Star Wars Stuff: The Inspiration for the AT-ATs

What gave the creators of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back the inspiration which produced the great, lumbering AT-ATs?  According to Phil Tippett -- Visual Effects designer for ESB and the AT-AT -- it was the largest known land mammal to have ever existed.  A distant cousin of the modern-day rhinoceros: Paraceratherium

This mega-creature also goes by the names: Indricotherium and Baluchitherium.  The "therium" part always means "beast."  I love etymology.  The best I can do with "Paraceratherium" is: "Pre-horned-beast."  My google skills did not produce a source translation.  Apparently, the first name given to any bones later determined to be this animal was Paraceratherium.  "Indricotherium" and "Baluchitherium" came later.  As with most new pre-historic megafauna discoveries, it takes a few tries before they get it right, or realize previously discovered bones were the same as a set thought new.  Triceratops' first discovered skull was thought to be of a great bison.  /digress

Back on topic: a popular myth is that the AT-AT was instead inspired by cranes operating on the docks at Oakland, CA.

However:

"[This is] a myth both Lucas and visual effects expert Phil Tippett deny. The inspiration for the AT-AT was Paraceratherium, an extinct species of rhino-like creature and the biggest land mammal in history." Source

I found a great youtube vid/BBC documentary on Paraceratherium:

This thing was huge.  It would make the biggest elephant look small.  Up to 18 tons, 16 feet tall with a total span from tail to nose of some 40 feet.

Great pic showing size of Paraceratherium,
which dominates the frame in the background.

What an AT-AT may look like.

Somebody did this.

German Command Vehicles

Rommel's command vehicle.  Called, "Greif"?

The SdKfz 250/3, Leichter Funkpanzerwagen and/or, "Lighter Radio Armored Car."

Guderian used the SdKfz 251/3, and he can be seen it in the attached pic:

"The half-tracked SdKfz 251/3 mittlerer Funkpanzerwagen (various radios were  used). This famous photo shows Guderian in 1940 during the Western campaign; an Enigma electro-mechanical encryption/decryption machine is visible."

Source

Wolfenstein-Type Catacombs Under Odessa

I love the Internet and now reddit.  I learn about things I wouldn'ta otherwise.  Who knew that the catacombs of the Wolfenstein saga (see! I brought it home!) do exist, under Odessa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs <-- too lazy to do anything more than just paste the gd link....

Apparently, death in these catacombs is not uncommon.  Note to Russian teens dared to go in there -- don't!!!
Eye Candy ... ok fine, I made alink this time....

(Slightly nsfw):
From reddit: Girl got lost in the catacombs below odessa

They do remind me of the catacombs in Return to Castle Wolfenstein:

A partial map of the catacombs

They apparently stretch throughout the underneath of Odessa

(yes, scarfing most of this from reddit comments, ty redditors!)

What a way to die, in endless, underground passages....

If you go down in there, this could be you....

Planetary Annihilation

Who hasn't thought about annihilating an entire planet?  Well, soon, you'll be able to with the upcoming real-time strategy game from Uber Entertainment called -- get ready for it:

The game is still in development, but the teaser (easily found on youtube or kickstarter.com) is quite tantalizing.

Ever since Civ1, back in the '90s, I wanted to take the game to another world, another planet.  It saddened me that, when you finally built your spaceship, the game ended.  Winning!

But it didn't feel like winning.  RTSes developed, and sure, story-lines such as Star Craft's took you from world to world, but it wasn't seamless.  These were basically staged or set environments  you found yourself in, once you completed a chapter or part.

Planetary Annihilation promises to provide a seamless experience, wherein, planets, moons and even asteroids are involved and can be used.

Game experiences could be small -- as little as 20 minutes on "small maps" -- up to huge battles, with many planets and players involved and "...then the war goes interplanetary."  These battles could last up to 12 hours! ..says Jon Mavor, CTO.

The full interview is available at pcgamer.com.

They are still raising money for development.  More info at the wiki.

can't wait!...

If a bad player dies cuz he's bad, and no one is around to see it...

does he still suck?...

fatkiddown: sometimes I wonder
fatkiddown: what bad players are really doing
fatkiddown: is it their connection? their computer?
fatkiddown: are they blind or some how disabled?
fatkiddown: what can it be?
fatkiddown: that makes them play that way?...
Wack: they play it like CoD
fatkiddown: how so?
Wack: Run&Gun
Wack: thinkin they will respawn

Stargate stuff

Anyhow, under sea Stonehenge off the coast of Okinawa, some 110 feet under water.  The stones are upwards of 12 feet high:

Source: Grahamhancock.com

They also found this chick down there:

In all seriousness, I love ancient mysteries.

Is our daddies E.T.?...

Chit and Hurch

Yet another CSB....

I made this for my step daughter who had an art project in college.  She had to do a cartoon or something and asked for ideas.

Basically, Chit and Hurch are huffers -- glue, paint, name it.  I can't remember the clever thoughts behind their names (Hit and Church maybe?), but anyhow, they find some industrial glue that kills them when they open/huff it.  Within moments, the world blows up like a Nick Cage movie, and they _safely_ fall into the depths of the earth into some great crevasse....

Anyhow, with them falls the industrial glue and preservative, which perfectly preserves their freshly deceased bodies for millennia.

Eons later, aliens find nothing of humanity on Earth save deep within it, and only Chit and Hurch, who, they bring back to life via their technology, and then, keep C&H in their alien museum as a representation of the sum total of humanity -- compete with paint cans used for huffing....

Update: I just remembered, Hit and Church are spins on "Hitler and Churchill" ... I have no clue why I did that, but if you look close you can see Hit's little mustache....