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A belated Happy New Year!

I know it’s a bit late, but I’ve only recovered from New Year’s celebrations. I thought I’d have a big one this time round, so booked in for Summer Dayze at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

Summer Dayze first appeared in 2001. I remember back then tickets were $15 at the gate. Now tickets cost an arm and a leg and are sold out more then a month before the party (although you can still buy them at ridiculous prices on eBay).

The party started at 8 a.m. Sunday morning and went through till 11 p.m. The line up included various big names such as Fatboy Slim, Roger Sanchez, Tall Paul and Bodyrockers.

I got there around 11 a.m. and the crowd was already beginning to arrive en masse. By around dusk it was chockers where we were under the dome, mainly due to the bad weather. The authorities had to halt the show for 40 minutes at one stage for fear of a stampede situation.

Apart from the rain, the party was great. Most memorable were sets by Bodyrockers and Fatboy Slim.

A party like this can be a bit taxing on the system to say the least, but is well worth it once every other year!

Here’s a fun, although a bit weird, 3D animation about farmers eating dogs, cats and mice…

Source: mesh

I came across these hilarious letters by Groucho Marx to Warner Brothers written in 1946.

Apparently Warner Bros got wind of the fact that the Marx Bros were going to do a send-up of ‘Casablanca’ (filmed nearly five years earlier in 1942). The film was to be called ‘A Night in Casablanca’, featuring ‘Humphrey Bogus’.

This didn’t sit right with the legal department at Warner Bros, so they threatened to sue.

In his defence, Groucho replied:

[Show]

Dear Warner Brothers,

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.

It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.

I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor’s eye, and even before there had been other brothers—the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (This was originally “Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?” but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one, and whittled it down to “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”)

Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well it’s not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks—Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.

As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. I can think of two Harrys that preceded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn’t too well-known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.

Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such confused and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.

This is pure conjecture, of course, but who knows—perhaps Burbank’s survivors aren’t too happy with the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures on a quota settled in their town, appropriated Burbank’s name and uses it as a front for their films. It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that your studio emerged “Casablanca” or even “Gold Diggers of 1931.”

This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade, but I assure you it’s not meant to. I love Warners. Some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing you an injustice and that you, yourselves, know nothing about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that the heads of your legal department are unaware of this absurd dispute, for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans Saroyan.

I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type well—hot out of law school, hungry for success, and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he won’t get away with it! We’ll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin, and we’ll remain friends till the last reel of “A Night in Casablanca” goes tumbling over the spool.

Sincerely,

Groucho Marx

Following this letter, Warner Bros demanded to know at least the story line of the film, so they could ascertain whether an infringement of copyright had taken place. Groucho promptly responded with:

[Show]

Dear Warners:
There isn’t much I can tell you about the story. In it I play a Doctor of Divinity who ministers to the natives and, as a sideline, hawks can openers and pea jackets to the savages along the gold Coast of Africa.

When I first meet Chico, he is working in a saloon, selling sponges to barflies who are unable to carry their liquor. Harpo is an Arabian caddie who lives in a small Grecian urn on the outskirts of the city.

[…]

Needless to say, this ridiculous storyline prompted Warner Bros to ask for clarification, to which Groucho obliged:

[Show]

Dear Brothers:

Since I last wrote you, I regret to say there have been some changes in the plot of our new picture, “A Night in Casablanca.” In the new version I play Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart. Harpo and Chico are itinerant rug peddlers who are weary of laying rugs and enter a monastery just for a lark. This is a good joke on them, as there hasn’t been a lark in the place for fifteen years

[…]

After this last letter, Warner Bros saw the futility of it all and dropped the case against the Marx Bros.

‘A Night in Casablanca’ was released in 1946.

Physicists from ANU working with the ESA have recently designed a new spaceship engine prototype that I used to read about in science fiction not long ago.

Ion drives create thrust by expelling an ion particle beam, which in turn propel the ship in the opposite direction.

There has been some development in this field in the past by NASA (view flash presentation) and ESA, but low thrust to weight ratio has been their shortcoming.

The new Australian designs have addressed this issue more effectively and future space travel via ion thrusters seem a tad more promising.

It took only four months for the scientists to design and manufacture the ion thruster. It showed Australian scientists were more than capable of such project, said Dr Orson Sutherland, project leader at the ANU Space Plasma, Power and Propulsion (SP3) laboratory.

“We’ve got the capability and know how, we just need the opportunity and sometimes we are lucky enough to find opportunities like we have with space propulsion,” he said.

“I think at the very least Australia should have a space agency or some sort of organisation that Australia can interface with the rest of the world.”

Given enough electricity, there is no reason why ion drive ships couldn’t traverse yonder and beyond methinks!

Source: Aussie scientists build new space engine

Yesterday was a hot day, but today marks the beginning of the ultra-hot days. It will be 43°C. That’s way too hot to do anything useful.

We were planning to go to the beach, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea now, unless we planned to stay submerged in the water for the whole time.

There’s one thing about the Aussie sun. Not only is it hot, but the heat is dry and burns the skin very easily. I think all it takes to get sun burnt today is to stay in the open for about 20 minutes without sunblock.

Many people (mostly tourists) do not know how damaging the Aussie sun is and like to spend the whole day sun-baking on the beach, on a day like this, without sunblock. Then they wonder why they end up in hospital with 2nd degree or sometimes even 3rd degree burns.

Maybe I’ll make today a stay-home-and-relax-with-a-cool-drink day!

Hugh Thompson, a former US Army helicopter pilot honoured for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow soldiers during the My Lai massacre, has died, aged 62.

[…]

“These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them,” Thompson recalled in a 1998 Associated Press interview.

Early on the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon US ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.

They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the US soldiers to prevent more killings.

[…]

Thompson’s role in ending My Lai didn’t come to light until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview with Thompson in a documentary on the massacre. He launched a letter-writing campaign that eventually led to the awarding of the medals in 1998.

“I proudly and humbly accept it not only for myself but for the men who served their country with honour on the battlefield in Southeast Asia,” Thompson said at the time of the award.

Articles:

• My Lai massacre hero dies
• A hero of one of America’s darkest days

Related:

• Washington hid damaging Vietnam finding

When it’s stuck to a $20 bill. That doesn’t mean you can go and stick a banana sticker on any old $20 bill and earn yourself $20 grand auctioning it.

The reason this banana sticker so special is because the sticker somehow found it’s way onto the bill during the printing process.

US currency is printed in three stages: first back of the note is printed, the face devices follow, finally comes the Treasury Seal and the serial numbers.

What makes this sticker unique is when it found it’s way onto the note. Somehow the banana sticker found it’s way onto the surface of the note after the first and second stages, but before the final stage. That’s why it covers everything but the seal and serial number.

I’m curious though. Has anyone ever peeled the sticker off to see whether the seal and serial number are authentic?

I mean, isn’t it possible to stick a fruit sticker on the note then pen or paint on a fake seal and serial number?

You never know…

Story: $20 Bill Printed Over Sticker Nets $25,300

It’s Australia Day, so let’s brush up on the Aussie lingo…

The garbo’s off on compo because he went troppo. We’ll give the kiddies their Chrissie pressies by the barbie, so come round for brekkie and bring your cossie, a few tinnies and something to stop the mossies.

If you can understand any part of that, I’d say you are well on your way to becoming an Aussie!

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Related:

• An Aussie summer: fierce creatures, scorching sun
• Beware of Dropbears

There is a strange state between life and death that is akin to suspended animation. Researchers have discovered a technique that allows them to bring animals back to life after being dead for a few hours.

First the heart begins to beat, and then the pig starts breathing. Finally, it stands up and looks curiously at the man in the lab coat standing outside its cage.

“This animal was dead for several hours,” says Hasan Alam, 39, a surgeon at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. “But we brought it back. And now it’s here again.”

The same magic forces seem to be at work in the animal research facility of the General Hospital of the City of Vienna. Pigs are suddenly opening their eyes after their hearts were stopped with electric shocks and they lay dead for half an hour. “The miracle,” says Wilhelm Behringer, 39, a physician specializing in emergency medicine, “is that the animals return to life without neurological damage.”

This feat has being performed hundreds of times in the past few years on dogs and pigs.

Researchers allow dogs or pigs to bleed to death. Their blood is collected and kept warm. The animals’ bodies are then flooded with saline solution that had been cooled to around 2°C (36°F).

It was found that by adding tiny amounts of sugar to the saline solution, the animals could be left in this state longer without adverse effects.

At this stage the animals are dead: no heartbeat, no breathing, no brain activity.

After a few hours, the creatures are then brought back to life. It’s simply a matter of pumping back their own oxygen enriched blood, then applying mild electric shocks until the animals revive.

This discovery has significant impact on medicine, especially in emergency situations where the extra time could mean the difference between life and (permanent) death. It also brings the science-fiction notion of suspended animation a step closer to reality.

Pretty amazing stuff, but a tad creepy.

Source: Round-Trip Journeys to the Afterworld