A good friend has a large RV, a “fifth wheel” trailer, and a very large diesel pickup to haul it; the two together indeed cost him around $200K, and he took out a mortgage to pay for it (!), so he has monthly debt service to pay. We visit them in local “campgrounds”, which are in fact parking lots with hundreds of…
This explains a lot. We signed on in early 2018 and for a while it was pretty great; we did in fact go to the movies nearly every day for days on end (we’re retired). Then later, every time we opened the app it said “No Screenings Available”; guess we hit that tripwire. We dumped it quite a while ago, and are going to…
A while back I attended a talk given by Fred Ordway, one of the movie’s technical advisors. He revealed lots of little details, like the square blocks on the back of the space helmets are data modules with mission-specific information. He said their biggest fear was that they weren’t being visionary enough, and that…
Hmm... the lead photo might have you believe that’s some sort of video camera. In fact it’s a 1971 Sankyo EM-30XL Super-8 film movie camera. It lacked sound, producing silent color movies. So, that’s going to be a pretty dull interview.
Props to Beyoncé; she’s a national treasure. That said, I my own personal self have been in the Smithsonian. No I don’t mean that I just visited, I mean that I have been exhibited there. My brother is a curator in the Transportation department, and did an exhibit that included photos of classic motels of the ‘50s. He…
Wow. I’m glad he’s ok. A few notes:
Hmm... this is how the page greeted me. Maybe Travis just watched American Beauty.
It took me half a lifetime to see the fault in Ayn Rand’s economic philosophy. My parents were hard-core, politically active Republicans; one of my earliest memories is of handing out bumper stickers for Ike, and later Nixon and Goldwater. In 1969 I actually met Pat Nixon at a reception for the First Lady (Agnew’s…
“...lost city of gold...”
Reader’s Digest has been doing this since 1922, the old-fashion way of course with human editors. It remains amazingly successful, with global circulation of over 10 million; it’s the best selling magazine in the world.
The problem of when to use nuclear weapons began in WWI. Both Germany and Britain mounted bomber attacks on each other, and out of that experience came the new military knowledge that “the bomber will always get through.” No matter what countermeasures you employ, some of the bombers will reach their targets. With…
Reader’s guide for young people: Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was an American illustrator known for his lifelike portraits of everyday life. His illustrations were often on the covers of widely circulated magazines like the Saturday Evening Post.
Sorry Megan... you’re too young to know this, but signet rings stopped being cool around 1960. Frank Sinatra gave them to his pals, insisting they wear them all the time. One of his pals who got one was notorious gangster and murder Sam “Momo” Giancana. Frank loved palling around with Sam, wearing their signet rings.…
Sorry Megan... you’re too young to know this, but signet rings stopped being cool around 1960. Frank Sinatra gave…
Half a million people showed up at Max Yasgur’s farm in 1969. Merriweather Post Pavilion is a nice venue, but holds at most 19,319. Even under the best of circumstances, this is just going to be a pretty nice concert, not the epoch-defining event the original was.
Yes, but that process is fueled largely by the petroleum itself, so it’s a win-win energy-wise.
The Fifties was certainly an extraordinary time, but certainly not as its often depicted. I know; I was there. It’s important to remember that the adults of 1955 were the same guys who waded ashore at Iwo Jima and Normandy to defeat universal slavery under Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Even ten years later they…
Learning to fly a helicopter. I’m a private pilot, and have considerable fixed-wing experience. However, I’ve never flow a heli and always wanted to. I looked into it, and a Bell JetRanger with an instructor costs around $900 an hour. So, gonna’ just have to let that one pass.
To put this in a slightly different way, we use petroleum because the energy in it is free to us. Nature puts the energy into the molecules, so we don’t have to; we get it for free when we burn it. This is why alcohol is such a bad deal as a fuel; we have to put the energy into it to make it. Alcohol takes 70% more…
In the ‘80s it became more common for small airplanes to have turbochargers, and many featured the word “TURBO” prominently in the paint scheme. Some fuelers mistakenly thought this meant it was a turbine engine, and proceeded to fill the tanks with Jet-A jet fuel (essentially kerosene) instead of 100 octane aviation…
