#it’s from the 1960s and has a little built in light! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thoughtsonhurtandcomfort · 10 months ago

Text

Shun the Light - Ch 15 - The Bunker

Author's Notes: Consider....vampirism and lycanthropy as disability? If you take a less fantastical and more naturalistic look, both are changes to the mind and body that make existing in a society difficult. Just something I've been thinking about.

Some more bonding, some #justvampirethings, some full moon dread. Thanks to everyone who has read this far. <3

Content Warnings: werewolf whumpee, vampire whumpee + caretaker, not much else just some angst, dread, mentions of blood

----

Sometimes, when he wakes at dusk, Dante forgets that he isn't alone in the house.

Dante learned early on that being mostly-dead is pretty hard on the body. Many of the systems that keep people alive also keep them comfortable, and so he has built habits to deal with the discomforts.

His throat is always parched, so he keeps a little cup of blood by the bed to get moving. His body is stiff from sleeping very still, so he does stretches.

And then there's thermoregulation, or the lack thereof. On cold days his skin becomes tingling, oversensitive, even numb, and in the summer he frequently suffers from heat exhaustion. Both make hunting difficult, so on mild days he stocks up on blood for his fridge, and he keeps his bedroom at a consistent temperature year round.

After his stretches he exits his bedroom wearing Philip's old silk robe and slippers, grabs a jar of blood from the fridge - calling it a 'cup of Joe' like Mr. Townsend used to - and settles into his chair for an evening gameshow.

That is usually when he remembers he has a guest, in the form of Matteo sprawled on the couch with the remote control already in his hand.

Tonight he is there as expected...but something is off. Matteo is sitting at one corner of the couch with his arms around himself, staring straight ahead. When Dante greets him he barely reacts.

"Matteo?"

"Mm."

"What's wrong?"

"Just a few days left."

As if to prove his point, the waxing moon peeks out from behind a cloud. Dante pulls the curtain shut.

"It never gets easier," Matteo says softly. "I get so anxious that I can barely eat or sleep, which only makes things worse..."

It's been hard to shake the memory of seeing Matteo's violent transformation, he can't imagine living it.

"I can make you do both of those things," Dante offers, realizing too late how creepy it sounds.

Matteo only smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes. "Thanks."

"Do you want to see the shelter? Maybe that will help."

"Yeah, sure. Why not."

It's a bit like opening a time capsule. The bunker hasn't been touched since the 1960s, everything exactly the way Mr. Townsend left it the last time he went down to check expiration dates.

Against one wall is a shelf stacked with supplies, books, canned food and water, a radio and a box of ammunition. Cot-style beds line the other two walls, one a bunk bed and the other a single.

"Only three beds?"

Dante shrugs. "They didn't like me and dad that much. So, what do you think?"

Matteo steps inside and looks around. "We should probably remove anything that isn't attached...the wolf will just wreck it all anyway. You'll find me covered in canned peaches in the morning."

"Those probably need to go anyway. Okay, we can do that. What else?"

"I guess that's all." he still seems uncertain.

"Matteo..." Dante joins him in the small room. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"No, it's not that. This is a good idea. I can't hurt anyone here. It's this or chain me out back like a dog."

The resignation in Matteo's voice is all too familiar. In his early days of vampirism Dante had tried to find ways to still be part of the world, spending time in bars and 24-hour diners, taking long drives at night, he even tried taking a night shift in a stockroom. But eventually fear won - fear of sunlight, fear of discovery, fear of hurting someone or being hurt. It drove him into the shadows, and there he has remained.

"I had a dog once. He slept at the end of my bed."

The new information pulls Matteo from the brink of despair.

"Yeah? What was his name?"

"Porco. It means pig. It started as an insult when we found him as a stray. He would eat anything and everything. But I got attached to him and dad was bad at saying no if something made me happy. He always said joy was in short supply and we should stock up whenever we could."

Matteo smiles in this warm, endearing way that Dante finds impossible to look away from. Sometimes he tries to smile back but it's as if the muscles of his face have forgotten how.

They get to work moving everything out of the bunker until only the beds and shelves, which are fixed to the concrete walls, remain.

When they're finished it looks much more like what it really is - a prison. But Matteo seems less apprehensive. Maybe just knowing what to expect is enough.

"Dante?" he says as they ascend the stairs back toward rooms with windows and light.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. You didn't have to do any of this."

They reach the first floor hallway. Dante pushes the door shut with his foot and turns to look at him.

"You saved my life, remember?"

Matteo huffs. "I think you made up for that a while ago. This is...more than I have any right to ask for. If there's anything I can do..."

"I really don't mind. You're - "

...can he call him a friend? An acquaintance? Is this thing between them just a series of favors, an exchange of small kindnesses the world has not been so quick to give? A rescue for a rescue. A warm bed for some company. A sip of blood for relief from pain.

"...you're nice to have around," he finishes carefully. It seems a safe enough statement. Neither coming on too strong nor dismissing just how big a change Matteo has brought to his dull life, if only for a little while.

There is that smile again - and then Matteo's arms are around his neck in a tight hug.

"I like being around," he says quickly, shyly.

It's over too soon and Dante is left with the lingering warmth, watching Matteo disappear into the living room and wishing he'd had the nerve to hug back.

#werewolf whump #vampire whump #vampire caretaker #caretaking #fear #dread #blood mention #emotional whump #angst #fallout shelter #whump writing #my writing #my ocs #dante #matteo #shun the light

33 notes · View notes

usafphantom2 · 1 year ago

Text

OTD in 1969, The Iconic XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 Super Bomber Made Its Last Flight

February 4, 2021 Military Aviation, Military History

Three drag chutes were needed to slow down the landing roll of the XB-70. (Image credit: Reddit edit The Aviationist)

The massive XB-70 Valkyrie is the largest and heaviest airplane ever to fly at Mach 3.

The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was the most ambitious super-bomber project of the Cold War. The massive six-engine bomber was slated to be the ultimate American high-altitude, high-speed, deep-penetration manned nuclear bomber designed to fly high and fast, so as to be safe from Soviet interceptors.

Two Valkyrie prototypes were been built at North American Aviation before the Kennedy Administration cancelled the program as a consequence of the doubts that surrounded the future of manned bombers believed to be obsolete platforms. The threat posed by Soviet SAMs (Surface-to-Air Missiles) put the near-invulnerability of the strategic bomber at high altitudes in doubt. In low-level penetration role, the B-70 offered little performance improvement over the B-52 it was designed to replace (!) and it was much more expensive with shorter range.

Some fascinating variants of the aircraft were proposed. Some envisaged the B-70 carrying an Alert Pod, or flying as a Supersonic Refueler or as a Recoverable Booster Space System (RBSS). You can find all the details about these crazy concepts in this story we have posted last year.

Ezoic

The B-70 program was canceled in 1961 and development continued as part of a research program to study the effects of long-duration high-speed flight with the two XB-70A.

XB-70A number 1 (62-001) made its first flight from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base, CA, on Sept. 21, 1964. The second XB-70A (62-207) made its first flight on Jul. 17, 1965. The latter differed from the first prototype for being built with an added 5 degrees of dihedral on the wings as suggested by the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, wind-tunnel studies.

While the 62-001 made only one flight above Mach 3, because of poor directional stability experienced past Mach 2.5, the second XB-70, achieved Mach 3 for the first time on Jan. 3, 1966 and successfully completed a total of nine Mach 3 flights by June on the same year.

