FAREWELL 2014

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hi folks,

Last day of this year and time for my recollections of 2014’s main events.

As always this is by no means meant to be a complete coverage of all the events that happened during 2014, just a personal blog post about some of the things I remember, and a few that I had forgotten until I started to compile this list.

I hope you enjoy.

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The Weather

We will start off with the weather since so many of us seem to be obsessed with it.

• In the United States there were weather extremes. In California, for example, January was the warmest and driest on record in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles. Only four other Januaries since 1878 had been completely dry in Los Angeles until January 2014. Alaskans experienced their third warmest January in 96 years of record, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

• In many parts of the Midwest, on the other hand, 2014 was the coldest winter since the late 1970s or early 1980s. And some southern states of the US became the victims of, firstly, winter storm Kronos which brought a rare blanket of snow as far south as Louisiana, and sleet as far south as Harlingen, Texas and Pensacola, Fla. in late January, and then, just days later, a second winter storm, Leon, hit many of the same areas causing commuter chaos in both Birmingham, Ala. and Atlanta. Leon also spread ice and sleet to the Gulf Coast, including the Florida Panhandle, and the Low country of South Carolina.
• And worse was on the way. Winter Storm Pax deposited an inch or more of ice in a swath from east-central Georgia into South Carolina, including Augusta, Ga. and Aiken, S.C. Pax was the second heaviest ice storm dating to 1947 in Wilmington, N.C. The accumulation of ice from Pax claimed the famed “Eisenhower tree” at the Augusta National Golf Club. Pax marked the first time since January 1940 that Columbia, S.C. saw snowfall for three straight days.

• In complete contrast, the week after Pax, Columbia, S.C. tied its all-time February high of 84 degrees. Augusta, Ga. warmed into the 80s two straight days on Feb. 19-20.
• Elsewhere in the world, severe Atlantic winter storms took their toll on many parts of England which in 2014 experienced storms and rain not seen since the late 19th century.

• In Tokyo, Japan, which usually averages only about 4 inches of snow each year, there were also severe snow storms. In February, snow blanketed the city with 11 inches of snow in less than a week, the heaviest snowfall in 45 years for Tokyo and in 60 years for the city of Kumagaya, northwest of Tokyo. The following weekend, parts of eastern Japan, including parts of the Tokyo metro area, received another round of snow. Some smaller communities were isolated by more than 3 feet of snow.
• And in the southern hemisphere, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported that more than 10 percent of Queensland and almost 15 percent of New South Wales experienced their record hottest day on Jan. 3. A second heat wave hit parts of southern Australia in mid-January, with temperatures peaking above 41 degrees Celsius (just under 106 degrees Fahrenheit) for four straight days from Jan. 14-17, and reaching a sizzling 43.9 degrees C (111 degrees F) on both Jan. 16 and 17.

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Business and Technology

• In the world of business and technology 2014 was the year the Obama administration decided to stop inversion deals, where US companies bought foreign domiciled businesses and moved their profit centers to a much more tax friendly location.
• In technology buys, one of the largest was Facebook’s purchase of smartphone application WhatsApp for $19 Billion.

• In other sectors 2014 saw world oil price plunge to around $50 per barrel, good news for consumers, not so good for producers.
• Under pressure from the fall in oil and gas prices, along with the economic sanctions imposed by the west because of the ongoing situation in the Ukraine, the Russian Ruble went into free fall in December.

• Also in 2014, in March, the United Nations International Court of Justice ruled that Japan’s Antarctic whaling program was not scientific but commercial and refused to grant further permits.
• With Quantitative Easing having been ended in the US (for the moment anyway) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced plans for a new $29 billion fresh stimulus, including subsidies and job-creating programs, to help pull the world’s third-largest economy out of recession.

• After their embarrassing foul up last Christmas, this year both FedEx and UPS managed to deliver more than 99 percent of express packages as promised on Dec. 22 and Dec. 23, according to shipment tracker ShipMatrix.
• South Korean prosecutors arrested a government official who allegedly leaked information about an investigation into former Korean Air Lines executive Cho Hyun-ah, who forced a flight to return over a bag of macadamia nuts. Most of the rest of the world tends to think that the idiot executive should suffer the consequences of her stupidity, not the whistleblower.

• And finally, after their embarrassing hack attack and cringe-worthy capitulation to what amounted to a terrorist cyber attack which was rightly criticized publicly by President Obama, Sony finally decided to release its movie ‘The Interview’.

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Conflicts, Wars & Terrorism

Unfortunately 2014 saw many conflicts and acts of terrorism.

• In April an estimated 276 girls and women were abducted and held hostage from a school in Nigeria. The following month, Boko Haram militants killed approximately 300 people in a night attack on Gamboru Ngala and terrorists in Nigeria detonated bombs at Jos, killing 118 people.

• June saw the emergence of a Sunni militant group called the ‘Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’ (also known as the ‘ISIS’ or ‘ISIL’). It began an offensive throughout northern Iraq, with the aim of eventually capturing the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad and overthrowing the Shiite government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The group has been responsible for beheading of hundreds of people including several from the United States.

• In July and August tensions between Israel and Hamas grew following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June and the revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager in July. Israel launched ‘Operation Protective Edge’ on the Palestinian Gaza Strip starting with numerous missile strikes, followed by a ground invasion a week later. In 7 weeks of fighting, 2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis were killed.
• Also in July, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, crashed in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 souls on board. There are conflicting claims as to who was responsible, some blaming pro Russian forces for a missile strike and others blaming Ukrainian forces.

• In August and September the United States military began an air campaign in northern Iraq to stem the influx of ISIS militants and the following month the United States and several Arab partners began an airstrike campaign in Syria.

Expect more on these stories during 2015.

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Departures

During 2014 we said farewell to many well know people from various walks of life. Here is just my selection of those I remember.

