Terry Jones, Screeching Harridan, Passes Away
Terry Jones, one of the members of Monty Python, became the nude organist for the choir invisible today. He was 77.
Sadly, he'd been suffering from a rare form of dementia since 2016 and had lost the ability to speak over a year ago. Best known for his work with the legendary comedy troupe, Jones was also an accomplished director, historian and children's book author.
A few months ago, I wrote about the effect Monty Python's Flying Circus had on my sense of humor, but it was only today I discovered that Jones was the "inventor" of the show's non-ending ending... a sketch has gotten lost along the way to the punch line? Have a knight in full armor walk in and hit somebody over the head with a rubber chicken. Have someone in uniform declare everything to be too silly and cut to another sketch. Simple and stupid, sure, but funny as hell and I've used the same technique in my writing here at The Pond over the years.
I had just glanced at my phone after briefly waking up this morning and saw the news that he had died, and I can't explain just how strongly it affected me. I mean, beyond rolling over and going back to sleep. I've long outgrown the concept of personal heroes, but the Pythons are the closest I might possibly have anymore. They've been one of the few things that I can say have always been a part of my life... at least, as long as I've been aware of such things. And now I've gotten old enough to see them begin to go away. Hard to come to grips with such thoughts at nine in the morning..
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My memorial viewing is The Story of 1, since The Crusades and Medieval Lives are both a bit long of a commitment for my available free time lately, unfortunately. I like that Jones and Palin both got into doing fun documentary-style shows as a late-career thing to do. Palin's travelogues are amusing, and Jones' historicals are a marvelous blend of humor and serious-historian material.
May his memory be a blessing.
Posted by: GreyDuck at January 22, 2020 10:44 PM (rKFiU)
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He does a fair job imitating Douglas Adams, if you ever played, read, or listened to Starship Titanic.
Posted by: Ben at January 23, 2020 09:41 AM (osxtX)
Neal Peart
If you are approximately my age, you or someone you knew was a fan of Rush when you were in high school. Me, I liked a number of their songs but I couldn't call myself a real fan... mainly because of the rabidness of the REAL fans who insisted they were the greatest band ever. Kinda off-putting, y'know? Particularly when you were like me and you preferred more synths and new wave.
As time went on, nothing ever really changed my opinions towards the band... a few great songs, a lot of usually pretentious prog-rock-y stuff, and an overzealous fan base. I did acknowledge, however, the unquestioned skill of Geddy Lee on bass, Alex Lifeson on guitar, and Neal Peart who is pretty much on the very very very short list of "best rock drummers of all time." You might be able to convince me there's someone better. Modern Drummer has him as the #2 rock drummer, #3 overall, behind Buddy Rich and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham. Well, maybe so.
Neal Peart died today at the age of 67. He apparently had been battling brain cancer for the past few years, but keeping it quiet from the public at large. Despite not being the megafan who will be deeply wounded by his passing, I wanted to acknowledge him... if for no other reason than he was the subject of one of the first bits of fan-made CGI I had ever seen.
2004. Remember 2004? I have a hard time remembering that far back anymore... I had just started working at the Duck U Bookstore after CowPuters went under, that's how far back we're talking. I'm sure many of the Pond Scum remember the video fondly, or at least remember it.
The Pond's condolences to his family, friends, and fans.
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I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with the band's work but I could not and will not ever deny that Mister Peart was an absolutely tip-top outstanding musician.
He shall be missed.
Posted by: GreyDuck at January 10, 2020 06:52 PM (yisPP)
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This just tops off the loss of Mike Resnick. Wonder who #3 is going to be.
Posted by: Mauser at January 10, 2020 11:48 PM (Ix1l6)
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I can't find it on my hard drive, so just imagine the Robert Redford Nodding in Approval gif right here.
Posted by: Ben at January 01, 2020 10:24 AM (4TRZx)
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2019 was... not actually as bad a year as the several previous. It still outstayed its welcome in myriad ways, however.
May 2020 be better for all of us in every possible way.
Posted by: GreyDuck at January 01, 2020 11:00 AM (rKFiU)
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I hope your 2020 is a lot better than your 2019!
Posted by: Rick C at January 02, 2020 08:15 PM (Iwkd4)
MUCH nicer Christmas than last year's disaster. Oh, the Christmas itself wasn't the problem, it was the leg injury that occurred for reasons that are still a mystery to me... and that led to me being stuck in bed for 24+ hours. From there, it's an easily-drawn line to where I am today.
None of that happened this year. Therefore, it was INFINITELY better. And it allegedly hit 61 degrees too. In December. On Christmas. In Duckford, IL. What in the blue blazes...? In any case... huge thanks go out to Ph.Duck and Rn.Duck for putting up with me for another year, and the annual bottle of lingonberry will die happy soon enough.
And of course, you... the proud members of the Pond Scum. I've been letting The Pond down over the past year, which I hate but haven't been able to do anything about. Hopefully, next year will be better in all sorts of ways! Merry Christmas!!!
I just started playing Fate Grand Order. I'm fairly sure an opening draw of three lancers (and one of them duplicated!) and an assassin is pretty cruddy. Welp, we'll just see where it goes from here.
