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width="135" height="39" border=1 alt="School report for Stu Savory">
Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual naturalised German,
blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist,
computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Porsche-driver,
textbook-writer and blogger living
in the foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to
reveal his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and
humour and rants irregularly.
Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs,
e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you doing any goddamn questioning.
You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods,
you will know why he does not believe in yours.
Oh, and after the death of his old bulldog, Kosmo, he also has a new bulldog, Clara, since September 2018 :-)
Some of my bikes
My Crypto Pages
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Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Mozart @ 270
270 years ago, on this very day, Mozart was born in a town called Salzburg, which is now a part of Austria.
He was given the forenames Wolfgang Amadeus and became a famous musician at an early age.
His father Leopold would pick him up and seat him at the piano. At the age of three he could play said piano, by four he added the violin to his repertoire, and at five he
was composing his own first melodies, scores written down by Leopold and Wolfgang's elder sister Maria Anna (called Nannerl).
His family was rich, enough to buy him his instruments. Leopold was a musician himself and arranged tuition for him.
Leopold later decided to take him on tour to display his abilities. Back then, there were neither cars nor trains so the tours were done in a coach drawn by horses. Must have been a bumpy ride.
Wolfgang was seven at the time when he played for nobles including e.g. the king of England. This was how his musical career was financed.
Sadly, he only lived to be 35, but wrote 600 compositions in this short lifetime.
Amongst these 600 was a simple piece called
"Sonate facile" (easy sonata) which I was taught in my unmusical Youth.
I never got beyond that, but I did go see his professional operas such as "Zauberflöte" ) when I lived in Munich.
This YouTube three hour video was made in the castle courtyard in 2023 in Gotha, Germany.
Main women in his life were his mother, his sister - who was a musical genius herself, and his wife Constanze (a singer) who ensured his music was played after his early death. Thanks for that Constanze.
Comments (1)
Chaim (USA) wrote
"More significant, that was the day the Red Army liberated the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, ending the Holocaust. My family are still grateful.
But if you want to stay with music, Presley released Heartbreak Hotel on that day in 1956." Yes, but I was just focussing on Mozart. Sorry.
Copyright © Ole Phat Stu on January 27, 2026
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Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Auroras over Germany
Last week there was a major eruption on the sun. It has taken a week for the ejecta to reach Earth, but now we are seeing great Aurora Borealis.
Mostly red and green as the ejecta react with the ionosphere. Here are two photos, not taken by me, but from our newspaper today. Normally they would not be visible this far south.
Have you seen any of these beauties?
Comments (5)
Billions of Versions... wrote
"I didn't get to see it just like I don't get to see meteor showers. Too many city lights." What a pity. How south are you ?
Hermann has a photo from Munich (further south than I am) in his blog.
They were even seen in the Black Forest, I saw on TV.
Ed (USA) asks how strong they are. I guess about 4 Ergs per square centimeter along the Canadian southern border, weaker further south.
Cop Car wrote "
We were alerted that the aurora might be visible in our area, but saw nothing. Similarly to Mike’s situation, I would have been unable to see from home for all of the light pollution – mostly
from neighbors across the street with their megawatt (I exaggerate) floodlights that blaze away from sunset to sunrise (rant over). The most tantalizing sky phenomenon that I’ve seen
was from a motel parking lot just outside Edwards AFB California on the night of October 29, 1987. My contemporaneous note: "The head was a cluster of bright lights that seemed to be
moving toward me (to east) at [about] 60K feet, trailing a shock wave. Then the lights went out leaving a shimmery nimbus. It glowed as if lit by spot lights. Then it exhibited an aurora.
It was spectacular!" I later determined that the deep blue and violet, plasma-like display was from launch of an inert Minuteman II from Vandenberg AFB.art"
Only missiles I ever saw launched CC, were Seaslug and Seadart in the 1960s.
Jenny (E) wrote "What pretty colours. In Spain I am too far south to see them. " Pity.
Copyright © Ole Phat Stu on January 20, 2026
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Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Fibonacci Petals
Do you remember how to generate Fibonacci numbers? Starting with 1 and 1 the next Fibonacci number is the sum of the previous two.
So we get the sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89, etc.
But have you noticed that plants have a Fibonacci number of petals?
Lilies and Irises each have 3 petals.