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From Literature

Sue Townsend

British novelist and playwright (b. 1946)

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P. D. James

British writer and life peer

(b. 1920)

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From Movies & TV

Roger Lloyd-Pack

British actor

(b. 1944)

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Maximilian Schell

Austrian-Swiss actor

(b. 1930)

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Philip Seymour Hoffman

American actor

(b. 1967)

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Shirley Temple

American actress and diplomat

(b. 1928)

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Sid Caesar

American actor

(b. 1922)

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Harold Ramis

American film director,

writer, and actor

(b. 1944)

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Mickey Rooney

American actor

(b. 1920)

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Bob Hoskins

British actor

(b. 1942)

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Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

American actor

(b. 1918)

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Rik Mayall

British comedian,

writer and actor

(b. 1958)

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Casey Kasem

American radio host

and voice actor

(b. 1932)

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Eli Wallach

American actor

(b. 1915)

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Elaine Stritch

American actress and singer

(b. 1925)

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James Garner

American actor

(b. 1928)

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Menahem Golan

Israeli filmmaker

(b. 1929)

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Robin Williams

American actor and comedian

(b. 1951)

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Lauren Bacall

American actress

(b. 1924)

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Richard Attenborough

British actor and film director

(b. 1923)

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Joan Rivers

American comedian, actress,

and television host

(b. 1933)

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Richard Kiel

American actor (b. 1939)

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Polly Bergen

American actress

(b. 1930)

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Ken Takakura

Japanese actor

(b. 1931)

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Warren Clarke

English actor

(b. 1947)

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Glen A. Larson

American television producer

and writer

(b. 1937)

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Virna Lisi

Italian actress

(b. 1936)

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Billie Whitelaw

English actress

(b. 1932)

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Luise Rainer

Golden Age actress

“The Great Ziegfeld”

(b. 1910)

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From Music

Pete Seeger

American singer, songwriter,

musician, and activist

(b. 1919)

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Johnny Winter

American singer and guitarist

(b. 1944)

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Glenn Cornick

British bass guitarist

(b. 1947)

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Jack Bruce

British rock bassist

(b. 1943)

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Acker Bilk

British jazz clarinetist

(b. 1929)

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Joe Cocker

English singer

(b. 1944)

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From Politics

Zbigniew Messner

9th Prime Minister of the

People’s Republic of Poland

(b. 1929)

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Ariel Sharon

11th Prime Minister of Israel

(b. 1928)

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Tony Benn

British politician and diarist

(b. 1925)

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Adolfo Suárez

138th Prime Minister of Spain

(b. 1932)

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James R. Schlesinger

American economist and politician

(b. 1929)

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A. N. R. Robinson

3rd President of Trinidad and Tobago

(b. 1926)

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Howard Baker

American politician and diplomat

(b. 1925)

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Eduard Shevardnadze

2nd President of Georgia

(b. 1928)

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Albert Reynolds

Irish Taoiseach (prime minister)

(b. 1932)

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Ian Paisley

British politician and

First Minister of Northern Ireland

(b. 1926)

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Nicholas Romanov

Prince of Russia

(b. 1922)

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Jean-Claude Duvalier

41st President of Haiti

(b. 1951)

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John Spencer-Churchill

11th Duke of Marlborough,

British peer and educator

(b. 1926)

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Gough Whitlam

21st Prime Minister of Australia

(b. 1916)

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From Space Exploration

Valeri Kubasov

Soviet cosmonaut

(b. 1935)

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Wubbo Ockels

Dutch astronaut and physicist

(b. 1946)

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Henry Hartsfield

American colonel and astronaut

(b. 1933)

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Anatoly Berezovoy

Soviet cosmonaut

(b. 1942)

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From Sport

Eusébio

Portuguese footballer

(b. 1942)

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Mae Young

American professional wrestler

(b. 1923)

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Louise Brough

American tennis player

(b. 1923)

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Tom Finney

English footballer

(b. 1922)

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Nelson Frazier, Jr.

American professional wrestler

(b. 1971)

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Jimmy Ellis

American boxer

(b. 1940)

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Jack Brabham

Australian race car driver

(b. 1926)

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Malcolm Glazer

American businessman,

owner of Manchester United

(b. 1928)

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Valentin Mankin

Ukrainian sailor, Olympic triple champion

and silver medalist

(b. 1938)

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Fernandão

Brazilian footballer and manager

(b. 1978)

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Alfredo Di Stéfano

Argentine-Spanish footballer

(b. 1926)

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Andriy Bal

Ukrainian football player and coach

(b. 1958)

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Björn Waldegård

Swedish rally driver

(b. 1943)

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Andrea de Cesaris

Italian race car driver

(b. 1959)

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Health

• The big health scare of 2014 that dominated the headlines was the of the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa in February, that initially infected over 19,000 people and killing at least 7,000, the most severe both in terms of numbers of infections and casualties.

• In other news, also in February, Belgium became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age.

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Politics

• On January 1, Latvia officially adopted the Euro as its currency and became the 18th member of the Eurozone.
• In February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office, replacing him with Oleksandr Turchynov, after days of civil unrest that left around 100 people dead in Kiev. The pro-Russian unrest lead to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and an insurgency in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

• In March, Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, severed diplomatic and political ties with Panama, accusing it of being involved in a conspiracy against the Venezuelan government.
• Also in March, an emergency meeting, involving the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and Canada temporarily suspended Russia from the G8.
• In April, also in response to the Crimean crisis, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution temporarily stripping Russia of its voting rights; its rights to be represented in the Bureau of the Assembly, the PACE Presidential Committee, and the PACE Standing Committee; and its right to participate in election-observation missions.
• The same month, United States President Barack Obama began new economic sanctions against Russia, targeting companies and individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• In May the Royal Thai Army overthrew the caretaker government of Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan after a failure to resolve the political unrest in Thailand.
• Back in Europe, in June, King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicated in favor of his son, who ascended the Spanish throne as King Felipe VI.
• And the political year ended on a positive note, with U.S. President Barack Obama announcing the resumption of normal relations between the U.S. and Cuba after more than half a century.

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Space

• The major space event of 2014 happened in November when the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Philae probe successfully landed on Comet 67P, the first time in history that a spacecraft has landed on such an object.

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Sport

• The two major world sporting events of 2014 were the XXII Olympic Winter Games, held in Sochi, Russia in February, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup held in Brazil, and won by Germany, during June and July.

• In American sport the Super Bowl was won by the Seattle Seahawks, the MLB World Series  winners were the San Francisco Giants and in basketball the San Antonio Spurs came out on top.
• Ice Hockey had three champions in 2014, Canada becoming Olympic champions, Russia world champions and in the NHL the Los Angeles Kings were the victors.
• In tennis at the world famous Wimbledon Tournament in England Novak Djokovic became Men’s Singles Champion and Petra Kvitova Ladies Singles Champion, while the men’s and women’s winners of the US Open were Marin Čilić  and Serena Williams respectively.

• In Soccer, as noted above, Germany won the 2014 World Cup. The European Champions League winners were Real Madrid and the English Premiership was won by Manchester City.
• The Formula 1 motor racing champion for 2014 was British driver Lewis Hamilton, who also picked up the award of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
• In golf’s major championships, the Masters Tournament, held in April, was won by Bubba Watson by three strokes. It was his second Masters championship.
• May saw the BMW PGA Championship where young Northern Ireland man Rory McIlroy birdied the 18th hole to win by one stroke over Irishman Shane Lowry, who also birdied the 18th hole.

