Friday 25 October 2024

De Havilland Vampire Video!

Hmm, just prowling the internet and You Tube and this came up after an unrelated video .. (see below, the previous video was the final battle scene in the film Gladiator, so don't ask what bizarre connection the AI came up with to prompt me with this): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWgd9yj-cJ4

Looks like a modelling project has list been born, as I am pretty sure I have one of these in an old Airfix kit in the loft (see below, one I didn't do in my youth as I was only interested in WW2 propeller planes):

Model on!

Wednesday 9 October 2024

OK .. There may "just" be a case for AI .. Star Wars: A New Hope (1950s Version)

I cannot describe it .. you just have to watch it! (see link below .. "In a Galaxy Far, Far Away"): 




And if they made a feature length one, I think would watch it!

Tuesday 8 October 2024

That's Interesting: An International Warhammer Conference Captured on YouTube

Here it is in all its glory (see link below): 

https://www.youtube.com/@warhammerconference

The first video (see below, included so you can get a feel for it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KNs_Gnq1Z8

I have to say that I am fascinated! In know 40K in particular is so old it has its own creed and history within its history. Fascinated to see the dedication and interest this generates!


Tuesday 1 October 2024

Watch out for those Accountability Sinks - The Unaccountability Machine

Ever thought that the world is just too complex and is just mad. You know you just could be right. The Unaccountability Machine might just be able to tell you why (see below, another interesting and insightful Audible read, this time about Economics): 


It introduces a interesting character called Stafford Beer and the Cybernetics Movement, co-starring Norbert Wiener, Gordon Pask and John von Neumann. What could go wrong if we follow the (wrong) economists?

Wikipedia: 

Not forgetting the terrible tale of the squirrels: 

Friday 27 September 2024

Sunday 22 September 2024

Zante - A Holiday Location with a Bit of Unexpected Local History

Zante is a small island off the Peloponnese of mainland Greece. A pleasant holiday destination, where there was the sweet holiday sun and sea.

The Wikipedia link to the History of Zante gives a rather formal historical description, until teh last lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zakynthos

During the Nazi occupation of Greece, Mayor Karrer and Bishop Chrysostomos refused Nazi orders to turn in a list of the members of the town's Jewish community for deportation to the death camps. Instead they hid all (or most) of the town's Jewish people in rural villages. According to some sources, all 275 Jews of Zakynthos survived the war;[65][66] however, other sources state that about thirty died of starvation,[67] or state that some elderly Jews, incapable of fleeing the town, "disappeared" in a German SS truck.[68] Statues of the Bishop and the Mayor commemorate their heroism on the site of the town's historic synagogue, destroyed in the earthquake of 1953.[65]

In 1978, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, honoured Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Loukas Karrer with the title of "Righteous among the Nations", an honor given to non-Jews who, at personal risk, saved Jews during the Holocaust.[65] After the war, all of the Jews of Zakynthos moved either to Israel or to Athens.[69][70]

Another description: https://chrissieparkerauthor.wordpress.com/2017/04/30/zakynthos-under-world-war-two-occupation/

In short the people of Zante were nothing short of incredible by the way they protected their Jewish community from the Nazi holocaust. Where 80% of all mainland Greek Jews disappeared in the Holocaust, the ones on Zante were protected by absorbing them into rural villages and small towns, blending them into the background.

As the Greeks say as they drink a toast Yamas!

Yamas to the brave people of to Zante!