Quotulatiousness

October 28, 2018

The actual science behind the “leaves on the line” excuse for late trains

Filed under: Britain, Environment, Railways — Tags: — Nicholas @ 03:00

While it doesn’t explain the “wrong type of snow” excuse also deployed by announcers when Britain’s trains run inexplicably slow in winter, here’s the scientific facts about the “leaves on the line” excuse:

Autumn is here, and for most of us, it’s a time of beauty as the leaves cascade through an array of hues before pirouetting down from the trees. If you have to travel by train, however, you might tire of ‘leaves on the line’ being the supposed cause of train delays. It turns out to be more than just a flimsy excuse – and particular chemical reactions are partly to blame.

We’ve previously looked at the chemical cause of the colours of autumn leaves. By the time they make their descent from trees to the ground, most of these colours have passed. What remains is a brown husk, mainly made up of cellulose. Cellulose is the biological polymer that is the main component of plant cell walls.

Once leaves have fallen from trees, they simply decompose over time. Their presence isn’t usually a problem until it comes to the train network. When leaves fall on train lines, they can reduce the grip between the train wheels and the track. This, in turn, can lead to longer braking distances for trains. By disrupting the contact between the train wheels and the track, the leaves also prevent signalling equipment detecting trains. This can then cause train delays.

What makes leaves affect train tracks in this way? Scientists have a few suggestions, and it’s likely that they all contribute to the problem to some extent.

Panzerschreck: Germany Makes a Bazooka

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Technology, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Oct 2018

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/panze…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The German military first encountered American Bazookas in Tunisia in 1943, and quickly put in place a program to copy and improve on the design. At that point, the latest German antitank weapons was the Raketenwerfer 43 “Puppchen”, which was a locked-breech rocket launcher built on a carriage like a standard AT gun. It had a substantial range and a very effective 88mm shaped charge warhead, but lacked the one-man mobility offered by the Bazooka. So, the Raketenpanzerbuchse 43 – shortly thereafter renamed the Panzerschreck – was developed in late 1943.

The Panzerschreck kept the 88mm bore of the Puppchen, so that the warhead could be kept unchanged. The rear half of the munition was redesigned to fit an open tube type of launcher. The early Bazookas captured by German forces were at that time fitted with a battery-powered firing system, which the Germans opted to replace (as would the Americans, in later versions). The Panzerschreck trigger used a small generator, where a heavy spring pushed an iron core through a copper winding and magnet, this creating an electrical charge to fire the rocket.

One shortcoming of the Panzerschreck compared to the Bazooka was that the German rockets did not burn completely within the launch tube – the motors continued to fire for about the first 2 meters of flight. This meant that the shooter would receive substantial burns to the face and hands if protective gear was not worn when firing. Initially, troops were instructed to wear filter-less gas masks and winter gloves when shooting, but it was quickly recognized that this was an impractical burden. Soldiers in the field began to craft protective shields to mount on the tubes, and these were formalized in a windowed shield was introduced in 1944 as standard on new production launchers and as a kit to retrofit existing weapons in the field.

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

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October 27, 2018

HMS Queen Elizabeth to depend on Shock! Horror! Dutch escort!

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At the Thin Pinstriped Line, Sir Humphrey explains to “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” and all the other would-be Admirals of the Fleet why having a non-RN escort for Britain’s newest aircraft carrier is hardly a bad thing:

Aerial view of HMS Queen Elizabeth with Type 23 frigates HMS Iron Duke (centre) and HMS Sutherland (right) in June 2017 off the coast of Scotland.
Photo by MOD via Wikimedia Commons.

The United Kingdom has few allies closer than the Netherlands. Both nations are modern, outward looking and instinctively maritime in their view of the world. Long standing NATO partners and with significant experience of working together across the globe, the Netherlands Armed Forces are highly respected as being capable, well equipped and staffed with first rate personnel.

The relationship between the RN and the Royal Netherlands Navy is extremely close, particularly between the Marine Corps and the Submarine Services. It is therefore extremely pleasing to hear that the Netherlands will be deploying a warship to form part of the inaugural ‘Carrier Strike Group’ (CSG) deployments for HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2021 HERE. This is a significant announcement and it has several ramifications that are good news for the Royal Navy.

