Archive for August, 2013

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Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional Characters (part 9 in a series).

Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

He was tireless, honest, and smart, and getting smarter all the time as he made a strong team stronger. His subordinates responded well to his leadership, but he wanted more. He would encourage and recruit the hardheaded, iconoclastic, passionate original thinkers whom others would often dismiss as too much trouble. They not only followed him, they challenged him to be better. They pushed him. They questioned him. They constructively, fearlessly voiced dissent if warranted. He did the same with me. That’s a mark of superlative subordinates; they make their bosses better leaders.

–Henry A. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service

Posted in Boats, History, Leadership | Comments Closed

Random notes: August 21, 2013.

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

I’ve written before about Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, and the efforts by the State University of New York (SUNY) to close it, since it is bleeding money like a severed aorta.

…a judge on Tuesday ordered the hospital to be returned to its previous owners, nullifying a 2011 transfer to the State University of New York.

The hospital was previously owned by Continuum Health Partners. Why did they transfer it to SUNY? They say it was either that, or shut the place down. You see the punchline coming, don’t you?

“Upon due consideration, Continuum respectfully concludes that we cannot reassume management of LICH and is unable to take responsibility for the hospital’s operations,” Stanley Brezenoff, the president and chief executive, said in a statement.

New York’s WBAI is in trouble. Normally, I don’t care that much about NYC radio stations. But:

…huge debt and a dwindling membership have left both WBAI and Pacifica starved for cash. The station, one of five owned by the foundation, has operated in the red each year since 2004, accumulating more than $3 million in net losses, according to Pacifica financial statements. In addition to WBAI, Pacifica has stations in Los Angeles, Washington, Houston and Berkeley, Calif., and feeds content to more than 150 affiliates.
Among Pacifica’s debts are more than $2 million in broadcast fees owed to Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!,” the network’s most popular show. To cover Pacifica’s operating costs, the network has drained most of its accounts, hobbling the organization and raising the doomsday scenario in which it would have to sell WBAI’s broadcast license.

Lord, you know I don’t ask for much. But if WBAI’s broadcast license does go up for sale, please let the Koch brothers purchase it. Thank you.

Posted in Clippings, Radio | 1 Comment »

Leonard, Part 2.

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

Now that the dust has settled a bit, here’s a roundup of Elmore Leonard obits and tributes.

NYT.

When asked about the vivid landscapes in his westerns, Mr. Leonard told how he did his “research”: from a magazine.
“I subscribed to Arizona Highways,” he said, “and that was loaded with scenery.”

LAT. Neely Tucker’s swell 2008 profile of Leonard for the WP. WP obit. A/V Club.

Amy Alkon knew Leonard, and has a nice tribute up here.

And The Rap Sheet, with a roundup of even more links.

Edited to add: missed this one. Robert Crais, another writer I greatly admire, in the LAT.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: August 20, 2013.

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

This week’s TMQ, after the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Clippings, NFL, TMQ watch, Writing | 1 Comment »

Insert very bad words here.

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

The Detroit News is reporting the death of Elmore Leonard, one of America’s greatest novelists.

Damn it.

Edited to add: I’m not sure if I’m going to write more about Leonard. I’ve read, and enjoyed, some of his work (and am glad that there’s more left that I haven’t read) but I don’t feel the same personal connection to Leonard’s work that I felt to Robert Parker’s.

However, in honor of the late Mr. Leonard, here’s his rules for writing from the NYT website.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: August 20, 2013.

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

NYT headline:

Rodriguez’s Lawyer Calls Baseball’s Offer a ‘Trap’

(Edited to add: I am willing to offer karma points and gratitude for a photoshop of Admiral Ackbar in a Yankees uniform.)

At least Richard Cohen is consistent. Here’s a man who’s never met a totalitarian initiative he doesn’t like.

Speaking of NYC and guns…

“A lot of firepower,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg mused as he paused to look at some of the 254 guns — large-caliber pistols and military-grade weapons modified to improve aim and avoid detection —

Say what?

Officials said two men — Earl Campbell of Rock Hill, S.C., and Walter Walker of Sanford, N.C. — bought stolen guns from associates or used straw purchasers at legitimate stores, then simply loaded them into suitcases and boarded cheap buses to Chinatown or occasionally drove in private cars. Most of the deals were for several weapons; one sale, for $9,700, included 14 weapons.

So let’s see. NYC has strict gun control. So crooks are stealing weapons (already illegal) or engaging in “straw purchases” (also illegal, and rarely prosecuted by the Feds). So what we need is more gun control, and also stop and frisk.

During the investigation, which emerged last August from an unrelated drug case, the undercover detective watched as two of the suspects struggled to assemble an assault rifle during a sale. They even looked at an instructional video on their smartphone, said Bridget G. Brennan, the city’s special narcotics prosecutor, before the detective agreed to buy the gun in pieces.

