Interesting reads
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End of an Era - Thoughts on uBeam Founder Stepping Down as CEO
One meeting in particular pushed me over the edge, and I told the CEO that I was extremely unhappy, and we should discuss a way to amicably separate. I knew the transducer and acoustics side better than anyone, and would give the company as much time as needed to transition and pass over my knowledge. It was a tense meeting, and I went home after, and there were then a series of ... interesting ... emails and phone calls with Perry, that ended with no conclusion. Ironically, among the demands from the company was a statement for the press about how I still believed in uBeam's goals and the technology, but I declined. I got a text the next morning to come to the downstairs company conference room, and to bring my laptop, lab-book, and any company property - it was clear what was about to happen. I arrived and the room had CFO Hushen and CEO Perry. It was tense, and Perry sat at the head of the table in her position that she used when about to be CEO-like and give a prepared speech - straight back, leaning slighty forward, hands together. She looked at me and said: "Today will be your last day with the company. But before we go on to that, it is important that you understand that you are a quitter. You have quit on me, you have quit on yourself, you have quit on the company, you have quit on your team, you have quit on.... wait what are you doing?" At this point the speech was so ridiculous I had picked up my phone to start taking notes because this was too good not to write down. I looked up and she seemed shocked and demanded "Are you texting someone? I'm talking." and I looked at her and said "Just taking some notes." Sadly, this seemed to throw her off, and I never did hear the rest of that prepared speech. She simply mumbled then moved to telling me that I would now give an exit interview, and was again perturbed when I declined. She insisted and the CFO, acting as HR, had to step in and say that wasn't necessary. I handed over my laptop and the few items I had, and made a clear instruction that the company was not to make any statements or quotes that were to be attributed to me - I heard from the team that about ten minutes later they were all told in a company meeting by the CEO that "I wanted them to know that I wished them all the best and success for the company, and still believed in the company mission" or something similar. -
Extract from Crocketts Book. I enjoyed the little read
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@hooroo said in Interesting reads:
Extract from Crocketts Book. I enjoyed the little read
There’s another extract in the herald that’s worth a read , his ghost writer let the word “ nascent “ through the proof reading . Red Beards probably the only prop on the face of the planet with a vocabulary like that.
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The Forgotten Story of the Original iPhone Released in 1998
Remember this? So, three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, ...
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A Street Near You - exploring the local legacy of the First World War
A First World War legacy project bringing together data sources such as IWM's Lives of the First World War and Commonwealth War Graves records
Whilst this personal project is just an attempt to explore the local legacy of the First World War, but at a global scale, it has struck me that it is much more than that. At the heart of it is the legacy of those who died in the conflict, and especially the scale of the imapct that that would have had on their local communities, it would also never have been possible without the significant legacy created by those who remained, from the families who sent in photographs of their loved ones and which formed the Imperial War Museum's founding Bond of Sacrifice Collection, through the people who diligently compiled official records in the early 1920s and which formed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's records, right up to the modern-day professionals, volounteers and individuals who have shaped these records, shared them, and also significantly increased and enriched them, especially under the guise of First World War Centenary projects like Lives of the First World War
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@tim said in Interesting reads:
I guess that's a legacy of the Pal's Battalion. Middlebrook's "The First Day on the Somme" has a piece on the Grimsby Chums, who were one of the first units in action, sent in to the Lochnagar Crater.
https://lochnagarcrater.org/learn/first-day-of-somme/
"In eight successive waves the infantrymen of the 34th Division stood up from their trenches, and in straight lines prescribed, officers in front as ordered, set off at a walk to attack the German front line trenches. One mile behind the British front line the four battalions of the Tyneside Irish Brigade climbed from their trenches, on the Usna and Tara ridges, and started down the hillside. In a matter of minutes this Brigade had sustained heavy casualties from enfilading machine gun fire.
During the intensive bombardment of the previous days the Germans had sheltered in their deep bunkers, tormented by the incessant concussions as they were battered by the British artillery fire. But they had survived and so had most of their barbed wire. The silence of the barrage lifting was the signal for them to come up from their deep dugouts, hauling their machine guns with them, and taking their positions in the line. Through the smoke and the haze of gunfire the German defenders peered out on an astounding site, successive waves of British soldiers marching steadily toward them as if on parade. The enemy were offering themselves as perfect targets.
The slaughter was immense, the machine guns cut down the British infantry like a farmer’s scythe cuts hay. Within minutes German artillery was raining down on the attacking survivors, the regimental rows of British soldiers had disappeared.
Parade ground order was now forgotten, small groups of survivors continued forward taking cover in shell holes. Some of the survivors gained the sanctuary of the Lochnagar Crater, and by the early evening were able to make contact with elements of the 21st and 22nd northumberland Fusiliers, who held a position in the German second line between Lochnagar Crater and the village of La Boisselle.
