[HN Gopher] What is the origin of the lake tank image that has b...
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What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme?
(2021)
Author : napolux
Score : 436 points
Date : 2024-11-20 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (history.stackexchange.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (history.stackexchange.com)
| legutierr wrote:
| This feels like a ghost of the internet of the 1990s.
|
| This writeup deserves its own website, something with minimal
| CSS, where you'll discover a bunch of family snapshots and party
| photos if you click around.
| ndileas wrote:
| That's an aesthetic / scene preference (that I happen to agree
| with). The content is the most important part -- you can find
| this kind of curiosity and knowledge seeking all over the
| place. It'll probably even stay readable on stackexchange
| longer than the average handmade site from the 90s.
| verisimi wrote:
| > where you'll discover a bunch of family snapshots and party
| photos if you click around.
|
| Yes, lovely. The sort of site where private moments might be
| kindly shared by an individual. To be distinguished from the
| forcible asset stripping and loss of ownership (theft, really)
| that form the terms and conditions of a large corporate's ToS
| today.
| flir wrote:
| I still think wikipedia hit those "this is my passion" sites
| harder than social media did. What's the point of building a
| site about widgets, when 90% of people are just going to hit
| the Widget page on wikipedia?
| xxr wrote:
| Plus Wikipedia offers arguing about widgets with other
| widget enthusiasts/detractors as a first-class feature via
| the Talk page.
| inopinatus wrote:
| It could form an entire Lucas Pope game.
| hehehheh wrote:
| Where the url root is /~username, and if there is an error it
| is an Apache one not Nginx and certainly not a 404 page that
| cost $10k to design.
| lqet wrote:
| Why on earth doesn't the top answer have more upvotes. Impressive
| research, with full background, alternative pictures and an
| _original picture of the panzer falling into the river_.
| pbrowne011 wrote:
| While this didn't get much attention on History Stack Exchange,
| see ConeOfArc's YouTube video (which has 963k views as of
| today): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaRO_dTqO1E
|
| See also ConeOfArc's video from a month later,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO58B6LcTfM (1M views). The
| video above is about the initial search and problem, this video
| is after many Internet strangers worked together to solve it.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Modern remix:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=tank+in+river+ukraine
| oxguy3 wrote:
| > The photo was taken about coordinates 50.29092467073664,
| 4.893099128823844 near modern Wallonia, Belgium on the Meuse
| River.
|
| Great writeup, but I did have a little chuckle reading "it was
| taken about near here", followed by coordinates precise enough to
| identify a single atom. https://xkcd.com/2170/
| vardump wrote:
| Going to be a different atom once you walk near. Or temperature
| changes, the wind blows, and so on.
|
| We'll need to give each atom a unique ID. That would solve the
| problem.
| dylan604 wrote:
| IPv8 is accepting RFCs
| Aerroon wrote:
| There are 10^80 atoms in the universe, therefore 266 bits
| are enough to give each a unique identifier. Due to how
| computers work maybe we can do two numbers: a 32-bit type
| or area code and a 256-bit counter. Or perhaps we just
| combine them into a single 272 or 288 or 320-bit number.
| stackghost wrote:
| Time for Intel to climb out of the pit by introducing
| x86_266
| wongarsu wrote:
| Earth has about 2^170 atoms. If we ignore the core and
| mantle, focusing on the crust, surface and atmosphere, we
| should be able to cram it into IPv6. Even if we add a
| couple planets and moons in the future. At least if we stop
| giving each person 18 quintillion IPs just because we once
| thought encoding MAC addresses in the lower 64 bits was a
| good idea.
| astrange wrote:
| Addressing isn't really the big issue with IPv6. The main
| issue is that moving to mobile networks means all its
| assumptions about how routing will work are wrong, since
| you don't want to lose IP connections when you move
| across cell towers.
| itishappy wrote:
| Let's start with electrons. I've got SN001 here with me, but
| I haven't been able to find any others...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
| bbqfog wrote:
| That's a meme? I've never seen that photo before in my life and
| I'm pretty aware of most memes.
| CoopaTroopa wrote:
| Just google 'tank of the lake, what is your wisdom' and you can
| catch up on a new meme genre
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think a very small number of people today are aware of
| Arthurian legend. I think I have heard the phrase "lady of
| the lake" before but never really knew any context around it
| until I just now searched the term. I would have guessed it
| was the name of a ship or something.
