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I happened to have just used this in another thread but it gave me an idea.
This is the American military testing the B52's electronics ability to survive an EMP blast caused by a nuke. It's pretty extraordinary imo. Wiki has some great info on it and it involved some extraordinary engineering, not least of which is how all that woodwork was held together! 😉
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS-I
This is the Mitsubishi Dialtone D160, the largest subwoofer ever built, it can shatter glass and cause small earthquakes within a 2km radius.
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Hopefully this Flickr link works:
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[url= https://flic.kr/p/wDx3FE ]#IBM loading a 5MB hard drive for shipment in 1956.[/url]
This is IBM loading a 5MB hard disk for transportation back in the 1950s.
It's a well-known image, what's less well known perhaps is that for decades storage didn't really increase, it just got physically smaller (and considerably cheaper). We were well into the 1980s before we started seeing 10MB drives as anything approaching normal.
^^ Lol, that's pretty impressive mattyfez.
Back to the Future missed a trick there! 😀
It’s a well-known image, what’s less well known perhaps is that for decades storage didn’t really increase, it just got physically smaller (and considerably cheaper). We were well into the 1980s before we started seeing 10MB drives as anything approaching normal.
Excellent pic that, not one I've ever seen.
I think the first HDD I ever had, one I fitted into an Amiga 1200, was a mere 50MB. I still remember how amazing it was to click on an icon and have the installed game start in mere seconds as opposed to, well, a lot more seconds from floppy.
It's pretty crazy, I've got a 128 GB disk on my keyring, it's basically empty aside from a windows image and a few linux images, and a bunch of utilities, in case of armageddon, I know I've got a fresh OS, lol!
@poopscoop with regards to the subwoofers, I think several countries were developing them as sonic weapons, but then they very quickly realised that ULF sound is not directional!
I think the first HDD I ever had, one I fitted into an Amiga 1200, was a mere 50MB.
The first computer I actually used for graphics at work was a little PC, with, IIRC, 8mb of RAM, and 8Kb of storage. I used to redraw logos using CorelDraw, to produce vector files for the plate-making system. I used to do a bit, then save the file, and sit drinking a coffee watching it spend ten minutes refreshing the screen!
Those were the days… [img] 
[/img]
phillipe petit tightrope walking between the twin towers.
This is a photo of chicago, or whats left of it, in 1906 after the earthquake. The negative is 4 foot wide. It was taken with a camera designed by George Lawrence, dangled from a rope system designed by george lawrence from kites. It is possible to find hi res scans that show the detail captured, it extraordinary.
Same photographer different brief. "Take the largest photo with the worlds largest camera of the worlds handsomest train"
£5000 in the first decade of the 1900s
1 photo
The train... 8foot long negative
He then went in to invent quite a bit of aviation stuff.
On the subject of the 5Mb HD.... I used to work for IBM before my retirement and can remember back in the 60/70's some of our customers computer halls, Lloyds Bank for example. Absolutely vast and packed with cabinets with all sorts of devices. These sort of storage devices - https://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/mss.html
Very complex and taking up a lot of floor space.
I also worked in IBM Hursley Labs and, again, the machine halls (more than one) were massive.
Or USAF Upper Heyford with all the punch card devices. Then I look at my phone.... what a change to have lived through.
Not Hiroshima. Not Nagasaki. Tokyo after Operation Meetinghouse - the most destructive single military action in history. The result of the US strategy of shifting from precision bombing to widespread targeting of civilians using Napalm that had been specifically formulated to burn Japanese buildings. 1 raid - 90,000 civilian dead, 120,000 casualties and over 1 million left homeless. 1/4 of all the buildings in Tokyo destroyed in one night. The firestorm was so intense windows were liquified and it was raining liquid glass on the fleeing civilians.
Another aviation one. Lots of people think its faked. The story behind the photo is almost as absurd as the image. The photographer is neighbour and friends with a BAC test pilot who invites him along to watch him fly the plane. There's only two exposures left in the camera when this image was taken, the tractor driver is reacting to the bang of the ejector seat. Turns out it's not even the photographer's neighbour flying the plane, it's a different pilot. (who survived)
@joshvegas - that's San Francisco after the infamous earthquake!!
