The Inventiveness Of Failure
Posted by Ross Rosenberg
A hypnotizing collection of film clips detailing various strange, doomed gadgets and vehicles. The thing that struck me while watching this was the imagination it took for these people — who possessed, no doubt, a limited understanding of aerodynamics and physics — to create some incredibly complex mechanical failures.
Wacky human inventions from the 1930’s [YouTube]
Categories: Clips, Flying Machines, Mad Scientists
Posted at 1:09 pm on February 11, 2009
11 Comments -
I don’t see why we don’t have helicopter boats and trains that can go over one another, those were pretty bad ass.
Comment by Cascus — February 11, 2009 @ 2:21 pm
There is somthing addictive about failure.
Comment by VKlaus — February 11, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
It’s very curious to see men with these “flying” machines based on the mechanics of birds flapping their wings in an era where manned flight had already been proven by other means.
Comment by Evil Jim — February 11, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
That woman had a fierce bite, that’s for sure.
Comment by Mooble — February 11, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
…and they were just the /human/ inventions.
Comment by Gustav von Niemand — February 11, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
Watching those fabulous old men and their flying machines reminded me in some ways of our current glut of hack scientists. The Time Cubists; the Stereons; the room-temp fusionists.
Then as now, we have a group of (reasonably) intelligent and determined men flailing away in fields of science they barely understand, and determined that their inventions, against all possible evidence and odds, will work.
It is both inspiring and irritating.
Comment by Racerabbit — February 11, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
3:25, I really need one. Now. I think I’d get good respect at work parking that outside. And I could let it accidentally stomp small dogs.
6:53 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs
Comment by /d — February 13, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
Wow, I couldn’t even finish watching that. Way too much pucker factor for me!
Comment by wookie_x — February 14, 2009 @ 12:19 am
This is a series of clips from Howard Smith’s amazing documentary “Gizmo”. All Ectomites should highly enjoy it! The whole movie can be seen on Google Video at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5592802075024518044&ei=WKuXSYrONo6cqALe68w5&q=gizmo
Included is an interview with Smith on Letterman from when the film was released.
“Gizmo” used to play on HBO a lot back in the mid-1980’s, and my father and I watched it many times. Its a wonderful little glimpse into the minds of the homebrew inventors of the early 20th century. They might have been wrong, but they were wrong with FLAIR
Comment by Brian Schlosser, lurker — February 15, 2009 @ 1:48 am
I think we have less fun, now.
Comment by Eliza Gauger — February 18, 2009 @ 3:24 am
absolutely 100% awesome
does anyone have any info on the retro voice synthesizer?
Comment by Joe Blo — February 22, 2009 @ 7:19 am