Obit watch: May 30, 2024.

May 30th, 2024

Bette Nash has passed away at 88.

Ms. Nash was the longest serving flight attendant ever. She started working for Eastern Air Lines in 1957, and kept working: first on the Trump Shuttle, then US Airways, and finally American. She never officially retired.

Wearing white gloves, heels and a pillbox hat, Ms. Nash served lobster and champagne, carved roast beef by request and passed out after-dinner cigarettes.
Things have changed a lot since then — the smoking is gone, and so is the carved meat — but Ms. Nash remained largely the same.

…

At a ceremony at Reagan National Airport to mark her 60th anniversary, in 2017, American Airlines presented her with a pair of diamond earrings and a $10,000 donation to the food bank where she volunteered.
Then she went to work, loading passengers for the next shuttle to Boston. As the plane taxied to the runway, a pair of fire trucks doused the plane with a water-cannon salute, an honor usually reserved for retiring pilots.

Richard Ellis, artist with a speciality. He specialized in sea creatures.

Mr. Ellis had no formal training in marine biology, conservation, painting or writing. But in fusing his artistic flair with an encyclopedic knowledge of ocean creatures, he became an invaluable, sui generis figure to conservationists, educators and those curious about sea life.
“Richard was an enthusiast, and he absolutely adored the natural world, especially the sea,” said Ellen V. Futter, the former president of the natural history museum, where Mr. Ellis was a research associate for many years. “He wanted everybody to share his appreciation and joy from the beauty of it, but also to feel the same sense of responsibility to protect it.”

…

His photorealistic paintings of whales were sold in an art gallery and published in Audubon and National Wildlife magazines and in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His more than a dozen books about marine life — especially his tomes on whales, sharks and tuna — made him, in the view of the best-selling author Simon Winchester, the “poet laureate of the marine world.”

I know I have a bias in the direction of photo realistic and representational art. But Mr. Ellis’s work looks fantastic: I would be proud to have an original Ellis hanging on one of my walls.

Posted in Art, Obits, Planes | Comments Closed

I hear the train a ‘coming…

May 29th, 2024

…it’s rolling ’round the bend,
And I ain’t gun book blogged
Since I don’t know when…

Sort of scans, don’t it? And it was April 25th.

Anyway, I have a stack downstairs that’s getting precarious, even more so than the stack upstairs. So here’s a few for today, and maybe a few more in the next few days.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia, Planes, Smith and Wesson, Travel | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 29, 2024.

May 29th, 2024

Elizabeth MacRae, actress.

Other credits include “Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!”, “The Fugitive” (the original), “77 Sunset Strip”, “Hawaiian Eye”…

…and “Mannix”. (“A Puzzle for One”, season 6, episode 11. She played “Diane Glover”.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Happy birthday to you…

May 29th, 2024

Happy 150th birthday, G. K. Chesterton!

“The Innocence of Father Brown” on Project Gutenberg.

“You attacked reason,” said Father Brown. “It’s bad theology.”

The Society of G.K. Chesterton.

Posted in Bagatelle, Books, History, Religion | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 28, 2024.

May 28th, 2024

I didn’t want to post an obit watch yesterday because I thought it would distract from Memorial Day. So catching up…

Bill Walton. ESPN. Boston Globe (archived).

Richard “It’s a Small World” Sherman. NYT (archived).

Don Perlin, comic artist. (“Moon Knight”)

Adele Faber, author. I’m not a parent, but I have heard a lot of raves for How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk.

FotB RoadRich sent over an obit for Al Ruddy. He produced a couple of movies, and co-created “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Walker, Texas Ranger”.

Not exactly an obit, but Lee Goldberg wrote a nice tribute to Roger Corman.

He was cheap, but he paid us on time, treated us well and was a wonderful, creative collaborator.

Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Ángel of the morning…

May 28th, 2024

Ángel Hernández has retired as a baseball umpire “effective immediately”. ESPN.

This seems more like one of those “retirefirings”:

Major League Baseball and the Hernández were negotiating a financial settlement over the past two weeks and came to an agreement during the holiday weekend, according to USA Today.

I do so love a good classical reference:

“I have decided that I want to spend more time with my family. Needless to say, there have been many positive changes in the game of baseball since I first entered the profession. This includes the expansion and promotion of minorities. I am proud that I was able to be an active participant in that goal while being a Major League umpire.”

