Archive for January, 2014

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Changing the face of dining.

Friday, January 31st, 2014

We have a noodle truck at the office on Thursdays.

The Forbidden. Beef stewed for four hours in an Indonesian-style red curry. DFG Noodles, Austin, Texas.

The Forbidden. Beef stewed for four hours in an Indonesian-style red curry. DFG Noodles, Austin, Texas.

And it is pretty damn good.

And they take credit/debt cards. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? iPad with a credit card swiper, pick your tip, sign, have your receipt emailed to you?

This observation isn’t original to me, and I’m not sure it is terribly profound, but: services like Square have revolutionized credit card processing. I remember the old days, when setting up a merchant account was hard to do, and you needed a phone line, and you needed bulky equipment, and the credit card processors charged enormous fees. Now? I’m kind of far from retail, so I’m not sure if Square has resulted in downward pressure on fees (though I suspect it has).

Someone I know who is in retail and takes credit cards reviewed an early draft of this post and provided this information: they pay 2.61% for credit card processing, but each month’s statement also contains a laundry list of “cryptic inexplicable fees” that they have to pay as well. Square claims to charge a flat 2.75% for swiped transactions (Visa, MC, AmEx, Discover) with no additional fees. (I say “claims” because I have not used Square and can’t verify that for myself.)

Square also claims to deliver your money in one to two business days, no matter what type of card it is. The retail person I know says that AmEx fees depend on how long you let AmEx keep your money: they let AmEx hold their money for 15 days, and pay between 2% and 3%.

But fees aside, anyone who has a bank account can take credit cards these days, and all you need is an iPhone or iPad (or a supported Android device, though frankly that looks a little painful). Little to no bulk, no landline, and the money goes into your linked bank account.

The big thing, as I see it, isn’t the merchant charges: it is the portability. Your credit card machine is your phone or tablet, and it fits in a trailer. Or in a pocket. And you don’t need anything else – you don’t even need a printer, you can just email receipts to your customers. (Okay, you might want a charging cable, depending on how good battery life is on your device. But other than that, nothing.)

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Posted in Android, Apple, Food, Geek | 2 Comments »

Why I do this.

Friday, January 31st, 2014

Because, for all the stuff that I pitch up against the wall that doesn’t get a response, sometimes I get somebody like a favorite author or the guy who directed that movie I really really want to see dropping in and engaging in the comments.

I cannot lie: I live for those moments.

Tell me again about how blogging is dead.

(I know today’s posts have been mostly short throw aways. I’m working on what’s turned into a very long post that may actually have some original thought to it. That may go up tonight, or more likely tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to sleep on and proofread it.)

(My 11th grade English teacher told us we had to footnote everything in our term paper because, as 11th grade English students, we were incapable of original thought. Let’s see if I can do any better this many years later.)

Posted in Admin | Comments Closed

Too bad I have no musical talent.

Friday, January 31st, 2014

The Government Series II Les Paul guitar. (Hattip: Sharp as a Marble.)

What I really want is for Oleg Volk (or an equally talented photographer) to do a shoot with this and a Colt Government Model. Why? No reason, really; it just tickles my sense of whimsey.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Music | Comments Closed

This day in history.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

Our great and good friend Borepatch has a post up about all the folks who died on January 30th, including Gandhi, Sir Everard Digby, and that guy who crossed the 47 Ronin.

Borepatch’s post, and an email from Chartwell Booksellers, reminded me: Winston Churchill died on January 24th, 1965, but his funeral was today er, on this date in 1965.

A couple of years ago, I read John Keegan’s Winston Churchill: A Life, and there was something in it that I found striking and moving:

Queen Elizabeth II attended his funeral.

I know that sounds like something you’d expect for Churchill, and I doubt there was any question about her going. But the royal family almost never attends the funeral of a commoner: they only go to funerals of other members of the royal family. I have this mental image of Elizabeth arguing with her people: “I’m going. I don’t care about tradition. He won the war, you…” Well, I doubt Elizabeth would say “assholes” but she might think it. I know it is fashionable to sniff at England and wonder what they need with the royal family, but it does seem like Elizabeth II is the class act of the bunch.

(And he got a state funeral, too. According to Keegan, the last commoner to get one of those was the Duke Of Wellington. In 1852.)

While I was working on this post, I found that the BBC has a nice archive devoted to remembering Churchill. I haven’t had time to go through it all yet, but I’m bookmarking it here.

Posted in Bookmarks, Books, Clippings, History | 2 Comments »

Quick random stuff.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

The NYT has a feature on the “industrial musical”.

The 1956 Chevy show cost $3 million, while “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway with a budget of $500,000. Big budgets attracted top-drawer talent. “Go Fly a Kite” was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the team behind “Cabaret” and “Chicago.” Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock wrote “Ford-i-fy Your Future” for the tractor and implement division of Ford, as well as the songs for “Fiorello!” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” Bob Fosse was already at work on “The Pajama Game” when he toured with “The Mighty ‘O’,” a 1953 Oldsmobile show.

