Monday OT - July 20: The Pyréolophore

Sweetmorn, Confusion 55, 3186 YOLD (Discordian)
And let us not forget 13.0.7.12.8 mlc (the Mayan Long Count)
On July 20, 1807, Nicéphore Niépce got a patent for arguably the world's first "internal combustion engine": the Pyréolophore. The engine did not operate as we today visualize such things, as near as I can tell, and was very much integrated into the propulsion system of the boat it powered. It did have a combustion chamber into which fuel was introduced and within which it was ignited. There things get a bit strange. It did have a piston, to operate all of the linkages valves, and whatnot that governed the introduction of fuel and air and the ignition flame, but the motive power all came from the exhaust. The exhaust pipe was underwater and naturally filled with water. The engine's exhaust forced the water out of the exhaust pipe, moving the boat forward by reaction, and the pipe refilled while awaiting the next shot of exhaust. It sounds very much like an aquatic V-1 buzz bomb built with steampunk technology. Whatever, it did work, though it was very much directly limited to nautical propulsion.
On this day in history:
1402 – Timur defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I at Ankara This led to the Ottoman interregnum, possibly saving Europe's bacon.
1738 – French Colonist/adventurer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reached the western shore of Lake Michigan.
1807 – Nicéphore Niépce was awarded a patent for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declared independence from Spain.
1848 – The first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, ended
1871 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
1917 – The Corfu Declaration, which led to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.
1922 – The League of Nations awarded mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
1934 – Police in Minneapolis fired upon striking truck drivers,killing two and wounding sixty-seven.
1934 – Police tear gassed and clubbed 2,000 striking longshoremen in Seattle, and the governor of Oregon called out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.
1936 – The Montreux Convention was signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
1940 – Denmark left the League of Nations.
1940 – California opened its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.
1941 – Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD. Kind of like the the way we created DHS as an umbrella over our vastly more numerous "security" organizations.
1960 – Ceylon elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
1960 – A Polaris missile was successfully launched from a submarine for the first time.
1961 – French military forces broke the Tunisian siege of Bizerte, but eventually ceded the base anyway..
1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held at Soldier Field in Chicago.
1969 – Apollo 11's crew successfully made the first manned landing on the Moon; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon six and a half hours later.
1976 – The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency released documents under duress which showed that it had engaged in mind-control experiments.
1985 – The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles, a notorious tax haven of long standing.
1989 – Burma's ruling junta put opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
2005 – The Civil Marriage Act legalized same-sex marriage in Canada.
2015 – The United States and Cuba briefly resumed full diplomatic relations
Born this day in:
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
~ Petrarch
356 BC – Alexander the Great
1304 – Petrarch, poet and scholar
1591 – Anne Hutchinson, Puritan preacher banished from Boston for thoughtcrime
1804 – Richard Owen, biologist, anatomist, and paleontologist
1822 – Gregor Mendel, monk, geneticist and botanist
1847 – Max Liebermann, painter and academic advocate for impressionism
1864 – Ruggero Oddi, physiologist and anatomist (Oddi's sphincter)
1873 – Alberto Santos-Dumont, pilot inventor, and aircraft designer
1882 – Olga Hahn-Neurath, mathematician and philosopher, part of Vienna circle
1918 – Cindy Walker, country music singer, songwriter, and dancer
1933 – Buddy Knox, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1933 – Cormac McCarthy, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter
1935 – Sleepy LaBeef, rockabilly singer and musician
1936 – Alistair MacLeod, novelist and short story writer
1939 – Judy Chicago, painter, sculptor, and promoter of feminist art
1944 – T. G. Sheppard, country music singer and songwriter
1945 – Kim Carnes, singer and songwriter
1945 – John Lodge, singer, songwriter, bass player, and producer
1947 – Carlos Santana, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist
1953 – Dave Evans, singer and songwriter
1953 – Marcia Hines, singer and actress
1954 – Jay Jay French, guitarist and producer
1955 – Jem Finer, banjo player and songwriter, creator of the now playing "Longplayer"
1956 – Paul Cook, drummer
1958 – Mick MacNeil, keyboard player and songwriter
1959 – Radney Foster, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1964 – Chris Cornell, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1966 – Stone Gossard, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1967 – Courtney Taylor-Taylor, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist
Died this day in:
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
~~ Pancho Villa
1616 – Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, rebel soldier
1866 – Bernhard Riemann, mathematician and academic
1897 – Jean Ingelow, poet and author
1922 – Andrey Markov, mathematician and theorist
1923 – Pancho Villa, general and politician, Governor of Chihuahua
1937 – Olga Hahn-Neurath, mathematician and philosopher from the Vienna Circle
1937 – Guglielmo Marconi, physicist and engineer
1945 – Paul Valéry, author and poet
1965 – Batukeshwar Dutt, activist
1972 – Geeta Dutt, singer and actress
1980 – Maria Martinez, San Ildefonso Pueblo potter
2013 – Helen Thomas, journalist and author
2017 – Chester Bennington, singer
Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
Nap Day
Moon Day
National Fortune Cookie Day (in bed)
International Chess Day
National Lollipop Day
Global Hug Your Kids Day
Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies
Buddy Knox
Sleepy LaBeef
Kim Carnes
John Lodge
Carlos Santana
Marcia Hines
Jay Jay French
Jem Finer
Paul Cook
Mick MacNeil
Chris Cornell
Courtney Taylor-Taylor
Pancho Villa
Chester Bennington
It's an open thread, so do your thing

