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I'm guessing that the TV detector is exactly that: a van that detects people using TVs. This may be done in order to ensure that they're not doing so without having a TV license. It's probably British.
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Yup it's an old TV detector van used to find people who hadn't paid their TV Licence in the UK. More of a scare tactic really then an effective system.
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To follow up the previous two comments (for those that don't know the British system).
In the UK everyone with a TV has to have a TV License. The funds raised are then ploughed back in to the BBC so that they can produce programming without having to rely on advertising, therefore (theoretically) producing a high standard of programming that does not pander to the lowest levels of crass commercialism. Of course that does not explain programmes like Eastenders or the usual early evening Saturday night dross, but the theory is sound!
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As above and more info here at the Mail on line.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468466/The-new-TV-detector-reach-home.html?foo=2
And the "infamous" imformation film is on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw
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the van iteslf is an old commer van used by most of the public utility companies at the time - more info here http://www.commervan.com/?page_id=7
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Re: the Commer Van after the piece on the Colombian crowd control vehicle.
It was used for enforcing TV Licensing in Britain. One had to purchase a TV license to operate any TV receiver.
The money went to support the Beeb (BBC), the public broadcaster in Britain. This was continued even after
commercial (With paid advertising) TV became available in Britain. The equipment in the van could detect RF
(Radio Frequency) leakage from a TV receiver and consequently require that the offender purchase a license.
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The TV detector vans were used in Britain to fool the uneducated masses into believing that the authorities could tell whether they were watching TV without a license...
The technology to do this does not exist.
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Television Detector van history, via autoblog
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/09/a-visual-history-of-the-bbcs-tv-detector-vans/
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From what I understand there was no need for equipment in the van. Since television ownership was ~100% all they needed was a list of houses that hadn't bought a licence and then turn up there. As an impoverished student in the 80s I didn't have a telly and so didn't have a licence. I received several notices saying I would be punished and I had to write many times to confirm that I was innocent. IIRC the Beeb also required radio licences for a while...
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why would FARC Guerrilla ever have an encounter with an Anti-Riot unit of the police? It's the Colombian army that faces off with the Guerrilla.
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I agree with davidg80. I´m colombian and I live in Bogotá and those vehicles are only mostly used in university protests and riots but in my whole life i have never seen one of that fighting against any FARC militant or even anyone with camouflage...It´s a shame that the world keeps thinking that Colombia is just a big jungle filled with savages...think twice
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Praise to the editors of this fine blog for, uhm, the way the text reads now.
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I'm given to understand that the detector vans could receive the intermediate frequencies that TV sets give off as part of the process of amplifying the signal for demodulating. (See wikipedia for superheterodyne, intermediate frequency)
Of course, I'm still not sure how effective it would be in real life.
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The Colombian machine seems nice, but is not as used as you would think. Most of the violence in the country is not in the cities and mob control is dangerous but usually the police is there just to watch the people protesting. There are notable exceptions, and there is crime in the streets, but that´s not how you use this machine.
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The last image is probably from the government somewhere where you have to pay mandatory TV licence money, the control group rolls around in these vehicles with a map and a list over which households own a TV but havent paid their licence, then they start knocking on doors and harrassing you until you pay. We still have these in Norway today.
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Commer PB Autovan.
I have one sitting out the back of my house which I'm doing up for a trip around Europe this summer.
I was actually sitting here mixing the paint stripper for it while I was reading this article.
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You Colombianos need to relax, nobody is dissing your country. If this thing is mainly used for student protests, why is it required to be able to withstand .50 cal machine gun fire? Do Colombian university students usually carry assault rifles?
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Indeed, a television detector van, from the 60's, used by the UK gov to find folk who were using tv's , without the proper licence..
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I recall the "pay your license" ads, they used to imply that the people in the van could actually see what program you were watching.
Of course if you were in an apartment block they had no hope of picking you out.
If you tried to avoid the license issue by using your TV for watching videos only, they still had you because the licensing law referred to possessing a demodulator rather than watching broadcast programs. I think that would exclude computer monitors.
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hi, i just found this article, and i think the photos are geat, because i'm colombian and i haven´t seen one of this from inside and didn't know about the technology involved, but i have to say that this does not represent the people of Colombia, the times they use this kind of trucks are rare... and are against riots presented in universities and some manifestations where the invoved people start things up manipulated by criminals (guerrrilla and anarchists).
thanks
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In answer to your request for information on the truck in this picture, These are known here in the UK as a 'TV detector van'. And these vans were used to detect anybody using a TV without a license.
