#1930s inventions

[steampunktendencies]

Keaton Music Typewriter, Circa 1936

The Keaton Music Typewriter, invented around 1936, revolutionized music publishing. With a specialized keyboard for musical symbols, it allowed for quick and accurate typing of sheet music. This innovation significantly sped up the production process, meeting the high demand for printed music in the 1930s.

[dragon-of-the-night]

Apparently the creator of this meme didn’t learn their history properly.

Which Decade Had Better Inventions?

Inventions of the 1920's include: The television, the traffic light, electric blender, water skis, penicillin, the car seat headrest and cheeseburgers

Inventions of the 1930's include: scotch tape, the photocopier, the car radio, sliced bread, and chocolate chip cookies.

[squishydem0ns]

Alastor with sunglasses looks so out of place wtf

[whegan]

the beauty calibrator, invented by max factor in 1932.

[retropopcult]

Inventor H.D. McCullough demonstrates his new type of airplane motor development by applying a "gear shift idea" - an interchangeable power unit which allows for a controllable pitch propeller. Photographed July 1932 in Berkeley, California,

[athenasdragon]

In thinking about how the Dragon Age games have changed since Origins, I’ve been thinking about genre conventions and the inspirations for the series.

Dragon Age: Origins is very very heavily lifted from Dungeons & Dragons, and my impression is that this is because Baldur’s Gate was a big inspiration. I think it’s especially obvious when you open up your character profile. Like that is straight up a d&d character sheet. You can map the d&d classes onto the DA:O subclasses too (e.g. some of the warrior subclasses are champion [classic fighter], templar [paladin], and berserker [barbarian]). The heavy focus on tactics and the top-down combat option also evoke TTRPGs to me.

And of course, because we’re existing in the genre tradition here, we have a lot drawn from the Lord of the Rings as well. Darkspawn/Orcs are an unambiguously evil species that exists just to cause destruction! Humans are the predominant species, but we have nature-connected elves and subterranean dwarves! Our story takes place in among the ruins of a past civilization that existed in a distant age! We’ve got themes of history and faith and a little fellowship going on a journey to defeat an evil dragon.

So with that in mind, we have a pretty straight up and down medieval-inspired dark fantasy. It follows so closely in this tradition that we even see the writers struggling to break out of molds that they explicitly set out to avoid—for example, certain gender politics.

I really think the character who starts to break that is Varric. Not only is he a well-known author (requires not just widespread printing but widespread literacy and reading for fun—now we’re talking much more recent history in our world) but he’s writing (Kirkwall-flavored) hard-boiled detective fiction, which is explicitly an American* post-WWI tradition. This is a genre that explores the gritty reality of life in cities, interpersonal and systemic violence, and often positions a lone morally grey hero in small-scale opposition to those larger forces. Kirkwall (and DA2) isn’t a bad place to add that flavor.

Inquisition starts to feel more 20th century to me as well. We’ve got international espionage and geopolitics. We’ve got anxieties of a dramatic apocalypse brought about by man’s hubris. We’ve got, effectively, some variety of civil rights movement for both elves and mages.

What really got me thinking about this is that Neve and Lucanis feel like they’re some the same genre to me: the jaded, brilliant, but somewhat poorly-upkept big city detective and the heir-apparent of a powerful mafia family caught up by a betrayal both feel very interwar noir imo. Emmrich’s look is also SO 1930s. I can only speak for myself but I think that’s where a lot of the change in “vibe” can be traced.

It feels to me like Varric’s narration of the series has tugged the story itself into the genre he exists in.

Anyway, whether you wish the series stayed more straight up and down sword and sorcery or like the direction it chose to establish itself, I think it’s interesting to think about!