Buttercups have 5 petals. Delphiniums have 8 petals. Corn Marigolds 13. Asters 21. And there are daisies with 34, or 55 or 89 petals. Nature is a mathematician!
Copyright © Ole Phat Stu on January 13, 2026
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Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Lufthansa turns 100
January 6 in 1926 in Berlin-Tempelhof, Deutschen Aero Lloyd joined up with Junkers Luftverkehr to form Lufthansa, the first flight going to Zurich in Switzerland.
In 1931 they used a catapult ship to refuel a floatplane mid-Atlantic for their postal-service planes to South America.
Nationalised by the Nazis, they were used until 1945 when they were shut down by the Allies.
Ten years later they restarted with only 4 planes.
Then, in 1960 they got their first Boeing 707, thus entering the jet age.
Ten years later they started using the 747 as a passenger plane. In 1972 they got a 747 with an openable nose for freight flights.
1974 in Nairobi flight 540 crashed, killing 59 people. In 1977 terrorists captured the "Landshut", recaptured by GSG9 (the anti-terror squad).
Then in 2014 when Germany won the football world cup a 747 was quickly repainted as the champions' plane to ferry the team back from Brasil.
In 2015 copilot Lubitz deliberately crashed a smaller Germanwings plane, killing all 150 people on board - I blogged about it at the time.
2020, due to Covid, the German government had to support them to the tune of a thousand million Euros.
By 2024 Lufthansa was in the top 5 airlines worldwide, employing 40,000 people across 122 nations, serving over 200 countries. So congratulations Lufthansa @ 100.
Comments (1)
Cop Car sent this addendum...
"On Friday, Deutsche Lufthansa AG repaid or cancelled all remaining government Stabilization funds from the Federal Republic of Germany.
The repayment was made much earlier than originally planned. This was made possible primarily by the rising demand for air travel,
the fast restructuring and transformation of the Lufthansa Group and the capital markets' confidence in the company.
This means that this morning, the Silent Participation II of the Economic Stabilization Fund of the Federal Republic of
Germany (ESF) amounting to 1 billion euros was repaid in full. After the company had already repaid Silent Participation I in October,
of which only 1.5 billion euros were drawn, the unused and remaining part has now been terminated too. Last February, the company
had already repaid a KfW loan of 1 billion euros earlier than expected. This means that all German loans and Silent Participations, including interest,
have now been repaid respectively terminated. Under this condition, ESF has undertaken to sell its stake in Deutsche Lufthansa AG amounting
to approx. 14 percent of the share capital by October 2023 at the latest." So now their tickets will become cheaper? Fat chance.
Copyright © Ole Phat Stu on January 6, 2026
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Monday, January 5, 2026
Ash nazg durbatulûk . . .
Saturday of last week (3rd Jan) was J.R.R.Tolkien`s birthday, so we had a minor party to celebrate.
Sadly though, we could not find a pub serving mead, so we just had beer, wine and whiskys to choose from. Still a nice evening though.
Each read a favourite section from LOTR, one girl even had THE engraved ring, and punctually at 9 pm MEZ (=8 pm GMT) - the alleged hour of his birth - there was a toast "To the professor."
Copyright © Ole Phat Stu on January 5, 2026
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Link to the previous month's blog.
Recent Writings
Mozart @ 270
Auroras over Germany
Fibonacci Petals
Lufthansa turns 100
Ash nazg durbatulûk
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New Conspiracy Theory
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My blog, my random decision. Tough shit; YOLO.
Link Disclaimer
ENGLISH : I am not responsible for the contents or
form of any external page to which this website links.
I specifically do not adopt their content, nor do I make it mine.
DEUTSCH : Für alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, möchte ich betonen,
dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe.
Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdrücklich von allen Inhalten aller
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This Blog's Status is
Blog Dewey Decimal Classification : 153
FWIW, 153 is a triangular number, meaning that you can arrange 153 items into an equilateral triangle (with 17 items on a side).
It is also one of the six known truncated triangular numbers, because 1 and 15 are triangular numbers as well.
It is a hexagonal number, meaning that you can distribute 153 points evenly at the corners and along the sides of a hexagon.
It is the smallest 3-narcissistic number. This means it's the sum of the cubes of its digits.
It is the sum of the first five positive factorials. Yup, this is a 153-type blog. QED ;-)
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