I’ve posted some B-58 videos previously, but not in a while, and this one is interesting: “Tall Man Five Five”.
I can’t tell if that record still stands: I suspect it was broken by the SR-71, but the NAA’s records site is a bit awkward to use, and they changed the way they classify speed records a while back.
Bonus video: “Twenty Years of Strategic Air Command”, from 1946 to 1966. Silent, but short.
Your Wilford Brimley obits: NYT. Variety. THR.
Thing I did not know #1: he was, at one point (and “briefly”) a bodyguard for Howard Hughes.
Thing I did not know #2:
The Brimley/Cocoon Line. (Lawrence told me about this last night.) Not to be confused with the Mendoza Line, or the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal.
Science Sunday!
I’ve said before that I consider space stuff to be science. And computer history is science. So how about we cross the streams with another area that I find fascinating?
From the MIT Science Reporter circa 1965, “Computer For Apollo”, about the Apollo Guidance Computer.
I know I’ve mentioned him many times before, but Ken Shirriff has written a lot about the Apollo computers. There’s also this (affiliate link) which is even available in a handy Kindle edition (though it isn’t much of a savings over the physical book). May have to order that next time I get some funny money to play with…
Bonus video: also by way of the MIT Science Reporter, this time around 1961. We were riffing on Insane Clown Posse at one of the recent SDCs, and this may be more clearly science than the AGC.
“Big Magnets”.
Today’s installment is going to the dogs.
The Hound Dogs.
“Operation Blue Nose”, a co-production of our friends at the Strategic Air Command and the “Space and Information Systems Division” of North American Aviation. This documents a test of the Hound Dog (a fairly early cruise missile) in which a B-52 crew flew for 20+ hours over the North Pole and back…and then launched one of the missiles.
I’m amused by the banter among the crew (and the guy with the Confederate flag on his helmet – try that in today’s military), but I keep wondering how they got some of this footage.
Bonus video: what if we could launch an ICBM from an aircraft in flight, instead of a silo?
“Air Mobile Feasibility Demonstration” answers that question. Yes, the military actually tested shoving ICBMs out of the back of a C-5 and launching them.
“Coming up on a burn, coming up on a burn…” Do you get the feeling this guy went into sportscasting later on in life?
Alan Parker, director. (“Midnight Express”, “Mississippi Burning”, “Fame”, “Birdy”, “Angel Heart”).
For the record: Herman Cain.
1. Craig Thomas, the author of Firefox (full name David Craig Owen Thomas) died in 2011.
2. “Thomas wrote part-time, with his wife as editor, in two fields: philosophical thoughts in books of essays; and techno-thrillers, a genre whose invention is often attributed to the better-known Tom Clancy, though many fans feel that Thomas was its true originator.” (He was a teacher, but left teaching in 1977 after Wolfsbane was published.)
3. His last work before his death was a two-volume commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche.
I missed this one until it was in this morning’s Linkswarm, and Mike the Musicologist messaged me about it.
Tennessee state senator Katrina Robinson has been making waves. And not the good kind. She was indicted yesterday Wednesday on 48 counts: 24 counts of wire fraud, and 24 counts of “theft and embezzlement from government programs”.
Some high points:
During a press conference Wednesday evening, neither Robinson nor her attorney Janika White directly denied the accusations outlined in the criminal complaint. Robinson implied her political convictions played a role in the investigation.
“It is believed that if I were not in the position that I’m in, that if I did not champion the voices, the views and the faces that I represent, that I would not be in this moment right now,” she said.
…
…
Anybody got “bingo” on their card?
The investigation was opened after HHS received an anonymous complaint in December 2016 alleging Robinson used grant money to buy $550 Louis Vuitton handbag. HHS and the FBI jointly investigated the case.
Bank records for The Health Institute obtained by the FBI and HHS allegedly showed Robinson giving herself a $25,400 performance bonus in the 2017 fiscal year, transferring $54,000 into a brokerage account to set up an IRA for herself, and paying herself a base salary of almost $170,000 more than was approved by HHS during the period her business was receiving grant funding.
Among the personal purchases Robinson is accused of making with federal dollars are a 2016 Jeep Renegade, a more than $5,500 wrought-iron front door and expenses and equipment for Celebrity Body Studio, another business owned by Robinson, and a snow cone business operated by her children.
She also allegedly used more than $5,000 in grant funding on a trip to Jamaica and almost $9,000 on tickets to Grizzlies games, other events at FedExForum and a rental space for a concession stand.
Last Friday, we had the DC-10. Today: the L-1011 TriStar.
We’ve already talked about the 747, of course.
From the early 1970s, “You Have To Get Up Pretty Damn Early To Beat The Tri-Star”, a vintage Lockheed promo film featuring Hank Dees, the L-1011 project pilot.
Frank Borman (who is still alive at 92) shows up as well. His Wikipedia entry is worth reading.
Bonus video #1: “Welcome Aboard”, another L-1011 promo, notable for references to Jules Verne, and for acknowledging that airline travel is cramped…in 1968. Sort of an antidote to all those other vintage videos showing people eating caviar off of fine china in the air…
Bonus video #2: “No Simple Thing”, another L-1011 promo, focusing mostly on the design of the aircraft.
