Secret History of Silicon Valley

[BQZip01]

Just ran across this on YouTube and thought some of you might find it interesting (Warning: it's about an hour long)

Oh, he also mentions Lanchester bombers when he means Lancaster bombers, but realize that the Lanchester was a civilian version of the same airplane; seems like an honest mistake.

[BQZip01]

Spoiler: It's a solid hour of the worst powerpoint slides ever.

Nice find, BQ.

Thanks?

[TacoJohn]

Thanks for posting that. I had no idea that the Silicon Valley was so involved in Electronic Warfare during the Cold War. I have the following thoughts....

1. Lectures like this are few and far between in Universities these days. Unfortunately Military History is somewhat unfashionable in today's Academia. In 2007 the American Historical Association published a report which found that out of 15,847 History Professors in the United States, only 1.9 percent were identified as Military Historians. It seems the trend is to focus on the History of Race, Class, and Gender, which is fine, but shouldn't college graduates know something about how wars begin and how they end? How can Americans even criticize military strategy when there is roughly a 1.9 percent chance we even took a Military history course in college?

2.Also, the next time I think that life sucks I'll just be glad I'm not pulling 10 hour Bomb Runs on 02 deep into Germany, with absolutely no fighter support, hoping that the marksmanship of my tail gunner exceeds that of the Luftwaffe Fighter Corps..... Yuck.

[zrooster99]

You're welcome. Know what this is?

Alright, goddamnit, I've got to know...why the fuck is Vladimir Putin riding a ritz cracker?!

[MKopack]

Putin' on the Ritz...

In 2007 the American Historical Association published a report which found that out of 15,847 History Professors in the United States, only 1.9 percent were identified as Military Historians.

I have to admit, I'm really surprised it's that high. Back in the early-90's my sister was going to school at Syracuse. She told me that her professor was doing a discussion and screening of a movie on a Friday night and asked if I'd ever heard of it - Dr. Strangelove. I told her all about the movie and she invited me up - as long as I didn't ask any questions.

Great movie, as everyone knows, but before and after the professor, who claimed to everyone to be 'an expert' on Cold War delivery systems (or something like that), gave a quite lecture on the aircraft of the Cold War and the background of what all the oblivious students were seeing in the movie. In overall concepts he was on the right page, and he sure puffed himself up to impress everyone, but on the details he was all over the place. It was all I could do to not yell out corrections to his facts every other sentence and call him an asshat in front of his students - but I understand that professors don't care for that sort of thing.

Well, that story went on too long, must be the beer. By the way, the civil version of the Lancaster was the Avro Lancastrian, originally developed from a Canadian Car and Foundry-built late war Lancaster Mk.X.

Edited September 4, 2010 by MKopack

[BQZip01]

By the way, the civil version of the Lancaster was the Avro Lancastrian, originally developed from a Canadian Car and Foundry-built late war Lancaster Mk.X.

I stand corrected. I took what I found on the internet without checking it very carefully...

[zrooster99]

Putin' on the Ritz...

Yep. Fuck.

[Hacker]

realize that the Lanchester was a civilian version of the same airplane; seems like an honest mistake.

Or not.

The airplane you're thinking of was called the "Lancastrian".

I think he's mixing the Lanc up the "Avro Manchester", which was a sort-of 2-engine version of the Lanc.