I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

Gloomtastic!

Nevaeh Shaggy Destroyer wrote: »

Seems small beside Queen Elizabeth II who is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has 553 million acres.

According to https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.lovemoney.com/galleries/amp/70168/revealed-the-worlds-biggest-private-landowners

She’s only got 146,000 hectares. Poor lass.

New Home

She must have the mother of all ride-on lawnmowers! I wonder where she finds the time to do anything else...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

New Home wrote: »

She must have the mother of all ride-on lawnmowers! I wonder where she finds the time to do anything else...

She needed room for a pony.

New Home

And a swimming pool? :pac: But... her husband's name isn't even Bruce, Srameen, come on!

Carry

On another note, far away from mowing the grass on acres and acres of property , I came across an interesting study about brain activity.

It says - in short - that after death, that is when the heart stops beating and all organs are defunct, the brain is still active for 10 minutes and 38 seconds.
Basically electricity, or neurons, are still firing away in the brain in a certain wave pattern.

What that exactly does to a dead person is unclear. Is that the moment when your life is passing by in your brain? Is that a state like in dreams when everything is wildly unlogical? The study doesn't explain and probably nobody will ever know until they are dead.

The idea is a bit frightening. You are dead, are you aware of it? What is going on in your brain? Does it involve conscious thinking? Or just wild images out of the depth of memory? Or just colourful flashes of something?

Well, maybe you all knew that, I didn't.


When I had to put my dog down I petted her head for the last time after the vet gave her the injection and she was finally still. At my touch she shivered and exhaled three times. I told the vet that she is still alive but he said that this is only the last electricity going out. I was seriously spooked.

Fourier

FBI just released its file on Bigfoot:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a27758091/fbi-bigfoot-file/?fbclid=IwAR2Nl01zMQZ_N0ZYfbRyXstnTOd-jesQA_lFWsjMZz46Gf5-j4cV2agPRiQ

Squall Leonhart

Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve was one of the biggest hits of the 90s (1997), and frontman and songwriter Richard Ashcroft didn't earn a penny from it (though one could argue the huge popularity sold albums and concert tickets).

It sampled some music by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, their orchestral cover of "The Last Time" by The Rolling Stones. The Verve had negotiated rights to use the sample from Decca records, part owner of the copyright. The other part owner was Allen Klein, former Rolling Stones manager. After the single was released, Klein took a lawsuit against The Verve.

As a result, songwriting credits were changed from Ashcroft to Jagger/Richards, who received 100% of royalties.

Story has a delayed but happy ending. In April 2019 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards relinquished their songwriting credit, and it is now solely credited to Richard Ashcroft!

ohnonotgmail

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve was one of the biggest hits of the 90s (1997), and frontman and songwriter Richard Ashcroft didn't earn a penny from it (though one could argue the huge popularity sold albums and concert tickets).

It sampled some music by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, their orchestral cover of "The Last Time" by The Rolling Stones. The Verve had negotiated rights to use the sample from Decca records, part owner of the copyright. The other part owner was Allen Klein, former Rolling Stones manager. After the single was released, Klein took a lawsuit against The Verve.

As a result, songwriting credits were changed from Ashcroft to Jagger/Richards, who received 100% of royalties.

Story has a delayed but happy ending. In April 2019 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards relinquished their songwriting credit, and it is now solely credited to Richard Ashcroft!

A story associated with that is that the band asked the stones manager how they wanted to divide up the royalties. "50/50" he said. the band thought this was quite reasonable until the stones manager added "50 for Mick and 50 for Keith"

Squall Leonhart

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

A story associated with that is that the band asked the stones manager how they wanted to divide up the royalties. "50/50" he said. the band thought this was quite reasonable until the stones manager added "50 for Mick and 50 for Keith"

And if you have heard the Stones original it was downright theft for them to accept royalties for the song. Oldham probably had a legit claim for something, but to be fair to The Verve, they had a deal with Decca, its not like they plagiarised anything.

ohnonotgmail

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

And if you have heard the Stones original it was downright theft for them to accept royalties for the song. Oldham probably had a legit claim for something, but to be fair to The Verve, they had a deal with Decca, its not like they plagiarised anything.

neither mick nor keith had any hand in the writing of that particular piece of music. they did own the royalties for it though.

