Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Monday, November 5, 2018
Quote for the Day
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
- Traditional rhyme recited on Guy Fawkes Night, the 5th of November, when effigies of him are traditionally burned. Quoted by Alan Moore in V for Vendetta.
Guy Fawkes (1570 – 1606) was an English soldier and a member of a group of Roman Catholic conspirators who attempted to carry out the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) and the members of both houses of the Parliament of England with a huge explosion, which was prevented by his arrest on 5 November 1605. According to Fawkes, “A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy”, invoking a version of a famous statement of Hippocrates, also translated as "Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.”
Rickrolling
going to present something today that caught my attention. The item
to grace today’s Bytes is called Rickrolling. Let me explain and
give you some background. Rickrolling is where you click on a link and
you are diverted to a video or audio clip of Never Going to Give You
up by Rick Astley. Apparently it was big some years ago, from 2007 onwards.
Never heard of it until yesterday when I was looking up another item so I’m
up by Rick Astley. Apparently it was big some years ago, from 2007 onwards.
Never heard of it until yesterday when I was looking up another item so I’m
going to give you the Rickroll that I found fascinating. It will require patience
to read it all, if that is what you choose to do, but I will
let you off that task if you find it a chore. By the way, to give
you some background about Niels Bohr, before you get
down to some serious reading of the item below:
Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885 – 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. During the 1930s, Bohr helped refugees from Nazism. After Denmark was occupied by the Germans, he had a famous meeting with Heisenberg, who had become the head of the German nuclear weapon project. In September 1943, word reached Bohr that he was about to be arrested by the Germans, and he fled to Sweden. From there, he was flown to Britain, where he joined the British Tube Alloys nuclear weapons project, and was part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project. After the war, Bohr called for international cooperation on nuclear energy.
In 2014 student Sairam Gudiseva Rickrolled his teacher by inserting the chorus of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up into an essay assessing the influence of Danish scientist Niels Bohr on quantum theory. Sairam posted a picture of his submission on Twitter, but it is not known whether the highlighting was by Sairam or his teacher or what mark he received, or whether the teacher was even aware of the Rickroll . . .
And if you haven't realised, look again at the first paragraph of this post . . .
Sunday, November 4, 2018
The Great Escape
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Byter Sue P sent me a fascinating article about the re-discovery of the tunnel used for a World War II mass escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III. The escape came to be known as The Great Escape and was the subject of a 1950 book by Paul Brookhill of the same name and a 1963 film starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence and James Coburn.
Thanks, Sue.
The article is lengthy and reprinted in full, it is well worth the read.
My searches indicate that the article is in fact a compilation of 2 articles from different sources.
The first part was published by the Daily Mail in 2011. The second part is from a Facebook site which reposts the Daily Mail article and adds more. Both are posted below.
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Source:
Daily Mail:
Tunnel back in time: Revealed, the passage used in Great Escape
By Andrew Le
Untouched for almost seven decades, the tunnel used in the Great Escape has finally been unearthed. The 111-yard passage nicknamed 'Harry' by Allied prisoners was sealed by the Germans after the audacious break-out from the POW camp Stalag Luft III in western Poland. Despite huge interest in the subject, encouraged by the film starring Steve McQueen, the tunnel remained undisturbed over the decades because it was behind the Iron Curtain and the Soviet authorities had no interest in its significance.
But at last British archaeologists have excavated it, and discovered its remarkable secrets.
Many of the bed boards which had been joined together to stop it collapsing were still in position. And the ventilation shaft, ingeniously crafted from used powdered milk containers known as Klim Tins, remained in working order.
Scattered throughout the tunnel, which is 30ft below ground, were bits of old metal buckets, hammers and crowbars which were used to hollow out the route.
A total of 600 prisoners worked on three tunnels at the same time. They were nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry and were just 2 ft square for most of their length. It was on the night of March 24 and 25, 1944, that 76 Allied airmen escaped through Harry.
