Archive for February, 2012

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Obit watch and more randomness for February 3, 2012.

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

Obit watch: prominent spy novelist Dorothy Gilman.

Ben Gazzara. I’m glad to see “Run For Your Life” get some mention in his obit; that’s another series RTN was re-running, and that I wish someone would bring out a full DVD set of. (And I’d also like to see “Anatomy of a Murder” sometime; I’ve read the book, but haven’t seen the movie.)

Hey, how about that lengthy Federal investigation into Lance Armstrong’s alleged doping? The Feds took their best shot…and turned up nothing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the guy has been tested so often that either he’s telling the truth and is totally clean, or his doping technologists are not only ahead of the curve, you can’t even see the curve from where they are.

Finally, I wanted to make note of a developing local story. Early Friday morning, a guy wrecked his car near a railroad crossing in the Avery Ranch area of Northwest Austin. The guy walked away from the wreck. A little while later, the wife of a homeowner in the area heard voices outside and saw a man (the same guy) lying under her car. Her husband went out to investigate, and apparently attempted to hold the man at gunpoint. The homeowner ended up shooting the intruder three times, killing him.

And the homeowner has now been charged with murder.

The case is now in the hands of a Williamson County grand jury and the district attorney’s office, which will investigate the shooting and to what extent homeowners can defend their property with deadly force, said District Attorney John Bradley.
A grand jury is expected to hear the case in the next three months, he said. It will address the recent “castle doctrine” law justifying certain cases of deadly force to protect one’s property, Bradley said.

There are too many unknowns in the current press coverage to make me feel comfortable passing judgment in this case. I know the article quotes the homeowner as saying, “If you flee, I’m going to shoot you,” and then firing on the intruder as he tried to flee. But we don’t know what else the intruder did at this point; did he display a weapon? Was there a disparity of force involved (23 year old intruder, 47 year old homeowner)?

I think there is one thing we can say for sure:

Yazdi remained jailed late Friday in Williamson County on the murder charge and was held on $250,000 bail, jail records show.

Use your gun defensively, and even if it is a good shoot, your life is going to change; probably not for the better. Commvault Bryan and I were talking the other day about having an attorney on “retainer” and the various groups that offer that service for a small monthly fee; I need to get with Karl and get the name of the organization he recommends.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Guns, Movies, Obits, Schadenfreude, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Hello, Kalashnikitty!

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

By way of the great and good Kevin Baker, we have learned that, once again, orders are being taken for Kalashnikitty t-shirts.

Mine has gotten a little frayed around the edges, so I will be ordering a replacement – perhaps two. Maybe even three. Thinking about it, I bet a certain niece of mine would probably like one…

Posted in Clothing, Shirts | Comments Closed

Eye the Jury.

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

More 185th Grand Jury stuff:

Lykos and her defenders were claiming they didn’t do anything out of the ordinary; they were just Googling folks, which, after all, anyone can do.

Not quite. It seems that the Harris County DA’s investigator also used something called Accurint. Accurint is not a publicly accessible system; it is a service that the county pays for, and which requires that you certify a “permissible use” before obtaining information. Defense attorney Mark Bennett has more about Accurint over at his blog, “Defending People”, which I commend to your attention.

And, of course, The Hon. Murray Newman is on the case as well.

Posted in Clippings, HCDA, Law | Comments Closed

I heartily endorse this event or product. (#7 in a series)

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

ThinkPenguin.

Back in May of last year, I wrote about upgrading my wireless router to a dual-band Netgear WNDR3700, and the problem posed by the lack of a dual-band wireless adapter in the Project e netbook.

Since then, I’ve been looking for a dual-band 2.4GHz – 5GHz 802.11N USB adapter that was fully supported by Ubuntu out of the box; no NDIS wrapper, just straight plug it in and have it work. I actually bought and returned one adapter that ended up not meeting those requirements. I kept looking, and kept beating my head against a wall.

The last time the issue came up, I noticed a mention of ThinkPenguin on the Ubuntu “WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported” page. “Okay,” I said to myself. “Why not check to see what they have?”

Sure enough, ThinkPenguin offered a dual-band USB wireless 802.11N adapter that they claimed would work right out of the box with all current versions of Ubuntu. It was a little more expensive than the 802.11N adapters that you find on sale at Fry’s, but by this point I was willing to pay a few extra dollars for something that would Just. Freaking. Work. So I placed an order.