I would laugh at these guys, but…I’ve got my own embarrassing gun related issue (which I will write more about at some time in the future; no, it wasn’t a negligent discharge, I’m just having problems getting something to run right), so I’m withholding the laughter for now.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Geek, Guns, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

A small handful of DEFCON 21 (and related) notes: August 19, 2013.

Monday, August 19th, 2013

Posted in DEFCON 21, Geek | Comments Closed

This brings a smile to my face.

Monday, August 19th, 2013

The Post Office is issuing an Inverted Jenny stamp.

The 2013 Inverted Jenny has a face value of $2 (13 cents in 1918 money) instead of the 24 cent face value of the original. I’ll be interested in seeing what else the USPS changes.

Here’s a blog entry from January that shows the preliminary artwork in comparison with the original Inverted Jenny.

And here’s an old article from Smithsonian about the Inverted Jenny, for those unfamiliar with the story.

(I’m not a big stamp collector; I dabbled in it a little when I was young, with the help of my mother, and somewhere I think I have a Bicentennial first day cover. As I get older, though, I’ve started purchasing USPS first day covers for people and subjects that interest me. See also: the Battle of Lake Erie.)

(And, yes, somewhere I have a copy of George Amick’s book, The Inverted Jenny: Money, Mystery, Mania. I think it is a pretty swell book, even if you’re not that heavily into stamps and the history thereof.)

(Of course, the Inverted Jenny story touches on another subject of interest to me: the Green family.)

Posted in Books, Stamps | 2 Comments »

Paging Charles Willeford….

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

…white courtesy phone, please.

Princess Irina Walker, the daughter of the last king of Romania, was hobnobbing two years ago with European royalty in Bucharest to celebrate the 90th birthday of her regal father.
On Friday, she and her husband, a former sheriff’s deputy, appeared in federal court to face charges of running a cockfighting business on their ranch in rural Oregon. Both pleaded not guilty and were released pending trial.

(I apologize for linking to the Statesman, but it is a non-paywalled AP story. I also apologize for the stupid auto-play video; if you prefer, “princess cockfighting” in the Google will bring up other versions of this story.)

(I have a sneaking suspicion Willeford would say, “Come on, you can’t put that in a novel! People won’t believe it, even if it is true!”)

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Missing the boat here.

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

More than any other skill, glass blowing has allowed Tacoma, Wash., to emerge from Seattle’s shadow. Carve out a couple of hours from a leisurely weekend of museum-hopping, shopping and sightseeing, and you’ll take home something more tangible than the usual vacation leftovers of memories and a sunburn.

How can you write a travel article about Tacoma and not mention the Silver Cloud Inn and its luxurious Crazy Apple Rumors suite? For crying out loud, the Silver Cloud Inn is right on the waterfront! Instead, the LAT recommends staying at some hipster hotel with a “stunning glass collection”.

And what does the paper recommend you eat? Tacos. Vuelve a la Vida may be great, but I live in Austin; if I’m going to Tacoma, I’m going to get away from tacos.

(I’m still hoping to get up to Tacoma one of these days, before John Moltz becomes the famous Internet personality he deserves to be and starts spending all of his time cavorting with SI swimsuit models and professional drifers.)

Posted in Apple, Clippings, Travel | Comments Closed

Ubuntu blues.

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

Documenting this here for the record.

I think I have finally resolved the “the system is running in low graphics mode” error I’ve been getting on Project e (which, I will remind you, is an Asus 1005HA with an integrated Intel 950 graphics adapter) since upgrading to Ubuntu 13.04.

This particular document is comprehensive and ultimately useless. I tried every suggestion in it, with no success at all.

What finally seems to have resolved the problem was a suggestion in this thread. Specifically, brucey99’s suggestion to edit /etc/init/lightdm.conf and add

sleep 10

above

exec lightdm

seems to have done the trick. (I used “sleep 20” instead of “sleep 10”. What’s the harm, 10 seconds more boot time? I can always change it later.)

It also seems like the

sudo service lightdm restart

command from a terminal window works to get things back to normal if the machine does start in low graphics mode.

And I’m not sure it made any difference, but just to document: I also created a xorg.conf file (from xorg.conf.failsafe) and edited the “Device” section:


Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"
EndSection

After restarting about a half-dozen times, it hasn’t come up in low graphics mode yet. I’ll see how it goes.

As David Brin once said, “Let the next guy know what killed you.” And thanks, brucey99.

Posted in Geek, linux, project_e | Comments Closed

Your art fraud followup: August 17, 2013.

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

The NYT names the “struggling immigrant artist” who is accused of forging $80 million worth of art, supposedly by Modernist masters.

Over a period of 15 years, court papers claim, the painter, working out of his home studio and garage, churned out at least 63 drawings and paintings that carried the signatures of artistic giants like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Richard Diebenkorn, and that Mr. Bergantiños Diaz and Ms. Rosales boasted were authentic. They were not copies of paintings, but were sold as newly “discovered” works by those artists.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

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