Eunoia

Use Ctrl+ to enlarge this blog page if you need to.
Nav Tools

--> Most recent Blog


Comments Policy
DSGVO
Impressum
Maths trivia
Search this site
RSS feed for Stu Savory's Blog RSS Feed


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


LP of the week
LP of the week, 9/19, Dauner & Mangelsdorff.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Eurolection results.

Sunday saw european elections being held i.a. in Germany (so we can use primary school buildings as polling places). The photos below show the plenum of the European parliament and an average candidate ;-) Most of the losers here (Germany) were from our existing national government coalition. Voters wanted the Greens (=climate change party).

The map below shows the victors in the various voting precincts, then (2014) and now. Red areas were won by the Socialists (they lost a lot), black and grey by the conservatives, blue by the far right party. The purple area (communists) has disappeared. See how the Greens took control of the cities? That's mostly the young folk pushing for better climate control.

Voters protested against their national governments by voting for the smaller parties. But luckily the far right didn't do as well as they had hoped. In the UK, the Brexit party thrashed Mrs.May's Tories but seats will be reassigned once the UK (finally?) leaves the EU (at the latest on 31/10).


Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Rain, rain, go away!

Over in her blog, Cop Car has been telling us about the flooding they are getting in Derby, Kansas; it looks like they may have to evacuate their house :-(
Follow her blog for more details.

I'd always thought of Kansas as being very flat so no slopes for any rain to rush down. In fact here is a photo of Mt. Sunflower, peak(9 inches?) of the highest point in Kansas ;-)

Here in Germany we currently have a 5B weather pattern, a low over the Chech Republic, rotating anticlockwise and so dumping torrential rain all down the middle longitudes of Germany until it all gets pushed up against the Alps and floods the south of the country. The rain also melts the remaining snow there, so even more water (over 2 meters in 24 hours!).

Down south in Bavaria, the rivers are raging and overflowing their banks and the roads are flooded knee deep. Cars are being abandoned when their engines get flooded.

But not just there, this is a market square parking lot in north-east Germany.

We've been lucky locally, with only about 4 inches of rain in the roads, most of it stayed SE of us. There are some mud-slides in a neighbouring village and some trees are down due to their roots being washed out, but not too bad. Quite drivable, albeit slowly.

The damm wall on the hillside above our properties served its purpose well :-)

So here's wishing CC and HH dryer weather and hope they don't get flooded out either!

Comments(4)
Ed (USA) asks "Did you get tornados too?" Yes, in the states of Thuringen and Bavaria (yesterday); nothing as bad as you got in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri though.
Cop Car wrote " Kansas, as you well know, is close to being a flat plane - that is tilted to the southeast. With an east/west width of 400 miles and a north/south width of 210 miles, the change in highest/lowest elevation is 3360 feet. Our water eventually flows to the mighty Mississippi River. As to the weather, none of us seems destined to escape!" We are back to sunshine now and the waters are retreating :-) But there will be surges down the longer rivers still to come, and the Danube & Inn rivers are up 7.60 meters in Passau :-(
Schorsch (D) notes "There's a NEW five-B zone working its way around the Alps. So expect heavy rain (up top 3 m!!!) friday through wednesday :-(" That'll cause even more serious flooding on north slopes since the waters are still high there (Passau may get submerged).
Cop Car wrote " The major flooding being experienced in many parts of the world make my local concerns seem puny. I've not personally witnessed major flooding since the 1950s. How do those affected by the major flooding cope? (As if they had many choices!)"


Friday, May 17, 2019

Voynich Manuscript decoded?

The Voynich manuscript, its vellum carbon-dated to the mid-15th Century, is a 240 page paperback-sized document with many illustrations and a hand-written text - written in brown, iron gall ink - is in an unknown language. The latter has made it of interest to cryptographers - amateur & professional - since its discovery in 1912.

Yale university (USA) has had a project to decipher it for years. Now Dr Gerard Cheshire, a visiting research linguist from Bristol university (UK) has made a breakthrough: the text is written in the extinct language, Proto-Romance, he claims. No capital letters, no double consonants and above all, no punctuation marks (like early bibles in this respect). The next step will to be to translate the entire manuscript and compile a lexicon of Proto-Romance words. This may take a while ;-)

So, exciting news for us amateur crypto-geeks who have bust a gut but made no progress for over a century. More background information from 2014 and recent news about Dr.Cheshire's breakthrough in yesterday's BBC news.