Here in the UK the BBC (Television, radio and online) is funded using a license system, basically a tax that must be paid by anyone using a TV.
This funding model, whilst seeming bizarre to many who don't live here and some who do!, means the BBC is able to broadcast 6 national TV networks, 7 national radio stations, The BBC.co.uk website, and a whole raft of local media outlets. And none of these networks carry any commercials whatsoever.
The license costs a not insignificant $229 per year, and as such many people don't pay it. As it is a legal requirement to have a license if you own a TV, these vans used to drive up and down streets, and could supposedly tell if a Television was on in an unlicensed property.
It all sounds a bit Orwellian, I know, but many suspect these vans were more a way of putting the fear into license-fee evaders. Most evaders of the license fee are caught via a database these days. Even when they were in use, they were used rarely. I'm 38, and I think I've only ever seen one of these vans/trucks once or twice in my life.
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These vans could locate down to the
room in a house if there was a TV in operation - which was then
cross-referenced with the licenses and if there was no licence for that dwelling, a fine was issued.
When I lived in the UK I remember they would prowl around the streets in the evenings - and also at lunchtime when the popular lunchtime shows were on.
They could even tell what programme you were watching.
There have also been rumours that because they were so accurate, they were used by MI5 to detect transmissions from Soviet Spies during the Cold War...
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Thanks for all the info, guys! Updated...
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Hi again, good comment the one posted by an anonymous...0.5 caliber guns...I´d say that has to be wrong, I´m an student in Bogotá, and if they´d dare to use guns in protests the government would be in a lot of trouble, I can assure that. Another possibility is that maybe it can be used near some capital cities and towns to break riots and protests but the fight against guerrilas id discarded but not because I want to defend my country but because the topography and geographical conditions would turn those vehicles to pieces in days.
Keep the good job DRB and thanks to Anonymous.
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...Beautiful trucks. WAY over spec'd for what Columbia has used it for. (You can see it in the news as well.)
The riots are usually sparked by FARK propaganda. Some of the protests can really get out of hand. To keep the enforcement safe from the pure passion and engagement from these political issues - these trucks are brilliant and do wonders for crowd control. Hell, if FARK had a sniper or something else kicking around - the potential is there, the armor would do wonders.
Maybe the "too much" is pro-active and better than "too little"
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That looks similar to the one in Death race but it had more weapons then this one and it was much larger
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WTF?? "Multiple riots (including Farc Guerrillas, who attack riot vehicles with rifles" LOL you think colombian people have to fight all day against guerrillas in the city, they are only in the jungle. Although colombia is one of the best countries in security: The bulletproof clothes obama uses are made by a colombian.
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"Multiple riots (including Farc Guerrillas, who attack riot vehicles with rifles)": Please, don't make up the information, the guerrillas are in the jungle, and they should be the target of the Colombian military and police there. Though, the people who demonstrate through riots do it because their rights are being violated. The anti-riot units have been accused by NGOs for being the ones that act with most brutality and violence against civilians. See this video so to know how things are like in my country, Colombia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZdnMsPrrNQ
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I know in the article, it states "The tires can be protected with tyron bands, runflats, or filled with polyurethane", but to me the weakest part of the vehicle by far is the tires. Once immobilized (which could be done in any manner of ways), the vehicle is a sitting duck. I wouldn't want to be trapped inside.
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Any of these available in higher resolution? Would love to print some out and hang them...
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I saw "Our Hitler" in the early 80's.
It was 5 or 6 hours long with an hour intermission.
No kidding.
It was part of the Toronto Film Festival in the first few years of it's start.
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Not sure if you know this site, but it has a gallery of polish movie posters really interesting:
http://www.agrayspace.com/posters/
Some of them are really disturbing :D
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The "Tobor" poster is a funny rip-off of the famous "Forbidden Planet" poster:
http://tinyurl.com/r5net2
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Oh, I think I own the book of "The Venetian Affair", bought mostly because it's the most awfully written thing ever making it the best thing to read.
Some gorgeous posters here!
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I want that Russian Star Wars poster!
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The Russian poster actualy says: "Star Wars - a Cosmic Western"
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The Russian poster. Unfortunately it's not an official poster. it`s fake. A joke.
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some of these i found on Art's Not Dead artsnotdead.com
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http://www.wrongsideoftheart.com/ has hundreds of different movie poster scans. There are some really cool sci-fi, horror, and sexploitation posters in full-size scans.
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Does anyone have any more info on those fantastic delivery vehicles? Are they a certain make of car?