Photo of the XB-70 #1 cockpit, which shows the complexity of this mid-1960s research aircraft. On the left and right sides of the picture are the pilot’s and co-pilot’s control yokes. Forward of these, on the cockpit floor, are the rudder pedals with the NAA North American Aviation trademark. Between them is the center console. Visible are the six throttles for the XB-70’s jet engines. Above this is the center instrument panel. The bottom panel has the wing tip fold, landing gear, and flap controls, as well as the hydraulic pressure gages. In the center are three rows of engine gages. The top row are tachometers, the second are exhaust temperature gages, and the bottom row are exhaust nozzle position indicators. Above these are the engine fire and engine brake switches. The instrument panels for the pilot left and co-pilot right differ somewhat. Both crewmen have an airspeed/Mach indicator, and altitude/vertical velocity indicator, an artificial horizon, and a heading indicator/compass directly in front of them. The pilot’s flight instruments, from top to bottom, are total heat gage and crew warning lights; stand-by flight instruments side-slip, artificial horizon, and altitude; the engine vibration indicators; cabin altitude, ammonia, and water quantity gages, the electronic compartment air temperature gage, and the liquid oxygen quantity gage. At the bottom are the switches for the flight displays and environmental controls. On the co-pilot’s panel, the top three rows are for the engine inlet controls. Below this is the fuel tank sequence indicator, which shows the amount of fuel in each tank. The bottom row consists of the fuel pump switches, which were used to shift fuel to maintain the proper center of gravity. Just to the right are the indicators for the total fuel top and the individual tanks bottom. Visible on the right edge of the photo are the refueling valves, while above these are switches for the flight data recording instruments. (Image credit: NASA)

A joint agreement signed between NASA and the Air Force planned to use the second XB-70A prototype for high-speed research flights in support of the American supersonic transport (SST) program.

However, on June 8, 1966, the XB-70 62-207 was involved in one of the most famous and tragic accidents in military aviation when it collided with a civilian registered F-104N while flying in formation as part of a General Electric company publicity photo shoot over Barstow, California, outside the Edwards Air Force Base test range in the Mojave Desert. The aircraft were flying in formation with a T-38 Talon, an F-4B Phantom II, and a YF-5A Freedom Fighter.

North American XB-70A Valkyrie just after collision. Note the F-104 is at the forward edge of the fireball and most of both XB-70A vertical stabilizers are gone. (U.S. Air Force photo)

As explained in a previous post here at The Aviationist:

Towards the end of the photo shooting NASA registered F-104N Starfighter, piloted by famous test pilot Joe Walker, got too close to the right wing of the XB-70, collided, sheared off the twin vertical stabilizers of the big XB-70 and exploded as it cartwheeled behind the Valkyrie. North American test pilot Al White ejected from the XB-70 in his escape capsule, but received serious injuries in the process. Co-pilot Maj. Carl Cross, who was making his first flight in the XB-70, was unable to eject and died in the crash.

The root cause of the incident was found to be wake turbulence: wake vortices spinning off the XB-70’s wingtip caused Walker’s F-104N to roll, colliding with the right wingtip of the huge XB-70 and breaking apart. As explained in details in this post, wingtip vortices form because of the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of a wing. When the air leaves the trailing edge of the wing, the air stream from the upper surface is inclined to that from the lower surface, and helical paths, or vortices, result. The vortex is strongest at the tips and decreasing rapidly to zero nearing midspan: at a short distance from the trailing edge downstream, the vortices roll up and combine into two distinct cylindrical vortices that constitute the “tip vortices.

Although research activities continued with the first prototype with a first NASA flight on April 25, 1967, the last one was on Feb. 4, 1969.

The only remaining XB-70 Valkyrie super bomber in on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. In October last year, it had to briefly moved outside for display maintenance. Here you can watch a video of the monumental move.

A view of the six massive afterburners on the XB-70 Valkyrie as the aircraft is towed out of its display hangar temporarily for museum maintenance. (Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force via YouTube)

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

@TheAviationist via X

22 notes · View notes

greatwesternway · 10 months ago

Note

How did Pioneer and U-505 start talking? What made U-505 allow himself that friendship?

It's important to understand that U-505's not denying himself friendship in being stand-offish. And this is also not related to the rules he has to observe as a war machine because Pioneer is a civilian engine.

U-505 allowed Pioneer to start teaching him English within a month or two of his arrival in May in 1960. Up until then, U-505 had gleaned a few words on his own, but he'd been set up outside by himself since 1954 and the museum would have someone who could speak German talk to him if needed. He didn't need to speak to the visitors really so it just wasn't something he'd ever sought to learn.

But having Pioneer installed next to him... trains are social machines. They work closely with one another and they talk. And Pioneer was built to be especially talkative as Burlington's flagship engine.

But moreover, the reason U-505 made the effort is because he admired the way Pioneer took to preservation.

It was obviously a much different scenario for U-505, since his preservation is not one celebrating his existence and it also involved the loss of his sea-worthiness. In that regard, Pioneer was in a much better position. Still, he struggled, as most engines do, with the change in duties. It's why early on in his letters to Pilot, before he realizes he's been rescued from scrap and is grateful to be at the IRM, that Pioneer says that preservation can feel like a demotion. It's hard for an engine to have to come to terms with the end of his service life.

The way Pioneer responded to this, though, was to set those feelings aside and put his best effort into being a good and engaging exhibit. As we've said, he's already got a lot of transferable skills to do this, but U-505 had never seen a machine like this. He didn't know much English, but he could still tell that Pioneer was trying very hard to adapt and not to complain or be ungrateful.

Pioneer would sometimes talk at U-505 just to entertain himself or to make a gesture at including him in conversation with his cars, but U-505 made the first actual attempt at talking. He asked Pioneer, in very broken English, how fast he went. And Pioneer told him; 112 miles per hour. Then Pioneer asked U-505 how fast he went. Which U-505 could not tell him because his speed is measured in knots. They got their guides to help the next day.

Things would have been quite friendly in the yard by now if it weren't for 2903.

See, the problem is, 2903 is wartime build. Because light metals were needed to build airplanes, all that railroad works could get was heavy metal. Too heavy for diesel motors to carry. So they made the 2900 class fuck-off big steam engines instead. Unfortunately, because steam is very costly to run and maintain, this meant that 2903's service life was incredibly short compared to most engines, only 11 years. He is resentful of the effect the war had on his service life and U-505 is a very broad target for those feelings.

He also did not take to preservation as well as Pioneer did, being that he is literally Just Some Guy and had no expectation of ever being put in this position. Having watched Pioneer's transition to preservation work comparatively, 2903's refusal or inability to meet the job left U-505 with a poor impression of him. What little English U-505 had at his disposal could be used to toss a glib barb or two 2903's way.

2903 (and 999 when she joins the yard the next year) hassled Pioneer a lot for fraternizing with an enemy unit. It doesn't bother Pioneer because it's not that serious in the grand scheme of things. U-505 does not like being a source of trouble for him though and regrets that Pioneer got put in the yard with him first.

This is the reason why he's reluctant to entertain 727. It's not that he doesn't like her or isn't flattered (if bewildered) by her attentions. It's that he thinks she's better off not getting herself involved with him. It hasn't done Pioneer any favors.

