zeus, Nike-X, Sentinel, and Safeguard. It also shows the Spartan and Sprint systems, the Ballistic Missile Defense Operations Center, the BDMC at Cheyenne Mountain, PAR antennas and console operations, and the BDMC’s link with NORAD. There are lots of images of real – and animated – missile launches.
I’ve linked to some of these (Like Nike Zeus and Nike-X) before, but this covers some I haven’t talked about previously.
Science Sunday!
I’m going back to the space science well again, after only two weeks, because I feel like both of these videos are worth using.
“Uptime 15,364 days – The Computers of Voyager”. This is a talk by Aaron Cummings from the Strange Loop Conference, and deals specifically with the computer hardware: less so, as the presenter puts it, with the actual science of V’ger.
Bonus: This might cross more into leadership and management than space science, but I thought I’d use it here anyway: Andrew Chaikin on “Management Lessons of the Moon Program”.
I’ve read A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts (affiliate link) and enthusiastically endorse it. If you only have time to read one history of the space program, Chaikin’s book is a good choice.
Here’s a couple more random things I pulled out of the big bag o’ random.
First off: “Turn On With AC – AC Tough!”. This is from 1973, and if that’s not enough of a warning for you: this is full on “Joel, am I tripping?” fodder. The best way I can describe it is as an early 1970s variety show (or a parody of same) promoting AC products. Not AC-Delco: they didn’t become AC-Delco until 1974.
I’m not necessarily saying that you should watch this, but it is only about 17 and a half minutes, and is so bizarre that it should make the younger set say, “What were they doing in the 1970s?!” (Answer: cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine.)
Somewhat more serious bonus: “The Bomb Disposal Men”, from the British Army Documentaries channel. This dates to 1974, and deals with the work of bomb disposal men (“Ammunition Technical Officers”) in Northern Ireland.
Somewhat more serious bonus 1.5: “The Long Walk”. This is a more recent BBC documentary “following three retired bomb disposal officers as they recount their experiences in Northern Ireland during the IRA bombing campaign of the early 70’s.” It covers some of the same ground as “The Bomb Disposal Men” (and even uses some clips from it), but I find it kind of interesting to have this historical perspective.
Somewhat less serious bonus #2: “The Making of The Hunt for Red October”. Exactly what it says on the tin.
I should pick that up. I don’t think I’d put it in my top ten, but I have really fond memories of seeing that film in theaters, and would not mind seeing it again.
Today, a couple of takes from the industrial film genre.
“Aluminum on the March”, from 1956. I think a lot of the effects in this are really kind of trippy.
“What’s It To You?” from 1955. This one is a DuPont promotional film for the then new revolutionary product mylar. This doesn’t have the trippy artistic effects of the previous film, but it does have some neat demonstrations: see mylar stop a bowling ball! See mylar resist acid! (Props to the presenter, too, for putting on PPE before handling the acids. I’ve seen too many of these videos that leave me wondering: dude, where’s your eye protection?)
In 1955 Eastman Kodak used Mylar as a support for photographic film and called it “ESTAR Base”. The very thin and tough film allowed 6,000-foot (1,800 m) reels to be exposed on long-range U-2 reconnaissance flights.
In 1964, NASA launched Echo II, a 40-metre (131 ft) diameter balloon constructed from a 9-micrometre (0.00035 in) thick mylar film sandwiched between two layers of 4.5-micrometre (0.00018 in) thick aluminium foil bonded together.
Travel Thursday!
Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon? Or if not that, a passenger airplane from the 1950s?
From those wonderful folks at TWA, “Flight To California”.
Bonus, plus CanCon! “The Mother of Rivers”, about the Columbia River ice field. Made about 1947 for the Canadian National Railways by our old friends at the National Film Board of Canada.
Bonus #2: Again, I’m stretching the definition of travel, but this involves planes and is short. Have you ever wanted to see a Boeing 747-8 fully loaded abort a takeoff at 200 MPH? Using only the brakes, no reverse thrust? And by the way, the brakes are worn down to the metal studs?
Margaret Maron, noted mystery writer. She actually passed away on February 23rd, but the paper of record didn’t get around to mentioning it until yesterday. The Rap Sheet has a nice tribute.
Bunny Wailer, of the Wailers.