Sleepy

Relinquishing the royalties doesn't mean they've handed back the royalty cheques they've received to-date though.

And the future value of the royalties would surely be a fraction of what they've earned over the past 22 years. The radio-play royalties for the song between '97 & '99 alone would have been worth a fortune.

mzungu

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

A story associated with that is that the band asked the stones manager how they wanted to divide up the royalties. "50/50" he said. the band thought this was quite reasonable until the stones manager added "50 for Mick and 50 for Keith"

Following the out of court settlement that forced him to relinquish the song’s royalties Ashcroft quipped: “This is the best song Jagger and Richards have written in 20 years.” :pac::pac::pac:

lan

Coal was formed hundreds of millions of years ago by the compression of dead plants and trees. That was only possible though because the bacteria that decomposes trees hadn’t evolved yet.

Trees died, fell over and just stayed there, not rotting. Eventually they’d get crushed under the weight of more and more dead trees, forming peat and coal.

So, now that bacteria have evolved that can break down wood, no more coal will ever form on earth (well, not unless all wood eating bacteria somehow goes extinct).

Source

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01/07/the-fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth/

runawaybishop

Sleepy wrote: »

Relinquishing the royalties doesn't mean they've handed back the royalty cheques they've received to-date though.

And the future value of the royalties would surely be a fraction of what they've earned over the past 22 years. The radio-play royalties for the song between '97 & '99 alone would have been worth a fortune.

They also handed back the royalties earned already afaik.

ohnonotgmail

Some of you may have heard of the Battleship Potemkin. It was a battleship of the russian navy that mutinied in 1905. Some see it as a precursor to the russian revolution. The last survivor of the mutiny died in 1987 aged 104. In dublin. His name was Ivan Beshoff and he started the chip shops of the same name.

LostinBlanch

I think he had a chip on his shoulder.

LostinBlanch

Speaking of chips, did you know that most of the families that set up the chippers in Dublin came from the same region in Italy?

lan

After Beethoven went deaf, he was still able to hear himself play piano by using bone conduction.

He would bite down on a metal rod connected to his piano, and the sound would vibrate through his jaw into his ear, allowing him to hear it.

Some hearing aides use the same concept. You can also get underwater headphones that do too.

Paddy Cow

Although extremely rare, it's possible for a person to have two sets of DNA. It happens when a pregnancy starts out as fraternal twins and one absorbs the other!

There was a case in America where a woman separated from her husband and applied for welfare. You have to have a DNA test and while it proved paternity, it showed that she was not the mother. She was arrested for fraud and had her two kids removed. She gave birth to a third child and tests also showed she wasn't the mother. Someone suggested chimerism and tests on her mother proved it. Turns out that DNA taken from some parts of her body matched her kids but others didn't. Lydia Fairchild.

New Home

^^^
IIRC, they are called "Chimeras".

Conchir

On this day, 3rd July 1940, the Royal Navy attacked French ships in their base in French Algeria. The armistice between France and Germany had come into effect a few days before, and the British were wary of the French ships coming under Nazi control. The French fleet included four battleships and five destroyers, while the Royal Navy force included the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

One French battleship was sunk and other ships badly damaged, and nearly 1300 French sailors were killed, for the loss of two British, killed when their fighter/bomber plane was shot down.

Chancer3001

Conchir wrote: »

On this day, 3rd July 1940, the Royal Navy attacked French ships in their base in French Algeria. The armistice between France and Germany had come into effect a few days before, and the British were wary of the French ships coming under Nazi control. The French fleet included four battleships and five destroyers, while the Royal Navy force included the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

One French battleship was sunk and other ships badly damaged, and nearly 1300 French sailors were killed, for the loss of two British, killed when their fighter/bomber plane was shot down.

would the 1300 french just not have surrendered?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Chancer3001 wrote: »

would the 1300 french just not have surrendered?