Sunday, May 12, 2019

CO2 Emissions

Climate change is a matter of increasing concern (or it should be, Mr. Trump).

Here in Germany we have committed to reducing our CO2 emissions by 80 - 95% from the 1990 level by 2050 and 38% from the 2005 level by 2030. That means a target level of 95-98 megatons by 2030. However, our 2018 emissions were 163 megatons from traffic alone, no change from the 1990 level :-(

So more drastic measures need to be taken to reduce our CO2 emissions.

A study shows 61% of the traffic emissions come from cars, 35% from trucks, 1.4% from national air travel (but the study ignores most flights, i.e. international flights), 1.1% from coastal and canal/river shipping (but the study ignores international shipping), 0.6% from diesel trains (but the study ignores electric trains whose CO2 is emitted elsewhere in the country's generating net) and 0.9% defined as "other".

So the goal is to reduce the CO2 emissions by cars, e.g. by shifting to electric cars. These have zero emissions locally, relocating the problem to the emissions at the power generating end. Hence we also need more zero-emission generating plant (wind-turbines, solar-power, bio-power etc). Maybe it was a mistake to close down all the nuclear plants in the country; France e.g. is increasing their nuclear generating plant.

Experiments with "platooning" of trucks (convoys) only brought a 2-3% reduction in emissions instead of the hoped-for 8-9%.

Looking at the emissions in grams of CO2 per km travelled per person, the comparison shows 201 g/km/pp for national air travel, 139 for cars, 75 for busses, 64 for subway & trams, and 36 for long-distance rail travel. So some companies are already doing business trips by train instead of flying, video-conferencing can reduce the need for travel, others use home-office to avoid the need to commute. Car-sharing hasn't made much impact yet. Proposals for lower speed-limits are still being aired in the hope to save emissions; however, given the choice car-buyers are buying more SUVs instead of smaller, lighter cars :-(

To put things in perspective, the manufacture of cement for building wordwide produces four times as much CO2 as all the flying done in the world. And just three countries (China, India, USA) produce 85% of the world's CO2 emissions. So we should focus on constraining these three, our own efforts will have only a minimal effect :-(

The real problem is over-population, but the politicians are avoiding that hot-potato. Look at all the side-effects that the noble Chinese effort (one-child policy) had - that went wrong in several ways and didn't reduce their population significantly. Plus, for every polluting coal generating-plant we close down here, the Chinese build 600 new ones :-(

The study I read claims we are headed for a 4°C temperature rise by 2100, but we need to keep it below 1.5°C. Also it did not simulate the effects of either the forthcoming crash of the Chinese economy nor the forthcoming civil war in the USA.

We are running out of ideas and will suffer the climate change as a consequence :-(

Comments(1)
Schorsch (D) jokes "Bundeskanzlerin Merkel must read your blog, because she's just raised the 2050 target to 100%." But without any suggestion of how to achieve it :-(


Wednesday, May 8, 2019

That Brand New Baby Smell

Now Prince Andrew has been pushed back to number eight in the UK line of succession, due to the birth of a son to Harry and Meghan Sussex, I am reminded of that Good Omens song about That Brand New Baby Smell ;-)

If you have not already done so, please go read "Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" by Neil Gaiman und Terry Pratchett, ISBN-13: 978-0060853983, about €7.30 in paperback. You might also like to read the Book of Revelations, their source material, just for comparison ;-)

Comments (4)
Barbara (UK) wrote "Now THAT is a very funny video you linked to - "like an English lord ... brought up Americano etc" And Neil Gaiman in it!
Encrumpled Curmudgeon (Canada) wrote "FYI as of May 31, 2019 Amazon Prime members will be able to see their new series Good Omens based on he book and Neil Gaiman was involved in creating the series. Here is a trailer." Great!
Petra (A), asking for Liz2, said "They've called him WHAT? " There is a children's comic in the USA called Archie, about red-headed boy, not the brightest ;-) ...
Brian (UK) tells us "This is the original old St.Beryl's nuns video, to which the authors were hat-tipping." From the 1960s? Peter Cook was always funny :-)


Monday, May 6, 2019

Boker Oldtimer meeting

Sunday saw the annual Oldtimer get-together in nearby Boke. About 3-400 oldtimer vehicles, mostly cars and tractors, but a few motorcycles too. Here are some of my better photos. All vehicles looked like they had just left the factory (except mine, which needed polishing, so I was banished to the second row this year).

