Awesome Pictures Thread

[calapine]

If anyone got over the last shark picture and is considering to go swimming again:

[K9]

[Fordel]

[Nevermore]

Yeah, that helicopter is a cool effect.  The photographer matched the shutter speed of the camera to the frequency of the blades. Longer version.

[Samwise]

I was thinking there was some nutty thing a helicopter pilot could do to glide for short distances.     That makes much more sense. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I believe part of helicopter training is in fact landing with the main rotor off.

[Kail]

I believe part of helicopter training is in fact landing with the main rotor off.

The rotor is powered off, but it still spins (it's called an autorotation landing).  A helicopter with it's rotor locked flies about as well as a truck.  Even if you could get enough airspeed for the rotor blades to provide lift (which itself wouldn't be possible normally), on one side of the rotor the blades are always facing backwards, so only one side would be providing lift, and the helicopter would flip over.

[Merusk]

Watch the video never more linked.  It's clearly exactly what he described, as the copter hovers, dips and rises without the rotor moving.  Goddamn eerie.

[Typhon]

I believe Lakov and Kail were just providing color to the commentary, they aren't saying that helicopter is powered off.

I agree that it's damned eerie.  Funny how deeply embedded an concept can get - helicopter just looks wrong flying without it's blades moving.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Color commentary, I like that.  Yes I was talking about auto-rotation landing, with the motor off the blades will still spin from the air as the helicopter moves downward.  It sounds super crazy and scary but if your engine fails you aren't completely fucked, which it good.  Though I think if your tail rotor goes out you are proper fucked.

[K9]

[Signe]

Superbly awesome pic, K9!   For reals.

[01101010]

Superbly awesome pic, K9!   For reals.

Seconded. Those are what? MK I's? And the Master? 

[Chimpy]

Has to be a shop, those turntables have pitch sliders and that was not added to anything Technics until after he died.

[01101010]

Has to be a shop, those turntables have pitch sliders and that was not added to anything Technics until after he died.

Good eye man. I didn't even think to catch that. 

[Jherad]

It is, but still an awesome picture.

[calapine]

[Simond]

[01101010]

As I started in on that I kept thinking of Calvin and Hobbes. Glad to see he still has it... Now if he would just stop teasing and draw up a new book. 

[IainC]

It's Bill Watterson's words but the strip was drawn by Aung Than in Watterson's style.

[Merusk]

As I started in on that I kept thinking of Calvin and Hobbes. Glad to see he still has it... Now if he would just stop teasing and draw up a new book. 

There is no teasing and there will be no new book.  He's gone to some considerable lengths to remain out of the public eye since stopping.  Heis done with the strip and there won't be a return.  Considering some of his few statements said he recognizes a lot of it as the work of a younger man, I don't think we'd be happy if he did attempt a return.

[Khaldun]

I think it's sad that the dad in that strip has decided to take his daughter along on his suicide attempt at the end.

[01101010]

As I started in on that I kept thinking of Calvin and Hobbes. Glad to see he still has it... Now if he would just stop teasing and draw up a new book. 

There is no teasing and there will be no new book.  He's gone to some considerable lengths to remain out of the public eye since stopping.  Heis done with the strip and there won't be a return.  Considering some of his few statements said he recognizes a lot of it as the work of a younger man, I don't think we'd be happy if he did attempt a return.

That is what I thought, but stranger things have happened.

The art style is dead on in that strip which did its job to rekindle my fondness for his series. I don't think anyone would expect a resurrection of Calvin and Hobbes, but a new theme strip about another character, adult or older adult with the same style. Ah well... can't fault him for it, he did the ultimate Costanza, leaving the room on top.

[Venkman]

Yea that. He had a unique sense that I'd bet is still unique enough to make a serial out of. And I'd much rather have a modern strip than anything like the transition from Bloom County>Outland. Both were fine in their own ways, but chronologically too close to not be compared.

[Merusk]

I spoilered my original post, because I'm wrong.  I re-read his Wiki article and here's the man's own words about stopping from an interview with the Plain Dealer 3 years ago. (Go Cleveland.)

This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did.

In short, he feels he has nothing more to say. Even now, 18 years on.

[TheWalrus]

I've always hated the Calvin pissing on things stickers. Fuck those people.

[HaemishM]

He pulled a Rimbaud. Good for him. He's probably right about leaving the strip when he did. Newspaper comics have long since lost all sense of funny and I assume he's well off enough that he doesn't have to put himself through that grind again.

[calapine]

I have the complete collection (3 big books) and go through them from time to time. Haemish is probably right about Waterson being probably right about leaving when he did, but it's still a shame. I'd love to read more of it.

[Ironwood]

I wouldn't.

The guy said he was done.  I have no interest in reading someone so brilliant writing/drawing something he's not happy with.  It would be awful.

[Merusk]

Yup.

Plus he hated the restrictions of the format.  Which is why it's so awesome he had such a lasting impact on the Sunday strip format.  I loved reading the annotated sections of the 10th anniversary book for insight in to that struggle.

And because fuck you all;  Here's a series that's always been one of my favorites for so, so many reasons.

[rk47]

That is so gay.

*rubs eyes*

Something in my eyes dammit.

[Triax]

Heh,

I've kept this link for a long while, and I'm glad the page is still up.  I like to view it every now an then because these still give me a giggle fit like nothing else

http://www.angelfire.com/wa/zzaran/calvin.html

[Ceryse]

Heh. All this Calvin and Hobbes stuff. Been a long time since I read those comics, time to break the books out.

Thanks.

[01101010]

The snowmen theme in C&H I actually snipped out of the newspaper all those years ago because they were that funny to me, more so they were THAT creative.

I fully understand the man not having it anymore or not wanting to try and rekindle that old flame. I get those spurts where I am write pages of well developed funny ideas, then go months without any inspiration - and I just do it as a leisurely hobby. I can also understand not wanting to come back and tarnish the name by coming up with something inferior. I would advocate that if he ever was bursting with ideas and needed and outlet, to run it under a pseudonym; but then again, his style and illustrations are so unique to him, I doubt he could get away with not being outed.

Oddly enough, this newspaper comic strip has had an interesting effect in that it had so many fans. If you were alive when he was doing these, you know about that and frankly I don't know anyone who read the original strip at that time who dislikes C&H. In fact, most people I know still chat about their favorite strips. All from a newsprint comic strip.

And yeah, fuck those car/truck stickers.

[Cyrrex]

The thing that is so amazing about C&H is that he was able to go to some really deep and meaningful place in a very limited space and in very few panes.  Totally unique.  He basically ruined all other comics, because they were stupid and superficial in comparison.  The only other one I look back on as being worth a damn is Far Side, which also managed to pull of a single pane full of hystericalness.

Also, I have the advantage on most of you in that I probably haven't even read half of Watterson's C&H stuff, so I still have it to look forward to.  If only the books weren't so expensive.  They need a kindle version or something.