$3 million in 1956 money works out to about $25,700,000 in 2013 money. Or about a third of the cost of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. The NYT piece seems to be mostly promotion for a new book: Everything’s Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals. But I’ll admit: I’m intrigued by the book, and will probably purchase it at Half-Price when it shows up there.

Apparently, there was a serious proposal last year to add bass fishing to the list of high school sports which are approved and regulated by the Texas University Interscholastic League. It did not pass. And honestly, I’m a little weirded out by the idea; where would students practice? How? How often? In boats or from the shore? Can you practice bass fishing in Midland? What would the bass fishing championship look like? Would it be televised on one of cable’s many outdoor channels?

(Not making fun of bass fishermen at all. I realize there’s an active bass tournament scene, and if that’s your thing, God bless you. I just think the logistics of doing this at the high school level are strange. Especially since if you’re a high school bass fisherman, you can probably compete in professional tournaments for real money; it isn’t like professional bass fishing is subject to the same sort of size and weight issue that high school football is.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Music, Sports, Theatre | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: the votes are in…

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

…and Richard Sherman is your 2013 Tuesday Morning Quarterback Non-QB Non-RB MVP.

Mike the Musicologist made a good point to us last night, in reference to TMQ’s (and, we think, specifically Tony Dungy’s) comments about America needing more time away from football: the NFL is a profession. They call it “pro football” for a reason.

Our bosses would never say to us, “you need some time away from security. Take three or six months and go do something else.” And if we did decide we needed some time away from security, we wouldn’t expect to get paid – or for that matter to have a job when we came back. (Yes, there are some professions where you can take a sabbatical or a leave of absence, but not every year.)

So why do football players need “time away from football”, other than the usual rest, recuperation, and vacation you get in most other professions? What’s special about the NFL? Maybe the physical demands of the job, but we suspect that’s built into the training and off-season expectations of NFL teams.

As far as needing “time off from football” as a society, we already feel there’s a pretty long gap from February to August. The attention of society during those months is pretty much devoted to basketball and baseball; we don’t see a lot of football coverage during this period (major events excepted). Indeed, if we wanted “time off a sport”, our pick would be basketball: the 2012 NBA season ended on June 20th, 2013. The first preseason game of the 2013 season was October 5th. So that’s basically what, three months with no basketball compared to the NFL’s six months with no football?

“But don’t you agree college players need time away?” No, we pretty much agree with MtM’s other point: college is just the minor leagues for the NFL, and college players are every bit as much professionals as NFL players.

When you get down to high school and lower levels, yes, we’d agree that time away is needed. But we’re not sure that kids aren’t getting that; we’re still trying to figure out the UIL regulations, but so far we’ve determined that junior high kids can’t start practicing before the first day of school. (When do they have to stop? Good question. Any UIL rulebook experts out there? Feel free to comment.)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Get. Off. My. Lawn.

Thursday, January 30th, 2014

The Killing Fields is 30 years old? Damn, I’m old.

(I may have to pick up the 30th Anniversary Blu-ray, though I’d like to know if it has any extras. The Amazon page is not helpful.)

Posted in Clippings, Movies | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 28, 2014 (part 2).

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

Where were we? Oh, yes: cheerleaders.

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Posted in Clothing, Food, Law, NFL, Pants, Sports | 4 Comments »

TMQ Watch: January 28, 2014 (part 1).

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

We were wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong! This is appropriate, as part of TMQ’s column this week is the “bad predictions review”.

Why were we wrong? We predicted last week that TMQ would use this week’s column for lots of gratuitous TV bashing. Instead, there’s pretty much…none.

So how does TMQ fill column space in this, the most boring week in football? After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

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Posted in Books, Clippings, Law, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Cahiers du cinéma: my most anticipated movie for 2014.

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

Lawrence asks me from time to time if there are any movies I’m looking forward to in the coming year.

Generally, my response is the same: I don’t pay that much attention to what’s coming six months from now, so I don’t have any anticipated movies in my queue. I don’t start looking forward to something until I hear about it and hear reviews (or even gossip) about it, which usually takes place maybe a month or so before the movie actually opens.

But now I have an exception. Or, to put it another way…

Holy crap! They’ve made a movie out of Charlie Victor Romeo!

I was lucky enough to see the stage version when it came through Austin. I’m glad I went, but I fully understand A.O. Scott’s comment that “It is also one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen.” The stage version was…intense. So intense that the cast would come out after the show and have a discussion with the audience; I think this was to help both sides decompress.

Right now, it is only playing in New York. I’ve signed up for their mailing list and am hoping for an email with an Austin date sooner or later. To give you some idea about how excited I am: I’m even willing to relax my strict “Alamo Drafthouse only” policy for this movie.

(And RoadRich, if you’re out there, I want you to come with me when I go see it.)

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Planes, Theatre | 2 Comments »

Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional (?) Characters (part 10 in a series).

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

I’m currently reading Richard Miles’s Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization (a Christmas gift from my beloved and indulgent sister).

One thing I’ve noticed is that Carthage suffered from a severe shortage of names. You would not believe the number of Hamilcars, Hannos, Hasdrubals, and Hannibals in the pages of this book.

(I owned a Hamilcar once. Couldn’t keep a clutch in it.)

