Carbon monoxide can be used as heating fuel because it burns easily into carbon dioxide. It can also be used as so-called "synthesis gas" for making man-made gasoline in the Fischer-Tropsch process.
During the World War II when petrol was rare and reserved for the military, many cars were converted to use "wood gas". It is carbon monoxide made by burning wood chips in insufficient amount of air. The wood gas was made in a special oven called "generator", which was carried on the car. The resulting carbon monoxide was then used as fuel for the car itself. Even today there are cars which use wood gas as fuel.
Schweinfurt
Schweinfurt is a city in Franconia. The population is about 50,000. Larger, nearby cities are Würzburg and Bamberg.
Falco
Falco (born February 19, 1957 in Vienna, Austria as Johann (Hans) Hölzel, and died on February 6, 1998 in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic) was an Austrian pop singer. His breakthrough was "Der Kommissar", which beat top positions in international charts. This song and his first two albums were produced by Robert Ponger.
His song "Rock me Amadeus" has been the one and only German-speaking song reaching no.1 on the US charts. From 1985 to 1988 he produced 3 albums with the Dutch Production Team Bolland & Bolland. "Falco 3" became his most successful record reaching number 3 of the US Longplay Charts.
In 1985, Falco also had his 3rd No.1 hit "Jeanny" and in 1986 his 4th - "Coming Home (Jeanny Part 2)".
Unsuccessful albums like "Data de Groove" (produced by Ponger again) followed. In 1988 he married Isabella Vitkovic, one year later, in 1989, they separated. Ponger and the Bollands produced all of the albums that were released in his lifetime. To stay tuned Falco recorded many techno songs and worked with different producers for his last album.
His successful album "Out of the dark (into the light)" was released after Falco's death in a road accident.
Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal (4 June 1894 – 6 July 1954) was a Hungarian movie producer and director.
Gabriel Pascal was born in Transylvania (which is now part of Romania) in 1894. Pascal is best known for having turned some of the best plays by the famous Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw into successful movies. His most famous movie made from one of Shaw's plays was "Pygmalion" in 1938. "Pygmalion" tells the story of a bet that two rich men made over whether one of them, Professor Higgins, could turn a poor uneducated girl into a sophisticated lady. The movie was so successful that after Gabriel Pascal died it was made into a huge Broadway musical called "My Fair Lady", and amazingly this musical was then made into another movie. So "Pygmalion" was first a play, then a movie based on the play, then a play based on the movie, and then a new play based on the movie made from the old play. It is therefore quite a remarkable history and it was Gabriel Pascal's idea to make the play a musical, though he did not live long enough to do it himself.
Gabriel Pascal invented his name and no one seems to know his real one. He claimed to have memories of being rescued by Gypsies from a burning building when he was a tiny child and that the Gypsies taught him to beg, steal, and do acrobatic tricks, but no one knows if this is true. It is unclear what parts of his fabulous account of his childhood are true as there are no formal records of him prior to the age of 17 when he was enlisted in military school in Holics, Hungary, by a mysterious Catholic priest. Gabriel Pascal, who was decidedly unfit for military life, became interested in theater and studied at the Academy of the Hofburg Theater in Vienna. Later his interest expanded into the newly burgeoning cinema and he made movies in Germany and Italy with sporadic success.
Pascal had one son, Peter, conceived in Germany during the delirium of a fever with his landlady's sister Elsie. Unable to care even for himself, Pascal fled to Holland. After WWII ended, at last on his feet with the success of "Pygmalion" and "Major Barbara", Pascal rushed to Germany to search for his son Peter, but he was listed among the missing Hitler Youth. Elsie had been killed by a bomb.
As a young man, Pascal found a job tending horses in Hungary. Leading the horses through the forest to a stream each day, Pascal developed the habit of riding bareback naked through the Hungarian countryside. One day he accidentally rode stark naked through the outdoor set of a silent movie in production and was "discovered." The film's director asked him to repeat the ride for the cameras and he joined the group. Soon he was making his own movies.
Pascal had another auspicious encounter when he was young while walking along the shore of the Mediterranean. An old man, George Bernard Shaw, was swimming naked holding onto a buoy. A conversation ensued and Shaw dared the young Pascal on the shore to take off his clothes and join him in the water. He was impressed when Pascal immediately did so and this began their friendship. Shaw was impressed with Pascal's youthful enthusiasm for art and his bravado and invited him to come visit him one day when he was entirely broke. This chance meeting was to play a major role in Pascal's later career.
Pascal began his producing career making silent movies in Italy for German distribution through UFA Studios in Berlin. His directorial debut was "Populi Morituri" in which he also starred. He later produced horror movies in Germany. His most famous was "Unholy Tales" in 1932. It was an anthology of short spooky stories, including some by Edgar Allan Poe, tied together by the adventures of a black cat and is considered by some to be a forgotten horror classic.
In 1933, during a trip to Hollywood, Pascal was contacted by Princess Norina Matchabelli about a movie project based on the teachings of her guru Meher Baba. Pascal got very caught up in this project, bringing movie writers Hy Kraft and Karl Vollmöller into helping him work up treatments and even making a trip to India to discuss the project further with Meher Baba. By the time Pascal arrived in India, however, Meher Baba did not seem in any hurry to complete the movie, saying it could wait and inviting Pascal to live with him in India. Most ordinary men would have been discouraged, but Pascal took energetically to the austere life of an eastern ascetic, even shedding his western garb for eastern clothing. He took a liking to Meher Baba and maintained a correspondence with him all of his life. Meher Baba nicknamed Pascal "Phoenix" and alternately "Panther."
Pascal remained in contact with his guru Meher Baba right up to the end of his life and met with him in person one last time in New York in 1952. Even in this final meeting there was mention of the movie that Pascal had agreed to try to make for Baba.
In time, however, Pascal's desire to make his mark on cinema returned and Pascal took a ship back to America penniless but undaunted. He landed in San Francisco where he spent some time deciding what to do next. Then it struck him to approach George Bernard Shaw (the most famous living playwright in the English speaking world at the time), whom Pascal had met auspiciously many years earlier. During that earlier meeting Shaw, who had been impressed with the young Pascal's passion for art and cinema, had told him to pay him a visit when he was entirely penniless. Pascal was now exactly that. He then sought out Shaw, first by going to N.Y. hidden in the toilet of the train, then convincing a sea captain to give him a lift to England.