The ships would have to be sunk to prevent Germany from using them.

Chancer3001

easy to sink a ship.

No need to kill 1300 at the same time

ohnonotgmail

Chancer3001 wrote: »

easy to sink a ship.

No need to kill 1300 at the same time

The french would never have surrendered them.

ohnonotgmail

I'd heard of a full rainbow before but i've never seen one until now. Of course it leads to the question of where the pot of gold would be.

https://twitter.com/NaturelsLit/status/1145534479345152000/video/1

Realt Dearg Sec

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Chancer3001 wrote: »

easy to sink a ship.

No need to kill 1300 at the same time

The french would never have surrendered them.

You'll understand if we find that difficult to believe

ohnonotgmail

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

You'll understand if we find that difficult to believe

why, does your opinion of the french military go no further than cheese eating surrender monkeys?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Chancer3001 wrote: »

easy to sink a ship.

No need to kill 1300 at the same time

The 1300 were aboard the ship.

I doubt the British were going to radio ahead and request that all the French on board should disembark as the British coming in 3 or 4 hours to sink all their ships?

Realt Dearg Sec

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

You'll understand if we find that difficult to believe

why, does your opinion of the french military go no further than cheese eating surrender monkeys?

It was just a joke

Skylinehead

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

It was just a joke

It's a stupid, overdone, inaccurate joke though.

Say my name

lan wrote: »

Coal was formed hundreds of millions of years ago by the compression of dead plants and trees. That was only possible though because the bacteria that decomposes trees hadn’t evolved yet.

Trees died, fell over and just stayed there, not rotting. Eventually they’d get crushed under the weight of more and more dead trees, forming peat and coal.

So, now that bacteria have evolved that can break down wood, no more coal will ever form on earth (well, not unless all wood eating bacteria somehow goes extinct).

Source

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01/07/the-fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth/

Makes you wonder where those trees got their nutrients from?

They must have been self nitrogen fixers from the air.
And it must have occurred only in swamps. Try growing a tree on a pile of dead trunks that won't rot on a dry piece of ground and you'll get no tree I'll bet.

Say my name

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

The 1300 were aboard the ship.

I doubt the British were going to radio ahead and request that all the French on board should disembark as the British coming in 3 or 4 hours to sink all their ships?

Is it better to die from a British bomb or a German bullet?

(That's a rhetorical question btw in case anyone wonders).
But that'd be the choice (when the british decided those ships had to be sunk).

Realt Dearg Sec

Skylinehead wrote: »

It's a stupid, overdone, inaccurate joke though.

The fact that it's overdone was part of the logic of the joke. I was going for irony. Obviously it didn't work.

Capt'n Midnight

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

The ships would have to be sunk to prevent Germany from using them.

The French fleet were sitting ducks. Thanks to earlier arms limitation treaties two of the French Battleships only had main guns at the front and so could not fire back effectively. (The Royal Navy had some battleships like that too)


It was another Churchill special. Probably to show the US that the UK were serious about the whole war thing.

When the Germans came to impound the Vichy Fleet on 7 November 1942 the French sank them first.

fortwilliam

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

Bittersweet Symphony

while its a bit of a stretch, there is a traditional Lithuanian folk dance with some (slight) remnants of the strings:

Realt Dearg Sec

There have been 26 candidates in the current Democratic primary campaign. This far exceeds the previous record for a primary, set in 2016 by the Republicans, where 17 ran. The Democrats record was 16, set in the 1972 election and equaled 4 years later.

