Archive for January, 2014

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Random notes: January 22, 2014.

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!

He is the walrus, goo goo a joub.

Is Gary Kasparov trying to buy the presidency of the World Chess Federation?

Two months earlier, Kasparov and Leong negotiated a deal in which Leong would help Kasparov’s presidential run in exchange for $500,000, according to a draft contract reviewed by The New York Times. Kasparov also agreed, after his election, to open a new federation office in Singapore, to be run by Leong, for which he would be paid an undisclosed amount.

“Leong” is Ignatius Leong, who lives in Singapore and is the current general secretary of the federation. He serves under the current president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also running for re-election to the federation presidency. Kasparov’s spokespeople say that draft contract has been superseded. But if Kasparov is trying to buy the office, would that be a bad thing? In the last election

…Ilyumzhinov, who has been president of the federation since 1995, defeated Karpov, 95 to 55. Much of Ilyumzhinov’s support came from Asia and Africa, and many votes were cast by proxies.

(“Karpov” is Anatoly Karpov. You know, the former world champion and the Karpov who played Kasparov.)

And this is interesting:

Ilyumzhinov was, by any measure, a strange choice. He was a businessman who was born in Kalmykia, an impoverished Russian republic on the Caspian Sea, and amassed a fortune after the fall of the Soviet Union, though exactly how and how much are something of a mystery. He was largely unknown within the chess world, though he had been elected president of Kalmykia in 1993, at age 31. He stepped down from that presidency in 2010.

So he’s an ex-politician who went into chess?

Ilyumzhinov is well known for his eccentricities. He has said that he believes the game was invented by extraterrestrials, and he claims to have been abducted by aliens in yellow spacesuits on the night of Sept. 17, 1997. He built Chess City, a huge glass dome surrounded by a housing development, in Kalmykia’s obscure and inaccessible capital, Elista, and had the federation hold championship tournaments there.

Ilyumzhinov was also tight buddies with the late unlamented Muammar Qaddafi.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! Part deux.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas acknowledged Tuesday that a taxpayer-funded project to install a security system in a converted garage at his home involved improvements “over and above” that job, but said he reimbursed the county for the upgrades.
The Times had disclosed that county-paid crews worked at the supervisor’s Leimert Park home for a week and replaced the garage’s interior walls, installed electrical wiring and equipment, and put in appliances, including a wall-mounted air conditioner and heater and a television.

How the Statesman got scooped on the Wendy Davis story. (No paywall.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Geek, Law, Media, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 21, 2014.

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

John Dobson, inventor of the Dobsonian telescope design.

(The LAT obit is nice, but it doesn’t really give a sense of what the Dobsonian design is or how it works. Here’s the Wikipedia entry, if you’re curious.)

(And Dobson sounds like someone I would have very much liked to have had coffee with. A monk who allegedly got kicked out of the monastery because of his obsession with observational astronomy and telescope building? I bet he’d have been a lot of fun to talk to.)

Noted classical conductor Claudio Abbado. LAT.

Edited to add: Sorry, just ran across this one while reading the local news. Noted Texas songwriter Steven Fromholz passed away on Sunday. Various reports indicate that he died in a hunting accident:

…Fromholz, who lives in the area, and his girlfriend were going to hunt feral hogs. A rifle was in a case but unzipped at the bottom. The gun was being transferred from one vehicle to another.
Ariste says Fromholz grabbed the handle, the gun partly fell, hit the ground and discharged.

The Stateman reports it was a shotgun, not a rifle.

EtA2: Added link to non-paywalled Statesman blog entry.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Guns, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 18, 2014.

Saturday, January 18th, 2014

Obit watch: Larry Monroe, former KUT-FM DJ. Yes, it was radio – worse yet, public radio. But I liked pretty much everything Monroe did for the station. I drove home from South Austin many Thursday nights listening to the “Phil Music” show, back when KUT broadcast city council meetings. (This was a long time ago, in another country. It was called “Phil Music” because it began with Monroe playing music while the council members were in private session and/or there were gaps in the broadcast; in other words, “fill music”.)