Chicago does have a low seismic risk due to background seismicity but nothing like active areas of California
This always makes me do a double take, I mean Arnie is not exactly small
Spooky and makes you think, hard.
Pseudo archaeologists have been creating fakery with these images and ancient ruins for decades now, some of them are no better than a form of racism. If you were into 'x-files' type stuff in the 1980's then Erik Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods was compulsory reading. The very famous picture of Pakal's sarcophagus was the cover image. Does it depict a man ascending to heaven under the cruciform image of the world tree, or is he a Mayan astronaut?
Hint: He's not a spaceman any more than the image of the resurrection of Christ in the Kosovan monastery is.
This is the Mitsubishi Dialtone D160, the largest subwoofer ever built, it can shatter glass and cause small earthquakes within a 2km radius.
Pretty sure there's one fitted to a Renault Clio round the corner from us...
I love these kind of pics - the Internet is full of them, sadly too many show the damage we have done to each other without anyone learning from them.
that’s San Francisco after the infamous earthquake!!
Was it "San Francisco" printed on the picture that gave it away?
A bloke with a bike and a shovel woke up with an idea one morning. A short time later, this appeared in the local sports centre.
On the old computers topic - My first PC had a 40MB hard disk but you could only use 32MB because that was all the OS supported. It also had a 'turbo' button that upped the speed from 8Mhz(?) to 12 but this was too fast for some programs so it was mostly not switched on.
This always makes me do a double take, I mean Arnie is not exactly small
The guy on the right is Andre the Giant. Aside from the obvious, he was famous for a heroic appetite for alcohol and equally heroic flatulence.
he was famous for a heroic appetite for alcohol
Great article about his capacity for both life and alcohol.
A very green rookie wrestler named Hulk Hogan toured Japan several times with Andre and witnessed the Giant’s alcohol consumption first hand. According to Hogan, Andre drank, at a minimum, a case of tall boys during each bus ride. When he finished a can Andre would belch, crush the can in his dinner-platter-sized hand, and bounce the empty off the back of Hogan’s head. Hogan learned to count each thunk, so he could anticipate when Andre was running low. Whenever the bus stopped, it was Hogan’s job to scamper off to the nearest store, buy as many cases of beer as he could carry, and make it back before the bus departed, a sight that never failed to make Andre roar his bassoon-like laugh.
Ok, an image i looked up for something mind boggling, not a mind boggling picture:
hand woven memory, from the Apollo launch module. The data on the computers in the module was stored on those minute iron rings, as 1s and 0s written and read by the matrix of copper passing through them. The mesh was hand woven, exclusively by women. 3000 tonnes of American might and a couple of blokes, riding on their crochet skills
On that ^ this is lead dev Margaret Hamilton standing next to the printout of the source code for the Apollo Guidance Computer.
The guy on the right is Andre the Giant. Aside from the obvious, he was famous for a heroic appetite for alcohol and equally heroic flatulence.
And the guy on the left is basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain. An insanely gifted athelete and by all (his) accounts, very prolific lover.
Lots of people think its faked.
Not to be That Guy (again), but it does LOOK faked - the depth of field is huge and suspiciously crisp... I'd be surprised if a pilot still above his 'chute at that low height would survive, and I wouldn't expect him to appear to be falling faster than the plane! Tractor man has amazing reflexes if he's responded to the sound of the ejector seat...
Sorry, this doesn't feel like the thread for cynicism.... 🙁
ElShalimo
Full Member
@joshvegas – that’s San Francisco after the infamous earthquake!!
In my defence i was on a bus at 5.25 ?
The pilot is below the parachute, if you zoom in you can see the pilot chute at the top. And the tractor driver could have been watching before the pilot ejected.
But the plane does appear to be a lot closer to the camera, and better defined, than the pilot. And if it was on that trajectory you wouldn't wait until it was that close to the ground to eject!
Still, probably a bit more convincing than the flying machine I posted...
Just read that back, pilot, parachute, and pilot chute in the same sentence is not at all confusing.
Tractor man has amazing reflexes if he’s responded to the sound of the ejector seat…
I have no opinion either way on the photo's legitimacy, but to give the benefit of the doubt I'd think it unlikely that an experimental jet aircraft would be plummeting towards the ground in complete silence. And in any case, if the photographer was stood there to photograph the plane, it's not implausible that the driver was in the same place watching it.
