gcreptile

Taiwanese actress and singer Yue Fung dies of stomach cancer at 64: https://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/news/veteran-singer-yue-fung-passes-away-041700112.html

Er... First Lady? Before she was married to a president, she was married to a vice president.

The mother of former chess world champion and current vice-world champion Viswanathan Anand is dead at 79: http://www.oneindia.com/sports/chess-wizard-viswanathan-anand-s-mother-passes-away-1760464.html

Darius Minwalla, drummer for the Posies, died at 39 of yet unspecified reasons: http://www.music-news.com/shownews.asp?H=The-Posies-drummer-dies&nItemID=89600

Ah well, I wanted to make the connection to the previous U2 death, as you also did in that other thread.

Not sure whether this should go here or in the end times thread, but Bill Gates says that the lessons from Ebola should be used against the next killer disease that could kill 65 million people like the Spanish Flu. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2929333/World-prepare-war-against-global-pandemic-Gates.html Also, I've thought for a while now that Gates looks about 20 years older than he is. He isn't even 60 yet. I think the days of working several days without sleep in his youth are catching up to him.

Not really the perfect thread, but CEO of King World Productions, Michael King, is dead at 66, according to TMZ: http://www.tmz.com/2015/05/27/michael-king-dead-dies-oprah-dr-phil-king-world/ It's more memorable to say that he created shows like 'Oprah' and 'Dr. Phil' and also acquired the rights to 'Wheel of Fortune' and 'Jeopardy'. I guess people with the surname King could have made a winning theme team this year.

And now U2's tour manager Dennis Sheehan has died: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/28/u2-honour-tour-manager-dennis-sheehan-found-dead-in-hotel-room He was 68 years old and had been their manager for 30 years. He also worked with other bands like Led Zeppelin. Edit: Eh, sorry, too late, I saw nothing in the Dead Pop Stars thread or here.

The apparent obitability of local US news anchors certainly adds new options... The Daily Mail seems to have a relative focus on US news, maybe because of Anglo-American conservative connections... On the other hand, they really seem to publish everything.

The leading cellist Tanya Prochazka dies after 9 years of ovarian cancer at 62: http://slippedisc.com/2015/05/sadness-leading-cellist-falls-to-ovarian-cancer/

Well, belated happy birthday then! is there any chance anyone on this site might have the same birthday Well, as long as there is more than one person, there's always a chance. We cannot, however, discard the possibility that only two people (you and me) fill this site. In that case, the chance of us sharing the same birthday are slim, 1 in 183 (allowing for being born on February 29). Actually, I am just the dark part of your personality. This whole forum is all you (or me). (Also, my birthday is August, 25th.)

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza hospitalised after a sudden illness: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/27/russian-opposition-activist-vladimir-kara-murza-in-hospital-after-falling-ill At first, the doctors suspected poisoning, now they think it's kidney failure.

Well, belated happy birthday then! is there any chance anyone on this site might have the same birthday Well, as long as there is more than one person, there's always a chance.

Book has a potential unique DDP hit, now that Elisabeth Wiedemann is dead at 89: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/medien/frau-von-ekel-alfred-schauspielerin-elisabeth-wiedemann-gestorben/11831978.html (link in german) She played the wife of "Ekel Alfred" in the early german TV series (actually a sitcom long before they became a household name) "Ein Herz und Eine Seele" (A heart and a soul, meaning, sort of, beating as one heart). It was an iconic german TV-show of the 70s about a "typical" german family with "Alfred" as the always grumpy father. It was before my time, and it always seemed to me that this father was symbolic for the people who voted Hitler into office and the children had to life with these people. Elisabeth Wiedemann is the last of the core family to die since the actors of her two TV children died before her. Wiedemann also had a couple of roles in some very prominent german TV movies, and the usual smaller roles in several series'.

Hmm.. a more complicated case than the typical "Birthday problem": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem Statistically, it's more likely than not that two people of the same group share the same birthday if the group contains more than 23 people. With three people, the required number is 88: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/485462/birthday-problem-for-3-people One should actually expect that in a list with 50 people, at least two share the same birthday. Three people however is an unlikely but still not extraordinary event.

