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Showing posts with label Something Else Surprising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Something Else Surprising. Show all posts
Friday, 26 July 2013
Something Surprising is back
After a break of a couple of weeks, a regular feed of posts will restart later this evening.
Thanks for continuing to follow.
Thanks for continuing to follow.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
St George's day cometh
In a local competition the villagers are invited to compete. Who can build the best dragon?
This one is quite spectacular! I wonder how many traffic accidents have been caused by this brilliant edifice.
 |
| Thank goodness for St George! Dragon in West Hagbourne, Oxon. |
This one is quite spectacular! I wonder how many traffic accidents have been caused by this brilliant edifice.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Surprising Parisienne souvenirs
A six-day trip to Paris got off to a bad start, while trying to negotiate the ticket barrier at the station with luggage. The advice is to push your luggage ahead of you. The gates close immediately behind you, trapping the luggage very effectively - almost irredeemably!
What they don't warn you about (and I should have thought about) is that if the luggage that you are pushing hits something and stops, you end up tumbling to the floor, and in my case putting out my right hand to arrest my fall.
Net result - a visit to hospital and a souvenir from Paris that I didn't expect.
Nothing was broken, just bruised and somewhat 'pénible' - or at least that is what I think they told me, and they were right and still are.
Only one word was spoken in English during the visit to the hospital, and that one didn't help. The experience tested my French language skills to close to the limit.
I can even claim to have enjoyed it!
Typing was a bit slower than usual for a day or two. Over the next few days a few more Parisienne delights will appear . . . probably interspersed between other things.
Small note: Now waiting for the bill to arrive in the post!
What they don't warn you about (and I should have thought about) is that if the luggage that you are pushing hits something and stops, you end up tumbling to the floor, and in my case putting out my right hand to arrest my fall.
Net result - a visit to hospital and a souvenir from Paris that I didn't expect.
 |
| An X-ray of the author's right hand, from two angles! |
Nothing was broken, just bruised and somewhat 'pénible' - or at least that is what I think they told me, and they were right and still are.
Only one word was spoken in English during the visit to the hospital, and that one didn't help. The experience tested my French language skills to close to the limit.
I can even claim to have enjoyed it!
Typing was a bit slower than usual for a day or two. Over the next few days a few more Parisienne delights will appear . . . probably interspersed between other things.
Small note: Now waiting for the bill to arrive in the post!
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Sunday Selection 3
Continuing a new series where there is little
additional content from me, but I simply share a few items, new and old, that have
pleased me this week. As
almost every week, I see items on the web that I find interesting,
amazing or or amusing. This disjointed ramble might be on any of my normal topics - or on
other topics entirely. My thanks go to the friends who helped me to
find them.
First: This truly amazing video shows how the Curiosity rover is going to land on Mars next month - we hope!
Next: The toughest life on earth - the surprising survival of some lichens which have been deliberately kept on the outside of the International Space Station in the vacuum of space, bathed in solar radiation for 18 months - and still alive!
Favorite word of the week: Pronoia - the opposite of paranoia - the belief that there is a conspiracy to help you! It has another historical meaning relating to the granting of state money to individuals.
Podcast of the week: George Hrab's Geologic podcast. George's monologues are sometimes more interesting than other times. Episode 267 started with a long and entirely justified assassination of the plot of the movie Prometheus. Having seen it this afternoon I think George was being surprisingly generous in his criticism. I think it had the most staggeringly pathetic and incoherent plot line and it is a strong candidate to count as the worst film I have ever seen in my life! Nice graphics I suppose - as long as physics doesn't come into it.
Twitter: #prometheusboo is the hashtag of the week.
Atheist article of the week: Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology, an interesting article from wired.com. Good for them!
Life science of the week: The mystery about the spike in carbon-14, observed in tree rings dating from the years 774 and 775. Nobody knows what caused it but the event can be observed world-wide by dendrochronologists.
And finally . . .
Favourite places: When you see a red light on a building in Japan, it doesn't mean the same as it does in Europe.
Your comments and preferences will help me to decide whether this is a good idea or not.
First: This truly amazing video shows how the Curiosity rover is going to land on Mars next month - we hope!
Next: The toughest life on earth - the surprising survival of some lichens which have been deliberately kept on the outside of the International Space Station in the vacuum of space, bathed in solar radiation for 18 months - and still alive!
