Archive for September 16th, 2020

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 170

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

Today, I wanted to put up something that pushes a few of RoadRich’s hot buttons (and my own).

The California Highway Patrol has a YouTube channel. I thought it might be interesting to look at some aspects of operations that are common to both the Austin Police Department and the CHP. These are things that APD devotes presentations to in their Citizen’s Police Academy (which is on-hold at the moment), so why not take a look at how a department outside of the United States handles these things?

First up: “Air Operations”. This is a two-parter: Part 1.

(Can I note here that I hate “vlog”? I would say I hate the word, but it isn’t even a word.)

Part 2: this covers CHP’s fixed-wing (that is, not helicopter) operations.

You know what else CHP has? The mounted police.

You know I had to do that.

Anyway, the CHP mounted patrol.

Posted in 1970s, California Über Alles, Cops, Horses, Law, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

2020 is a target rich environment. (Part deux)

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

It didn’t take long to find something even stupider than “Mean Girls” toaster pastry.

For a mere $1,500 you can have a custom built Wilkinson original that features influencer Bella Delphine. The case is plastered in Delphine’s face. Her alleged mugshot is on the front, LEDs with her glare from inside the case, and the system’s liquid cooling pipes run in and out of a little jar said to contain her bathwater.

In the interest of fairness, note the “said” above:

But it’s not an official jar of Bella Delphine bathwater. “I know it’s disappointing,” Josh Wilkinson, the case’s designer, told Motherboard on the phone. “It’s like 400 bucks on Ebay. The more official reason is that these cooling loops, if it was just normal water they wouldn’t hold up after a while.”
Liquid cooled PCs reduce temperatures of a machine with a liquid that’s a mix of distilled water and additives that prevent corrosion. Using Delphine’s dirty bathwater to cool down a machine is probably hazardous to the machine’s health.

Posted in Geek, Stupid | Comments Closed

Brief historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

I would completely have missed this if it were not for Hacker News, but: today is the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street bombing.

In 1919, a coordinated attack had bombs going off in seven cities, including Washington, DC, where an explosive was supposed to land on the porch of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. But, said Gage, “it was set to a timer and went off prematurely. The guy carrying the bomb, an Italian anarchist, got killed. Pieces of his body were found all over Palmer’s neighborhood.”

…

It’s widely speculated that an Italian anarchist named Mario Buda did the deed in retaliation for the murder-robbery indictment of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (better known as Sacco and Vanzetti). Buda, who was thought to be involved in the 1919 bombings, was never brought in for questioning and fled to Italy soon after the Wall Street attack.

There’s an interesting book by Mike Davis, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (affiliate link). He views the Wall Street bombing as the first car bomb, even though it wasn’t really a “car” bomb.

FBI page. There’s an “American Experience” documentary that you can apparently stream for free if you’re a PBS station member or have Amazon Prime.

Posted in Explosives, History, Horses, Law | Comments Closed

My next million dollar idea.

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

I think it is time to bring back chariot racing.

No politics, no political statements: just chariot racing. I’m sure we can get a TV deal, and not just on ESPN 8, “The Ocho”. Given a choice between televised chariot racing and televised cornhole, what do you think people are going to watch?

(Inspired by episode 157 of the History of Rome podcast.)

Posted in History, Sports | 8 Comments »