• In June, U.S. Open winner was Martin Kaymer who won by eight strokes to become the first German player to win the U.S. Open, and the first player to win the Players Championship and the U.S. Open in the same year.
• In July, the Open Championship Northern Ireland man Rory McIlroy, was on top again winning by two strokes over Rickie Fowler and Sergio García. It was his third career major championship, and his first Open Championship. With the win, he became the fourth player ever of 25 years old or under to have won at least three majors.
• In August, McIlroy was back, winning the PGA Championship by one stroke over Phil Mickelson. He was having quite a year, it was his fourth career major and his second PGA Championship.
• Then in September, in the Ryder Cup, Team Europe (also including McIlroy) defeated Team USA by a score of 16½ – 11½. It was the third consecutive Ryder Cup victory for Europe, and also Europe’s fifth consecutive home victory in the Ryder Cup.

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Tragedies

• In March Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 airliner en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, disappears over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board. The aircraft is presumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean.
• In April Korean ferry MV Sewol capsized and sunk after an unmanageable cargo shift. More than 290 people were killed, mostly high school students.

• In May hundreds of workers were killed in mining accident in Turkey.
• In July, Air Algérie Flight 5017 crashed in Mali, killing all 116 people on board.
• And just a few days ago AirAsia flight QZ8501 crashed, wreckage has been found off the coast of Indonesia’s Kalimantan coast.

 

Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Is One Hundred And Fifty 150

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for another significant number factoid Friday.

Today the number is one hundred and fifty, 150.

These are just some of the things that are associated with that number.

Enjoy.

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One Hundred And Fifty  150

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In religion

• There are 150 Psalms in the Bible, the authorship of which is usually ascribed to King David, although scholars now believe that they are the work of several authors.
• Psalm comes from the Greek psalmos, a song sung to a harp. Some ultra-orthodox Protestant sects (like the Free Church of Scotland) forbid the singing of any hymns that aren’t psalms.
• The last Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 150, is perhaps the one most often set to music.

• The number of sons of Ulam, who were combat archers, in the Census of the men of Israel upon return from exile (I Chronicles 8:40)

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In mathematics

• 150 is the sum of eight consecutive primes (7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19 + 23 + 29 + 31).
• Given 150, the Mertens function returns 0.
• In 150BC the Greek Stoic philosopher and polymath, Crates of Mallos, while laid up in Rome, staved off boredom by constructing the world’s first 3D globe. It showed four symmetrical land masses, separated by water and a central ocean.
• The Professor’s cube is a 5 x 5 x 5 version of Rubik’s cube (which is 3 x 3 x 3). It has 150 coloured squares.

 

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In science

• Steven Austad, a health researcher at the University of Texas, believes that children who are alive today could easily live to 150.
• Based purely on body size, when compared with other mammals, humans shouldn’t live more than 30-40 years. But our large brain enables us to live in complex social groups that give us protection. The evidence is there in other species: solitary wasps have a lifespan of two weeks but social wasps live for three years.
• In much the same way lions, which are sociable creatures, live longer than tigers, which are solitary. Austad is so sure that someone alive today will still be here in the year 2150 that he has placed a bet on it with a friend. Presumably he also believes that he will be around to collect.
• The only animal currently capable of living for 150 years is the giant tortoise.

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• Dunbar’s number
• Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.
• Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 230, with a commonly used value of 150.
• Dunbar’s number states the number of people one knows and keeps social contact with, and it does not include the number of people known personally with a ceased social relationship, nor people just generally known with a lack of persistent social relationship, a number which might be much higher and likely depends on long-term memory size.
• Dunbar’s number was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who theorized that “this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size … the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.” On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themself if they met again.

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In space

• The number of degrees in the quincunx astrological aspect explored by Johannes Kepler.

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In politics

• The 150th country to join the United Nations was Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on September 16, 1980;
• United Nations Security Council Resolution 150 recommended to the General Assembly that the Republic of the Ivory Coast be admitted to membership in the United Nations;
• European Union Council Regulation (EC) No 150/2003 of 21 January 2003 is regarding suspending import duties on certain weapons and military equipment;
• US Congress Senate Bill 150 amends the federal criminal code to ban the import, sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of a semiautomatic assault weapon, including  semiautomatic rifles, semiautomatic pistols, semiautomatic shotguns, etc., that can accept a detachable magazine and has any one of the following characteristics: (1) a pistol grip; (2) a forward grip; (3) a folding, telescoping, or detachable stock; (4) a grenade or rocket launcher; (5) a barrel shroud; or (6) a threaded barrel.

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In sport

• In cricket 150 runs is a milestone for a batsman.
• In Round 20 of the 2011 AFL season, Geelong inflicted the worst ever defeat on the Gold Coast Suns by 150 points.

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In books, music, movies and TV

• Gibson Guitar Corp.
• Gibson Guitar Corp. is an American maker of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as as “The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd.” in Kalamazoo, Michigan to make mandolin-family instruments.
• Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian.
• It was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments in 1944, which was then acquired by the E.C.L. conglomerate that changed its name to Norlin Inc. This was seen as the beginning of an era of mismanagement.
• Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and built one of the world’s most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are among the most collectible guitars.
• It has produced various models with the ’15 ‘ designation including:
• Acoustic guitars J-150 Maple  L-150 Custom
• Electric guitars ES-150  EM-150 Mandolin (1936-1971)

The Gibson J-150

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• The song “30/30-150” by Stone Sour

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In transportation

• Triumph Trident T150
• Triumph Engineering Co Ltd was a British motorcycle manufacturing company, based originally in Coventry and then in Solihull at Meriden. A new company, Triumph Motorcycles Ltd based in Hinckley gained the name rights after the end of the company in the 1980s and is now one of the world’s major motorcycle manufacturers producing models like the Trident T150.

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• Suzuki Raider 150
• The Suzuki Raider 150 is one of the fastest motorcycles in the underbone category. It uses the 150 cc (9.2 cu in) DOHC four-valve single-cylinder oil-cooled Suzuki FXR150 engine, with a 6 speed transmission. The frame, rear swing arm, rear suspension, seat and front brakes are redesigned from the Suzuki FX125 chassis, making it more aerodynamic.
• Its popularity in South East Asia, mainly in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, is due to the price of this bike—around US$1850 (90,000 to 92,001 pesos or around 16,500,001 rupiah in Indonesia).
• Also called the Suzuki Satria 150 in Indonesia.

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• Suzuki GS150R
• The Suzuki GS150R is a 150cc bike from Suzuki Motorcycle India.
• The Suzuki GS150R was launched on November 2008and marked the entry of Suzuki Motorcycle India into the highly competitive 150 cc segment of the Indian two wheelers market.
• Suzuki Motorcycle India states that the bike falls in between the two classes of Indian 150 cc motorcycles, namely commuter class and premium class. The GS150R has a sixth gear for cruising on high-ways.

