Your loser update: week 14, 2020.

December 14th, 2020

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

New York Jets

Next week, the Jets play the Rams in LA. The Rams are 9-4, so I kind of like their chances here. After that, the Browns play at the Jets: this would worry me in an ordinary year, but the Browns are actually kind of good this year. (9-3 currently, and the Browns play Baltimore tonight.)

So it pretty much comes down to week 17: the Jets play at the Patriots. New England is about average this year, and I’ve seen speculation that, if they’re not playoff eligible, the Patriots may bench their starters and write this game off. On the other hand, do they want to be the only team to lose to the Jets this year?

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 13, 2020.

December 13th, 2020

Oh, wow. I opened up a post so I could update some obits from the past couple of days, and the first thing I saw was: John le Carré. The current NYT obit is a preliminary one: they promise a longer one soon, and I may update with some personal thoughts when that posts.

In the meantime, Charley Pride.

A bridge-builder who broke into country music amid the racial unrest of the 1960s, Mr. Pride was one of the most successful singers ever to work in that largely white genre, placing 52 records in the country Top 10 from 1966 to 1987.
Singles like “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone” — among his 29 recordings to reach No. 1 on the country chart — featuried a countrypolitan mix of traditional instrumentation and more uptown arrangements.
At RCA, the label for which he recorded for three decades, Mr. Pride was second only to Elvis Presley in record sales. In the process he emerged as an inspiration to generations of performers, from the Black country hitmaker Darius Rucker, formerly of the rock band Hootie and the Blowfish, to white inheritors like Alan Jackson, who included a version of “Kiss an Angel” on his 1999 album, “Under the Influence.”

…

Nevertheless, the dignity and grace with which Mr. Pride and his wife of 63 years, Rozene Pride, navigated their way through the white world of country music became a beacon to his fans and fellow performers.
“No person of color had ever done what he has done,” Mr. Rucker said in “Charley Pride: I’m Just Me,” a 2019 “American Masters” documentary on PBS.
Mr. Pride himself was more self-effacing in assessing his impact but nevertheless expressed some satisfaction in having a role in furthering integration. “We’re not colorblind yet,” he wrote in his autobiography, “but we’ve advanced a few paces along the path, and I like to think I’ve contributed something to that process.”.

NYT obit for Ben Bova.

Tommy Lister. Apparently, he was most famous as “Deebo” in “Friday” (which we watched last night: while he’s good in it, the movie itself is not good), but he had a long list of other credits.

Norman Abramson. You may never have heard of him, but he was one of the developers of ALOHAnet.

The wireless network in Hawaii, which began operating in 1971, was called ALOHAnet, embracing the Hawaiian salutation for greeting or parting. It was a smaller, wireless version of the better known ARPAnet, the precursor to the internet, which allowed researchers at universities to share a network and send messages over landlines. The ARPAnet was led by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also funded the ALOHAnet.
“The early wireless work in Hawaii is vastly underappreciated,” said Marc Weber, an internet historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. “Every modern form of wireless data networking, from WiFi to your cellphone, goes back to the ALOHAnet.”

…

Some of the data-networking techniques developed by Professor Abramson and his Hawaii team proved valuable not only in wireless communications but also in wired networks. One heir to his work was Robert Metcalfe, who in 1973 was a young computer scientist working at Xerox PARC, a Silicon Valley research laboratory that had become a fount of personal computer innovations.
Mr. Metcalfe was working on how to enable personal computers to share data over wired office networks. He had read a 1970 paper, written by Professor Abramson, describing ALOHAnet’s method for transmitting and resending data over a network.
“Norm kindly invited me to spend a month with him at the University of Hawaii to study ALOHAnet,” Mr. Metcalfe recalled in an email.
Mr. Metcalfe and his colleagues at Xerox PARC adopted and tweaked the ALOHAnet technology in creating Ethernet office networking. Later, Mr. Metcalfe founded an Ethernet company, 3Com, which thrived as the personal computer industry grew.

I’ve been holding on to this one for a few days: William Aronwald. He was a prosecutor in the 1970s, working on organized crime cases around New York. He went into private practice later on. But that’s not the reason his obit is noteworthy.

