Technology
The Real Soviet Union
A few days ago, this picture of a tweet appeared on my facebook page.
Now Ms. Sorrenti’s tweet is totally absurd as Mr. Hauer points out and references his Moscow Times piece.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/02/25/stalins-great-crime-in-the-caucasus-a64615
Missing the Changes
Recently I ran into this prediction of what an airliner of 1988 would look like in 1988. The thing is a reasonable extapolation of late 1930’s technology. Here it is.
A huge flying boat with huge radial engines. Of course that was totally wrong.
The War Of The Toys.
Horseshoe Nails.
For the last forty years or so, the trend in American politics, culture and the intellectual elites of the country has been to ignore the deindustrialization of the country. In fact the elites have been enablers of the process through polices and behaviors that strangled the industrial companies and their business.
Tech Stuff 101
This is a sort of search and discover newsletter of my findings of things that may relate to technology in one way or another. It might be the latest gosh wow tech, it might be something as old of humanity. It might relate to science large or small. It might be art for art’s sake. Or somebody just doing something funky. Because I think that technology is just the representation of human creativity and breaking boundaries. So I’m certainly not going to place boundaries here except that it won’t be the same old, same old. So almost no gadgets or yacking about the latest phone or whatever, unless of course it involves taking them apart or destroying them in unusual ways. Or putting them to work in imaginative ways that most people won’t even think of. So buckle up, it’s going to be a fun ride.
This week: moving a big transformer on Britain narrow roads, Barbed wire used to connect telephones, mine tractor and more.
Senator Blumenthal, If Your Staff Has A Problem Giving You A Brief On Firearms And Manufacturing Technologies, I Can Help.
Perhaps then you would not look like a blithering idiot on television. Of course you weren’t the only idiot.
Even More Treasures, from research odds and ends
The internet continues to provide.
Telephone stuff.
Boston in 1930
Flying boats.
http://www.messynessychic.com/2017/12/15/the-long-lost-world-of-the-luxury-flying-boat/
Two Coney Island videos.
Transcontinental air service.
https://www.americanheritage.com/content/transcontinental-air-transport-inc
Public baths in NYC?
https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/this-church-was-once-the-1905-allen-street-baths/
https://ny.curbed.com/2014/7/7/10078888/what-became-of-new-york-citys-ubiquitous-public-bathhouses
https://untappedcities.com/2017/09/06/vintage-nyc-photography-nycs-public-baths/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asser_Levy_Public_Baths
1929 Boston Marathon.
Fourth Ave bookstores.
https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/solitary-browsing-on-fourth-avenues-book-row/
More NYC stuff.
http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-lost-louis-stern-mansion-no-993.html
Some construction videos.
1920’s farming.
Antique machines.
Speed boats
More Research Odds and ends.
Here’s some more link and related stuff. In this post I’m going to do things like link to books in my library as well. Do I think that everybody will be able to access naval academy textbooks from the 1930’s? Not really, but I never expected to find them either, but when I did I bought them. and the set of The History of Technology and that book on farm life in the Nineteenth Century. The reason I have those references is that that I was open to buying them in the first place. As a writer the goal to be to write a book that Sarah Hoyt will not throw across the room. Your goal should be to not insult the reader’s intelligence, not go so far off the deep end that reader never wants to come back. You should do enough world building that the reader will feel comfortable living in that world.
Musing About Pencils
When I was growing up there was a small pencil factory in town, the Ruwe pencil company. They had their shop in a small building on the West side of town and I think that just about every pencil in school came from them. I think that I went on at least one field trip there as well. At least I remember the mills and gluing machines working away.
The Arts Mechanical 