Eunoia
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--> Most recent Blog Comments Policy DSGVO Impressum Maths trivia Search this site RSS Feed Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual ex-pat Scot, blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Beetle-driver, textbook-writer, long-distance biker, geocacher 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 dog, Kosmo, he also has a new bulldog puppy, Clara, since September 2018 :-)
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Thursday, July 30, 2020
First EncountersDogs have a short life of around a decade, so we take ours out on "adventures" so that she gets a wide variety of interesting things to see and thus avoids boredom. Last week we took her to the Parrot Farm, about 40 miles east : another exciting First Encounter for her.The collective noun for parrots is a pandemonium.
A pandemonium. A pandemonium of parrots. The parrot farm has about 100 or so parrots, screeching, squawking, flying about and buzzing your scalp, Pandemonium indeed. Parrots can "talk", if you mean by "talk" that they can reproduce sounds they've heard. Even reproducing sounds they've heard in the correct context. But it's not a conversation. So when we walked with our dog up to the pair (Adam and Eve) shown below, they saw the dog and pronounced - contextually correct - the german equivalent of "Sit! Sit! Good dog!"
And our good dog sat! Then looked thoroughly confused as to where the order to sit had come from ;-) Then we had to listen to their self-praise "I'm a pretty parrot! Give me a peanut!" etc etc. Over in another corner sat Curiosity, appropriately named for all the questions it asked. Instead of Curiosity killed the cat, turns out it was so named because Curiosity bent his beak being curious.
Walking further around the parrot farm we came across a creep of giant tortoises, another first encounter for our by now increasingly curious dog. The collective noun for tortoises is a creep. A creep of tortoises, presumably named so because they move so slowly. In Galapagos, HMS Eagle (Darwin's ship) captured several giant tortoises and took them in nets on board as provisions for their return sea journey. On the way they also fished for sea-turtles; The collective noun for such netted sea-turtles and giant tortoises (being kept for eating) is a bale. A bale of turtles. But don't ask me why a bale.
When I was a child, we were taught such collective nouns; nowadays I have to look them up in e.g. Wikipedia. In German we only have about 20 collective nouns. In English there are about 70, I seem to (not) remember. How much easier would it be if we all just used one collective noun, e.g. group! The next First Encounter was to be ride on a riverboat (on the river Weser) from Bad Karlshafen. But there were so many tourists queueing - not all wearing anti-corona masks - that social distancing would have been a problem on board. So we gave that one a miss. Maybe at the end of the season? Comments (3)
Sunday, July 26, 2020
SWMBO's green thumbCouldn't think of any story to write about today, so I just walked through the garden and photographed the flowers. Doubtless the gardeners amongst you will enjoy them and be able to identify each kind. I can't, I'm no botanist, these are all SWMBO's work :-)
Comments (4)
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
PI approximation dayBack on March 14th the USA celebrated PI day. Here in Yurp, we celebrate PI approximation day today because we write our dates in the format DD/MM/YYYY. So 22/7 is our approximation to PI, actually a slightly better approximation than the american 3.14 :-) Of course, we would better use 355/113, but cannot fit that into either date format.The photo below shows me at the PI wall in the Mathematikum museum in Giessen, in 2014. You start at the centre of the spiral. I've ringed two places : the lower ring shows where the first zero crops up in the decimal expansion. The upper ring shows six nines in succession; both places are a good place to stop trying to memorise the digits of PI ;-) Of course 22/7 is not just PI approximation day. 22/7/1099 AD was the date of the first crusade. In 1210, Joan of England, Queen of Scotland was born. On 22/7/1499 the Swiss decisively defeated the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. Nowadays the Swiss Guard is the Pope's private army :-( In 1598 William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, was registered for publication. In 1784, Friedrich Bessel, a German mathematician and astronomer was born. In 1864 the Confederates lost the Battle of Atlanta. In 1918, Indra Lal Roy DFC, the first Indian fighter pilot, was shot down and killed by Jasta 29. In 1969, Judy Garland died. And in 2013, Prince George of Cambridge(UK) was born. So there was lots going on today, 22/7, for the non-mathematicians amongst my readership :-)