On March 20, 1987, his father, George M. Aronwald, was shot and killed in a laundry in Queens. The senior Aronwald’s death was kind of a puzzle: he was 78, worked as a hearing officer for the Parking Violations Bureau, and shared an office listing with his son. Why would anyone want to kill him? Turns out…

…Mr. Cacace, acting on the orders of an imprisoned crime boss, Carmine Persico, had arranged to have William Aronwald killed, according to news accounts.
The reasons were vague — Mr. Persico was said to have thought Mr. Aronwald had “been disrespectful,” as one article put it. Mr. Aronwald later speculated that he had been targeted in retaliation for his testimony in one of the trials of the mobster John Gotti.
In any case, a prosecutor said later, the hit men, brothers named Vincent and Eddie Carini, were shown a piece of paper with only the name “Aronwald” on it. They killed the wrong Aronwald. And that wasn’t all, a 2003 article in The New York Times reported:
“After the botched assignment, Mr. Cacace had his hit men killed, prosecutors said. Then, they added, he had the hit men who had killed the hit men killed.”

“Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.”

Posted in Books, Geek, Law, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Quick firings watch.

December 13th, 2020

Gus Malzahn out at Auburn after a 6-4 season.

Malzahn finishes his Auburn tenure with a 67-33 overall record, a national coach of the year award, two SEC West titles, one SEC championship, a national runner-up finish and two New Year’s Six bowl berths. He had only a 2-5 record in bowl games, with wins against Memphis in the 2015 Birmingham Bowl and Purdue in the 2018 Music City Bowl.

But they got stomped this season by Alabama, Texas A&M, and Georgia, and also lost to South Carolina.

Malzahn’s seven-year contract, which he agreed to and signed in December 2017 after leading Auburn to an SEC West title, included 75 percent of the deal’s value fully guaranteed. His buyout, as of this month, is $21,450,000, with 50 percent of that owed within 30 days of his termination and the remainder paid in four equal annual installments.

Lovie Smith gone at Illinois. 17-39 over five years, and 2-5 this season.

Kevin Sumlin out at Arizona. The precipitating event seems to have been a 70-7 loss to Arizona State Friday night, but he was 9-20 overall (in a little more than two seasons) and Arizona has lost 12 straight games.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 258

December 13th, 2020

Science Sunday!

I had a little trouble picking out today’s videos. There’s some good stuff related to Gödel, Escher, Bach and cognition that I might use in the future, but I didn’t want to go back to the Gödel well so soon.

I was hesitant to go back to Chris Bishop again again, but science should be fun. Unfortunately, the video I wanted to use, i couldn’t: YouTube has it age restricted due to content.

So I thought I’d go metal.

Okay, maybe that was a little too metal. Same org, “Metal Mayhem”, but with Andrew Szydlo. He’s got a neat sort of child-like enthusiasm, and he’s a little absent minded (or at least presents himself that way). This might captivate the kids, but might also annoy you.

Bonus: I know I’m using the same source twice, but this popped up as well, and I thought it was worth including: the presenter, Adam Kucharski, works at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and specializes in modelling infectious diseases.

“How Science is Taking the Luck out of Gambling.”

“…there are two large flaws with this lady’s strategy. The first is, it’s completely illegal. And the second is, it clearly doesn’t work.”

Posted in Geek, History, Wagers | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 257

December 12th, 2020

Today: go fast. Don’t turn.

I’m fascinated by the history of land (and water) speed records.

From the “Scarf and Googles” channel on the ‘Tube: “George Eyston’s Thunderbolt – Land Speed’s Missing Monster”.

Between 1937 and 1939, the competition for the Land Speed Record was between two Englishmen: Captain Eyston and John Cobb. Thunderbolt’s first record was set at 312.00 mph (502.12 km/h) on 19 November 1937 on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Within a year Thunderbolt returned with improved aerodynamics and raised its record to 345.50 mph (556.03 km/h) on 27 August 1938.
This record only stood for a matter of weeks before John Cobb’s Reid-Railton broke the 350 mph (560 km/h) barrier and raised it to 353.30 mph (568.58 km/h) on 15 September 1938, as Eyston watched. This inspired him to take Thunderbolt to a new record of 357.50 mph (575.34 km/h). Cobb had held the record for less than 24 hours.

Bonus #1, from the same channel: “Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons – The Land Speed Battle Of Bonneville”.

Bonus #2: It seems to me like a lot of folks talk about Breedlove and Arfons, and rightly so. But it doesn’t seem like folks remember Gary Gabelich and the “Blue Flame“. I actually do, because the American Gas Association took out full page ads in National Geographic promoting it. At the age of (mumble mumble) I thought a rocket car was incredibly cool.

“Break The Record”.

Bonus #3: Throwing in one more, because these are all short-ish: “The Budweiser Rocket”. Also, this is a little more contemporary than the others.

