|
Edgar Allen Ho posted:I'm pretty sure prussians started goose stepping around Frederick the Great's time. I'd hope at least the actual US-government at the time would know that Japan was on their side Edit: My favorite is "Straits of Horror". 
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 12:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 09:45 |
|
|
feedmegin posted:On the lines of future war predictions, there's The War In The Air, written in 1907 by HG Wells (yes, the War of the Worlds guy), which predicts something even more apocalyptic than what we actually got. Gets a bit Yellow Peril, though. This reminds me, Hans Dominik, the author of "Die Macht der Drei" (untranslated, so only in German, but really influential in the development of German SF) postulated that after the experience of WWI, all future wars would be decided by huge armadas of "Luftkreuzer" (basically a mix of fighter and bomber) and be over in days. He liked to compare the length of past wars to WWI to show that wars would get progressively shorter the more destructive the weapons in play were, and while it's true that WWI was shorter than the 30-Years-War, he also vastly underestimated the ability of industrialized nations to replace losses in both soldiers and material. He also rightly predicted that submarines would get even more important than they were in WWI, but then went completely off the rails with his predictions of future battleships carrying so immensely massive guns and armor, fights would be decided by special "torrent grenades" causing ships to capsize with near-misses. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 12:44
|
|
|
Well modern torpedoes don't even hit ships, they're designed to explode underneath ships and use the collapsing cavity to break the backbone of ships. Something you can't just engineer around.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 13:51
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:Well modern torpedoes don't even hit ships, they're designed to explode underneath ships and use the collapsing cavity to break the backbone of ships. Something you can't just engineer around. You can, its just that doing so introduces non ideal design compromises elsewhere so its easier to just build better ships and try to push submarines out to where they cant hit you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 14:20
|
|
|
Solaris 2.0 posted:lol they just tossed on “Bismarck” SD which is an actual city. It's in North Dakota. I've been there for work. It is the most boring place in the universe.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 15:06
|
|
|
Cessna posted:It's in North Dakota. Some satire site, I think it was The Onion, did a write-up of all 50 states once. Their entry for ND was something to the effect of "A featureless plain state, North Dakota was briefly inhabited in 1977 when a car full of college students from South Dakota got lost on their way to a party and drove in circles for a few hours."
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 15:26
|
|
|
EggsAisle posted:Some satire site, I think it was The Onion, did a write-up of all 50 states once. Their entry for ND was something to the effect of "A featureless plain state, North Dakota was briefly inhabited in 1977 when a car full of college students from South Dakota got lost on their way to a party and drove in circles for a few hours." Bismarck is stunningly boring. The first time I went there on business: - I flew into the airport, landed, and asked the guy at the gate which luggage carousel I should go to in order to pick up my bag. He looked perplexed - apparently there's only one. Two gates, one at either end of the place, with one luggage pickup in the middle. - I went to the car rental desk to get my car. As I walked up, the clerk said, unprompted, "Oh, [Cessna], I've been expecting you." Apparently I had the only car rental that day. I asked him which lot the car was in. He laughed, opened the door behind him, and pointed to the car, the only one in the lot. - I drove to my hotel. There's pretty much one main street that runs from the airport to town, which runs past the hotel and the office I was working at. I didn't really need a GPS, just the car's tachometer. ("8 miles, I must be at the hotel. Yep, there it is.") - Once checked in I went to the bar/restaurant on the other side of the parking lot. I ordered a burger and a beer. I asked the bartender "I'm here for a week, what is there do in this town?" He pointed to my beer and said, "you're doing it." - I looked on Google to see what else there was to do in town after work. At the time the #4 tourist attraction was the bronze statue of a buffalo in front of the state capitol. I took a trip the after work the next day to see it. I stopped my car and got out just to look at it. I still have a photo on my phone of it. - By the fourth night there I was so tired of watching local TV (bad wifi, no streaming) that I gave up on even trying to change channels and ended up watching the kid's movie Ratatouille. It came on again the next day at the same time. So I ended up watching it again. - On the day I left, a Sunday, I drove around the town a bit. Google Maps showed that they had a little hobby shop. I stopped in, they had some models, games, even some 40K stuff. I asked if there was a 40K group in Bismarck. The guy behind the counter lit up - yes, and last year they'd had a tournament! And three people showed up! - At the airport for the flight out I talked to the person at the coffee stand. She was visibly stressed out. I asked why; she said they were having a busy day - "There are seven flights today!" If the Prussians still want that town, they can have it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 17:55
|
|
|
Cessna posted:- I went to the car rental desk to get my car. As I walked up, the clerk said, unprompted, "Oh, [Cessna], I've been expecting you." Apparently I had the only car rental that day. I asked him which lot the car was in. He laughed, opened the door behind him, and pointed to the car, the only one in the lot. Mentally skipped over the username on this paragraph and thought it was so dead they IDed you by the plane you were on. Reality is slightly more reasonable but significantly less funny. Welcome to the Great Plains. poo poo's like that all over here.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:14
|
|
|
Cessna posted:Bismarck is stunningly boring. The first time I went there on business: This is stunningly similar to some of my D&D rpg sessions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:19
|
|
|
Cessna posted:Bismarck is stunningly boring. The first time I went there on business: sounds like a very efficient town could you show us the buffalo?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:25
|
|
|
Does the Buffalo have a pickehaube?