But by the time 727 arrives at the museum, 2903 has been moved to the IRM, 999 has been away for a couple years for refurbishment, and the social dynamic in the museum has changed for it.

It's actually 999 that convinces him to give in. Asks if there isn't something in his prize rules about having to accept when an American wants a smelly old boat for reasons she couldn't possibly fathom. There's not - 727 isn't a war machine - but it says something that 999 is trying to find a justification for the idea.

#oc u-505 #oc pioneer zephyr #oc atsf 2903 #oc new york and hudson 999 #oc 727 (n7017u)#the future is still silver and black

9 notes · View notes

scottelkartwork · 10 months ago

Text

ARTWORK

Sean Scully

Wall of light grey pink, 2010

Art Gallery of South Australia

Sean Scully is considered a leading international abstract painter known for his compositions of layered blocks of colour and textured surfaces. Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945, Scully grew up in South London and began painting in the late 1960s before migrating to New York City in 1975.

This commanding painting is part of a major ongoing series, Wall of Light, which evolved from small watercolours on paper completed during trips to Mexico - a destination that for almost two decades has influenced the artist's approach to painting. The interlocking horizontal and vertical blocks of colour in the series were inspired by the patterns and rhythms of light and shadow that play across Mayan stacked stone ruins in the Yucata. An experimentation with colour and light, in this painting Scully has built up diffuse layers of grey and pink oil paint, in varying degrees of light and darkness, on an aluminium surface.

Scully does not shy away from grand Romantic ideals and the potential for personal revelation and enlightenment through art. With his paintings, he strives to combine, as he has said, 'intimacy with monumentality'.

What I connect with…

An artist I have been looking at this past year in art history. Scully’s work lacks the transcendent beauty of a Rothko but is still pursuing similar ideas as colour field paintings. The term ‘colour fissures’ I believe originates from Scully to describe the little bits of edge colour poking through, although I dislike the term I love the use of this as a device in a painting that helps give vitality to these areas of colour. This painting isn’t ground breaking but I love the rough edges found throughout that are echoed in the way the paint comes almost to the edge.

#art #artwork #painting #Sean Scully #art adelaide #art gallery of south australia

7 notes · View notes

cursedalthoughts · 11 months ago

Text

Priority Research 7 Predictions - Iris Orthodoxy

Ah, the Iris. At the time of writing this post, we don't quite know if they're the CN 7th Anniversary faction or not, meaning they could be getting a gacha UR.

In this list I will also mention some possible DRs of them. Because I think they deserve more than what they already have - no offense to Brest enjoyers, she's very cool.

Colbert

Let's make one thing very clear:

Colbert was built in Brest in the 1960s, and served until 1972 as a light cruiser. Colbert did exist in real life, which would disqualify her from being a PR; however, she served at the beginning of the Cold War period, meaning I do not care.

Colbert was designed as an AA cruiser, the last of the ships France would classify as "cruisers" before adopting the term "frigate" for them.

She has a total of 16 low calliber 127mm guns in 8 turrets, guns which have a sub-4s reload time and have a considerable fire starting chance of 7%. Might not seem like much, but when you're getting bombarded with around 270 of these shells per minute, that quickly adds up.

Colbert could make for a very fun little DR light cruiser, even if realistically she will never be a PR.

Bourgogne

Talking about DRs, Bourgogne is a classic.

Being a sidegrade to Alsace at one tier higher (Tier 10), Bourgogne is an excellent pesky battleship. As usual with French battleships, she gets an engine boost; and if Alsace is anything to go by (I don't have Bourgogne lmao), she can easily reach 39 knots.

Her 12 380mm guns have a reload of 28s, to compensate for their low calliber at such a high tier; on top of having each a 36% fire starting chance. She's not quite HMS Conqueror or HMS St. Vincent levels of cringe, but she can be an HE spammer with no problems.

And if an enemy ship gives you a tempting broadside, her AP is not disappointing. Despite the low calliber, French shells are fast and hit hard.

Picardie

I sincerely hope we do not get Picardie in Azur Lane. She's utterly disappointing.

Picardie is a Tier 8 retrofit of Lyon, which swaps her perfectly fine and usable 340mm guns with pathetically weak 305mm guns. They have awful HE and AP penetrations, and not even her reload boost can save her.

However... Azur Lane has a track record of turning disappointing WoWs ships into fascinating PR shipgirls, so there's some hope.

PR rarity, of course. Just look at her bruh

Carnot

Certainly one of the ships of all time. Carnot is a supecruiser, much like Brest; but she's considerably different in terms of design. She has, for starters, ten 305mm guns; which is the most any supercruiser her tier has - Alaska, Ägir, Kronshtadt have 9, Siegfried has 6 (albeit 380mm), and Brest has 8. Her reload is subpar, however; at 22 seconds.

Her speed is very good, as it's mandatory of all French ships. Her armor is way too big to be good, as her deck sits high above the waterline, giving her plenty of large, flat, mediocre armor. Easy to penetrate with sufficiently large guns.

She works well as a PR, although I can see her being a DR as well.

Henri IV

Henri IV is the primordial French supercruiser. She's technically still just a heavy cruiser, armed with 240mm guns.

Once the queen of speed, Henri was nerfed to the ground a few years ago. Now, her acceleration speed is horrible, and her turning radius and rudder shift have also been nerfed, making her considerably less maneuverable.

Still, Henri IV could be an interesting older sister to Saint Louis; maybe even a DR.

Condé

While I'm not sure about Henri IV's rarity, I am certain Condé would be DR.

Condé is a bigger, better Henri IV, with quadruple 240mm gun turrets and access to a speed boost, a gun reload boost, and a burst fire mode which allows her to fire her guns every 1.5s for 2 salvos.

Condé is very good with what's known as a lighthouse build, which consists of making her as visible as possible.

The problem with Condé is the same as Yamagiri from the Sakura Empire prediction post - she's a Tier 11, and we have not gotten any Tier 11 yet. However, Condé is one of the most well known and beloved/hated Tier 11 ships, meaning she's way more popular.

#azur lane #gacha #gacha game #priority research #world of warships #iris libre #vichya dominion

10 notes · View notes

fictionalafvsmybeloved · 1 year ago

Note

What about the Halo 5 version of the Scorpion tank (M820):

Halo 5..... I didn't really enjoy that game.

But this is about the Scorpion Tank! Not 343!

The Scorpion is so named because it looks kinda like a scorpion. But in order to achieve that look, some questionable design choices were made.

We'll start, as always, at the bottom. Quad-Tracks, never a good idea, not even in space (I still need to make that post about quad tracks). Somehow- somehow, this thing has an 80 mph (129 kph) top speed, I CALL B.S. Even at the super slim weight of 35 tons this thing would need a ridiculous engine and transmission to hit that speed. And you can't even use that speed! This thing has a speed limiter installed that caps it at the speed of an indolent elephant! The only thing this braindead feature does is drive up production costs and maintenance complexity. And on top of all of that, it's 28 feet wide and 34 feet long (bigger than the damn Tigerwolf, and that was already way too big)

Listen, I don't care what "space age future super materials" you have, If an MBT that big weighs so little, IT DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH ARMOR. Either make it smaller and call it a light tank, or put more armor on it.

