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mds2 posted:Why do they need blindfolds? Partially sighted players play too, so everyone wears a blindfold so they can't see a thing. Partially sighted players may be able to get an advantage from seeing the light of the sun and being able to orientate themselves more quickly than fully blind players, for example.
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Nov 25, 2014 15:45
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JEEVES420 posted:Your wikipedia quote is for more of a modern definition of the term. Wake did in fact mean that it was a watch over the body to see if they woke up/ward off evil spirits. That is why the body could never be alone and had to always be watched. This is also why in some cultures wakes were large parties to make as much noise as possible to try and wake the dead. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wakes originated in Ireland, which is predominantly Roman Catholic. There are quite a few restricitions on when Catholic funeral masses can be held - basically a chunk of the Christmas season and about 50 days either side of Easter. Funerals can still be held at anytime but during these times there would be little or no opportunity for a gathering of friends, families and acquaintances of the deceased, so they began to hold wakes instead. The custom spread so wakes were even held outside of the Easter season. During a wake the body is kept in their home on show, and people could arrive uninvited at any time between the death and the funeral. This meant that someone would have to stay awake to receive these visitors and those same visitors would usually stay a while, particularly at night, to help the awake visitors stay awake. So it doesn't mean that they're waiting for the body to wake up, it means that everyone is staying awake to keep each other awake, so they can receive more visitors who in turn will stay awake. At a wake everyone is awake except the dead guy. Simple 
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Feb 5, 2015 13:54
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The Lockheed U-2 There are plenty of planes introduced in the 50s and 60s which are still in use today (the MiG-27 by India for example) but few which are still in operation by the country that actually made them. The U-2 went operational in 1957 and is still in use by the US today. It's not particularly fast but flies at an altitude of 70,000 feet - that's 13 miles above the ground and almost twice as high as a 747. When I was an air cadet in the UK I went to an air force base the U-2 was operating out of and we got a (brief) look round their preparation rooms and watched the two American sergeants dressing the pilot in a spacesuit and doing all sorts of tests to make sure he'd survive the flight. We were told, slightly tongue-in-cheek, not to salute the pilot because he "officially wasn't there". Then we each got a peek in the cockpit which was a mix of ancient looking instruments with computers strapped onto various bits and barely enough room to fit a cat, let alone a pilot in a spacesuit. The sergeants wouldn't let us look in it for more than five seconds because presumably any longer and we'd be able to steal state secrets or something. Maybe if we were American we'd have got ten seconds. To reach that sort of altitude the aircraft jettisons its landing gear just after take off and lands later on little wheels or something. It was a busy airfield (this being the height of the Iraq War) so the gear had to be removed quickly, so we piled into a Subaru Impreza and a Fiat Panda (!) and shot up behind it as it took off. When the wheels fell to earth the sergeants jumped out and threw them into the back seat over our legs. I still remember them being, well, pretty drat hot. For rather obvious reasons we weren't allowed to take photos so obviously absolutely nobody has ever believed me when I tell them this. But it definitely happened!! The plane itself looks tough as hell up close. Like an old grizzled war veteran who could still kick your rear end.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:17
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Wilford Cutlery posted:Too many videos to link, but definitely search YouTube for u2 flight Huh, my cool story isn't nearly as cool now I know theres thousands of youtube videos of the same thing. I probably shouldn't have told you anyway. I'm pretty sure I have to kill you now 
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Mar 5, 2015 20:25
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