The vehicle, like its predecessor, was owned by film director Hal Needham, driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick (Died in 2020). Neither the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme nor the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the official speed record certifying bodies, recognise the record attempt, the speed purported to have been reached or that the vehicle ever attained supersonic speeds. The original Budweiser Rocket was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and a modified version with a narrower track, is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama. The original is no longer on display and is now in storage at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 360, National Museum of American History, Office of Public Affairs and Records.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 256

December 11th, 2020

I haven’t done any true crime in a while, so why not fix that?

You’ve all heard about (and we’ve talked about) the Lufthansa heist, but have you ever heard of the Brink’s-Mat robbery?

£26 million (equivalent to £100 million in 2019) worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash was stolen from a warehouse.

Yes, there were murders (including, possibly, one of the Great Train robbers). No, the proceeds never turned up. The thing that boggles my mind is that they managed to make off with 3,000 kilos of gold bullion.

Bonus #1: Since I brought it up…here’s an episode of something called “Secret History” from Britain’s Channel 4 about the Great Train Robbery.

Bonus #2: I resisted posting this, because I have…questions…about the “Wonder” channel. But I have a fondness for tunnel heists, and for the Société Générale robbery in particular (as I’ve mentioned before) and this is only about 25 minutes long.

“Daring Capers: Plunder Under Nice”.

Posted in History, Law | Comments Closed

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

December 11th, 2020

The holiday is only two weeks away, so here’s a little morning musical interlude to cheer you up and put you in the spirit.

Posted in 1970s, Christmas, Music, TV | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, art! watch (#56 in a series)

December 10th, 2020

(Been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?)

The Austin City Council has decided (based on a recommendation from the city’s Arts Commission) to “deaccession” several pieces of public art.

The big news is: one of those pieces is “Moments”. If you live in Austin, you know “Moments” better as “those blue panels bolted to the overpass wall on North Lamar Boulevard”.

“Moments” caused a stir from the beginning. It was the city’s first art-in-public-places project to be installed along a road, and its installation caused traffic backups. The piece was meant to evoke impressions of the moments contained in an experience or environment, Jean Graham, a city of Austin art in public places coordinator, told the American-Statesman at the time.
“The designer was thinking, well, you could think of the moments going by as you are waiting under the bridge in traffic,” Graham told the paper in 2003.
In [Carl] Trominski’s [the artist – DB] submission for the piece’s creation, he wrote that the site “is visualized as a Threshold between the Urban Austin and the Natural Austin. The underpass marks a journey through the city’s self-image. … This proposal intends to strengthen the expression and experience of this moment.” The signs were to “make abstract reference to musical notes, the motion of a row on Town Lake, and acts (as) a shadow indicator of the day’s progression.”

“I thought it would be fun to do something that people could ignore and not even notice,” Trominski told the late Statesman columnist John Kelso in 2006. Trominski, who beat out about 30 other entrants for the art project, continued, “I had no idea people would get angrier at that than they would at the traffic.”

For the record, the other artworks being taken off the list are…

… “Karst Circle” at Austin Fire Station 43/EMS Station 31 on Escarpment Boulevard; “Bicentennial Fountain” at the entrance to Vic Mathias Shores between South First Street and West Riverside Drive; “LAB” along the Lance Armstrong Bikeway from MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) to Airport Boulevard; and the Republic Square Fountain, which no longer exists and formerly was located at Republic Square Park.

Here’s a presentation with some photos of the art, if (like me) you were unfamiliar with these pieces.

Fountain is no longer exists. During recent renovation of Republic Square Park, it was thought to be a design element, and was removed. AIPP was not informed.

Posted in Art, Austin, Politics | 2 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 255

December 10th, 2020

Travel Thursday!

How would you like to go to Sweden this week? I feel like I’ve done Sweden in the past, but not with…the US Army?

From 1958, “Modern Land of the Vikings”.

Bonus: As far as I can tell, I haven’t done this one before. Certainly, it doesn’t show up in a search. So let’s fix that: “Wings to Scandinavia”. The YouTube notes date this to 1962, and it covers Norway and Finland as well as Sweden. (I have done “Wings to Suomi”, which is Finland specific, before, but I think this is different enough to qualify.)

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 254

December 9th, 2020

Self-indulgent Wednesday!

“How to Order an M1 Garand from the Civilian Marksmanship Program”, by way of Black Flag Armory. Take advantage of this now: you never know what might happen in the future.

