The most amazing thing I learned last week was that a) to film Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), an entire fake village was constructed on Malta, b) they preserved the village after the movie wrapped, and c) there are people who travel to Malta specifically to see it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_...
Two hooded figures with lamps approach a moonlit, isolated cottage. A woman answers the door. We have come for the child, says the hooded figure So soon? she asks It is time, says the hooded figure. The woman is distraught. We should never have got him a library card! What is done cannot be undone, says the hooded figure We couldn’t see the harm! We just wanted him to enjoy reading! For most, it ends there, says the hooded figure, turning away and walking into the wilderness Oh lord, What have I done! says the woman, the child walks past her and out into the darkness with them. Do not cry mother. I am a writer now.
my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Same, robot. Same
On DOOMSDAY MACHINES, this week I dive into the idea of “atomic bombs” before the discovery of nuclear fission made them actually feasible. I’ve long thought it makes for an interesting case study — a fateful intersection of scientific fact and science fiction. doomsdaymachines.net/p/strange-ev...
In the wake of the failed CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy considered reconfiguring and even dismantling the Agency, according to documents posted by the National Security Archive on the 65th anniversary of the paramilitary assault on Cuba. nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo...
President Truman’s choice to drop the atomic bomb is the most debated decision in the 20th Century. Alex Wellerstein, author "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" live this week (April 19th) at 4pm ET on HHH.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrGu...
Separately, I would note that if the story was indeed something that aired on the radio, it can be very hard to get hard evidence of what those were after the fact. There are a few ways in which radio stories could left a mark on the archival record but clearly the bulk were very ephemeral.
(This particular article appears to be about induced fission by negative mesons, which is a thing, but does not have weapons applications that I know of — no chain reaction is possible. I think the bomb angle may have just been Laurence's attempt to make the story sexier. It feels very tacked on.)
Article by William L. Laurence from the New York Times, "Russian Studies Lead to Speculation About New and More Destructive Atomic Bomb," 24 November 1946, p. E9. It describes a Soviet study of cosmic-ray (negative meson) induced fission in light elements. In the last paragraph it then speculates that perhaps some similar process could lead to weapons: "Will these studies lead to a new and vastly more destructive atomic bomb? Let us hope not. But they do give us an inkling about what Soviet scientists are doing along those lines."
I would also note that among the rumors that circulated are also things that turned out not to be of importance – e.g., here is a rumor from the November 1946 NYT that there was some kind of physical process OTHER than fission/fusion that the Soviets were looking into as a weapon.
the multiple of 1000X is pretty indicative of early Super rumors/ideas
NANCY BY ERNIE BUSHMILLER P1- NANCY: OH, DEAR - - I BETTER GET STARTED ON MY HOMEWORK P2- NANCY IS LISTENING TO THE RADIO AS SHE BEGINS OF DO HER HOMEWORK RADIO ANNOUNCER: ... SCIENTISTS ARE NOW WORKING ON A NEW SUPER-ATOM BOMB 2000 TIMES MORE DESTRUCTIVE - - P3- NANCY IMAGINES AN ATOM BOMB HURDLING TOWARDS THE EARTH P4- NANCY CRINGES AS SHE IMAGINES THE EARTH EXPLODING P5-NANCY : SOMEHOW THAT HOMEWORK DOESN'T SEEM VERY IMPORTANT NANCY THROWS HER HOMEWORK ON THE FLOOR…
Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller
April 15,1946
"The earliest public mention of said rumors appears to come from a press conference held at Oak Ridge in late September 1945 with Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Leslie Groves. “Question: Is there anything to the rumor that you are making a super bomb that would make the Nagasaki bomb look small? Patterson: I don’t know. Groves: I don’t think the Nagasaki bomb was made obsolete. That bomb could never be made obsolete. Those we used are pretty super. . . . This thing has just started and no one knows just what will develop.” Press Conference, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, Clinton Engineering Works (29 September 1945), ARC, Identifier 281581. In 1947, even the JCAE thought such ideas were fantasies. In a discussion about atomic rumors, Brien McMahon noted: “We had a Senator say on the floor the other day that we have got the super-bomb now. He said that we have got a thousand times more powerful bomb than we had at Nagasaki. (Laughter).” Executive Hearing, JCAE, “Proceedings of an Executive Meeting of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,” (1 July 1947)." Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data, p. 472, n 5.
There were vague H-bomb rumors at least as early as September 1945 — a footnote from my first book. I don't know if there was something from March 1946 off-hand, but there may have been...
doordash grandma DoorDash does not have a specific policy for seniors or helping grandparents, as the provided articles do not mention DoorDash's policies or services for seniors. If you have a follow-up question, feel free to let me know. how the fuck do I just search WaPo articles? To search Washington Post articles, you can use the "Ask The Post Al" tool, which is a generative Al tool that provides summary answers and curated results directly to users. If you have a follow-up question, feel free to let me know. I asked. Show me article about "doordash grandma" There is no information about DoorDash and grandma in the provided articles. If you have a follow-up question, feel free to let me know.
WaPo website replaced search with AI and it's going great
also, this inspired me to do this very silly thing
OK I think that graph may mean the phrase being deliberately in quotation marks, and so EXTRA meaningless...
here's the "corrected" version of "destroy the world" and "take over the world" and "rule the world"
probably meaningless Ngrams result shows 1975 the lowest period since WWII for the use of the phrase "destroy the world" in the Google Books English corpus
The most depressing part about unseasonably nice weather these days is knowing that the piper will be paid, eventually...
It drives me nuts that the apparent target audience for this stuff is the perpetually confused and lazy. "Does the widdle baby need help? Is writing something on their own too hard for the widdle baby? Does the widdle baby need a summary?" It is indicative of how the tech industry views its users.
Surely anyone with EYES can see that having a disclaimer about AI-generated content be THE FIRST THING one sees when one sees an older New Yorker article is BAD OPTICS at a minimum????
I would have thought @newyorker.com was immune to the pressure to append AI slop to its articles — past and present — but I guess not. Surely someone over there knows what their target demographic feels about AI slop? Surely their writers cannot be on board with this kind of junk?
Here's what it looked like in 2024... no summary... and no need for one!
A screenshot of the New Yorker's website article for HIROSHIMA by John Hersey, which includes the tagline: " Six ordinary lives intersect at the instant of the atomic blast—and through terror, illness, and ruin, reveal what survival costs." After this it says, "This summary is AI-generated."
Are you kidding me? An AI-generated summary for John Hersey's HIROSHIMA? This is gross.
For DOOMSDAY MACHINES this week, a post that has in some sense been in the making for something like a decade. It is a very close look at the "war plan," QUICK STRIKE, featured in the formerly classified 1958 film "The Power of Decision," produced for the USAF. doomsdaymachines.net/p/a-long-loo...
In fact, that is what I intended to write! Hooray for fingers that type the wrong numbers...
Ha, I don't know. It's an interesting question. The "Big Board" boards look like just plastic panels that they are writing on. Their "target recap" board looks like white paint and grease pencil or crayon?
🤷♂️
(but seriously, I figured you a) might have the kind of documentation that would allow figuring this out and b) might be the only other person on the planet curious about this)
(interior monologue: ha ha, my plan to get Bill Geerhart to figure out who this guy is for me is working, working! yes, yes!)
Separately, I'm kind of obsessed with identifying this actor. He was in dozens of PSA and US government films in the 1950s-1960s by MPO Productions. Attempts to use "identify this face/actor" apps have all produced, at best, links back to other films of his that are uncredited. I'm just curious.