I don’t care much for golf. But, by way of Jimbo, one of the more interesting things I’ve read so far this year: Grantland writer discovers a woman who’s invented a revolutionary putter, and starts working on a story about her. Then things get weird.

Edited to add: adding link to MetaFilter discussion of the story above.

Posted in Clippings, Obits, Radio, Sports | Comments Closed

You could hear the music on the AM radio…

Friday, January 17th, 2014

When was the last time you listened to the radio?

Actually, I still do, mostly when I’m driving around with Mom and Jeff Ward is on. If I’m alone in my own car, though, radio has become to me something like a buggy whip.

But there are some people who still need buggy whips, such as the Amish. And there are some people who still need radios. Like Federal prisoners.

The pocket analog radio, known by the bland model number SRF-39FP, is a Sony “ultralight” model manufactured for prisons. Its clear housing is meant to prevent inmates from using it to smuggle contraband, and, at under thirty dollars, it is the most affordable Sony radio on the prison market.

But what makes this New Yorker piece more interesting to me is…the SRF-39FP is actually a pretty good radio. It uses one AA battery, will run for 40 hours, and:

Others in the online DXing community argue that the SRF-39FP is superior to virtually every other pocket analog radio, praising it for its large tuning thumbwheel, over-all sensitivity and audio quality, and, above all, its reputed indestructibility. Electronics and radio collectors also marvel at features that are normally associated with professional equipment rather than consumer goods: in particular, an exceptional single-integrated-circuit receiver that insures reception in remote locations—or deep within heavy prison walls. In fact, the SRF-39FP was one of the first radios to use the breakthrough CXA1129N integrated-circuit chip, considered by DeBock to be the primary innovation among Sony pocket radios; it helped make the SRF-39FP the smallest and most sophisticated in a line of pocket radios that had launched two decades earlier, in the late nineteen-seventies.

I almost want to pick one up. (I checked; there aren’t any listed on eBay right now.)

(By way of the newsycombinator Twitter feed.)

Posted in Amish, Clippings, Geek, Law, Radio | 1 Comment »

Crossing the streams again.

Friday, January 17th, 2014

You know what I want?

A 3D printed chocolate gun that shoots.

(Yeah, I know: Hershey’s chocolate probably won’t be able to withstand the chamber pressure of even a .22LR round. But if a man can’t dream, what’s Heaven for?)

Posted in Clippings, Food, Geek, Guns | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 17, 2014.

Friday, January 17th, 2014

For the record: Russell Johnson. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.

(You know, I may not be terribly observant. But it never clicked with me that he was in “This Island Earth”, which I have seen (in the MST3K version)).

Dave Madden. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.

(“The Partridge Family were neither partridges, nor a family. Discuss.”)

And, though I have never been a big fan of The Wizard of Oz, I do want to link to the A/V Club’s obit for Ruth Robinson Duccini, the last surviving female Munchkin. Jerry Maren, according to reports, is the last surviving Munchkin.

Posted in 1970s, Clippings, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Today’s update from the Department of Things That Make You Go “Hmmmmmmmmmmm”.

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

I found a couple of interesting little tidbits while going through the “Cisco 2014 Annual Security Report”. Before I begin, disclaimer and explainer: keep in mind that I am a contractor for Cisco. However, the 2014 Report is not a Cisco internal document, but is available to the public. You can download it here, though you do have to enter your name and an email address.

Things that I found interesting:

Ninety-nine percent of all mobile malware in 2013 targeted Android devices. Android users also have the highest encounter rate (71 percent) with all forms of web-delivered malware.

You. Don’t. Say.

Spam volume was on a downward trend worldwide in 2013. However, while the overall volume may have decreased, the proportion of maliciously intended spam remained constant.

So we’re winning? Maybe?