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I gave FGO a spin a while back, ended up bouncing off of it but that might have had more to do with my chuggy old tablet than anything specific to FGO's gameplay. If you stick with it and need a buddy/guildmate/whatever, let me know. I'll probably have some gacha-game bandwidth available before much longer. Depends on how Crossing Void does long-term, really.
(Crossing Void has my attention probably more for the "Index-verse characters and SAO-verse characters and butterfly chick from Accel World all at once, sweet" value than for anything it actually brings to the gameplay table, I admit.)
Posted by: GreyDuck at December 26, 2019 01:06 PM (yisPP)
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I'm honestly surprised you haven't tried out Azur - that one isn't so much "up your alley" as it is "let itself in your front door and is camped out on your couch". Though what they did to Mutsu is a crime, just a crime...
Posted by: Avatar at December 26, 2019 07:30 PM (v29Tn)
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Well I'll tell ya, Av... I've watched a few episodes of the anime and it honestly left me feeling quite tepid. I'm not a huge fan of the Iron Sakura (or whatever that fleet is called) character designs, and what they did to HMS Unicorn is a travesty.
It's just a Chinese bootleg of KanColle, only as a 2D shooter. I mean, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but...
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 27, 2019 04:50 AM (cTMj+)
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I don't think "bootleg" is the most accurate way to describe it, as the goal of the game is card-collecting the characters, which predates KanColle. I personally would say it rips off the idea of KanMusu...although even there you have to ask whether KanMusu is a unique idea, or was it just a spin on Tank Girls and Plane Girls, etc.
What is is, undoubtedly, is a cash-in on KanColle's popularity.
I quite like the anime, even with the apparent low budget. It takes a few episodes to figure out what story they're actually trying to tell. I don't know if that's budget, planning, or direction.
Posted by: Ben at December 27, 2019 10:18 AM (osxtX)
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The anime is not impressive. It's bad enough they're going to delay the last episodes until -March- (presumably in despair of getting a single in-between cel drawn in that time...)
Azur had a few hooks for me: the actual game element is more fun than Kancolle, it's in a language I can actually read so playing it isn't a pain, and I do like most of the character designs. (Unicorn is not one of those, but I do get that they're selling it in Japan, so that sort of thing is going to happen. Would be nice if Warspite somehow got some -pants-, too.) I also know a couple of people who were playing the JP version, and being able to talk shop with friends definitely helps interest in these.
Story-wise, it's a slice over Kancolle only in that they kinda tried; it's not a GOOD story and FGO is going to win out there.
I'll say that FGO has a reputation as a game that is very hard to play as a free player, whereas by contrast Azur is almost absurdly generous (without spending money on resources for ships, I've gotten almost everything from every event).
But in the end it's about whether you think it's cute or not, and if you don't, the rest isn't gonna save it...
Posted by: Avatar at December 27, 2019 12:33 PM (v29Tn)
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I think you nailed it, Av...I like the designs, so I'm getting more out of it. Unicorn is one of the big tests, and Nagato and Mutsu (I think they're cute). Doesn't mean I don't like KanColle, either; I do...I just keep the two properties separate.
Now if I could just figure out who Ayanami reminded me of...it's on the tip of my tongue...
Posted by: Ben at December 27, 2019 12:47 PM (osxtX)
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"Now if I could just figure out who Ayanami reminded me of."
Just in case you're NOT joking, it's Kantai Collection's Speedslut with ears.
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 28, 2019 02:11 AM (cTMj+)
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I wasn't joking, but oddly that isn't what I was thinking at all. Low pigment in the hair, expressionless face, and monotone voice. Add to that the creators have tended to "on the nose" allusions and characterizations, I think she's intended to invoke NGE's Ayanami.
Posted by: Ben at December 30, 2019 12:22 PM (osxtX)
Glad I'm Out
I had need to call my local Walgreens' pharmacy today. Nothing complex, not even all that important as it turns out. I easily could have not bothered and nothing would have been changed or affected in any way... that's how "not important" it was.
As the conversation came to an end, I did what any decent human being would do: I wished the pharmacy tech a Happy Holidays. I mean, Christmas is just a couple of days away, I'm sure they were stupidly busy, and they took a moment or two out to answer the stupid question of someone who was, honestly, wasting their time.
If they had gone off on me, well, I can't say I'd have been happy about it, but I would have understood. As y'all know, I worked retail for far too long to ever really blame someone in the biz for losing their minds at this time of year. Instead of that, however, what I got was either a great acting job or someone who was honestly surprised and pleased to have gotten pleasant holiday wishes.
Which makes me wonder... just how bad IS it out there these days? I mean, retail employee abuse doesn't shock me, but I didn't even say "Merry Christmas." Just Happy Holidays, like I was taught to do when I was behind the counter so as not to potentially offend anybody. Yes, I know, but old habits and all that. I've stayed out of the stores and malls this season, so I have no clue about crowd size but judging from that one phone call, the grind apparently sucks quite badly now.
Be nice to retail workers. They're trying to help you have a merry Christmas, don't make it hard for them to have one too.
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I've been going to the local Walmart's built-in McDonald's for breakfast a lot lately, and so the Walmart greeters all recognize me. The usual one who's there on weekdays has been "Merry Christmas"ing people.
But this is Texas, not California.
Posted by: Rick C at December 24, 2019 10:27 AM (Iwkd4)
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I'm so, so, so glad I'm not in a client/customer-facing job much anymore. I've heard too many horror stories lately from those still on the front lines. Oof.
Posted by: GreyDuck at December 24, 2019 05:42 PM (rKFiU)
Today Is December 16th...
...and you know what THAT means:
The morning of December 16th... it was so cold... and I mean cold. That if you took an ice pick and plunged it into the ground, you'd shatter the Earth into a million pieces.
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Oh, Haruhi. On the one end of the spectrum you had Endless Eight. On the other... Disappearance, a film that only makes sense in context and is useless to the newcomer, but that doesn't matter because it's superbly well-done.
I'm very "over" the Haruhi thing nowadays but I have fond memories of some of it, at least.
Posted by: GreyDuck at December 16, 2019 12:00 PM (rKFiU)
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Never watched any of it, but apparently there are people who make watching this an annual thing.
Posted by: Mauser at December 17, 2019 10:03 PM (Ix1l6)
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The Haruhi anime properties by KyoAni are modern landmarks, moreso than I think they're given credit for. The two anime series deserve credit for experimental filmmaking. They also were produced right as KyoAni was really upping the standard for quality art and anime, from "these guys are pretty good" to "the benchmark for tv series production". The sourced material deserves some credit for the storytelling, at least to the extent of providing and setting that made all this possible; but I have to admit I find the English translations to be rather pedestrian reading. It's possible the books read better in Japanese, as you can load more levels of subtle meaning in sentence structure and the use of various kanji and kana.
Posted by: Ben at December 18, 2019 09:04 AM (osxtX)
Beg to disagree. I find the first season to be entertaining enough, but the second season was very much a monotonous bore (Something that the English VAs discovered to their dismay.). However, KyoAni's experimental production actually decreased my enjoyment of the series, and represents the classic 'Just because it is different does not mean it is good' - which was something that was apparent to me back when fans were gushing over how great Season 1 was (IIRC, one guy on AnimeTV actually called it the greatest series of the decade.). The original light novels were about as readable as Monogatari, and after a while, less interesting. I would prefer reading anything by Kinoko Nasu than have to read Haruhi again...Though at least it is better than the works written by Kazuma Kamachi.
In terms of production quality, I would agree that KyoAni did an excellent job, but I always found to their anime to be just a hair under the best, even at their best. There never seem to be enough difference in the quality to stand-out against, say, anime from A-1, assuming equal budgets.
Posted by: cxt217 at December 19, 2019 12:42 AM (LMsTt)
HMS Prince of Wales. Commissioned into the Royal Navy December 10th, 2019.
There is no way that wasn't intentional, and the RN deserves a round of applause for it. If only they could have put the ship's bell that was recovered from the battleship on the carrier...
On second thought, sailors are a superstitious lot. Maybe putting the bell from a sunken ship on board a brand-new one is a bad idea.
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They should have painted it in Azur Lane's Prince of Wales color scheme, or just painted Prince of Wales on it. Itashaboat. But I would be lying if I said teh white doesn't look good...it just needs a gold-trimmed red jacket and black skirt to go with the white stockings.
Posted by: Ben at December 11, 2019 09:41 AM (osxtX)
Once Upon A Time...
Back in the days before the Duck U Bookstore, heck back before the days of CowPuters, I worked at the local news-talk radio station as a buttonpusher show producer on a fill-in basis. I did have one regular shift however... the Sunday Morning Church shift. I mean, it started at 6am with the Catholic Mass in Swedish, for heaven's sake, pun not intended. The Salvation Army had a recorded program, there was a program I literally never paid attention to except to make sure it was still running, there was the live-in-studio show with the purple-suit-clad preacher who was, eventually, removed from his position in his church because he got a little too close to some of his female parishioners, and then there was the show I privately called "the church ladies."
Yeah, kinda like that, except not at all. The preacher in purple I mentioned earlier? The church ladies usually matched him sequin for sequin when they came in, spoke loudly and cackled even louder. But their chat show took place in and around gospel music songs... and since I was the button-pusher I had to pay attention for the cues and stuff. And along the way, I discovered something: gospel music could be quite good.
I found out today that one of my favorite groups from that show, The Blind Boys of Alabama are still recording, and what I was playing for the Church Ladies was already 30 years old at the time.
Really, there's no reason for this post other than to mention that. Have a nice day!
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Oh, definitely. I can NOT take "Cyber Monday" seriously.
Posted by: GreyDuck at December 03, 2019 09:55 AM (yisPP)
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I'm familiar with the other meaning, but I've heard just "cyber" used as an abbreviation for any longer word starting with cyber (esp cybersecurity) often enough that it doesn't register that way to me anymore.
However, when our elderly office secretary sends a quick note to everyone with the subject line "Quickie"...
Posted by: Kathryn at December 03, 2019 11:06 AM (fn0LI)
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And now we get the additionally artificial "Giving Tuesday".
Posted by: Mauser at December 04, 2019 08:21 PM (Ix1l6)
Huh. Upgrades!