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• Bajaj Pulsar 150
• The Bajaj Pulsar is a motorcycle brand owned by Bajaj Auto in India. The two wheeler was developed by the product engineering division of Bajaj Auto in association with Tokyo R&D, and later with motorcycle designer Glynn Kerr. Currently there are five variants available, with engine capacities of 135 cc, 150 cc, 180 cc, 200 cc, and 220 cc.
• With an average monthly sales of around 86,000 units in 2011, Pulsar claimed a 2011 market share of 47% in its segment. By April 2012, more than five million units of Pulsar were sold.
• The Bike was named after the Nissan Pulsar from 1978 to 2007.

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• Ford F-150
• The F-Series is a series of full-size pickup trucks from Ford Motor Company which has been sold continuously for over six decades.
• The most popular variant of the F-Series is the F-150.
• It was the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 24 years, and the best-selling truck for 37 years. It was also the best selling vehicle in Canada, though this does not include combined sales of GM pickup trucks.
• In the tenth generation of the F-series, the F-250 and F-350 changed body style in 1998 and joined the Super Duty series.

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• Ford E-150
• The Ford E-Series, formerly known as the Ford Econoline and Ford Club Wagon, is a line of full-size vans (both cargo and passenger) and truck chassis from the Ford Motor Company.
• The line was introduced in 1961 as a compact van and its descendants are still produced today.
• Although based on its own platform, since 1968, the E-Series has used many components from the F-Series line of pickup trucks.
• The Econoline is manufactured solely at Ford’s Ohio Assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio—after the closure of the Lorain, Ohio plant in December 2005 and the consolidation of all production at Avon Lake.
• As of the 2012 model year, the E-Series and the Transit Connect compact MPV (which debuted for the 2010 model year) are the only vans in the Ford lineup in North America.
• The Ford E-Series currently holds 79.6% of the full-size van market in the United States and since 1980, it has been the best selling American full-sized van.
• Ninety-five percent of van sales are to commercial or fleet-end users, about half are cargo vans.
• In early 2007, the E-Series was listed by Autodata as one of the top 20 best-selling vehicles in the United States, most likely due to fleet sales.

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• Mercedes Benz
• Renowned German automotive manufacturer Mercedes Benz has produced several models with the150 designation including the Mercedes Benz A-150 and the Mercedes Benz B-150.

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• Cesna C-150
• The Cessna 150 is a typical example of the small piston-powered aircraft produced by the Cessna Aircraft Company, a general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, USA.
• Cessna also produces business jets. The company is a subsidiary of the U.S. conglomerate Textron.

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• Gulfstream G150
• The Gulfstream G100, formerly known as the Astra SPX, is an Israel Aircraft Industries-manufactured twin-engine business jet, now produced for Gulfstream Aerospace.
• Astra evolved from the Rockwell Jet Commander aircraft, for which IAI had purchased the manufacturing license in 1968, and the IAI Westwind. The Astra wing design was modified and with a completely new fuselage created the Galaxy (later the Gulfstream G200) business jet during the 1990s.
• In September 2002 Gulfstream announced the improved G150, based on the G100. This new variant was due in 2005. It has been FAA certified for steep approach.
• The United States Air Force designation for the G100 is C-38 Courier and it is used by the District of Columbia Air National Guard; by the United States Air Force with the 201st Airlift Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The C-38 has replaced the earlier C-21 Learjet. The C-38 differs from the standard Gulfstream G100, featuring US military-grade GPS, Tactical Air Navigation, UHF and VHF secure command radio, and Identification friend or foe system

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In militaria

• USS Blakeley (DD–150)
• The second USS Blakeley (DD–150) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy, named for Captain Johnston Blakeley.
• Built in 1918, she saw patrol duty along the East Coast of the United States during the interwar era.
• Decommissioned for several years, she returned to duty at the outset of World War II. She spent much of the war on convoy patrol duty in the Caribbean.
• On 25 May 1942, while on patrol, she was struck by a torpedo fired by German submarine U-156, which blew off her forward 60 feet (18 m). Fitted with temporary measures, she steamed to Philadelphia Naval Yard where she was fitted with the forward section of sister ship USS Taylor.
• She spent much of the rest of the war on convoy patrol duty before being sold for scrap in 1945.

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• USS H-7 (SS-150)
• USS H-7 (SS-150) was an H-class submarine that served in active duty with the United States Navy from 1918-1922.
• The Imperial Russian Navy ordered 18 H-class submarines from the Electric Boat Company in 1915. Eleven were delivered, and served as the American Holland class submarines, but shipment of the final six was held up pending the outcome of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the boats were stored in knockdown condition at Vancouver, British Columbia. All six were purchased by the U.S. Navy on 20 May 1918 and assembled at Puget Sound Navy Yard.
• H-7 was launched on 17 October 1918 and commissioned on 24 October with Lieutenant Edmund A. Crenshaw in command.
• The submarine, attached to Submarine Division 6 (SubDiv 6) and later to SubDiv 7, operated out of San Pedro, California, on various battle and training exercises with the other ships of her division. She also patrolled out of San Pedro with interruptions for overhaul at Mare Island.
• H-7 reached Norfolk on 14 September 1922, having sailed from San Pedro on 25 July, and decommissioned there on 23 October. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 26 February 1931. She was sold for scrapping on 28 November 1933.

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• USS Neunzer (DE-150)
• USS Neunzer (DE-150) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She was named in honor of Machinist Weimar Edmund Neunzer, who was killed in action 2 July 1942 during the Aleutian Islands Campaign and was posthumously awarded the Air Medal.
• Designed to take the place of fleet destroyers on convoy duty, the destroyer escorts proved their worth in long miles of steaming on escort and antisubmarine duties. Their efforts played a major role in defeating German submarine depredations at a time when the U-boats were threatening to cut Allied supply lines.

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• A-150 – The Batleship that never was.
• Design A-150, also known as the Super Yamato class,[A 1] was an Imperial Japanese plan for a class of battleships. Begun in 1938–39, the design was mostly complete by 1941. However, so that a demand for other types of warships could be met, all work on Design A-150 was halted and no keels were laid.
• Authors William H. Garzke and Robert O. Dulin have argued that Design A-150 would have been the “most powerful battleships in history” because of the massive size of their main battery of eight 510 mm (20 in) guns as well as numerous smaller caliber weapons

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• T-150 Tank
• The T-150 is a Soviet tier 6 heavy tank and was a further development of the KV-1.
• The vehicle weighed as much as 50 tons. The T-150 underwent trials in the first half of 1941.
• A prototype fought in the battles for Leningrad, and became a basis for a modification of the KV-1 with reinforced armor.
• Despite its name, the T-150 is an upgraded KV-1. It has the same chassis and turret, with some notable improvements. Additional armor has been added to the hull, a considerably more powerful engine is available, and perhaps most importantly, it can mount the 107 mm ZiS-6 gun

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• Cadillac Gage Commando
• The Cadillac Gage Commando is a 4×4 amphibious armored car built by the American firm Cadillac Gage.
• The vehicle has been outfitted for many roles, including armored personnel carrier, ambulance, fire apparatus, anti-tank vehicle, and mortar carrier.
• They saw service in the Vietnam war where it became known as the Duck, or the V.
• It was also supplied to many American allies, including Lebanon and Saudi Arabia which used them in the first major ground engagement of the Persian Gulf War.
• No longer produced, it has been largely replaced by the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle, which was developed as tougher alternative to up-armored Humvees.

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• M150 (PAM)
• M150 Penetration Augmented Munition (PAM) is a portable explosive device developed for U.S. Army infantry units, especially for Special Operations Forces.
• It is mainly used to destroy massive concrete structures like bridge piers or bunker walls.
• Each device has a main high explosive charge and a two-stage, hole-drilling shaped charge.
• It is regarded as a high-precision blasting device rather than a simple bomb.

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• M150 Rifle Combat Optic
• Due to the lack of lethality of the M16 and M4 at the increased ranges encountered in Afghanistan but you can’t hit what you can’t see. One of the Army’s answers to this quandary is the M150 Rifle Combat Optic (RCO) which is is designed to increase the probability of a first-round hit at distances up to 600 meters.

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• The Puckle gun
• The Puckle gun (also known as the Defence gun) was invented in 1718 by James Puckle (1667–1724) a British inventor, lawyer and writer.
• It is a tripod-mounted, single-barreled flintlock weapon fitted with a multi-shot revolving cylinder. It was intended for shipboard use to prevent boarding.
• The barrel was 3 feet (0.91 m) long with a bore of 1.25 inches (32 mm). It had a pre-loaded cylinder which held 11 charges and could fire 63 shots in seven minutes—this at a time when the standard soldier’s musket could at best be loaded and fired three times per minute.
• Puckle demonstrated two versions of the basic design: one, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round bullets, while the second variant, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets. The square bullets were considered to be more damaging. They would, according to the patent, convince the Turks of the “benefits of Christian civilization.” The square bullets, however, were discontinued due to their unpredictable flight pattern.
• The Puckle Gun drew few investors and never achieved mass production or sales to the British armed forces, mostly because British gunsmiths at the time could not easily make the weapon’s many complicated components.
• One newspaper of the period sarcastically observed, following the business venture’s failure, that the gun has “only wounded those who hold shares therein”.

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• 150 couples
• In the fourth century BC, the most feared squad of the Theban army was made up of 150 homo-sexual couples. They were called the Sacred Band of Thebes, and were established by Gorgidas in 378-BC.
• His romantic idea was that lovers would fight more fiercely at each other’s sides than strangers. This notion proved highly successful until the Battle of Chaeronea (338-BC) when the Athenian-Theban army was overrun by Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

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Other Stuff

• Cities located on Longtitude 150°W: Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska; and, Papeete, French Polynesia;
• Cities located on Longtitude 150°E: Rockhampton, Queensland; and, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia; Magadan, Russia;
• The world record for solving a Rubik’s cube is 7.08 seconds, held by 21-year-old Dutchman Erik Akkersdik, who has solved the puzzle with his feet in just 90 seconds;
• The total number of Power Stars in Super Mario 64 DS for the Nintendo DS;
• M-150 (energy drink), an energy drink from Thailand;

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Six 6

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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By special request, today’s significant number is the number six. My thanks to John in Australia for the suggestion, turns out it was a very interesting choice. So let’s get started. Enjoy.

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The Number Six  6

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In religion

• Chapter One of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament, tells us that the Creation was done over a six day period, and that man was created on day number 6. Moreover, six days were appointed to man for his labor, while one day is associated in sovereignty with the Lord God, as His rest.
• The serpent also was created on the sixth day.
• The Sixth Commandment relates to the worst sin – murder.
• The sixth clause of the Lord’s prayer treats of sin.
• There are six points on a Star of David.

Star of David

• There are six Orders of the Mishnah.
• Six symbolic foods are placed on the Passover Seder Plate.
• The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.

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• In Islam there are Six articles of belief
• Fasting six days of Shawwal, together with the month of Ramadan, is equivalent to fasting the whole year

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• In Hindu theology, a trasarenu is the combination of 6 celestial paramanus (atoms)

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In mathematics

• Six is the first number which is neither a square number nor a prime number.
• Six is the largest of the four all-Harshad numbers.
• There are six basic trigonometric functions.
• A cube has six faces.

• A hexagon is a regular polygon with six sides.
• A hexahedron is a polyhedron with six faces, with a cube being a special case.
• S6, with 720 elements, is the only finite symmetric group which has an outer automorphism. This automorphism allows us to construct a number of exceptional mathematical objects such as the S(5,6,12) Steiner system, the projective plane of order 4 and the Hoffman-Singleton graph.
• Six similar coins can be arranged around a central coin of the same radius so that each coin makes contact with the central one (and touches both its neighbors without a gap), but seven cannot be so arranged. This makes 6 the answer to the two-dimensional kissing number problem. The densest sphere packing of the plane is obtained by extending this pattern to the hexagonal lattice in which each circle touches just six others.

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In science

• Six is the atomic number of carbon.
• A benzene molecule has a ring of six carbon atoms.
• The prefix “hexa-“ (Greek word for ‘six’) also occurs in the systematic name of many chemical compounds, such as “hexamethyl”.
• A hexamer is an oligomer made of six sub-units.
• Adenine is one of four bases that code for all life in deoxyribonucleic acid. Adenine’s molecular structure is based on a hexagonal ring bonded to a pentagonal ring.

• In the Standard Model of particle physics, there are six types of quark and six types of lepton.
• In statistical mechanics, the six-vertex model has six possible configurations of arrows at each vertex.
• The six-fold symmetry of snowflakes arises from the hexagonal crystal structure of ordinary ice.
• People with sexdactyly have six fingers on each hand.

• Six babies delivered in one birth are sextuplets.
• There are six tastes in traditional Indian Medicine called Ayurveda: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. These tastes are used to suggest a diet based on the symptoms of the body.
• Phase 6 is one of six pandemic influenza phases.
• The cells of a beehive honeycomb are 6-sided.

• Insects have 6 legs.
• The measuring instrument called a sextant got its name because its shape forms one-sixth of a whole circle.

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In space

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 6 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda.
• Messier object M6, a magnitude 4.5 open cluster in the constellation Scorpius, also known as the Butterfly Cluster.

Messier object M6

• The gaseous planet Saturn has hexagonal clouds on its north pole discovered by Voyager 1 in 1977 and verified again in 2006 by the Cassini spacecraft, meaning this hexagon is a persistent structure on the scale of a planet.

