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New statue commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft "erected" in London, provoking controversy
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Interestingly a very respectful (and fully clothed) statue was proposed by a male sculptor, but the committee went for this one by a woman artist
this was the rejected proposal
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I think the naked statue is ok. If you have to bring up those terrible spinsters, then at least let us imagine that they were always naked. :)
If you can´t argue the facts.... rhetoric 101.
 
Today's Formula 1 race in Sakhir showed impressively how safe modern race cars have become.

On lap 1 of the race, French driver Romain Grosjean collided with another car and hit the wall with 250 kph (~ 155 mph). His car broke in two and exploded in a big fireball.

I watched the incident live on TV and was initially worried that I just witnessed the first fatal F1 crash since Jules Bianchi in 2014. I am thankful that this did not turn out to be true.

Romain was trapped in the flaming wreck of his car for a total of 27 seconds before he finally managed to climb out. At the moment it seems like he was lucky to get away with only minor burns.

 
F1 was (along with Indy Car) very late in adopting a roll hoop over the front of the cockpit. It's only a few years old. But they were in step or ahead with fuel cells (fire prevention), tires, mirrors, etc. They were very slow demanding seat belts. In the late 60s a driver still could 'opt out' of using them.
Much has changed. Watch a clip of 'Bobby Allison Talledega wreck' and its amazing he survived (much less was mostly uninjured) the late 80s wreck.
Now many sanctioning bodies look out for 'unsportsman-like driving'. The cars are so safe drivers will use them as weapons to pass someone!!!
 
The 'opt out' was, because many F1 drivers were more afraid of burning to death, while strapped in the seat belts, than of being killed on impact.
Jochen Rindt used to strap himself only partly for that reason. This contributed to his death on his fatal crash in Monza, 1970.

It is the same with many things regarding the safety. Every advantage also brings a disadvantage. F1's halo is not different. While we have seen the halo definately preventing worse (probably even saving the drivers' lives) at least two times since its introduction (Grosjean's crash last week and the Leclerc/Alonso crash in Spa 2018), the downside is that it makes it more difficult for the drivers to get out of the car if the car was flipped upside down after a collision. This was proven once again by Stroll's crash after the race was restarted last week. He really had to fight his way out of the car.

To be honest, I was not a fan of the halo upon the introduction. That was not for optical reasons, but because I did (and still do) think that the "shield" would have been the better concept.

When I saw that on the news the first thing I thought of was Niki Lauda's crash in 1976.
He was able to return to racing just 40 days later and won the championship the next year. But, the damage done to his body may have contributed to his death last year at the age of 70.

If you have a chance, go and see the 2013 movie "Rush" where Lauda is brilliantly played by Daniel Brühl. The movie is about the 1976 season where the infamous crash happened. It also shows that the true danger where not the outer burns, but the burns in Lauda's lungs (since he breathed in the hot air).

I heard a rumor that Grosjean's visor was melted shut by the heat and kind of sealed him off from breathing in the fire.
 
It is the same with many things regarding the safety. Every advantage also brings a disadvantage. F1's halo is not different. While we have seen the halo definately preventing worse (probably even saving the drivers' lives) at least two times since its introduction (Grosjean's crash last week and the Leclerc/Alonso crash in Spa 2018), the downside is that it makes it more difficult for the drivers to get out of the car if the car was flipped upside down after a collision. This was proven once again by Stroll's crash after the race was restarted last week. He really had to fight his way out of the car.

To be honest, I was not a fan of the halo upon the introduction. That was not for optical reasons, but because I did (and still do) think that the "shield" would have been the better concept.
I have the same thoughts about the halo. It definitely protects, but seems to me an obstacle for escape. I also wonder whether it does not influence the driver's view? When driving at such high speed, a split second becomes important for the driver's judgement, particularly in safety issues, and when the halo was just in the line of sight, that split second,...

Safety measures are of course always a double. When compulsory seat belts were introduced in cars in the 1970's many feared that they could be an obstacle too, in case the car caught fire after an accident.
 