…

Hernández has been a lightning rod for controversy and is universally viewed as the worst umpire in the game by players, managers and fans of the sport.
The poor reputation he has dates back almost two decades with player polls by Sports Illustrated in 2006 and 2011 ranking him as the third-worst umpire and an ESPN poll in 2010 putting 22 percent of the respondents as viewing Hernández as the worst in MLB.
Hernández umped just 10 games during the 2023 season because of a back injury, but he got 161 calls wrong, according to Umpire Auditor.

He sued MLB in 2017 alleging racial discrimination, but the case was thrown out of court.

And since I have the song stuck in your head now…

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

The wreck of the Evans.

May 27th, 2024

Not everyone in the military who dies is killed in combat. Accidents take more than their fare share of brave people. And those folks are just as worthy of remembrance on Memorial Day as the ones who died in action against the enemy.

I’ve had this in my back pocket for a while. It is a little early to post this, but not too early, and it seems appropriate for today.

Some time back, I got a wild hair and went chasing down the military’s “sole survivor” policy. I think the Sullivan brothers led me to that, which in turn led me to the Melbourne–Evans collision. I had never heard of the Melbourne–Evans collision, and was quite shocked to find out that there was a major US Navy disaster I was unfamiliar with.

In 1969, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was conducting an exercise, Sea Spirit, in the South China Sea. Two of the ships involved were the US Havy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans and the Royal Australian Navy light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne.

At night on June 2nd and 3rd, the Melbourne was doing anti-submarine exercises. Evans was one of the escort ships assigned to the Melbourne. Melbourne was going to launch an anti-submarine aircraft, and ordered Evans to assume the “plane guard” position. There had been one near collision with another US ship (USS Everett F. Larson) a few days before, and the Melbourne’s commanding officer had warned all of his escort ships to be careful. He also increased the minimum separation between the carrier and escorts to 3,000 yards.

In spite of this, the Evans turned towards the Melbourne. Melbourne sent messages to the ship warning the Evans that it was on a collision course. Evans acknowledged the messages, but didn’t take any action. Melbourne’s captain ordered a hard turn to port: at about this time, Evans turned hard to starboard to avoid the collision. This put Evans right in the path of Melbourne, and at 3:15 AM, the two ships collided. Evans was cut in two. (Wikipedia has a good animation of the two ship’s paths.)

The bow section of the Evans sunk rapidly, while the stern stayed afloat. 74 crew members of the Evans died. It is believed that most of them were trapped in the bow and couldn’t get out before it sank. The crew of the Melbourne behaved, in my opinion, quite heroically. All of the survivors of the Evans were located in 12 minutes and rescued within a half-hour, and the Melbourne’s crew did their best to make them comfortable.

When 74 sailors are killed at sea, you can expect an investigation. The commander of the Evans, Albert S. McLemore, was asleep when the collision happened, though he had given orders that he should be awakened if needed. Of the two men who were standing watch, one had failed his qualification exam for standing watch, and the other one was on his first trip to sea.

The US Navy and the Royal Australian Navy conducted a joint board of inquiry. The results were, and are, controversial:

Presiding over the board was USN Rear Admiral Jerome King, a posting that was controversial as he was the commanding officer of both the forces involved in Sea Spirit and the fleet unit to which Evans normally belonged, and was seen during the inquiry to be biased against Captain Stevenson and other RAN personnel. King’s attitude, performance, and conflict of interest were criticised by the Australians present at the inquiry and the press, and his handling of the inquiry was seen as detrimental to Australia–United States relations.

It seems like the collision was pretty much 100% the fault of the Evans, but nobody wanted to place all of the blame on the US Navy.

Despite admissions by members of the USN, given privately to personnel in other navies, that the incident was entirely the fault of Evans, significant attempts were made to reduce the US destroyer’s culpability and place at least partial blame for the incident on Melbourne. At the beginning of the inquiry, King banned one of the RAN legal advisers from attending, even as an observer. He regularly intervened for American witnesses but failed to do so on similar matters for the Australians. Testimony on the collision and the subsequent rescue operation was to be given separately, and although requests by American personnel to give both sets of testimony at the same time in order to return to their duties were regularly granted, the same request made by Stevenson was denied by King. Testimony of members of the RAN had to be given under oath, and witnesses faced intense questioning from King, despite the same conditions not applying to USN personnel. There was also a heavy focus on the adequacy of Melbourne’s navigational lighting. Mentions of the near miss with Larson were interrupted with the instruction that those details could be recounted at a later time, but the matter was never raised by the board.
The unanimous decision of the board was that although Evans was partially at fault for the collision, Melbourne had contributed by not taking evasive action sooner, even though doing this would have been a direct contravention of international sea regulations, which stated that in the lead-up to a collision the larger ship was required to maintain course and speed. The report was inconsistent in several areas with the evidence given at the inquiry, including the falsity that Melbourne’s navigational lights took significant time to come to full brilliance. Several facts were also edited out of the transcripts of the inquiry.

