Notes – Dan Q

Wikipedia @ 25: Milices Patriotiques

My random Wikipedia article of the day was Milices Patriotiques, who were a 22,000-strong communist group and part of the Belgian resistance in the Second World War. Which sounded really interesting, but their article was tragically short so that’s pretty much all I have to say about them!

Note #29294

Hold your head up high and show some PRIDE.

Roman Bingo

If the Romans played bingo, do you think the callers would have used ‘bingo lingo’?

Legs two
Growing up the wall, four
Seagull in flight, five
Long-nosed dead man, nineteen
Pornography, thirty
Use your tongue, fifty-nine
Smiling in a blindfold, a hundred and one

Wikipedia @ 25: Jim Marshall

Today‘s random Wikipedia article was Jim Marshall (photographer). I enjoyed reading about him and even looked up some of the many photographs that he took of musicians in the 60s and 70s, but decided that because I was literally just writing about a photographer that I learned-about on Wikipedia, it probably wasn’t the time to write about another!

But here’s a fact for you: Jim Marshall was the official photographer for the Beatles‘ final concert in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, and he was head photographer at Woodstock. There we go; that’s my Wikipedia article of the day!

Wikipedia @ 25: The Bugler of Algiers

Today‘s random Wikipedia article, which didn’t make it into a full blog post or podcast episode like a few earlier ones did, was The Bugler of Algiers. This 1916 silent film, based on a novel called We Are The French, has no surviving copies and it’s no longer even known what role some of the billed cast played in it!

Among others, it starred Kingsley Benedict, who would later go on to feature in Fast and Furious! No… not that one… the 1927 silent comedy (which you can watch on YouTube… it’s… about three times as long as it needs to be, IMHO).

Rubberdogging

Rubberdogging, verb: attempting to invent a solution to a technical problem by explaining it out loud to a pet. From “rubberducking”, the practice of doing so to an inanimate object, and “dog walking”.

Wikipedia @ 25: Presto Card

Today’s random article was Presto card: a contactless transit prepayment card used in Toronto and the surrounding area. It’s powered by MIFARE, the same underlying system as the Oyster card uses. I enjoyed learning about its rollout and history but it wasn’t quite interesting enough to be worth a full blog post or podcast episode, especially as I was just writing about public transport as a result of yesterday’s dive. So you just get this note.

Note #29114

This plant has sonehow managed to grow through the atrtoturf lawn of our temporary home!

Life… uh… finds a way?

Soccer Slash

Observation:

Media franchises attract fandoms, and many get their fair share of character ‘shipping (especially of the attractive characters).

Soccer also attracts huge fandoms… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of “soccer slash” (even of the attractive players).

Car Climate Control UI

Why, when I change the temperature on the thermostat of my Renault Zoe does it change the fan direction, too? Is this a UI affordance for people who want their faces colder but their feet warmer? I don’t understand!

Cadbury Giant Butt

Even this self-checkout thinks I’m eating too much chocolate.

Four OpenBenches

Despite Google making it harder for me to do so 🤬, I managed to add not one, not two, not three but four new memorial benches to the OpenBenches database during a dog walk this morning.

A particular excitement was adding my first bench with two plaques.