Magere Hein

That's a DAF 44, innit? No, never had one. By the time I had my driver's license DAF no longer built cars. My first car was a Renault 4 van, like this one, painted canary yellow: DAF had a bit of an image problem at home. Due to its variable transmission, it was popular with elderly drivers, particularly women. As a result no red-blooded male wanted to drive one. A Dutch expression for the car was "Truttenschudder met jarretel-aandrijving", roughly translated a "garter-driven cunt shaker".

On that page, there's an interview with Prof Hawking. I can't get past the first minute. The video of Hawking is necessarilly dull (not for us, of course), so the editor cut in a few close-ups of the interviewer, who obviously understands very little of what Hawking says, but nods understandingly nevertheless. When that starts I don't hear a word of what the Prof is saying. BTW, this is exciting news. I sort of expected that it would happen this decade. Now it's a matter of engineering and, as Prof Hawking says, we have a whole new way of looking at the universe. While our times are troubled politically, for afficionados of astronomy and physics these are the best of times.

That model is called ''buikschuiver'' in Dutch, that was for nozems. I belonged to the punk rockers, I owned a Puch like this:

My guess'd be troll, but then again: never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.

I understand, cheers for your commiseration. I prefer cycling to driving a car. I used to have a car, but I sold it long ago: much too expensive and almost useless in a Dutch city. Come to think of it: I used to have a bike.

In the 90s I worked in London for half a year. I didn't call myself immigrant nor expat, nothing at all, really. I didn't have the esprit to present myself as a gastarbeiter.

What's that in €/l? BTW, my bike got nicked last week, which is rather .

This one, about his dad, ain't fun for us:

If you want, I can move the 2016 dicussion from the old topic here. I might as well close that one. Interested?

Remarry?

On 10 February 1912 British surgeon Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, died, aged 84. He was a pioneer of antiseptic surgery.

Dutch actor André van den Heuvel died yesterday, aged 88.

MHDP - Multilingual Handicap Deadpool Proposal for a rules sheet. The basics (nicked from http://www.derbydeadpool.co.uk/general/rules_and_scoring.html, cheers TMIB) Pick 20 different celebrities who are alive as at (start), but who, in your opinion, will no longer be with us by to (end). Nominate one of them as your "joker". For each celeb demise that you guess correctly, you'll score points, and if your joker sadly passes away, your grief will be alleviated by the fact that you'll score double points. The scoreboard will be updated every time someone scores points, the up-to-date scoreboard will be posted in this topic. The team with the most points at the end of the year will, unsurprisingly, be deemed to be the winner. In the event of a dead heat on points, the winner will be selected according to the following criteria, applied in this order: The most hits (i.e. correctly-chosen deceased celebs). The youngest average age of hits. The most amusing team name. Rules Enter a team by posting a team name and 20 picks in this topic. Entries in PM are also accepted. When entering a team up to two subs may be added, who enter the team if other members die or get disqualified before the competition starts. All of your chosen celebs must be: Human. No animals, plants, corporations, groups or anthropomorphic personifications At least 18 years old at the start of the competition. Actual real-life people, not characters out of soap operas and the like. Named individuals, not just "Pope Wotsisface" or "the oldest person in the world". Players must not murder their chosen celebs. That's cheating, and cheating is wrong and is not in the spirit of the game, whatever that is! EXCLUSIONS: Prisoners on "Death Row" i.e. awaiting state execution can only score points if they die of other causes. Picks that are on trial or are put on trial and are found guilty and executed are not disqualified but will not claim the unnatural points bonus. Hostages of terrorist organisations. We have no absolute knowledge of whether they are alive, dead or when they supposedly died. Terrorist organisation members are included but there has to be official verification of when they died from both sides of the conflict (i.e. "The West" and the terrorists themselves). Obit qualification To qualify as an obit, an online or printed text must mention the name of a particular and identifiable person and that that person died. More evidence may be required to convince me that the person mentioned is the one on a team claiming points. Anything in writing from a source that has status as a reliable news source qualifies, provided that: it can be identified as a news source, it can be reasonably translated e.g. by Google translate. Reliable news sources are: newspapers, television stations, press agencies, government information agencies, both national and local, and the websites of all those. Dedicated news websites, sports news websites and such are ok. A corporation news page may qualify if it has a demonstrable history of reliable communications. The qualifying communication must be in text. Spoken messages do not qualify for reason of translation, stills or footage of text may do if the text can be easily converted to a translatable text. Scans of newsprint may qualify if the source can be identified from the scan. Social media like twitter, facebook and linkedin, encyclopedias like Wikipedia, advertisements, internet fora and anything that is user editable are not reliable news sources. Youtube may be, but only its content, not comments. In case of doubt, reliable news source must be demonstrated by evidence. For future reference lists will be maintained of internet domains that have been evaluated as reliable news source and unreliable (or not a news source) respectively. Definitions: "Celebrity" means someone who, upon their death, gets a written obituary in a reliable news source. This does mean that you can't always be sure when picking your team whether each person will be famous enough or not, but that's all part of the game. "Obituary" simply means an article which mentions the fact that the person has died. It doesn't have to be the conventional biographical write-up. "Alive" means drawing breath, not decomposing, that kind of thing. "No longer with us" is the opposite of the above! "Death" means the transition from the former to the latter. The death of a career (e.g. Michael Barrymore) doesn't count. A dialect is, for scoring purposes, a language when it has a Wikipedia. Of each dead pick only one obit counts for each language. Scoring The value of the basic death depends on the person's age: 18-29 years: 12 points 30-49 years: 10 points 50-59 years: 9 points 60-69 years: 8 points 70-79 years: 7 points 80-89 years: 6 points 90-99 years: 5 points 100-109 years: 4 points 110+ years: 3 points On top of this, bonus points are awarded as follows: Unique pick: +3 if you were the only competitor to pick that person. Unlucky 13: +2 for a celeb who dies on the 13th of any month. Unnatural causes: +3 for murder, suicide or accident (but not State executions). Party pooper: +5 for a celeb who dies on their birthday or Xmas Day. Joker: Take the total of all the above and double it. This total number of points is awarded one time for each different language in which an obit can be shown. Showing means posting a link to a website showing the obit, a picture or a scan, and a translation if required. I can read Dutch, English, German and French, so I won't need translations for obits in those languages. When there's reason for doubt, it's a claimant's duty to provide evidence that a proposed obit is written in a particular language. Everybody may propose obits, not just contenders. Once obits qualify, they count, they cannot be retracted. Deadline for obits After the death of a pick has been mentioned in this topic, (with or without an obit link) there's a limited time to propose obits. This period ends one week after UTC+0 following the first mention. Proposals entered after this time will be ignored. Only after this period the score for a pick will be calculated and a new score board posted. Additional time for evalutation of obits may be awarded as need demands and reason permits. As an example: Christy O'Donnell's death was mentioned first in the DDP topic on 09 Feb 2016 - 7:05 PM CET (UTC+1). That's 09 Feb 2016 - 18:05 PM UTC+0 (GMT). The deadline ends 10 Feb 2016 + 7 = 17 Feb 2016 - 0:00 UTC. For all time calculations the forum server time is used. I'm not happy about the Party pooper bonus for Xmas. Instead of adding Sinterklaas, Eid al-Fitr, Holi, Hanukkah and what have we, I propose dropping the bonus altogether. Even birthdays may lead to trouble in non-western calendars, which may also be true for the Unlucky 13. To give my nerd nature some room I consider to run the competition from 20 March 2016 04:30 UTC to 20 March 2017 10:28 UTC, i.e. equinox to equinox. Additions, comments and ridicule are welcome.