A week ago last Sunday, I began to have a very odd sort of problem with my internet connection. Everything would be fine, normal speed, no problems, I walk away for some reason, come back a half-hour later, and the internet would be... missing. The computer could see the modem on my side, the internet provider could see the modem from their side, but never the twain shall meet. And the entire time the modem would be happily saying that it was connected and it had no idea what anybody was talking about. But then, some time later... a half-hour, a couple of hours... internet was back like there had never been a problem in the first place.
Monday, everything was fine for most of the day. It wasn't until mid-evening that the internet went away, but by the time I had finished dinner an hour or so later, it was back. Didn't even bother calling the internet provider. Tuesday, it worked in the daytime, but as soon as the sun began to go down, *poof* the signal went away and wouldn't come back until around midnight. Solar-based internet issues???
The next day was more of the same, tech support still had no idea what the issue was ("It should be working!"), I had a pretty good idea what the issue was ("Tech support is dumber than a shipping container full of hair!"), but fortunately I could at least get caught up on the Great Anime Backlog. Thursday? It was down all day, only coming back late in the evening. Another frustrating call to tech support. I went to bed late... or very early that night. Only to be woken at 930 the next morning by the apartment complex's maintenance guy who specializes in tech support knocking on the door.
After asking him to please step back out of my apartment so I could get dressed, I had to explain to him exactly how everything was acting, how no amount of resetting, unplugging, replacing, troubleshooting, sacrificing of goats, anything, had made a difference, and the only commonality was that eventually it would come back and the modem was acting like everything was fine the whole time... and indeed, as we stood there, the computer was acting like the world was missing. Techie hooked up his test modem, and instantly the whole of the interwebz was revealed for all to see.
Techie took a closer look at my equipment, and realized that it was one of the original cable modems from when broadband was first turned on at the apartment complex... 12 years ago. He then said that I was probably the only person left in the complex that still had one... between hardware failures and people moving out, all the others had been retired. He left, heading for the leasing office to explain what the situation was to The Powers That Be. A half-hour later, he was back with a new modem in hand... a replacement for the old one, free of charge from the complex. Living in one place for a long time does have its benefits sometimes. And as an added bonus... it has built-in WiFi! No more data usage on my cellphone! No more waiting 30 seconds for a simple google search to complete after I hit my 2 GB max for the month!
I can get used to that. And I am!
EDIT: Completely forgot to mention... MUH SPEEDS! Download speeds, not exactly slow before, have literally doubled. Like, two minutes per GB, and sometimes less? So, to recap: solid internet connection, with WiFi, and a doubling of speeds both up and down... for free? The only way I can compare that to real life would be stepping outside and discovering that the DuckMobile has been replaced by a Ford GT... except without all the cranky supercar bits. And a higher and stronger suspension so I can sit in it without bottoming the car out. And maybe some way to me into and out of it without amputating my legs. So, really, not a Ford GT at all. But you know what I'm trying to say.
Posted by: Rick C at November 25, 2019 09:50 PM (Iwkd4)
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The Information Super-Autobahn, you are now on it!
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 26, 2019 01:07 PM (rKFiU)
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Maybe I should ask him about my random bluescreens.
Posted by: Mauser at November 26, 2019 08:35 PM (Ix1l6)
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Probably you went from a DOCSIS 2 to a DOCSIS 3 modem. (those are just the names of the spec for how the signals work, but docsis 2 has something like a theoretical max of maybe 40Mbps, whereas docsis 3 goes up to ~200Mbps, and, if your signal from the provider is already high enough, just swapping out a newer modem will do that. I have a coworker who had the same thing happen--he replaced an ancient modem with a new one a couple years ago and his speed went way up.)
Funny (?) story: if you have an Android phone, you can (usually) use it as a reverse wifi hotspot. Connect it to wifi, then plug it into a PC and enable USB tethering. You can also do the opposite: they make ethernet-to-USB adapters. Get one, plug it into a router, plug the other end (via USB-A to USB-micro B or USB-C cable) to your phone, then turn on the phone's wifi hotspot, and connect your computer's wifi to the hotspot. (As long as your phone's manufacturer (Motorola) doesn't disable some of these features)
Posted by: Rick C at November 27, 2019 01:56 PM (Iwkd4)
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Why wouldn't I just use my computer's internal WiFi to connect to the WiFi in the modem?
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 28, 2019 02:26 AM (cTMj+)
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Hmmm. I had previously typed a reply, but maybe I forgot to click the button?
Anyway: it was more of an anecdote than a suggestion.
Posted by: Rick C at November 28, 2019 05:33 PM (Iwkd4)
If you had told me that the director of this show had never worked with the director of Revolutionary Girl Utena, I would not have believed you. And I would have been correct: the director of Revue Starlight, Tomohiro Furukawa, was assistant director on Yuri Kuma Arashi under Kunihiko Ikuhara. And boy, does it show.
It's not quite as stylized and "out there" as Utena, but the ties are there. The same fever-dream imagery, girls and swords, the same grand theatrical attitude towards itself. Which is good, since Revue Starlight is ABOUT theatre. Not surprising; the anime is based on a stage production that's half-musical, quarter-Cirque du Soleil, and quarter-Formula 1 Qualifying. Which sounds weird, but trust me on this one... it is. But in a good way! If you've ever spent any serious amount of time in the theatre biz, this is a must-watch. If you haven't, it's basically a sports series with a serious psychological aspect. And singing.