Favorite word of the week: Pronoia - the opposite of paranoia - the belief that there is a conspiracy to help you! It has another historical meaning relating to the granting of state money to individuals.
Podcast of the week: George Hrab's Geologic podcast. George's monologues are sometimes more interesting than other times. Episode 267 started with a long and entirely justified assassination of the plot of the movie Prometheus. Having seen it this afternoon I think George was being surprisingly generous in his criticism. I think it had the most staggeringly pathetic and incoherent plot line and it is a strong candidate to count as the worst film I have ever seen in my life! Nice graphics I suppose - as long as physics doesn't come into it.
Twitter: #prometheusboo is the hashtag of the week.
Atheist article of the week: Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology, an interesting article from wired.com. Good for them!
Life science of the week: The mystery about the spike in carbon-14, observed in tree rings dating from the years 774 and 775. Nobody knows what caused it but the event can be observed world-wide by dendrochronologists.
And finally . . .
Favourite places: When you see a red light on a building in Japan, it doesn't mean the same as it does in Europe.
 |
| Japanese police station - not the red light district! |
Your comments and preferences will help me to decide whether this is a good idea or not.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Ironic - and her sister ships
I predict a sudden surge in stories about the loss of the ship RMS Titanic. I don't use any special powers to make that prediction, since we are approaching the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
I happen to know a few surprising things about that magnificent vessel which need not have been lost so tragically. I hope you might be able to use them during the next week or two.
However, I should say that I don't presume to judge the actions of her captain. I remember a few years ago that members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers spent several months being 'wise' in letters to the magazine Professional Engineering, about what ought to have been done to save Titanic. Their comments seemed plausible until a Royal Navy Commander wrote in and put them right on a number of topics relating the the practical day-to-day wisdom of operation of big multi-screw ships. I found that to be a salutary lesson for a young engineer. Professional engineers should be revered when they are talking about their own speciality, but treated with suspicion when they stray to other areas. Indeed they ought to know better than to express an opinion if they do not know it to be accurate or valuable. I noticed that the letters on that topic dried up rather quickly.
Regarding Titanic's Captain though, Edward J Smith was a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. This meant that he had the right to fly the Blue Ensign on ships that he commanded, rather than the normal Red Ensign. The owners of the White Star Line were, no doubt, aware of the marketing value of such a gesture. It would make their ships appear safer than those of rival companies. How Ironic! (Although Ironic was NOT a sister ship of Titanic!)
You might not realise it, but the Titanic was not actually unique. She had two sister ships. Olympic, launched June 1911, had been in service for months at the time of the Titanic disaster. She was also crossing the Atlantic at the time, in the opposite direction and too far away to come to help. Britannic was still being built (and it was planned that she would be called Gigantic, but the marketing wisdom of the shipping line did not fail them in this case). She was the only one of the three not to be captained by Smith.
Of the three ships only Olympic survived for long, being scrapped in the mid 1930s. Soon after Titanic's sinking the First World War began, and Britannic was converted into a hospital ship. In slightly suspicious circumstances she was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, either by a mine or by a torpedo from a German U-boat. The wreck has been extensively studied and controversy rages to this day. Whether it was a war crime or not is somewhat academic now, but people still argue about it.
Olympic's early career was not unblemished either. Just 3 months after her 1911 launch she collided with HMS Hawke near Southampton, UK. Her Captain's reputation seems not to have been badly damaged. Edward J Smith's next command was . . . Titanic.
Three unlucky ships share one other remarkable coincidence. Violet Jessop was on Olympic at the time of the collision, then as a stewardess survived the sinking of Titanic. Just a couple of years later she was then unlucky enough to be on Britannic at just the wrong moment.
The realisation of what was happening again must have given her a sinking feeling.
I happen to know a few surprising things about that magnificent vessel which need not have been lost so tragically. I hope you might be able to use them during the next week or two.
However, I should say that I don't presume to judge the actions of her captain. I remember a few years ago that members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers spent several months being 'wise' in letters to the magazine Professional Engineering, about what ought to have been done to save Titanic. Their comments seemed plausible until a Royal Navy Commander wrote in and put them right on a number of topics relating the the practical day-to-day wisdom of operation of big multi-screw ships. I found that to be a salutary lesson for a young engineer. Professional engineers should be revered when they are talking about their own speciality, but treated with suspicion when they stray to other areas. Indeed they ought to know better than to express an opinion if they do not know it to be accurate or valuable. I noticed that the letters on that topic dried up rather quickly.
