Archive for March, 2021

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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 358

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021

Let’s take a coffee break.

“The £299 Aldi Espresso Machine – How Bad Could It Be?”

Oddly enough, I don’t shop at Aldi either, and for the same reason: the nearest one to us is about 30 miles away.

Bonus #1: Since we’ve talked about an espresso machine, how about we talk about a can opener? A very specialized can opener, that is: this one opens powder cans for the 16″ guns on the Battleship New Jersey.

Bonus #2, and a little shout-out to the Saturday Night Movie Group. From the “Old Car Memories” channel, Jim Rockford’s Firebird.

Posted in Cars, Coffee, Food, Guns, History | 1 Comment »

“Do you like…pancakes?”

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021

Pickup lines, automatically generated by GPT-3.

Posted in Bagatelle | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 357

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021

I was talking with my brother about calculator watches recently, which reminded me of this video from Techmoan: “Hewlett Packard HP-01 1977’s Smartest Watch”.

As a HP geek, I would kind of like to have one of these: however, examples in good condition are expensive.

Bonus #1: I also thought it might be interesting to do some startup videos. Not tech startups, but starting up things. For example, an Airbus A320:

Bonus #2: Or a railroad locomotive.

Bonus #3: Or a DC-3.

Bonus #4: Or a tractor, “with a 12 guage shotgun shell”. I believe this gives new meaning to the term “shotgun start“.

Posted in Geek, History, Planes, Trains | 4 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 356

Monday, March 22nd, 2021

Yeah, I think we’re doing Military History Monday. Also, I have a doctor’s appointment today, and expect to be pretty much useless afterwards, so I’m queuing up a couple of longer ones.

This is an OSS training film from 1944, “Undercover”.

The film analyzes preparation, arrival, establishment, and “prevalent cover” for secret agents by presenting one movie within another, as introduced by Col. Robertson, chief of Schools and Training at Office of Strategic Services.

Bonus: “Evading Capture in Enemy Territory” from 1957.

Using dramatic reenactments, this Cold War-era U.S. Air Force training film teaches American airmen how to evade capture and make their way home out of hostile territory after being shot down from their aircraft. All the capture evasion skills learned during World War 2 are put to good use, along with lessons learned by the CIA on how to operate in Eastern Europe.

I have an idea that I’m still kicking around in my head for a post on a somewhat related topic: OPSEC, or operational security. You’d be surprised (unless you’re someone like Borepatch) how many people seem to have no concept of OPSEC and make basic stupid mistakes…

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 22, 2021.

Monday, March 22nd, 2021

Kent Taylor. He founded and ran the Texas Roadhouse chain of restaurants.

According to the reports I’ve seen, he was suffering from serious post-COVID-19 symptoms, and committed suicide.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Posted in Food, Obits | Comments Closed

You see the signs, but you can’t read…

Sunday, March 21st, 2021

Sometimes, the warning signs are lit up with neon and searchlights, and people still miss them.

A married pair of San Francisco entrepreneurs were indicted Thursday on multiple federal charges, the latest twist in the saga of a once trendy, now bankrupt fecal matter-testing startup.
Zachary Schulz Apte and Jessica Sunshine Richman, co-founders of defunct microbiome testing company uBiome, are accused of bilking their investors and health insurance providers, federal prosecutors said. They were indicted Thursday on multiple federal charges, including conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and money laundering.

Now, I’m just a poor dumb white boy from Hampden, but I feel like there’s at least two big warning signs that were missed here.

1.

San Francisco-based uBiome was founded in 2012, and kicked off the company in an unusual way for a biotech startup: via a Kickstarter campaign. Its offering was an at-home test to sequence the DNA of its customers gut microbiome, which could then in turn purportedly be used to improve health.

I’m an absolute believer that you should avoid – indeed, run away from – any crowd funding campaign that is medical or health care related.

2.

In 2018, Richman was even named an “innovator” winner in Goop’s “The Greater goop Awards” and at its peak, uBiome was valued at $600 million.

Goop? Seriously? No s–t.. Again: anything that’s recieved an award from Goop, is promoted on Goop, or has any involvement with Goop: run like hell in the other direction.

Posted in Geek, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 355

Sunday, March 21st, 2021

Science Sunday!

I’ve been fascinated by rocks and rock hunting and geology since I was a young child.

I’m just not very good at it. So instead, I enjoy reading the works of others, like John McPhee.