But let’s talk for a moment about the Hannibal, Hamilcar Barca’s son, of “crossing the Alps” fame.

Miles makes a good point: what we know about Carthage mostly comes from the works of Roman historians, who (N.S. Sherlock) had their own set of biases and assumptions, and those should be taken into consideration. (That’s the reason for the question mark in the title.) But there’s an interesting quote from Livy, by way of Miles:

Reckless in courting danger, he showed superb tactical ability once it was upon him. Indefatigable both physically and mentally, he could endure with equal ease excessive heat or cold; he ate and drank not to flatter his appetites but only so much as would sustain his body strength; waking and sleeping he made no distinction between night and day; what time his duties left him he gave to sleep, nor did he seek it on a soft bed or in silence, for he was often to be seen, wrapped in an army cloak, asleep on the ground amid common soldiers on sentry or picket duties. His clothing in no way distinguished him from other young men of his age; but his accoutrements and horses were eye-catching. Mounted or unmounted he was unequaled as a fighting man, always the first to attack, always the last to leave the field.

So. Shared the hardships of his men, never asked them to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself, first to fight, last to retreat. Where have we heard this before?

Oh, yeah: pretty much every great military commander in history shares those characteristics. I just find it kind of interesting to see how far back this goes…

Posted in Books, History, Leadership | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 28, 2014.

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

Yeah, yeah, Pete Seeger’s dead. A couple of reactions I liked: Tam. Travis McGee Reader.

One additional thing you have to like Pete for: giving a name to one of the great combat aircraft of our time.

How unethical do you have to be in order to be denied a law license in California? This unethical.

Or do you? I’ve seen a fair number of people posing this as Glass being unfairly denied a shot at redemption. After all, his crimes were nearly twenty years ago, they argue, and for the past ten years he’s not only kept his nose clean but done “exemplary” work as a clerk for a law firm.

And I’m not unsympathetic to the “shot at redemption” argument. I don’t hold any brief for Glass, or his behavior, and it bothers me a little that I’m more willing to give him that shot than I was Michael Vick. I need to search my soul a little more over this.

But the hand wringing is a little more offputting. Those arguing in favor of Glass seem to be missing some key findings:

The record also discloses instances of dishonesty and disingenuousness occurring after Glass’s exposure, up to and including the State Bar evidentiary hearing in 2010. In the New York bar proceedings that ended in 2004, as even the State Bar Court majority acknowledged, he made misrepresentations concerning his cooperation with The New Republic and other publications and efforts to aid them identify all of his fabrications. He also submitted an incomplete list of articles that injured others. We have previously said about omissions on bar applications: “Whether it is caused by intentional concealment, reckless disregard for the truth, or an unreasonable refusal to perceive the need for disclosure, such an omission is itself strong evidence that the applicant lacks the ‘integrity’ and/or ‘intellectual discernment’ required to be an attorney.” (Gossage, supra, at p. 1102, italics added.)

And:

Our review of the record indicates hypocrisy and evasiveness in Glass’s testimony at the California State Bar hearing, as well. We find it particularly disturbing that at the hearing Glass persisted in claiming that he had made a good faith effort to work with the magazines that published his works. He went through many verbal twists and turns at the hearing to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact that in his New York bar application he exaggerated his level of assistance to the magazines that had published his fabrications, and that he omitted from his New York bar list of fabrications some that actually could have injured real persons. He also testified that he told his lawyer to work with Harper’s Magazine to identify his fabrications, yet evaded questions concerning whether his lawyer had done so, while insisting that he took responsibility for an inferred failure to follow what obviously were significant instructions. He asserted that he had been too distraught to recognize that the list of fabrications The New Republic gave his lawyer was incomplete — or that in his response he had denied that articles including the egregious Taxis and the Meaning of Work were in fact fabricated — while acknowledging that within a few days of his firing he made arrangements to reschedule a final examination for the end of the exam period and did well on the exam he took within a week of his exposure. Indeed, despite his many statements concerning taking personal responsibility, and contrary to what he suggested in his New York bar application, it was not until the California Bar proceedings that he shouldered the responsibility of reviewing the editorials his employers published disclosing his fabrications, thus failing to ensure that all his very public lies had been corrected publically and in a timely manner. He has “not acted with the high degree of frankness and truthfulness” and the “high standard of integrity” required by this process.” (Gossage, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1102, italics added.)

This strikes me as being less “a bunch of snobs who don’t want to let a reformed man in” and more “we found ongoing evidence of dishonesty and deceit by this person who is supposedly reformed and asking us for special consideration”.

I totally missed this one until today:

A Los Angeles jury on Tuesday convicted state Sen. Roderick D. Wright on all eight counts in his perjury and voter fraud trial…
In a trial that began Jan. 8, prosecutors accused Wright of faking a move to a rental property he owned in Inglewood so he could run in what was then the 25th Senate District.
They accused him of lying on voter registration and candidacy documents and of casting ballots in five elections he was not entitled to vote in from the Inglewood address.

(Sen. Wright’s party affiliation is actually mentioned in the second paragraph, which I trimmed for space reasons.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Media, Music, Obits, Planes | Comments Closed

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