There was a thread on here 10 or more years ago with a photo of lion as a passenger on the Wall-of Death. So many questions!
It really was an incredible achievement.
Or was it? <di di do do di di do do>
Love the NASA woven memory!
I think they called it "rope memory"? Though I may be, ahem, misremembering.
It was absolutely audacious that they thought there was the slightest chance of getting men to the moon and back without a catastrophic failure.
Oh, believe you me, catastrophic failure was well planned for. JFK had a "we've ****ed it" speech pre-written. NASA routinely has missiles armed to shoot shit out of the sky if it looks like something is going to go cato over a populated area.
I've been fortunate enough to see some of this stuff first-hand at KSC and a couple of museums, the one overriding take-away I took away was just how astonishing it was that none of the astronauts took one look at it and went "**** that."
I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of this stuff first-hand at KSC and a couple of museums
I went to Johnson Space Center a decade or so back. They have the Apollo rocket laying on its side in sections. The 2 things that got me where the utter enormity of it and the absolutely agricultural looking plumbing smothering the area above the engine nozzles. It looked incredibly shonky. Got the job done though!
the one overriding take-away I took away was just how astonishing it was that none of the astronauts took one look at it and went “**** that.”
They really did have the right stuff... and balls of steel.
Got the job done though!
They have the Apollo rocket laying on its side in sections. The 2 things that got me where the utter enormity of it
Oh, it's a monster alright.
Anyone who seriously thinks the moon landings were faked could do to visit KSC, as hoaxes go it'd be a doozy. You go around outside and there's the rocket garden, then they have (IIRC) the Saturn IIB which is so big they had to lie it down. Then you go to the Apollo exhibit and oh my god, the IIB is a firework.
the one overriding take-away I took away was just how astonishing it was that none of the astronauts took one look at it and went “**** that.”
There is a great YouTube video describing the moon landing and how they kept having to restart the computer during the landing while trying both to land and work out what was wrong with it with only one shot at it. Fantastic hard as nails and sooooo calm stuff. Not for your average human
I went to Johnson Space Center a decade or so back. They have the Apollo rocket laying on its side in sections. The 2 things that got me where the utter enormity of it and the absolutely agricultural looking plumbing smothering the area above the engine nozzles.
One of the most interesting YouTube videos I've ever seen...
If you have a sense of how risky it was for the astronauts on NASA's space programme, you MUST read Beyond by Stephen Walker and get some insight into Gagarin's flight. Excellent book, makes Apollo 11 look incredibly over-engineered and risk-free - I remember reading that their hard-bitten flight director was in tears the night before he chose who was flying, because he was convinced he was sending them to their doom.
Love the NASA woven memory!
It was absolutely audacious that they thought there was the slightest chance of getting men to the moon and back
But did they? Makes you think.
If we're talking about fake pics, I'm suspicious about that first subwoofer photo above. Firstly the size of the cone looks much bigger than the pics of it in the case. The cone is meant to be 160cm (5'3") diameter. Secondly that thing weighs well north of 400kg and they're just rolling it down those steps like a piece of furniture. Eh, who knows, maybe they're really short men and it doesn't have the coil attached?
https://audio-database.com/MITSUBISHI-DIATONE/diatonesp/d-160-e.html
Anyway, I want one 🙂
going back to the Chicgo San Francisco picture- the majority of the damage was due to fires rather than the quake as house owners couldn't insure against quake damage. As a result they set the houses alight. Some were even stated by the fire department (!) to create fire breaks
The guy on the right is Andre the Giant.
Link between Andre the Giant and Barack Obama?
Andre the Giant has a posse was a street art campaign by Shepard Fairey - https://www.deodato.art/en/blog/post/a-closer-look-andre-the-giant-by-shepard-fairey-1989 - who years later repurposed the style into the HOPE campaign propelling Obama into the White House.
JFK had a “we’ve ****ed it” speech pre-written.
Wasn't there a quote from one astronaut who complained that they were essentially sitting on top a mass of components made by thousands of different manufacturers all working to lowest-bid contracts.
