Also Anachronisms
Which, if you were unaware of, are "The representation of an event, person or thing in an historical context in which it could not have occurred or existed." So sayeth my "Collins Concise Dictionary". This last season of "The Umbrella Academy" dealt with this effect, where artefacts were 'bleeding' across different realities into each other, making a fearful mess of things. Art!
That screenshot only hints at how horrendously complicated the timelines have become, thanks to TUA and their 'marigold' mixture. Art!
The Tube map is not impressed.
ANYWAY, I wanted to introduce a bit more anachronies whilst we're here, as we zig-zag towards our destination much further down. Perhaps the best-known anachronism in literature is the Barf Of Avon mentioning a clock in "Julius Caesar". Art!
This is Willy The Word-Wobbler getting it wrong. WRONG! His flowery language here implies that the clock had gone out and punched three people, when he means it struck three times, which is the problem. Art!
That's a rather abstract poetic vision of New York, New York - actually only Manhattan - in space, one of the thousands of spacefaring cities that traversed the galaxy offering services to inhabited worlds in the 35th century. Their first described adventure concerned an interplanetary war fought between the Hamiltonians versus the Hruntans, which had been going on intermittently for a century. Mayor John Amalfi of NYNY pondered the Hruntans (or Hamiltonians) getting their hands on current weapons technology, the pinnacle of which is -
It was comforting to know that nobody in the city knew how to build a Canceller, at least. Amalfi had a sudden disquieting mental picture of a mob of Hruntan barbarians swarming out of this system in spindizzy-powered ships, hijacking their way back to an anachronistic triumph, snuffing out stars like candle flames as they went.
That's as much as we ever get to know about the 'Canceller' but it sounds like a pretty cool weapons system. In a very literal sense, imagine old Earth without a Sun. Why, the weather everywhere would become as disgustrous as that of the Pond Of Eden. Art!
Scranton goes Okie
Then there's that part of "The Forever War" in the graphic novel courtesy Joe Haldeman and Marvano, where a Terran expeditionary vessel is badly damaged by a Tauran missile. Art!
IIRC about 40% of the hull suffers damage. External cameras reveal they were hit by the missile, itself about the size of a large grain of sand, travelling at relativistic speeds, i.e. a significant fraction of c. The crew deduce that, during their transit via black holes, time outside has passed sufficiently in duration for the Taurans to come up with what is a weapon from the Terran's future. An anachronie with great big teeth.
ANYWAY enough of the preamble, because that's what this is. I was trying to establish a mise en scene as they say in the film trade. Art!
I've seen the film, which came out ten years ago, and don't remember a lot about it. It's important to note that the novel is from 1992, a generation ago, and I felt compelled to comment on a few plot points. Art!
This, gentle reader, is a fax machine, which was all the rage in offices up and down the land In the Eighties and Nineties. You fed a piece of paper into the transmitting fax machine, and a facsimile would print out at the receiving fax machine, which could be next door or in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. Mister Scudder waxes rhapsodic about them. They're an endangered species now, thanks to teh Interwebz, hanging on in a few niche applications. Art!
This artefact is an 'acoustic coupler' which Matt's hired hacker friends use to access phone networks, which were all the rage up and down the land until the late Nineties. They are almost extinct now, as the market for devices that convert spoken comms into electrical signals is vanishingly small. Art!
That's an acoustic coupler connected to another device the hackers use, which was de rigueur across the land until - you may be ahead of me here - the Nineties. This is a 'modem', short for 'modulator-demodulator' and a variety that is extinct as dodo soup, because it's using sonic signals to generate digital data. Typically these types of modems were the size of a breezeblock, which is one reason they're not around any longer.
There you go, I did have more anachronistic items to parade, but we're already up to 800 words and we can always come back to this, in the future. If there is one.
"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1945"
Just a reminder that we are, for a change, looking at the Far East in TWI's pages, where the weather is horribly humid and hot despite the dateline. Makes a change from cold, wet, snowy, flooded Europe, but the risk of contracting malaria may undercut these positives somewhat. Art!
This collection of modern art metal sculpture is the remains of Japanese rolling stock at Mawlu station, liberated by the British and Commonwealth after it had been bombed. Losing this transport and their contents was a serious loss for the Nipponese, because the terrain in Burma was awful for logistics on roads, where mule companies were more useful if not more vital than wheeled transport. No control of railways = lack of ability to shift supplies in decent amounts, which is why the Japanese in the jungle were always on the verge of starvation. Grim times!
Back To Joyful Danger!
After the sensibly-designed and operated log chopper of yesteryon, let us rejoice in the operation of the unsafe, this time a slicing rather than chopping machine, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
No guides or shields or protection involved, not even a pair of gloves. Matey must be one of life's optimists, because after all, what could possibly go wrong here? Art!
No protection from the moving vertical struts here, a definite snag and crush risk. Art!
Matey is visibly leaning onto the slicer in order to press the block of wood against the blade as hard as possible, so if he slips or trips or loses his balance, he's going to get trimmed. There's no Emergency Stop button visible but there is a car in the background, and there are two of them, so it's probably no more than a twenty minute drive to the nearest hospital.
"Burnin' For You"
Any excuse to sneak a BÖC reference in there, hmmm? Well, we can jolly well stay in South Canada for this item, for we are casting a wary eye over Kyle's Maps Of Doom from "Geography King". He's covered all sorts of watery blight, and now looks at the complete opposite. Art!
This map shows the probability of wildfires breaking out in that state, meaning the western states are verrry hazardous, Florida being an outlier in the east. Art!
Don't look to lovable Ol' Kyle for comfort or spiritual sustenance. He baldly states that wildfires are going to happen regardless of people, and the interface of urban civilisation with rural terrain is where the disasters are going to occur. Living in wooded canyons or valleys is the worst site for wildfires, given the combustibility of trees and the terrain funnelling winds to really whip up the flames. Nor can you chop those trees down en masse to reduce the risk of fire, as they hold together the mountainside soils.
One omission on the Map Of Misery that Conrad spotted was Alaska. Don't they have wildfires there? Art!
Yes they do. That maps shows the wildfires in Alaska since 1950 up to 2006, the fruits of a quick Google. The fires don't miraculously stop along that eastern boundary, that's where the border between South Canada and British America runs.
Finally -
Just seen an extremely happy Ryan MacBeth on Twitter, extolling the virtues of a bag of Fritos that he'd added 'ground beef' to, which I think we here on the sane side of the Pond call 'minced beef'. Conrad is unsure what 'Fritos' are, exactly, but tonight it's the weekly shop and - Dog Buns, I am tempted. Art!
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