Barely a third of the 200 prisoners many in fake German uniforms and civilian outfits and carrying false identity papers, who were meant to slip away managed to leave before the alarm was raised when escapee number 77 was spotted.
Tunnel vision: A tunnel reconstruction showing the trolley system, tried out, below, by Frank, 89.
Bitter-sweet memories: Gordie King, 91, made an emotional return to Stalag Luft III.
Only three made it back to Britain. Another 50 were executed by firing squad on the orders of Adolf Hitler, who was furious after learning of the breach of security. In all, 90 boards from bunk beds, 62 tables, 34 chairs and 76 benches, as well as thousands of items including knives, spoons, forks, towels and blankets, were squirreled away by the Allied prisoners to aid the escape plan under the noses of their captors.
Although the movie might suggest otherwise, no Americans were involved in the actual operation. Most were British and the others were from countries including Canada, Poland and Australia.
The site of the tunnel, recently excavated by British archaeologists .
The latest dig, over three weeks in August, located the entrance to Harry, which was originally concealed under a stove in Hut 104.
War classic: Steve McQueen on the set of the classic movie, The Great Escape
The team also found another tunnel, called George, whose exact position had not been charted. It was never used as the 2,000 prisoners were forced to march to other camps as the Red Army approached in January 1945 .
Watching the excavation was Gordie King, 91, an RAF radio operator, who was 140th in line to use Harry and therefore missed out. 'This brings back such bitter-sweet memories,' he said as he wiped away tears. 'I'm amazed by what they've found. ’
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Source:
100 Year Challenge, being a site established in remembrance of WW1 and all other wars and conflicts, and to honour those who died, served and have been affected thereby.
In a related post:
Many of the recent generations have no true notion of the cost in lives and treasure that were paid for the liberties that we enjoy in this United States. They also have no idea in respect of the lengths that the “greatest generation” went to in order to preserve those liberties. Below is one true, small and entertaining story regarding those measures that are well worth reading, even if the only thing derived from the story is entertainment.
Escape from WWII POW Camps
Starting in 1940, an increasing number of British and Canadian Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape.
Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.
Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.
Someone in MI-5 (similar to America's OSS) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads and, unfolded as many times as needed and, makes no noise whatsoever. At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.
By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.
Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany, Italy, and France or wherever Allied POW camps were located. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.
As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:
1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!
British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set – by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.
Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war.
The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honoured in a public ceremony.
It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' Free' card!
Some of you are (probably) too young to have any personal connection to WWII (Sep. '39 to Aug. '45), but this is still an interesting bit of history for everyone to know.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Brett’s Monthly and Readers Write
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Brett’s Monthly for November:
As usual, Brett has sent his lists of unique and special days for the month, the lists appearing below. Thanks Brett. Click on the individual days to open the links.
Month:
- Aviation History Month
- Child Safety Protection Month
- International Drum Month
- National Adoption Awareness Month
- National Caregivers Appreciation Month
- National Diabetes Awareness Month
- National Epilepsy Month
- National Model Railroad Month
- National Novel Writing Month
- Native American Heritage Month
- Peanut Butter Lovers Month
- Real Jewelry Month
- National Sleep Comfort Month
Week Celebrations:
- Week 1 Chemistry Week
- Week 3 Game and Puzzle Week
1-2 Dios
Los Muertos
1 Men Make Dinner Day - first Thursday of Month
3 Book Lovers Day - first Saturday of the month
6 U.S. General Election Day - first Tuesday of the
month after first Monday of month
7 Hindu Diwali Day - date varies
9 Chaos Never Dies Day - you've got that right
10 USMC Day
13 Young Readers Day second Tuesday of month
15 Great American Smokeout - third Thursday in
November
16 Button Day
17 Electronic Greeting Card Day - now who do you think
created this day!?
