Category: unkategorisch

Last week Sotheby’s auctioned a Rembrandt self portrait. It did not go as intended. 1632 there were no batteries, and they would not last that long in the frame. Of his 600 paintings around 40 had the subject of ‘moi’, but as Oliver Barker points out, only 3 of those are in private collections, and therefor – unless weird things happen – the only ones on the market. This particular one shows the painter at the age of 26. 22 years younger than its auctioneer.

However: It did not move.

While it sold after rather tedious 395 sounds, it was only 12.6 million pounds that the auction house could get for it for its client.

EDIT:

I was confused, since the number in the NY Times:

was 14.5 and not the 12.6 documented by YouTube. Of course I suspected that Scott Reyburn would be bad at math. Which shows more about my attitudes towards people who actually can write, than to what is going on, and how that relates to how little I actually know: The number that the auctioneer says is what the seller receives. The buyer however has to pay a premium to the auction house as well. Which at this price explains the added 15%.

The man presiding over the US of A can be heard saying in Summer 2020. Is it so? In theory yes. Every outbreak, regardless of where, can be easiest mitigated at its source. The size of a well connected immunologically naïve population will impact the speed of distribution of any communicable disease. Not good for the Middle Kingdom. But could have China stopped it? That is very doubtful. In January there was already a vast pool of infected people. China put a lock down on more than 20 million people in January 23rd.

Months later the man in the US will still say, that Covid 19 is just like the flu and will blow over by summer.

While it is not clear what China could have done to eradicate the virus, it is very clear what the US could have done to stop what happens to it now: So far, it has four times the per capita death rate of Germany. While both took an economic hit of similar proportions in Q2.

The President not acting in January and Februar in terms of testing was a deadly mistake. Interpreting the motivations of a crazy person has its logical perils. I think that testing was not high on his priorities for a while since having no cases would make him look good.

How a hypothetical battle between Leonidas’ 300 and Astors 400 would end would entirely depend on how much prep time would be allowed.

Things did change during those 2372 years that lie between both enumerations. Just a couple of hours of shopping would flip the direction of the to be expected massacre.

On Sundays I switch on the wonderful “Blocksite” extension.

For news, twitter, reddit, feedbin, instagram I have the system show me the results of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random instead.

Image is from the font called Sunday. No affiliation, just google image search nudging me along …

GDRP became law in 2016. Its implementation date was 2 years ago. It is easy.

sorry for the victims, all 7 of them

Still: was too good to let is pass by.

An apt illustration of the Republican reign that started 2016.

Specially interesting since allot of things happened between 1776 and 1976. Many of which would have a debt component, like Wars, space exploration, infra structure buildout, etc.

Gemüter erhitzten sich. Meister Isegrim war wieder da. Aus dem Osten. Arme Tiere reissend. Oder eben Natur die dann wahr und heilig ist. Menschen konnten sich nicht einig werden. Viele waren aufgebracht. Und es schien so wichtig zu sein wie man sich den wilden Vierbeinern gegenüber verhalten sollte.

Und dann war es plötzlich kein Thema mehr. Nicht das die Wolflosigkeit der letzen 150 Jahre wieder hergestellt wurde, oder das intesive Studium der Gebrüder Grimm zum gesellschaftlichen Konsens geführt hätte.

Nein: In der Schublade “bedrohliche Natur” machte sich einfach ein andere Neophyt breit. Und damit ist der Wolf dann kein Thema mehr.