Quote:The Transformer 1 was gonna take you down to Electric Avenue. Or not

As we all know by rote, the internal combustion engine is facing extinction. The thing is, the USA has been a hotbed of research into battery-powered vehicles since the 1950s, with the grandiosely-named Electric Fuel Propulsion Company of Troy, Michigan, being to the fore since its inception in 1966. That said, while most electric cars of yesteryear looked like upturned wheelie-bins, this enterprising firm took a different approach.

The firm’s first product, the Electrosport, was trumpeted as being the first mass-produced electric car ever made (there are dozens of rivals for the title). It was, in essence, little more than a battery-powered AMC Hornet and, despite considerable press coverage in period, it failed to find favour with a sceptical car-buying public. There was nothing ‘mass’ about its production. The Transformer 1, which replaced it, was launched in 1974 with the accompanying PR bumf talking up a storm about how it was equipped with air-con, power seats and all the usual trinkets expected of a US land yacht.

Powering this behemoth was a bank of cobalt/lead batteries that produced a combined output of 180 volts. Roughly translated, that equated to 32bhp… This set-up was devised in conjunction with Cheshire-based firm Cableform, the top speed being a giddying 70mph with the air-con switched off, and 55mph with it turned on. A 0-30mph time of eight seconds was quoted, which was roughly akin to that of a two-cylinder Fiat 126. A credulity-stretching range of 50 miles of stop-start driving was declared, or 100 miles when cruising.

However, the options list stretched to a device that would put an end to range anxiety: an ‘auxiliary charging system’ in marketing-speak, or a trailer carrying a massive generator to the rest of us. And powering this set-up? A 4.2-litre General Motors in-line six-cylinder unit, complete with a 21-gallon fuel tank. Car and ‘trailer’ together took up plenty of acreage, too: around 8.3 metres (27ft).

Foregoing the small matter of a petrol engine defeating the object of an electric car, what really blunted its chances of success was the asking price: an eye-watering £15,152 for the regular version, or £16,970 for the Deluxe edition with two-tone paint, a padded roof and velour upholstery. The trailer/generator/engine combo came in at a mere £7273. The thing is, because this was an ‘auxiliary charging system’ it didn’t need to meet EPA emission regulations approval.

As to how many Transformer 1s were made, we would posit that it wasn’t many, although one made it to the UK. It was owned by violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin and wore his ‘YM 44’ cherished number (it was also pictured in period with a different reg). Not only that, he routinely drove it around London, with luxury car dealer H.R. Owen being tasked with maintaining it.

The Electric Fuel Propulsion Company, meanwhile, changed its name to Apollo Energy Systems and created a raft of show cars and prototypes. What’s more, its fuel-cell technology was licensed out to The Big Three in Detroit.

Electric Fuel Propulsion Company Transformer 1

Quote:Russia Detains Oil Tanker That Left Estonia, Report Says

Russia detained the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Green Admire, which left the port of Sillamae and was sailing through Russian territorial waters, Estonian Public Broadcasting said Sunday, citing the Estonian Department of Transport.

The vessel is owned by Aegean Shipping of Greece and carrying shale oil on board. It was following a previously agreed route and its final destination was Rotterdam, according to the report.

The incident happened three days after Russia sent a plane in connection with Estonia‘s attempt to stop a Russian shadow oil tanker.

Quote:TALLINN, May 16 (Reuters) - The United States will begin discussions with European allies to reduce U.S. troops in Europe later this year, U.S. ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said on Friday.
Asked to comment on a report that the Trump administration is considering withdrawing troops from Europe, Whitaker said "nothing has been determined".

"But as soon as we do, we are going to have these conversations in the structure of NATO", said Whitaker.

"It will be certainly after the summit, sometime later in the year, we are going to start those conversations... All our allies are ready to do it", he added, referring to the NATO summit in The Hague in June.

Addressing a security conference in Estonia, Whitaker said U.S. will talk through any troop changes with allies to avoid any security gaps.

"It’s more than 30 years of U.S. desire (to reduce troops in Europe), President Trump just said, enough, this is going to happen and it’s going to happen now, this is going to be orderly, but we are not going to have any more patience for foot dragging in this situation... We just need to work through the practical consequences", Whitaker said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO allies in February that "stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe".

The Atlantic reported in March that Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance had complained about European allies in a chat group. Hegseth expressed his "loathing of European free-loading", according to the Atlantic.

Such comments have fuelled European fears about the U.S. commitment to NATO, along with Trump's threats not to protect members that spend too little on defence, and his reluctance to keep supporting Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion.

Whitaker said U.S. is not withdrawing: "The United States is going to remain in this alliance, and we are going to be a great friend an a great ally".

