Eunoia

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About
Stu Savory ;-) School report for Stu Savory
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 :-)


Some of my bikes


My Crypto Pages


My Maths Pages



Friday, August 28, 2020

Old Oak Down :-(

There aren't as many oak trees as there used to be, e.g. back in Robin Hood's day. And now there's one less in our valley. When tuesday's storm came through with its 70mph winds and gusts even stronger - admittedly not as bad as Louisiana (USA) got on thursday - it took down the ancient decrepit oak in a neighbouring village. When I went by - walking the dog - on friday the fire dept and forestry commission had all but cleared it away.

But I believe every generation should share in our oaken heritage, so I picked up three acorns they had missed and am planning on planting them locally.

I shall plant one on the south side of the children's playground so a future generation will have some shade there. Another will go behind the southwest stand of the village football ground, for the same reason. The third will spend some shade for the bench in the graveyard. I don't expect to see any of this in my few remaining years, I'm just passing a tradition forward. Who knows if the children's playground, the village football ground, or even the graveyard will be in the same place in the 200 years it takes for an oak to grow to maturity?

It is our duty to look after the world we live in for a few short decades, and preserve it.

"Large streams from little fountains flow, from little acorns mighty oaks do grow."

Comments (3)
Cop Car (USA) wrote " The only oak tree on our property is one that I transplanted from a squirrel's placement about 15 years ago. It is about 24" tall with fewer than one dozen leaves on it. Since moving into this house I have become less enamored of oak trees because there are at least three kinds of oak leaves that blow into our yard for me to rake. As you know, raking oak leaves is a lifetime endeavor. The three large pin oaks a couple of doors up and across the street from us sheds leaves, seemingly, all year. I would have sworn that the pin oak we once had at another house shed only for a couple of weeks in the spring when the new leaves pushed the old off. (The oldest trees in our own woods are black walnut trees.)" We have no oak on my property, but we do have a Linden tree/lime tree (Tilia oliveri) which sheds petals in incredible amounts. Forever raking :-(
Jenny (Ibiza) asks "Where does that poetry line come from?" Dunno. But there is a similar line in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde", dating from 1374. Other authors used it later.
Schorsch (D) asks "How old was that oak?" I counted no rings, but I'd guess about 500 years. There's a 1000 year oak in another nearby village, Helmern, it's huge but squat. FWIW, the average German oak tree is just 105 years old according to the forestry commission statistics.


Sunday, August 23, 2020

Sex in the age of Corona

As you may or may not know, prostitution is legal here in Germany despite there being an excessive number of Catholics here. But then, Jesus liked hanging around with prostitutes, we are told, thus setting a precedent ;-)

So when the first wave of Coronavirus hit us earlier in the year, one of the government's knee-jerk reactions was to have a nation-wide lockdown, including shutting down all the brothels. Enthusiastic but misguided amateurs may have not followed the shutdown, but the numbers were small.

Of coarse (sic!), prostitutes - both female and male(gay) - complained loudly and often about their lack of income. So an inter-state committee of civil servants came to produce a discussion paper explaining how brothels could be reopened in two steps.

Step 1: sexual services without actual coitus, clarified as no exchange of bodily fluids. Maximum of two people allowed. So erotic massages, bondage and similar are permitted. Berlin state has permitted step one already last week. Just how innocent are these civil servants who think there will be a demand for massages without a happy end??

Step 2: Starting on September 1st, commercial sex shall be permitted again, "for at most two persons at the same time". Note the loophole for serial gangbangers! Other restrictions are that customer and whore are to maintain a minimum separation of 1.5 meters except during the act of coitus itself, masks (not gimp, but standard DIN EN 14683 compliant) are to be worn, no shaking hands or embracing, nothing face to face. Note the loophole for 69ers and glory holes. Really, I just translated to committee's rules!!! Furthermore, sex only by appointment, to avoid queues in the brothel waiting room. Before intercourse, the socalled service-rooms must be ventilated by fully opening the windows for at least 15 minutes, then sprayed with anti-viral disinfectant. See that being done, come winter!

Oh, and the silly notices displaying existing rules in the brothel bathrooms will need to be expanded, also in Braille for the blind, according to the civil servants :-

But not all cities are following the committee's re-opening suggestions. Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Heilbronn are keeping their brothels closed. But the attempt by 16 hypocritical politicians to close all brothels permanently has been avoided. Their spokesman claimed to be disappointed and said the rules are just an alibi. Presumably he/they will need to perform on-site inspections to see that the rules are being followed???? ;-)

Gimme an F....

Comments (1)
Finding life hard? wrote " It was one of my concerns when lockdown started here that the majority of sex workers would suffer as they only get money if they have clients. Fortunately the Homeless Nurse was also on the case and I believe the women were able to get the food parcels at least." Here they'd be able to get dole money upon application afaik. Different countries, different rules. Here it's a recognised profession.


