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HEY GUNS posted:shut up you fuckig nerds A guy in Spain used a sword to attack burglars. The effects of a real blade are...something. http://knowledgeglue.com/man-uses-katana-stop-home-invasion-gory-aftermath-nsfw/ 
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Oct 17, 2018 01:32
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chitoryu12 posted:A guy in Spain used a sword to attack burglars. The effects of a real blade are...something. That grab-the-blade trick doesn’t work as well in real life as it did in Rob Roy, I see.
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Oct 17, 2018 02:10
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zoux posted:All this talk of Nazi aesthetic reminds me: Are y'all watching Man in the High Castle? I've seen concerns that it's humanizing Nazis, but isn't that kind of Arendt's point? That Nazis aren't some magic evil subspecies, they're just normal people? Or is it too risky given that we've got almost-Nazis roaming the streets in violent packs in America? I keep meaning to because my aunt (who is Japanese American) is supposedly an extra in one scene, but I don't know when.
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Oct 17, 2018 02:18
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Frog Act posted:Hello thread, I got my masters in history in may, did my thesis on a PseudoMarxist journal of critical and intellectual theory and studied mostly Weimar Germany. Right now I'm unemployed and looking for a dope book or two to fill the time in between cover letters. I'm really looking for something extremely good and engaging about Weimar cinema and politics, Vietnamese decolonization and the Vietnam war, later Soviet history/eastern bloc history, or really just anything super good you've read lately about anything historical you'd recommend to someone with a healthy interest in milhist but principally into political history Well I can't offer a serious review right now, but I just started reading the book Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James Scott. I'm still only on the first chapter but the book is already coming off as both engaging and serious. The book is broadly a criticism of what Scott calls the ideology of high modernism, characterized by massive revolutionary endeavors to recreate the world in bold and futuristic image. Often though reality came crashing down on wild dreams, repeatedly producing manmade disasters from the Great Leap Forward to the urban plan of Brazilia. Scott sees the modernist state stumbling repeatedly into failed projects because of a fundamental legal problem called "legibility". No state is omniscient. Rather its leaders instead see the world through a relatively small number of metrics and statistics which are taken to represent larger forces. This is not inherently problematic, in fact its entirely necessary, however the high modernist state then makes the mistake of assuming these numbers represent the totality of world, and create systems efficiently designed to optimize these statistics, and nothing else, neglecting the totality of of the system invisible to the state. A military history example that illustrates this problem would be McNamara's emphasis on body counts in Vietnam. Winning an insurgency involves many complicated intersecting processes. To whom are the village heads loyal? how quickly can forces move between North and South Vietnam? what volume of military material is entering from China? It's much easier to measure how many V.C. have been killed. Kill counts make progress in the war legible and measurable, and so the strategy is designed to optimize for that metric. This can have hard to predict consequences however. Incentivize your officers to maximize their kill counts and maybe they'll start killing random civilians and adding them to the count, or double counting bodies, or just making numbers up whole cloth. The attempt to measure and optimize the metric changes such that it ceases to index the real world process it was supposed to. And even if the numbers going up the chain are accurate, it turns out there's more to war than just killing the enemy. No matter how many V.C. you kill it won't make the peasants trust the government, nor solve the intractable corruption crippling the southern government. These kinds of problems occurred frequently in many large scale government projects in both capitalist and socialist economies. Instead, Scott believes states need to learn to trust local communities, or officers, or whoever, when they express their needs, rather than imposing simplistic models of what the people should want from above. Anyway I'm liking the book. James Scott specifically points anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin in his introduction as influences, however I don't think he's strictly anarchist. Some reviewer on Amazon said he sounds a lot like Hayek at times but that he'd be offended by the comparison. He's specific that his criticisms apply equally to large private businesses as well as the state, I get the sense he'd be chummy with Chomsky.
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Oct 17, 2018 03:21
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Reminds me of Goodhart's law "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
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Oct 17, 2018 03:57
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Seeing Like A State is awesome, and one of the few legitimately good books I read in grad school. I don’t have anything off-hand that is directly about post-colonial Vietnam, but A Vietcong Memoir by Troung Nhu Tang is a fascinating look at the communist side of the war from a highly place political leader, and what it cost the South in particular. And if you’re enjoying Seeing Like A State, but find it too mundane, Collier’s Post Soviet Social is a Foucauldian ethnology of Soviet urbanism through the lens of plumbing fixtures. The USSR threw up a bunch of these small cities centered around a factory which produced something for the Soviet economy, say camouflage netting or terrible transistor radios. The waste heat from the factory was used to heat nearby apartment blocks. When the USSR collapses in 1991, all these factories went idle. But the low level officials in these cities had to somehow keep the heating system up, lest the entire city freeze. Dense, but better than it sounds.