Mr. McPhee talks with Eldridge Moores, a University of California geologist (and collaborator with Mr. McPhee on Assembling California) and reads from Annals of the Former World (affiliate link).

Bonus #1: “A Brief History of Colorado Through Time”. I used to collect those “Roadside Geology of…” books. I should at least go out and replace my copy of Roadside Geology of Texas (affiliate link). Perhaps I will be able to use it soon.

Bonus #2: “Flood Basalts of the Pacific Northwest”. Or, giant lava flows!

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 21, 2021.

Sunday, March 21st, 2021

George Bass. I think he may have been an obscure figure to most folks: Dr. Bass (a professor at Texas A&M) was one of the pioneers of underwater archeology.

After being honorably discharged in the late 1950s, he pursued a Ph.D. in classical archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, an American photojournalist named Peter Throckmorton was researching Turkish sponge divers and learned that they knew of ancient artifacts on the ocean floor. Mr. Throckmorton wrote to the renowned archaeologist Rodney Young seeking sponsorship for a proper excavation. Professor Young turned to one of his graduate students who specialized in the Bronze Age and had enthusiastically read accounts of deep sea dives — George Bass.
Mr. Bass was less than fully prepared. He had time for only six weeks of a 10-week diving course at a Philadelphia Y.M.C.A. And before joining the expedition and diving 100 feet into the Mediterranean, he had tried on a tank just once and gone no deeper than 10 feet — in a pool. Yet that first trip became the foundation for the rest of his career.
“You have to be young and ignorant and naïve to get anywhere,” he reflected in a 2010 interview with the Penn Museum.

…

Early on, archaeologists who sought to take advantage of the aqualung remained aboveground, relying on reports from hired divers, who lacked archaeological expertise. Professor Bass took a more hands-on approach. He became the first archaeologist to do his own diving while supervising other divers. And he organized on-site training in underwater excavation methods for fellow archaeologists and students.
With help from scientists he recruited for his teams, he engineered new methods for removing artifacts from the seabed and for spending long periods underwater. One crucial early insight was that objects that look like rocks may actually be the corroded remnants of metal goods. Professor Bass X-rayed what he found interesting. If a rocklike object contained an inner cavity where a metal artifact used to be, he would pour epoxy inside and cast a replacement.
His excavations produced illuminating material about ancient shipbuilding. His first expedition, off Cape Gelidonya in Turkey, solved a puzzle about why Homer refers to brushwood on Odysseus’s ship. The remains of a sunken ship there revealed that brushwood had been used as a cushion for heavy cargo to protect the hull.
Deborah Carlson, the president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, which Professor Bass helped create and then ran for much of his life, ultimately in Texas, said he deserved to be considered the founder of the field.
“Under his direction, ancient shipwrecks were excavated underwater for the first time,” she said in a phone interview. “He did it by taking his archaeological training and putting on scuba gear and taking the excavation to a new dimension.”

Roger Baldwin. He and three of his Army buddies – Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel and James McDermott, collectively known as the “Four Horsemen of Aberdeen” – were early pioneers of basic blackjack strategy.

It led Edward O. Thorp, a mathematics professor and blackjack expert, to validate their calculations on an IBM 704 computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to write the best-selling 1962 book, “Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One,” which helped bring the Army group to public renown.
Mr. Thorp recalled the influence of the men’s strategy in his 2017 memoir, “A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market.” “The Baldwin group,” he wrote, showed that the advice of the reigning experts was poor, unnecessarily giving the casinos an extra two percent advantage.”
Arnold Snyder, a renowned author of blackjack books, said by phone: “No one actually knew what the right strategy was because it hadn’t been calculated. They figured out what to do if your hand totals 15 and the dealer has an 8 up: do you hit or do you stand?”

Dick Hoyt, marathon runner. He ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 1992 and finished in 2:40:47.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it should be “they”, not “he”. Dick Hoyt was was pushing his disabled son, Rick Hoyt, in a wheelchair the whole way.

Rick Hoyt was born in 1962, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, unable to control his limbs or speak. “We had long since learned how to interpret our son’s smiles and nods,” Dick Hoyt wrote in his 2010 book, “Devoted: The Story of a Father’s Love for His Son.” “But as good as everyone in the family was about figuring out what Rick needed, we were still only making educated guesses.”
But in 1972, engineers at Tufts University built a computer that allowed Rick to communicate by choosing letters with a tap of his head. His first words were “Go Bruins,” revealing a passionate love for sports.
In 1977, Rick asked to be involved in a five-mile benefit run. Though his father was not a competitive runner, he pushed Rick in his wheelchair the entire distance, finishing next to last.
“When my dad and I are out there on a run, a special bond forms between us,” Rick Hoyt told The New York Times in 2009 with the help of his computer voice program. “And it feels like there is nothing Dad and I cannot do.”