| jt2190 wrote:
| Yeah and I seriously question what feels like "I couldn't find
| anything about this in Google therefore nobody knows anything
| about this". [1] I worked in a specialized reference library
| for a while and it was very eye-opening to see university
| students fail to find, say, 90% of our materials.
|
| [1] Quoting: > However, no-one seems to know the origins of the
| image
| swores wrote:
| Do you have a go-to bit of advice you give to students who
| you've spotted are lacking research (and just plain search)
| skills?
|
| (i.e. Something to kickstart them in the right direction, not
| just a way of saying "learn how to search better!")
| plagiarist wrote:
| I think people prefer the similar (derivative?) "senpai of the
| pool" for receiving wisdom from a non-native occupant of a body
| of water.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| As long as you remember that supreme executive power derives
| from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical
| aquatic ceremony.
| mholt wrote:
| This begs the question, is it a meme if it is not seen?
| acheron wrote:
| Sounds like a question you should ask the panzer of the lake.
| napolux wrote:
| winniethepoohrecursion.gif
| napolux wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/panzer-of-the-lake
| cedilla wrote:
| I highly doubt that - most memes are short-lived, community
| specific or barely identifiable to outsiders.
|
| But you are, of course, unaware of memes you are not aware of.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I'm not aware of _any_ memes that I am
| unaware of.
| bityard wrote:
| There are more memes than one person can know.
| ranger207 wrote:
| It's most popular in military enthusiast circles, especially
| around the video games World of Tanks and War Thunder, which
| tend to be somewhat insular
| layer8 wrote:
| Most of them? Are you sure?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/comments/egxfws/12880_m...
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| I haven't seen the lake tank image being used as a meme anywhere,
| except now or maybe I have to explore the world of memes some
| more.
|
| Hats off to all who helped each other find this once lost story
| from history.
| napolux wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/panzer-of-the-lake
| Iulioh wrote:
| Another point is the fact that i saw more "anime version" of
| this meme than the original foto
| napolux wrote:
| i'm aware of the "senpai of the pool" version, but probably
| i'm biased... I'm a huge WW2 nerd.
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| Went there for the first time and found out it's banned in my
| country.
| sss111 wrote:
| which country?
| edm0nd wrote:
| From their X bio, Pakistan.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Cant allow all the normies to view cool stuff on the
| internet
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Germans pioneers wore white uniforms? That sounds like the worst
| possible colour for digging ditches, recovering tanks or
| camouflage (if it isn't snowing). Why would they do that? Did
| Hugo Boss do the design?
| Retric wrote:
| Edit: ops, that joke wasn't clear.
|
| A prisoner's uniform needs to be cheap, distinctive, and easy
| to spot it doesn't need to be clean.
| jabl wrote:
| If the person were a prisoner he wouldn't be carrying a
| rifle..
| Retric wrote:
| Thus the joke...
|
| It's a play on words, and the involuntary nature of service
| in the German military at the time.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| For some value of 'joke'.
| Retric wrote:
| Fair, but it's a meme thread. My initial thought was.
|
| Pioneer: O panzer of the lake, why are our uniforms
| white? Panther: They must be easy to spot.
|
| But, I tried to reach past the pun and failed.
| 1-more wrote:
| German Army had 1.3 million conscripts and 2.4 million
| volunteers in the period 1935-1939 so odds are he signed
| up to be there.
| Retric wrote:
| Those numbers aren't independent of each other. People
| about to be drafted will often volunteer to be in a
| military as a volunteer rather than a draftee, to get the
| waiting over with, etc.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| From the link, the white pants are part of the "Drillich" work
| uniform. From searching around, these were intended as work
| uniforms / overalls. You were intended to wear these (there
| were both pants and jackets) over your actual uniform, and
| these would take the abuse.
|
| It seems like the early war patterns were simply undyed. Mid-
| war versions were apparently dyed darker.
|
| Here's a forum with a bunch of pictures of examples:
| https://www.militariacollectors.network/forums/topic/4042-th...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Undyed coveralls makes sense, thanks.
| thetisxviii wrote:
| Post WW II the Panzer IV's were offloaded to the Middle East.
| But it competed well with its Soviet T-34.
|
| At first it looked like Czech military fatigue but the
| confluence of two rivers points to Germany.
|
| > The man is an unnamed German pioneer likely at the time of
| recovery.
