Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Bring on the Empty Horses

Cam O'Flage #1. Remember that time in the 80s when there was that fashion for telephone booths shaped like dead horses? "Think how it will enliven the next round of Dr Who reboots!" said the consultants. Nice idea but the booths turned out to be cramped, and half the time your conversation would be interrupted by kids beating them with sticks under the impression that it was a piñata.*
You try telling this to youngsters today and they just don't believe you.

Cam O'Flage #2. The Snake Caterpillars -- Hemeroplanes spp -- can puff out the underside of the anterior segments of their bodies so that they resemble a snake.

This lures other, amorous snakes closer... and close enough... and THEN HEMEROPLANES STRIKES.

Cam O'Flage #3.

The designers of interstellar spaceships have learned to make them spherical.** Possibly they go faster that way.
Also they can sneak up on their target and everyone's all "Whatevs... it's just another planet or moon" -- until it is too late and the plundering begins.
As a reader pointed out a while ago, building them to look like aeroplanes is not fooling anyone.
mikey said...
Excuse me, sir, but I have a small question.
Why does their starship have wings and a vertical stabilizer? Was it perhaps designed by zombies?
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* In comments, OBS points out that dead-horse camouflage has previously featured at LGM. Some uncertainty emerged in that blog's comment thread as to the actual WW1 battlefield application of papier-mâché horses -- whether they were used by the French as listening posts (as described in the earliest anecdotes); or constructed by US forces for snipers (as reported in later, more gung-ho Kill-the-Boche accounts for American readers); or indeed, whether a widely-circulated photograph released by the US Signal Corps was ever used at all, except to give artists something harmless to do, well away from the trenches.

Anyway, if Telecom wants to revive the concept of novelty phone booths, perhaps they will design them like dead elephants next time and there will be more room inside.

** Here some partially-constructed starships are moved around the shipyard to where the next layer will be added.
This one is ready to launch!

8 comments:

H. Rumbold, Master Barber said...

One anachronism in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is the pay telephone. No mention of booths. Not bad for a 1992 publication.

fish said...

The Snake Caterpillars

The front line for equal rights is the cross-dressing trans-speciesists.

Pupienus Maximus said...

Trans-speciesists indeed. Just saw a christianist post somewhere this morning proving creationism because slippery slope sex reassignment surgery species reassignment QED.

Also, those fucking horse booths were a pain in the ass to get to the coin return.

Yastreblyansky said...

A pain in the horse's ass too, to be fair.

OBS said...

I saw the first picture and initially thought Erik Loomis was guest posting.

tigris said...

Those mooring-ball houses will be GREAT when sea level rises.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

They will be great to fish from, tigris.
~

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

or indeed, whether a widely-circulated photograph released by the US Signal Corps was ever used at all, except to give artists something harmless to do, well away from the trenches.

It was used, alright... Rule 34 and all.