Comments
Derek Ho walked on over the weekend.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybvMnuoYZw width:500 height:300]
Not sure about the NKVD history, compare here: Wikipedia
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Reply below, beneath reply to Lookout, not hooked to this
comment, probably my oops, but also lots of browser issues lately.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning
Using the early AM to get the gardening chores done now that it is full blown muggy hot here. Blueberries are nearly played out, soon to be one less chore, but lots of others to take its place. Squash, cukes, maters, okra all require daily harvest at this point. Now it's time to think about starting fall crops in flats for planting late August early September. Always something ain't it?
A while back I bought a mirror in an ornamental metal casing for a couple of bucks at trade day and hung it in the garden as yard art. Young titmouse were jousting with their image all morning today. Quite entertaining. Flocks of wrens also flying around and eating beetles (yea wrens!)
Never heard of the Pyréolophore. Interesting. Thanks for the OT and the music. Have a good day. I might try to celebrate with a nap later.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout. Good that you're gettng food from
your garden. So far, we've harvested nothing but green beans, thugh we did pick pears this weekend.
Titmice and wrens are a gas to watch when one finds the time to do so. Ours are all a bit bonkers.
Enjoy your nap
be well and hae a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning Az. Thanks for dropping in.
Perhaps my source on the simplistic NKVD origins story was trying to get to this badly written bit from the Wiki you link to:
Dunno. my fault for simply taking it at face value and not researching. Should've realized that it was inadequately Byzantine.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I always think of 1934 as the critical year
when it comes to the NKVD. The secret political police were around from the very start in Bolshevik Russia. They started out as the All-Russian Extraordinary (or Emergency) Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, or Cheka for short, in 1917. The Cheka then evolved to GPU, the OGPU and finally the NKVD. 1934 was important in NKVD history because 1) that was the year Stalin appointed Yagoda as its head and 2) that was the year Kirov was assassinated. The Kirov murder set off the era of show trials, purges and the expansion of the Gulag, all the things we associate with the NKVD.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Hola folks. I switched to Chrome as my primary browser
during a period when Firefox was giving me tons of grief. After my recent OS upgrade, however, Chrome is giving me tons of grief, so I am going to try to load Ubuntu's distro of Chromium on top of it. I may be away for a bit.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
News story
this morning.
Good morning RAnd, thanks for the clip.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning all.
Its interesting this happened on the same day, the same year.
FDR was president, Floyd B. Olson was Governor of MN (Farmer-Labor party), A. G. Bainbridge was the Mayor of Minneapolis (Republican) who gave the police the go-ahead to 'break up the strike'. Subsequently 2 Teamsters were shot and killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._G._Bainbridge
I didn't did into it, I know that the west coast Longshore
action was a coordinated thing, so perhaps it was a national day of action of some sort. The cops, of course, would do their thing wherever there was any labor action, after all, look at the date.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
the flowers that have the job of the ears
Happy in the dirt patch"

Oenothera rubricaulis
The backyard neighbor's gf identified it this morning for me, with her fancy phone app. right on She says it's crazy at Marin General right now, because of cash flow and money problems? wtf I had a little blowout about the number of billionaires in Marin County, and why isn't the State doing more to support workers, etc.? She has had it with masks, and PPE and everything. Has to run around all day, every floor, feels like she can't breath, it's not great. Send out good vibes and think happy thoughts. Thanks. I told her I would never encourage anyone to start a revolution, wink wink, but huelga! (raises fist)
Memorial Hospital workers to begin 5-day strike Monday
When I told her the nooz she perked right up and said, "oh really?" LOL
all browser suck
good luck
peace and love
keep going
Good morning eyo. Installed and loaded Chromium, running
in parallel to, as opposed to on top of Chrome. Slowly copying over my open tabs addresses, followed, most of the time, by obligatory re-login. As log as it doesn't crash tabs at random and/or simply refuse to open them like Chrome was doing. Once that's done I have to figure out how to reload certain extensions and see if they work.
Very interesting about the flower, and great about the strike. Let a thousand strikes bloom, as one might say. Huelga!
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Huelga!
Today, thousands of food workers will walk off the job in a “Strike for Black Lives”
https://thecounter.org/strike-for-black-lives-july-20-labor/
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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Good afternoon magi. Huelga indeed!
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
hi el
et al
foggy mornings here. Sun now. woo hoo. Garden seems to be okay with it.
Have gophers.
Here's a thought for future survival
Retired USPS van is converted into a mobile community center
https://inhabitat.com/retired-usps-van-is-converted-into-a-mobile-commun...
cool pics
Hope all is well for y'all. Take good care and have a good one.
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
Hola magi. Van seems like a wonderful idea. Good to see
such things going on.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --