Quotulatiousness

November 22, 2015

What was the German Secret on the Eastern Front in 1915? I OUT OF THE TRENCHES

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Published on 21 Nov 2015

Indy sits int he chair of wisdom again to answer your questions about World War 1. This time we are explaining the secret to the German success on the Eastern Front in 1915, who Eugene Bullard was and how pilots would navigate.

Draw Play Dave re-imagines NFL players as Care Bears

Filed under: Randomness — Nicholas @ 03:00

No, I can’t explain it, either. Here’s his justification:

Jay Cutler as Dont Care Bear

Okay, okay, I admit it, I just wanted to make Jay Cutler as the Don’t Care Bear, and built an entire article around that pun.

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The Problem with Time & Timezones – Computerphile

Filed under: Humour, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 30 Dec 2013

A web app that works out how many seconds ago something happened. How hard can coding that be? Tom Scott explains how time twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing. It’s not to be trifled with!

H/T to Jeremy for the link.

QotD: Bargaining in Germany

Filed under: Business, Europe, Germany, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, I should have kept to myself.

“It doesn’t do,” said the little Englishman, “to try and beat a German down. They don’t seem to understand it. I saw a first edition of The Robbers in a shop in the Georg Platz. I went in and asked the price. It was a rum old chap behind the counter. He said: ‘Twenty-five marks,’ and went on reading. I told him I had seen a better copy only a few days before for twenty — one talks like that when one is bargaining; it is understood. He asked me ‘Where?’ I told him in a shop at Leipsig. He suggested my returning there and getting it; he did not seem to care whether I bought the book or whether I didn’t. I said:

“‘What’s the least you will take for it?’

“‘I have told you once,’ he answered; ‘twenty-five marks.’ He was an irritable old chap.

“I said: ‘It’s not worth it.’

“‘I never said it was, did I?’ he snapped.

“I said: ‘I’ll give you ten marks for it.’ I thought, maybe, he would end by taking twenty.

“He rose. I took it he was coming round the counter to get the book out. Instead, he came straight up to me. He was a biggish sort of man. He took me by the two shoulders, walked me out into the street, and closed the door behind me with a bang. I was never more surprised in all my life.

“Maybe the book was worth twenty-five marks,” I suggested.

“Of course it was,” he replied; “well worth it. But what a notion of business!”

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, 1914.

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