* I might ramble about how deeply North American the geography of Thedas is another time lol

[asparklethatisblue]

last week I saw a bat fluttering around my neighbourhood, which is amazing cause my vision sucks and I have astigmatism which makes it especially hard to see things near light sources (i see lights super blurry so obviously small black objects in the dark near a light source are harder to see)

and yesterday I was walking to the store, determined to try and spot a bat where I’d seen one before. And!!! One flew right past me super fast quite a bit away! Also I did see TWO bats flying around together where I’d seen the very first one a bit ago! They were so fast I could barely see them, but it was definitely two, and maybe they were doing some sort of courtship behaviour? I don’t know that much about it, but it’s definitely mating season. So I was stood in the most unlit part of a pathway, trying not to cry cause I was so happy. I wish I had a recorder to hear their songs, because males do sing to woo their mates, but the cheapest recorder i’ve seen is 200£ or so. I’m 90% sure it’s pipistrelles of some kind, because they fly extremely fast and acrobatic, and are really common in the UK. Just based on speed and location that’s the most likely species, but there’s more than one kind of pipistrelle. It’s cool though, because it’s one thing to know on paper what sort of environment bats enjoy, and what it looks like in real life. The bats I expected to see are in the most tree dense part of this entire area, the one that flew by me was more or less out in the open by a very well lit street! They don’t have areal predators at night, and it was past sundown, so maybe it is fine? I did read that very bright streetlights disturb then. But then again in America there’s bats that straight up live in the middle of a big city!

anyway. I think whatever caused the mental breakdown the other day is quieting down and I’m just happy there’s bats here! I doubt my landlord would let me put up a bat box, but that’s ok, I know there’s a few around here and even though I can’t volunteer to help with bats in general (i need a car, the region doesn’t have reliable enough public transport) I can still see them!!

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

Some strange and unusual vintage diagrams.

[clove-pinks]

girl help, I had a fashion history shitpost escape containment on the Beau Brummell Forbade Men From Wearing Colours website

[ya-boi-joule]

a little something for the jance girlies

[odditydichotomy]

Hedy Lamarr and Howard Hughes

History fact! Hedy Lamarr is the one who had pioneered the classic shape found in our modern commercial planes. It isn’t widely known, but her contribution to the aeronautics of aircraft is second to none.

This invention began in Howard Hughes’s airplane factories; the billionaire aviator had taken an interest in Hedy Lamarr’s genius and introduced her to the scientists behind the process of inventing his aircraft. Howard’s main goal was to create faster airplanes that could be used in the US Air Force. She looked at the airplanes and noticed how clunky their design was so, she looked to nature for inspiration to achieve that goal and bought a book of fish and a book of birds then combined the fins of the fastest fish and the wings of the fastest bird to sketch a new aerodynamic wing design for Hughes’ planes. When she showed this new and improved revolutionary design to Howard Hughes, he exclaimed that she was a genius. And the rest was history; the planes were built from then on with Hedy Lamarr’s design.

Bonding over their love for invention, Hedy Lamarr and Howard Hughes became romantically involved, and it was documented that they had nightly dates for months, and Howard would shower her with expensive and extravagant gifts such as crates of flowers. Howard believed in her extraordinary ability and provided her with the means to execute her inventions. Telling her that she could ask his scientists to do anything and they would do it. However, their romantic entanglement only lasted for a brief period of time, with it being said that Hedy was the one to choose to leave.

Here is an audio tape of Hedy Lamarr herself explaining her process as well as commenting on Howard Hughes:

[cartoonybus]

pnf revival hope: no more of this shit

[schneiderenjoyer]

Alright, hear me out.. As a small prompt, inspired by the April Fool’s puppet video: Schneider watching Vertin play the bass. I’m going absolutely feral over the mental image of Vertin completely shredding on a bass 🙏

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

John Hanson Walker (1844-1930), detail

via herta_d on pinterest

[friendlessghoul]

Photographer's Make Movie Comedy Hilarious Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Science and Invention of August 1924

[cressidagrey]

Random Stuff I look at for Research while writing

the Sears Spring Catalogue from 1910

what vegetables are harvested in what months

how does one spell Orthodontics