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Magere Hein

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Posts posted by Magere Hein

  1. Posted

    This arctle provides a bit more detail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3438638/Zsa-Zsa-Gabor-rushed-hospital-two-days-99th-birthday-having-difficulty-breathing.htmlShe is having breathing problems because of a breathing tube related long infection.

     

    There's no denying the fact that every little thing can do for poor old Zsa Zsa, but I don't think this is it. She's survived much worse. Should complications arise, I'll reconsider. BTW, I threw her off my DDP team long ago. Too little expected return for investment.

  3. Posted

     

    Feb 9

    Disappointed in RHP who had first crack at it today and blew off Bill Haley (tsk tsk), but before we get to him...

     

    The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker - 50 years ago

    Percy Faith - 40 years

    Some guy named Bill Haley (& the Comets) quit rocking around the clock and said see ya later alligator 35 years ago.

    I always like to leave something for you Sir C. And once you've reached Dostoyevsky it's hard to move on.

     

     

    Those books are on the shelf to impress visitors. You're not required to read them.

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

     

    It appears there is not a Dutch word for 'bollocks'.

    Plenty of other Dutch swearwords though.

     

     

    I advise to use the expressions there with reluctance. Some are real, useful and hard-working Dutch swearwords. Others are rarely used or even made up. Several are badly spelled and using those involves the risk of being laughed at.

     

    The English word ''bollocks'' has several meanings. There is no single Dutch word that captures all those meanings at once. Using http://nl.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bollocks as a template, let's see:

     

    something rubbish -> kutzooi

    a falsehood or series of lies -> gelul

    something great -> N/A

    the best possible -> N/A

    testicles -> kloten

    exclamation on making a error.-> kut!

     

    Dutch has no swearwords for something great or the best possible. Why should it, they don´t exist anyway in this context.

     

    Swearing and name calling in Dutch follow a relatively simple procedure.

     

    1. Take a basic independent word for the person or thing you want to insult or swear at: vent, lul, pik, piemel, zak, eikel for males, wijf, kut, hoer, snol for females, kind, aap for children and ding for things as well as homo, nicht and flikker for (homosexual) males. Gender-neutral alternatives are hufter, boer, hond, knurft, sukkel. If you're in a mellow mood, you can leave it at that.

    2. Prepend a word for emphasis. Usable are:

    2a. The names of genitalia (or parts of male ones): klote, zak, lul for males, kut for women and children.

    2b. The names of diseases: pokken (smallpocks), kanker (cancer), tering (tuberculosis), pest (plague), tyfus (typhoid fever), pleuris (pleurisy)

    2c. The names of human waste: stront, poep for shit, pis, zeik for piss, snot.

     

    Examples: klootzak, lulhannes, kutwijf, teringwijf, kloteding, pleuriskind, snotaap, kankerhoer, pisnicht. Kutweer is bad weather.

     

    In exceptional cases step 2 is repeated: teringsnotaap, kutzeikwijf.

     

    A few independent words work well for name calling:

    (for males)

    - hufter

    - boerelul

    (for females)

    - trut

    - takkewijf

     

    There´s more, but the above description will cover most cases.

     

     

    Swearing in Dutch is rather primitive. The above names of diseases, genitalia and human waste are much used and there's the mainstay: godverdomme.

    • Like 4

  14. Posted

    Regarding the large nation bit, I think you're right in terms of it being feasible within a decade (if it was in the 60s it sure is now) but it's whether there's the will to commit that kind of money to the project. In the U.S. it would have to come from the private sector, someone like SpaceX, in collaboration with NASA, but NASA seem more keen on the ISS and probes than human space flight. Russia's economy is not in great shape so it's hard to see how they finance such a project, even with Putin's Soviet-era personality cult. China would be the most obvious candidate but I can't say I know too much about their space program (I know they've landed a rover on the Moon, maybe one on Mars too? They also have a small space station unless 'Gravity' lied to me...) and not to mention the long awaited downturn in the Chinese economy.

    According to the ever accurate Wikipedia, the Apollo Program set back the American taxpayers $25 billion, presumably dollars of 1973, $133 billion when indexed to 2015. The same article quotes a 2009 estimate by NASA of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion. That's a hefty bill, whichever way you calculate it. Elsewhere on Wikipedia it's claimed that the program consumed roughly 4% of federal spending 1964-66. I can't be arsed to look up what that would amount to in the current US budget, but it would be several hundred of billions.

     

    I don't see NASA doing it. Manned space flight works well for prestige and national pride and the imagination, but it's not the best exploration available for the money. I'm glad NASA put the money in probes and space telescopes. For prestige and national pride the Moon is not attractive anymore, Mars is. If the Chinse get their finances in order, they might find it attractive enough. It seems to me the Russians lost their appetite (or the budget, or both).

     

    But it's an interesting discussion. Personally, I think it would be wonderful to go back to the Moon, but the politics and economics of it seem to put most governments off.

    The big problem is of course economics. Only nations can bill manned space flight. The only inroad for commercial space flight is tourism. It might help, but it's a trip only few can afford. Otherwise: there's nothing out there worth the cost of taking it and selling it dirtside. A penal colony, perhaps?

    • Like 1

  15. Posted · Edited by Magere Hein
    Battus joke added.

    Ivo Caprino, Norweigan puppet film maker, died this day 15 years ago aged 70.

     

    Not a name I recognise. Hey, he's got a Wikipedia article.The titles there mean nothing to me, mind.

     

    ETA: this reminds me of a remark Hugo Brandt Corstius (disguised as Piet Grijs) made about Norwegian playwright Ibsen: "Wrote plays in Norwegian. That didn't help; they got translated."

  20. Posted

     

    Probably a more interesting question; will we ever run out of moonwalkers or will there be new additions to the collection before the last of the old guard shuffles off?

     

    Very interesting question. As I recently posted on the Astronauts thread, the youngest moonwalkers are now 80 and the oldest is 86. So, barring any of them living to the ripe old age of 100, they'll all be dead before 2036. So the question is will any human set foot on the moon before 2036? Right now, I'd say it's unlikely, but at the same time, it's such a long time that surely someone's got to get there sooner or later. Not sure it will be another American though. Chinese maybe, Russians. Someone random like the Indians.

     

    Maybe it's a possibility that before the last moonwalker dies we may see the first interplanetary walker if we get to Mars. They keep saying it's relatively feasible, so 20 years is a pretty sizeable length of time.

     

    Gosh maryport, you've really got me thinking now....

     

     

    If a large nation is prepared to put the effort and treasure in it, it can be done in decade, so why not? Mars is quite a bit farther. To get people there is not technically feasable now. On the other hand the Moon: been there, done that.

     

    I've always thought the Moon will be a first target for something like permanent habitation, but I may be proved wrong.

     

    PS: Schmitt, cause he's daft.

  22. Posted

     

    To be fair, when you are kids most things look big in your hands........

    They have got smaller. I'll have to find the article that was done a few years ago where some of the leading food and grocery items have been reduced in size or weight, but the prices remained the same or increased.

     

    For one type of sweet, the Hershey bar, this has been the subject of scientific research: Philetic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars by Stephen Jay Gould.

  24. Posted

    There's a UFO community?

     

    Hm, where did i put my tin foil hat...

    Of course there's a UFO community. It's a well known fact that UFOs are actually live aliens, who live in the hole inside the Earth and fly out at night on genetically modified squid.

    • Like 2
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