There was a thread on here 10 or more years ago with a photo of lion as a passenger on the Wall-of Death. So many questions!
Have a moving picture
Would you really trust this to go to the moon in?
There was also a British Wall of Death Lion called 'Briton' who rode in a sidecar with 'Tornado Smith'
Would you really trust this to go to the moon in?
It didn't, that's a Mercury capsule I think.
I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of this stuff first-hand at KSC and a couple of museums, the one overriding take-away I took away was just how astonishing it was that none of the astronauts took one look at it and went “**** that.”
You've got to remember, though, that at the time that all looked massively hi-tech and futuristic. We have the same disconnect when we look at a Spitfire (for example) - it's a vintage plane, beautiful but old-fashioned. But back in 1940 it was cutting-edge technology, and the pilots of the day would have had a very different opinion of it.
Think I've found the original for the Lightning crash picture:-
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The bear made Corporal in the Army during WW2
The bear made Corporal in the Army during WW2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-34748795
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/soldier-bear-statue
That's insane. Lived on until 1963.
The bear made Corporal in the Army during WW2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-34748795https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/soldier-bear-statue
That’s insane. Lived on until 1963.
What a wonderful story.
The bear made Corporal in the Army during WW2
Following a sustained misinformation campaign mounted by allied intelligence services to convince the German military that cats were allergic to pollen this member of Kitten Commando Corp was able to infiltrate enemy lines, overcome their floral defences and deliver a hand grenade, taking out 3 SS solders during their crossword break.
It didn’t, that’s a Mercury capsule I think.
Indeed it is. My Action Man had one.
The bear made Corporal in the Army during WW2
Ticks all the boxes for a mortar crew to be fair to him
Looking at that moon rocket stuff makes me think I might try one once I have finished the car. What could possibly go wrong?
Looking at that moon rocket stuff makes me think I might try one once I have finished the car. What could possibly go wrong?
You have amazing energy and an ability to get stuff done. I'm sure at least part of you will make it into space.
It didn’t, that’s a Mercury capsule I think.
I'll bet that made all the difference as they rattled around the upper atmosphere at a few thousand miles and hour in something that looks like it was made of Meccano in someone's shed.
that quote is from Armageddon I think, Steve Buscemi said it ?
That being the case, whilst I genuinely enjoy Armageddon, it's a front runner for the "worst science ever in a Hollywood movie" award and there's stiff competition.
Indeed it is. My Action Man had one.
I wasn't sure whether it was Mercury or Gemini (hence "I think"), they're very similar. But the lettering gives it away, Mercury had "United States" on the side, Gemini read "U.S. Air Force."
In the flesh it would be obvious, Gemini is considerably larger (because it was a 2-man tent rather than a 1-man) but that's difficult to gauge from a photo. Needs a banana for scale. (-:
Seeing the pile of code, I was thinking how lucky they were that I was not on the team. I used to mung up Sperry 494 code regularly in a past life. It was fun having manuals dated 1959 and being very creative with using minute quantities of memory.
If you're a fan of the Apollo 11 stuff, I can absolutely recommend "13 Minutes to the Moon", a BBC series on BBC Sounds:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2
Series 1 is about Apollo 11 and its conception and development, explaining bit by bit the recording of the radio transmissions between the Eagle lander, the orbiter and Mission Control. It's spine-tingling, amazing listening.
Series 2 is about Apollo 13 and the exceptional problem, and problem-solving, involved in the mission and how incredible it was to get the astronauts safely back to earth.
Assuming any of it is real, of course... 😉
It looked incredibly shonky.
I did some Ariane 4 and 5 component level stuff in the 90's, it was still shonky as hell then. (Ditto for a lot of the DoD stuff!)
so thats how they stopped the Daleks,! tipped them on their side!
I had to double-check there that your username wasn't Adric.
phillipe petit tightrope walking between the twin towers.
Another shot
If you do want to know more I can recommend both the documentary Man on Wire (2008) and movie The Walk (2015) by Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis that never got the exposure it deserved - it's like a heist flick but without a robbery, great fun.
Agreed, Man on Wire is excellent.
Surprised he made it wearing flares that wide
I remember looking at the lunar lander and moon buggy at KSC.
It didn't seem believable that they could do the job.