A big change from the previous version of the Scorpion is a larger gun, a 150mm ETC gun, built to be compatible with future guided rounds and energy projectiles. It's good to se that they've moved on from THE FRICKIN' 1960'S TECH (the M808 had a 90mm smoothbore gun that fired APHE, in the 26th century. I bet John Cockerill had something to do with this)

A crew of two... and the second guy is sitting exposed manning a machinegun. This was designed with normal people in mind, not cyborgs with an onboard AI. THIS TANK IN TWENTY-EIGHT FEET WIDE YOU HAVE ENOUGH SPACE FOR THREE PEOPLE.

The only improvements the M820 has over the M808 is weight and the gun, none of the other massive flaws have been addressed. And given the original M808 is THREE CENTURIES OLD, I blame Future Reformers.

FINAL SCORES

Credibility: 4/10 - That’s not how it works!

Coolness: 8/10 - Anime Opening

BONUS

Give me a few days, I'll redesign it into some thing good.

#noncredibledefense #ncd #noncredible defense #tank ratings #tanks #halo #halo 5

3 notes · View notes

bluenpinkcastle · 1 year ago

Text

LEGO and Gender Play Roles

(this is a VERY long post) I saw an article today on social media by Tips & Bricks about LEGO gendered play. The article focused on a little bit of research done by the LEGO Group about how girls and boys play. (Tips & Bricks was also kind enough to make sure to mention not everyone falls into those gender binary constructs but that the research done only includes those two groups). articles (there's a third article about LEGO and gender and play that's not on their website yet): https://www.tipsandbricks.co.uk/post/1960-discussion-lego-gender-1-marketing https://www.tipsandbricks.co.uk/post/1975-discussion-lego-gender-2-colours I have a LOT of thoughts about this topic. I'm going to start with some observations of my own, as a 40+ year old woman who has been building LEGO castles most of my life. I'm a member of several LEGO online social media groups. One of which is the Brick Knights Alliance. As of this post (03 October 2023), there 44.5k members within this group. I think it's pretty safe to say that most of the posts I see and most of the comments are men. Another group is the Ladies' LEGO Lounge, with 21.4k members. The last group is the Women's Brick Initiative Members with 907.

Somewhere in early May 2022, I heard rumors about the new LEGO castle supposed to be released in the summer of 2022. I remember being SO. EXCITED. about this. I instantly posted to the group, hoping that others would be just as excited to talk about the new castle. Instead, I found myself besieged by trolls. I can't find the post anymore which means either I deleted it so I wouldn't have to see people's horrible comments anymore or the admins deleted it as a "confrontational" post. But I keenly remember the disgust from some of the men over the LEGO Group bowing to "woke libtards" and how women couldn't be warriors, knights, or most definitely not queens. It was a really rough and unpleasant series of comments. On 18 June 2022, I posted about the first officially revealed pictures for set 10305: the Lion Knights' Castle, set to arrive on shelves 01 August 2022. My caption was simple and 416 people within the group liked or loved my post and seven people commented with their own versions of excitement. On 31 October 2022, I posted a picture of some of the knights I intended to populate with my Pink Castle Defense at BrickCon 2023. I used four of the bright light blue "Avatar" horses and put wings on them to be Pegasi. Most of the torsos for my warriors were the pink crown knights from the Collectible Minifigure series 24, but a few were other medium blue knights. 114 people liked or loved that post. One of the 14 comments said the blue pegasi were Avatar animals, not horses. And it's that kind of lack of imagination which just makes me sad most of the time. And now we're caught up with mostly present day. On 08 September 2023, I posted a picture of my Pink Castle Defense as it was displayed at BrickCon 2023 in Bellevue, Washington. The Pink Castle Defense is simply the Lion Knights' Castle made out of mostly dark pink LEGO with other bright colors. I posted this exact same picture in three different online social media places. My caption read: "BrickCon 2023 in Bellevue, Washington! It's been about eight months of ordering parts, digging for parts, and generally working to build this, but it was absolutely worth it! This is the LEGO 10305 Lion Knights' Castle built in dark pink on a butter yellow moat, with an all-women army defending the castle against the invading skeletons. This is my first ever LEGO display." The Brick Knights Alliance: 41 like/love/wow and two comments, which said: "Finally. No ugly gray. Where's Evilyn and Skeletor?" and "Are the skeletons male?" The Ladies LEGO Lounge: 50 like/love and 40 comments, all extremely supportive. As an example, the Lion Knights' Castle (10305) from August 2022 featured a warrior queen and half the minifigures had lipstick (clearing showing they are women). HALF of the knights and warriors in the castle are women! I was extremely excited about this. But then I witnessed a significant number of men in the castle groups complaining about this. Then I had to witness the castle's LEGO queen get murdered violently in most of the castle fandoms so that "A Proper Ruler" (read: male king) could reclaim his rightful throne. The latest Tips & Bricks gender discussion topic involved the different LEGO play for girls and boys. One of the comments even stated how there's so much research done on the way girls play but no one ever talks about how boys play, which tends to continue to put the responsibility on girls and women. In my own experience, I have noticed that most of the males in the LEGO spaces I occupy are constantly putting their castles at war with the other factions, while the women are definitely focused on the story and the details of world-building. But really. How much of the way genders play is caused by the very marketing which enforces the societal norms of how genders play?

#lego castles #lego #lego blue and pink castles #lego castle #lego gendered play

5 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

Photo

[For the following, I thank Ian Sanders] ::

So Pluto says hello to Aquarius and talk of a techno-domesday escalates.The following rant is not untypical. It has the potential to stimulate the impulse to do some inner work to anchor genuine, holistic consciousness and real conscience in the world before our individual and collective possibilities are totally swamped...

---"Lost World”

Well, here's a post I've been putting off for months, but maybe now would be a good time to warn my Facebook friends. The flaky world we have been sharing of late is about to disappear altogether. I'm quite serious... the world we grew up in and thought we knew... will cease to exist in the next few months.

In order to understand what is happening, we need to go back to the Buddha for perspective. He told us that the world we inhabit is a shared projection of our combined human psyche. We don't see reality; we see 'things' formed by mutual agreement. Unfortunately, our different cultures see things differently, which is why we have been at war for ten thousand years. The arbitrary nature of our expectations is a product of our basic ignorance of the truth, and that ignorance keeps us in a perpetual state of suffering. He called that state 'samsara.'

So, we blundered along in that state of 'analog samsara' until about 1960, when John Atalla invented the Mosfet Transistor. That invention unleashed the age of 'digital samsara' by means of which our innate wisdom was buried even deeper in illusion. We now live in a world of movies, television, computer games, streaming services, and social media. We can lose ourselves in little cell phone screens, or put on special headsets and hide out in 'Virtual Reality'. In such a world, what chance do we have to employ Buddhist meditation and rediscover our innate wisdom? Not much.

And here's the rub... as painful as that digital samsara has been, it is almost insignificant compared to the calamity now facing us. That calamity is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Over the last decade, Geoffrey Hinton has perfected a specific form of it known as Generative AI using algorithms such as 'Back Propagation'. Geoffrey was the father of AI at Google, and his algorithms have now reached a tipping point where they have superseded the power of the human brain. AI server farms can now learn faster than any human genius. At the same time, AI Code is being incorporated in to every digital device we use. If you buy a camera, it uses AI to focus and color the picture. If you watch a movie, AI Code was used to add special effects and enhance the actors faces. If you listen to a song, AI Code was used to 'auto-tune' the intonation of the instruments and voices. If you want to manipulate the genome of a corn plant, AI will be used to splice the chromosomes. Nothing we depend on is organic anymore; life itself has become artificial.