A lot of singing. In flat-out stage musical style. These ain't pop songs, these aren't Idols, these are being sung by professional musical theatre actresses, many of whom have either been in or would join the stage productions. And they're friggin' excellent. It's been a long, long time since a series made me feel the way this one does. I actually despise one of the characters... not because she's written poorly but because if you've spent any time in theatre, you know her attitude is... untenable. That's good work from the writers. But don't go into this expecting Idol happiness and fluff, you won't get it. Does the possibility frighten you?
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I started this one and wandered off, mainly because little miss ditzy genki-girl protag drove me up the ENTIRE wall. I'm told the show gets better, I just haven't gotten 'round to taking another run at it...
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 21, 2019 10:12 AM (yisPP)
I greatly enjoyed Revue Starlight, despite the show feeling like it was co-written with cocaine and LSD. I am not sure why, though - maybe the sure absurdity of everything was what caused genuine enjoyment.
It certainly helped that the voices of the characters were done by their original actresses from the musical - only one of the seiyuus is a dubbing pro (Suzuko Mimori.). There is at least one person on Twitter and Youtube who did a whole series explaining the background of the franchise and its' take on portraying the famous Takarazuka Revue.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 22, 2019 05:14 PM (LMsTt)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at November 23, 2019 03:01 AM (5iiQK)
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Not really but it is modeled after the Revue and has a fair bit of subtle criticism of the latter. Several members of the production staff for the Revue Starlight musical production had been part of the Takarazuka, so any similarities are not coincidental.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 23, 2019 11:33 AM (LMsTt)
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Beastars also takes place in the theater club. But other than the Cast/Crew split, I don't get the same feeling.
Posted by: Mauser at November 23, 2019 06:08 PM (Ix1l6)
When my rubber duckies start talking to me, telling me to do something, I'm gonna do it. So when Rusty2 said "post that picture, I look good in it," I'm sure as heck not gonna say no.
Oh sure, like your rubber ducks don't talk to you?
Posted by: Mauser at November 12, 2019 10:25 PM (Ix1l6)
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I truly deeply regret not making note of the artist behind the Rusty ducks. I would buy more of them if I could, in a heartbeat.
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 12, 2019 10:25 PM (rKFiU)
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Mauser, he's a cast-iron rubber duck. We're all-inclusive here at The Pond when it comes to The Flock.
GD, my memory is not the same as it was when you were kind enough to present me with Rusty 2, but I distinctly remember you saying that the metalsmith disappeared from... the open-air market?... you got him from like immediately afterwards.
Like, you got OG Rusty, then some time later got Rusty 2, then the next weekend the metalsmith disappeared from the stalls, never to be seen again.
To me, that sounds like he existed only to provide you and me with Rustys. His task completed, he was returned to the Duck Spirit World.
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 13, 2019 03:47 PM (18xJF)
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Were he not likely to rust more, I can imagine some very odd photography with Rusty at the bottom of a tub while the rest float serenely above.
Posted by: Mauser at November 13, 2019 08:34 PM (Ix1l6)
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I don't have rubber ducks, but no, my stuffed animals don't speak to me. I wish they would. I need someone in my life who can at least pretend to be happy to see me come home. Or to tell me I'm awesome.
Posted by: fillyjonk at November 14, 2019 11:23 AM (o5UlT)
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Am I the only person who read this as a cry for help?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at November 23, 2019 02:01 AM (5iiQK)
She Needs Us
On November 7th, 2009, this video was posted to Youtube for the first time:
Now on the verge of the 10th anniversary of God Knows being made available to the world by the SOS Brigade, a concerted effort is being made to push the video over 100 million views. At the time of this writing, it's only 36000 views short. I call on the accumulated members of The Pond Scum: let's make it happen!
You don't want Haruhi to be disappointed.
Edit: changed the target from ten million to the correct one hundred million.
Another Edit: Nine hours to go until Midnight Pond Central Time, and we're less than 18000 views away from the goal.
Posted by: Don at November 06, 2019 10:36 PM (sUjv9)
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My unabashed love for this song (and corresponding chunk of high-quality animation) remains undiminished after all these years even after all other thoughts of The Whole Damned Haruhi Thing have long faded. Thanks for a good excuse to play it again, Sam Wonderduck.
Posted by: GreyDuck at November 07, 2019 08:39 AM (rKFiU)
Posted by: Mauser at November 14, 2019 09:50 PM (Ix1l6)
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What impresses me is that not only had this song been official dubbed into English and Russian (if not others), but it’s comparably high quality regardless!
Posted by: TJF588 at November 23, 2019 09:44 PM (5QMym)
One can't help but think that Morty was... um... overcompensating for something.
One of those things that nobody ever thinks about is bomb aerodynamics. I mean regular people, that is. The military, they think about things like that all the time. After all, when you strap something to the bottom of a wing, it's usually a really good idea to make sure it's not going to have the airflow of an apartment building. Also, when you drop something from an airplane, it makes it a lot easier to hit what you're aiming at if you know how the thing is going to "fly". Fall. Plummet. You know what I mean.