Commander McLemore was court-martialed, and found guilty of “dereliction of duty and negligently hazarding his ship”. The two watch standers were also court-martialed, pled guilty, and were convicted of “dereliction of duty and negligence”.

As a result of the inquiry, the commanding officer of the Melboure, Captain John Phillip Stevenson, was also court-martialed. He was chaged with negligence for “for failing to explicitly instruct Evans to change course to avoid collision and for failing to set Melbourne’s engines to full astern”.

Evidence presented during the hearing showed that going full astern would have made no difference to the collision, and on the matter of the failing-to-instruct charge the presiding Judge Advocate concluded that reasonable warning had been given to the destroyer and asked, “What was [Stevenson] supposed to do—turn his guns on them?”. Of the evidence and testimony given at the court-martial, nothing suggested that Stevenson had done anything wrong; instead it was claimed that he had done everything reasonable to avoid collision, and had done it correctly.

There are two theories on why Captain Stevenson was even court-martialed in the first place. One is that it was an attempt to appease the US Navy, “which had court-martialled three officers from Evans and had threatened to prevent US ships from operating as part of Australian-led forces if no action was taken against Stevenson”. The other is that the court-martial was intended to clear Stevenson.

Stevenson’s defence submitted that there was “no case to answer”, resulting in the dropping of both charges, and the verdict of “Honourably Acquitted”.

However, Stevenson’s next posting after the verdict was “chief of staff to a minor flag officer”, which was seen by him (and, I gather, pretty much everyone else in the RAN) as a demotion.

Following the events—publicly considered to be another scapegoating of a commanding officer of Melbourne…Stevenson requested retirement, as he no longer wished to serve under people he no longer respected. This retirement was initially denied, but was later permitted.

The US Navy made a training film about the incident, “I Relieve You, Sir”.

Unlike other naval casualties during the Vietnam War, the names of the 74 Evans crew killed are not inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Despite operating in Vietnamese waters immediately before deployment to Sea Spirit, and being scheduled to return to activities supporting the war effort after the exercise, it was determined that as Sea Spirit was not directly linked with US operations in Vietnam, and the exercise took place outside the geographical limit for the conflict as defined by the outer edge of Market Time operations, the crew was ineligible for inclusion on ‘The Wall’. Exceptions to the geographic limit rule have been made for other personnel killed as part of the conflict but not in Vietnam itself; for example those involved in operations in Laos, and those dying in transit to or from Vietnam. However, an act of Congress specifically permitting the inclusion of their names on the memorial is required: legislation to have those killed in the Melbourne–Evans collision has been introduced on several occasions, but has so far failed to gather sufficient support.

Three of the men killed on the Evans were brothers: Radarman 3rd Class Gregory Sage and Seaman Recruits Gary Sage and Kelly Sage. They were the first members of the same family allowed to serve on the same ship since WWII. There are memorials in Niobara, Nebraska (their home town) and Gurnee, Illinois. “The names of her 74 crew killed are inscribed under a flagpole at Long Beach Shoreline Marina.”

The stern of the Evans never sunk. It was towed to Subic Bay, stripped for parts, and used for target practice.

In December 2012, Stevenson announced that his son had received a letter from the Australian Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith, saying that he was “not treated fairly” by the government of the day and by the RAN. It also said, “Your father was a distinguished naval officer who served his country with honour in peace and war … Should your father have continued his naval career, the Chief of Navy advises me that he would undoubtedly have been competitive for flag rank.” Stevenson also said that he was supported throughout his ordeal by his wife, who had died just five months before the letter arrived.

One of the most unusual aspects of this story, to me, is: this isn’t the first time HMAS Melbourne collided with another ship. She collided with the destroyer HMAS Voyager on February 10, 1964, under what sounds like similar circumstances: Voyager was supposed to be plane guard, but turned into Melbourne’s path and was cut in two. 82 men died in that collision. And, similarly, the captain of the Melbourne at the time was initially railroaded.