| 1-more wrote:
| > Did Hugo Boss do the design?
|
| I'm not saying that you're saying that, but there is a
| persistent meme that Hugo Boss designed the Nazi officer
| uniforms, or maybe is was the SS, or it was the whole
| Wehrmacht. This lends a certain mystique to the Nazis and
| cements the notion that they were somehow extra sharp.
| Aesthetic forbidden fruit. I don't like that, not in the least
| because it's not correct. The uniforms for all the Nazi arms of
| the state were designed by party insiders. Boss didn't even
| start designing men's tailored suits until after the war.
|
| This is not to exculpate Hugo Boss, but to knock the shine of
| fancy suits off of the nazis. Hugo Boss had been selling ready
| made menswear since 1923, joined the nazi party in 1931, and
| won contracts to produce the uniforms much the way FEDS Apparel
| makes the USDA branded polo shirts [1]. In fact, he produced
| the uniforms using slave labor. He's guilty as sin.
|
| someone with better citations saying the same thing with more
| details seven years ago:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/78ho4c/comme...
|
| [1] think of these dorky (no offense to the dorks who keep our
| milk free of pathogens) polos or windbreakers when you think of
| the nazi uniforms https://www.fedsapparel.com/collections/us-
| department-of-agr...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I thought Hugo Boss designed Nazi uniforms. Apparently not.
| As you say, he just made them:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss_(businessman)
| arnaudsm wrote:
| Nerd sniping is my favorite kind of content on the internet
|
| https://xkcd.com/356/
| kedarkhand wrote:
| Ok, now I need the answer to that question, what will the
| resistance...
| jackwilsdon wrote:
| Answered on explain xkcd ((4/p - 1/2) ohms, or roughly 0.773
| ohms):
| https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/356:_Nerd_Sniping
| motoboi wrote:
| Cannot wait for the day that question will be a ChatGPT prompt
| and the answer will be its response.
|
| A very different ChatGPT of course, but what a dream would that
| be.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Are they training on StackOverflow?
| astrange wrote:
| StackOverflow and Wikipedia are the main things they trained
| on. These days they have more custom content written for
| them.
| triyambakam wrote:
| How would that be very different? I sent that prompt now and
| got a similar response, not as detailed, but the summary is
| correct and the same.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm so scarred by LLMs that I wonder if I'd ever be able to
| trust it.
| gojiramothra wrote:
| > It's a Panzer IVD of the 31st Panzer Regiment assigned to the
| 5th Panzer Div. commanded by Lt. Heinz Zobel lost on May 13th,
| 1940. The "lake" is the Meuse River. The man is a German pioneer.
|
| Interesting uniform
| mxfh wrote:
| Since _Know Your Meme_ doesn 't give the reference for why it's a
| _lake_ , maybe not everybody is familiar with british lore:
|
| The mythical _Lady of the Lake_ :
|
| Probably best known via Monthy Python:
|
| _Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis
| for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from
| a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic
| ceremony._
|
| In short: _She teaches Lancelot arts and writing, infusing him
| with wisdom and courage, and overseeing his training to become an
| unsurpassed warrior._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Lake
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnigmaticEmpower...
| mrandish wrote:
| This reminds me that Monty Python and the Holy Grail
| contributed actual historical knowledge about Arthurian legends
| to my knowledge base while growing up. Other examples of Python
| unintentional education include knowing the names of a myriad
| of obscure cheeses (the cheese shop skit), a shocking number of
| anachronistic synonyms for death (the parrot skit) and notable
| contributions of the Roman Empire (Life of Brian 'What have the
| Romans ever done for us?' skit).
|
| While it didn't contribute to my GPA at the time, I'm sure I
| could name more notable philosophers than any other 8th grader
| in my school (philosopher's song skit). However, in high school
| it did spark the interest to look up and read about each of the
| philosophers in the song.
| graemep wrote:
| The problem is that comedy is frequently not factually
| accurate.
|
| Roman Imperial contributions? Was Roman wine better than pre-
| Roman wine in that region? Did they improve sanitation,
| irrigation, medicine etc.? Rome was an oppressive slavery
| based society.
|
| Then what about the Spanish Inquisition sketch? It keeps
| repeating "fanatically devoted to the Pope"" The Spanish
| inquisition was an arm of the Spanish monarchy, at least two
| Popes tried to shut it down, and some historians have
| suggested one of its aims was to reduce the power of the
| Papacy.