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Oct 17, 2018 08:24
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Frog Act posted:Hello thread, I got my masters in history in may, did my thesis on a PseudoMarxist journal of critical and intellectual theory and studied mostly Weimar Germany. Right now I'm unemployed and looking for a dope book or two to fill the time in between cover letters. I'm really looking for something extremely good and engaging about Weimar cinema and politics, Vietnamese decolonization and the Vietnam war, later Soviet history/eastern bloc history, or really just anything super good you've read lately about anything historical you'd recommend to someone with a healthy interest in milhist but principally into political history Have you read second hand time? Probably the best late/post soviet book I’ve ever read. Excellent stuff. As is all of Alexievich really.
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Oct 17, 2018 08:42
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Phanatic posted:That grab-the-blade trick doesn’t work as well in real life as it did in Rob Roy, I see. only do it if you have armor on edit: in a pinch, cloth supposedly blocks blades better than you'd think so you can wrap a jacket or cloak around your off hand and try to parry with that. I've never tried it myself though the wounded man in those photos actually had the right idea--which would you rather get stabbed in, your hand or one of the big arteries? HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Oct 17, 2018 |
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Oct 17, 2018 11:20
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Biffmotron posted:The USSR threw up a bunch of these small cities centered around a factory which produced something for the Soviet economy, say camouflage netting or terrible transistor radios. The waste heat from the factory was used to heat nearby apartment blocks. When the USSR collapses in 1991, all these factories went idle. But the low level officials in these cities had to somehow keep the heating system up, lest the entire city freeze. Dense, but better than it sounds.
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Oct 17, 2018 11:22
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chitoryu12 posted:A guy in Spain used a sword to attack burglars. The effects of a real blade are...something. Swords work... well when used properly...
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Oct 17, 2018 13:50
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Oh yeah, still got to be careful even if it is your sword. I still remember reading about a British Napoleonic Wars officer only just being missed with a very close shave by a roundshot but he had his hand over his sword hilt. Guess what happened to most of his fingers.
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Oct 17, 2018 14:00
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Biffmotron posted:And if you’re enjoying Seeing Like A State, but find it too mundane, Collier’s Post Soviet Social is a Foucauldian ethnology of Soviet urbanism through the lens of plumbing fixtures. Oh, god, sold. You had me at "Soviet plumbing fixtures."
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Oct 17, 2018 14:49
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Jadgpanzer IV (that, by the way, is the real crappy one) I already hated how it looks, knowing that it's poo poo just helps 
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Oct 17, 2018 14:52
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Not only being one of histories greatest monsters, Hitler no doubt may be on the biggest feature creeps of humanity too.
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Oct 17, 2018 15:00
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They Shall Not Grow Old reviews are coming in and they are goodquote:They Shall Not Grow Old is arguably limited in scope: it is just about the western front and there is nothing about the German point of view, or about the war elsewhere: say, the Dardanelles. Yet this is because Jackson was working from specific archives – the BBC and Imperial War Museum – and spreading the net more widely might have meant a loss of focus and intensity. As it is, the focus and intensity are overwhelming.
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Oct 17, 2018 15:28
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Biffmotron posted:a Foucauldian ethnology of Soviet urbanism through the lens of plumbing fixtures
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Oct 17, 2018 17:13
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It sounds like extremely my poo poo. I could only watch as my attempt to provide something theoretically similar was turned into a dreadfully boring discussion of the mechanics of conchoidal fracture by an endless series of erosive feedback cycles
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Oct 17, 2018 17:55
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PittTheElder posted:Here's a video I randomly encountered on Youtube of a parade of British WWI military vehicles : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GMITokuHN4 This is fantastic and gives some idea how much hard work was involved in operating this kind of early equipment. Notice that they are being followed by fire equipment and a modern truck that's probably there to take over if one machines towing a trailer has a break down. At 10:46 the Model T with the machine gun on it seems to be on fire, there's smoke coming out of the passenger compartment and a guy comes over and dumps a bottle of water into it. The steam powered machines are mostly traction engines which are usually seen in agricultural contexts in North America, you'll see them powering threshing machines at antique farm machinery exhibitions. The British were bigger users of steam power than the US for road haulage, even well into the 1930s. There's a steam powered truck at 7:25, a Foden. At 6:43 there is a Holt artillery/logistics tractor, the ancestor of British tanks and Caterpillar bulldozers (this machine partly inspired some of the early tank experiments and Holt was one of the two companies that merged to form Caterpillar Inc).
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Oct 17, 2018 18:49
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Whee! Nobody tell this guy he's riding around on a whole bunch of explosives. https://twitter.com/rgpoulussen/status/1052249484850339840
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Oct 17, 2018 18:58
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Just never press the red button.
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Oct 17, 2018 19:01
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The shiny, red, candy-like button?
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Oct 17, 2018 19:23
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He doesn't look like the party's rogue.