Travel Thursday!
As far as I can tell, we’ve done Bermuda, Brazil, Ireland, and Hawaii in our ongoing Pan Am travelogue series. But we haven’t done an obvious destination. A country much like ours (at least in 1962) but separated by an ocean and a common language.
“Wings to Britian”.
Bonus video: I thought I’d throw this in, since it is short. A discussion of Toby jugs by two gentlemen from Bonhams Auctioneers. I have to confess: I enjoy those accents. Both of these gentlemen seem like the kind of person I’d like to take down to the pub for a pint or two.
I can’t find anything online that addresses the WWII symbolism of the Toby jug: was that an invention of the “12 O’Clock High” scriptwriters, or was this an actual tradition for aircrews?
I thought it might be fun to do two real (and kind of short) bits of history today.
This first one is all audio, with no real video, so you could put it on in the background while you work. This is an interview with Corporal Julius Franklin “General” Howell. He was born in 1846, enlisted in the Confederate Army at 16, and served in Company K of the 24th Virginia Calvary.
The interview is from 1947, when he was 101. He died in 1948.
Please do note that my posting this should not be construed as endorsement of any particular cause or idea; if I do endorse some cause or idea, I will say so here. I think it is interesting (as a half-baked frustrated wannabe historian) to hear people talk in their own words about events they lived through.
And in that vein: Mr. Samuel J. Seymour appears on “I’ve Got a Secret” on February 8, 1956. At the time, Mr. Seymour was 95.
Lawrence sent me this story, which was also covered by Second City Cop: Dion Boyd, a Chicago PD officer (recently promoted to “deputy chief of criminal networks”) apparently committed suicide yesterday.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.
Please don’t fucking kill yourself. Entirely aside from the fact that you’ll miss all the movies of the next few decades, that you’ll miss the chance to fake your own death and escape to a South American country and become the mysterious foreigner who lives in the jungle, that you’ll leave behind a body that somebody has to clean up… you have a pretty significant chance of ending up in a nursing home, just conscious enough to feel pain and humiliation, for the rest of your life.
Give it another year. Do something different. Talk to somebody about it. Don’t end up on my unit with ARDS from inhaling your own vomit when the pills kick in. If the Huntington’s is closing in and you really gotta go before you turn into a slack-lipped veggie on a vent, plan that shit out and have your family by your bed. If you don’t think you could convince someone to sit by your bedside while you die, it’s not time for you to die yet.
I thought I’d take a break from nuclear war and the military and share a couple of mildly geeky videos.
First up: “Man and Computer: A Perspective”. This comes from IBM’s United Kingdom branch and dates to 1965.
Bonus video: I feel like I have to apologize for this one, but I’m posting it because I think certain people will get a kick out of it. It isn’t in English, and there are no subtitles. I’m not even sure what the title is. This is apparently from some point in the 1980s, and shows computing…in the Soviet Union. Including some shots of the Soviet version of the IBM PC.
Trolling, trolling, trolling…
Remember the good old days of the Cold War? When folks were afraid that we’d be bombed any minute?
From 1957, “A Day Called ‘X'”, a “documentary” about civil defense evacuating Portland, Oregon after being warned of an impending Russian bomber attack. This was a co-production of CBS Public Affairs and the Federal Civil Defense Administration.
Glenn Ford, noted Canadian, is the presenter and narrator. But everyone else in this movie is an actual person playing their real-life role. That guy striding purposefully into the Emergency Operations Center? That was Terry Schrunk, the mayor at the time.
But what happens after the bomb drops?
Bonus video: from 1968, “Nuclear Attack Preparedness Procedures: Survive To Fight”, an Air Force training film about advance preparations for an attack, and post-attack procedures (dealing with fallout, casualties, damage, etc.)
Separating this out:
It appears the full MST3K version of “Mitchell” (not the full movie, but the complete MST3K) is available on the MST3K channel on YouTube.
Yesterday and today were big news days.
Olivia de Havilland. THR. Variety.
I did not know she was in “Airport ’77”. Not that that was a highlight of her career. Or Joseph Cotton’s. Or anybody else’s. But the “Airport” movies are on our list.
Regis Philbin, for the record. THR. Variety.
I’m probably giving him short shrift, but everyone has covered his death. And I never watched a single episode of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” or “Regis and (x)”.
Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac.
John Saxon, working actor. THR. No obit from the Times yet. 198 credits in IMDB. I guess he might be most famous for his roles in “Enter the Dragon” and “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and possibly “Mitchell”. I also remember him from “The New Doctors” segment of “The Bold Ones” wheel.
And he had guest shots in every damn thing in the 1970s: the good “Hawaii 5-0”, “Quincy, M.E.”, “The Rockford Files” (we watched “A Portrait of Elizabeth” last night: it’s a fun episode), “Banacek”, “Banyon”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, “The Six Million Dollar Man”…
…oddly, though, he’s another one of those guys who seem to have done everything except “Mannix”.
The paper of record did finally get around to publishing an obit for Ronald Graham. (Previously.)