Of all the web-based threats that undermine security, vulnerabilities in the Java programming language continue to be the most frequently exploited target by online criminals, according to Cisco data.

More:

Data from Sourcefire, now part of Cisco, also shows that Java exploits make up the vast majority (91 percent) of indicators of compromise (IoCs) that are monitored by Sourcefire’s FireAMP solution for advanced malware analysis and protection (Figure 12).

So should you disable Java? I think Borepatch would probably say “yes”. But this is also interesting:

90 percent of Cisco customers use a version of the Java 7 Runtime Environment, the most current version of the program. This is good from a security standpoint, since this version is likely to offer greater protection against vulnerabilities…
…However, Cisco TRAC/SIO research also shows that 76 percent of enterprises using Cisco solutions are also using the Java 6 Runtime Environment, in addition to Java 7.

JRE6 has been end-of-lifed and is no longer supported. I’m thinking the best practice here is:

A. Carefully evaluate your need for Java.
II. If you do need it, use the most current version.

At 43.8 percent, Andr/Qdplugin-A was the most frequently encountered mobile malware, according to Cisco TRAC/SIO research. Typical encounters were through repackaged copies of legitimate apps distributed through unofficial marketplaces.

“unofficial marketplaces”. You. Don’t. Say.

There’s a lot more in the report, including a brief discussion of Wireshark and Python tools for doing data analysis. I do commend it to your attention, even though my bias here is obvious.

Edited to add: left out one I intended to include.

In a recent project reviewing Domain Name Service (DNS) lookups originating from inside corporate networks, Cisco threat intelligence experts found that in every case, organizations showed evidence that their networks had been misused or compromised.
For example, 100 percent of the business networks analyzed by Cisco had traffic going to websites that host malware, while 92 percent show traffic to webpages without content, which typically host malicious activity. Ninety-six percent of the networks reviewed showed traffic to hijacked servers.

Posted in Android, Geek, Java, Programming Languages, Python | 1 Comment »

TMQ watch: January 14, 2014.

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

The playoffs have not been good to us. Our Saints are out. Our Packers are out. San Francisco is still standing. On the other hand, San Diego is gone, which means an end to the stupid “San Diego is destined to win the Super Bowl because they played Philadelphia in the opening game” meme. And our Patriots are still standing.

But enough about us. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

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

Obit watch: January 15, 2014.

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

Neal Barrett, Jr., one of the great Texas SF writers.

Madeline Arakawa Gins, of Arakawa and Gins fame.

Their work was underpinned by a philosophy they called Reversible Destiny. Its chief tenet, as the catalog of a 1997 joint exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo put it, was, “Reversible Destiny: We Have Decided Not to Die.”

Gins was 72. Arakawa passed away in 2010 at the age of 73.

Edited to add: the Statesman published an obituary for Mr. Barrett. Bad news: it is behind the paywall and thus unlinkable.

Posted in Art, Books, Clippings, Obits | 2 Comments »

Bread blogging: experiment #1

Tuesday, January 14th, 2014

This requires some background.

One of my Christmas presents was a box of smoked meat from Goode Company Barbecue in Houston. The meat itself has been very good so far. But included with the meat was a loaf of Goode Company’s Jalepeno Cheddar bread.

I was warned in advance: “This stuff is addictive. You’ll find yourself eating the whole loaf in one sitting.” Well, I wasn’t quite that bad (it took two sittings to finish the loaf), but it is very very good bread. I wouldn’t put it at the “crack cocaine” level; that’s reserved for Caramel deLites (or Samoas, depending on which part of the country you’re in). It is even better if you toast it and spread some of Trader Joe’s Pub Cheese on the toast, but that’s a digression.

(And by the way, Girl Scout cookie season is upon us again.)

Anyway, after I finished the loaf, I found myself saying the following: “Hey! I have a bread machine! How hard could it be to replicate their bread?”