17 National Adoption Day - Saturday before
Thanksgiving
18 Occult Day
21 National Tie One On Day - day before Thanksgiving
22 Thanksgiving - Eat, drink, and be thankful, fourth
Thursday
23 Black Friday - Friday after Thanksgiving
23 Buy Nothing Day - always the day after
Thanksgiving...does anyone abide by it!?!
23 You're Welcome Day - the day after Thanksgiving
Note that today is Book Lovers Day, a day that I feel is worthy and to which I can relate, although some previously posted comments are applicable:
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Readers Write:
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From Robyn T:
If only I could keep up with your bytes, so many of which are so interesting and worthy of comment, particularly the art related ones , history of Sydney suburbs and historical photos. Thankfully I note you have many followers who keep you well plied with asides and comments.
Thanks Robyn.
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From Paul Y:
Hi Otto,
Following up on your bytes yesterday I have this video from Japan. https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASLB056FRLB0UTIL03F.html?iref=comtop_8_01
The video is in Shibuya at the world famous street crossing.
What struck me about this video is near the end are young Japanese collecting rubbish. The sign says “We will collect your rubbish.”
Very inspiring and I thought I should share.
Cheers,
Paul
Thanks Paul.
Note at vthe end that one of the males has a giant open backpack on his back for people to throw garbage into.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Funny Friday
The end of the week and the end of the month, Christmas draws closer and things start to get more hectic. So take a few minutes out, grab a coffee, read some funnies and clap along if you feel like a room without a roof (wtf does that mean anyway?) . . .
Quickies:
There's a new Gillette razor designed for dyslexics.
It's the best thing since sliced beard.
I've just bought the personalised number plate BAA BAA.
For my black jeep.
Father: “Son, you were adopted.”
Son: “What?! I knew it! I want to meet my biological parents!”
Father: “We are your biological parents. Now pack up, the new ones will pick you up in 20 minutes.”
A camel meets an elephant. The elephant asks jokingly: “Why do you have two breasts on your back?” The camel replies: “With a face like yours, I’d just shut up.”
Meanwhile, at the checkout . . .
----oOo----
Good deed done.
This morning at the IGA checkout I was behind an old lady in the queue. Her bill came to $103.35 but when she counted out all her change she only had just under $100. I thought she was probably someone’s Gran and I’d like to think someone would have helped my Gran out when she was alive.
She didn’t want me to help her but I insisted, and in no time we had all her groceries back on the shelves.
----oOo----
At another checkout . . .
I was in Coles today with 2 trolleys full of shopping. An old lady stood behind me in the queue with a litre container of milk.
"Is that all you've got, love? " I asked her.
"Yes" the little old lady replied.
So I did the decent thing and turned to her and said "I'd go to another checkout love, I'm gonna be ages!"
----oOo----
I was behind an old woman in the queue in Aldi today. She was really struggling with her basket, then she dropped her purse.
Looking at me she said, "I'm not sure I'll be able to pick it up."
I said, "Well, you won't mind if I pop in front of you then while you try."
The Finest of Funny Friday . . .
Some of you may think that the items above qualify for the Corn Corner Category but, to quote the first words spoken in a talkie . . .
Which is an appropriate segue into some truly corny humour with a film connection, some Finest Funny Friday Arnold Schwearzenegger items:
Corn Corner:
Some Arnie jokes, aka “It’s not a humour” . . . (okay, I made that one up, and I agree it’s pretty weak)
I went into Toys R Us earlier, I said to the assistant:
"Where are the Schwarzenegger dolls?"
He said, "Aisle B, back."
Similar to:
I went into a library and asked for a book on German Baroque composers.
The librarian said, "Aisle B, Bach."
Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked if he wanted to upgrade to Windows 7.
He replied, "I still love Vista, baby".
Unfortunately, Arnold Schwarzenegger could never be president of America because he is not American.
Well . . . We all know what happened last time an Austrian took over a foreign country...
Arnold Schwarzenegger was upset that his mum never got him any Easter eggs.