...I MUST HAVE ONE!
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"If you consider yourself a beer connoisseur and feel like splashing out a little, take a trip to a bar called the Bierdrome in London, the only place in the world where you can buy Vielle Bon Secours. The world’s most expensive beer, a bottle of this will cost you around £500 or $1000."
Ahahahahahahah hahaha hahahaha ... gasp hahahah hahahaha...
We had two identical bottles of that exact stuff for my dad's birthday. Yes, we were being ridiculously lavish - they cost about €10 each from a Belgian supermarket. Beer was surprisingly drinkable for the price, too...
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The "Gösser-Radler" is actually not a beer brewed with lemon juice.
A "Radler" is a mix of beer and soda,
mostly lemon or orange soda. There is also a "sour Radler" with soda water.
Very refreshing in summer!
In Bavaria and Austria it's called "Radler!"
The french call it "Panaché"
In the UK it's called "shandy" as i learned from google.
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You failed to mention DeuS (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/202/7661), a very nice champagne like beer.
And, my personal favourite because of the very special glass and exquisite taste (the shape of the glass has a very nice and true story behind it): kwak
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauwel_Kwak)
Nice post however :)
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"Despite the unusual and at times downright odd flavours mentioned earlier in this article, the simple recipe for beer, based on the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, has remained largely unchanged over the centuries. However, if all beers are generally similar"
You are definitely wrong about that. There are many many many many beer styles and they taste very different.
You need no "odd" ingredients to brew "special" beers.
besides this, beer styles like "kriek lambic", "cream", "Champagne" and "radler" are not even strange. they are tranditional and very old beer styles.
also only german beers (not even all of them) are brewed following the the Bavarian Purity Law.
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[...] which determined the only ingredients permissible in beer were water, barley, wheat and hops.
Wheat is not metioned in the purity law. Only water, barley and hops are allowed ingredients.
cf.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/4.html
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Love this site! Being Canadian and a lover of beer this feature was especially interesting.
A little Candian beer trivia for you. Canada produced 4 major world class breweries. Molson's and Labatts of course but 2 others that started in the same home town as Labatts. Can you name them? You'll be surprised!
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[QUOTE]- Moose Drool from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing Company tastes nothing like the drool of a moose. [/QUOTE]
How do you know that?
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I am sorry to tell you that your mention of Bon Vieille Secours is utterly wrong. It's a belgian beer that can be bought in every supermarket with an extended range of beers, for only a few euros, same as the other special beers, just a bit more expensive than the "normal" beers.
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I tried Moose Drool at the Oregon Brew festival and it's the only beer I have ever spit back out.
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re: Vielle Bon Secours
Even though you can get normal versions of this beer, the price in the article must be for the super-magnum bottle, around $75 a pint.
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You left out Canada's Greatest Beer! UNIBROUE!
They have the best Belgian style beers, huge Alcohol content and are in the Top Ten Breweries on the Planet! They also have the best names, too; 'La Fin du Monde', 'Maudite', etc.
For shame!
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Stone, indeed UNIBROUE is exceptional... And it was in the original draft of this article - got it back now!
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Hey,
I think you totally missed the Czech beers, maybe because they are not that strange but rather they taste conservatively. Think of where 'pilsen' beer got its name - in Pilsen, the Czech Republic. Now the original is called Pilsner Urquel, and you could find a lot of vintage posters about it. Btw, Czechs drink the most per person- check official statistics, but it is around 160 liters per person per year.
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For a fun beer song, go here:
http://www.tomsmithonline.com/music/dsr0a9d1i0o/index.html
and play song #148
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I have had the Pizza Beer (very tasty, spicy and oregano-accented ale) and that Sea Dog Blueberry (best fruit-inspired beer in my recent memory excepting Dogfish Head's Aprihop). I think maybe you want to add Three Floyd's "Dark Lord" to this list. Incredibly tasty, and incredibly hard to come by (only sold one day a year at their brewery in Munster, IN)
http://www.darklordday.com/
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Can I disagree with your choices of weird names? I don't think that La Fin du Monde should be in there cause it's called like that because it's one of the strongest beer that Unibroue makes. I really think that there are weirder names.
And in the weirds flavours, you should've add Folie Douce [Sweet Madness] (Les Brasseurs de l'Anse, Canada) wich is a blueberry beer that tastes like muffin or La Carotte du Lièvre [The Hare's Carrot] (from Microbrasserie du Lièvre, Québec, Canada) that really taste like carrot... really weird taste trust me!