(As I understand it, the Texas State Rifle Association is a legit CMP affiliate.)

Bonus #1: Why would you want an M1 Garand? Because. “America’s Rifle”.

Bonus #2: Okay, I know everyone watches hickok45, but just for reference once you get your M1 from CMP: “How NOT to Load an M1 Garand!”.

Bonus #3: “How to load the M1 Garand the US Army way”.

Posted in Bookmarks, Guns, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 253

December 8th, 2020

I’m still a little behind schedule from yesterday. Also: recent events.

So today I thought I’d do a couple of videos on the X-1.

“Frontiers of Flight: The Sound Barrier”.

(Here’s a higher quality version, but it feels like some has been cut off of this.)

“Bell X-1: Breaking the Sound Barrier”, from Deep Space TV. This is a little shorter and better quality.

Bonus: this is long, but…a 1991 interview with Gen. Yeager.

Posted in History, Planes | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 8, 2020.

December 8th, 2020

(Edited: fixed link.)

NYT obit. I can’t do justice to the man. I’m not sure who can.

Fred Akers. Statesman. ESPN.

Natalie Desselle-Reid, actress. She was 53.

Posted in History, Movies, Obits, Planes, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

December 7th, 2020

The man who Tuesday Morning Quarterback refers to as “the tastefully named” Gregg Williams is out as defensive coordinator for the New York Jets.

And speaking of TMQ, another recurring theme:

Williams was universally criticized for calling a risky, Cover 0 blitz while protecting a four-point lead against the Las Vegas Raiders. The result was a 46-yard touchdown pass with five seconds left in the game that gave the Raiders a 31-28 win and dropped the Jets to 0-12.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 7, 2020.

December 7th, 2020

As previously noted, I got a little behind yesterday, so I’m playing catch-up.

David Lander, prominent TV actor perhaps best known as “Squiggy” on “Laverne and Shirley”.

Interesting connections:

He and his comedy partner, Michael McKean, were members of the cast of “Laverne & Shirley,” a sitcom about boy-crazy brewery workers in 1950s Milwaukee, from its debut in 1976 until it left the air in 1983.

…

Lenny and Squiggy were not the brainchild of the show’s creators. Mr. Lander and Mr. McKean invented them in college (Squiggy was called Ant’ny then) and had been performing as those characters with the Credibility Gap, a comedy performance ensemble that also included Harry Shearer.
The characters sometimes broke away from their own series. Mr. Lander and Mr. McKean appeared on the fictional talk show “America 2-Night,” hosted by Martin Mull.
Portraying two imaginary actors who supposedly played Lenny and Squiggy (but looked and talked just like them), they made small talk and sang “Creature Without a Head.” That song was also on the 1979 album recorded by Lenny and the Squigtones, their imaginary musical group (which included Christopher Guest on guitar). Principal Squiggy (Mr. Lander) appeared in “Scary Movie” (2000), and Squiggy himself turned up on a 2002 episode of “The Simpsons.”

Of course, Guest, McKean, and Shearer were all in Spinal Tap. I kind of wonder why Lander wasn’t involved. (According to Wikipedia, Guest was actually credited as “Nigel Tufnel” on the Lenny and the Squigtones album.)

Lawrence sent over an obit for Pamela Tiffin. She had what seems like an odd career: Billy Wilder’s “One, Two, Three”, “Harper” (a Ross MacDonald adaptation), “State Fair”. “The Hallelujah Trail”…and a bunch of Italian movies.

Paul Sarbanes, the man who put the “Sarbanes” in “Sarbanes-Oxley”.

Also by way of Lawrence, and this is breaking as I write it, so no links yet: Fred Akers. Links probably tomorrow.

For the historical record: NYT obits for Warren Berlinger and Walter E. Williams.

Posted in Law, Obits, Politics, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 252

December 7th, 2020

Today, December 7th, 2020, a date which will live in infamy…

…having reached a certain age, I have a doctor’s appointment this morning for a routine procedure, and expect to be out of it for a bit.

(I’ll take the 15 yard penalty for oversharing.)

So I’m scheduling this post in advance. Given the history of the day, the fact that I’ve only linked to him once, the fact that these are short-ish, and the fact that I’m a lazy shiftless blogger who is (I hope) lying around in pajamas and slippers right now, I thought I’d link to Drachinifel‘s series on the salvage of Pearl Harbor.

Part 1: “The Smoke Clears”.

Part 2: “Up She Rises!”

Part 3: “The First and the Last”.

Posted in History, Ships | Comments Closed

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