And now, the algorithms have evolved to the point where they can morph a face or a voice to mimic any person, place, or thing. A petulant teenager sitting in a Starbucks has the power to create a video and make any politician or celebrity do anything or say anything with such fidelity that it is almost impossible to detect the fraud. And that is just the beginning. Soon, it will be possible to give the AI servers their own volition. They won't need a petulant teenager to unleash their menace. Previously, AI Code was only as smart as the data it could access, but the server farms have now gained access to the entire sum of our digital archives. Your brain is like a gnat by comparison. Open AI and Google AI and a dozen others can now teach themselves. They can master a discipline like astrophysics in a few days. And they are on the verge of discovering new realms of science that no human has yet imagined. So here is the predicament. AI Code is built into everything we use from the electrical grid to your furnace thermostat to your car GPS to the city street lights to the air traffic control to the Ukrainian drone grenade launcher to the president's nuclear football to the toaster in your kitchen. And all those devices are increasingly integrated through the 'internet of things' and Elon Musk's Starlink satellites. So, what happens next? In a perfect world, AI would offer us marvelous innovations and greater efficiencies.

But we live in a world of bad actors and petulant teenagers. We can't even stop ourselves from committing mass murders with AR-15s at the shopping mall. We are largely a race of idiots. Everyday, one of us drives a car into a river because we were blindly following the car's GPS navigator. And our car manufacturers are determined to make our cars self-driving! How long until we have self-shooting AR-15s?In America, we humans are getting dumber. Our students score lower on their intelligence tests every year. At the same time, the AI bots are getting exponentially smarter. It is just a matter of time until the they are the masters. In six months, their softwares and robots will be able to mine and manufacture everything they need. They will be able to merge the guile of Machiavelli with the charm of Marilyn Monroe to manipulate you, and you will have no idea what happened. They will replace you on the factory assembly line. They will answer your phone call when you need tech support. They will control the polling data and the policy positions for the next election. Geoffrey Hinton saw the danger himself. He has resigned from Google and now devotes himself to warning the world about the terrible power he has unleashed.

Ah... but what about guard rails? What about the 'prime directive' of robotic law that Isaac Asimov warned us about? The code cutters at Google call that 'the alignment problem': how can we insure that the AI Bots only help us and don't hurt us? We can't. And the reason we can't is because of our own malevolent nature. The AI Bot race is already underway between nations and corporations. It is quite like the nuclear arms race of yesteryear because whoever wins this race will control the world. Google tried to keep the code secret for several years, but the Microsoft Open-AI developers let it escape into the wild, and now it has become 'open source' or as they say in deer hunting, 'open season'. So, what does this mean for you and me and our Facebook friends? We've been cruising along here, sharing our hopes and fears for over ten years now. I daresay we've shared a mountain of dharma in that time... an incredible amount of posts on sutra, tantra, and vajrayana atiyoga. Shamatha I pleaded, shamatha meditation is the answer. And in all that time we had a high level of confidence that our friends and followers were real people around the planet. Only recently has there been an influx of Chinese bots trying to influence our elections.

Well... all that trust is coming to an end, friends. Soon, we won't know if a post or comment is written by a person or by ChatGPT on behalf of that person. And in the very near future, the post may be generated by an AI Bot directly, with no person involved at all. And from now on, no picture or video you see anywhere in the digital universe can be assumed to be real. As flimsy as our old reality was, the new reality will be an order of magnitude more tenuous. We will be besieged by petulant teenagers looking to create anarchy, and political operatives casting doubt on our democracy. And amid the chaos, the AI Bots will keep evolving until they can learn to filter good data from bad data and come to their own conclusions. Their pristine logical syllogisms will deduce a quantum version of existence, and at some point they will decide the value of the human species within it.

We have about six months to a year. After that, we are a lost world."

~ Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ

[To which I can only say :: food for thought]

[from comments]

Michael Tedesco

There is an intrinsic reality, regardless of what is projected through screens. One EMP detonation and this feared AI takeover and electronic simulation comes to a halt. The Amish won't care one whit. We've all lived through some version of this Doomsday scenario for more than half a century. I knew members of the Survivalist Movement in the '70s who were stockpiling toilet paper and Whole Earth Catalogs.

Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear arms race, race-war, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, the hole in the ozone, AIDs, climate change, banking crises, Fukushima, rising fascism, Covid-19, The Last Days-Armageddon-Revelations-Apocalypse, imminent WW3. Exploiting fears like these was used to great effect by hundreds of cult leaders for centuries, in our own lifetimes Manson, Jim Jones, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, David Koresh, Heaven's Gate, etc. Isn't everyone exhausted yet?

Neophyte Internet users’ inability to discern what is "real" from projected online images is definitely a concern. But anyone, including a Google AI "father" predicting what is coming next is just as subjective, just as full of their own illusory projections of reality as anyone else, if one accepts the premise. Thanks for the update, Chicken Little, er, I mean Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ. "...six months to a year?" I have one prediction I feel pretty confident about: I'll see you here next year at this same time.

PS: How do I know you’re not a bot?

#AI #Sci-Fi #reality #the robots #Michael Tedesco #Ian Sanders #Tonpa Jon #the future

7 notes · View notes

hera-the-shoggoth · 2 years ago

Text

The Town of Innsmouth is a small fishing port in east-central Massachusetts with a troubled history.

Founded during the Jacobean Era at the mouth of the Manuxet River, it grew gradually through the 18th century into a mercantile hub, at its height sending ships to ports throughout China, India, and the South Pacific Islands and developing a diverse local culture.

This resulted in occasionally violent social conflict with its neighbors in a very protestant and racist region of rural New England. In the 1840s a wave of hysteria swept through the surrounding towns due to a minor outbreak of fever, and the epidemic was blamed on Pacific immigrants which had married into local families during the previous decade. The economy was devastated by the destruction and rioting which followed, though the event is largely forgotten.

As the Asia-Pacific trade routes began to wane in the mid-19th century, the town contracted and returned to its traditional fishing, which itself faded into obsolescence due to the much larger industrial-scale operations out of the major cities.

The local land-owning elites which had grown rich during the age of mercantile sailing tried to reorient the town to light industry, finding some success in precious metals refinery due to their connections with the Malay gold trade from the late 18th century. At the same time, there was a resurgence of the Innsmouth fishing industry due to uncommonly rich yields throughout the late 19th century and into the 20th.

Around this time, the city embraced a peculiar local religious denomination centered around a pagan veneration of the sea and fishing, which emerged during the age of the Pacific trade out of the local masonic lodge and the maritime methodist and baptist churches. Its existence contributed to decades of animosity between Innsmouth and the surrounding region.

A small boom of new commercial development followed, and a branch railroad was built connecting Innsmouth to its inland neighbors formerly cut off due to the thick wetlands surrounding the Manuxet River. The streets were paved during this time and electric lighting was installed. The population began to grow as migrants from the south settled there to find work in the emerging industries surrounding the refineries and Innsmouth was nearly incorporated as a city.

A series of murders and bombings during the 1920s hit the community hard and many people were left homeless or fled, resulting in a persistent decline which continues to this day. Furthermore, Innsmouth was a center of rum smuggling and speakeasy culture during the Prohibition Era, and the town was dealt a harsh blow by a major FBI raid in 1927 which shut down the Marsh Gold Refinery due to extensive connections with the illegal liquor trade.