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:31
|
|
|
Cessna posted:Bismarck is stunningly boring. The first time I went there on business: The utterly frictionless way you describe everything reads like a goddamn horror film. I've lived much of my life in towns much smaller than Bismark and yeah typically the entertainment is drugs and fighting. You get used to just kind of staring at cornfields.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:35
|
|
|
We cannot cede our shale oil reserves to the Kaiser's Hunnic hordes
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:46
|
|
|
hey you forgot guns and cars/heavy machinery!
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:47
|
|
|
ChubbyChecker posted:could you show us the buffalo? I can't find the phone pic, but this is it: 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:54
|
|
|
Cessna posted:I can't find the phone pic, but this is it: 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 18:54
|
|
|
That certainly is a Buffalo.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 19:14
|
|
|
It's a bison actually
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 19:28
|
|
|
Nickname/avatar/quote combo 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 19:39
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:...or the tiny little "New Romania" on Puerto Rico That's Jamaica. Which if anything, is even more amusing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 19:45
|
|
|
Having been to Bismarck a few times, checks out pretty well. I was last there for work a few months ago and am not in a hurry to go back.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 21:41
|
|
|
Cessna posted:Bismarck is stunningly boring. The first time I went there on business: I love this post
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 21:52
|
|
|
Awhile back there was some discussion about how airplane cockpits used to be designed for the "average" pilot, i.e. they measured a bunch of pilots and then build a cockpit around these averages. Then someone did a more detailed analysis and determined that the average pilot statistically did not exist, i.e. everyone in the measured cohort differed significantly from the average in some respect. This lead to cockpits being made adjustable so that a much wider range of humans could use them without having to stretch or squish to fit them. Does anyone have more detail on this topic, or books to recommend? I have a friend who'd love to read more about it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 22:35
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Awhile back there was some discussion about how airplane cockpits used to be designed for the "average" pilot, i.e. they measured a bunch of pilots and then build a cockpit around these averages. Then someone did a more detailed analysis and determined that the average pilot statistically did not exist, i.e. everyone in the measured cohort differed significantly from the average in some respect. This lead to cockpits being made adjustable so that a much wider range of humans could use them without having to stretch or squish to fit them. I don't know if it goes over this topic specifically (I doubt it) but The Design of Everyday Things is well renowned: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...1nWifNFqoKnGgoC It goes over designing this that people use. Like dials on a stove, say. Good dials include things like satisfying clicks that provide useful feedback to the user. Or placing controls in certain areas where the eye or the hand is more inclined to go. I haven't read it, but an engineer friend recommended it to me and I've heard it come up in some places.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 22:47
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:I don't know if it goes over this topic specifically (I doubt it) but The Design of Everyday Things is well renowned: It's a really nice book, and the theory on affordances is neat. The basic idea is that any object has a bunch of affordances, or things you think it allows you to do based on you just observing it. The go-to example is door handles. Most door handles afford both pushing and pulling (looking at a door handle, both are reasonable things to try and do), which makes them kinda bad design-wise as only one of those is gonna work. So optimally you'd want something that can reasonably only be pushed (e.g. a flat plate) on the push side of the door, and something that evokes pulling more than pushing (e.g. a really long vertical bar) on the pull side. You try to eliminate or minimize the false affordance. E: You might also want to check the Standup Maths video on the "average person" thing, as it has links to relevant period air force reports in the description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbiveCNBOxk Loezi fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Apr 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 23:10
|
|
|
Thanks, that video at the very least confirms my dim memories of what we were talking about, and it has links to the original study data and report it was based on. The book looks neat as well. I wonder how much of its theories/axioms apply to software user interface design?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2021 23:54
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Thanks, that video at the very least confirms my dim memories of what we were talking about, and it has links to the original study data and report it was based on. The door example given above was cited on my UI design course last year, so yes, probably!
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 04:27
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:The book looks neat as well. I wonder how much of its theories/axioms apply to software user interface design? A ton, I've seen it used as a textbook. This is getting wildly off topic, but also consider checking out Steve Krug's books "Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited" and "Rocket Surgery Made Easy".
