Archive for May 5th, 2021

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 400

Wednesday, May 5th, 2021

This popped up in my feed, and you know I had to post it here: “TRS-80 Color Computer: Radio Shack’s $399 Micro from 1980!”

It me. Mine had 4K of memory: not 4 GB, or 4 MB, but 4,096 8-bit bytes of memory, and used cassette tape for storage.

Bonus #1: I’m marginal about using this one, but it calls back to an earlier blog entry: “The Norco Shootout, 40 Years Later”.

Not officially part of the content here, but: the “Behind the Badge” channel posted the Norco documentary in one (54 minute) chunk. I linked to that in my previous Norco post, but that version divides the video up into three chunks.

Bonus #2: Here’s something we hope you really like (especially you, RoadRich): a video on “Use of Force” from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).

Bonus #3: This is short, but I thought it was worth putting up here. Simon Sinek on “The Most Toxic Person In The Workplace”.

Posted in Cops, Geek, History, Law, Leadership | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: May 5, 2021.

Wednesday, May 5th, 2021

Playing catch up once again:

Bobby Unser.

Unser conquered a fear of heights to capture the Pikes Peak climb a record 13 times, racing against the clock on a gravel road twisting through more than 150 turns with no guardrails overlooking drops of up to 1,000 feet. The previous Pikes Peak record of nine victories had been held by his uncle Louis.

He also won the Indianapolis 500 three times. Yes, three:

Unser bested Mario Andretti by 5.3 seconds in the 1981 race, but the next day officials gave the victory to Andretti after penalizing Unser one lap for illegally passing several cars under a caution. Had they imposed the penalty during the race, Unser might have made up the lap and won anyway, since he had the fastest car that season. An appeals panel reinstated Unser as the winner more than four months later but fined his team part of the winning purse.

Jason Matthews. This is a guy I’d never heard of, but am now intrigued by. He was a former CIA officer who wrote three spy novels (affiliate link) that are highly praised for their realism.

“I wake up every morning and I think, ‘Thank heavens for Vladimir Putin,’ ” Mr. Matthews told The Associated Press in 2017. “He’s a great character, and his national goals are the stuff for spy novels: weaken NATO, dissolve the Atlantic alliance, break up the European Union.”

Johnny Crawford. He was one of the original Mouseketeers, and later played Mark McCain, son of Lucas McCain, on “The Rifleman”.

Billie Hayes. Yes, “Witchiepoo”, but also “Mammy Yokum” in “Li’l Abner” (she replaced Charlotte Rae on Broadway, and played the role in the 1959 film version and the 1971 TV movie version).

Posted in 1970s, Books, Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed