Friday 24 February 2017

Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 24-2-2017

Have you ever heard of the Crucible Curse?

In case you’re not a Snooker fan?

The Curse takes its name from the venue: the tournament’s been held there since 1977.

It refers to the fact that no first time winner of Snooker’s World Championship has won the title the year afterwards.

And it’s generally held to be something psychological: attributed to weight of expectation after winning the biggest title in the game, tied to a lack of experience of winning the game’s biggest title.

The reason I mention it?

Is because I’m not a football fan.

But was shocked to hear the Leicester City FC have sacked manager, Claudio Ranieri: the man who’d steered them to winning the Premiership, last year, after many years out of the game’s top tier.

Yes, I know the team’s in the relegation zone.   Yes, I know there’s talk he’d lost the dressing room.

But I can’t help but think the team — manager and players — been suffering with football’s equivalent of the Crucible Curse.

For the owners to ignore the possibility?

Represents short-termism at its worst.

And bloody stupid.

~≈Ö≈~

Let’s move on, shall we?

Yesterday’s Teaser saw Mr Strict* and Debbi† putting in their answers: with both scoring five out of five.

The day also saw Olga‡ leaving us a comment: leaving a rough guide to how she did screen captures.

Let’s see how everyone does with today’s questions, shall we?

Here they are, along with the How To, License and video … 

Q1) 24th February, 1582, saw Pope Gregory 13th publish the bull, Inter gravissimas.   What did this reform: the Curia, the Calendar or the Papal states?
Q2) Louis Philippe 1st abdicated: on 24th February, 1848.   As king of where: Spain, France or Germany?
Q3) The first US president to be impeached, was impeached by the House of Representatives: on 24th February, 1868.   Who was that President?
Q4) The UK’s first perforated stamp was released: on 24th February, 1854.   Which stamp was it: the Penny Black, Penny Red or Two penny Blue?
Q5) Finally … Fidel Castro retired as Cuba’s President: on 24th February, 2008.   He remained head of Cuba’s what, until 2011?
Here’s yesterday’s questions and answers … 

Q1) 23rd February, 1739, saw Richard Palmer publicly named as whom?
A1) Highwayman, Dick Turpin.
Q2) At least 83 people were killed: in attacks made by so-called, Islamic State on 23rd February, 2012.   In which country?
A2) Iraq.
Q3) What was spotted in the Large Megallenic Cloud, on 23rd February, 1987: a red dwarf, a super nova or a black hole?
A3) A super nova.
Q4) The Symbionese Liberation army demanded a ransom: on 23rd February, 1974.   For whom?
Q5) Finally … the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division took Mount Suribachi on 23rd February, 1945.   Some of the marines were photoed raising what, at its summit?
A5) The US flag.
I’ll leave you with a thought …
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
Steve Jobs, February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011.
And a tune … 


Have a good day!




*        Morning, Mr S!

†        You know, I’m going to have to sit down with some Vonnegut, again, Debbi: the man’s a giant of American literature.   (Ever see Back to School, with Rodney Dangerfield?   Vonnegut’s got a cameo in that …)

‡        It’d be interesting to hear about it, Olga, I know that.   That strikes me as odd: the fact you’ve had to go and get an extra app to record screen casts, AND do screen shots.   As I recall, using PrintScreen button should get the screenshots: but couldn’t tell you about screen recording on Windows.   Usually, on the Mac?   I can do screens shots, easily, and use Keynote (roughly equivalent to Excel) to turn them into a slide show … that Keynote can also turn into a movie.   I can then add audio, and captions if needed, and edit them them with iMovie.   All of which get handed out free with a new Mac.   (I can also use Quicktime — again, handed out for free — to do screen recordings like the one below.)   I can’t HELP but think there is — or was — a thing called Windows Movie Maker, that used to be handed out with a PC: is that still around?

4 comments:

trev-v said...

1 The Calendar - The Gregorian calender was created by this bull.

2 France

3 Andrew Johnson. Will President Fart be the next one to be impeached

4 Penny Red

5 Communist party of Cuba.


https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hgwells163592.html?src=t_today

angelfrmcanada said...

1. the Calendar
2. France
3. President Andrew Johnson
4. Penny Red
5. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba

I used to use PrintScrn to do screen captures. I found an easier way. In Windows7 there is a program called Snipping Tools. Click on Start, then click on Snipping Tool. When a little pops up, you left click & drag the cursor on the area that you want to capture. When you let go of the left mouse button it is copied onto it's clipboard for you to see. Click on File - Save As & save wherever & under whatever name choose. I've done screen captures in less than 30 seconds, using this method.

Debbi said...

I've never seen that movie. Another for the list? :)

1. the Calendar
2. France
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Penny Red
5. First Secretary of the Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (that's a mouthful!)

I'm going to try to limit my online time this weekend. My office is a MESS! :-O

Olga said...

Thanks, Paul. Screen Print works, although the Snapchat things offers you different options (only capturing part of the screen, capturing the whole of the page, even the bits you cannot see on screen if you're checking a webpage, etc). And Windows movie maker exists, but it does not actually record what you're doing on screen. I mean something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbqi4zyhRCI
I imagine you're right and you could do it by taking individual screen captures and putting it together and then recording a voiceover, but the programme wasn't that expensive and it's in real time and you can record the voice as you're doing it (rather than try to remember what you did later), you can record it in different formats and it allows you to share directly from there. Camtasia is much more expensive but it does allow to do much heavier editing (and I think it would be good for somebody thinking about doing full courses on line. One never knows). I checked for free options to do similar things, but there weren't any. Some to record very short videos but not of the screen as you were using it.
I've used Windows Movie Maker to create some of the videos for my books (not good at that either) although depending on what I'm doing I just create the slides and add the music directly from You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzWYlgaCok)
Perhaps you'll get to give me a master class on all these things some day.
Today is my goddaughter's confirmation. I'll better get going! (Soon coming back to quiz, as I'm back home by Monday evening if everything works according to plan)
Take care.