|
| I do like the Philosopher's Song, the Dead Parrot and Cheese
| Shop.
|
| Other comedies are no better. Black Adder has a witchfinder
| (an early modorn innovation) in a Medieval setting.
|
| Pop culture is not historically accurate!
| K0balt wrote:
| ...I think it kinda goes without saying that , perhaps with
| a very few notable exceptions, satirical television shows
| are not necessarily renown for their historical,
| scientific, or anecdotal accuracy.
|
| That being said, in my own experience at least, such
| pseudo-historical references in comedy in particular have
| spurred me on to independent investigation as to what they
| were on about, exactly.
|
| I'd say that the slapdash integrity is a feature, rather
| than a bug, since it is implicit in the format that a
| certain fraction of the assertions made will be bullocks
| cheese. This spurs curiosity and is also an excellent
| comedic mechanism.
|
| It would be interesting, however, to have a backdrop of
| steadfast historical "accuracy " in an otherwise pseudo-
| slapstick context a-la Monty pythons flying circus. That
| was kinda part of the gig, but it might be even funnier if
| they obviously took that aspect with unflinching
| seriousness.
|
| As for the Roman Empire, I'd dare say that in slavery they
| were contemporary with most societies of their day, and I
| think to imply that their use of slavery somehow diminishes
| their contribution to global cultural heritage is not only
| disingenuous, but also smacks of some kind of pointless
| reflexive regurgitation of a partisan talking point or
| conformance/virtue signaling. It kinda undermines your
| point.
|
| Ultimately, there are probably very few, if any, living
| humans that cannot trace their cultural heritage to
| slavery, slave ownership, perpetrators horrific atrocities,
| genocide, human rights violations, war crimes, and violent
| crimes against women, children, and humanity in general.
| What matters is what -you- chose to do. Be known for the
| fruit of your tree, and not as the product of the hill from
| which you sprout.
| bigiain wrote:
| Poe never wrote "Quoth the raven, eat my shorts", but I
| suspect an order of magnitude or two more people are
| aware of that poem thanks to The Simpsons, compare to all
| the poetry teachers ever.
| bigiain wrote:
| > It would be interesting, however, to have a backdrop of
| steadfast historical "accuracy " in an otherwise pseudo-
| slapstick context a-la Monty pythons flying circus. That
| was kinda part of the gig, but it might be even funnier
| if they obviously took that aspect with unflinching
| seriousness.
|
| That can get super grim too.
|
| I saw (maybe read?) an interview with Margaret Attwood
| about The Handmaids Tale. She took the atrocities
| committed by Gilead very seriously - and did not make a
| single one of them up. Every one of them was something
| historically accurate that really happened somewhere in
| the world.
| mxfh wrote:
| Would say I prefer comedy/satire, since you don't run
| into the danger zone of historical dramas, where you
| mistake artistic story alterations for dramatic effect
| for some historically factual narrative.
|
| Those are hard to rectify once internalized, and have a
| tendency to even overshadow historical research for the
| general public.
| Miraste wrote:
| >Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.?
|
| They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in
| the world for a thousand years. The plumbing and sewage
| systems they installed in their cities were so effective
| that some are not just intact, but in use, _right now_.
| There are plenty of negative points you can raise about the
| Roman Empire, but water systems aren 't one of them.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| And let us not forget about Roman law.
| bigiain wrote:
| But apart from the aqueducts, what have the Romans ever
| done for us?
| notarealllama wrote:
| Okay, but apart from orthography and aquaducts, what have
| the Romans ever done for us?
|
| Now as punishment go write this on the wall 100 times!
| mrandish wrote:
| Seeing the comedy beats of that scene play out on HN,
| first unintentionally and then intentionally, has made my
| day!
| baud147258 wrote:
| well, being part of the Roman Republic/Empire meant
| peace, even if it was enforced at the tip of a pilum. And
| the population under the Empire were more prosperous and
| numerous, so much that the collapse of the Empire in the
| West had long-lasting negative consequences (I'm mostly
| basing my opinion off this article:
| https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-
| and-f...)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In a pre-industrial agricultural society, slavery or
| something similar (serfdom etc.) tends to be widespread, as
| human and animal muscles are the only reliable and
| ubiquitous source of energy. Humanity only really started
| getting rid of unfree backbreaking work by adopting steam
| engines. 300-400 years ago, most of us forists here would
| be unfree people working the fields in unfavorable
| conditions, with maybe 5 per cent being burghers and 1 per
| cent nobility.