Wikipedia will of course be a big help. What I rather like about the idea is that after a pick dies, the race enters a new phase: finding obits. Really Big hits, in the class of Nancy Reagan, Jimmy Carter and that Indian actor you couldn't be arsed to look up may well score in dozens of languages. Finding those, particularly ones written in exotic scripts, will be part of the effort and entertainment, especially since time will be limited. Finding promising picks will be quite a bit different from finding a cancer mum. Hehe.

And the problem with that is exactly what?

As Gaelg? Yes I'll certainly be up for this. I suppose this means yes. Tentative list of tentative contenders: Magere Hein msc RadGuy Spade_Cooley (?) Phantom Switch (?) Death Impends Handrejka N. Fritz gcreptile time The Unknown Man Shaun of the Dead JiroemonKimura Bibliogryphon I'll cobble a tentative rule sheet together later. There will be room for debate.

That´s only to be expected. There´s nothing wrong with vegan food, but it´s better with a steak on the side.

ermmm Inquest heard fluid, believed to be urine, caused spark in chair's electrics Obviously a zeikwijf.

Or Zsa Zsa. I'm pretty sure this is much like the DDP without the famous-for-dying picks. Scores do not compare, of course.

All together now: we're doomed!

A few more bits: - Obit means: the text mentions the name of a particular and identifiable person and that that person died. More evidence may be required to convince me that the person mentioned is the one on a team claiming points. - It's a language when it has a Wikipedia. It's a bit arbitrary, but Aus, Can, US, UK versions of English all count as English. Find an obit in West Flemish and it counts, it has a Wikipedia. The finder may have to prove that it's West Flemish and not East Flemish, which hasn't. - The deadline implies that scores are known and the leader board updated only after the deadline has passed. I may tinker with the exact time a bit. Usually I'm asleep at 0:00 UTC+0 and won't be awake for many hours. - No minors (picks must be >= 18); miners are fine. - I suppose some hits can generate a load of obits. Scores can get quite high. I don't mind.

The pain of counting languages I intend to curb by adopting a deadline for QOs of say, one week, starting midnight zulu time of the day after the death was reported here. News sources: anything in writing that has status as a reliable news source goes, as long as it can be identified as that, and reasonably translated. This may include scanned newsprint. In case of doubt, reliable news source must be demonstrated by evidence. I intend to keep a list of previously allowed domains. Depending on number of entrants, I could do it in a spreadsheet, or something similarly clever.

I got 5 right that means I beat 81% of voters. You firmly beat me. My lower-than-chance performance equals the number of zombie films I've watched.

German jokes are the wurst For quite some time I had a small banner taped to my desk reading: Unox, the worst operating system.

I hate it when that happens. The , I mean.