An absolutely fascinating but little-known story—described as a "forgotten theater" by the U.S. Navy itself—is the tale of Kiska and Attu, Alaska: two remote Aleutian islands where the Japanese military established a submarine base during World War II.
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Science fiction is often charged with naïve technological optimism and historical amnesia. But for present-day Californians struggling with a wide range of environmental and social problems, science fiction might just provide the perspective we need to successfully pivot from the boom times of the twentieth century to the messy prospect of the century ahead. It won’t be the techno-futurist elements of science fiction—miraculously clean energy sources, flying cars, off-planet factories—that are going to save us, though. The classic works of science fiction have a different, more fatalistic side that speaks more usefully to our current condition, awash as we are in the environmental and social consequences of the Golden State’s postwar boom.
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New music is often just old music put together in different ways. There’s only so many notes you can play, tunes you can sing, words you can string, you know? It’s just how it works, music sampling happens whether it’s acknowledged or not
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White Heat is a classic gangster film from 1949, starring James Cagney. It is a thoroughly Los Angeles flick, filmed almost exclusively in the Greater Los Angeles region, including scenes shot at Warner Brother Studios in Burbank. The film is considered a classic for many reasons—but what’s interesting in terms of Gizmodo is its depiction of, at the time, cutting-edge technologies that were adapted by the police to track down Cagney’s gang.
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By 2010, the mirrorless camera had become a model on the rise, with Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic each pushing their new compact interchangeable-lens systems on the world. But the very first mirrorless camera came years before, made by a company known mostly for printers.
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The tumbleweed, which seems so at home rolling down an American highway, is actually an invasive plant from the Russian steppes. In the relatively short time it’s been invading the plains—just over a century—the tumbleweed has managed to establish itself as an indelible symbol of the western landscape. It is the ultimate sleeper cell, we might say, an enemy plant, if we were to resort to Cold War metaphors.
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Over the last ten years, Google’s foray into the smartphone market has established its Android phones as a viable
competitor to Apple’s iPhones. However, in the years to come, mobile
revenues will be more or less chump change in comparison to the returns
Google will be able to derive from robots and artificial intelligence.
Dating back centuries, the names of our everyday colors have origins in the earliest known languages. According to linguists:
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In 2004, the U.S. Army made a colossal mistake. It introduced a new digital camouflage called the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), a single pattern designed to work across all environments. Only a few months later, however, as the war in Iraq was intensifying by the day, every soldier on the ground knew the truth: by trying to work in every situation, UCP worked in none of them
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The ongoing drought in the U.S. west and mountain region is leading to the surprise reappearance of historical artifacts, including entire towns and villages emerging from the sand and muck left behind by drying reservoirs.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