(more…)

Posted in Beef, Bread, Christmas, Food | 1 Comment »

Fundament, hindquarters, hind end, keister, posterior.

Tuesday, January 14th, 2014

Donavan Raynold Hunt, aka “Tanka 2”, is in custody.

Mr. Hunt was involved in an incident last November at a place called the “Quantum Lounge”. (The Statesman does not note if there are any cats in the Quantum Lounge, nor does it mention the living or dead status of said cats, nor does it give a position for said establishment. I think we can safely assume it has zero momentum.)

Anyway, Mr. Hunt was performing with his musical group, “Da Young Outlawz”, when they got into a dispute with some other folks.

The argument became so heated that the club’s management asked Hunt and his friends to leave, according to an affidavit, and both groups went outside and continued to argue. Around 1:40 a.m. on Nov. 8, a fight broke out and Hunt pulled a gun and started to shoot, according to the affidavit. One man was hit in the arm, side and foot, and a second man was hit in the butt.

“hit in the butt”? Are the Statesman writers and editors ten year olds? Couldn’t they have found a better word than “butt”? Perhaps “upper part of the thigh” as a homage to Robert B. Parker? “Posterior” isn’t a bad word, either. You say someone’s been “shot in the posterior” and everyone knows what you’re talking about.

But “in the butt”, Bob? Really?

Posted in Clippings, Law, Media | Comments Closed

Kelly Thomas.

Tuesday, January 14th, 2014

Since I’ve started thinking seriously (as a grown-up adult, not a child) about criminal justice issues, I’ve maintained certain positions.

One of those positions is that the verdict of a jury deserves a certain amount of deference. Yes, I may disagree with the verdict the jury returns. But: they were there in the courtroom. I was not. They watched all the testimony in person. I did not. They were able to see subtle cues of tone and inflection. I was not. At best, what I am basing my judgment on is what I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. These things are subject to conscious and unconscious bias, as well as errors and omissions. How can I question the verdict a jury returns without all the information they had access to? George Zimmerman or OJ Simpson, I’ve always thought the jury should be respected.

But I’m having trouble reconciling that with the acquittals of Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli in the beating death of Kelly Thomas. (Previously. Also previously and graphic image warning.)

How does a jury return a verdict that says hitting a man in the face twenty times with a Taser is okay? How does a jury return a verdict that says telling a man “See these fists? They’re getting ready to [expletive] you up.” and then beating him until he can’t breathe and his blood is pooling on the sidewalk is not, at the very least, involuntary manslaughter? What evidence did they see that we did not?

And is it a compromise of my principles that I’m hoping the Justice Department indicts Ramos and Cicinelli?

Fiat justitia ruat caelum. But what is justice in this case?

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, Rage | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! watch (#7 in a series)

Monday, January 13th, 2014

In some haste, because I’m out and about. But: as previously announced, and as everyone expected, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, former city manager of Bell, has pled guilty to “filing a false tax return and conspiring to file a false tax return”.

Rizzo, according to the charges, illegally claimed losses of $409,731 between 2006 and 2009 by falsely claiming his horse ranch outside Seattle as rental property. He also admitted in a plea agreement that he paid for more than $80,000 in personal expenses in 2009 and $120,000 in construction work on his Huntington Beach home in 2010 while claiming they were used for his horse ranch.

Also as expected, Rizzo has agreed to “cooperate with federal authorities”, which is generally being interpreted to mean he’s going to roll on his former subordinate, Angela Spaccia, once she’s actually charged. (Tax charges against her are expected, but have not been filed yet.)

Also as previously discussed, it is expected that Rizzo’s sentence (which could be “up to eight years in federal prison and a $500,000 fine on the tax case”, though I am not a lawyer and am not clear if that’s within the federal sentencing guidelines) will be served concurrently with the twelve years he’s already serving on the other corruption charges he’s pled to. I’d like to see him serve more time, but this is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 12, 2014.

