Monday, October 22, 2018
Oct 23rd, 1983. Not forgotten. 35th anniversary.
Three hundred service members had been living at the four-story building at the airport in Beirut. There were 1,800 Marines stationed in Beirut at the time. A multi-national force with units from France, Italy and the United Kingdom was also on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon at the same time.
At the same time the Marine barracks was hit, a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck full of explosives and crashed into a building housing French paratroopers. Approximately 58 French soldiers were killed in the attack.
This was the deadliest attack against US Marines since the battle over Iwo Jima in February 1945. The bombing was traced to Hezbollah, a militant and political group that originated in Lebanon in 1982.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/world/meast/beirut-marine-barracks-bombing-fast-facts/index.html
two '29 Ford taxi's which have been converted to delivery vehicles by painting over the side windows (homemade sedan deliveries) and a Model AA School Bus with a drivers side door
taken May 25, 1934 in front of the Texas Capitol Building in Austin
the Model A Ford Taxi had the lowest production of all 1929 Model A's other than the Town Car (4,576 vs. 913).
In fact, Ford made more A-400 Convertible Sedans in 1931 than they made Taxi's in 1929
(4,864 vs. 4,576)
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1086072
Peter Jackson’s World War I archive movie "They Shall Not Grow Old" reaction was so strong that it is now in discussions for international and U.S. release opportunities.
“They Shall Not Grow Old” is tricked out with ingeniously integrated sound editing and seamlessly retimed from 13 frames a second to 24 and took an impressive non-final $731,000 from 247 screens on its one night of play in the UK.
The Guardian called it “electrifying,” giving it five stars, while The Independent said it was “astonishing.”
The Guardian called it “electrifying,” giving it five stars, while The Independent said it was “astonishing.”
Requests have reportedly been streaming in from international press asking how they can see the film. The BBC will broadcast the film in the UK on Armistice Day, November 11.
Originally intended to be a 30-minute piece, the power of the material and the scope of the subject meant it became a 99-minute feature. The film’s success is another example of the huge appetite for strong docus right now, both on the small and big screens.
https://deadline.com/2018/10/peter-jackson-wwi-movie-they-shall-not-grow-old-1202484472/
This is a film to fill you with an intensified version of all the old feelings: mostly rage at the incompetence and cruelty of a governing class that put these soldiers through hell in their mechanization and normalization of war.
The details are harrowing, as is the political incorrectness of what the soldiers recall: some express their candid enjoyment of the war, others their utter desensitization to what they experienced. When the end came, many felt only disappointment and anticlimax: “It was like being made redundant.” And in the war itself, there is nauseous acceptance of horror. You could die simply by stumbling off the duckboards and sinking into the mud. There were the fat rats (“and you knew how they got fat”), the trench foot, the lice. This film also shows you something no Hollywood production ever would: the latrines – a trench over which men would have to squat, sitting precariously on a pole, some inevitably falling in.
It is possible that, if and when the technology used in it becomes commonplace, They Shall Not Grow Old may not be considered to have contributed much to what we already understand about the first world war. Maybe. Trench warfare and its horrors have arguably become a subject for reflex piety, while soldiers’ experiences in the second world war, or other wars, are somehow not considered poignant in the same way. But as an act of popular history, They Shall Not Grow Old is outstanding.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/16/they-shall-not-grow-old-review-first-world-war-peter-jackson
https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/they-shall-not-grow-old-review-peter-jackson-1202981266/
If you are wondering what in the hell I'm talking about, this is a followup to https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-looks-amazing-ww1-films-in-color.html
wth is a Niva? It's a Lada, Russian made
The Niva was described by its designers as a “Renault 5 put on a Land Rover chassis”
Also known as a Super 4x4 (Egypt)
Lada Bushman (Australia)
Lada Cossack (United Kingdom)
Lada Hussar (Finland)
Lada Job (Italy)
and Lada Taiga
https://www.reddit.com/r/overlanding/comments/9m3uoj/coolest_niva_ive_ever_seen/
Wheelin' Woody... cute extrapolation of the character traits of Toy Story's main character Woody, into a Hot Wheels car
http://hotwheels.wikia.com/wiki/Wheelin%27_Woody
https://www.sortitapps.com/item/hotwheels/nocode20130701151127855/
cool old gas station... tile walls even!
Quite the tall tower... makes me wonder if they used it for storage or office space, maybe a bed for long nights?
Looking at the left side of the photo, I see a Coca Cola cooler under the display window
Thanks John!
things that are cool with wheels = Robbie Ivey. This 19 yr old guy is cool, and usually found in a wheelchair. Things are improving, and here's a post on how.
