It’s the end of the week already, and PCC(E) is busy lecturing on his cruise ship somewhere in the East Atlantic, so we are still on starvation rations here.
In Dobrzyn, Hili is doing that watching thing that cats do:
A: What are you looking at?
Hili: At the development of the situation.
Ja: Na co patrzysz?
Hili: Na rozwój wydarzeń.
29 April 1942 | A French Jewish boy, Lucien Benayoun, was born in Lyon.
He was deported to #Auschwitz on 11 August 1944 and murdered in a gas chamber. pic.twitter.com/SE7NcYQxLV
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) April 29, 2022
On this day:
1483 – Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands, is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile.
1770 – James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.
1826 – The galaxy Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is discovered by James Dunlop.
1852 – Roget’s Thesaurus, created by Peter Roget, was released to the public.- And there’s still only one word for Thesaurus…
1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor; Hitler and Braun both commit suicide the following day.
1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
1974 – Watergate scandal: United States President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings relating to the scandal.
1992 – Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
Births:
1854 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist, and engineer (d. 1912)
1894 – Marietta Blau, Austrian physicist and academic (d. 1970)
1899 – Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1974)
1929 – Jeremy Thorpe, English lawyer and politician (d. 2014)
1935 – Otis Rush, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2018)
1952 – David Icke, English footballer and sportscaster – and conspiracy theorist
Those who fell off the perch:
1947 – Irving Fisher, American economist and statistician (b. 1867) –
Stated that the stock market had reached “a permanently high plateau”; nine days later the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred.
1951 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-English philosopher and academic (b. 1889)
1980 – Alfred Hitchcock, English-American director and producer (b. 1899)
1993 – Mick Ronson, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (b. 1946)
2006 – John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian-American economist and diplomat, United States Ambassador to India (b. 1908)
2008 – Albert Hofmann, Swiss chemist and academic (b. 1906)
2014 – Bob Hoskins, English actor (b. 1942)
Making the word “Thesaurus” heterological.
Now, for the Grelling–Nelson paradox: is the word “heterological” itself heterological or autological?
Perhaps resolve this using the method of Bertrand Russell for the Russell Paradox.
When they eventually find the original dinosaur, they can call it “thesaurus” 🙂
Thereby revivifying the collocation “[expletive deleted]”.
In memory of Mick Ronson’s guitar playing (song by David Bowie, lead vocals by Ian Hunter):
Ronson is one of my all-time favorite guitarists. But isn’t that Mick Ralphs playing with Mott?
Here’s a version where it’s definitely Ronson (and another one where Bowie performs it with Ronson and Hunter):
I always liked the ‘rond-point Poincaré although I gather it is not it’s official name.
Of course I had to google around to see if I could find a synonym for thesaurus…..nope.
I was reminded, however, of one of my favorite sets of synonyms: anthology and florilegium.
Such a wonderful pairing of Greek roots in one and Latin roots in the other that each bring the sense of a collection of beautiful flowers.
In other news, the telescope alignment phase of getting the James Webb Space Telescope ready has been successfully completed, although checking the instruments’ calibration will take a while longer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61268680
If you want to see what is happening with the James Webb Space Telescope in somewhat real time :
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html
Apparently it will be some months yet before it starts its work.