Jaguar XJ from 1987

East German oldtimers : Wartburg(L) and Trabbi(R).

BMW Isetta bubblecar (L) and a UK rhd MG cabrio sportscar (R).

1986 luxury, a Bentley.

1967 US Cobra muscle car.

In contrast, the tiny 1956 Spatz.

Opel GT 1969.

Scurrilous Moto Guzzi Falcone-based Tipper trike from the 1950s (afaik).
Pergolator has found more details on this tipper trike.

Oldest sidecar outfit on display : Imperia 500 Sport 1935.

Diesel sidecar bike, from the 1980s afaik.

Goliath 3 wheeler fifties van, 2 cyl. 2-stroke.

BMW 1973 rallye car.

One of several inevitable Porsche 911s.

Banished to the second row, my Porsche 944, unpolished.

My 1985 Porsche 944, when polished.


Saturday, May 4, 2019

Chewbacca is dead :-(

What a sad Star Wars Day (today) we have this year :-(

Peter Mayhew, the gentle giant (7ft 3in) actor who played Chewbacca in Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), Revenge Of The Sith (2005) and The Force Awakens (2015), died earlier this week aged 74 at his home in Texas.

R.I.P Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, may the Force be with you!


Thursday, May 2, 2019

Leonardo Da Vinci Anniversary

500 years ago on this very day (changes to the calender being ignored) the Italian polymath Leonardo Da Vinci died. So there will doubtless be countless articles better than this one to commemorate the date, but we are all big fans. Probably his biggest fan of the time was Francis I of France (where he died), who shared his last breath when he (da Vinci) died.

Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention (e.g: helicopter, tank, maps and parachute), drawing, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, cartography, palaeontology, ichnology, architecture and of course being the greatest painter ever (although Raphael and Michelangelo were both active then)!

I've seen several of his works personally, including The Last Supper (now restored, in Milan, Italy), Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris (also there is The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne ), and The Vitruvian Man , seen in Venice. Magnificent! If you ever get a chance to go see the originals, do so! The queuing is worth it. Otherwise (and anyway) I recommend one of many books about him : "Leonardo da Vinci: Complete Paintings and Drawings (2015)" by Nathan and Zoellner, ISBN-13: 978-3836527019, beautifully illustrated, about 60 Euros.

Comments (1)
Ed (USA) asks "What do U mean by 'changes to the calender being ignored'?" At Leonardo's time they still used the Julian calender (made by Caesar's edict in 45 BC). The more accurate Gregorian calendar, promulgated in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, was introduced after Leonardo's death and introduced by different countries in different years. Today is 2nd May on the Gregorian calender but April 19th on the Julian calender, so the argument can be made that I posted this blog entry 13 days too early :-( Mea culpa!


Recent Writings
Eurolection results
Rain, rain, go away!
Voynich Manuscript
CO2 emissions
That New Baby Smell
Boker Oldtimer meeting
Chewbacca is dead :-(
Leonardo Da Vinci
Sammy Miller's Museum
Yamamoto downed
Limbo
Black Hole : first photo
Scarecrow Maths
The Times They Are...
POW steganography
WW2 fighter pilot code
Mueller Report, redacted
Spring has sprung :-)
Wikipedia.de strike
World Recycling Day
In sympathy with NZ
PI day stories
Oops?
Building German words
Pope's pedophile plans
We prefer to pay cash

Blogroll
Ain Bulldog Blog
All hat no cattle
Badtux...
Balloon Juice
Cop Car
Curmudgeonly...
Earth-Bound Misfit
Fail Blog
Finding life hard?
Greg Laden
Hackwhackers
Hullabaloo
Infidel753
Mockpaperscissors
Mostly Cajun
Observing Hermann
Pergelator
Starts with a Bang
Yellowdog Grannie

Archive 2019:
Jan Feb Mar Apr
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 : 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 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



Index/Home Impressum Sitemap Search site/www