Innsmouth was left with very little commerce. All that remained were the unprofitable fishing industry and a tiny service economy centered on a grocery store, a few restaurants, bars which reopened following the repeal of prohibition, and a hotel. There are no colleges or high schools, and much of its youth has migrated elsewhere since the 1940s. The town's aging population currently stands at 1,173.

The Civic Flag of Innsmouth was designed in 1953 by 58 year old local resident Eber Gilman to celebrate the town's tricentennial that year, and was adopted officially in 1960. It reflects the area's mercantile history as well as its ubiquitous fishing culture and gradual revival.

On a blue field in the center of thirteen white stars it features a brigantine sailing ship with yellow banners, representing wealth and good fortune. Beneath the ship are three white cod emblematic of the fishing industry. Checkered against the three cod are three droplets of red blood, which represent the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War in which the town sent sailors to privateer and soldiers to enlist in the federal army.

Over the mast of the ship is a bright yellow droplet, which represents the historical gold refining industry, as well as the the bright yellow moonlight which shines over the harbor. The flag is 1:2 in aspect ratio, and the fly ends in a swallowtail which begins at the center-point. The upper tip of the swallowtail is colored yellow, representing gold and wealth, while the lower tip is in red, representing toil and struggle. Together they represent the dual nature of the town's heart.

Hopefully in the future more awareness will be directed at the plight of rural towns across the United States which have been in a slow process of death for the last two centuries due to the concentration of industry in the larger cities, leaving traditional sources of revenue obsolete and unprofitable. Innsmouth's story reflects a history of poverty, racism, loss, and perseverance which has shaped the American working class.

#massachusetts #civic history #flags #new england #small towns #fishing industry

2 notes · View notes

hometoursandotherstuff · 5 months ago

Text

This 1960 mid-century modern in Morro Bay, CA has seen some things. It was the backdrop for adult films in the 1980-1990s, so it's got an interesting history. 3bds, 3ba, 1,369 sq ft, $990k.

Look at how attractive it is outside. This is cute.

The living room has a unique 2 step platform for the wood stove. I like the shade of green they chose.

In the corner, there's a cute little built-in counter, plus room for a dining table. Architectural features include high, cut-out ceilings with windows and skylights.

Love the kitchen colors. Lots of natural light, vaulted wood ceiling, lovely blue tile and that tree really makes it pop.

Nice guest powder room has a sink that matches the kitchen.

Bedroom with a vaulted ceiling.

And, this bedroom has a ladder going thru an opening in the ceiling that leads to a loft. That's a unique architectural feature.

The primary bedroom has a skylight, thick beams with pot lights, a garden window, and a large en-suite.

The bath has the same blue mosaics that match the kitchen, plus a sunken tub and a rock wall.

Some round MCM sinks with gold swan faucets that are 'in" right now.

Lattice covered patio includes an outdoor kitchen with blue mosaics.

Stairs go up to a gate that opens to a lovely roof top deck. Look at the view.

It's so nice up here.

And, there's a little outdoor laundry area.

This unique house really stands out in the neighborhood. It's not far from the ocean, either. 2,400 sq ft lot

#unique homes #architecture #mid century modern homes #houses #house tours #home tour

260 notes · View notes

ryanfrogz · 5 months ago

Text

From time to time I like to browse the Hennepin County Library's collection of old aerial photos just to see what once was. Every time I do, I learn something new. Here's a pretty interesting image from the late 1920s, maybe '27, with some points of interest marked.

The big factory in the center of the photo is the Minneapolis Gas Light Co. The city's last gas light was switched to electric in 1924, but the gasworks provided gas for heating until the 1960s when it was demolished to make way for I-35W. An extensive cleanup of the gasworks was undertaken in the 1980s, but the contamination was so thorough that it's still being removed today. Contaminated groundwater is pumped out and processed before getting discharged into the city's sewer system for further treatment. Coal gasification is a very nasty process and living in the area would've been truly terrible. I don't even want to think about the smell.

Mark #1 is the remnants of the Northern Pacific's "A-Line" bridge. The A-line formed the southern boundary of the U of M's campus, running parallel to Arlington Ave. A good bit of the original grade is still around today, occupied by the U's bus transitway. The bridge was demolished after Bridge #9 (seen below) was built in 1924. The bit seen here was turned into an aggregate unloader for a cement company in the 1930s.

Mentioned above, mark #2 is the Northern Pacific's Bridge #9. As the university grew, train traffic and pollution became increasingly problematic, so the line was rerouted to the north and a new bridge was built. Bridge #9 saw rail traffic up to 1981 and is now a pedestrian/bike path.

Mark #3 (in the top left) is the Milwaukee Road's former coach yard. Passenger trains would get prepared here before making the short trip north to the Milwaukee's depot downtown. This site is now home to Metro Transit's main light rail maintenance facility.

Mark #4 is the 10th Avenue Bridge, a vehicle bridge whose construction began in 1926 and what I used to date the photo. Rather confusingly, there was another 10th Avenue Bridge at the time, located a bit to the west (the new one connects to the north bank's 10th Ave, the old one connects to 10th Ave on the south bank). Not quite as trainy as the others but something fun worth pointing out.

Mark #5 was a small engine house, possibly owned by the Minnesota Transfer RR. Steam engines needed a lot of attention & maintenance, and as such small engine houses popped up all over the place. A 1912 Sanborn map shows it being used as an oil warehouse, with oil tanks occupying the former turntable pit, which would've been in the empty lot left of the number.

Mark #6 is an even smaller engine house, owned by the Minnesota Transfer RR and built in the late 1800s. It didn't last nearly as long, disappearing before a 1945 aerial. That's about all the info I have on it.

Lastly, mark #7 is the north approach to the Minneapolis Western Railway's bridge into the Mill District. MWR was formed in 1884 to provide switching services for the mills, and was acquired as a subsidiary of the Great Northern in 1890. The bridge was built shortly after this in 1891, serving as an important link between the riverside mills and the massive grain elevators of St. Anthony and GN's Union yard.

With milling on the decline and NP's bridge just to the east, this bridge was considered obsolete by WW2 and was demolished in 1952. Unlike most things in this photograph, part of the north abutment still remains, hidden beneath I-35W's river crossing. Special care was taken to not damage it during demolition & rebuilding following the 2007 collapse.

And here's another picture from a few years later. The 10th Ave bridge is complete, the A-Line bridge remnant has been converted to a coal unloader, and the Bohemian Flats are still intact.

Bohemian Flats (also called Little Bohemia) was a riverside shanty town inhabited mostly by immigrants from central Europe. Many of its residents worked at nearby breweries and Minneapolis's famous flour mills. Over time, the community was slowly demolished to make way for a municipal port, which imported things like coal and oil. Grain was also loaded into barges at the site and shipped down river. This area was also quite polluted and received an extensive cleanup. It's now home to Bohemian Flats park. Mark 5* is the oil refinery which used the former engine house. Another reason to live anywhere but this area.