December 7 here, in 1941 Japan bombs Peril Harbor being the US formally into WWII...
When I was a boy growing up in the fifties, December 7th had an immediate and terrible meaning. Everyone knew Pearl Harbor Day, A day that will live in infamy!
Pathé News film:
 
I have the same thoughts about the halo. It definitely protects, but seems to me an obstacle for escape. I also wonder whether it does not influence the driver's view? When driving at such high speed, a split second becomes important for the driver's judgement, particularly in safety issues, and when the halo was just in the line of sight, that split second,...

Safety measures are of course always a double. When compulsory seat belts were introduced in cars in the 1970's many feared that they could be an obstacle too, in case the car caught fire after an accident.
Same when I was growing up. I wandered far and wide, even into the New Zealand bush.
 
Bob Dylan has sold his entire songwriting catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group for an undisclosed price that’s estimated to be more than $300 million!

:eek:
It was disclosed by the BBC this evening as £225 million, which I suppose is about $300 million. Apparently a lot of successful (and canny) songwriters who've held onto their rights are doing it - streaming and downloading has snowballed huge during the Covid lockdowns, and companies reckon getting their paws on those rights is an investment worth paying seriously big bucks for - and they don't come bigger than Dylan.
 
It was disclosed by the BBC this evening as £225 million, which I suppose is about $300 million. Apparently a lot of successful (and canny) songwriters who've held onto their rights are doing it - streaming and downloading has snowballed huge during the Covid lockdowns, and companies reckon getting their paws on those rights is an investment worth paying seriously big bucks for - and they don't come bigger than Dylan.
A Midwestern American Poet paid a third of a billion dollars for his writings!
 
When I was a boy growing up in the fifties, December 7th had an immediate and terrible meaning. Everyone knew Pearl Harbor Day, A day that will live in infamy!
Pathé News film:
Isoroku Yamamoto, designer of the Pearl Harbor Attack was distressed when he learned that the notice of the attack was not given in Washington a few minutes beforehand as planned but fourth minutes later. He said a Samurai warrior would not honorably slay an enemy sleeping in his bed. He must wake him first and then could slay him in his bed.
 
Two thousand years ago today...

'On the 10th of December, in the year 20 AD, the most spectacular trial of the early principate ended. The defendant was charged with nothing less than the murder in Syria of Germanicus, adopted son and declared heir of the emperor Tiberius. The accusation was made against Cn. Calpurnius Piso and his wife Plancina, who had both been in Syria at the same time as Germanicus.
[...]
'Germanicus’ friends laid a charge of murder, but they were unable to prove this during the trial. Nevertheless, the accusation did not collapse, because a number of further, very serious charges were brought. Above all, Piso was accused of inciting Roman troops to fight each other in Syria, in other words, of instigating civil conflict. The accused saw no chance of getting off free. After the fifth day of the trial, he took the only way out, and committed suicide. He was found in his bedroom, with his throat cut, the following morning. The trial nevertheless continued: after two more days, the senate gave their verdict: Piso would have been sentenced to death, if he had not forestalled them. But his wife Plancina, and his son Marcus, who had been accused with him, were set free, because Tiberius, and especially his mother Livia, intervened on their behalf.'

Tsk-tsk, Tiberius! How non-CF-ish! :devil:
 
On this day in 1965, CBS premiered A Charlie Brown Christmas. The show was not only the first to bring the "Peanuts" characters from the newspaper page to the screen, but it also incorporated unexpected elements, like using the voices of children instead of trained adults, jazz music, a Bible passage and no laugh track
 
Today, British Airways retired its Boeing 747 fleet. It is a process seen in many large airlines, to phase out the B747, particularly for passenger traffic. 'The Queen of the Skies' is gradually replaced by twin engined B777, B757 and A350. However the Covid crisis is accelerating the retirement of the B747. KLM is doing so, Lufthansa also envisages earlier phasing out,...
 
Today, British Airways retired its Boeing 747 fleet. It is a process seen in many large airlines, to phase out the B747, particularly for passenger traffic. 'The Queen of the Skies' is gradually replaced by twin engined B777, B757 and A350. However the Covid crisis is accelerating the retirement of the B747. KLM is doing so, Lufthansa also envisages earlier phasing out,...
Air New Zealand has, temporarily at least, put all its B777s into storage and is flying only B787s on its long haul flights.
 
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