He warned the European Union against restricting non-EU companies from European defence purchases, saying this would undermine NATO interoperability, slow Europe's rearming, raise costs and stifle innovation.

Reuters

Quote:On May 21, 1792 a Royal Proclamation in England was issued against “wicked seditious writings printed, published and industriously dispersed.” Paine received notice that he would be prosecuted in the King’s Bench for his Rights of Man. He came immediately to London to find Jordan, his publisher, had already been served with a summons, and was ready to compromise by agreeing to plead guilty. Paine refused to capitulate before the offensive of the British reactionaries, and wrote to Attorney-General Sir Archibald Macdonald, some time in May, informing him that he had no desire to avoid any prosecution.

Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man

Quote:The Eiger Sanction: Tragedy on the Eiger – The Death of David Knowles


I have been asked many times in the past about the death of climber David Knowles during the making of The Eiger Sanction in the summer of 1974. Here is a story I found on file. I have also included some nice candid photos I have also had on file for quite some time. Thank you to the people who were kind enough to share these on the web. 

During filming on the face of the Eiger, English Mountaineer and crew member David Knowles was killed by rock fall. Knowles had made an ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1970. Film maker Mike Hoover was supervising the filming on the Face of the Eiger and is credited on the Film as Climbing Advisor. Hoover told the story of the accident in the August 1975 issue of American Cinematographer.

‘Tuesday, August the thirteenth (1974), was cold, clear and beautiful. By 9:30 the chopper had moved all 14 of us up to the West Ridge of the Eiger. Today we would finish one of the most difficult set-ups in the picture. Not bad. By three we had finished on the face and had begun to film up on the flat area above, ascending the ropes back to the top for a sync scene where we establish that the German is a careless fool and that the Frenchman is a damaged careless fool.

Then I remembered that we didn’t get the POV of the falling fake rocks that just miss Eastwood and hit Montaigne. So I had to go back down on the face and Dave Knowles volunteered to go onto the wall with me to help, while everyone else began to fly out in the chopper. So the two of us rappelled down to our position on the wall and clipped into a group of pitons. I think we both were glad to get out onto the peaceful wall and let the others hustle all the junk back down in the chopper.

The shot was rather simple, Martin drops the foam rocks down on us and Dave bats any away that might hit the lens. Perfect, but really scary-looking through the camera as the rocks bomb down, I just can’t keep from flinching. When finished. I suggest to Dave that he go on back up while I coil the ropes, put the camera away and take out the pitons, but he says no and that he’ll stay and help so we joked and began to clean up.

He told me about working with the BBC, I think on the “Old Man of Hoy.” One day he was carrying a very expensive video camera that was turned on and he didn’t know it. So the camera was transmitting back to the control truck while he was stopping on a tiny ledge to pick some exceptionally beautiful wild flowers. The guys back in the control truck were going crazy as he put the camera down on a ledge balanced some three hundred feet above the smashing surf. We were both laughing when we heard the sound of a big rock falling from above. It sounds real close and I instantly cover and crouch into the wall as close as possible. I hide my hands so as not to lose any fingers. Feel pretty good. It smashes into the small of my back and I almost black out as a smaller shower of rocks continues. I feel a weight on top of me. I can’t move my legs, so pinch them, and am so happy to feel the pain.

Dave must be okay - but he’s on top of me—hanging upside-down—dead. He must have looked up right into it. I’m sure he never felt anything and was happy when he passed away—and it was so quick that there was no fear at all. [Producer Robert] Daley and Eastwood talked about stopping production, but what for? We all knew that serious accidents were a real possibility before we started, but on the second day? My pelvis had a small crack and all the surrounding muscles were smashed so I was out of action for about ten days.’

In his book, Richard Schickel Said, A wake was held, and Clint considered canceling the production. The climbers, however, urged him to go on. They knew the risks of their trade, ran them habitually and felt that moviemaking added nothing to them. For his part, Clint came around to the view that aborting the production would render Knowles’s death—not to mention all the hard and dangerous work that had preceded it—meaningless.

The Clint Eastwood Archive

Quote:After deliberating over what to do with some 1,300 copies of E.T. and other Atari games buried in the desert in 1983 and recovered last month, the Alamogordo City Commission has decided to have 700 of the cartridges "appraised, certified, and put up for sale," Polygon reported on Friday.

More than 700,000 copies of E.T. and other Atari games were left in the landfill and covered up again because it was tougher to recover them than the diggers had originally foreseen, Alamogordo mayor Susie Galea told Polygon.