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perhaps you should add Bionade here cause it is "brewed" like normal beer but is a totally different drink (tasts like icetea but with less sugar)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionade
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Wells Banana Bread beer is really really good. You wouldn't think that would work, but it totally does.
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They should have added l'alsacienne sans culotte (the girl from alsace with no panties)
http://randoloup.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/als2.jpg
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There seems to be some confusion here about the German Beer Purity Law. The 4 allowed ingredients are water, barley malt, hops, and yeast.
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Might need to add "Westvleteren" to it, it's not really a beer, but costs a lot, it's brewed by monks and only sold limited once a year.
"Mort Subite" is also a nice name for a beer, it translates to "soon be dead".
Also the "Lindemans kriek", you put 3 pictures up of different brands, none of them is "Lindemans".
The one you posted, "Bellevue" is a bit more bitter than the very sweet "Lindemans".
PS: Yes, I'm Belgian lol
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Arrogant Bastard Ale is horrible...i should have listened to the disclaimer on the bottle stating that I "probably would not like it."
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delirium tremens
(pink elephants included)
and yes, belgian too :)
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Ohh I could go for a couple of Krieks right now ... delicious!
(of course Belgian too..) DOe maar een Duveltje erbij ;)
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Polish Karmi has also beer with coffee flavour, it's very tasty, but I'd rather name it cold drink which tastes a little like a beer :)
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The Japanese are not the only ones to have (or have had)a beer made for children. When I was a kid my family lived in Germany (Koblens and just outside Munchen) and I remember drinking a product called "Kinderbier" ("Kid's Beer"). This was in the early to mid 1970s and I was just a youngster.
I presume it was non-alcoholic.
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Do milk stouts count as bilk?
Moloko Stout (another 3 Floyd's beer) = DELICIOUS
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For me, Taster´s Choice is comprised of the eight most popular brews from World´s Best Beers Tasting Sessions conducted over the past 10 years. It is the perfect mixed case for entertaining and makes the world´s best gift.
Luis
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On the odd names front, Robinson's brewery in Stockport, England produce a beer called Old Tom, which has a picture of a tomcat on it, taken from a doodle in the original brewer's recipe book. It's an 8.5% dark winter ale (like alcoholic treacle, basically) and has won many an award.
http://www.frederic-robinson.co.uk/beers/oldtombottled.html
(and yes, I'm from Stockport and yes, I drink it...hic)
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If you browse around the world of modelling shows, you'll find plenty of displays comparable to that "incredibly detailed" model. And it won't include vehicles that didn't yet exist, which this one does.
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don't click on the "Intriguing fantasy film is in the works" link. it will give you a virus!
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I love the photos, but don't get the Sara Palin/Obama Reference. Yes she was for/against the bridge, but the project was stopped long before Obama was President. She wanted and got the money for her state, did not want the bridge, he was in Chicago... It's liek the he didn't vote for the war thing. No but neither did I. He and I (and most americans) were not in the senate at the time.
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Excellent Pictures Posted here.
Thanks for showing these
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"Wow...!"
"Awesome...!"
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One famous bridge is missing in your List: The "pont d'Avigion" in Avigion, France. It's just half a bridge and there is a famous song about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Saint-B%C3%A9nezet
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Not Portland, Dunaújváros, Hungary
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentele-híd
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To support what Frank B said, your reference to the Bridge to Nowhere is not just inaccurate, but flat out wrong. At one point Sarah Palin did support the bridge, but then came out against its construction. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/10/opinion/main4435937.shtml:
"While it may be unfair to say that Sarah Palin always treated the Bridge as Milton Friedman might have, she quickly grasped the project’s folly and ultimately put it out of the nation’s misery. In a country where politicians endlessly make demands until weary taxpayers capitulate, Palin scrapped the bridge soon after she was empowered to do so. "
More significantly, Obama did not end the bridge's construction; to the contrary, both Obama and Biden specifically voted to keep funding in place for the bridge instead of transferring those funds to replace a bridge destroyed by Hurrican Katrina.
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"really a "Bridge to Nowhere", a bizarre project endorsed by Sara Palin and mercifully put to rest by President Obama."
Your facts are incorrect on this one. Palin opposed it and Obama had nothing to do with killing the project.
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Laszlo is correct!
If you look at the picture in here and the picture behind the link, you even see the different cabeling and colour
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Both Alaskan and Hungarian bridge entries are adjusted now, thank you.