Regarding Titanic's Captain though, Edward J Smith was a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. This meant that he had the right to fly the Blue Ensign on ships that he commanded, rather than the normal Red Ensign. The owners of the White Star Line were, no doubt, aware of the marketing value of such a gesture. It would make their ships appear safer than those of rival companies. How Ironic! (Although Ironic was NOT a sister ship of Titanic!)
You might not realise it, but the Titanic was not actually unique. She had two sister ships. Olympic, launched June 1911, had been in service for months at the time of the Titanic disaster. She was also crossing the Atlantic at the time, in the opposite direction and too far away to come to help. Britannic was still being built (and it was planned that she would be called Gigantic, but the marketing wisdom of the shipping line did not fail them in this case). She was the only one of the three not to be captained by Smith.
Of the three ships only Olympic survived for long, being scrapped in the mid 1930s. Soon after Titanic's sinking the First World War began, and Britannic was converted into a hospital ship. In slightly suspicious circumstances she was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, either by a mine or by a torpedo from a German U-boat. The wreck has been extensively studied and controversy rages to this day. Whether it was a war crime or not is somewhat academic now, but people still argue about it.
Olympic's early career was not unblemished either. Just 3 months after her 1911 launch she collided with HMS Hawke near Southampton, UK. Her Captain's reputation seems not to have been badly damaged. Edward J Smith's next command was . . . Titanic.
 |
| Violet Jessop - survivor of Titanic and her sisters. |
The realisation of what was happening again must have given her a sinking feeling.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Enjoy even more surprising things via Facebook
If you like Something Surprising, you will also enjoy some of the extra items that I have started to share on Facebook along with posts about new entries on the blog. Then you can comment and share your surprising finds with your Facebook friends at the click of a button.
Just follow this link to the Something Surprising's Facebook page. You don't even need to be a member of Facebook to see it, but if you are a member and you 'like' it, and you will get a few (not TOO many) entertaining links on your Facebook newsfeed.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Something-Surprising/151209068277285
Just follow this link to the Something Surprising's Facebook page. You don't even need to be a member of Facebook to see it, but if you are a member and you 'like' it, and you will get a few (not TOO many) entertaining links on your Facebook newsfeed.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Something-Surprising/151209068277285
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
250 Surprising Things
This is the 250th post on the Something Surprising blog, and it is now frequently getting 50 visits per day. To celebrate the occasion, and for the benefit of some of the newer readers, here are the 5 posts that have proved most popular.
In 5th place, on a physics/philosophy topic:
Death of a photon (16th June, 201 page views)
4th place
Bursting the bubble (8th April, 234 page views)
3rd place
Horus and Jesus (12th June, 252 page views)
2nd place:
Sink Holes! (27th April, 294 page views)
and perhaps surprisingly (because I felt that I was being a little silly while writing this), by far the most the most popular post so far is:
A school of Darwin Fish (15th June, 417 page views)
A big thank you to all my readers. I didn't expect my ramblings to be so popular but I am glad that they amuse you.
In 5th place, on a physics/philosophy topic:
Death of a photon (16th June, 201 page views)
4th place
Bursting the bubble (8th April, 234 page views)
3rd place
Horus and Jesus (12th June, 252 page views)
2nd place:
Sink Holes! (27th April, 294 page views)
and perhaps surprisingly (because I felt that I was being a little silly while writing this), by far the most the most popular post so far is:
A school of Darwin Fish (15th June, 417 page views)
A big thank you to all my readers. I didn't expect my ramblings to be so popular but I am glad that they amuse you.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
A clash of names!
Just discovered to my (slight) horror that :
a/ Google still doesn't find me here and
b/ It now does find someone else's blog with the same name
I'm sure I checked for that before settling on the name, but the other Something Surprising is at a different address and I think it will be fairly obvious to my loyal readers that it isn't me.
Hopefully the two of us can live with each other. After all it seems that we are quits. It seems that I have the address and she was here first, and whichever way it happened we can both feel reassured that imitation is the best form of flattery.
a/ Google still doesn't find me here and
b/ It now does find someone else's blog with the same name
I'm sure I checked for that before settling on the name, but the other Something Surprising is at a different address and I think it will be fairly obvious to my loyal readers that it isn't me.
Hopefully the two of us can live with each other. After all it seems that we are quits. It seems that I have the address and she was here first, and whichever way it happened we can both feel reassured that imitation is the best form of flattery.
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