Saturn’s hexagonal north pole clouds

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• Apollo 6
• Apollo 6, the final unmanned mission of the United States Apollo Program, was launched on April 4, 1968. It was an A type mission and the second test flight for the Saturn V launch vehicle, intended to demonstrate full lunar injection capability of the Saturn V with a nearly full simulated payload, and also the capability of the Command Module’s heat shield to withstand a lunar-speed re-entry.

Apollo program insignia

• The mission was not designed to go to the moon, but merely to achieve a trans-lunar speed toward an imaginary point in space nowhere near the moon, then turn around and return in about 10 hours.
• However, fuel line failures in several Saturn V second and third stage engines prevented it from achieving lunar injection, but it was able to get close to lunar return velocity by using the Apollo spacecraft’s engine, as was done on Apollo 4, the first Saturn V test. Despite the engine failures, the flight nonetheless provided NASA with enough confidence in the Saturn V to use it for manned launches.
• Launch video

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In politics

• Massachusetts was sixth to receive statehood on, Wednesday, February 6, 1788.
• The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The sixth President of the United States of America was John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) who served from March 4, 1825 to March 4, 1829. His V.P. Was John C. Calhoun.

John Quincy Adams Sixth President of the United States of America

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• The sixth Prime Minister of Australia was Sir Joseph Cook, (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947). A coal miner from Silverdale, Staffordshire, Cook emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the Western Miners Association in 1887.
• He was a founding member of the Australian Labor Party, and was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as Member for Hartley in 1891.
• Later Cook switched to the Free Trade Party, and was a minister in the cabinet of Premier George Reid from 1894 to 1899. During Australia’s first federal election in 1901, Cook was elected unopposed to the federal seat of Parramatta, and served as the deputy to Reid, then Alfred Deakin, following the creation of the Commonwealth Liberal Party from Cook’s and Deakin’s parties.
• As leader of the Liberal Party, Cook became Prime Minister following the 1913 elections; but he only had a one-seat majority in the lower house and no majority at all in the upper house, so he repeatedly sought to obtain a double dissolution. The outbreak of World War I just before the September 1914 election led to a Labor victory. Following a split in the Labor party in 1916, Cook joined William Morris Hughes’ Nationalist Party of Australia, and following the Nationalist victory in the 1917 election, served as Minister for the Navy, then Treasurer under Hughes.
• In 1921 Cook resigned from the federal parliament, and was appointed Australian High Commissioner in London. During 1928 and 1929, he headed the Royal Commission into South Australia as affected by Federation. He died in Sydney in 1947.

Joseph Cook sixth Prime Minister of Australia

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• Australia has six states, Queensland (capital, Brisbane); New South Wales (capital, Sydney); Victoria (capital, Melbourne); Tasmania (capital, Hobart);        South Australia (capital, Adelaide); and Western Australia (capital, Perth). The Northern Territory (capital, Darwin), as the name implies, is classed as a ‘territory’, not a ‘state’.

Australia political map

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• The ‘Six Counties’ is a term used to describe Northern Ireland which consists of the six north-eastern counties of the island of Ireland. It was created when Ireland was partitioned in 1921.  After a campaign of terrorism, murder and bombing lasting almost thirty years the London government (of first Conservative John Major and later Labour Tony Blair) along with the Clinton administration brought about a ‘peace’ agreement that saw terrorists installed as part of the Northern Ireland government in Belfast. This was done during the 1990s and pre the 9/11 terrorists attacks on New York when Americans got first hand experience of what terrorism was all about. It is questionable if a post 9/11 American administration would have been so keen to participate in appeasing terrorism.

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In sport

• The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League have six divisions.
• The Original Six teams in the National Hockey League are Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Boston, and Detroit. They are the oldest remaining teams in the league, though not necessarily the first six; they comprised the entire league from 1942 to 1967.
• In American college football, there are six conferences that automatically qualify for Bowl Championship Series games.
• Six-man football is a variant of American or Canadian football, played by smaller schools with insufficient enrollment to field the traditional 11-man (American) or 12-man (Canadian) squad.
• In a football (soccer) game each side is allowed a maximum of three substitutes, making six in all.
• In ice hockey, six is the number of players per team, including the goaltender, that are on the ice at any one time, excluding penalty situations.
• In volleyball, six players from each team on each side play against each other.
• In some sports, six goals is known as a double-hat-trick, but is very hard to accomplish. A hat-trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times or more during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe H H Stephenson’s feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he was presented with a hat bought with the proceeds. The term was used in print for the first time in 1878 and was eventually adopted by many other sports including association football, water polo, and team handball, but did not become popular in North America until the mid-1940s in the National Hockey League.
• In American and Canadian football, a touchdown earns 6 points.
• In Australian Rules football, six points are received for a goal.
• In cricket there are six balls to an over, and a “six” or “sixer” is a shot in which the ball clears the boundary without bouncing, scoring six runs.
• In rugby union, the starting blindside flanker wears jersey number 6. (Some teams use “left” and “right” flankers instead of “openside” and “blindside”, with 6 being worn by the starting left flanker.)
• In most rugby league competitions (but not the European Super League, which uses static squad numbering), the jersey number 6 is worn by the starting stand-off half (Southern Hemisphere term) or five-eighth (Northern Hemisphere term).
• In football (soccer) AC Milan retired shirt number 6 belonging to their legendary center back and captain Franco Baresi in 1997.

• In Britain, Arsenal retired the number 6 shirt after their long serving center back and captain Tony Adams retired in 2002.

• In Major League Baseball: the Atlanta Braves, for manager Bobby Cox; the Boston Red Sox, for Johnny Pesky; the Detroit Tigers, for Hall of Famer Al Kaline; the Minnesota Twins, for Tony Oliva; the St. Louis Cardinals, for Hall of Famer Stan Musial; the San Diego Padres, for Steve Garvey.

#6 Stan Musial

• In the NBA: the Boston Celtics, for Hall of Famer Bill Russell; the Orlando Magic, for their fans (the “sixth man”); the Philadelphia 76ers, for Hall of Famer Julius Erving; the Phoenix Suns, for Walter Davis; the Sacramento Kings, also for their fans.

Hall of Famer Julius Erving

• In the NFL: the Kansas City Chiefs, for Warren McVea.

Warren McVea

• In the NHL: the Detroit Red Wings, for Larry Aurie; the Pittsburgh Penguins, for Ian Ackerman; the Toronto Maple Leafs, for Hall of Famer Ace Bailey (the Leafs have a unique policy of not retiring numbers unless the player honored either died or suffered a career-ending incident while a member of the team. Bailey suffered a fractured skull during a game in 1933; while he recovered and lived for nearly 60 years after the incident, he never played again. The Leafs would issue the number to Ron Ellis in 1968 at Bailey’s personal request, and Ellis wore it until his own retirement in 1981.)

