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>> Howard Hughes was also fucking nuts. And also basically a criminal by today's standards. If a 19yo was caught in a Ferrari trying to break a record on a be

>> Howard Hughes was also fucking nuts. And also basically a criminal by today's standards. If a 19yo was caught in a Ferrari trying to break a record on a beach, or anywhere other than a closed race track on private land, that 19yo would be lucky to ever drive again. And if that 19yo hurt anyone, possibly a decade or more in prison.

hinkley 3y ago
Saw a video on YouTube the other day that mentioned an early Hollywood movie that killed three extras filming a flood scene. If I have my timelines right that would have been approximately contemporary with Hughes. The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either. Unfortunately an expectation of safety is a rather recent development, one that Alec Baldwin is learning about right now.
- RobRivera 3y ago
  It was Noahs Ark (1928) Not HH
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I think you’ll find if you read what I wrote again that I didn’t say he had anything to do with it. (I had in fact forgotten he made movies, not just consumed them voraciously)
- xenadu02 3y ago
  > The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either. Very true. Every 10 stories of building height had an expected death rate attached to it. Same for every extra 100ft span of bridge. When the Brooklyn Bridge was built and workers were being crippled or killed by the bends down in the caissons... the solution was already known from research over a decade before. But we're not gonna pay people to not work (decompression time) so they just let people get hurt. None of those things were considered very newsworthy or a significant problem to be prevented.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I don't know why I am surprised to hear the BB foundations were deep enough to cause that issue. It's clearly a deep water channel.
    - CobaltFire 3y ago
      Beware assuming that the bends requires great depth as a causal factor; it is possible to get them as shallow as 10 feet. There are a lot of factors that come into play.
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  The armorer in that case was extraordinarily negligent, having a loaded weapon on set at all. After what happened to Brandon Lee I can't imagine any movie production allowing live rounds any where near the set - and he was killed by a blank round!
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I am still sore about that. Some parts of that movie are so good. Give me a less rapey cut and it would be top ten. It has Ernie Hudson (you can't go wrong with Ernie Hudson), that dude from The Warriors ("come out and play-yay"), The Candyman, the photojournalist from Nope, a Coen Brothers regular, an actress from True Romance, Bad Boys, Unforgiven, Wall Street and Fatal Attraction. And Oh my god that's horrible, how didn't I know that Brandon's fiancée worked on the movie?? And apparently she agrees with you. "Twenty eight years ago, I was shattered by the shock and grief of losing the love of my life, Brandon Lee, so senselessly. My heart aches again now for Halyna Hutchins' husband and son, and for all those left in the wake of this avoidable tragedy," Hutton tells PEOPLE.
tlb 3y ago
That feels a little unfair. Every driver in the 1920s would be be breaking today's laws. They were exploring a new technology when it wasn't clear yet what the rules should be. The laws at the time (inherited from horse-drawn vehicles) only set speed limits in specific places like cities and bridges. You could ride your horse as fast as you dared anywhere else, and the same with cars.
greesil 3y ago
A criminal of the most terrible kind. They should have locked him up and threw away the key. They should have confiscated the car and locked that up too to keep some other potential daredevil from driving that murderous machine. I bet it didn't even have seat belts.
protocolture 3y ago
The crime is fun. The sentence is death.
yencabulator 3y ago
In other news, the Wright brothers didn't have a pilot's license and operated without FAA permits for an airfield!
cafard 3y ago
A number of people attempted to achieve speed records on beaches, and not all survived. And this wasn't Ocean City, Maryland, in a modern July. The local authorities would have had something to say if anyone, even a millionaire (when a million was a lot) had tried this on an occupied stretch of beach.

hinkley 3y ago

Saw a video on YouTube the other day that mentioned an early Hollywood movie that killed three extras filming a flood scene. If I have my timelines right that would have been approximately contemporary with Hughes. The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either. Unfortunately an expectation of safety is a rather recent development, one that Alec Baldwin is learning about right now.

RobRivera 3y ago
It was Noahs Ark (1928) Not HH
- hinkley 3y ago
  I think you’ll find if you read what I wrote again that I didn’t say he had anything to do with it. (I had in fact forgotten he made movies, not just consumed them voraciously)
xenadu02 3y ago
> The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either. Very true. Every 10 stories of building height had an expected death rate attached to it. Same for every extra 100ft span of bridge. When the Brooklyn Bridge was built and workers were being crippled or killed by the bends down in the caissons... the solution was already known from research over a decade before. But we're not gonna pay people to not work (decompression time) so they just let people get hurt. None of those things were considered very newsworthy or a significant problem to be prevented.
- hinkley 3y ago
  I don't know why I am surprised to hear the BB foundations were deep enough to cause that issue. It's clearly a deep water channel.
  - CobaltFire 3y ago
    Beware assuming that the bends requires great depth as a causal factor; it is possible to get them as shallow as 10 feet. There are a lot of factors that come into play.
QuercusMax 3y ago
The armorer in that case was extraordinarily negligent, having a loaded weapon on set at all. After what happened to Brandon Lee I can't imagine any movie production allowing live rounds any where near the set - and he was killed by a blank round!
- hinkley 3y ago
  I am still sore about that. Some parts of that movie are so good. Give me a less rapey cut and it would be top ten. It has Ernie Hudson (you can't go wrong with Ernie Hudson), that dude from The Warriors ("come out and play-yay"), The Candyman, the photojournalist from Nope, a Coen Brothers regular, an actress from True Romance, Bad Boys, Unforgiven, Wall Street and Fatal Attraction. And Oh my god that's horrible, how didn't I know that Brandon's fiancée worked on the movie?? And apparently she agrees with you. "Twenty eight years ago, I was shattered by the shock and grief of losing the love of my life, Brandon Lee, so senselessly. My heart aches again now for Halyna Hutchins' husband and son, and for all those left in the wake of this avoidable tragedy," Hutton tells PEOPLE.

tlb 3y ago

That feels a little unfair. Every driver in the 1920s would be be breaking today's laws. They were exploring a new technology when it wasn't clear yet what the rules should be. The laws at the time (inherited from horse-drawn vehicles) only set speed limits in specific places like cities and bridges. You could ride your horse as fast as you dared anywhere else, and the same with cars.

greesil 3y ago

A criminal of the most terrible kind. They should have locked him up and threw away the key. They should have confiscated the car and locked that up too to keep some other potential daredevil from driving that murderous machine. I bet it didn't even have seat belts.

protocolture 3y ago

The crime is fun. The sentence is death.

yencabulator 3y ago

In other news, the Wright brothers didn't have a pilot's license and operated without FAA permits for an airfield!

cafard 3y ago

A number of people attempted to achieve speed records on beaches, and not all survived. And this wasn't Ocean City, Maryland, in a modern July. The local authorities would have had something to say if anyone, even a millionaire (when a million was a lot) had tried this on an occupied stretch of beach.