peanut rubber for WWII
Ok, it sounds like you’re making shit up, although I know it’s true.
There was also hemp oil and hemp rope, used extensively in planes and ships. Then it got criminalized (or re-criminalized, I forget) right after the war ended. Gotta keep those Dupont execs rolling in the patents money, amirite!
Still, this is some gourmet Willy Wonka fantasy material.
Has a comic/manga made GWC into a steampunk superhero scientist yet?
Speaking of Ridley Scott.
But then in an astute creative move, the sequel was put in the hands of one of the truly best directors working today, in fact it could be said that Dennis Villeneuve is the Ridley Scott of his day. Like Michael Mann has been the John Ford of his day.
Although Villeneuve so far has been a guarantee of quality both in content and presentation, while Scott’s erratic career is sprinkled with quite a few mediocre efforts and misfires, like he gets easily distracted, and you can even get a whiff of that in the way he fidgets unnecessarily with his older movies (speaking of Blade Runner) like Lucas did with the Star Wars original trilogy.
Scooping up a root folder alias without noticing and dumping it in the trash icon.
They should do a faithful-to-the-book adaptation of Moonraker!
Straight out of the mid-50s, an ICBM pointing at London and in a countdown. A race against time! (and Hugo Drax)
Careful, somebody might post this in Wholesome Memes.
Is their first language Python, by any chance?
What’s with the number buttons being available with no “OK” or “Enter” option?
He’s still got a valid point. In songs and in some ads, they even show up.
Add cellphone ringtones to that list, the list of “whoever thought this was a clever idea is an idiot” ideas.
This visual is uniquely soothing, reminds me of artist Cory Arcangel, who did an art piece with just the Super Mario clouds drifting on a television screen - hacking into the NES cartridge and getting rid of everything else - to much admiration.
I remember reading an art journalist applauding the Impressionistic feel of the thing, the way Arcangel brought a background object to the fore, and in the process transformed it into something new entirely, with a surprising character and strength of presence.
Instead of remaining parallel as we move through space in the arrow of time, we get closer to other mass because our paths bend, our clocks running at slightly different beats.
Time-bending is mind-bending stuff, man.
Pull on the chain once for bright genie,
Pull twice for dim genie,
Pull a third time for OFF.
Somewhat like Dziga Vertov’s “Man With A Movie Camera”, from the silent movie era. It’s a laudable intellectual experiment, but with the emphasis on what the camera and editing can capture instead of any narrative thread, the whole thing quickly becomes overwhelming and starts feeling like a chore.
It was in my mind, but I think Edison got away with some things that exceed the current crop of billionaires, by at least one length, as they say in horse racing. Especially during his no-holds-barred attack on Westinghouse/Tesla and their alternating current, while Edison pushed direct current, which included his inventions to create and deliver it. He had the whole goddamned infrastructure planned out, world domination for decades and decades was at stake here.
But even as Edison pushed every vicious tactic to discredit DC as unsafe, Nikolai Tesla came out the winner, and he did it with dignity and style. Remember the famous photos of Tesla by the arcing electric wires and stuff? Those were publicity shots to show the world (well… mostly NYC at the time, where the AC vs DC war was being fought) that DC was safe enough for even the inventor to sit there casually and read the newspaper.
The more you read about that shithead edison, the worse it gets. The asshole acted with an impunity that defies modern logic.
As it was, there was no social media and our current sensibilities back then, information took much more effort to spread, so way too many people have revered him as some sort of saintly hero. Word didn’t spread about how narcissistic and petty, how cruel to the point of savagery, he was.
That goes ditto for Marconi, his “billion-dollar innovation” consisted of stealing every academic research idea and design within reach, and patenting every single one as his own.
If we’re going to add fantasy to the mix - see: Ghostbusters, Masters Of The Universe, Howard The Duck, Flash Gordon - I’m gonna go ahead and say that Time Bandits deserves to be on this list more than others on it.
And if you want cheesy Sci-Fi, we need to talk about Mad Max: Beyond The Thunderdome.
Leaning closer towards the mainstream of the times, there was The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension.
You remember who else pulled this old man’s fevered-dream trick and showed EVERYBODY how cinema is done properly on a grand scale, don’tcha?
George Miller with Mad Max: Fury Road.
Does it get any more batshit insane than to spray-paint your own mouth with chrome aerosol while screaming “WITNESS ME!!”, because I don’t think so. “AQUA COLA!” “May you ride eternal, all shiny and chrome!” Utterly iconic old man fevered-dream, utterly fascinating.
Mexicanos al grito de guerra
El acero aprestad y el bridón
Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra
Al sonoro rugir de el cañón
Neither too far nor too near
The least wiggle
The long-term goal was to make and keep people as dumb and ignorant as possible. What a parasite.