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Thank You! :)
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Awsome pictures, I would like to visit all this bridges and takes lots of pictures :-)
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Absolutely amazing and interesting as hell. When's DRB coming out with a book deal, btw? =)
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I am not reel good at video games,but i did enjoy the ones you posted a month or so back. Can you please bring them back. Thankyou.
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I'm surprised the Kylesku bridge in Scotland has not been featured. A couple of pics here ...
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/53877
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/596653
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I don't care what anybody else thinks... Sarah Palin is hot!
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The two top ones in the "street art" paragraph are from the studio Ghibli museum in Mitaka outside Tokyo in japan: http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/
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Spock-Obama is from the New York Times, I belive. http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/05/10/opinion/10dowd_ready.html
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that Elephant picture is from WW2
i thinking from Germany
where zoo or circus elephants are used as working animals
Michel Van
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The watch with evolution is an old SWATCH.
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The surviving elephants of Hamburg Zoo (Hagenbeck's Tierpark) helped clean up the rubble in the destroyed city after WW2. Don't know whether this picture shows Hamburg, but it's not implausible.
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Oops, should have used preview. Oh well, each link is still clickable.
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I think that the mistery pic is from Berlin, not Hamburg, after the downfall of the German Reich, in 1945. Immediate post-war. Sad, sad times, those, even for the poor animals...
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The elephant picture definately shows one of two elephants who helped cleaned up the destroyed city of Hamburg. http://orchifant.de/50.html
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the Voronoi-Knauss cell cluster looks like the coat hangers in the bottom of my closet.
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I have open-source plans for a Jansen Walker up on my site, if anyone wants to build their own check out http://4volt.com/projects/jansen/
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If you want to make a sequel, i strongly suggest a post about a guy named Jean Tinguély. Friend and lover of Niki de St Phalle.
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This is utterly brilliant! I am very fond of gadgets myself and wrote a fiction blog for two years about a boy who was very keen on them and he went to the James Bond exhibition at the Science Museum.
Addy
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Amazingly, my brother is called Simon Rose but I suspect you are not him.
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No I am not him, I am this guy at http://www.simon-rose.com/ and at http://simon-rose.blogspot.com/
Feel free to visit me there as well.
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Surely some of the video cams offer wireless streaming.
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This is amazing! Have you checked out the Spy Museum in DC? It's full of things like this ranging from the beginning of spying all the way up to what they're doing today and things that may be available in the future. Well worth the money.
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Thank you. It was a fascinating to research and write as well.
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There's a spy shop near where I live. I went in there recently expecting to see awesome gadgets like this but all they carried were nanny cams and the hidden safe versions of a bunch of household items. Thanks for giving me my spy gear fix!
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Great post! Thanks for sharing!!
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Anything by Tim Powers is a worthwhile read, he is my favorite author by far. Anubis Gate does stand out, as does Earthquake Weather and Expiration Date.
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SFSite
10 Comments:
I believe that the black and white picture of the large headed person is from the short sci-fi film "To Serve Man". The guy in the photo is actually an alien.
The soap-bubble rabbit looks like a render test showing an iridescent shader and HDRI reflection mapping.
Anonymous was half-right. It was an old Twilight Zone episode, called "To Serve Man." One of the classics:
http://www.cbs.com/classics/the_twilight_zone/video/video.php?cid=649562032&pid=EhJkGeNGuUqJfc9CCfD81h6TpxCIglq1
K
The Russian building tradition goes back a long way, enough to have the name Potemkin village.
The person you borrowed the gum-massage ad from has some issues.
Check out his personal comments.
He complains about TV making people into idiots that don't read, yet he can't spell words correctly.
And his factual errors are hilarious:
Characterizing blood sucking mosquito as female is sexists? Errrmmm ... male mosquitos don't suck blood.
Adding Iodine to salt to prevent goiter is dated medicine? Iodized salt is why no one gets goiter in civilized countries.
Man needs a spell checker, and needs to lrn2Google.
The done-headed man is Ted Cassidy who later played "Lurch" the butler in the Adams Family TV series.
The alien is actually an early role for Richard Keil, later played "Jaws" in the Jame Bond series
i like the soap bubble rabbit :D
I was guessing Lurch also, but Jaws is the correct answer.
The soap bubble-shaped rabbit is a screen capture showing the real-time possibilities of nVidia graphic cards using Cg (C for graphics)language. Cg is part of Cg toolkit and the first version came when they released the GeForce 3, the first mainstream programmable graphic architecture. Using pixel and vertex shaders, the manipulation of objects in the demo occur in real-time.
You can download the Cg toolkit here: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cg_download.html
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