A Liberty Ship Sets Sail

In 2012 the U.S. Battleship Iowa set sail for San Pedro to become a museum ship. Accompanying her on departure was the WWII Liberty ship, the SS Jeremiah O'Brien. This is a short feature of the O'Brien getting underway, with a lot of shots taken inside the engine and boilers rooms showing the O'Brien's old triple-expansion steam engine in operation.
  

Conspiracy Theory Kits

Roswell Crash Site

 The Ogilvy & Mather ad agency put together a clever campaign for Tamya, a company that sells plastic models and radio control kits, that featured ads for model kits of popular conspiracy theories. Here, and after the fold, are those kits. You can click any image to enlarge it.

JFK and the Grassy Knoll

The Wonders of Vacuum Tubes

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Although they've been replaced by transistors and integrated circuits, there was a time when vacuum tubes were a fundamental component of modern electronics. Now exotic, they were common during the first electronic revolution.

Today you can buy hard drives, graphics cards and the like in stores, in the old-timey days vacuum tube testers were readily found in hardware and grocery stores. You could test vacuum tubes and buy their replacements easily, and it was a skill any do-it-yourselfer was expected to have.

Where there are products there is advertising. The problem is they were, like an oil filter in an engine, just a part of a machine, and not a very sexy or graphically interesting part at all. So how to sway consumer dollars?

The vacuum tube ads were pretty straight forward -- either a picture of a tube with copy extolling their virtues, or a their place in the wonders of radio emphasized. Here, and after a the fold, are some old ads that tried to sell what was then a mundane part of electronics.

Source: Duke University Libraries Digital Repository.

So Long. That's All. Goodbye.

With tomorrow's inauguration looming Bill Haley & Comets' See You Later Alligator springs to mind. Catchy and cheerful tune that fits my mood at the moment.

As an aside, I saw the Comets, I think it was the bassist Al Rapppa's version of the Comets, play in a slightly sketchy local bar. They put on a good show. During the break -- since they were one of the founders of Rock N' Roll I bought them a beer.

Whoo-boy, what a mistake. Talk about best friends forever! There was no getting rid of them and one drink led to another until my wallet was pretty much empty. Still, a good time was had by all and they were nice guys with good stories. In hindsight, I guess it was well worth the money.

I suspect Obama is another guy we'll be unable to get rid of, but our time with him at the table talking about the old days, betwixt lecturing us on what scum we are, will be much less enjoyable.

 
  

The National Joy Smoke

Morgan, in the comments to the previous post, pointed me towards Language Log's post "Just let some joy smoke sift into your system". It is a 1919 ad for Prince Albert tobacco, and the ad copy is absolutely hilarious, featuring such gems as " two-fisted-man-tobacco", "breezing up the pike with your smokethrottle wide open" and "put pep-in-your-smokemotor".

There are several other old Prince Albert ads at the link, and they are equally as entertaining.

The blog itself is a language-centric blog, with a lot of discussion of Chinese, and a lot of entertaining articles on other topics as well. I'll be adding it to our blog roll.

Canadians Control American UFO Technology!

Above is a video of the VZ-9 Avrocar prototype VTOL aircraft, which resembled a UFO, being built and test flown. The Avrocar was a joint venture between Canada's Avro Aircraft and the U.S. military. Originally it was supposed to be a high speed, high altitude interceptor, but -- as you can see in the video -- it fell far short of that goal.

The video is long, with the test flight portion starting at the 18 minute mark. However, the earlier part is an interesting look at 1950s technology, engineers, machinists, geek styles and so forth.

By the way, the project was finally abandoned in 1961 -- or was it? (Dum-de-dum-dum!)
 

Happy New Year and Sweet Dreams

I'm not sure what this video has to do with the end of 2016 and/or the start of 2017; but it strikes me you can't go wrong with banjo music for either occasion. So, Happy New Year wishes delivered with the accompaniment of Banjo Guy Ollie covering Sweet Dream (Are Made Of This).

Photos From the Age of Sail

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 The end of the Age of Sail and the beginnings of photography overlap. These pictures, and those after the fold, are a sampling of photos of those old sailing ships. I hope to dig up more pictures of the crews for a following post, but for now these wiill have to do.

