Quotulatiousness

June 10, 2019

Bomb the Children – WW2 – WaH 003 – May 1940

Filed under: China, Europe, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published on 9 Jun 2019

When WW2 breaks out, the belligerents promise to not bomb civilians. The promise is broken, literally within minutes by the Nazis and within weeks by the Soviets. Now, nine months later the Allies are about to follow suite.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN.
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Wieke Kapteijns

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
16 hours ago
Strategic Bombing is what it’s called, but in reality the strategic part is just theory – the simple reality is that people not involved in the fighting are going to die. This is a hot topic to this day. Who started? Was it justified to retaliate? Is it an acceptable method because the end justifies the means, that it might help win the war by breaking an enemy country? Does one strategic bombing of civilians make another murder of a thousand innocent victims less atrocious? Pretty absurd questions when you think about it. No matter who did it, no matter why they did it, no matter who started it, it’s really hard to justify the murder of children and unarmed adults – individuals that could not have any real influence on the outcome of the war.

The DEFINITIVE Guide to Setting up a BANDSAW

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Matt Estlea
Published on 8 Jun 2019

In this video, I show you how to set up your bandsaw for optimum performance. I’ll take you through everything from blade selection to tensioning, tracking, bearing adjustment and fence alignment to get your bandsaw performing as it should do!
____________________________________________________________________

Videos Mentioned:

Cutting up a Log:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfCR2TOrdwE

Alex Snograss Bandsaw Setup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxVyKsbuwZQ

Sandpaper Rack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHBrhCxhi6c

Bandsaw VS. Table Saw
https://www.mattestlea.com/post/should-i-get-a-bandsaw-or-a-table-saw
____________________________________________________________________

Support what I do by becoming a Patron! This will help fund new tools, equipment and cover my overheads. Meaning I can continue to bring you regular, high quality, free content. Thank you so much for your support! https://www.patreon.com/mattestlea
____________________________________________________________________

See what tools I use here: https://kit.com/MattEstlea
My Website: http://www.mattestlea.com
____________________________________________________________________

My name is Matt Estlea, I’m a 23 year old Woodworker from Basingstoke in England and my aim is to make your woodworking less s***.

I come from 5 years tuition at Rycotewood Furniture Centre with a further 1 year working as an Artist in Residence at the Sylva Foundation. I now teach City and Guilds Furniture Making at Rycotewood as of September 2018.

I also had 5 years of experience working at Axminster Tools and Machinery where I helped customers with purchasing tools, demonstrated in stores and events, and gained extensive knowledge about a variety of tools and brands.

During the week, I film woodworking projects, tutorials, reviews and a viewer favourite ‘Tool Duel’ where I compare two competitive manufacturers tools against one another to find out which is best.

I like to have a laugh and my videos are quite fast paced BUT you will learn a lot, I assure you.

Lets go make a mess.

The intended message of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

Filed under: Books, History, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

There are few novels which have been so enthusiastically claimed by partisans of both the right and the left — sometimes simultaneously — for misunderstood reasons. Orwell wasn’t warning us about technology (although he brilliantly illustrated how technology can be harnessed in service of the state), nor was he somehow warning us about the evils of current or recent politicans (Reagan, Bush, Trump). Orwell, a dedicated life-long socialist, was warning us of the dangers of totalitarianism, particularly the communist style of totalitarianism:

June 8, 2019, marks the 70th anniversary of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. There will be no shortage of think pieces that will misinterpret its legacy. They will focus on social media, security cameras, data collection, and “fake news.” The problem? The novel was not a commentary on the downside of technology. It was meant to warn against the growing spread of communism.

In the decades since the time of its publication, the context of Orwell’s magnum opus has been lost. What remains in the cultural memory are simply fragments of the larger picture: government censorship, ubiquitous surveillance cameras, and Orwell’s clever neologisms (Newspeak, doublethink, and thoughtcrime, among others). This selective recall has led to a widespread misreading of the book’s original warning.

[…]

From the left, most present-day articles and blog posts project the character “Big Brother” onto President Donald Trump, like Eliot Namay’s column in the May 6 edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. They typically focus on Trump’s fevered populism and his penchant for impulsive speech, which can lead him to play fast and loose with facts.

Sales of 1984 spiked dramatically after his inauguration in 2017 when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (incorrectly) touted the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration.” Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway later defended the claim on Meet the Press, blurting out the now infamous phrase, “alternative facts.” Scores of news stories compared her gaffe to Orwell’s “Newspeak” and “doublethink.” It’s also fairly common to read comparisons of Trump’s rallies to the “Two Minutes Hate” depicted in 1984.

Comparisons from the right, on the other hand, generally focus on the politically correct speech codes of colleges and universities or on the massive data gathering of big tech companies like Facebook and Google, warning readers that “Big Brother is Watching You.” Kalev Leetaru explores both of these issues in his May 6 column in Forbes, where he compares the social media de-platforming trend to Orwell’s “unperson” status. Notably, sales of 1984 also spiked in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked details of the NSA’s mass collection of internet and phone records. A slew of articles followed, asserting that 1984 had arrived.

A certain amount of hyperbole is a characteristic of today’s reporting and commentary, but current comparisons to 1984 are inappropriate. Again, George Orwell was writing about a specific regime. Big Brother was an obvious reference to “Uncle Joe” Stalin, a uniquely evil dictator. Trump has his shortcomings, but he is no Stalin. A president who is prone to exaggeration does not equal a government-controlled press (which the Soviet Union had). The “Two Minutes Hate” recalled Stalin’s public demonization of Trotzky, who dared to criticize Stalin’s tactics. Data collection is a growing concern, to be sure, but it doesn’t precede a terrifying knock on the door from the KGB.

Pak-40 German 75mm AT Gun Firing

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 30 Mar 2014

Cool Forgotten Weapons Merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Intro music by Dylan Benson – http://dbproductioncompany.webs.com

While we normally stick to small arms here, this beast of a gun was just way too impressive for me to not pay attention to. I was at a cannon and machine gun shoot just recently where some folks brought out what is (I believe) the only functional Pak-40 in the United States. And shot it.

The Pak-40 was the backbone of German antitank guns during WWII, and fired a 75mm AP shell out to an effective range of about a mile in a direct-fire role, with enough energy to defeat pretty much any Allied tank except the late-war Russian heavies. It was fairly light weight given its effectiveness, and makes one hell of a concussion when fired.

Thanks to the gun’s owners for being awesome!

QotD: Robert Heinlein on “honest work”

Filed under: Books, History, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous political campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there are no prizes for place or show).

Robert A. Heinlein at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention
Via Wikimedia Commons.

I was highly skilled in ordnance, gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was no demand ashore — and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space — “totally and permanently disabled” was the phraseology. I “owned” a heavily-mortgaged house.

About then Thrilling Wonder Stories ran a house ad reading (more or less):

GIANT PRIZE CONTEST —
Amateur Writers!!!!!!
First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50

In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of groceries.

Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted — perhaps I’ve grown stronger.

So I wrote the story “Life-Line.” It took me four days — I am a slow typist. I did not send it to Thrilling Wonder; I sent it to Astounding, figuring they would not be so swamped with amateur short stories.

Astounding bought it… for $70, or $20 more than that “Grand Prize” — and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for honest work.

(“Honest work” — an euphemism for underpaid bodily exertion, done standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes, assembly lines, tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never appealed to me. Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot possibly be described as “honest work.”)

Robert A. Heinlein, 1980.

Powered by WordPress