Oddities, curiousities and strangness in history [2]

What you dont see is, 3mins before this shot was taken there were over a 1000 penguins,
{{{ just the deaf one left }}}

Whats going on here is a very crucial Arctic survival skill. The penguin is being entranced by the pipes in order that the piper can use the penguin as a cosy to slip over their bottle of buckie, thus preventing it from freezing

You can be the one retracting it then
Anyway, what's wrong with good old anti-freeze ? top yer Buckie up with that ?

My favorite part of that picture is that the piper, despite being in Antarctica, is still not wearing anything on his legs other than those socks. Imagine if a gust of wind from the South Pole blows by; how much protection could a kilt be?

Never underestimate the rugged hardiness of a Scotsmans knees and undercarriage

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

The penguin is being entranced by the pipes in order that the piper can use the penguin as a cosy to slip over their bottle of buckie, thus preventing it from freezing

Really? I'd just assumed the piper had thoughtfully found a place to practice where he wouldn't inflict his caterwauling on the rest of humanity.

Except for the penguin with a death wish

You are forgetting, the penguin cant move because of the buckie bottle

Pettytyrant101 wrote:You are forgetting, the penguin cant move because of the buckie bottle

Not Chili Buckie I hope!

Now that would just be silly Dave, you of all people should realise that would just melt the ice.

This was in Katoomba yesterday which is an hour and a half drive outside of Sydney



It is winter down under, but still: record snow. Bill Shrapnel photographed a kangaroo in the vineyards around New South Wales.



I never seem to think of Australia having snow ? I found this on a photographer's "natural pictures" site.

The weirdest thing to me is how, aside from the Kangarooo, those pics look like they could be from the area where I live. Especially the first one (I guess suburbs are the same everywhere ).

That looks lovely. Very hot here today. Thunder storms last night, power outages this morning and afternoon at work, not good!

ironic karma or what?

Osama bin Laden's family killed in private jet crash at Blackbushe

Relatives of al Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden are among the four people who died when a private jet crash-landed at a car auction site in Hampshire.

The Saudi-registered Phenom 300 jet was attempting to land at Blackbushe Airport when it crashed on to dozens of cars and burst into flames on Friday afternoon.

Saudi ambassador to the UK, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud, offered his condolences to the large and wealthy Bin Laden family, who own a major construction company in Saudi Arabia.

I live in Hampshire, not to comfortable with the idea of associates of a terrorist being on my doorstep

they disavowed him early on.

The idea of snow in Australia is still reeling my mind.

halfwise wrote:they disavowed him early on.

So does the CIA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controversy

Mrs Figg wrote:ironic karma or what?  

Osama bin Laden's family killed in private jet crash at Blackbushe

This rang a bell. It seems both Osama's father and one of his many brothers also died in aircraft accidents.

From Wikipedia:

On 13 September 1967, Mohammed bin Laden [Osama's father] was killed when his company airplane, a Beechcraft, crashed during landing in Oom, 'Asir Province, in southwest Saudi Arabia.[1] He fathered a total of 54 children by 22 wives. Mohammed never had more than four wives at a time—divorcing older wives and marrying new ones as needed to limit the number of current wives to four. According to Carmen bin Ladin, Mohammed was planning to wed a 23rd wife the night he died, and was heading there when his plane crashed.[2]

Salem bin Laden [Osama's brother] died on May 29, 1988 when he accidentally drifted into high voltage electrical power lines adjacent to the Kitty Hawk Field of Dreams Ultra-Lite Flying Field at the edge of Schertz, a northeastern San Antonio suburb. The Sprint ultralight aircraft he was flying fell 115 feet to the ground after the wire strike. Salem, who was not wearing a safety helmet, died of head injuries from the resulting fall. The National Transportation Safety Board did not conduct an accident investigation since the aircraft was an ultralight aircraft, which was not covered under their mandate due to exemption while operating under FAR Part 103 Provisions required by Federal law. The Schertz Police, who attended to the incident, stated in the report that Salem died in a freak accident.

weird

Mmmmmmm

This should be worth keeping an eye on, a new archaeological dig at a Scottish hillfort-

'Archaeologists are preparing for the first ever excavation of an ancient hillfort in Lochaber.
Dun Deardail was constructed on a prominent knoll on Sgorr Chalum, a hill overlooking the River Nevis in Glen Nevis.
AOC Archaeology, which will lead volunteers in the dig, has described the site as "enigmatic".
Little is known about the origins of the fort, who built it or when it was constructed.'
They were vitrified, meaning stone and wood in the defensive walls were burned at a high temperature for a long time to fuse the stone together.
The commission said the fort's name may suggest a link with an ancient Irish myth called Deirdre of the Sorrows.
The legend tells of a chieftain's daughter who was said to be so beautiful that kings, lords and warriors fought and died to try to win her hand in marriage.'

Now what's interesting here is not the legend but the vitrification- the description given here - 'meaning stone and wood in the defensive walls were burned at a high temperature for a long time to fuse the stone together.' this is in fact archaeological speculation.
No one knows how the many vitrified forts in Scotland were made. Practical attempts to recreate the effect with the method described here have not reproduced the original results- though rocks were vitrified they were few and as good as random.

The current thinking is that it had nothing to do with defence as it actually weakens the structure but was instead done when the forts were captured- but this again runs into two problems- why? (there are loads of vitrified forts) and again how- as the stacking wood technique doesn't produce the results.

Maybe this fresh untouched fort will yield some new answers.

Color photos from within the lounge of the Hindenburg. It even included a smoking lounge, inside the hydrogen chamber!

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/amazing-color-photos-hindenburg-zeppelin-show-luxury-air-190000382.html

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
The current thinking is that it had nothing to do with defence as it actually weakens the structure but was instead done when the forts were captured- but this again runs into two problems- why? (there are loads of vitrified forts) and again how- as the stacking wood technique doesn't produce the results.

OK I just did some poking around and here are my thoughts for what they're worth...
Wood can easily produce enough heat to glaze high silica stones.  People had been making gazed pottery and glass, not to mention bronze and iron, for thousands of years before this with simple wood fires.  It's not hard, you've just got to use a lot of wood and know how to lay the fire so the draft sucks huge amounts of oxygen to the places you want hottest.

The question is "Why?"  

Having looked at some of the theories out there (including nuclear explosions ) the one I like the best is a huge ceremonial bonfire to decommission the fort for what ever reason when its time was passed.  

Who wouldn't want to set a hill fort on fire and watch the giant conflagration climb into the night sky where it could be seen for 50 miles, right?  It would be even cooler than burning a viking ship under sail!

So now what the archaeology need to determine is whether the vitrification happened before or after occupation. If they've got a clean site, that should be pretty clear by the wear on the vitrification.