An Old Flares Contributer Needs Some Help

Charles Martin, one of  the original founders of Flares Into Darkness, who now posts to PJ Media, has had some health and employment issues. He has ended up broke as a result.

He has started a gofundme campaign to raise a bit of money to help him get back on his feet. If you have a bit of spare money laying about please contribute, he's a good guy.

Wicked Game

Wicked Game performed by Vektormusic.

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah

A Different Christmas Song

Above is a video by Mbuvi, a Kenyan gospel singer. It is a Christmas song.  It revolves around the Kenyan tradition of returning home to family and friends to celebrate Christmas. I figure that, after a month of Jingle Bells in the background, it is a change. Enjoy.

Ghosts of Christmases Past

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“Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded. 

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”  

“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.  

“No. Your past.”  

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.  

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”  

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. 

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

-from The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

We all have our past Christmases with their own ghosts. Here, and after the fold, are some ghosts of unknown people's Christmases. Whether these ghosts bring welfare or not is another matter altogether.

Flowers Inside of Light Bulbs

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 From the 1930s through the 1970s the Aerolux Light Corporation made a series of novelty light bulbs that featured filaments in the form of tiny sculptures. Along with animals and other subjects, flowers were popular.

View more of these bulbs, including some videos of them, at Colossal.

The Next Nefarious Rooskie Plot

My CIA sources tell me -- and yes, I have unimpeachable spy agency sources so this aint fake news -- they tell me that, after hacking the US election to make Trump President, they now plan on moving on to step two of their Eeeeevil scheme: brainwashing American tweener girls via commie boy bands.

Above is a sample of one of their highly polished and professional boy bands Steklovata, singing their smash hit Novi God. Parents, don't leave your daughters fall under the hypnotic spell of these lads. It's a trap I tells ya, a trap.

Moths & Butterflies Drawn by Naturalists

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 Prior to photography all scientific illustrations were drawn or painted. On the roster of all scientific expeditions was the artist. Here, and below the fold, are some of those old drawings of moths and butterflies. While some of the drawing are just listings of different moths or butterflies, frequently the illustrations show the plants they feed off, and the various stages of the insect's development.

From the Smithsonian Libraries Collection.

Variations on Making Tortillas

Making tortillas in the Mixteca Region, Oaxaca:



Making tortillas in a modern kitchen:



Making tortillas by machine:

Top Secret Military Info Leaked

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 Julian Assange isn't the only one with inside links to leaks. I too have my sources. In fact, my well placed sources have revealed to me the following shocking top secret military news!

With Calexit gaining strength California's decision makers have realized they'll be needing their own military to guard their borders, march in parades, invade Arizona, and what-not. With that in mind they've started producing their own military hardware and are training the cadre of their new army. Above is a picture of a California tank unit practicing blitzkrieg tactics.

By the way... is it my imagination, or is the fellow commanding the tank familiar looking? You can enlarge the image to see him better.

Monsters

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In 1665 Fortunio Liceti published an illustrated edition of his work De Monstris. Supposedly a work exploring deformities in nature, as you can see from the illustrations his monsters were quite fanciful. Not that it really explains his made-up monsters, he explained it as nature being like an artist that worked with what it had. As he said, "It is said that I see the convergence of both Nature and art because one or the other not being able to make what they want, they at least make what they can."

From The Public Domain Review. There are more images below the fold.

The Newest News Cycle

The eight steps of the newest news cycle:

1. - There is an attack, using a gun, knife, car, etc., against multiple people in a public space.
2 - I think to myself, "Crap. The Mohammedans are at it again."
3 - Officials warn me not to jump to conclusions about the nature of the attacker.
4 - The media speculates it may be the work of a right-wing gun nut.
5 - It turns out that the attackers name is Mohamed, Abdul, Faisal, etc.
6 - They are reported to have yelled, "Allahu Akbar" while attacking.
7 - The news media puzzles over what their motives could have been.
8 - My cynicism, disgust and frustration deepen.