On the right of the Divisional attack small parties of the 15th and 16th Royal Scots and elements of the 11th Suffolks and 10th Lincolns were to advance 700 yards into the German lines and occupy a position in Wood Alley which guarded the left flank of the advance of the British 21st Division. From information obtained later, and those present at the taking of Contalmaison, it is amply proved that men of the Tyneside Irish Brigade did actually reach this village on the 1st July, but none lived to tell the tale."
The Grimsby Chums were part of the 10th Lincolns. What a fucking tragedy.
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Fucking hell.
Burned to death because of a rumour on WhatsApp - BBC News
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@jc said in Interesting reads:
@tim said in Interesting reads:
I guess that's a legacy of the Pal's Battalion. Middlebrook's "The First Day on the Somme" has a piece on the Grimsby Chums, who were one of the first units in action, sent in to the Lochnagar Crater.
https://lochnagarcrater.org/learn/first-day-of-somme/
"In eight successive waves the infantrymen of the 34th Division stood up from their trenches, and in straight lines prescribed, officers in front as ordered, set off at a walk to attack the German front line trenches. One mile behind the British front line the four battalions of the Tyneside Irish Brigade climbed from their trenches, on the Usna and Tara ridges, and started down the hillside. In a matter of minutes this Brigade had sustained heavy casualties from enfilading machine gun fire.
During the intensive bombardment of the previous days the Germans had sheltered in their deep bunkers, tormented by the incessant concussions as they were battered by the British artillery fire. But they had survived and so had most of their barbed wire. The silence of the barrage lifting was the signal for them to come up from their deep dugouts, hauling their machine guns with them, and taking their positions in the line. Through the smoke and the haze of gunfire the German defenders peered out on an astounding site, successive waves of British soldiers marching steadily toward them as if on parade. The enemy were offering themselves as perfect targets.
The slaughter was immense, the machine guns cut down the British infantry like a farmer’s scythe cuts hay. Within minutes German artillery was raining down on the attacking survivors, the regimental rows of British soldiers had disappeared.
Parade ground order was now forgotten, small groups of survivors continued forward taking cover in shell holes. Some of the survivors gained the sanctuary of the Lochnagar Crater, and by the early evening were able to make contact with elements of the 21st and 22nd northumberland Fusiliers, who held a position in the German second line between Lochnagar Crater and the village of La Boisselle.
On the right of the Divisional attack small parties of the 15th and 16th Royal Scots and elements of the 11th Suffolks and 10th Lincolns were to advance 700 yards into the German lines and occupy a position in Wood Alley which guarded the left flank of the advance of the British 21st Division. From information obtained later, and those present at the taking of Contalmaison, it is amply proved that men of the Tyneside Irish Brigade did actually reach this village on the 1st July, but none lived to tell the tale."
The Grimsby Chums were part of the 10th Lincolns. What a fucking tragedy.
I went to the Somme, stood in the field where the battle that inspired the Warhorse film was "fought". They say the bodies were stacked so high you could barely walk on the ground that day, after the horses charged the field straight into the waiting German machine guns. Senseless mechanized slaughter on a scale that dwarfed Gallipoli
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That 9/11 call at the start
150 Minutes of Hell: Death and survival in California’s fire tornado
California’s 2018 fire season brought a cascade of tragedies, from Mendocino County to Malibu to the now-ruined town of Paradise. But when a massive tornado of fire ripped through Redding in July, firefighters and residents experienced a singular horror that gave a clear view of just how dangerous...
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@jegga said in Interesting reads:
That 9/11 call at the start
150 Minutes of Hell: Death and survival in California’s fire tornado
California’s 2018 fire season brought a cascade of tragedies, from Mendocino County to Malibu to the now-ruined town of Paradise. But when a massive tornado of fire ripped through Redding in July, firefighters and residents experienced a singular horror that gave a clear view of just how dangerous...
That's a powerful read. Seeing firestorms is one thing, but one so powerful it creates its own tornado - the sound itself was chilling.
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@antipodean said in Interesting reads:
@jegga said in Interesting reads:
That 9/11 call at the start
150 Minutes of Hell: Death and survival in California’s fire tornado
California’s 2018 fire season brought a cascade of tragedies, from Mendocino County to Malibu to the now-ruined town of Paradise. But when a massive tornado of fire ripped through Redding in July, firefighters and residents experienced a singular horror that gave a clear view of just how dangerous...
That's a powerful read. Seeing firestorms is one thing, but one so powerful it creates its own tornado - the sound itself was chilling.
My neighbors a fireman and I showed him , he’d never heard of a fire tornado before seeing that.
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@jegga That is a pretty big finding if it is true, and opens up some new possibilities for genetic manipulation if it can be converted from theoretical to physical.
It will be funny if in a couple of years, those theoretical physicists win the Nobel price for biology (well, physiology and medicine actually)