[…]

There seems to be an exceptionally British trait of moaning at good news. Some people felt that it wasn’t good enough for the RN to be ‘reliant’ on a foreign warship operating as part of the CSG, and that the UK should be going it alone. What utter rot.

It does not mean, despite what some naysayers were desperate to bleat about on social media without any evidence to the contrary, that defence cuts mean the UK is reliant on the Dutch to protect the carrier. The RN has spent a lot of time working out what escorts are needed and ensuring they will be available when necessary as part of the CSG to properly protect the carrier. Any foreign participation is a nice bonus capability to have, not a tacit hint that the RN is short of ships.

The reality of future operations is that the UK is going to operate as part of an international coalition with our friends and allies. Despite the fantasies of some, desperate to see a huge purely British task force sailing around the world looking for a fight and a free trade deal, the fact is that any future military operation is going to be international by design.

Working with allies is critically important but isn’t something you can just do at the drop of a hat. One of the reasons why NATO works so well is because it has spent 70 years investing in common processes, tactics and procedures and exercising them regularly to ensure everyone can work together coherently.

Integrating a Dutch vessel now is vital because it helps build and cement an understanding at operational level of how to work with each other, to learn the capabilities of each other’s ships and how to work them to best effect together. It can also spot unintended issues or problems and help work out how to fix them quickly. This takes time to do, so it is likely that any Dutch vessel assigned in 2021 will have spent a considerable period working up in advance before beginning the deployment proper.

For those who complain that the Royal Navy hasn’t got enough ships to escort the carrier, it is worth reflecting that the Netherlands have a total of 6 frigates. Assuming the normal serviceability rates for escorts apply, then two are likely to be in refit and another in maintenance or training. This leaves just three active vessels at any one time – so in reality, the Netherlands commitment to support the Carrier Strike Group represents them committing a third of their available escort force for a significant amount of time.

The architecture of modern Paris

Filed under: Architecture, France, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

In the latest issue of City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple laments the degraded state of Parisian architecture, particularly the post-1945 monstrosities visible from the Boulevard Périphérique, celebrated in a recent New York Times article by David McAninch:

Philharmonie at the Parc de la Villette, Paris.
Photo by Zairon via Wikimedia Commons.

What is startling about McAninch’s description of his tour is its non-mention of what was perfectly obvious to my visitor on first glance, and which never fails to appall me each time I take the B.P., as regrettably often as I do: namely, that practically everywhere the eye looks beyond the confines of central Paris, it is greeted by a modernist mess of gargantuan proportions, and that every occasional building that is not a total eyesore was built before 1945. In other words, there has been a total and utter collapse of aesthetic ability, judgement, and appreciation in France, a country with one of the world’s greatest architectural heritages, extending back many centuries.

McAninch acts as a kind of handmaiden or praise-singer to this collapse, perhaps from fear of making an unequivocal judgment that might cause him to be labelled conservative, backward-looking, or naive. His article commences with a picture of the new philharmonic hall, built at a pharaonic cost, which resembles nothing so much as a vulgar Brobdingnagian silver lamé dress crumpled on the floor after a night of debauchery, as clear an example of modern architectural psychopathy as I know.

The article is full of equivocations, such as “I gazed in awe at some of the most ugly-beautiful Brutalist buildings I’d ever seen” and “I stared open-mouthed for a long while at the modular-looking Neo-Brutalist structure housing the Centre National de la Danse. Designed as a municipal building in 1972 by Jacques Kalisz, the gray concrete behemoth somehow radiated childlike exuberance and dystopian menace at the same time.”

The brutalist buildings at which the author stared in awe (horror would have been a more appropriate reaction) are not ugly-beautiful; they are just ugly, without any possible aesthetic qualification, and grossly dysfunctional, to boot. And anyone who can see childlike exuberance in the building by Jacque Kalisz is capable of seeing the milk of human kindness in a Nuremberg Rally.

The Centre national de la danse in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), designed by Jacques Kalisz.
Photo by Cinerama14 via Wikimedia Commons.