She said, "I thought that you didn't like Easter anymore!"
Arnie replied, "I still love Easter baby!"
So Arnie has confirmed he's in Terminator 5.
"I'll be back!" will be replaced with "Ow my back!"
I challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger to a game of chess the other day.
I said "Arnie which colour do you want to be?"
He replied "I'll be black."
Last night I saw a preview of Arnold Schwarzenegger's new low budget film where he goes on a rampage killing all Indian men in sight.
It's called 'The Turbanhater'
When Arnold Schwarzenegger dies, will he be an ex-terminator?
Arnold Schwarzenegger had just run the New York marathon. He was lying on his couch and his feet were killing him.
"Is there anything I can do for you Arnie?" asked his wife.
"Ya" replied Arnie. "Plasta ma blista baby.”
I just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger on the train eating a sandwich that stunk the whole carriage out.
"Fucking hell!" I said, "What have you got in there? A tuna?"
He was adamant that it was not.
Film producers wanted to make a movie about classical music composers starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Hugh Grant and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They ask Leonardo who he wants to be and he answers "I want to be Beethoven because I've always liked him". Next they ask Hugh and he says "I want to be Mozart because I've always liked him" lastly they ask Arnold and he says "I'll be Bach!"
Thursday, November 1, 2018
5 x 5: Music
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5 facts about 5 songs . . .
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Achy Breaky Heart:
- Written by the country songwriter and performer Don Von Tress, this was a remake of a 1991 song by the country act The Marcy Brothers, titled "Don't Tell My Heart." That original version had the lyrics: "Don't tell my heart, my achy, breakin' heart..."
- Achy Breaky Heart was the leader of the “New Country” wave as younger devotees deserted performers such as Willie Nelson, embracing the slick production and pop melodies. Although the purists were hostile, accusing Billy Ray Cyrus of desecrating country music, it was a huge hit in both country and popular music, leading the way for artists like Shania Twain and Faith Hill, who had massive pop success with country songs.
- Achy Breaky Heart became the most popular and prominent of the United States line dancing craze of the early '90s.
- Thanks to this song, the album Some Gave All went to #1 for 17 weeks - a record for a debut artist. It was the best selling album in 1992.
- Billy Ray's daughter, Miley Cyrus, became a Disney Channel star with the show Hannah Montana, playing a girl who is secretly a pop star by night. Billy Ray had a role on the show, playing her manager.
Miley Cyrus Joins Sister Noah and Dad Billy Ray to sing 'Achy Breaky Heart', 2017
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Imagine:
- No, not the John Lennon version, the one just released by Yoko Ono, who is now aged 85. It forms part of her new album Warzone.
- Until recently, the song was credited solely to Lennon; Ono was added as a co-writer in 2017. The song’s central lyrical structure, a series of wistful, utopian scenarios, was inspired by Ono’s poetry collection Grapefruit, which featured lines like: “Imagine your head filled with pencil leads / Imagine one of them broken.” Lennon had acknowledged her contribution in a 1980 interview, saying: “A lot of it – the lyric and the concept – came from Yoko. But those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution. But it was right out of Grapefruit, her book.”
- Hear it by clicking on:
- The song was released on October 10 this year, to mark what would have been John Lennon’s 78th birthday.
- Warzone was released on October 19 and is her fourteenth studio album. a collection of reworked tracks from her past.
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Total Eclipse of the Heart:
- The song, by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, was released in 1983 and became her biggest hit.
- According to Jim Steinman, who wrote the song: “ . . . with 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in the dark…”
- It has been reported that Steinman first offered this song, along with "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" to Meat Loaf for his 1983 album Midnight At The Lost And Found. For financial reasons, Meat's record company wanted him to write his own songs for the album, so this song went to Tyler and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" went to Air Supply. Steinman has denied those reports, saying that he wrote it for Tyler and as a showcase for her voice.