The cartridges were unearthed on April 26 [2014] at the culmination of a highly publicized excavation of a dump outside of Alamogordo, which is located about 150 miles southwest of Roswell, N.M., vindicating believers in a long-running legend in gaming circles about a financially-strapped Atari burying millions of E.T. cartridges in dumps like the one outside of Alamogordo in the early 1980s.

Atari's legendarily awful E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was such a commercial bomb, the company reportedly found itself stuck with 3 million or more unsold copies of the video game a little more than a year after it was released.

Canadian film production companies Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment, which orchestrated the Microsoft-sponsored dig for the buried games, have already received 100 cartridges, the site said. Some 400 recovered Atari 2600 cartridges will be donated to the New Mexico Museum of Space History, which is helping to prepare and certify the 700 going up for sale, and other museums and institutions, according to Polygon.

Atari's Buried E.T. Games Up for Sale

Quote:Capturing the Hard Realities of the Modern World

For Sebastião Salgado, being an advocate for social and environmental change by earning a Ph.D. in economics and working for the World Bank was not enough. Taking up photography in his 30s, Salgado yearned to capture the hard realities of the modern world. Salgado created striking images that helped present veridical narratives of human life on Earth. Therefore, Salgado’s images presented everything from the gritty truths of human toil to the perplexing, eternal beauty of nature. In his attempt to make a positive impact, photography ultimately became the most critical aspect of Salgado’s life.

Sebastião Salgado, Photography as an Epic Voyage

Quote:As an 18-year-old Flag-Lieutenant's messenger, Briggs was on Hood's compass platform when a shell from Bismarck hit the ship between centre and stern, penetrated the deck, exploded and touched off the ammunition in the four-inch and 15-inch magazines. According to one witness, the column of flame generated was “four times the height of the mainmast".

Ted Briggs himself recalled that he was lifted off his feet and dumped headfirst on the deck: "Then she started listing to starboard. She righted herself, and started going over to port. When she had gone over by about 40 degrees we realised she was not coming back." There was no time, or need, for an order to abandon ship. Hood sank within three minutes.

On his way to the compass platform shortly before the action, Briggs had bumped into a fellow-sailor, Frank Tuxworth, with whom he had earlier been playing cards. Tuxworth joked: "Do you remember, Briggo, that when the Exeter went into action with the Graf Spee, there was only one signalman saved?" Briggs laughed and replied: "If that happens to us, it'll be me who's saved, Tux."

Briggs was sucked down beneath the sea. He later wrote: "I had heard it was nice to drown. I stopped trying to swim upwards. The water was a peaceful cradle - I was ready to meet my God. My blissful acceptance of death ended in a sudden surge beneath me, which shot me to the surface like a decanted cork in a champagne bottle. I turned, and 50 yards away I could see the bows of the Hood vertical in the sea. It was the most frightening aspect of my ordeal, and a vision which was to recur terrifyingly in nightmares for the next 40 years."

Briggs swam clear of the stricken ship and, when he looked back, she had gone.

Only two other men - Midshipman William Dundas and Able-Seaman Bob Tilburn - survived. All three clung to small rafts for nearly four hours, singing Roll Out the Barrel to stay awake; even so, they were close to death from hypothermia when they were picked up by the destroyer Electra. Their rescuers could not believe that there was no sign of anyone else from Hood, alive or dead.

Ted Briggs (5 October 2008)

(05-27-2025, 03:16 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: You can view Lange photos/prints in high resolution at Shorpy American Historical Photo Archive


May 26, 1907: Everybody's favorite cowboy... John Wayne (Marion M. Robert Morrison) was born in Winterset, Iowa. In 83 of his films he played a cowboy. He gained just 1 Oscar as Best Actor playing Marshal Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

Quote:A relatively short-lived San Francisco based news and literary paper published from 1864-1868.

The first issue was dated May 28, 1864. Fitz Hugh Ludlow was one of the first known contributors, but many of the early pieces were published anonymously. Bret Harte came on as an editor in 1865 and a young Mark Twain was hired, also in 1865, at a salary of $50 per month. Twain note, "The Californian circulates among the highest class of the community and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States--and I suppose I ought to know."

Californian Newspaper Vol. 1 No. 1--Vol. 1 No. 10 May 28, 1864-July 30, 1864

Quote:Ambrose Bierce CHRONOLOGY Life & Disappearance 1842-1914? compiled by Don Swaim

Dec 26, 1913 — Writes a letter from Chihuahua, Mexico, to his secretary/companion, Carrie Christiansen, saying he expects to move out the next day, partly by rail, to Ojinaga, where Pancho Villa's revolutionaries are poised to attack federal troops. This is the last communication from Bierce.

