RIP thread

[samvimaire]

He was the guitarist of the french rock band Parabellum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlRkYgzF-no

[patwynnfan]

Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang, who created the writing system that turns Chinese characters into words using letters from the Roman alphabet, has died aged 111. Mr Zhou and a Communist party committee spent three years developing the Pinyin system in the 1950s. It changed the way the language was taught and helped raise literacy rates. Mr Zhou, who was born in 1906 during the Qing Dynasty, later became a fierce critic of China's communist rulers. He died in Beijing on Saturday a day after his birthday, Chinese media reported.
As a young man Mr Zhou spent time in the US and worked as a Wall Street banker. He returned to China after the communist victory in 1949 and was put in charge of creating a new writing system using the Roman alphabet. "We spent three years developing Pinyin. People made fun of us, joking that it had taken us a long time to deal with just 26 letters," he told the BBC in 2012.
Before Pinyin was developed, 85% of Chinese people could not read, now almost all can. Pinyin has since become the most commonly used system globally, although some Chinese communities - particularly in Hong Kong and Taiwan - continue to use alternatives. It is also widely used to type Chinese characters on computers and smartphones, leading some to fear it could end up replacing Chinese characters altogether.
The achievement protected Mr Zhou from some of the persecution that took place under former leader Mao Zedong. However, he was later sent to the countryside for re-education during Mao's Cultural Revolution. • What was China's Cultural Revolution? In his later years he became strongly critical of the Chinese authorities and wrote a number of books, most of which were banned. In a 2011 interview with NPR he said he hoped he would live long enough to see the Chinese authorities admit that the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 had been a mistake. He said ordinary people no longer believed in the Communist Party, and that the vast majority of Chinese intellectuals were in favour of democracy.

[K_D]

Ringling Bros. Circus
1871 - 2017


Ringling Bros. Circus to Close 'The Greatest Show on Earth' after 146 Years

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...114-story.html

[johnbear]

Fijian professional wrestler and actor died age 73 stomach cancer.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-...a-dead-9628904

[Greenman]

Very sad to hear of the death of Graham Taylor-I had no idea he had been so ill and I had wondered why I hadn't heard him on Radio 5live doing his usual summarising of football. I well remember the England game where he took Gary Lineker off thus preventing him from getting a record for England - not his best move and the papers turning on him superimposing his head on a Swede (we'd been hammered by Sweden in the World Cup) He is also more famous for taking Watford Football Club to Wembley for a Cup Final. His team provided us later with the great John Barnes who was their main striker. He was also well in with the chairman, one Elton John. Great to see ALL football teams this weekend give him a minute's applause(usually it is one minute's silence) and chanting "There's only ONE Graham Taylor" I think he would have said "Do I really like that"

[KissArmy]

Victor Lownes, 1928-2017, longtime Playboy executive. If Hefner was the visionary of Playboy, Lownes was the guy that was actually living Hefner's vision and became the real architect of Playboy. It was Victor who created the Playboy clubs, the Playboy Jazz Festival, the Playboy Bunny costume, and the marketing for the "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" campaign (basically based on himself). He went on to head the Playboy clubs in England which, with their casino component, became the most profitable arm of the Playboy empire. Oh, and he banged Marilyn Cole for 40 years...

[ron2k7]

Rest In Peace, Superfly.

[Sam Spade]

The BBC are reporting that Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, has died aged 82.

[ball7]

CNN and his own personal webpage is also reporting that Gene Cernan has passed away.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/16/us/eugene-cernan-dies/ - comes with a touching video
http://egger1.com/ - Read NASA's press release here

[gedly]

Babette Cole, anarchic creator of Princess Smartypants, dies at 66

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...nts-dies-at-67