Monday, July 20, 2020
Happily, an unused deviceThis is the actual Eagle fire-extinguisher that went to the moon, today back in 1969.I took the photo when it was on loan to the HNF museum a couple of years ago. No, I don't know why it was painted grey rather than the ISO standard red. Suggestions? Aside: America used to have a capability of going to the moon when it had a Democrat as President. Now it has Trump as pResident and most recently a Gestapo (c.f. Portland & Chicago). We here know what happens when you get a Gestapo. Anybody got a really BIG fire extinguisher? Comments (1)
Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Dambuster Museum at Lake EderMonday's motorcycle outing took me 50 miles SE to lake Eder, one of the three whose dams were attacked during WW2 by the Dambusters as part of operation Chastise. The other dams were Mohnesee (also breached) and Sorpe (not breached). There is an expanatory 13 minute B&W video on YouTube here, after the inevitable ads, or you could stay here and read this shorter version ;-)There is a small single-storey building on the dam's west side, built and staffed by enthusiasts, which serves as a museum (mostly just photos). Out front is a 1:1 mockup of the 4 ton bouncing-bomb, here a movie prop; judge the size by me holding on to it. A poster, for sale in the museum, gives a glorified - but misleading - visual impression of the Lancaster bombers attacking and breaching the Eder dam, actually done at night. The Brits originally planned to attack using torpedos but their experiments in the UK showed that a torpedo would be too weak to damage the dams. Besides, their spies had discovered that the Germans had mounted anti-torpedo nets (see photo below, left) just upstream of the dams. High-altitude bombing at the time was not accurate enough to guarantee hitting the dams. So what to do? UK boffin Barnes Wallis came up with the idea of the Bouncing Bomb which would skip over the surface (and thus also over the anti-torpedo nets) then sink down when reaching the dam wall, exploding via a depth fuse. It took almost a year of experiments in the UK to get the parameters for approach-speed, height, bomb's back-spin rate, bounce-count and release point right so that the idea would work. Finally the attacks were mounted on the night of 17th August 1943, led by Guy Gibson (see photo on the right below). Of the 25 Lancaster bombers used only 17 returned. Some shot down, some hit electricity pylons crossing Belgium at low level, etc. This photo (below) of a Lancaster was taken at the reenactment over Derwent Water (UK) a few years ago. Below the tree line, 60 feet up, 232 mph, but of course without a Bouncing Bomb mounted in its bomb bay and by daylight. Derwent Water was chosen for practice runs by the Dambusters (617 squadron) in WW2 because it had a dam with two towers similar to the German dams so they could practice using the Y-shaped sight to judge the distance from the dropping point. Altitude judged by intersecting searchlight beams reflecting off the water, a barometric altimeter was not accurate enough. The bomb was spun up on the run in, to avoid gyroscopic problems, afaik. The photo below - on display at the museum - was taken by a reconnaisance plane on the following day (18th). The Eder dam and the Möhne dam were both breached, but the Sorpe dam (with a much more difficult approach run) was not. The Dambuster attacks were much glorified in the Brit WW2 propaganda, but didn't wreck the German power supply nor their economy as much as had been hoped. In fact, the dams were up and running again after a few month's POW & slave labour. An interesting museum, open afternoons. Six Euros entry, closed on tuesdays. Comments (6)
Ibrahim (UK) says "Political Correctness has gone mad here in the UK!" Indeed :-(
Sunday, July 12, 2020
30th wedding anniversary :-)The photo above shows SWMBO and I with 30 years of wedded bliss under our belts :-) We've actually been together for 41 years, but the first 11 years were only "practising" , to use the euphemism usual around here;-) We got married on 12th July 1990, a thursday, because the superstitious registry office refused to reserve friday 13th for anyone :-( The photo below shows you what we looked like 41 years ago, thinner and fitter both, and just starting our life together :-) About when I bought