Hall Of Famer Ace Bailey

• In NASCAR, the number 6 is currently owned by Roush Fenway Racing. Since the 2007 season, the first year in which Roush Racing was merged with the Fenway Sports Group that owns the Boston Red Sox, the Cup Series version of the car has been driven by David Ragan. From 1988 to 2006, Mark Martin drove the #6 in the Cup Series for what was then Roush Racing.

Roush Fenway Racing #6 car

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Cars and Bikes

• Yamaha YZF R6
• The Yamaha YZF R6 is a super sports bike, motorcycle manufactured by Yamaha Motor Company. The Yamaha comes with many sports bikes that are Yamaha R1, Yamaha FZ8, Yamaha R15 and Yamaha Vmax, Yamaha MT01 and more. The Yamaha YZF R6 is the one of the most advanced production in the 600cc segment from Yamaha. The Yamaha, bike manufacturer is flourishing in the Indian Market with the most stylish and delivers the best and advanced technology in India.

Yamaha YZF R6 Motorcycle

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• Audi S6
• Easily distinguishable by the row of LED running lights that graces both sides of its front bumper, Audi’s sport-inspired version of its A6 executive saloon, the S6, has much more than visual cues to separate it from its little brothers. This four-door, five-passenger luxury sport sedan comes standard with the six-speed Tiptronic automatic transmission with steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters, Audi’s quattro AWD and a 435-hp, 5.2-liter V10 designed by Lamborghini.

Audi S6

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• Mercedes 600
• During the resurgence of Germany from the rubble of WWII, after a tough post-war German automotive industry was recovering, and it was there that Mercedes Benz proposed making the car better representation of the world, whatever the cost. Work began in 1955 and after eight years of development the result was the Mercedes 600, also known as der Großer Mercedes, a car totally superlative in all respects. This was the car of choice of Presidents, Popes, dictators and billionaires.

Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman

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In books, music, television & movies

• Six Graves to Munich by Mario Gianluigi Puzo, perhaps better known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola.
•  Six Days Of The Condor, a thriller novel by James Grady first published in 1974 by W.W. Norton, is a suspense drama set in contemporary Washington, D.C., and is considerably different from the 1975 film version, Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. It was followed by a second novel by Grady titled Shadow of the Condor, released in 1978.

• Hexameter is a poetic form consisting of six metrical feet per line.
• Six Degrees of Separation is a movie about an affluent New York couple find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is.
• Six Days Seven Nights is a movie starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche.  Robin Monroe, a New York magazine editor, and the gruff pilot Quinn Harris must put aside their mutual dislike if they are to survive after crash landing on a deserted South Seas island.
• Six Days in June is a documentary about the Six Day War.
• Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis is a movie about a boy who communicates with spirits that don’t know they’re dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

• Number 6 (Teresa Palmer) is a character in the movie I Am Number Four (2011).
• The Six Million Dollar Man, was an extremely popular sci-fi television series from the 1970s about former astronaut Steve Austin  crippled in an airplane crash but rebuilt using bionic components that gave him super-human strength and speed.

• The Bionic Six are the heroes of the eponymous animated series.
• A group of six musicians is called a sextet.
• There are 6 semitones in a tritone.
• A standard guitar has 6 strings.
• Most woodwind instruments have 6 basic holes or keys (e.g., bassoon, clarinet, pennywhistle, saxophone); these holes or keys are usually not given numbers or letters in the fingering charts.
• Les Six (“The Six” in English) was a group consisting of the French composers Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre in the 1920s.
• Bands with the number six in their name include Six Organs of Admittance, 6 O’clock Saints, Electric Six, Eve 6, Los Xey (sei is Basque for “six”), Out On Blue Six, Six In Six, Sixpence None the Richer, Slant 6, Vanity 6, and You Me At Six.
• #6 is the pseudonym of American musician Shawn Crahan, when performing with the band Slipknot.
• “Six geese a-laying” were given as a present on the sixth day in the popular Christmas carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.
• The concerti grossi Opus 3, organ concertos Opus 4 and Opus 7 (each) by Georg Frideric Handel.
• The sixth album by Dream Theater, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, was based around the number six: the album has six songs, and the sixth song — that is, the complete second disc — explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses.
• Six is the second album by Mansun released in 1998. It takes its name in part from the main character in the television series The Prisoner, and from A. A. Milne’s poetry book, Now We Are Six.
• Patrick McGoohan played prisoner number 6 in the mysterious British television series called The Prisoner, catchphrase “I am a man, I am not a number”.

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In militaria

• Carrier Air Wing Six
• Carrier Air Wing Six (CVW-6) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier air wing whose operational history spans from the years prior to World War II to the end of the Cold War, including participating in the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and the Vietnam War.
• When the unit was named “Air Group Six” during its time on the Enterprise, it was the Navy’s only carrier-based air group to carry out three complete tours of duty during World War II.
• It was based on 15 different carriers during its operational lifetime. The lineage of Carrier Air Wing Six can be traced to the Enterprise Air Group, created on 1 July 1938, which included the following squadrons and aircraft:
• Bombing Six (VB-6) — 18 Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bombers
• Fighting Six (VF-6) — 18 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter
• Scouting Six (VS-6) — 18 Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber
• Torpedo Six (VT-6) — 18 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber

Enterprise Air Group

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• Douglas DC-6
• The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with the Lockheed Constellation in the long-range commercial transport market.
• More than 700 were built and many still fly today in cargo, military and wildfire control roles.
• The DC-6 was known as the C-118 Liftmaster in United States Air Force service and as the R6D in United States Navy service prior to 1962, after which all U.S. Navy variants were also designated as the C-118.

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• Shenyang F-6
• The F-6 was a Chinese copy of the MiG-19S Farmer-C cannon-armed day fighter. From the late 1960s to the final batch in 1971, a total of more than 70 F-6s were reported delivered, equipping six squadrons at 3 bases, for both interceptor and attack duties. Some of the 1971 batch were late production F-6C version, featuring a prominent braking parachute housing at the base of the rudder.
• A few FT-6 two-seat trainers also appear to have been supplied. The FT-6 wasn’t certified for production until December 1973, so these examples must have been delivered after this date. It is also reported that 4 F-6 aircraft are fitted with ventral cameras for the reconnaissance role – whether these are export versions of the JZ-6 or local conversions is not known.