The USS Frank E. Evans Association.

The Lost 74.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

NRA annual meeting 2024: a collection of random thoughts.

May 24th, 2024

I ordered a set of Cocobolo grips for my Browning Hi-Power from Hogue. They aren’t terribly expensive and look nice: I handled a set of walnut grips (I believe) at the show and was favorably impressed. They should make that old gun look a little better.

Hogue is offering a discount code that’s good through May 26th: NRAAM24HOGUE.

Lyman also sent over a discount code for their sites: NRAENTRY for the Lyman website (20% off), and NRAENTRY (15% off) for their Mark 7 reloading website. Valid through June 3rd.

The Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network is offering $100 one year memberships through May 31st with code 2024NRA. I have heard nothing but good things about ACLDN: FotB (and official trainer to WCD) Karl is a board member. I plan to take advantage of this offer before the 31st.

XS Sights also has a promo code good through May 31st: NRA24 gets you 24% off. Which is great, because I plan to order a set of ghost ring sights from them for my social shotgun.

I picked up some chamber flags at various points during the meeting. I bring this up because: have you ever seen folks giving out chamber flags and wondered about them? Who do you order them from, and how much? There were at least two vendors at the show who would sell you custom chamber flags. The one I have in front of me right now, Manufacturing Services, will sell them to you with your custom (black and white) art for 60 to 85 cents each (the more expensive option has printing on both sides) with a minimum order of 100. That seems to me to be very reasonable, if you’re doing something like a Boy Scout Scouting USA firearms exercise and want to have something to give to the kids.

If you’re interested in what I’d call more “conventional” NRAAM coverage, The Firearm Blog has that. I haven’t watched it yet, but they have an interview up with Jerry Miculek about the new Smith and Wesson Model 327 WR. S&W was running a contest at the show: I figure my odds of winning one are somewhere between “slim” and “out of town”, but you never know.

One thing I did buy from S&W was one of their snazzy limited edition NRAAM 2024 hats:

This should be fun to put on my display table at the symposium.

When I say “conventional” above, I’m not sneering at TFB or anybody else. For me, when I go to cover these things, I like to highlight the more obscure vendors who don’t attract the same press attention as Colt or S&W, and the people who are nice to me. Like the guys at the Ruger booth, or the Hornady podcast folks, or Marissa Brinkman who edits the Texas State Rifle Association magazine. That’s where I get my joy. Well, that, and winning stuff in drawings.

Speaking of which, unless there are two “Dwight B.”s who live in Austin and went to the NRAAM, I apparently won one of those TagMe by Ocufil systems. I plan a report once it arrives and I go through the setup and testing process.

Fun story: there was a guy at the show (and I wish I could remember his, or the company’s name: maybe one of my friends will fill this in for me) who was giving away his product in return for reviews. The product was a Glock 17/19 magazine with a key lock at the bottom. Once you inserted the mag and locked it, the gun was secured: you couldn’t remove the mog, you couldn’t fire the gun, you could work the slide and eject rounds, but that was it. Unlock it, and you had a fully functional Glock. You don’t even have to remove the locking magazine, it feeds normally with the mag unlocked.

Edited to add 5/27: Thanks to FotB John for providing the name of the company: GoSafe. I’m pretty sure this is a different company than the one that sells industrial safety equipment, so I’d recommend using the embedded link. GoSafe does say they are working on equivalent products for the Smith and Wesson M&P and Sig Sauer, but as far as I can tell, those are not ready yet. Also, it does look like they make a version for .40 S&W Glocks, which I do not recall them mentioning (or having) at the show.

The hilarious thing about this was: none of the four of us currently own a Glock 17 or 19. I own two Glocks, but neither one is a 17 or 19. Probably the single most popular gun in the world, and zero out of four of us own one. (I overheard an interesting conversation on the bus between another gentleman of the press and a couple of attendees. The member of the fourth estate was opining that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, his gun of choice would be a Glock 19. 9mm ammo should be readily available, the gun is so popular that you should be able to find spare mags and even entire guns easily, you can stockpile parts kits to keep it running, and it is simple enough to work on that even I could probably fix one.)