our PA28, a four-seater, as opposed to the red Pitts, a single-seater cloud dancer :-)
No children, just serial owners of multiple bulldogs over the years :-) Comments (4)
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
They were framed!This is a wake-up call for nearby (Braunschweig +/- 200 kms) biker friends who may read this blog. The rest of you can go back to sleep ;-) No, wait. John, Pergolater, and Ed (all USA), Vic, NinjaGirl, and Morag (all UK), with Muskovite Iwan and any other Nighthawks (all RU) may want to continue reading here; or at least follow the links for great photos.Starting on this friday July 10th and going on until the end of August there will be an exhibition of reframed classic superbikes in the museum of Classic Superbikes in Braunscheig, about 180kms from where I live. The address of the museum is Waller See 11, 38179 Schwülper (that's directly off the Autobahn Junction A2 Braunschweig Hafen), it's easy to find. Owner Horst Edler will personally be there on friday July 10th and saturday 11th, he tells us. Back in the late sixties and the seventies Japan was producing their first superbikes with 3 and 4 cylinders. But in the race for ever more power they neglected the stiffness of their frames. Indeed, the never-to-be-forgotten famous motorcycle journalist Klacks [RIP] summed it up thus "...but the frames bent like liquorice sticks...". Thus the need arose for stiffer frames to improve the bikes' handling, so specialist companies like Bimota, Egli, Harris, Magni, Rau and Rickman (Metisse) etc jumped in to fill the need. Such bikes handled much better. I've ridden a Kawasaki Mach 3 in the original frame which weaved so much you'd get seasick and an Egli-framed Honda of the same period just to compare it to my 1970 Honda 750 K1 which I'd restored as a Cafe´Racer. No comparison, the Egli steered as if on rails, like a Norton! The frame-specials on display will include : Bimota Ducati DB1, Bimota Kawasaki KB1, Bimota Yamaha YB11 Superleggera, Egli Ducati, Egli MRD1 Turbo, Harris Suzuki Magnum 4, Magni Honda MH1, Moto Martin Suzuki GSX 1100, Moko Suzuki GSX 1100, Moko Suzuki GSX/R 1100, Rau Honda CB 750, Rickman RGM Metisse BSA Rocket III (very rare!), Rickman Honda CR 750, the Segoni MV 900 (the only one existing worldwide), Vyrus Ducati, and a Wasp RGB 1000. The BSA-Metisse belongs to journalist Winni Scheibe, who lives in nearby Arolsen, so I've seen (and heard :-) it a couple of times. Metisse built only 30 of these frames for the UK's Formula 750 races. Most had the Triumph T150 triple engine, a few had the BSA triple implanted, making the BSA-Metisse a very rare beast indeed. Winni won the 1990 Sachsenring F750 race on this street-legal one. So biker friends, take a mask with you (coronavirus precaution), and go take a (long, drooling, envious) look! Weather permitting, I shall too. Comments (1)
Friday, July 3, 2020
Just another jab?When researchers are able to produce an effective vaccine against Coronavirus, probably not until well into 2021, I wonder if it will be widely available or whether the USA will selfishly buy up all produced doses, as they have done with Remdesivir? If made available, I wonder if it will be made compulsory? I certainly hope so.Here in Germany, for example, a measles inoculation has been made compulsory since March 2020. Children are not allowed to start school, or even kindergarten, unless they have been officially inoculated against measles. Are anti-vaxxers soon to be jailed? So I went online to www.impfen.de to see what jabs are recommended and which are compulsory; and indeed to see if I (at 76) should have refreshed any? Also what is needed for various travels? The responsible government authority here is called STIKO (jab a joke in there somewhere ;-) They recommend a basic immunisation for children, covering rotaviruses, tetanus, diptheria, whooping cough, hib, hepatitis B, polio, pneumococca, meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. At school ages there are various refresher jabs and one against HPV. Refreshers for adults every 10 years include tetanus, diptheria and (often forgotten) whooping cough. The jabs one needs when going abroad depend of course on your destination. Consult the government website. I for one, want a corona jab before visiting the USA again ! The EU is now even proposing a ban on visitors from the USA until they (USA) get coronavirus under control. Good idea! Until then...