The number is so high that the DNC have instituted a host of qualification rules to take a place in televised debates, requiring candidates to have achieved particular numbers in the polls as well as numbers of individual donors. Those numbers will increase over the next few months, probably (and from DNC's perspective, hopefully) forcing more withdrawals from the race before the primaries even begin. Such polling rules have been in place before, but the emphasis on numbers of individual donors is new, and reflects a (to some extent decorative) shift in the party's emphasis in fundraising towards the importance of small individual donors over reliance on big campaign spending by corporations and lobbyists.

This reflects the fact that small donor numbers are increasingly correlated to success for Democrats in state and national elections. That correlation is way more important in Democratic victories and is not replicated for the most part among Republicans. One posited reason for this is that people who vote Republican tend to share the Outlook of big business donors, and so don't feel any need to contribute to campaigns to try to leverage candidates that might resist business-led agendas.

lan

Say my name wrote: »

Makes you wonder where those trees got their nutrients from?

They must have been self nitrogen fixers from the air.
And it must have occurred only in swamps. Try growing a tree on a pile of dead trunks that won't rot on a dry piece of ground and you'll get no tree I'll bet.

Yes, swampy wetlands seemingly, if you’ll take Wikipedia as a source, anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_forest

bnt

Following on from the discussions of Pi and Taylor series: you can do animations using Fourier series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qgreAUpPwM

New Home

https://i.imgur.com/PDmAYZj.jpg

Capt'n Midnight

^^^^



and it lags western tech by a generation , London's been CCTV'd out the wazoo for years

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

^^^^



and it lags western tech by a generation , London's been CCTV'd out the wazoo for years

Explain this to me a little better please

New Home

CCTV cameras identify each individual they capture, and their "rating" appears beside them. Yes, terrifying.

Ted_YNWA

Ratings based on what criteria?

New Home

See the table I posted earlier.

Realt Dearg Sec

I used to teach a class on dystopias and, when teaching 1984 it was interesting to note that it is a novel about the exercise of power for its own sake. The terror of it was not actually dependent on the technology, but the technology in it does intensify the sense of powerlessness and inescapability that pervades the novel.

But as readers now, we can only regard the technology in it as impossibly quaint; we have utterly overtaken what was once a very futuristic vision. And more remarkably, where everything is imposed from above in the novel, we line up to spend huge amounts of our money on these technologies.

I think the Chinese social credit system is so terrifying to us because it reinstitutes that sense of powerlessness so bluntly, in contrast to how technology has been relentlessly marketed to us over the last thirty years as a mode of self empowerment. But the level of detailed social control it enables is far beyond anything Orwell describes, excepting that it incentivises as well as punishes.

But, as any Black Mirror fan will tell you, we don't need the state to impose such systems on us; we embrace a social media ecosystem that encourages exactly that kind of conformity through nothing more complicated than a like button. Affirmation=winning. I have a sinking feeling that a system like the Chinese one would ultimately prove very popular here.

Wibbs

+1000 R. What Orwell missed was that people would happily line up in their droves to ask for Big Brother.

Though I'm not so sure the Chinese system will go over nearly so easily in the West, at least to that degree. Chinese culture from Confucius onward has and continues to see and elevate social compliance as a virtue. From the family to the culture to the centralised state. Even in naming order the family name comes first. In contrast to western thought individualism is barely present in the culture. It's seen as a negative. I'm not too surprised they went along with even supported this TBH.

mikhail

New Home wrote: »

CCTV cameras identify each individual they capture, and their "rating" appears beside them. Yes, terrifying.

New Home wrote: »

See the table I posted earlier.

I can read some Chinese. That's not what that picture shows. The tags are things like adult man, grey clothes, black trousers.

Professor Moriarty

New Home wrote: »

https://i.imgur.com/PDmAYZj.jpg

I've seen worse totalitarian systems.

RiderOnTheStorm

Laurie Metcalf played Jackie Harris in tv show Rossanne. In a couple of episodes (in flashback) a younger Jackie was played by Lauries real life daughter, Zoe Perry. Years later Laurie played Mary Cooper in Big Bang Theory..... And Zoe played Mary in Young Sheldon. Daughter played younger version of mother .... twice!