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The 3rd A-bomb for Japan

Most of my readers will know that the USA dropped two A-Bombs on Japan, onto Hiroshima on August 6th and onto Nagasaki on August 9th. Not many will know of the planned 3rd A-Bomb for Japan. After the Hiroshima bombing (Little Boy, 15 kilotons), opinion was still divided 50:50 among the Japanese cabinet about whether to surrender. The military still wanted to fight to the end, sacrificing millions of lives on both sides. Indeed, the military opined that the USA had only had the one bomb (Little Boy, 15 kilotons) and could/would not attack further.

The Japanese rejected the USA's demand for an unconditional surrender, wanting guarantees that the Emperor/Tenno (Hirohito) would remain supreme ruler. The USA in turn rejected the Japanese demand in accordance with the Potsdam agreement reached a short while previously. A standoff ensued. So on August 9th the USA dropped their second A-bomb onto Nagasaki (Fat Man, 21 kilotons).

And still the Japanese could not reach agreement for an unconditional surrender. So the Prime Minister turned the decision over to the Emperor, who made a broadcast to his people (and to the listening Allies) that Japan would surrender unconditionally on August 15th (Japanese time zone), which became known as VJ-day in Europe. The USA celebrates VJ-day on September 2, 1945, when the official surrender document was signed aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

After the Nagasaki bombing, Japan not having surrendered immediately, planning went ahead to drop a third A-Bomb on Japan (another Fat Man type). The date planned for this 3rd bombing was 75 years ago today, August 19th, 1945. Top-level discussions were made about the target to be chosen. One faction wanted to bomb Tokio, centering on the Emperor's palace and/or nearby government buildings. The other contingent rejected this suggestion, arguing that there would then be nobody left there to make the surrender!

Finally the target chosen was Kukura, the originally planned target before bad weather diverted the first bomber. Detailled planning with all navigation details for the bomb run already existed and so no new work was needed. In the meantime, Hirohito's broadcast had taken place on August 15th, rendering this planning superfluous and indeed the third A-bomb, already kitted up and ready to be flown to Tinian Island, never left Los Alamos, although two B-29s were waiting in Utah to take it to Tinian.

Want yet more details? Then I suggest you watch Mark Felton's excellent video with lots of contemporary B&W movie shots.

Comments (1)
Peter (UK) wrote " pocatom recently released this item whether officially or not.. Test of a clean hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons. " That's a 40 minute video, Peter, and completely in Russian. My Russian is too rusty too understand all of it, so TL;DR.


Sunday, August 16, 2020

Taking the Mick

In the previous comments Jenny asked for a more cheerful historical blog, so here's one, Benny Hill taking the "Mick" out of Jagger and the Rolling Stones. As always, Benny Hill's lyrics are full of innuendo and so so funny.
Historical? Well it is straight out of the sixties, so more like hysterical ;-)

And for those of you (younger?) post-modern sufferers stuck in a corrupt third world country like Trumpistan, here's a modernised version of the 60's hit Wimoweh :-


Thursday, August 13, 2020

The day they built the wall

Not Trump's wall, he hasn't managed to build that. The Berlin Wall.

On this day in 1961, August 13th, communist East Germany started building the Berlin Wall. They alleged it was to keep the Fascists (who had been defeated in 1945, btw) out of East Germany. But actually it was erected to keep their own people from defecting to the West. The communists went on to erect the Iron Curtain, a lethal barrier between East and West Germany, for the same reason. I blogged about the Iron Curtain Museum at Schifflersgrund last year, and on a visit there in may of 2016.

The top photo shows the first concrete Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961.

The bottom photo displayed shows the last people to escape (through the previous simple wire fence on August 12, 1961. From East to West obviously.

Out of an estimated number of about 5,000 escapees, a total of 239 people died while trying to cross the Berlin Wall. Murdered by East German border guards :-(

Comments (1)
Jenny (Ibiza) complains "Your history blogs are so depressing, haven't you got any cheerful ones?" I'll try to find one to put up next, lass :-)


Thursday, August 6, 2020

Nukes´ 75th anniversary

Seventyfive years ago today, an american B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped a 15 kiloton nuke called Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, another american B-29 Superfortress named Bockscar dropped a different type of 21 kiloton nuke (called Fat Man) on Nagasaki. These first bombs were about 10 feet long and weighed around 10,000 lbs, which is why they needed a big bomber to carry them. Nowadays a suitcase/backpack is big enough.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a four-radial-engine propeller-driven heavy (54 ton) bomber, 190 knot, 3000+ mile range. The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $43 billion today, far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project (to build the A-bombs) , made the B-29 program the most expensive of WW2. It was built just 41 years after the Wright brothers first powered flight at Kittyhawk. That's some progress!