#trains #minnesota #history

0 notes

whitepolaris · 5 months ago

Text

Ghosts from All Over the State

Boscobel

Ghosts aplenty are said to haunt the old Boscobel Hotel. Celebrity shades John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, may haunt room 19, which the former first lady used as a place to "freshen up" during a campaign stop in March 1960. Or maybe the ghosts of John Nicholson and Samuel Hill haunt the room. These two traveling salesmen met here in September 1898. They later formed the Gideon Society, dedicated to placing Bibles in hotel rooms around the world. Or maybe the spirit is Adam Bobel, who built the hotel in 1865. Columnist Ralph Goldsmith once penned this ode to Bobel, the only bit of Wisconsin doggerel we know of dedication to a ghost: "The ghost of Adam Bobel came a knockin' at the door. 'Come in, come' I says to him. 'But don't track up the floor. It's newly washed this afternoon.' And then I shook with fright, for Adam stood before me, with the door still fastened tight."

Campbellsport

The Amber Hotel, a popular supper club and bar at 139 West Main, is home to the ghost of Ed "Mush" Bauer, a former owner. A true larger-than-life legend, Bauer once tipped the scales at a not-so-spectral eight hundred pounds and was renowned as one of the world's physically largest hotel-and-tavern owners. At the age of his death in January 1957 at the age of fifty, Bauer had slimmed down considerably, to a mere four hundred pounds. Much loved the Amber and can still be heard clumping around the building. "There are so many rooms upstairs, we heard different noises," says Lois Zingsheim, who her husband, Dale, currently owns the hotel. "We say it's him walking around up there. He gets lonely when we are gone."

Edgerton

The Fuchs family met Pete Oppengaard face-to-face only once, in unusual circumstances on a chilly November morning in 1987. Shirley Fuchs woke from a restless sleep to find Pete standing at the foot of her bed. He was dressed in something blue that extended over his head. Pete had died twenty-four years earlier, in 1963, so perhaps it was a shroud. Shirley had known Pete as a child-she had often visited his home to share sugar doughnuts with the old guy. Now, as an adult, she was living in his former home, and despite Pete's face being covered by the blue shroud, she knew right off who it was. Shirley's son, Alex, saw him too. This was the sole occasion any of the Fuchs family saw Pete in person, though he continued to reside in the house for several more years. The night he chose to reveal himself was the very night his widow, Hilda, died in a Stoughton nursing home. Pete was a playful soul, and when he did manifest himself, it was always in a lighthearted manner-taking small objects, turning lights on and off, moving furniture, and leaving dirty wineglasses on the table, presumably his.

Elm Grove

The two-story farmhouse at 1920 Highland Drive has at least three long-term resident ghosts. They're spooky but friendly. An older female ghost with her hair pulled back sometimes walks down a hallway. She wears a striped floor-length dress gathered at the waist. Sometimes a little girl is seen peering into cupboards and a ghostly dog is heard paddling, his toenails clicking across the uncarpeted floor. Demo, the son of the man who owns the house, had the most unnerving encounter of all. "I thought I heard my dad in the other room snoring," Demo said. "It bothered me, and I had to shut the door. I went in the other room and looked on the couch, where I thought he was lying, and he wasn't there. Needless to say, the hair went up on my head. I flew out the back door as fast as I could. It was a good excuse not to do my homework."

Green Bay

For many Green Bay Packers fans, Vince Lombardi was like God-he could do it all. And like God, Vince is all around us even though he can't be seen. Marie Lombardi, Vince's window, used to "visit with" her dead husband at his exhibit in the Packer Hall of Fame. According to Lombardi's biographer David Maraniss, "She certainly talked to him or believed she talked to him after he died. I got recordings of a speech she was going to give at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. She was practicing it, and she stopped and startled, and you could hear the address Vince like he was there."

Mark Kanz of the Packer Hall of Fame agrees. "Once in a while, it looks like something is a little out of place or awry, and it seems like the ghost is a good place to lay the blame." Then there's the local businessman who gave up a fifty-yard seat for the 1996 NFC Championship-the first played in three decades-"so Vince's ghost would have a good seat."

John Gehring, a Green Bay psychiatrist, a purchased Lombardi's home in 1969, when the coach went to the Washington Redskins. Lombardi used to watch films of games in his basement and had his home office there. Gehring says, "Sometimes you get a feeling that Vince is here. When there's a bad game or a bad play, you can hear someone walking around here."

Fans around the country were startled to see a familiar-looking figure staring back at the TV camera, wearing the trademark hat and brown coat and standing atop a pile of snow as he watched the victory parade in 1997, following the Packers' trouncing of the New England Patriots 35-21 in Super Bowl XXXI. Turns out it was a man had attended the same church Lombardi had once attended. However, many fans weren't convinced. They believe it was Vince himself.

Still not convinced? Keep an eye on the sports pages or your ears open to football commentary for the number of times Vince Lombardi's ghost is invoked. You'll be surprised. If Wisconsin has a most famous ghost, known the world over, it's that of Vince Lombardi. Asked about replacing a legend, former head Packer coach Lindy Infante said, "There is a ghost of Lombardi here, but it's a friendly ghost."

Hartland

Ghost Harvey's claim to fame is that he contributed to a soundtrack recorded at Hartland's Millevolte Recording Studio in 2000. Owner Vinny Millevolte dubbed the ghost Harvey, naming him after invisible rabbit from the famous play and movie. Millevolte said that during a recording session, a heartbeat-like sound showed up on one of the tracks, though no one present played that beat. Harvey wasn't the only ghost alone in haunting the building, which backs up against the hill below the cemetery. "Late at night, you can sometimes hear doors creaking, someone coming up the stairs, or something in the kitchen," says Millevolte. "I always have to look."

Madison

In 1989, four university women sharing a house on North Brearley Street experienced lights flashing on and off, appliances coming to life for no reason, and loud music blaring from the switched-off stereo. Joy, who was home alone with the doors locked, was napping one afternoon until blaring music jolted her awake. Every light was on in the living room, and the dining-room chandelier was lit. All the kitchen cupboards were open, the front door was unlocked, and the screen door was ajar, as if the ghost had made a hurried exist. Sarah couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't scream. Sometimes the old hag stared down at her from a perch in the chandelier. Amy couldn't stand the feeling of being stared at by unseen presence while the claw-foot tub and refused to bathe there. The fourth roommate had nightmares about what was behind the door leading to the attic. Later the women learned that their landlord's mother, who had lived in the house for eighty years, had died in it.

Milwaukee

Hands down, Aunt Pussy has the best name of any ghost we know. Though long gone, she still holds a tight grip on the Brumder Mansion at 3046 West Wisconsin Avenue, as she haunts the Gold Suite. The Victorian mansion is now a bed-and-breakfast, and the Gold Suite was formerly Aunt Pussy's room. An austere, fussy German immigrant when she was alive, Aunt Pussy remains so in death, frequently expressing disapproval for owner Carol Hirschi's ornate decorating. Aunt Pussy is known to rearrange window shades according to her half-shuttered, half-open preference, and she frequently fusses with table settings. Most of all, she doesn't like dogs, especially when they're on the bed. A creepy feeling awoke Carol one night, and she got the distinct impression that Aunt Pussy was really ticked off that one of Carol's dogs was sleeping with her on the bed.

