On 8/1/14 2:55 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
Are any of you old enough to remember constructing fairly realistic
model warplanes that came in preperforated flat sheets of light
cardboard ..."fold along line A -- B", "insert Tab D in slot 3",
etc. The most relaxing thing ever.
Nick -
I do remember these, but not as a relaxation, more of a major
obsession... out of all of my toy models as a child... these were my
favorite because they were incredibly cheap, they were robust to my poor
handling, and they were relatively good fliers (some of them). I few
years ago I got a nostalgic bone and went looking on the internet for
these and found what I think are at least a few of the several designs I
had once.
http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/airplanes/
I think mine came not *on* a cereal box, but as something I could order
*from* a cereal box... I remember taping a dime onto the order form cut
from the box and addressing an envelope, adding a $.03? stamp. I knew
somehow that these were relics (the paper designs, not just the planes)
from a different time and it totally fascinated me. I was used to
paying $1 or more for a plastic model that didn't even begin to pretend
to fly. This was a lot to a kid whose "chores" paid $.25 a week, but we
only went to town once a month so heck I could buy a new model every
month if I did extra chores! and in those days, nobody knew you got
high from the solvent in the glue, no wonder we had such fun, we were
burning out brain cells!
Koopman (jr) is kinda weird here about his "fair use" but one can
download and build these little buggers it seems (just don't exchange
any moneys!). Despite my nostalgic fascination, I have not yet bothered
to put cardstock into my printer and print one of these up, much less
cut and glue and test!
As I remember it, the Flying Tigers P40
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-40_Warhawk> was my favorite of
all ( the animal-morphic paintjob?), but the Hellcat
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F6F_Hellcat>was similar to my
favorite *plastic* WWII era Corsair
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F4U_Corsair> that I had a real
special place in my heart for it. I damaged it beyond flight, however,
when trying to modify it to have the same inverted gull-wing as the
Corsair which I found rakishly kewl at the time (8 years old?). I kept
waiting for additional designs to come out but they never did.
The Aichi Val <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_D3A>, with it's nearly
ellipse-shaped wings was the best flier... I let the rest sit on the
dirt while this one did numerous overflights, aerobatics and
nearly-graceful landings.
Soon after that I discovered boomerangs and WWII paper fliers became
passe... (you too can have an authentic pre-loved orange-plastic
Wham-O
<http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-1965-WHAM-O-AUSSIE-BOOMERANG-TOY-MID-CENTURY-RARE-ORANGE-/181477407327?pt=Outdoor_Toys_Structures_US&hash=item2a40e57a5f>)
When do you get back? I might even join you at a FRIAM en-verite and we
can sit around with a bottle of Elmers glue and some scissors and freak
out the Johnnies there with our nonsense! A bunch of old farts running
about tossing small cardboard planes at one another! And squirting lemon
juice in the resulting paper cuts... just like here on the mail list!
- Steve
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
*From:*Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Friday, August 01, 2014 4:41 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM Field Trip?
Merle -
You ask: /"I am really at a loss here. Why would ANYONE like to tour
a B-29? Give me one good reason."/
Interesting sociological (and gendered?) question! And some
interesting (also gendered?) answers. [TLDR for most of you]
There is definitely a strong bias in many men I know toward enjoying
(wallowing in) both mega-technology and warfare. It is an interesting
question as to which is the chicken and which is the egg. Are men
fascinated by these things because they are indoctrinated to them
early or are they fascinated with them early and simply make it more
extravagant as adults? Are women who become fascinated by such things
abnormal or were they simply indoctrinated differently? Do women just
intrinsically "know better"?
I remember two such "toys" of my own... the first being a metal
airliner about twice the size of my fist (age 2-3) with the little
friction motors in the wheels so that you could spin them up and let
them roll under their own power across a hard surface. Trying to make
it fly, I threw it over a fence where there was a big loud dog who
took exception to my trying to retrieve it.) The safety-yellow
road-grader about 4 times the size of my little fist (age 3-4)... and
I spent hours and hours on the side of a mound of dirt making roads
with it. I don't know that I had ever actually seen a real
road-grader doing such a thing but somehow it was "obvious" to me.
This I was enjoying so much, I failed to pack it when we moved away
and it remained on that pile of dirt until another little boy came
along to make rumbly diesel sounds as it skimmed dirt and made level...
I WAS fascinated with both toys and had some idea of what they were
about, that on one hand they were fetishes for "full-size" and
uber-competent technology for doing "important stuff". On the other
hand, I don't know what... what is the magic of such things? Neither
was overtly military, but I suppose that was just luck of the draw...
or maybe my parents had some inkling that the glory of war was a false
path?
I don't remember if/that my sister (2 years my senior) took any
interest in such things, though we *did* compete over other "toys"...
with me experimenting with her "perfume" making set whilst she made
her own *bad smells* with my chemistry set. This experience made me
aware of my own synesthaesia and it set her on a path to majoring in
microbiology in college... go figure.
My sister taught me to read by first reading Nancy Drew mysteries to
me... for her own entertainment I guess...I did find them interesting
enough... but one day she had no new ones and for reasons she cannot
explain, she read a book to me whose cover was an illustration of a
WWI Sopwith Camel Biplane and a WWII Fokker Triplane in a chase (no
guns blazing, so not obviously a dogfight in the stereotypical
sense). The story of these two "gallant knights of the air" caught
my fancy and I set out to learn to read using that book and at some
point discovered the vaguely parallel experiences of Tom Swift
opposite Nancy Drew... why I found an adolescent boy schlepping all
over the world solving problems with uber-technology fascinating while
my sister found the adventures of a slightly older adolescent girl
doing the same thing more locally with advanced social skills and
powers of deduction, I can't exactly say... but that was our
divergence. Is it nurture reinforcing nature or over-riding it?
Would she have been better off if my parents had brought her Tom Swift
collections from the library? Or would she have become bored and not
become an avid reader? I wasn't bored with Nancy Drew but boy did
the WWI Aces and Tom Swift trump her best moments in a hurry!
Later I began to construct and draw model airplanes, becoming quite
fascinated with the "rivet detail" on the WWII fighter planes... I
had no significant interest in the armaments on these amazingly
capable /phenotype-extenders/, those /transportation-prostheses/. I
saw airplanes (and all vehicles) as elaborate prosthesis which
amplified my ability to (especially) move through space rapidly, over
long distances and in unfamiliar mediums such as air, water, vacuum,
even boring through the ground (which Tom Swift was THAT?). My
favorite antique book is one of "rivet patterns" from the 1850s which
shows a thousand ways to join "boilerplate" into various *steamtight*
vessels. It also has a section "ingenious mechanisms for inventors
and engineers". I gave it to my nephew who is studying to be a
Material Science Engineer with the idea that if Eric Drexler was
right, then perhaps nano-materials will be macro-technologic mimics.
Gears, levers, guides, cams, etc. Who knows, maybe even riveted
boilerplate (probably not)!
This early fascination with aviation lead me to take a "pilot ground
school" class taught by one of the HS coaches who owned (a share in) a
plane and then during the summer between my sophomore and junior year
in college I had the opportunity to buy a 1947 Luscombe 2-seat
taildragger for the princely sum of $2000! It was virtually all I
had in the bank... but I already a good summer job near an airport
without a tower and spent that summer honing my skills at sunrise for
an hour or two. Me and a row of ratty cropdusters. A retired
cropduster and a vietnam helicopter pilot taught me the basics and
stood back... in it's own way it was less dangerous than my
motorcycle riding at the time with a stall speed of 45 mph... could
(crash) land it anywhere and except for a few manouvres it was well
built enough to withstand any aerial nonsense
All that said, I'm not that interested in a B-29... but do understand
how many people (albeit mostly men?) would be for roughly the reasons
Cordingly enumerates here. I'd rather ogle the MIGs at the airport
for their low-tech implementation of high-tech concepts (Vacuum Tube
electronics?! a jet engine that can burn just about anything from
diesel to kerosene?), and for their unfamiliar performance envelope
(out of the range of birds, if not out of the range of darts and
arrows). But the 1914 Ingram-Foster flyer (copy of the Curtis-Wrigth
Model A biplane) at the ABQ Sunport fascinates me a great deal more...
a flying machine that could be repaired (even built) by craftsmen of
the time with hand tools for the most part. Amazing!
As for Tom's responses... yes, should a pacifist go to a war museum?
I went to work at LANL at age 24 *as* a self-avowed pacifist... sadly
I conflated peace with lack of active warfare... I actually believed
in the doctrine of MAD and that "someone is going to have the big
stick, it might as well be us, because we are such good people".
Fortunately I came to understand the fallacy of all that over time...
but I *was* very much (otherwise) a pacifist.
> TJ wrote:
> For the same reason 4-year-old boys will spend hours watching
videos of bull dozers at work.
This has a sad note to it. I spent hours in the dirt with that tiny
fetish of a giant yellow machine rather than in front of a TV watching
someone else practice the same rituals on camera. I *did* get over
my mega-engineering fetish at some point in my life, but still can
feel the stir in my loins when I see some giant yellow machine shoving
mountains around or plucking trees up by their roots (as they scream
their tree-screams) and dropping them into grinders (that is how 599
got cleared of pinon and juniper before the scraping began) to be
turned to mulch on the spot...
Whilst at a cognitive neuroscience conference a few years ago, the
researchers were all abuzz about "media budgets" for children. This
was not a part of their formal work nor presentations, but it seemed
that all of these grandparents had come to realize that their
grandchildren were spending excruciatingly inordinate amounts of time
with electronic devices. There was much discussion of the neural
coding likely coevolved with long nights around the campfire and how
videos and computer games trigger the same wiring. Of course, a lot
of it was grandparents disapproving of how *their* kids raised their
own kids, but nevertheless, I was moved. And in this instant
wondering why I am sitting staring at this screen when I could be out
moving dirt around with a big yellow (1949 Ford Dump Farm truck) or
orange (1970 Kubota small tractor) moving dirt around aimlessly!
Meanwhile, enjoy the tour all!
- Steve
Hmm...
* to get an appreciation of the macro and micro cultures of
American militarism of the period
* to marvel at the engineering accomplishments
* /Fifi/ is the last B-29 on active flying status* and that
can't last forever
* a fascination with warcraft
but of course that's not your point. Should pacifists avoid
military museums?
Robert C
* for a price (~$600-$1600) you can book a ride.
On 8/1/14 10:00 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Tom Johnson
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Anyone want to join me in going out to tour a B-29
tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 1) late morning after usual FRIAM
roundup at St. John's? $10 See
http://www.airpowersquadron.org/#!santa-fe-nm/ccjb
<http://www.airpowersquadron.org/#%21santa-fe-nm/ccjb>
============================================
Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482 <tel:505.577.6482>(c) 505.473.9646
<tel:505.473.9646>(h)
Twitter: jtjohnson
slideshare.net/jtjohnson/presentations
<http://slideshare.net/jtjohnson/presentations>
http://www.jtjohnson.com <http://www.jtjohnson.com/>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merlelefkoff
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