But of course, there's a catch: getting the darn thing into the sky in the first place. If it's got more drag than RuPaul on Halloween, strapping it to a wing may not be good for the plane or pilot's long-term survival chances. Putting it in the bomb bay of a larger plane sounds good, until you actually drop it and you haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen next. If it tumbles instantly upon the application of an airflow, it's a bad idea to find that out at altitude after it rips your tail off.
So what's an aerial ordinance designer to do? Well that's just easy as pie: get it into the air without an airplane! Easy! Except we're talking about something 500, 1000, 2000 pounds in weight... you can't just pick it up and throw it like a baseball. Well, I can't, maybe you can. 500lbs is the weight of a 10" naval shell, 2000lbs is closer to a 16" battleship round. So what's a good way to do it?
Meet the Little David, a 36" caliber mortar! Yes, a three FOOT diameter barrel. You put an aerial bomb into a... kind-of sabot thingy... and voop! You've got a way to get an aerial bomb into the air without endangering an aircraft. It didn't have much of a range considering the size involved, less than 10km, and accuracy came down to "over there somewhere", but that's not what the US military was wanting anyway.
Until people began to realize that that the Japanese were turning the home islands into a fortress, and then they began to look at the Little David as a bunker buster of extreme proportions. The Powers That Be developed a 36" shell, weighing over 3600 pounds, for the mortar. Problem was that neither the accuracy nor the range was ever improved, and it was never what you could call "portable." See that wall the guy is standing in front of? That's a concrete and steel base that had to be buried for stability purposes that the mortar itself would be placed into... the FORTY TON mortar and the FORTY-SIX TON base.
Of course the invasion of Japan never occurred, and people quietly retired Little David as a weapon. Only one of the six built exists today, and it's on display at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 30, 2019 10:33 PM (Id/Jh)
6
My first thought was "you went to war to gain access to resources.. here, have lots and lots of steel, express delivery."
Watching that video, especially where the crewmen were working in line with the muzzle while ramming in a live charge, then just standing around while the shell slid down the barrel... yikes. If something went wrong, they'd be finding bits of that crew in the next county.
Posted by: David at October 31, 2019 03:37 PM (A/T0R)
First, when dropping bombs, they can also get caught up in the airflow around the plane, and instead of falling, hug the bottom of the aircraft. This is what is known as a Bad Thing. A friend of mine who was working on early GPS systems told me that the engineers of GPS autopilots didn't quite understand bomb dropping dynamics, not being pilots of having dropped any bombs. The bug he caught probably saved a lot of pilot's lives. The engineers treated the bomb drop like just another waypoint, meaning that a turn could start immediately after. This runs into that whole "Bad thing" thing. you have to continue on for a short time in order for the bomb to clear the wind envelope around the plane.
Second, the concept of a ground-fired bomb hasn't gone away. The Military is working on a system that will launch the standard Small Diameter Bomb from artillery, and that is a GPS-guided bomb. One range figure I've heard bandied about either as a capability or a goal is 80 miles.
Posted by: Mauser at October 31, 2019 05:24 PM (Ix1l6)
Sherman! Set the WABAC Machine to go to...The USS Vesuvius! Using pneumatic launchers to fire 'dynamite' rounds is...Well, pretty useless for naval combat. However, is seemed to be useful for shore bombardment.
Second, the concept of a ground-fired bomb hasn't gone away. The Military is working on a system that will launch the standard Small Diameter Bomb from artillery, and that is a GPS-guided bomb. One range figure I've heard bandied about either as a capability or a goal is 80 miles.
I thought the SDB was being tested with the rocket motors from MLRS units (Because somehow cluster munitions is eviler than thou.). Extending the range of regular artillery round has been a slow project over the last few decades, as the Navy discovered when the ERGM project was failed. I do admit to liking the big 8" howitzers and guns that the Army no longer has.
Posted by: cxt217 at November 01, 2019 03:25 PM (LMsTt)
9
I wonder if that B-17 lost half its horizontal stabilizer to a normally falling bomb from a higher aircraft in the 'box' rather than to one of its own bombs, but indeed, weapons separation is a tricky thing, and a very important one.
Modern fighters, which can carry all sorts of ordnance and (hopefully) launch it at a variety of attitudes, altitudes, speeds, and g vectors, have got to be a worst case.
The A-5 Vigilante, which was supposed to have carried its bombs internally (linked to a couple of auxiliary fuel tanks, also indoors) and sort of pooped them out the back rather than opening bomb-bay doors underneath, presented a different kind of problem. From what I've read, they never did this with live weapons in operational service, partly because of reliability; partly, in those pre-JDAM days, because accuracy, which counts for something even with nukes, was... charitably described as modest.
Posted by: Ad absurdum per aspera at November 04, 2019 05:51 PM (8TunF)
10
Unka Ad, that's exactly what happened to it. If I remember the story correctly, the dropping plane was out of position, perhaps from damage, perhaps from avoiding another plane.
I just couldn't find a picture of a plane that lost part of its construction to self-dropped ordinance that I liked. Artistic license and all that.
Posted by: Wonderduck at November 06, 2019 05:20 PM (EXhwA)
11
Hard to tell with the resolution of the picture, but the port wing seems to me to be not looking too healthy either.
Posted by: AlanL at November 17, 2019 07:09 AM (GXOZK)
Akagi Found!
As I semi-postulated would occur in the Kaga post, Paul Allen's team has now found what they are pretty sure to be the Akagi.