Bob Dole on video at memorial service: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Bob-Dole-Attends-Memorial-Day-Services-At-Arlington-National-Cemetery-304912281.html Looks ok, I guess.

http://scifibulletin.com/2015/05/26/rip-tanith-lee/http://www.tor.com/2015/05/26/tanith-lee-in-remembrance/ Or maybe this: http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/05/tanith-lee-dead-dies-cause-of-death-funeral-esther-garber-husband-john-kaiine/ Thanks for simply deconstructing the Wiki link doofus. DL demands a news source. Does "heavy.com count ? Pfft SC Who is DL? Why does DL demand?

http://scifibulletin.com/2015/05/26/rip-tanith-lee/ http://www.tor.com/2015/05/26/tanith-lee-in-remembrance/ Or maybe this: http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/05/tanith-lee-dead-dies-cause-of-death-funeral-esther-garber-husband-john-kaiine/

He's died. 51. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/former-cbc-comedy-writer-mike-o-brien-51-dies-of-cancer-1.3086979 Tried to chase down any link to this guy's work to use his name as a trade off for my roster should he make it to June 15. Found a writer for SNL with same name but not him. Frankly, this guy seemed quite the nobody, eh? SC Well, getting an obituary in Canada's equivalent to the BBC didn't exactly mean he was a nobody. However, his focus was radio and that isn't quite the big cultural force it once was. A bit like Colin Bloomfield with a role in a sitcom and the odd writing credit.

The Nash Crash didn't change my opinion, Bhumibol.

Yes, definitely the first unnatural causes death in DL history A beautiful mind, but not quite calculating enough to work out the probability of dying in a car crash when going without a seatbelt... I once heard this anecdote about him: his main claim to fame and Nobel Prize was his concept of the Nash Equilibrium. It describes mathematically the behaviour of people in anticipation of the reaction of their opponents/competitors. After he had developed the concept, he tested it with the help of his secretaries, but they didn't behave as his theory predicted it, so he scolded them "You're doing it all wrong!" or something like that. It's funny because it reflects the frequent criticism made against economists that they do not pay enough attention to reality (And that, if theory and reality are in conflict, they prefer theory). So yeah, it confirms this impression of economists not quite living in reality, though Mr. Nash also had his own troubles with it.

@DDT: Nash crash... kudos.... Remember the Flash Crash? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash Also, from this link: http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2015/05/famed_a_beautiful_mind_mathematician_wife_killed_in_taxi_crash_police_say.html it appears that neither he nor his wife wore seatbelts. Bad...

Some news on 110-year old economist and linguist Zhou Youguang, the currently oldest living celebrity famous for something else than their age: http://derstandard.at/2000015697344/Chinas-mutigstes-Reformmagazin-steht-vor-dem-Aus(link in german) China's government is shutting down its only reformist political magazine. The annual conference meeting was cancelled, but Zhou Youguang wanted to attend and talk about his new book, so there's a 110-year old man (wikipedia says he's 109, though) writing a new book and attending a conference! Sounds more like a potential record breaker than a hit on a team. The relevant excerpts are these: Als weitere Schikane wurde der Zeitschrift erstmals seit ihrer Gründung 1981 ihr jährliches Frühlingstreffen zur Aussprache der Redaktion mit den Autoren verboten. 240 Personen waren eingeladen. In der April-Nummer beschrieb das Magazin, mit welchen Tricks die Behörden das Treffen strichen. (...) Die Mai-Ausgabe druckte dann demonstrativ eine Auswahl der Redebeiträge, die nicht zustande kamen. Der berühmte 110-jährige Universalgelehrte und Schöpfer der chinesischen Schriftreform, Zhou Youguang, wollte über sein neues Buch gegen die Unterdrückung des freien Wortes sprechen." Sort of translation: To add another obstacle, for the first time since its inception in 1981, the magazine was prohibited from holding it's annual spring meeting where the editorial board and its authors met. 240 people were invited. In its April issue, the magazine described the tricks the administration used to cancel the meeting. The May issue provocatively released a selection of the prevented speeches. The famous 110-old polymath Zhou Youguang wanted to talk about his new book on the suppression of free speech."

Fucking OMG... Edit: It is the first hit for my economics theme team, of which I was beginning to think that it will only have some impact if there is some plane crash before an economics conference... Now it's sort of becoming reality. I am indeed a bit shocked. Edit 2: This leaves my deathrace team as my only team without a hit this year. Good... If it sucks, it shall suck in a grandiose way.

First, pro-Russian rebel leader in the Ukraine Alexey Mozgovoy dies: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/ukraine-separatist-commander-leader-killed-in-car-bomb And then Russia loses to Sweden, really a bad day for them.... I didn't quite get the popularity of the russian song. It was a solid ballad, nothing more? But my turkish neighbour thought it's either them or Italy. So I might be missing that particular musical sense. Though I was really pleased with the sixth place for Latvia, really impressive for such an experimental song, but then Belgium also made 4th place. The general level of the competition was relatively high, I thought. Congratulations to Sweden. A worthy winner. If you hear it for the first time, and watch the presentation!, you are overwhelmed by it. A perfect song for the competition. The German result... eh, I didn't like the song anyway. Germany's musical taste is poor.