Sunday, January 12th, 2014

Various news sources are reporting that the local cedar pollen count was 16,785 grains per cubic meter yesterday, and 13,340 today. For the record, these numbers are. (Records, that is.) This would explain why my skin feels like it is trying to crawl off of my body.

(“Why don’t you take some Benadryl, or a good anti-histamine?” Well, I don’t have any Benadryl, and I wouldn’t want to take it unless I was about to go to bed. I have an entire box of the good Zyrtec that I haven’t even opened yet, because, as scratchy as I am, getting the good stuff is such a hassle that I want to wait until I really, really need to use it before opening the box. Meanwhile, the Mexicans are purchasing pseudoephedrine in bulk and turning out high quality meth. Thanks, Obama!)

A Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey writes….

Lawrence made what I thought was a profound observation at dinner last night: every now and then, the NYT publishes a story that seems to be crafted in such a way as to make you hate not just the subjects, and not just the writers, but the entire population of New York City.

A half-dozen people were gathered around the tasting bar at the Henley Vaporium in SoHo on a recent Friday evening.

Let me interrupt here: where did the name “Henley Vaporium” come from?

The name, according to Ms. Eisenberg, has no significance other than that it sounded “cool” and “British.”

They should have named it “Henway”. What’s a “Henway”? About three pounds, give or take a few ounces. But I digress. Jumping back to where we were…

Behind the bar, two vapologists in white lab coats stood before a selection of dozens of tiny bottles, each containing liquid nicotine. The customers, all students or young professionals, leisurely inhaled on their so-called vape pens. Clouds of mist curled upward and vanished. A slightly sweet smell lingered in the air.

“Vapologist”?

…the title was actually stitched on the breast of each lab coat…

Their parents must be so proud.

After an hour sampling the “juices,” Chris Gsell, 39, a director of product development at a nearby ad agency, settled on creamy banana. “It’s delicious,” he said between pulls from his vape pen.

By a strange coincidence, “creamy banana” was also the flavor of the bubblegum cigars I used to chew when I was five years old.

You know, I try not to be judgmental about what people put into their bodies. And it does seem like e-cigarettes are less harmful for you than regular ones; if this is what gets you through the night, God bless you. But the “vape” culture that seems to be springing up around what is a replacement for smoking is starting to try my last nerve.

Posted in Clippings, Media | 2 Comments »

Dunder Mifflin won’t save you.

Saturday, January 11th, 2014

The city of Scranton, Pennsylvania has a problem.

Faced with a $20-million deficit, Scranton had to do some tricky maneuvering to balance its budget and avoid defaulting on loans. Most of this maneuvering has involved increasing taxes and fees paid by the people who still live in the town, which has seen its population drop by half since the 1930s.

How much?

In its 2014 budget, the city raised property taxes and trash fees nearly 60% and tripled rental registration fees. The city’s school district, which faced a $4-million deficit, raised taxes 2.4%.

The city already has a 5% tax on “live entertainment”, is discussing a 10% “drink tax”, and has jacked up parking rates. That’s going to help a lot:

The taxes are especially egregious to some because so many of the city’s residents are elderly and living on fixed incomes. The median household income in Scranton is $37,000, and nearly one-fifth of residents live below the poverty line.

I imagine a lot of those folks are going downtown and drinking in the downtown bars. Both of them. There’s only two left: all the others have gone out of business.

The city’s financial problems were accelerated by a 2011 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that found that the city owed its police and firefighters unions back pay — about $21 million. The settlement money became due in 2013, but the city bickered over how to come up with the funds for so long that Moody’s warned in November that Scranton faced the threat of default.

How bad is it? Many of the city residents quoted in the LAT would welcome a municipal bankruptcy.

“We’re watching what Detroit is doing, and just figure, with all the money we owe the police and all them, we’re going to be broke for the next 20 years, so why not file for bankruptcy?” said Walter David, a lifelong Scranton resident.

Why not indeed?

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

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