This is actually a trailer for the Half Life 2 mod Dino D-Day, but both the video and the mod present a bizarre, pulpy alternate history of the Normandy Landings. Although I sincerely doubt the troops would have had much success punching Nazi dinos in the face.

[via Discovery News]

TOYIB's Gallery [DeviantArt via Nerdcore]

Greenham Airfield,June 5, 1944
Neuschwanstein 1945
Yalta Conference 1945
Cherbourg 1944
Unknown Location, 1945

Van Olffen describes himself as a "graphic sampler," and has been recognized for his dark, fantastical, steampunk-flavored images. Now he has turned the awesome power of collage loose on the Axis and Allied Powers, transforming World War II into a war of mecha suits and proton beams, and its leaders into men who inspire awe on the strength of their technologies as well as their personalities.

[Sam Van Olffen]

According to Shorpy, this photograph was taken in February 1942, in Akron, Ohio, in a Firestone Rubber facility. Accompanying the photograph is this information:

Conversion. Beverage containers to aviation oxygen cylinders. After shatterproof oxygen cylinders for high altitude flying have passed all tests in the metal division of a large Eastern rubber factory, hot air is blown through the cylinders to remove all trace of moisture. The cylinders are then sealed and stacked for painting.

It's easy to forget that recycling is hardly a new idea, even for materials like rubber. In this respect (and many others), what was futuristic in the 1940s remains futuristic now.

via Shorpy

(BTW, the trailer is very high-quality, so it may load slowly. If you're having trouble playing it, just hit "pause" and wait for the whole thing to load before restarting.) Here's the official synopsis:

November 9th 1989 - the last day of a divided Germany. As a bankrupt Soviet Empire retreats, Lieutenant NEVSKI (30) leads an ill-equipped team of reluctant Soviet conscripts and two East German civilians on an unofficial mission into a long sealed and forgotten bunker, deep under Berlin.

Bribed by SINDERMANN, a mysterious East German scientist, their aim is to blow up the bunker, destroying it's secrets before Berlin opens up to the West. As a fateful press conference takes place above ground, the East German, LISA MEYER, (28) a construction engineer cuts through the concrete that back in the 1960s was poured down to block access to the bunker where her father died.

Nevski's rag-bag team follow dim concrete tunnels finding an underground hospital, cobwebs and dust shrouding its Cold War secrets. Venturing into the eerie decaying wards and operating theatres, the team un-earth horrific evidence of human experimentation dating back to WWII.

Suffering their first casualties of the night, they realise the concrete blocking the entrance was not to keep intruders out, but to keep the results of failed experiments in - murderous, semi organic killing machines with weapons and gas masks moulded and growing as part of their armoured bodies.

As crowds gather at the wall, unification in sight, clandestine forces arrive from the West; heavily armed American commandos, also seeking the bunker's valuable secrets. Nevski's team find themselves not only struggling to escape the bunker's legacy of inhuman killers but also fighting in a darker, more unofficial Cold War battle for power and survival.

Sadly, the website mentions they're still seeking funding to finish this movie... so I hope it actually gets made. It sucks that all the movie money in Germany is going into crappy TV miniseries about the Moon making the Eiffel Tower collapse. [Cold Storage, via Nuendo]

This is one of thousands of images released to the public through a new project of the Library of Congress. The historic images are available on Flickr, including many that showcase the beauty of industrial machinery. Library of Congress Photostream [Flickr]