Orville expressed sadness in an interview years later about the death and destruction brought about by the bombers of World War II: he said "We dared to hope we had invented something that would bring lasting peace to the earth. But we were wrong ... No, I don't have any regrets about my part in the invention of the airplane, though no one could deplore more than I do the destruction it has caused. I feel about the airplane much the same as I do in regard to fire. That is, I regret all the terrible damage caused by fire, but I think it is good for the human race that someone discovered how to start fires and that we have learned how to put fire to thousands of important uses."

Enough about the airplanes, YouTube has a video wherein "Dutch" Van Kirk, the last surviving crew member (the navigator) of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima reminisces for about 7 minutes. Go watch it.

Lest we forget the Hibakusha!


Sunday, August 2, 2020

Cov-idiot Karens :-(

During my trip to the supermarket yesterday I met four Cov-idiots. These are really stupid people who either never had any training about general hygiene or are unable to string two thoughts together about the consequences of their actions. Either way, they pissed me off so I berated them and even had to explain why what they were doing was stupid, because we are all in the middle of a pandemic, a word they didn't know :-( Common to them all was a sense of entitlement, what they were doing was OK, it was what they always did, hence I'll call them all Karen.
Let me tell you the tale...

The first was a short, fat, woman with her mask on (good!), but upside down and inside out ! So busy-body me pointed this out gently and explained there was lipstick on the outside of her mask and because it was upside down it didn't cover her nose. I was furiously and loudly told that if she wore it the other way up, she couldn't breathe. And she turned it inside out so she only had to wash it every other day! I said I thought that was selfish, the purpose of the mask was to prevent any spittle and exhaled air from her reaching other people AND so she didn't have to inhale any of their excreta. Politely, I didn't mention that if she lost about 30 kg she'd be able to breathe better ;-)

Next up was a thin haggard little man, obviously a smoker. Yes, he wore a mask (which is compulsory here in shops), but he'd cut a hole in it so he could smoke his cigarette while wearing the mask! Jesus wept! So I explained again why we need to wear mask, but was told to f*ck off, he'd do what he wanted :-( I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall, to these entitled pricks!

I told them how far the spray goes when they sneeze or cough (see photo on the left below), hence the need for 2 meters social distancing, let alone that the smoker's incessant cough sprayed over anything and everything within twice the distance! I was again told to f*ck off and leave him alone.

The US statistic shown on the right below, I didn't even get to mention:-(

As you enter the supermarket there is (free!) antiviral spray available and you are asked to wipe your hands with it. Neither of the two persons ahead of me did so and this is relevant to the next two anecdotes, below.

At the fruit stand was another Covidiot - with unwashed hands - picking up the fruits and pressing them to test for ripeness before putting them back on the stand before trying some others! As civilly as possible I said that this was unhygienic and likely to spread the virus if she had it. Besides which, if a previous shopper had done this too, she could well catch the virus herself! At least she understood the latter was dangerous to her and desisted :-)

Around the corner at the magazine rack was the other Covidiot - again with unwashed hands - flicking through magazines while licking her fingers behind her mask to better be able to turn individual pages before putting the magazines back before picking up the next one and repeating her filthy procedure! I repeated the argument I'd told the fruit-fingerer, but to no avail. These people just don't understand what a pandemic implies, let alone basic hygiene, and think they only have to wear (an inconvenient) mask to shop at all and then they're OK. Jesus wept!

Finally, a couple of further points in the articles copied below. On the left, a reminder that the virus is still with us, indeed now entering a second wave thanks to the returning vacationers who ignored restrictions abroad and brought more Corona back with them :-(

The box on the right is a quotation from Samual Pepys´ diary during the great plague of 1665. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose :-(

Comments (3)
Cop Car asked " It eases my mind to know that I don't live in the only soup pot of COVIDIOTS. I'm careful about not shopping when/where there are as many people as you seem to see in a single foray. I don't like sharing the aisles with more than two or three other shoppers. There are always more store employees than shoppers when I go; but, the employees are nearly never an issue. (An exception was in a medical office where a young woman slid her mask down under her chin while there were no patients at her kiosk. She then proceeded to blow a raspberry over something a co-worker told her!) Question: How do you keep your mask from leaking through your facial hair? I've seen a few men who seemed not to give a thought to actually having a tight fit around the mask. I don't want to get close enough to them to ask questions." Look at my photo on the left sidebar. I have shortened my beard seriously and grown a handlebar mustache (when there were no barbers) which squashes down inside the mask. See photo here. Most leakage is at the top, over my cheekbones, fogging my glasses. No leakage below.
Paul (D) tells me . . .


Jenny (Ibiza) quips "After seeing how some covidiots don masks I now understand how contraception sometimes fails!" For generation after generation.


Link to the previous month's blog.
Recent Writings
Old Oak Down :-(
Sex during Corona
3rd A-bomb for Japan
Taking the Mick
Berlin Wall day
Nukes´ 75th anniversary
Cov-idiot Karens :-(
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

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Billions of Versions...
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Hackwhackers
Infidel753
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Mostly Cajun
Observing Hermann
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Starts with a Bang
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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 ;-)
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