Nostalgia Fest

It is a scientifically-proven fact that all the most awesome people came of age in the seventies.  So let's look back at those halcyon days.

This is what was know as a record or LP.  It records a concert given by my high school choir and orchestra.  I do not appear in the photo, because the trumpets sat way in the back.

The band had pins made.  Someday this will be a valuable antique!

In 1973 my friends gave me this going-away-to-collage gift: a toy gumball machine.  It really worked, but I only chewed up a couple of the gumballs.  Those you see here are original--forty years old!

My Only Contribution

My only contribution to the mass of Marathon Bombing photos is this snap of Norfolk St. today (Saturday) taken as I walked to work.  As you can see, the Somerville police left some of their barricades.  The barricades were still there when I came home.

Yesterday I stayed at home like a rule-abiding citizen.   I noticed from TV coverage that some people did come out and talk to the media people at Norfolk St.

My neighbor was out of milk, so she called up Albert who lives above his store, Albert's Market, across the street.  While Albert was taking care of her, a friend from church came in to buy lottery tickets.

Then when they lifted the shelter-at-home-order you could hear millions of dogs barking as they finally got their walks.

Twelve/twelve/twelve

Today is 12/12/12!  To celebrate let's eat a dozen donuts!

Then let's break a dozen eggs!

Finally, we'll watch The Dirty Dozen...

....or perhaps Twelve Angry Men!

Easter Parade

This Easter Sunday, Rosemary and I wanted to get an eyeful of Easter finery, so we headed out to the Anime Boston convention. (Although I don't follow anime, I respect most costume-based activities.)

We encountered these three ladies from Quebec on the Green Line.

 

People  were happy to pose for us.

Some shots were more casual.

Check out all my photos at my Picasa Web Album.

The All-Seeing Mechanical Eye

Today’s  topic is Mechanical Remote Viewing, (as distinct from ordinary Remote Viewing).  MRV devices allow an operator to view scenes live at a great distance without the intermediary of a spy satellite, helicopter, or surveillance camera.  Some MRV devices can even see through fog, walls, and mountains, and some can also pick up audio.  MRV turns up in science fiction and action shows with a hi-tech component. 

I was thinking about this recently as I watched the wonderful 1950 classic Radar Secret Service.  The cops in this movie had “tele-meters” which allowed them to watch their colleagues clash with bad guys out on the roads just as if they were watching a movie.  The miracle of radar made this possible.  (Did you know that radar started out as an acronym for radio detection and ranging?)

Of course, Captain Video was the king of MRV with his Opticon Scillometer.  Check out some of the episodes here, here, and here.

The Martian Spaceship of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians had a MRV screen that a clear view of various Santa Clauses on the city streets of Earth.

The scientists in Riding With Death manage, in the 2^nd half of the movie, to come up with a remote-viewing TV that allows the female lead to watch the male lead’s activities in a bar and parking lot.  The movie’s writers felt obligated to explain scientifically the male lead’s ability to become invisible at will (radiation accident), but the remote-viewing TV is pretty much taken for granted.

My Dad was visiting in mid-October, and we watched the new Hawaii Five-O.  At one point McGarret needed to know if there were any people in a boat on the deserted wharf, so he calls up a Navy friend who pushes a button and retrieves a thermal image of said boat showing one person inside.  She didn’t have to wait for a spy satellite or surveillance chopper.  It had to be Remote Thermal Viewing
.
Perhaps the audiences of the 50s were prepared to accept MRV because of precision bombing during WWII. Paul Fussell explains that "precision bombing" was something of a misnomer: "The fact was that bombing proved so grossly inaccurate that the planes had to fly well within anti-aircraft range to hit anywhere near the target, and even then they very often missed it entirely.  As the war went on, 'precision bombing' became a comical oxymoron relished by bomber crews with a sense of black humor.  It became obvious to everyone except the home folks reading Life and The Saturday Evening Post that although you could destroy lots of things with bombs, they weren't necessarily the things you had in mind."*   But civilians believed that each dropped bomb landed exactly where it was meant to. If you could drop a bomb precisely from 7 miles up without worrying about wind, then why not MRV?

I found a precision bombing propaganda pamphlet that Fussell mentioned and  scanned it.  Here's one image from it:

 Please check out the pilot I have pointed the green arrow at.  Tell me what you think: "Dude looks like a lady," "Dude, that is a lady," "Other."

*Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, New York: Oxford UP, 1989, p 14.

Feeling Young?

For those of you who still feel young, I suggest checking out this site, which describes the mindset of the incoming class of college freshmen.

If that doesn't work, check out this site, and see if you remember wearing any of these outfits.

Then, if that doesn't work, check out this site, and see if you ever thought your future would turn out this way.