Magere Hein

Would a theme team "Born in the Netherlands" be too narrow, if that's possible? I don't think I could think of 10 Dutch born celebs who would both be likely to die in the period and get an obit. My real question is: what's too wide? regards, Hein

It's also possible that they haven't processed your team yet. My team isn't on the board yet either. DDP's front page says: regards, Hein

The Biblical Flood seems a good candidate. regards, Hein

Most of my opponents prefer to resign. regards, Hein

Sports organisations and the dead, tell me about it. Many years ago I played an away chess match in my local league and as it happened my opponent had died a few days before and was buried that same day. The opponent's team manager had decided not to replace him and after we had already won the match by a sizable margin I decided to fill in a draw for my game on the match form. Four days later the competition manager of the league called me to say that he could not accept a draw played by a dead man and that he had changed my game to a win. A few years before that in another away match my opponent had a heart attack during the game and died a few days later. Again the competition manager wouldn't accept a draw for a result. regards, Hein

Damn, and he got a real, Telegraph UK obit too. Not that I expected to win this year, but I could have had three hits by now... It's a shame. In my research for DDP 2007 I looked at several Chinese politicians. The problem is that it's next to impossible to get information on their health, so you can only go by age, which makes them poor picks for DDP. regards, Hein

Yes. She did it to give her career a boost.What, like Dubya? Yes. But he's probably a better singer. She would probably be a better president of the USA. regards, Hein

'Fraid not, but I do know that he received his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1973 and he started whittling in 1982. At around the same time, he started drawing fantasy cartoons. Recently, he's been working as Art Editor at CFOEurope.com A man of many talents[1]. They don't make many of those these days. [1] Including the one of bilocation, it seems. regards, Hein

This is a test post.

Hmm, I 've lived through quite a bit of the Ceaucescu regime, it was a bit of a white spot on the map of Eastern Europe[1]. Rarely in the news and best known as a producer of discus throwers and weight lifters full of steroids. I've never heard of this fellow.East Germany were more into that sort of thing, rather than Romania. Bulgaria had a similar image. Don't ask me names, but I seem to remember lots of athletes from that bit of the world in muscular sport disciplines like the shut put and wrestling, who did remarkably well at the Olympics. My memory is so vague, that I don't quite remember from which country they exaclty were. The GDR did make the news every now and again, and applied the Socialist Method on all sportsmen and -women. Part of that was training, but chemistry was another. Hardly. I saw some recent footage of her something like a year ago. She looked in perfect shape. regards, Hein

There are human examples, so why not. regards, Hein

Dare I ask from which thread this was removed? I'm curious to know where ttoothh ended up when s/he was "test the internet". If I'm not mistaken, it was in its own thread, one that Hein merged. Indeed. It was titled: 'Teesst Topic(remove It)'. regards, Hein

Hmm, I 've lived through quite a bit of the Ceaucescu regime, it was a bit of a white spot on the map of Eastern Europe[1]. Rarely in the news and best known as a producer of discus throwers and weight lifters full of steroids. I've never heard of this fellow. [1]Labelled: Here be dragons regards, Hein

A famous example was Tom Ketchum, who was hanged in New Mexico in 1901. A vague photograph can be found on his Wikipedia entry. It seems the executioner doesn't read English. regards, Hein

It was great entertainment, what a fight. Adams finally got his title, but Nixon also deserved it. Kudos to both players. regards, Hein

It's been around ever since I made it, almost a year ago. It got bumped when I moved ttoothh's silly post here. There are more fossils like it buried in the lower strata of DeathList forum. regards, Hein

Yes, dangerous stuff, water. Almost as bad as DHMO. regards, Hein

Yup, the Internet still works. regards, Hein

There are different ways of expressing opinions - I found this offensive. Yes, there are many ways of expressing opinions. I chose the way I expressed mine about your post on Dr Hawking's work carefully: with the exception of my parting shot I only wrote about the subject matter in what I think is a neutral voice. I thought (and still think) that the words you used to express your opinion of Hawking's ideas were uncalled for, so I decided to use one such word to express my opinion about that. If you think that's offensive there's an odour of hypocrisy wafting from your post. Take some time to read your original post again, compare that to my response and think about who was being offensive where and when. How would Dr Hawking feel if someone told him he talked drivel when he was expressing his honest opinion? This forum is not particularly closed, but you chose an unfortunate way to make your entrance. As I see it you're welcome as a new member and if we can sort out this mess you might even enjoy the rest of your stay. There's no such button, but I can cancel your membership. I'm not going to do that yet, but if you insist I will. regards, Hein

I can live with that. You, like anyone here, are allowed to express any opinion you like. I don't mind that you diss Dr Hawking. I think you diss him for the wrong reasons. I notice that you evaded the content of my post and prefered to respond to the snide remark I made on your choice or words. If you think that doing so and calling the work of a well-respected scientist 'drivel', 'bollocks', 'sh*t' and 'tripe' are good manners, I rather keep my bad ones. regards, Hein

As they say, proof is for mathematics and liquor. Since we haven't been able to look at a black hole up close there's little observational evidence of the properties of black holes and none regarding radiation. As I understand it the source of Hawking radiation lies in the creation of particle-antiparticle pairs at a black hole's event horizon due to quantum fluctuation. This results in one of the pair falling into the black hole, while the other one escapes. I don't take Hawking's ideas as gospel, neither does any physicist. His ideas with respect to black holes are indeed conjecture, but Hawking is not to blame for that, all physics is conjecture. Not a single theory or law of physics is reality, they're all models of reality and mathematical models at that. That's as true for black hole physics as it is for quantum physics or relativity. The fact that the latter two have better evidence doesn't change their conjectural nature. Whether you (or anyone else) accept Hawking's ideas is irrelevant for their value. Only when we get into circumstances to examine black holes for their actual properties and behaviour we get to find out whether those ideas are drivel or not. What you write, however, is drivel now. regards, Hein

There's a simple sulution to that: sleep by day. regards, Hein

This topic turns out funnier than I expected. regards, Hein

Well, his 'consort's', actually: From which we learn that this intrepid propagandist never worked as a mailman. Mailmen know that one should never stick ones fingers in a letter box. This person was particularly gormless, as barking noises are a sure sign that the letter box in question has teeth. regards, Hein (once a mailman, always a mailman)

His words sound familiar, but so do the first snake oil salesman's. My knowledge and understanding of calculus is insufficient to say whether this makes mathematical sense or not. I sort of understand what he's on about. Sort of as in: I understand it qualitatively, so I expect my understanding is completely wrong. If I try to apply that understanding to what Dr Hawking writes so tersely, I get this: we used to think that there's no way of deducing the past of a black hole from its current state, because every black hole with the same mass, angular momentum and electric charge looks the same, regardless of how it acquired those properties. If I understand the above correctly that thought is wrong for mathematical reasons. From the way a black hole produces Hawking radiation we can, in principle, deduce information about the black hole's past. I fail to see how this bombshell changes my life. This leaves the question of the use of his work. I have no idea. Cosmology isn't an applied science, but there's no way of knowing where applications may be found. regards, Hein