Guess the report on them having another ship's location was right! All of this was breaking just shortly before I'm typing this, so we don't have much information yet, and the RV Petrel apparently either hasn't been down yet or they haven't released any footage. Still, we can tell a lot from these sonar images. Like Kaga, Akagi is sitting upright, and it sure looks like she hit with not too much horizontal motion. I'm hardly an expert on that sort of stuff, so take it with a grain of salt.
I'm pretty sure the bow is to the left in both images. If she landed stern-first, that might explain the "arrow-head" shape... the impact could have compressed the stern maybe? Of course, the flight deck is gone, though I wonder if the Akagi's massive underdeck supports might still be there? In any case, this is just as exciting as the Kaga finding, and for similar reasons. Hopefully we'll get to see more as the day goes on!
edit: forgot to mention... according to a comment I saw from Jon Parshall over at the Petrel's facebook page, the Nauticos company did not share the location of the chunk of Kaga's hull with Paul Allen's team... they found the ship on their own, making all this even more incredible.
Posted by: Ben at October 21, 2019 10:17 AM (osxtX)
2Soryu would be the obvious next one to be found. She went down in the vicinity of Kaga and Akagi and around about the same time. If the Petrel Bunch are still searching (instead of researching the hell out of the two wrecks they've already found), I'd expect her to be located within the week.
Hiryu and Mikuma will be much more difficult to find as both were sunk after a substantial amount of undamaged sailing time.
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 21, 2019 01:19 PM (zI5rk)
3
"What's next?" led me to wonder "What's left?" And a quick google search is surprisingly unhelpful. There are of course tens of thousands of shipwrecks scattered on the ocean floor, and there are some major ships of historical interest like the Santa Maria waiting to be found, but of the major WWII combatants that got sunk, I can't seem to find a list of the ones that haven't been found.
Posted by: David at October 21, 2019 04:00 PM (A/T0R)
4
Clearly there can only be one next target for the search.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 22, 2019 10:30 PM (2yngH)
5
Well, they found the Yamato in 1985, but as far as I know finding the Space Battleship Yamato would involve time travel or dimension jumping.
Posted by: Ben at October 23, 2019 08:25 AM (osxtX)
Shokaku, Taiho, and Hiyo would be nice finds, but the water depth for them are probably far deeper than at Midway. A similar problem would apply to USS Princeton.
HMS Barham should be easier - the depth is not as deep and they should have a good idea of where she, but given how far off HMS Ark Royal was compared to where the Royal Navy recorded her as sinking at, it will not be easy. The three Italian heavy cruisers lost at Cape Matapan would have the same issue.
Posted by: cxt217 at October 23, 2019 09:45 PM (LMsTt)
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Sorry about the outage, your site should be back to normal now!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 29, 2019 04:36 PM (2yngH)
8
And the answer for "next?" appears to be Johnston, or possible Hoel, the ID isn't confirmed yet.
The crew of R/V Petrel must be working their behinds off, but the thrill of finding one historical wreck after another has to be amazing. I imagine they've done a ton of prep work to narrow down these search areas.
Posted by: David at October 31, 2019 04:19 PM (A/T0R)
Kaga Found!
The late Paul Allen's team has done it one more time... and this time, they did something I thought would never happen.
They found the Kaga.
In this sonar image, the stern is in the lower-right corner. The Kaga's flight deck is gone, which comes as no surprise whatsoever. Of the four Japanese carriers sunk at Midway, Kaga was the one that suffered the most grievous and swift fire damage. Nearly all of her hangar deck personnel (aircraft mechanics and armorers) were killed by the fires caused when a 1000lb bomb punched through her flight deck to explode among fully fueled and mostly armed aircraft. That particular explosion also ruptured her avgas lines, knocked out the generators powering the water pumps, damaged the fire mains, and destroyed a one-shot carbon-dioxide fire smothering device.
The ship is upright in the sea floor, though she's quite deep in the mud and silt. Information is still sparse... the announcement was only made about five hours ago as I write this... but from what I've managed to piece together, they should still be able to locate where the Nauticos chunk would fit on the hull.
Undoubtedly the Nauticos find is what allowed Paul Allen's group to narrow down the search area. There's only a finite amount of distance the burning ship could have moved before she was scuttled, and the Nauticos report linked above gives a presumed maximum of about five hours, 30 minutes from the time the chunk was blown free to the time of scuttling. So knowing the ship went roughly thataway for up to 5h30m gives you a search area. Then it's just the tedious job of combing the ocean floor with sonar and ROV until you find something.
Like a piece of hull with a gun turret on the side. Oh, and speaking of finding something... one report I saw said they have a strong possibility for another ship location. Could we have an Akagi or Soryu next? Hiryu is probably quite a distance away from the others... if any of them is going to stay missing now, I'm guessing its her.
Holy crap, folks... I'm actually giddy about this. Seriously: what a find! Naval historians everywhere owe the late Paul Allen a debt of gratitude... pour a YooHoo out for your homie tonight!
1
Paul Allen's group is doing a great job of finding these relics. They found the Saint Lo not long ago, and I presume not far away, unless they have two separate search groups.