You might remember this from one of Rick Reilly’s SI essays.

Posted in Geek, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 354

Saturday, March 20th, 2021

I’m a Marxist.

But talking about flywheels…”F–k Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades“. Or in this case, five flywheels.

A flywheel trebuchet? Why not!

Okay, one more, sort of related to things that spin fast: “The Story of Hoover Dam”. Some nice turbine footage in this one.

Posted in History | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 353

Friday, March 19th, 2021

I was thinking about insurance.

This is a short film from the 1980s about Lloyd’s of London and how it works.

Something that I find kind of interesting is the Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF). The basic idea is: if something comes up at sea that requires a salvage operation, the two parties (the one being salvaged and the one doing the salvaging) sign a LOF.

The LOF is called “open” because it specifies no particular sum for the salvage job. Indeed it may not specify a sum, as salvage is not a “contract for services”, but an agreement to provide a service in the hope of a “reward” to be determined later by an arbitration hearing in London, where several QCs practising at the Admiralty Bar specialise as maritime arbitrators.

One of the key aspects of the LOF is: “No Cure, No Pay.”

Traditionally, the salvage reward has been subject to the salvor successfully saving the ship or cargo, and if neither is saved, the salvor gets nothing, however much time and money has been spent on the project.

Back in 1978, an oil tanker, the Amoco Cadiz, ran into some problems: it encountered a storm that damaged the rudder and caused a hydraulic fluid leak. The captain called for assistance: the responding salvor wanted the captain to agree to a LOF.

One of the books I’ve read on the subject states that the captain was resistant to signing a LOF, as he felt he’d be signing an open-ended commitment, while the salvors were reluctant to proceed without a LOF. Ultimately, the captain agreed, but the situation had deteriorated…

…and the Amoco Cadiz ran aground off the coast of Brittany and dumped over 220,000 tons (metric) of oil into the sea.

Semi-related, because we’re talking about oil: “Fires of Kuwait”. For once, something in high-res.

Posted in History, Ships | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 352

Thursday, March 18th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

I’ve been neglecting the United States. Technically, I still am, as today’s presentation is a place that isn’t a state: the place that my sister and her family refer to as “WashingtonDCOurNation’sCapital” (all one word).

From 1945, “The District of Columbia”, part of the “This Land Of Ours” series.

Bonus: and if you liked that one, here’s another one from 1954 and Esso (aka “Standard Oil Company of New Jersey”). “Welcome to Washington”.

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 17, 2021.

Wednesday, March 17th, 2021

James Levine, “one of the world’s most influential and admired conductors”, according to the other paper of record.

Nicola Pagett, British actress. She was “Elizabeth Bellamy” on “Upstairs, Downstairs”.

Barbara Rickles, Don’s wife.

By many accounts, the Rickleses had one of the happiest marriages in show business. They socialized often with another enduring Hollywood couple, Bob and Ginny Newhart. Don Rickles died at 90 in 2017.
Barbara Rickles helped produce the Emmy-winning documentary “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” (2007) and the 2020 release “Don Rickles Live in Concert.” Don Rickles, in serious moments, would note that he was nearly 40 on his wedding day and had struggled for years to find someone.
“I advise any young person that gets married, really, work at it. If you work at it, it’s delightful,” he said in 1986, during one of his many appearances on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, whom he would tease endlessly about his multiple marriages.

Burning in Hell watch: Ronald DeFeo.

Mr. DeFeo was convicted in 1975 on six counts of second-degree murder after he confessed to using a rifle to shoot and kill his father, Ronald DeFeo Sr.; his mother, Louise; his sisters, Dawn and Allison; and his brothers, Mark and John Matthew.
The victims were found in their beds with gunshot wounds on Nov. 13, 1974. Mr. DeFeo, the oldest of the siblings, was 23 at the time.

The historical significance of this is: the DeFeo’s old house in Amityville was sold to another couple a year later.

Yeah, that house.

That family, the Lutzes, stayed there for just 28 days and claimed that the house was haunted by poltergeists who slammed windows, banged walls and wrenched doors off their hinges.

Posted in Law, Music, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

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