I picked up the adapter last night, booted up the netbook, plugged it in, and…

…It. Just. Works. Right out of the box. Ubuntu had no problems recognizing the device, I had no problems connecting to my 5 GHz network (even without external antennas; more on this in a moment), and I’m getting the expected substantial speed improvement. If I get a chance, I’ll see if I can post some direct speed comparisons between ThinkPenguin’s adapter and the Asus built-in one.

I’ve also had occasion to communicate with ThinkPenguin support, and I was extremely impressed with the speed of their response; using their online support form, I got a response back to my questions in less than one hour. I consider that outstanding.

I will concede, as I said above, that ThinkPenguin’s offerings are a little more expensive than the stuff you find at Fry’s. I paid $64 for the adapter I ordered (plus about $6 for priority mail shipping); dual-band adapters at Fry’s typically seem to run about $40 (plus local tax of 8.25%) for name brands. The thing is, my time is worth more than $20/hour to me; I’m willing to pay for stuff that works right away, and does what I want it to do without limits.

If that’s the way you feel, I recommend you check out ThinkPenguin.

(One other point: you’ll note that I didn’t offer a specific link to the adapter I bought. That’s because, according to ThinkPenguin support, they’ve dropped that adapter from their catalog. TP states they plan to introduce a new adapter in the next month or two, as soon as they can raise funds to get the adapter produced. In the meantime, while the adapter I ordered is not listed on their site, TP still has a small stock available, and you can purchase it by contacting them through their website or calling 1-888-39-THINK (84465). Please note that I haven’t received any freebies from TP; I’m just a very satisfied customer.)

(Edited to add: Also, if you’re going to order an adapter that supports external antennas, just a note: it is easier to order both the adapter and the antennas at the same time. TP will still sell you the antennas as a separate item; they just don’t have them cataloged, and it will require an email/phone call.)

Posted in Endorsements, Geek, linux, netbook, project_e | Comments Closed

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? and other random notes for February 2, 2012.

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Obit watch: Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s corner man.

Mike Kelley, L.A. based visual artist. There’s also a well-done appreciation of his work at the A/V Club website.

And I’m a little late on this, but wanted to note it anyway: Ian Abercrombie.

In other news, the fun never stops with the Harris County District Attorney’s office. I missed the actual report (I can’t get Houston’s Channel 13 in Austin), but BlogHouston and The Hon. Murray Newman have links. In brief, DA Lykos basically admitted that, yes, she ordered investigators in her office to “research” (as she puts it; other people use the word “investigate”) members of the 185th Grand Jury, as well as the special prosecutors and the judges involved with the grand jury.

I don’t think I am overstating things to suggest that the HCDA’s office is starting to look positively Nixonian.

Posted in Art, Clippings, HCDA, Law, Nixon, Obits | 1 Comment »

Update: Leonardo Quintana

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Do you remember Leonardo Quintana? The APD officer who was fired multiple times by APD, and reinstated multiple times by an arbitrator, before APD finally managed to make a charge stick? Last time we touched base with former officer Quintana, he’d just been acquitted on domestic assault charges.

Yesterday, he was acquitted on two more charges: another domestic assault charge in an unrelated incident, and criminal trespass.

According to the Statesman, there’s still one more criminal mischief charge pending against Quintana. We’ll try to keep you updated on the disposition of that charge.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 1 Comment »

The snakes try to get there around 3:30 in the afternoon…

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

People having too much fun with headlines:

1. “Burmese pythons turn Everglades into a buffet”. There’s also an interesting FARK thread based on a similar article from another source.

(As everyone who has a senior citizen in the family knows, you try to get to the buffet around 3:30 so you can pay the lunch price, but still get the stuff they put out for dinner starting around 4 PM.)

Edited to add: In the same vein, this Reason “Hit and Run” entry, which links to this Jonah Goldberg piece:

We nearly wiped out the buffalo in this country because a bunch of guys made money off of buffalo hides. Thousands of years before that, mankind eradicated the woolly mammoth with spears. Spears! Give me five thousand Ted Nugent fans and all the weapons they can carry and the waters of the everglades will run red with Burmese snake blood.

2. “USAF’s Big Penetrator Needs to Be Harder”. (Hattip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)

A series of recent tests found that the Air Force’s 30,000-pound tool for penetrating 32 stories of reinforced concrete might not have enough penetrating power to take out Iran’s most heavily protected nuclear facilities, reports the WSJ.

Making it harder sounds like a good thing, but perhaps they also need to add more thrust. Maybe a rocket assist?

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Media, Reptiles, Snakes | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 1, 2012.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Don Cornelius, creator of “Soul Train”.

Posted in Music, Obits | Comments Closed

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