Last Spartans: the survival of Laconic Greek

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

NativLang
Published on 27 Jan 2017

The story of a Greek town that I’m told still preserves the Spartan tongue. I explore why they don’t speak like the rest of Greece and dig into their connection to ancient Sparta. Will their Tsakonian language survive?

Thanks to Vlogbrothers for their sponsorship of this video.

~ CORRECTIONS & ADDITIONS ~

The man from Leonidio is a “headmaster”, not “schoolmaster”. His story and links to the recordings are in my sources doc below.

“hoplos researched” should read “hoplon researched” / “aspis researched” – my thanks to @Roelkonijn

~ SUMMARY ~

Ancient Greece was home to a variety of dialects. Athens and Sparta both put up a major fight. Long story short, the dialect of one of those cities won out. Guess which? Athens, of course. Attic Greek combined with a hefty dose of Ionic to form the Koiné (Common) Greek, the ancestor of basically all modern Greek dialects.

All but perhaps one. Travel to a small town in the south of Greece, where a headmaster leads his students up the hillsides to record the words of their elders. These aging villagers speak Tsakonian (Τσακώνικα), a special remnant that may soon crumble into another Greek artifact.

I look at pieces of the grammar and pronunciation of the language, and show you what sets it apart from Modern Greek. Search for any ancient holdouts it preserves. Consider its connection to the Doric dialect of Ancient Sparta. Finally, ponder its place in modern Greece and how much longer it will be with us.

October 26, 2018

Italy Attacks – The Battle of Vittorio Veneto I THE GREAT WAR Week 223

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

The Great War
Published on 25 Oct 2018

After the Battle of the Piave, the Italian front had been relatively quiet and stable. But just as unrest and instablity spread through the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Italian Army and its allies attack along the whole front. From Monte Grappa and across the Piave, the Austro-Hungarians are caught off guard.

The German WWII Standby: The MP38 and MP40 SMGs

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 4 Aug 2017

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The MP40 is an iconic piece of World War 2 weaponry, and it’s about time we took a closer look at its development…

Thanks to the Institute of Military Technology for allowing me to have access to these three examples so I can bring them to you! Check out the IMT at:

http://www.instmiltech.com

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

October 25, 2018

Prometheus – The Making of Man – Extra Mythology – #2

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History — Tags: — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 22 Oct 2018

Join the Patreon community! http://bit.ly/EMPatreon

As the age of heroes faded and monsters were cast from the world, Zeus brought a task to the wisest of titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus. They were to create the animals and form man to populate the upcoming age — which also lead to the creation of Pandora (and her box of sorrows).

The History of Australia

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History With Hilbert
Published on 23 Aug 2017

The entire history of Australia from the earliest humans until somewhere after World War II where I lost interest.

October 24, 2018

Temporal privilege

Filed under: Books, Britain, Health, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the latest issue of Libertarian Enterprise, Sarah Hoyt discusses reading a recent historical novel that she nearly threw at the wall:

What brought about this rant is that I just read a Pride and Prejudice Variation written by someone who swallowed Dickens hook line and barbed socialist sinker.

Dickens was an amazing writer. What he was not was an historian or an impartial observer. What he put in his books has tainted people’s perception of the past and encouraged the cardinal “socialist virtue” of envy. It causes people to think those richer than themselves are callous bastards. It teaches people to see the past through that lens.

This book was almost walled when the woman assured us that the middle and upper classes did not care about the disappearance of a serving-woman.

It wasn’t many years after that the murder of a series of prostitutes set Victorian England aflutter, and yes, that included the upper and middle classes.

In the same way she waxes pathetic about how death was common among the poor in the Regency. B*tch, death was common in the Regency, period. If your entitled, propagandized ass were plopped down in a society with no antibiotics and uncertain house-heating, you’d learn really quickly how common. Young ladies in the upper reaches of society routinely made two baby shrouds as part of their trousseau. They were expected to lose at least that many children. And while we’re talking of children, yeah, death in child birth was really common too. As was death in any of the male occupations which, as is true throughout history, took them outside the house. Even noblemen were around horses a lot, and spent quite a bit of time — if they were worth their salt — managing their own lands, fraught occupations in a time when any wound could turn “septic” and any cold could turn “putrid” and carry you off.