| astrange wrote:
| It's not that pre-industrial society causes slavery, it's
| closer to the other way round. If you're pre-industrial
| then everyone has to do farm work, yes, but slavery is
| /economically inefficient/ because the slaves don't
| provide demand (since you don't pay them) and don't grow
| the economy.
|
| This is why economics was called "the dismal science" -
| economists told people to stop doing slavery and the
| slaveowners called them nerds. They wanted to own slaves
| because they wanted to be mini-tyrants, not because they
| were good at capitalism. Adam Smith did not go around
| telling people to own slaves.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Was Roman wine better than pre-Roman wine in that region?
|
| If I were to guess, I would say that Roman wine was made
| from grapes, Levantine wine was made from dates, the vast
| majority of wine in the Levant continued to be made from
| dates during Roman rule, and imported Roman wine probably
| cost a lot more than local wine did.
| initramfs wrote:
| There's also Father Thames, the River God of London
| https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1140390
| edm0nd wrote:
| Upright Citizens Brigade also has a few nice bits about the
| Lady of the Lake
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhPXGABqG5w
| BurritoAlPastor wrote:
| Note that, at least in Thomas Malory's telling, the arm holding
| Excalibur out of the lake is _not_ the Lady Of The Lake, who is
| nearby _on_ the lake. The arm holding Excalibur is neither
| named nor explained.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Can tanks work underwater?
| INTPenis wrote:
| Only if they get paid overtime.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Some of them can:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9itXfVSMj0
| wongarsu wrote:
| With a snorkel attached. The engine needs oxygen and dislikes
| water. Both sides of the war invented that capability in the
| early 40s, though obviously not every tank had the capability.
|
| It's also a great example of the doctrines and tradeoffs of
| different armies. For example Russian tanks usually have space-
| efficient thin snorkels, while modern Western tanks have wide
| snorkels that double as a way for the crew to escape if they
| get stuck while driving submerged
| Deprogrammer9 wrote:
| new to me, kinda lame meme lol
| rcarmo wrote:
| The fact that this extraordinarily obscure question had such a
| thoroughly researched and intricately detailed answer almost
| restores my faith in Internet forums.
| asveikau wrote:
| Helps that it tickles a few things that people in subcultures
| get very nerdy about: military topics, WWII, etc.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| When I toured Jacques Littlefield's Tank Ranch they had, what I
| believe to be, this exact tank. They told the story of how it had
| been lost in the river and sat there and they went to see if it
| was still there and arranged to get it removed and returned to
| California where they restored it.
|
| If someone was so motivated, they could probably go back to the
| internet archives of the auction that happened after Jacques died
| to find a picture of both the restored tank and its providence.
| muststopmyths wrote:
| The stack exchange link and the article about the search say it
| was recovered in 1941
| noahlt wrote:
| This entire deep dive is great. I feel compelled to call out this
| heroism:
|
| > 1st Lieutenant de Wispelaere had prepared the bridge for
| demolition ... De Wispelaere immediately pushed the electrical
| ignition, but there was no explosion... Wispelaere now left his
| shelter and worked the manual ignition device. Trying to get back
| to his bunker, he was hit by a burst from a German machine gun
| and fell to the ground, mortally wounded. At the same time, the
| explosive charge went off.
| nate321 wrote:
| This is also mentioned in the ConeOfArc video linked on
| stackexchange. However, at 4:17 in the video, the speaker shows
| a sign describing two versions of the event. In the first
| version, Wispelaere died due to a German shell (not a machine
| gun). In the second version, he was killed by the explosion of
| the detonating device after shortening the fuse ("l'explosion
| du dispositif de mise a feu"; not sure how to translate this
| exactly).
| moffkalast wrote:
| "Panzer of the Lake, what is your origin?"
|
| "Krupp factory in Essen, apparently."
| jknoepfler wrote:
| I love the train of comments confidently but incorrectly
| identifying the tank (there are at least three highly-specific,
| different identifications given which use words like "definitely"
| and make claims to expertise).
| endoblast wrote:
| Don't know the origin of the image but I wonder if it formed the
| inspiration for _this_ iconic hostile emergence from the River
| Thames:
|
| https://shorturl.at/yGKOg
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