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• Beechcraft T-6 Texan II
• Developed from the Pilatus PC-9, the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engined turboprop aircraft built by the Raytheon Aircraft Company (now Hawker Beechcraft). The T-6 is used by the United States Air Force for basic pilot training and by the United States Navy for Primary and Intermediate Joint Naval Flight Officer (NFO) and Air Force Combat Systems Officer (CSO) training. It has replaced the Air Force’s T-37B Tweet and is replacing the Navy’s T-34C Turbo Mentor.
• The T-6A is also used as a basic trainer by the Royal Canadian Air Force (CT-156 Harvard II), the German Air Force, the Greek Air Force, the Israeli Air Force (Efroni), and the Iraqi Air Force.

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• AT-6
• As well as being an initial trainer, the multirole Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 is capable of performing missions including: net-centric ISR with the ability for precise geo-registration, streaming video and datalinks, light attack including combat search and rescue (CSAR), close air support, forward air control and convoy escort, homeland defense (border security), port security, counter-narcotics operations and civil missions such as disaster area reconnaissance, search and rescue and firefighting. There are tandem HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) controls fore and aft for pilot and instructor.
• Hawker Beechcraft showcased the AT-6 at the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough International Airshow in the UK in 2010.

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• Fiat L6/40
• The Fiat L6/40 was a light tank used by the Italian army from 1940 and on through World War II. It was designed by Fiat-Ansaldo as an export product, and was adopted by the Italian Army when officials learned of the design and expressed interest. It was the main tank employed by the Italian forces fighting on the Eastern Front alongside the L6/40-based Semovente 47/32 self-propelled gun. L6/40s were also used in the North African campaign.
• The official Italian designation was Carro Armato (“armored tank”) L 6/40. This designation is understood as follows: “L” for Leggero (Italian: “light”), followed by the weight in tons (6) and the year of adoption (1940).

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• Ordnance QF 6 pounder
• The Ordnance Quick-Firing 6-pounder 7 cwt, or just 6 pounder, was a British 57 mm gun, their primary anti-tank gun during the middle of World War II, as well as the main armament for a number of armoured fighting vehicles.
• It was first used in North Africa in April 1942, and quickly replaced the 2 pounder in the anti-tank role, allowing the 25 pounder to revert to its intended artillery role.
• The United States Army also adopted the 6 pounder as their primary anti-tank gun under the designation 57 mm Gun M1.

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• The Six Gun
• Whilst not actually a firearm as such, the term ‘six gun’ or ‘six shooter’ is a general, if inaccurate, description of a revolver. The original name came from the fact that the majority of the early revolvers had a cylindrical bullet magazine that held six rounds of ammunition.

• However, modern revolvers come in a variety of capacities including 5 round, 6 round, 8 round and 10 round. An example being the Smith & Wesson Model 617 is a 10 round capacity .22LR revolver shown below.

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Six Million

• The Holocaust, also known by the Biblical word Shoah (which means calamity), was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II. Led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, it was part of a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany throughout German-occupied territory.
• Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed. Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.
• Some scholars argue that the mass murder of the Romani and people with disabilities should be included in the definition, and some use the term “holocaust” to describe other mass murders, including those of Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, and homosexuals. Recent estimates based on figures obtained since the fall of the Soviet Union indicates some ten to eleven million civilians and prisoners of war were intentionally murdered by the Nazi regime.
• The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Germany years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were subjected to slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. The occupiers required Jews and Romani to be confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Germany’s bureaucracy was involved in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar has called “a genocidal state”.
• There are numerous Holocaust Memorials throughout the world, including in Jerusalem, Washington, and Berlin, Germany.

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• However, it was not the German Nazis, but the Croatian Ustase who were responsible for some of the most bloody and sadistic crimes carried out against the Orthodox population in Croatia. Some of their crimes so heinous that they even appalled the Nazis.
• The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats massacred and sadistically tortured to death has been estimated at approximately three hundred thousand.
• The legacy of the brutality of this genocidal campaign still affects the political situation in that part of Europe.

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• Think it could never happen again? Don’t be too sure. In 1994 in Rwanda, Africa somewhere in the region of one million people were murdered by the Interahamwe death squads in a genocidal campaign. Local officials assisted in rounding up victims and making suitable places available for their slaughter. Tutsi men, women, children and babies were killed in thousands in schools. They were also killed in churches with the collusion of some clergy. The victims, in their last moments alive, were also faced by another appalling fact, namely that their cold-blooded killers were people they knew – neighbors, work-mates, former friends, sometimes even relatives through marriage.

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Finally, other stuff

• There are said to be no more than ‘six degrees of separation’ between any two people on Earth.
• Extra-sensory perception is sometimes called the ‘sixth sense’.
• Six Cardinal Directions: north, south, east, west, up, and down.
• The number of sides on a cube, hence the highest number on a standard die.
• The highest number on one end of a standard domino.
• ‘Six’ is used as an informal slang term for the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, the one Ian Fleming’s fictious character James Bond works for.
• Six is the number of cans of soda or beer in a ‘six-pack’.
• A ‘six pack’ refers to the appearance of well developed stomach muscles.
• The term ‘six pack’ also refers to the number of fundamental flight instruments lumped together on a cockpit display.
• ‘Six Flags’ is the name of a series of amusement parks and theme parks.

• ‘Six of the best’ is a slang term for corporal punishment particularly in schools where the offending pupil was given six slaps with a cane.
• A ‘sixer’ is the name of the leader of the smallest group of Cub Scouts, traditionally consisting of six people.
• Six is the number of feet below ground level where a coffin is traditionally buried, thus also leading to the phrase ‘six feet under’ meaning that a person, or thing, or concept is dead.
• In the ancient Roman calendar, Sextilis was the sixth month. After the Julian reform, June became the sixth month and Sextilis was renamed August.
• Sextidi was the sixth day of the decade in the French Revolutionary calendar.
• ‘L’Hexagone’ is a French nickname for the continental part of Metropolitan France.
• A ‘hex nut’ is a nut with six sides, and a hex bolt has a six-sided head.
• On most phones, the 6 key is associated with the letters M, N, and O, but on the BlackBerry it is the key for J and K, and on the BlackBerry 8700 series and Curve 8900 with full keyboard, it is the key for F.
• The ‘6 meter band’ in amateur radio includes the frequencies from 50 to 54 MHz.
• 6 is the resin identification code used in recycling to identify polystyrene.
• In Astrology, Virgo is the 6th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
• There are six dots in a Braille cell.

• The Six Dynasties form part of Chinese history.
• 6 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.
• The unit of measurement used for the Great Pyramid was the inch and its sexagesimal multiples. The first multiple is the foot, 12 inches (2×6); and after this the rises are 18 (3 x 6), 24 (4×6), 30 (5 x 6), and 36 (6×6 or one yard).
• Natural time-spaces are also based on multiples of six, there are 12 months in a year, a day consists of 24 hours (4 x 6),  hours are 60 minutes (6×10), and minutes made up of 60 seconds (6×10).

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