Yeah. The people in these close-to-the-bone societies didn’t give money to people who’d waste it. They sometimes set conditions on distributing largesse. And they had definite opinions on what behaviors were “good” and which “bad.”

They weren’t tight-ass moralists, as the left imagines. They were following precepts and behaviors proven to lead to success. Mostly success in staying alive.

They were poorer than us and in that measure they were a lot more realistic.

They had to be. The other way lay death.

Spitting on our ancestors for not obsessing about gender-fluid trilobites is in fact the ultimate expression of “temporal privilege.” The left is yelling at people poorer, unhealthier and less able than themselves.

And they’re proud of it.

QotD: The diminishing importance of the Russian revolution of 1917

Filed under: Europe, History, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Few 20th-century historians doubted that the 1917 Russian revolution was one of the most influential events of their time, indeed of all time. As the centenary commemoration approaches, however, it seems remarkable how far and how fast the ideology that inspired Lenin and millions of his worldwide followers has receded in significance. Many are the imperfections of capitalism, but almost nobody outside Jeremy Corbyn’s office any longer supposes that communism, least of all the old Soviet brand, offers a credible alternative. This would amaze our grandparents’ generation on both sides of the struggle.

The novels of C.P. Snow are indifferent fiction but intriguing middle-class social history. During the interwar era, many of the intelligent acquaintances of Lewis Eliot, Snow’s fictional alter ego, took it for granted that socialism, or perhaps communism, not only should but would prevail as the guiding doctrine of most democracies.

Lower down the social scale, Clyde shipworkers, indeed most of the world’s industrial classes, saw the Bolsheviks as harbingers of hope. The bayonets thrust into the bosoms of the imperial family in the cellar at Ekaterinburg roused a pleasurable frisson in some radical hearts. Ten Days that Shook the World, the American reporter John Reed’s eyewitness account of October 1917, conveys the thrill the revolution evoked among those who, like himself, considered capitalism doomed.

Max Hastings, “The centenary of the Russian revolution should be mourned, not celebrated”, The Spectator, 2016-12-10.

October 23, 2018

Austria During World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published on 22 Oct 2018

The Austrian part of the dual monarchy that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire experienced the war quite distinctly and the inner political machinations directly influenced the outbreak of the war.

QotD: The boomers

Filed under: Britain, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

How did my generation do? Well, we get blamed for being selfish and self-obsessed and soft and pushing up house prices and saddling the next generation with hideous debts and nowhere to live and I suppose that’s not entirely unfair.

We are ridiculously obsessed with food, buy too many things and have too many clothes. But we didn’t start a war. Well, not a big one. And we didn’t nuke anyone. We defused the Cold War. We believed in the collective good. Although we came to confuse gestures with actions and we think going on a march and writing a letter are the same as doing something, making the world better.

We were the generation that were relentlessly for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, disability rights, equality, fairness. We were implacably against racism and censorship. We defended freedom of speech, religion and expression. We will leave the world better fed and better off than when we arrived in it.

Britain is a far happier, richer and fairer place than it was 60 years ago. And if you think that’s wishful self-promotion, you have no idea how grim and threadbare Britain in the Fifties was. You weren’t there, you don’t remember.

A.A. Gill, “Life at 60”, Sunday Times, 2014-06-29.

October 22, 2018

Looting – Pilates – Suicides Among Soldiers I OUT OF THE TRENCHES

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

The Great War
Published on 20 Oct 2018

Crisis Call Center (US): http://crisiscallcenter.org/crisisser…

Crisis Service Canada: http://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/

Mind (UK): https://www.mind.org.uk/

Deutsche Depressionshilfe: https://www.deutsche-depressionshilfe…

The Last German E-Boat

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mark Felton Productions
Published on 24 Sep 2018

S-130 is the very last of Germany’s sleek S-Boats, the fast motor torpedo boats known to the British as E-boats, that ravaged shipping around the shores of the UK. Now being restored in Britain, this boat is a rare wartime survivor with an equally fascinating postwar story to match.

Photo credits: British Power Boat Trust, Exercise Tiger Memorial, Barry Lewis, Jim Linwood.

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