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 09:45
|
|
|
So, over Easter I got to chatting with an older acquaintance who was a child during WW2 in Germany, and ended up with an anecdote that may be interesting for this thread: At the time, he lived in a town in the vicinity of Nuremberg, close enough that they took notice of the bombing raids targeting the city. At one point, their town started being targeted in particular. A bomber would come by fairly regularly, apparently only a single plane in the night, apparently attempting to hit their train station. Presumably it was some sort of secondary target. Now, the bombs generally landed way off target, but of course that was still cause for concern. They called whoever's in charge of these things, and were told to ready a landing strip, for which they ended up converting their sports field into one. A few days later, a single fighter plane came by and landed there, with just the pilot on board. No crew, no technicians, just the one guy and his plane (apparently some variety of Messerschmitt). He and his plane stayed in town for a while, until the next raid came. Once that started, he got into his plane again, took off, and apparently managed to shoot down that bomber in fairly short order. After, he flew directly back to Nuremberg and that was that. Now, my acquaintance was a literal child at the time and it's been a long time, so some details may have gotten mixed up over time. But I wonder if overall that story passes the smell test. On the one hand, it feels like a weirdly slapdash and unorganized way to counter bomber attacks. On the other hand, it does very much sound like a Nazi way of doing things. Something about sending up just a single guy to engage in "honorable" 1v1 air combat (and pad his kill count in the process) sure seems in line with their ideology. But maybe that legitimately was the best way to do things at the time, too? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 13:13
|
|
|
Perestroika posted:Now, my acquaintance was a literal child at the time and it's been a long time, so some details may have gotten mixed up over time. But I wonder if overall that story passes the smell test. On the one hand, it feels like a weirdly slapdash and unorganized way to counter bomber attacks. On the other hand, it does very much sound like a Nazi way of doing things. Something about sending up just a single guy to engage in "honorable" 1v1 air combat (and pad his kill count in the process) sure seems in line with their ideology. But maybe that legitimately was the best way to do things at the time, too? Well the British installed CAM ships with one entire catapult and one shot Hurricane to launch to maybe get one kill on a Condor and then ditch in the North Atlantic. At the time it was the best thing you could do. Was replaced by Escort Carriers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 13:35
|
|
|
Perestroika posted:So, over Easter I got to chatting with an older acquaintance who was a child during WW2 in Germany, and ended up with an anecdote that may be interesting for this thread: I find it very unlikely the allies would stop bombing a target just because they lost a bomber.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 13:52
|
|
|
Fangz posted:I find it very unlikely the allies would stop bombing a target just because they lost a bomber. Since it was just one plane, I would guess it was a straggler from bombing runs on a completely different target, so no-one on the side of the allies noticed something wrong besides "oh yeah, I guess the AA of our (real) target shot them down, I guess"?
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 14:26
|
|
|
The only way this makes sense to me is if this was a pathfinder bomber marking a secondary target that the main raid that night just never diverted onto. And it would be worth setting up a night fighter specifically to go after a known pathfinder target. e: the Late Night Striking Force was also a thing, they'd fling mosquitos at diversionary targets to try and draw out a reaction. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 8, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 14:41
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Since it was just one plane, I would guess it was a straggler from bombing runs on a completely different target, so no-one on the side of the allies noticed something wrong besides "oh yeah, I guess the AA of our (real) target shot them down, I guess"? Germans had radars and aircraft warning network who would have directed fighters from whatever airfield to intercept. Why would a fighter scramble from the target when the bomber is already nearing in? It would take precious time to reach the bomber's altitude anyway, so most likely you would end up following the bomber after it has dropped its load. FlaK is what you use for static point defense, fighters are supposed to go and meet the attacker before they get there. More likely there was an emergency landing strip prepared for engine breakages and some pilot had to use it and clueless townspeople played broken telephone about the topic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 14:43
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Since it was just one plane, I would guess it was a straggler from bombing runs on a completely different target, so no-one on the side of the allies noticed something wrong besides "oh yeah, I guess the AA of our (real) target shot them down, I guess"? Yeah but a straggler coming in night after night, and then other stragglers no longer coming after one is shot down? There's this dream/childlike logic to it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 14:43
|
|
|
Fangz posted:I find it very unlikely the allies would stop bombing a target just because they lost a bomber. I could totally see the local Nazi party official demanding SOMETHING be done about their town being bombed, so the Luftwaffe sends all of one plane to defend the town on one day, and everyone is happy. The town still gets bombed, but now they can say "oh we totally shot down that ONE bomber that was making your life hell".
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 15:11
|
|
|
Comstar posted:I could totally see the local Nazi party official demanding SOMETHING be done about their town being bombed, so the Luftwaffe sends all of one plane to defend the town on one day, and everyone is happy. Oh yeah, you just can't rule out anything as too absurd or dysfunctional for the Nazis.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 15:51
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Oh yeah, you just can't rule out anything as too absurd or dysfunctional for the Nazis. Yes. I can easily imagine some nasty Gauleiter demanding that the Luftwaffe do something and being sent a single plane for a day in response.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 15:58
|
|
|
The allied bombing campaign easily could have shifted secondary targets or decided the target had been neutralized - coincidently around the time this plane went up. In the late war, did the Nazi's switch to distributing their fighter forces around from main airfields to prevent retaliation bombing? Because that's what this sounds like.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 16:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 09:45 |
|
|
I'm currently reading Bernard Fall's "Street without Joy" and it makes me even more baffled why the US choose to get involved after seeing the French clusterfuck. However, it's quite interesting to see how North Vietnam basically took all their lessons learnt from driving out the French from North Vietnam and then applied it to the South, I was also unaware of how many colonial soldiers the French used and the part they played.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2021 17:42
|
|