Aside from the cool factor, and perhaps verifying how they sunk where the record is unclear, what is the actual historical value of finding these? Not that I want to say "go do something more useful" by any means, I'm just curious what the actual value is, if any.
Posted by: David at October 18, 2019 01:33 PM (wXI5i)
2
Think of it as "battlefield archaeology", David. Midway was one of the largest (in terms of area) battles ever fought, and the location of one of the opponents has really only been approximated. Now it's getting nailed down pretty drastically.
USS St Lo was sunk almost literally half the Pacific Ocean away from Midway. Its wreck was found about six months ago.
Posted by: Wonderduck at October 19, 2019 01:33 AM (zI5rk)
3
The archaeological aspect is important, as is improving the techniques for finding stuff in a body of water the size of the effin' Pacific. This is SUPER cool.
Posted by: GreyDuck at October 19, 2019 11:02 AM (rKFiU)
4
I was confused on the St Lo thing, as I was seeing reporting on it being found very recently. Apparently it was found months ago as you said, but they just released the video footage recently.
Posted by: David at October 21, 2019 03:47 PM (A/T0R)
1
That really was a heck of a piece of editing & compositing. Was amused to see a tiny bit of Macross Frontier in there, too.
I'm no font of useful advice, but please do keep on keeping on, good sir.
Posted by: GreyDuck at October 12, 2019 10:17 PM (rKFiU)
2
Somewhere in Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo there is a duck. (Saw it in a clip video).
Posted by: Mauser at October 16, 2019 10:10 PM (Ix1l6)
3
You know, possibly you need to establish a little routine. Nothing big, nothing stressful, but something improving.
Like: Read something from the classics, or the Bible, or Shakespeare for 15 minutes, at the same time every day.
Maybe read it out loud, as vocal exercise.
Maybe memorize some poetry or song lyrics, just for fun and mental exercise, and recite them out loud.
Of course, me being Catholic, I would recommend some EWTN or Institute for Catholic Culture videos/podcasts. Even for secular folks, they have a lot of history and philosophical info of interest.
But there's always true crime, etc....
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at October 17, 2019 08:39 PM (sF8WE)
Python 50
Today is the 50th anniversary of the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
I don't believe there's been ANYthing that's been more influential in my sense of humor, and possibly my entire life, than Python. At the age of nine, every Sunday night at 930pm you could find me camped out in front of the television at the Old Home Pond. Then, after staring at a blank screen for a while, I'd actually turn it on.
What came forth from that box would change me forever. I knew types of cheeses that didn't exist yet. I learned that hedgehogs hated gangsters. I learned that penguins were electric and had long stinging tentacles. Musical instruments played by whacking mice with hammers. I learned what a fjord was, and that certain types of parrots pined for them. I learned what a twit was.
As it turned out, very little of this would help me in the formal sense. I knew the winners of the 1949 FA Cup but I couldn't do math.
Despite this, there's no question that my life, and that of countless others, has been...
...improved by Monty Python being in it. It's a debt I can never repay, nor would I want to... who has that much gouda?
1
The Pythons are one of the three media forces that shaped the sense of humor of my young, impressionable mind. From them I learned that absurdity can be a powerful tool for entertainment, but you need to sell it just right or it falls flat.
(The other two: George Carlin, from whom I learned that words have meaning and power, and The Marx Brothers, from whom I learned... well, the power of well-disguised innuendo if nothing else.)
Posted by: GreyDuck at October 06, 2019 01:48 PM (rKFiU)
2
And for the current generation, it seems harder than ever to access, given the Wealth(?) of entertainment sources we have today.
Posted by: Mauser at October 06, 2019 07:38 PM (Ix1l6)
3
Oooh! You can listen to the Goon Show on the BBC!
They also did a documentary about these two crazy comics who were actually predecessors of the Goons, and did that style of comedy onstage right before, during, and after WWII. There was also a nice audio doc about Spike Jones.
So yeah, the Goons did their stuff in their own way, and Monty Python did Goon-type stuff.
Also, the legendary George Martin produced the Goon Show original albums, back when he was low man on the totem pole and was doing whatever the other producers didn't want.
Which was why the Beatles were ecstatic to work with him, because they wanted to do all sorts of crazy sounds too, albeit more seriously than the Goons and Spike Jones.
Everything is connected....
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at October 17, 2019 08:46 PM (sF8WE)
4
Oh, BBC Radio 4 Extra just put out a 6 part comedy radio drama on the history of the band KLF! It's called "How to Burn a Million Quid."
They've also got a fair amount of dramas and stuff, nothing really sweet right now, but you can look back into the past in the full schedule and listen to anything that's a week or two old. (Even if you live in the US, as is not usually the case with their TV stuff.)
"I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" is another pre-Python thing, with John Cleese and his Cambridge buddies. It seems to have some eps on YouTube as well as on the Beeb streaming radio.
On regular BBC Radio 4, they have David Tennant doing Chekhov with a multi-part "Wild Honey."
And if you really want odd stuff, CBeebies is the kids' radio drama, talkshows, and "soothing sounds", and every UK language group has local radio you can access.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at October 17, 2019 09:21 PM (sF8WE)
I'm actually giddy about this. Seriously: what a find! Naval historians everywhere owe the late Paul Allen a debt of gratitude... pour a YooHoo out for your homie tonight!