I don’t think I’m going to be commissioning one right away, as I have another holster priority ahead of it, and I’m saving money for the Smith and Wesson Collectors Association symposium in a few weeks. But there was a company called Palmetto Leather Works that had a nice looking holster for a Browning Buck Mark, complete with magazine pocket. It reminded me of a vintage George Lawrence holster that I bought Mike the Nusicologist for Christmas one year, and I could easily see this being modified for a Model 41.

Speaking of holsters, it amused me greatly that Galco is rocking the 40th anniversary of the Miami Classic, aka the “Sonny Crockett“. $440 is a little rich for my blood, but the thought of carrying a Commander length 1911 in a shoulder holster tickles my fancy. (I’m pretty sure Galco still catalogs an updated non-custom shop version of the Miami Classic.)

Shoutout to the Ranch Products people, who are always nice. Shoutout too to Wolfe Publishing, who saved me $10 and a trip to Barnes and Noble by giving me a copy of the latest Handloader.

I made it by the U.S. Armament Manufacturing booth, and did get to briefly handle their reproduction DeLisle carbine. TFB has coverage of this as well, but not tied to their NRAAM coverage. I think it’s an interesting gun, but for me, not $5,999 interesting (plus $200 for the tax stamp, since it is a Class III weapon). At least, not unless I win the lottery, and I’d buy a BAR reproduction from Ohio Ordnance Works (or even a real BAR) first. I can see the DeLisle being a fun toy…if you’ve got used car money to spend. Those reproduction Colt 1903 and 1908 pistols look nice and expensive too.

I picked up a card for Rugged Rare. They make some nice looking concealed carry bags (which I don’t need) and belts (which I do need). They are producing Smith and Wesson licensed leather belts and wallets. I actually thought their belts were very reasonably priced, and I wish I had bought one: I just couldn’t fit it in with all my stuff. And unfortunately, it looks like their website caters more to retailers than individual purchasers. I can’t even see the prices without setting up an account, and I can’t set up an account without uploading a business license.

We went by the Precision Small Arms booth, too. They make really nice looking reproductions of the “Baby Browning“, which I’ve always thought was a neat little gun. I’ve heard all the .25 ACP jokes, but the gun you have on you is better than the one in a safe at home, and these are a very discreet option. We also handled some guns at the Seecamp booth. I’ve always heard good things about Seecamp guns: yes, they’re more expensive than a LCP, but they’re also (I hear) extremely well made and reliable, and are often carried by people who need a backup gun that 100% works.

I have a card for Powder River Precision, but I don’t know why. It may have been for their 10/22 stuff. I also have a card for Shilen, but I know why: if I ever need a new barrel on one of my guns, I’m going to them.

Pigpen51, we went by the Tisas booth. I still haven’t shot one, but I did get to handle a few of them. Yes, these were show guns, but I was fairly impressed. They seemed like solidly made 1911 clones, and I’d really like a chance to run one for a bit. They are also importing clones of the Inglis Hi-Power, which seem like nice guns. Maybe not as nice as the new FN guns, but the Tisas Inglis is also about 1/3rd the price. I’m not sure about parts compatibility: I wish I had thought to ask while i was there.

Oehler, who is here in Austin and makes chronographs, told me they’re looking for somebody. It sounds like they want a sort of jack-of-all-trades. That is, some one who can do tech support, assist in set up and testing, read a schematic and identify components, and generally do what’s needed. I don’t imagine this is a huge company, and I have no idea what they are paying. But if you’re recently retired, healthy, and looking for a job to supplement your retirement pay, this might be a good opportunity.

That’s all the business cards I had stuck in my badge holder for later reference. I still haven’t gone through the big bag o’ stuff that I set aside to go through when I got back. I want to try to do that this weekend. I also want to get another gun book post up, and maybe even a gun post. And I have some non gun-related work to do for some of the other organizations I’m involved with.

For a three-day weekend, it feels like it is going to be full.

And Marissa Brinkman is probably saying to herself, “This guy really needs an editor.”

Posted in 1911, Guns, Holsters, Smith and Wesson | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 24, 2024.

May 24th, 2024

Kabosu, the Shiba Inu who became a symbol of Dogecoin.

Hatitp to RoadRich, whose eulogy I will borrow: “Much sad. Very respect. No bite.”