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Oct 17, 2018 19:42
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Trip report! Saw this in Exeter last night, it was a simultaneous showing with the premiere in London. 2D showing - there is a 3D version of it as well. It doesn't start with the reworked footage. There is a fairly long sequence of original footage, mostly pre-war, civilian lives, recruitment and training, before switching. What's most impressive isn't the colourising, but the change to realistic speed 24 frames/second that made it all seem so much more natural. There was a Q&A broadcast from London with Peter Jackson after it finished where he was saying something similar. That's not to say the colourising wasn't effective, as it was. The scenes weren't used in strictly chronological order, but it followed a general sequence of training, preparation for an attack, bombardment, the attack itself (without footage - contemporary magazine drawings were used for this bit), treatment of the wounded, and prisoners. Eventually there was the armistice and returning home and demob; this was back to the original untreated footage. A lot of it was quite graphic. There were lots of bodies shown and no punches pulled with the colourising of it. The treatment of the wounded, dead horses, and frostbite injuries were likewise not censored at all. I can only imagine the greater impact this would have had in the 3D version. It's not perfect, of course. Working from the source material they had it couldn't be. The process to generate tween frames sometimes seemed to cause blurring or ghost images - particular noticeable to me on a particular soldiers legs as he walked across frame. Blurred original footage was inescapable at times, and some close-ups (big crops from the original) of faces seemed to 'float' somehow. We were only 5 rows from the front from a large cinema screen so the issues were likely exacerbated for us - further back or a smaller screen and it would have looked better I think. A large screen TV may be ideal for seeing it. The Q&A afterwards was mostly similar to interviews with Jackson that can be found on youtube. One interesting tidbit, though, was that they had produced over 100 more hours of cleaned-up and speed-corrected (but not colourised) footage than was shown in the film itself. Hopefully this will become generally available. Overall, it just looked more 'real'. Especially effective if you are aware of exactly what it is you are seeing, such as the Lancashire Fusiliers in the sunken road on the first day of the Somme.
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Oct 17, 2018 21:29
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https://i.imgur.com/P15BuEm.gifv Underside view of a AIM-7 Sparrow launch and SUU-16/A 20mm cannon burst from an F-4C Phantom over Vietnam in 1965
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Oct 18, 2018 00:01
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Jobbo_Fett posted:https://i.imgur.com/P15BuEm.gifv Over/Under on how many episodes of Wings these clips appeared in?
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Oct 18, 2018 00:02
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Jobbo_Fett posted:https://i.imgur.com/P15BuEm.gifv Is it bad that my first thought was "oh no the brass" 
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Oct 18, 2018 00:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:Is it bad that my first thought was "oh no the brass" I know! Collect that poo poo and reuse it
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Oct 18, 2018 00:23
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"MAKE IT RAIN!" - F-4 Phantom pilot, possibly
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Oct 18, 2018 00:25
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bewbies posted:For over a decade Uncle Sam made her heroic sons and daughters fight in browns and tans of Southwest Asia while wearing a kind of bright bluish-grey camo pattern that not only didn't blend into anything, but tended to illuminate you in certain low light conditions. I'm pretty sure future historians will cite this when discussing the fall of the American Empire
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Oct 18, 2018 00:25
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Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Oct 18, 2018 |
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Oct 18, 2018 01:06
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Any word on if this will make it to the USofA in theaters? Or even a streaming option or something?
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Oct 18, 2018 01:06
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Cyrano4747 posted:Is it bad that my first thought was "oh no the brass" Don't modern aircraft gun systems retain cssings so not to gently caress with the aircrafts weight too much? Could they just not be arsed with the gun pods? Also I remember watching a documentary segment on the first (only?) supersonic guns kill (also by an F-4), which only happened because the pilots first two missiles either fell off the rack without igniting or flew straight towards the sun 
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Oct 18, 2018 12:49
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Cessna posted:Nazi Fashion Belt Hooks.... I never knew any of that. Thank you for a ridiculously informative post.
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Oct 18, 2018 14:06
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Chillbro Baggins posted:The dream team of all-time generals has already been done, I read a lovely novel to that effect once. I don't remember it well, but I think it included Patton, Bonaparte, and Jackson and/or Lee, among a few others. They should add Lautaro,
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Oct 18, 2018 14:26
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I'd watch a comedy about the worst generals trying to share a flat.
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Oct 18, 2018 14:36
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MikeCrotch posted:Also I remember watching a documentary segment on the first (only?) supersonic guns kill (also by an F-4), which only happened because the pilots first two missiles either fell off the rack without igniting or flew straight towards the sun The AIM-4 Falcon was hilariously bad.
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Oct 18, 2018 14:48
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:The AIM-4 Falcon was hilariously bad. The worst thing was there were a lot of missile failures. The first shots were AIM-7's. Two of them. One didn't ignite, one didn't guide. Then the AIM-4's were fired. One went ballistic, the other stuck on the rail. Early (and yeah the mid 60's were still early) A2A missiles sucked all around. Even the precious AIM-9 wasn't all that until the Navy's G models were available, and then the USAF's J's which were not introduced until 72.
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Oct 18, 2018 16:18
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I always wondered how those "internal suspenders" actually worked.
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Oct 18, 2018 16:27
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SeanBeansShako posted:I'd watch a comedy about the worst generals trying to share a flat. This week the gang face eviction, after a post it note left on the fridge by Lord Raglan gets disastrously misunderstood.
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Oct 18, 2018 16:49
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The Battlefield 5 campaign lets you play from the German perspective but "it's not a hero story", insists DICE Very ambivalent feelings about this
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Oct 18, 2018 16:57
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