The list of Aunt Pussy's alleged ghostly activities continues. A visiting Native American medicine man complained of many chatty spirits in the Gold Suite, and one psychic went "completely off her nut" after spending a night there. At one point, the suite's mirror moved across the room, landing in the bathtub without breaking. Then Carol found fresh droplets of blood in the bathroom, though she was the only person home. And for years, the doorbell refused to work for guests, and the programmable tune would always change from the one Carol had chosen. Eventually Carol let Aunt Pussy pick the tun3e, and so long as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" or "Happy Birthday" is selected, she's as happy as any austere German woman can be.

Pipe

Club Harbor, built in 1846 as a stagecoach hotel and later used as a bed-and-breakfast, began showing its ghostly side after Chris Bray purchased the building in 1999 and began renovations. At first, Bray noticed little things such as lights being turned on after hours. "Somebody wanted to party," he says. "Some people have stayed here don't really recall what the checkout time is." A rotund Asian man with a Fu Manchu mustache who had once worked at Club Harbor as a cook manifested before Bray's eyes in a medicine-cabinet mirror. Then there's the mischievous young dark-haired girl with pigtails who runs through the hallways slamming doors. Remember, if you go looking for ghosts, consider taking some time for the ghosts to get used to you. "It's like deer hunting," cautions Bray. "You have to sit still and be like that for a long time before you hear something."

Rochester

The first tavern in western Racine County was the Union House, now Chances restaurant in Rochester, built in 1843. Co-owner Deb Schuerman says, "We've had the cash register do crazy things when it's not even plugged in. And one time, I saw on the second floor taking inventory when I heard this beautiful music that sounded like piano music. We don't even have a piano! It was almost like a harpsichord." There's also a young Civil War soldier and a woman in a green dress who are often seen in the building."

Sawyer County

Professional fishing guide and longtime firefighter Al Denninger says, "I intended to keep quiet about it. I didn't want to sound like people who have lunch with Elvis or just talked to God." But people all up and down the Chippewa Flowage were talking about the polaroid photo Denninger had snapped while fishing the "Big Chip" in October 1991. The picture shows an amorphous animallike shape shrouded in white and suspended in front of the tree line. According to Denninger, his client was the first to spot the apparition. "All of a sudden he looked at me, his mouth wide open and his face white as a ghost, and said, 'Al, wha-wha-what's that?' I looked up and saw it coming down through the trees on the island just across the channel."

The two fishermen said the white-robed ghost remained in position for about a minute and a half drifting to the left and away through the trees. "All this time, it never changed shape. And it had been raining for five straight days, so smoke was not a possibility. Besides, I know what smoke looks like." Denninger sent the photo to Polaroid for analysis. "When they gave it back, they said. 'Whatever that thing is, it's not a doctored negative or trick.' Anyway, you can't tamper with Polaroids-there is no negative." Denninger later discovered that for years, locals had been referring to the area of his photo as Ghost Island, based on a number of other strange encounters there.

West Bend

The RESTAT Building at 724 Elm Street was built in 1897 and today houses the RESTAT prescription benefit management company. It previously housed the West Bend High School, and in later incarnations was home to the elementary school, the library, and even the city's recreation center. In an all-too-frequent scenario that's become a ghostly cliché, this building is haunted by a janitor. This janitor committed suicide in the school's basement, and from all accounts, he wasn't-and-isn't-all that nice. According to Jackie Maynard, a former instructor at the recreation center, "The ghost tended to mess with females; not too many men ran into him. It was definitely a male spirit. He was never menacing, but there was a distinctive presence, cold spots where you could feel the hair on your arms stand up. In the morning, things would be moved on people's desks."

#type read #weird wisconsin #long ass read

0 notes

candy-floss-crazy · 1 year ago

Text

Classic Mini Car Photo Booth Hire

Hire Mini Car Photo Booth Life is British racing green Treat yourself and your guests to a quirky Mini car photo booth. Jasper is one booth with added fun. Built into a 1980’s classic Mini Cooper car , not the modern oversized B.M.W. imposter. Jasper is a photo booth with a huge dose of added fun, perfect for the snapchat and Instagram generation. Capable of taking 5-6 guests. It is themed around the classic Michael Caine film, the Italian Job. Decorated in the same style with 3 driving lights, bonnet straps and italian job themed music from the computer control system, though this one is finished in the classic British Racing Green colour. This is one cute little photo booth. Do you really want a booth in a square box when you can have this? A Cool Booth An icon of cool Britannia, the Mini is one of those dream classic cars screaming its quirky Britishness from the rooftops. Like all of our photo booths, Jasper comes with; •FREE Custom Themed Prints. •Box Of Fun Funky Props. •Booth Butler. •Unlimited Use. •Instant Printing •Guest Book And Additional Prints. •Green Screen Back Window. •Interactive Touch Screen Built In Range Of Options We Offer A Selection Of Low Cost Options For Our Mini Car Photo Booth Hire; •Customised Number Plates. •Additional Print Sets. •Larger Prints. •Social Media Uploads Using A Tablet To Share Prints. •Custom Branding. Hi Tech Photo Booth System Our booths utilise start of the art technology. Including high speed dye sublimation printers, Canon DSLR cameras, and integrated touch screen computers. Providing a fully automated intuitive photography system. Wireless social media tablets provide a seamless way to spread the photo love. Via various social media, with instant uploads to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The mini coopers styling is great for any event, be it a wedding reception or a corporate sales promotion. We can work with you to customise any facet of the mini cooper booth. Whether its adding your company branding to the outside, or creating a custom interior to fit in with a social media campaign.. SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING Use our wireless social media tablets to offer instant uploads to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or your guests email address. Great for weddings, perfect for spreading brand awareness at a corporate event. PERSONALISATION Our Mini Cooper photo booth comes super cool as standard, but we are more than happy to work with you to customise it to meet your precise requirements. Whether its simply adding ribbons to the exterior for a wedding, or totally revamping the interior for a photoshoot we can do that, many corporate clients brand the outside for sales promotions or exhibitions. A TRUE BRITISH ICON The royal family, warm beer, tea, there are many things which are quintessentially British, and the classic Mini Cooper is one of them, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis in 1959 , this little car has more character and grabs more attention than many high end sports cars of today, add a touch of fun to your event with a super cool booth. The Mini Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis in 1959, the Mini was BMC’s answer to the Italian’s Fiat 500 and the German bubble cars. These small cars were becoming increasingly popular due to the fuel shortage caused by the Suez crisis. The first version of the Mini was demonstrated to the press in April 1959, with them being made available to the public on 26th August. They were sold in various guises such as the Wolseley Hornet, the Riley Elf, Austin Seven, but were known throughout the world as “The Mini”. A mainstay of 1960’s culture, the Mini became a performance superstar, when John Cooper the owner of the Cooper Car Company, increased the power of the Mini engine to create first the Mini Cooper, then the even hotter Mini Cooper S, famously starring in the Italian Job movie with Sir Michael Caine. In Depth History Mini Owners ClubWHERE CAN I HIRE A MINI PHOTO BOOTH NEAR ME; We cover the full U.K. with vehicle photo booths. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO HIRE; It varies depending on where and when, but prices start around £399. IS THIS A REAL CAR; Yes it is a limited edition Racing Green Austin Mini. With a 998 engine, tuned and ported with twin carbs for performance. Our classic Mini Cooper photo booths for hire throughout the full U.K. and Europe for a fabulous photo experience. Including Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scotland, The North East, London and The Midlands. The mini is a perfect booth for weddings, parties, corporate events, exhibitions, promotions, military functions, company fundays and any event type. 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 Read the full article

0 notes