Bob McCreadie. This is kind of a weird one, but actually not that weird by NYT standards. He was a prominent dirt track racer. Dirt track racing is apparently a big deal in parts of the East Coast, but not so much in NYC. The slightly surprising thing to me is that the paper of record treats him and his career with respect:

McCreadie was dirt racing’s perfect Everyman: Scrawny, bespectacled, with a bushy beard, he chain-smoked, cursed vigorously and hauled his racecars with his own pickup truck instead of the fancy trailers that many of his contemporaries used.
In northern New York, where he lived, the news media covered him with roughly the same exuberance with which New York City newspapers covered Babe Ruth in his heyday. The Post-Standard of Syracuse mentioned him more than 1,200 times in his career.
“He looked like a country bumpkin,” Ron Hedger, a longtime writer for Speed Sport Insider, said in a phone interview. “The fans identified with him, and they really loved him. There was always a mob of people waiting in line for an autograph.”

…

He started racing in 1971 and won his first race four years later. He then began dominating the circuit. In 1986, he won the Miller American 200 at the New York State Fairgrounds — the Super Bowl of dirt racing. His best year was 1994, when he won 47 of 93 races.

…

In his best year, McCreadie won somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 in race prizes. But his aggressive racing style had an occupational hazard: dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of crashes.
“You’re looking at someone who’s run thousands of races,” he told The Post-Standard in 2006. “If you tried to do percentage-wise out of the total — maybe 5 percent.”

This just in: Caleb Carr, author. You’ve probably at least heard of The Alienist:

Mr. Carr had first pitched the book as nonfiction; it wasn’t, but it read that way because of the exhaustive research he did into the period. He rendered the dank horrors of Manhattan’s tenement life, its sadistic gangs and the seedy brothels that were peddling children, as well as the city’s lush hubs of power, like Delmonico’s restaurant. And he peopled his novel with historical figures like Theodore Roosevelt, who was New York’s reforming police commissioner before his years in the White House. Even Jacob Riis had a cameo.

He was also a prominent military historian. And he was horribly abused as a young boy by his father, the Beat author Lucien Carr.

“There’s no question that I have a lifelong fascination with violence,” Caleb Carr told Stephen Dubner of New York magazine in 1994, just before “The Alienist” was published, explaining not just the engine for the book but why he was drawn to military history. “Part of it was a desire to find violence that was, in the first place, directed toward some purposeful end, and second, governed by a definable ethical code. And I think it’s fairly obvious why I would want to do that.”

Morgan Spurlock, of “Super Size Me” fame. NYT (archived) which I prefer:

But the film also came in for subsequent criticism. Some people pointed out that Mr. Spurlock refused to release the daily logs tracking his food intake. Health researchers were unable to replicate his results in controlled studies.
And in 2017, he admitted that he had not been sober for more than a week at a time in 30 years — meaning that, in addition to his “McDonald’s only” diet, he was drinking, a fact that he concealed from his doctors and the audience, and that most likely skewed his results.
The admission came in a statement in which he also revealed multiple incidents of sexual misconduct, including an encounter in college that he described as rape, as well as repeated infidelity and the sexual harassment of an assistant at his production company, Warrior Poets.

Posted in Books, Cars, Geek, Mammals, Movies, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 23, 2024.

May 23rd, 2024

C. Gordon Bell, pioneering computer developer.

Called the “Frank Lloyd Wright of computers” by Datamation magazine, Mr. Bell was the master architect in the effort to create smaller, affordable, interactive computers that could be clustered into a network. A virtuoso at computer architecture, he built the first time-sharing computer and championed efforts to build the Ethernet. He was among a handful of influential engineers whose designs formed the vital bridge between the room-size models of the mainframe era and the advent of the personal computer.

…

At a time when computer companies like IBM were selling multimillion-dollar mainframe computers, Digital Equipment Corporation, which was founded and run by Kenneth Olsen, aimed at introducing smaller, powerful machines that could be purchased for a fraction of that cost. Mr. Bell was hired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in 1960 as the company’s second computer engineer. He designed all its early entrants into what was then called the minicomputer market.
The PDP-8, a 12-bit computer introduced in 1965 with an $18,000 price tag, was considered the first successful minicomputer on the market. More important, Digital Equipment Corporation’s minicomputers were sold to scientists, engineers and other users, who interacted directly with the machines in an era when corporate computers were off limits to such users, housed in glass-walled data centers under the watchful eye of specialists.
“All the D.E.C. machines were interactive, and we believed in having people talk directly to computers,” Mr. Bell said in a 1985 interview with Computerworld, an industry publication. In this way, he presaged the coming personal computer revolution.