Comments (8) Schorsch (D) wrote "The major mistake was telling Americans that the masks were there to help other people. Know your audience!" Funny but evil. This where we are now : The blue line is Germany, red line is the USA
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
No more single-use plastics after mid-2021Finally, finally, politicians here are doing something to clean up the environment! Starting next year, July 3rd 2021 to be exact, single-use plastics will be banned in the EU :-)Let me give you some numbers about plastics pollution. Cleanup efforts on the North Sea beaches in 2019 averaged 390 pieces trash (mostly plastic) per meter (sic!) of beach; even on the Baltic coast (which does not abut so directly on the Atlantic ocean), it averaged 70 pieces of trash, mostly plastic. Extrapolated to 2050, there would be more plastic trash in the sea than fish! And micro-plastic enters the food chain. So something needed to be done. Banning single use plastics is the first step. The photo above shows some average roadside verge trash in our village, seen during the annual cleanup all our villagers do in spring. About 4-5 pieces per meter as shown :-( Ten to twenty percent of roadside trash and trash in public garbage cans is single-use plastic stuff. That includes used condoms ;-) So what's being banned? Plastic-stick cotton swabs, plastic cutlery (knives, forks, spoons), plastic plates and cups, styropore cups and plates, plastic drinking-straws, mixing-sticks, balloon-holder sticks. Also forbidden will be plastics which oxidise and thus make microplastics. Alternatives are available : e.g. wooden forks and spoons at take-aways or for your garden parties. Wooden spoons for ice cream (see photo right ;-) ) Reusable straws made from glass or stainless steel. Stable multi-use plastic plates etc that can go through a dishwasher. You can already buy cotton swabs with rolled-paper sticks. We separate our domestic garbage by type here, with the intention of recycling it where possible. The blue wheelie-bin is for paper and cardboard, 120 liters, emptied monthly. The yellow wheelie-bin is for metals and plastics, 120 liters, emptied monthly. The 80 liter gray wheelie-bin is for other stuff, emptied fortnightly, 80% of which gets recycled by the experts at the recycling plant. The other 20% gets burnt or goes to the landfill. Toxic stuff (e.g. paint, fillers, etc) is collected monthly by special request. Glass we bring to the glass recycling containers. We don't use the green bio-degradable-stuff bin, as we have two compost heaps in the garden; a shorter recycling loop :-) SWMBO and I make a special effort to avoid goods which comes in plastic packaging, avoiding plastic usage as much as possible. How about you? Comments (1)
Link to the previous month's blog.
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Recent Writings
First Encounters SWMBO's green thumb PI approximation day An unused device Dambuster Museum 30th wedding anniversary They were framed! Just another jab? Single-use plastics Segway shuts down Summer solstice John Bolton, Grifter :-( Hammerhead Worms Beers for John On turning 76 No strawberry moon Beekeeper's flowerpot Homeschooling Maths Told you so! Fathers' Day Edition Reopening too soon!!! Out of the blue... Good Golly, Miss Molly Blogroll Ain Bulldog Blog All hat no cattle Badtux... Balloon Juice Billions of Versions... Cop Car Digby's Hullabaloo Earth-Bound Misfit Elephant's Child Fail Blog Finding life hard? Greg Laden Hackwhackers Infidel753 Mockpaperscissors Mostly Cajun Observing Hermann Pergelator Starts with a Bang Yellowdog Grannie Archive 2020: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Archive 2019: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2018: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2017: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec This blog is getting really unmanagable, so I've taken the first 12 years' archives offline. 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 : F?r alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, m?chte ich betonen, dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe. Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdr?cklich von allen Inhalten aller gelinkten Seiten und mache mir ihren Inhalt nicht zu eigen. 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 ;-) Books I've written
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