Roy Brown probably did NOT kill the Red Baron

Well I had high hopes when I heard of a recent German movie about the Red Baron. So far as I know it has not yet been released in English language (perhaps subtitles are available for the German version). I really hoped this movie would not have too many historical inaccuracies, but according to Wikipedia this movie indicates that the Canadian pilot Roy Brown is the one who finally kills the Red Baron.

I mean no disrespect to Roy Brown or to Canada, but there is a LOT of evidence that Roy Brown did not fire the shot that killed Manfred von Richthofen. For one thing, the path of the bullet through his body shows that the bullet came from the ground. For another, the wound that killed Richthofen was such that he may have lived for about twenty seconds after being shot. Since the Red Baron was in control of his airplane for a minute or two AFTER Brown fired and banked away, it isn't likely that Brown did it.

Added Dec. 2, 2008: I recently learned that some say depending on the exact path of the fatal bullet, von Richthofen could have lived anywhere from twenty seconds to two minutes after being shot, possibly without an awareness of pain for a short while. This does increase the likelihood somewhat of Brown being the one who killed the Red Baron, but in my opinion this still doesn't make it the most likely scenario.

Now it might not have happened the way it did if Brown hadn't at least attacked the Red Baron. Perhaps this attack, even though unsuccessful, distracted von Richthofen enough to spoil his aim or otherwise keep him from downing Lieutenant May before he himself was shot by the Australian troops on the ground. In my opinion it was a team effort. Richthofen was chasing one Canadian pilot (May), was shot at by another Canadian pilot (Brown), but it was the Australian troops on the ground who brought him down. The point is that von Richthofen wouldn't have been close enough for the Australian troops to shoot him if it hadn't been for the Canadian pilots involved.

I am HIGHLY disappointed in the German director of the film to allow such inaccuracy when the scholarly consensus of World War One aviation historians has been for some time that Richthofen was killed by a bullet fired from the ground by an Australian soldier (probably Popkin, possibly Evans or another whose identity is unknown).

The movie trailer I've seen looks wonderful. I immediately recognized Fokker Triplane 586/17 shown in the trailer, the "optical illusion" triplane flown by Kirschstein of Jasta 6 and later by Ernst Udet of Jasta 4. The markings looked correct, and seeing a known historical aircraft depicted in the proper markings gave me hope that this movie paid attention to historical fact. I can't believe how STUPID the film's makers were to show Roy Brown as the one who killed von Richthofen! If I ever get really rich, perhaps I can finance a movie about von Richthofen that will do justice to his legendary character and be as historically accurate as possible.

New Front Derailleur on my Schwinn

It really is new too, still in the original package. Of course the package is more than thirty years old, but it had never been opened. On June 11, 2008 the old Shimano Positron front derailleur on my 1977 Schwinn Sportabout was replaced by this NOS (new old stock) SunTour "Spirt" front derailleur. The clamp was a bit too big around and needed a shim to fit my seat post.

I have also polished the metal parts of my bicycle the past few days so everything is very shiny. I will put a web page up eventually to show this, hopefully not before all the shininess fades.

new lights for my Schwinn ten-speed bicycle

Cateye EL530 headlight and LD1100 taillight are the brightest battery-powered bicycle lights available. The EL530 is 1500 candlepower (50% brighter than the 2005 model). The LD1100 (new for 2008) is 100% brighter than the 2007 model. I placed a special order for them today from the local bicycle store. I also ordered a cam lock mount for the headlight, because I read of many complaints about the stock mount being flimsy.

These will be a vast improvement over the Cateye lights I bought five years ago that are currently mounted on my Schwinn. Bicycle light technology has advanced considerably in the past five years.

New favicon.ico file for my web site

Hi all.
For those unfamiliar with favicons, they are the little graphic images before the URL text in the address box of an internet browser. I created one some years ago, working pixel by pixel. The result wasn't too bad for my limited abilities, but the past few days I took a little time to improve the image. I also scaled it down from 35 pixels wide to the 32 pixel size that is commonly used for favicons. Compare the two images above. The biggest changes are to the handlebars and below (including my legs), my hair color, and the glasses on my face. I also changed the shape of my head and hair a little bit and removed the black border box surrounding the image. These images are stretched 200% to make them easier to see (favicons are tiny little images; they have to be in order to fit in the address bar of the browser).

Spring Cleaning

I've been busy doing Spring Cleaning lately. Once the springs are clean, then I'll start on cleaning the house.

Thank God for Evolution!

I just saw Michael Dowd speak about evolutionary theology at a local church. He is the author of Thank God for Evolution! and other works. I was leery of his ideas at first, but what he said for the most part agrees with what I know to be true.

While walking to the church (a few blocks from my house), I passed an elderly couple who were walking to their church, a fundamentalist evangelical Christian one. The subject of evolution came up, and the old man said it is a lie. He said the final result will be who gets to go to heaven. I said that the Bible teaches God made man from dust and science says much the same thing. My final words to him were to ask if he also believed the earth was flat, because that is what a literal reading of the Bible indicates. I said if you're going to insist on fundamentalism, you might as well go all the way.

I went up to see Michael Dowd after his presentation. I commented that I recognized he was familiar with Alan Watts, since he had used the analogy of people coming out of the universe the same way apples come out of apple trees, one that Alan Watts used in many of his talks. Michael Dowd did not remember where he had heard it, but thanked me for giving him the source. The subject of plagiarism came up, and I mentioned the famous case of George Harrison. I was surprised nobody knew about it, so I explained how My Sweet Lord used the same chords and melody as the Chiffons' He's So Fine.

I waited a bit and then offered to play my evolution song for Mr. Dowd and those standing around. Nobody minded, so I played it. The television reporter asked if I had written it, and I said it was one of hundreds of songs I had written playing guitar while riding a bicycle for tens of thousands of miles. Mr. Dowd expressed surprise at that, and the television reporter assured him that it was true, that he (the reporter) had seen me himself and I had been in the local newspaper.

Later a woman came up and asked Mr. Dowd to explain how free will exists. He said we have a choice to decide which of the many conflicting drives within us we will follow. I mentioned the episode of The Changeling from the original Star Trek television series, where a robot spacecraft absorbed the contents of Lieutenant Uhura's mind and described it as "a mass of conflicting impulses."

I could have stayed longer but it was getting late so I left.

Converting to Drupal

I am in the process of converting my existing web site from static HTML/CSS pages to Drupal, a content management system that stores content in a database and dynamically generates pages on demand. This will allow my web site to be more interactive, more "Web 2.0"

It might take a while yet...Stay tuned.

Here are a few gratuitous links to some pages of my web site as it exists now. The URLs are not going to change for existing content.

The Bicycling Guitarist

Help as metaphysics

Spank the Naughty Blonde