- Her voice has been likened to Rod Stewart and Kim Carnes as a result of her vocal nodules operation in the 1970s, sometimes even being referenced as "the female Rod Stewart", and, after her collaborations with Jim Steinman, "the female Meat Loaf".
- Tyler married property developer and 1972 Olympic judo contestant Robert Sullivan in 1973. on 14 July 1973. They have no children; Tyler miscarried when she was aged 39. Since 1988, Tyler and her husband have owned a five-bedroom home in Portugal and she and Sullivan have invested extensively in real estate. As of a 1999 interview, they owned farmland in Portugal and New Zealand, 22 houses in Royal Berkshire and London, and 65 stables offering horse boarding services. In a 2013 interview, Tyler stated that the farm in New Zealand had been converted to a dairy farm twelve years after they purchased the land. In the same interview she also stated that she and Sullivan also own a quarry.
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Bette Davis Eyes:
- This was originally recorded in a 1920s Jazz style by Jackie DeShannon on her 1975 album, New Arrangement. DeShannon wrote the song with the songwriter Donna Weiss. It was Donna Weiss who submitted the demo to Carnes, who along with her band and producer Val Garay, came up with the hit arrangement for the song. Kim Carnes’ version made the song a commercial success.
- According to DeShannon, she got the idea for the song after watching the 1942 Bette Davis movie Now Voyager.
- Bette Davis Eyes was the Number One Song of 1981, and the third best-selling song of the entire 1980s, behind only Physical by Olivia Newton John and Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie.
- After this song became a hit single, Bette Davis (then aged 73) wrote letters to Kim Carnes and the songwriters to say she was a fan of the song and thank them for making her "a part of modern history." One of the reasons the legendary actress loved the song is that her granddaughter thought her grandmother was "cool" for having a hit song written about her.
- Another raspy vocalist who has been compared to Rod Stewart, indeed when Bette Davis Etes was released, some thought it was Stewart singing.
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And now for something completely different . . .
The Lumberjack Song:
- The song was written by Monty Python members Terry Jones and Michael Palin along with Python associate Fred Tomlinson.
- The song starts off with the famous line, "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day." Further lyrics reveal that there is another side of the lumberjack, that he likes to dress up in women's clothing.
- From Wikipedia:
In the song, the Lumberjack recounts his daily tasks and his personal life, such as having buttered scones for tea, and the Mountie chorus repeats his lines in sing-song fashion. However, as the song continues, he increasingly reveals cross-dressing tendencies ("I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars"), which both distresses the girl and disturbs the confused Mounties, who continue to repeat and chorus his lines, albeit with increasing hesitance. The last straw comes when he mentions that he wears "high heels, suspenders, and a bra. I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear mama", and some of the Mounties stop repeating his lines, and they eventually walk off in disgust. Stunned by the Lumberjack's revelation, the girl cries out "Oh, Bevis! And I thought you were so rugged!" (in some versions, she says, "I thought you were so butch!" and sometimes slaps him) before running off. In And Now For Something Completely Different, at the end of the song the Lumberjack is pelted with rotten fruit and eggs by the Mounties, who can also be heard shouting insults. Another notable difference is that, in the original version, the Lumberjack wishes he was a girlie "just like my dear mama", whereas subsequent versions replace "mama" with "papa", implying that the lumberjack inherited his tendency for transvestism from his father.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lumberjack_Song
- At a 1976 Monty Python performance, George Harrison joined in the chorus dressed as a Mountie. Typical of Harrison, he blended in and never announced his appearance. The next night, after Harry Nilsson found out, he showed up for the role. This was a disaster, as Python member John Cleese recalls Nilsson wearing dark glasses and generally making an ass of himself. "Harry Nilsson came up and tried to take the show over, just one huge inflated ego," said Cleese. After the performance, Nilsson tried to shake hands with the crowd and fell into the audience, breaking his arm in the process.
- See and hear it by clicking on:
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