He just started college too!
But, lets get to the things improving... Amazon has this tech device called Alexa, (named after the ancient library of Alexandria) you've probably seen commercials about it. Google has a similar smart speaker device called Google Home or Google Mini.
It's a voice controlled speaker, and when you speak the activation words "Hey Google" and then a command for it to accomplish, like, "turn on fan" it gets it's little computer gadgets to properly respond with relays and switches and bingo! That outlet gets turned on, and supplies electricity to the outlet that the fan is plugged into, accomplishing tasks by voice that would otherwise require you to use your hands to do these things.
Since Rob's muscular dystrophy has prevented his muscles from growing correctly, the result is that his muscle fibers that ought to control bones, resulting in movement with the arms, hands, fingers etc, have not formed, and he needs a substitute for his arms and hands (for example) with someone else's arms and hands, or, in this case technology that is voice activated to interact with motors and switches.
This results in Rob regaining the ability to control things and gives him back some independence that the muscular dystrophy took away.
And that's where the new tech of smart speakers from Amazon or Google come into the story, and make Rob's life a lot easier. All that was needed, was the right people... and Rob's mom was fortunately connected with Bill Weis of http://limitedmobility.solutions/ Everything that Bill and Limited Mobility does is free to the person. (Just like me... you aren't charged for this blog either!)
They met at a Muscular Dystrophy event and although it started with designing a custom voice activated solution for his bed, it quickly spread to using commercially available products to fully voice activate everything possible in his room.
Instead of pushing buttons to adjust his bed from horizontal to more reclining, Rob just tells Alexa to move the head of the bed up. Then he can easily see a tv screen, and he can avoid interrupting his mom to do that.
Bill has innovated what can be done with voice activation today, with out-of-the-box solutions as well as custom developed solutions. If you've heard of "Smart Homes" that react to your pushing a button to activate the drapes, air conditioning, turning on music, etc, it's very much the same tech approach to making things happen for you without effort on your part. (I worked for a company that was installing Logitech 10 years ago, and we did a few things like this)
Bill and Mobility Solutions also want to build a library of guidance documentation that supplement what exists, in an effort to simplify installations. Finally, Bill is looking to create a way of gathering requirements for other unmet needs in hopes of working towards solving those problems.
Voice activated solutions can be beneficial for anyone with limited mobility regardless of the cause whether that be from debilitating diseases, the battlefield, accident victims or other health related issues.
There are some limits to how far this tech has come, for example, you must have internet access, a wi fi router, and in the case of making voice activated phone calls, it is possible to voice activate phone calls with both the Amazon Echo and the Google Home smart speakers. Google doesn't yet have the tech to voice activate for receiving calls, so an Echo Connect device must be added to Amazon Echo, which then enables voice activated answering phone calls.
Amazon Echo has things it can do, and some it can't. Google Home has similar features and limits. Adding Logitech Harmony Hub increases the number of things that can be done.
http://limitedmobility.solutions/ is currently in the registry for the Wounded Warrior Project as providers of voice activated solutions for our disabled military, they work with MDA, MS and many other organizations
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/accessibility/robbie-iveys-story-how-technology-removes-barriers/
Did everyone take their publicity photos here in front of the White House, the Capitol, and other grand looking Washington DC buildings?
or the George Washington Masonic National Memorial... ?
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1083597
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1083607
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1085703
Sunday, October 21, 2018
There once was a time when the White House was accessible to everyone... and the press could pull up their trucks right to the porch to record president's speeches
Movie trucks at the north portico in Dec 27th 1929. The new technology gave the public unprecedented access to the White House and its residents.
In May 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Paramount Pictures and seven other major Hollywood movie studios violated antitrust law via various anti-competitive tactics. As a result of the decision the movie houses would be forced to sell their theater operations, among other things, molding the motion picture industry for decades to come.
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1070445
https://www.thestreet.com/markets/cisco-moves-forward-with-key-acquisition-icymi-14579451
these were some cool looking trucks!
and I didn't realize that the soft tops had the same C cab design as the hardtops
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?do=findComment&comment=1067764
http://forums.aaca.org/topic/207364-vintage-delivery-trucks-on-main-street-usa-a-pictorial/?page=8
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Gentlemen! There's no point in going in there, turn it around and head back to the last place we went through, I bet it has a good bar!
this is the EMF 30 used for the AAA pathfinding of Detroit to Denver in 1909 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/05/they-used-emf-30-for-aaas-pathfinding.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/197491484165115/permalink/323631654884430/
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