…

…Mr. Bell took what became a six-year sabbatical to teach at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, but he returned to the company as vice president of engineering in 1972. Reinvigorated and brimming with new ideas, he oversaw the design of an entirely new computer architecture: The VAX 780, a fast, powerful and efficient minicomputer, was a huge success, fueling sales that by the early 1980s had made D.E.C. the world’s second-largest computer maker.
“Gordon Bell was a giant in the computer industry,” said Howard Anderson, founder of the Yankee Group, a technology industry research firm that tracked the market in that era. “I give him as much credit for D.E.C.’s success as Ken Olsen. He believed in the primacy of engineering talent, and he attracted some of the best engineers in the industry to D.E.C., which became a place of great ferment.”

…

After he left the company, Mr. Bell was a founder of both Encore Computer and Ardent Computer. In 1986, he delved into the world of public policy when he joined the National Science Foundation and led the supercomputer networking effort that resulted in an early iteration of the internet called the National Research and Education Network. In 1987, he sponsored the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for work in parallel computing.

Shirley Conran, British author. She wrote a famously smutty book. Lace, which was a huge bestseller. It features unorthodox use of a goldfish, and the memorable line “All right. Which one of you bitches is my mother?”.

Her mantra, “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom,” became a feminist rallying cry, finding its way onto matchbooks, dish towels and throw pillows.

…

“Lace” was promoted to the hilt — some publishing industry types called it the “Mommy, Who?” book — not just in bookstores but also in clothing shops in Beverly Hills, and with giveaways like lace garters embroidered with the book’s title in gold. It was panned by critics: “It is a work of such transparent and exquisite cynicism that its triumphant march to the upper reaches of the best-seller lists seems divinely ordained,” Jonathan Yardley wrote in The Washington Post. But it fulfilled its promise, and Mr. Yardley’s prediction, selling many millions of copies (teenagers passed the book around like contraband), and inspiring a mini-series starring Phoebe Cates (critics panned that, too) and a sequel, “Lace II” (1985).

Posted in Books, Geek, Obits | Comments Closed

The time for action is over. Now is the time for senseless bickering.

May 23rd, 2024

J.B. Bickerstaff out as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

170-159 regular season, 6-11 in the playoffs. Cleveland’s made the playoffs two years in a row and seems to be improving, but they got knocked out by the Celtics in the second round this season.

ESPN.

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Obit watch: May 21, 2024.

May 21st, 2024

I made it home in one piece, but I’m still catching up. Lawrence sent over a handful of obits:

Jim Otto, center for the Oakland Raiders.

Otto was an original Raider. He played for the team during its American Football League days, from 1960 to 1969, and then in the National Football League from 1970-74, following the merger of the two leagues. He started 210 consecutive games, was voted to the A.F.L. all-star team in each of its 10 seasons, and helped the Raiders win seven division championships. In 1980, the first year he was eligible, he was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

…

…Otto offered a list of injuries that seemed more appropriate for a whole battalion in an army than for a single man. There were about 30 concussions, about 25 broken noses, a broken jaw, teeth kicked out, a detached retina, two cauliflower ears from getting kicked in the side of the head, several broken ribs, torn muscles, groin pulls, sprained ankles, a detached and torn diaphragm, two broken kneecaps, 150 facial stitches and arthritis in virtually all his joints. He once experienced amnesia so severe, he said, that he looked at his wife and thought, Who is she?

Gloria Stroock, actress. Other credits include “Death Car on the Freeway”, “Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy”, and “The Day of the Locust”.

Barbra Fuller, actress. IMDB.

Dolores Rosedale, also known as “Roxanne”, from the original “Beat the Clock”. IMDB.

Ivan Boesky, inside trader.

An inspiration for the character Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s movie “Wall Street” and its sequel, Mr. Boesky made a fortune betting on stock tips, often passed to him illegally in exchange for suitcases of cash. His guilty plea to insider trading in November 1986 and his $100 million penalty, a record at the time, sent shock waves through Wall Street and set off a cascade of events that marked the end of a decade of frenzied takeover activity and the celebration of conspicuous wealth.
As federal investigators closed in on Mr. Boesky, he agreed to cooperate, providing information that led to the downfall of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert and its junk bond king, Michael Milken.

Posted in Law, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

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