Jan 1, 1914 — Pancho Villa captures Ojinaga.

1914 — Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, forms an investigative team to look into Bierce's disappearance but comes up with nothing. Bierce's daughter, Helen, launches an investigation under the direction of Colonel C. J. Velardi. Again, with no results.

Mar 1920 — The San Francisco Bulletin sends reporter James H. Wilkins to Mexico to find out what happened to Bierce, and publishes a sensational story claiming that Bierce was shot by a Villa firing squad near Icamoli in 1915.

1929 — Biographer Carey McWilliams quotes Edward S. O'Reilly, a soldier of fortune, as saying Ambrose Bierce was buried near Sierra Mojada after having been shot by local soldiers. NOTE: See Aug 2004 (below) for a credible theory by James Lienert giving credence to McWilliams' 1929 account.

.....

Aug 2004 — Retired priest James Lienert erects a gravestone to Bierce in Sierra Mojada, Coahuila, Mexico, where Lienert draws upon local lore to theorize Bierce is buried in the local cemetery.

Quote:Measuring nearly six feet long, the Anciente Mappe presents a kind of “extended universe” of mythology and fairytales. Narcissus fixates on his reflection in the woods outside of Little Red Riding Hood’s house; Ulysses sails into a cove where Peter Piper and Puss in Boots romp; Lancelot climbs a mountain that also houses the Hydra and Cerberus. The map is framed by tanning mermaids, tricksy fairies, and highly ornamented borders. At its center, on the distant horizon, we find the Moone’s Sphere, circled by enchanted rainbows. Taken as a whole, Sleigh’s vision gives the impression that all human stories, all tales of magic and mystery, are piecemeal fragments from a singular, cohesive landscape.

One almost wants to live inside this map, where the disparate roots of a certain tradition of mythic imagination seems to emerge and remix. And indeed, when it was first published, it came to offer a kind of escape from the devastating closure of World War I. Yet Sleigh had first drafted his Anciente Mappe nearly a decade earlier. Like all good works of literary fandom, it emerged from a love of reading and sharing stories. “Every day after lunch, before he set off on his bicycle for the afternoon session at the Art School, he would read to the two of us”, recalled Sleigh’s daughter Barbara, a celebrated children’s author. “One wet holiday my father drew a Map of Faeryland for us. On it were marked the sites of all our best-loved fairy-stories. There is Peter Pan’s House, and the palace of La Belle Dormante and the Bridge of Roc’s Eggs, and such succinct entries as ‘Here be bogles’ and ‘Warlocks live here’. It has fascinated several generations of children.”

Quote:The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences, avail to keep a fact a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome, are passing already into fiction. The Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way. “What is History,” said Napoleon, “but a fable agreed upon?” This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Colonization, Church, Court, and Commerce, as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain, and the Islands,—the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras in my own mind.

Quote:A Little History of Nevada Turquoise

Native American peoples first mined the beautiful Turquoise of Nevada long before the first European explorers entered the area. Some of the mines such as the Fox and Crescent Peak deposits were worked extensively. For centuries going back to the times of the Anasazi, the native peoples of Nevada produced beautiful necklaces and other decorative and sacred items using turquoise. However, unlike some of the tribes in Arizona that also cherish turquoise, silver work and the art of making Native American style silver jewelry never became fully established in Nevada. As a result, even though Nevada still produces considerable quantities of turquoise, the traditional use of this gem in the crafts of the Paiute and Shoeshone tribes of Nevada is rare by comparison to the prolific use of these gems by the Arizona tribes. This also explains why, although there are well-known styles for the turquoise jewelry work of the Navajo, Zuni and other Arizona tribes, no similar well-established style exists for the Paiute or Shoeshone peoples of Nevada.

The first Nevada turquoise discovery made by prospectors of European decent was made near Columbus in the early 1870s. At that time, it was only the second turquoise deposit in the US known to European miners. When Turquoise became fashionable during the period 1908 – 1910, the high prices attracted the attention of local prospectors and a number of new Nevada turquoise discoveries were made. Most of the turquoise discoveries made at that time were located in the Esmerelda/Mineral/Nye counties area which is the part of Nevada located nearest to that first 1870s discovery. By the late 1920’s and 1930’s turquoise once more came back into vogue, and increased prices again led to a number of new discoveries, and this time most of the new finds were located in Lander County, farther to the north. In the 1960s and 1970s, increased turquoise prices again led to new discoveries and production at mines all across Nevada, most notably the deposits at Carico Lake. Nevada has been a major producer of turquoise since the 1920s, and until the early 1980's, the State was the largest producer in the US.

In this era of small turquoise operations, it may again be the largest producer. It is estimated that over the years, more than 100 different mines and prospects located in Nevada have produced significant quantities of turquoise, much of it of very good to excellent quality. That number far exceeds the total number of turquoise deposits all in the rest of the US combined. Production from these mines varied from a few thousand dollars worth of material at some of the smaller properties to many millions of dollars at the more productive ones. To date, the total value of the rough turquoise from the state of Nevada is estimated to comfortably exceed $250 million dollars.

In recent years, the small central Nevada town of Austin has sort of become the unofficial turquoise capital of Nevada. This is because of its location close to several turquoise mining districts that are still producing some material. These include the Damale/Godber, Carico Lake, McGuinness, and Blue Diamond/Papoose areas. Even though the town has less than a thousand residents, it has three nice shops that specialize in fine Nevada turquoise jewelry. Both rough and cut stones are available as well.

(05-29-2025, 03:21 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: The Royal Peacock Mine, also open from May to September, is a similar mine-your-own opals operation. The Royal Peacock, where some of the largest opals ever uncovered in Nevada have been unearthed, has been featured on the Travel Channel.

BONUS: it also offers an RV park and gift shop.

The town of Coober Pedy, 693 km (430 mi) south of Alice Springs in South Australia is a major source of opal. The world's largest and most valuable gem opal "Olympic Australis" was found in August 1956 at the "Eight Mile" opal field at a depth of 30 feet in Coober Pedy. It weighs 17,000 carats (3.4 kg; 7.5 lb) and is 11 inches (280 mm) long, with a height of 4+3⁄4 in (120 mm) and a width of 4+1⁄2 in (110 mm) and was valued at A$2,500,000 in 1997.


Olympic Australis – The World’s Most Famous Opal

BlackOpal Australia

Quote:A Little History of Nevada Turquoise

Native American peoples first mined the beautiful Turquoise of Nevada long before the first European explorers entered the area. Some of the mines such as the Fox and Crescent Peak deposits were worked extensively. For centuries going back to the times of the Anasazi, the native peoples of Nevada produced beautiful necklaces and other decorative and sacred items using turquoise. However, unlike some of the tribes in Arizona that also cherish turquoise, silver work and the art of making Native American style silver jewelry never became fully established in Nevada. As a result, even though Nevada still produces considerable quantities of turquoise, the traditional use of this gem in the crafts of the Paiute and Shoeshone tribes of Nevada is rare by comparison to the prolific use of these gems by the Arizona tribes. This also explains why, although there are well-known styles for the turquoise jewelry work of the Navajo, Zuni and other Arizona tribes, no similar well-established style exists for the Paiute or Shoeshone peoples of Nevada.

The first Nevada turquoise discovery made by prospectors of European decent was made near Columbus in the early 1870s. At that time, it was only the second turquoise deposit in the US known to European miners. When Turquoise became fashionable during the period 1908 – 1910, the high prices attracted the attention of local prospectors and a number of new Nevada turquoise discoveries were made. Most of the turquoise discoveries made at that time were located in the Esmerelda/Mineral/Nye counties area which is the part of Nevada located nearest to that first 1870s discovery. By the late 1920’s and 1930’s turquoise once more came back into vogue, and increased prices again led to a number of new discoveries, and this time most of the new finds were located in Lander County, farther to the north. In the 1960s and 1970s, increased turquoise prices again led to new discoveries and production at mines all across Nevada, most notably the deposits at Carico Lake. Nevada has been a major producer of turquoise since the 1920s, and until the early 1980's, the State was the largest producer in the US.

In this era of small turquoise operations, it may again be the largest producer. It is estimated that over the years, more than 100 different mines and prospects located in Nevada have produced significant quantities of turquoise, much of it of very good to excellent quality. That number far exceeds the total number of turquoise deposits all in the rest of the US combined. Production from these mines varied from a few thousand dollars worth of material at some of the smaller properties to many millions of dollars at the more productive ones. To date, the total value of the rough turquoise from the state of Nevada is estimated to comfortably exceed $250 million dollars.

In recent years, the small central Nevada town of Austin has sort of become the unofficial turquoise capital of Nevada. This is because of its location close to several turquoise mining districts that are still producing some material. These include the Damale/Godber, Carico Lake, McGuinness, and Blue Diamond/Papoose areas. Even though the town has less than a thousand residents, it has three nice shops that specialize in fine Nevada turquoise jewelry. Both rough and cut stones are available as well.

May 28, 1999: After 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper, was put back on display in Milan, Italy. The classic painting shows the expressions on the faces of the disciples at the moment Jesus says the words: “One of you will betray me.”