Travel Thursday!
Here’s an exotic destination we haven’t done yet: from Pan Am sometime in the 1960s (possibly before the invention of reggae) “Wings to Jamaica”.
Bonus: “Pan Am Makes the Going Great”, a compilation of commercials from Pan Am’s 1969 ad campaign.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing est mort.
I’ve seen very little reporting of this elsewhere, but Lawrence has posted a nice obit for economist Walter E. Williams.
I really enjoy Rachel By the Bay’s writing, but I specifically wanted to bookmark this: “My list of magic numbers for your turkey day enjoyment“.
A couple of personal additions (hey, if Rachel can add C-64 and VIC-20 magic numbers, I can add these):
POKE 65495,0: On the old Radio Shack Color Computer, this sped up the CPU. Specifically, according to the Intertubes: “POKE 65495,0 would cause the processor to run at double speed ( 1.795 MHz ) when accessing instructions in ROM and Normal Speed ( 0.895 MHz ) when accessing DRAM.” It also messed up the timing for tape input and output, so you had to disable it before saving or loading from tape. POKE 65494,0 would return the system to normal.
POKE 65497,0: This switched the processor fully to double speed for all memory access, including DRAM. It also disabled video: you basically just got snow on your monitor until you reset the system with POKE 65496,0.
Edited to add #1:
Worth keeping in mind. For OPSEC purposes, I set the EXIF location data in many of the photos I take (especially firearms photos around the house) to 0.000000 north and 0.000000 west.
I’m going to be a little self-indulgent today.
I know I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to post a lot of “Forgotten Weapons” stuff, because I figure if folks are interested, they already subscribe. I’m making an exception here because:
a) This is a pretty recent entry.
II) Smith and Wesson.
3) Australia, Australia, we love you, amen.
Specifically, a Smith and Wesson pistol-carbine made for the South Australian Police.
Bonus #1: I actually thought about posting this yesterday, but couldn’t find it in my recommendations. It popped up again today, and this is some real history: “Hannibal’s Elephant Army – The New Evidence”.
Bonus #2: For some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of car repair videos in my feed. Especially ones from “Precision Transmission”. I thought I’d post this one because I shared it with some other folks privately and it seems like they enjoyed it.
“Nitrous doesn’t play well with others! Especially when you have pretty much stock unit.”
I thought today I’d fall back to some real authentic history. These are long, and I apologize for that, but I think this might appeal to some people.
“Afghanistan: the Great Game”. Part 1:
“It’s really easy to get into Afghanistan. It’s just the getting out part is very difficult.”
“Don’t go into Afghanistan and get – whatever you do – involved in a tribal war.”
Part 2:
I don’t have a good third party source to link, but Ben Bova, noted SF writer, has passed away.
Edited to add: obit from Lawrence.
I thought it might be fun to do a couple more WWII aircraft videos today.
“P-38 Flight Characteristics”, made by Lockheed around 1943. And in color!
Bonus #1, but this is more for the soundtrack than the video itself: “Warbird Engine Starts — Props & Radials”.
Bonus #2: I thought I’d throw this in. “Eclipse aviation cartridge starter and Plessey starter motor”.
Why? We watched “Flight of the Phoenix” (the good one) a while back, that’s why.
Dave Caldwell out as general manager of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Jacksonville has lost 10 straight games this season, and have gone 39-87 since Caldwell took over in 2013.
Caldwell’s biggest downfall was his inability to draft a franchise quarterback, which included sticking with ineffective Blake Bortles for too long. Bortles was the third overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, going 24-49 in 73 regular-season starts and a 2-1 mark in the playoffs.
During the regular season, Bortles threw 103 touchdowns and 75 interceptions and posted a quarterback rating of 80.6 before he was released by the Jaguars in March 2019. Bortles is now on the Denver Broncos practiced squad.
…
Caldwell failed at his job from talent evaluations to sending away too many veterans in trades in exchange for draft picks instead of equal talent in return. Caldwell traded veteran defensive captain Calais Campbell, cornerback A.J. Bouye, quarterback Nick Foles, safety Ronnie Harrison and disgruntled defensive end Yannick Ngakoue, all for draft picks this offseason.
”We can’t afford a rebuilding year,” Caldwell said in early September. ”Our mindset is to put the best team out there to play, to compete, and to win. We feel like these guys, the guys in this locker room, nobody has seen them play together. Nobody has seen them play a game so, like I said, we’re going to know where we measure up.”
The Jaguars have lost 10 or more in seven of the eight seasons under Caldwell. His lone successful season was in 2017 when the Jaguars fared 10-6 and advanced to the AFC title game. Currently, the Jaguars have lost 16 of their 19 games, which includes 11 by 10 or more points.
Dave Prowse, former British heavyweight lifting champion.
He also did a little bit of acting.
So sad to hear David Prowse has passed. He was a kind man & much more than Darth Vader. Actor-Husband-Father-Member of the Order of the British Empire-3 time British Weightlifting Champion & Safety Icon the Green Cross Code Man. He loved his fans as much as they loved him. #RIP pic.twitter.com/VbDrGu6iBz
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) November 29, 2020
Lawrence sent over an obit for Jery Hewitt. Mr. Hewitt was a prolific stunt coordinator. Among his work: 14 of the Coen Brothers films, every episode of “Law and Order: Original Recipe”, and 22 seasons of “Law and Order: SVU”.
In 1977, he helped mountain climber George Willig scale the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Two years later, he landed his first feature film role as the leader of the Baseball Furies gang in the 1979 cult classic The Warriors.
Once described as “the thinking man’s stunt coordinator,” his hundreds of other coordinating credits include School of Rock, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Sopranos, Reign Over Me, The Manchurian Candidate, Tower Heist, The Birdcage and Angels in America. He also performed stunts on numerous other films, including Independence Day, Scent of a Woman, Ghostbusters II and Coyote Ugly.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
New York Jets
Next week: the Raiders.
Derek Mason out as head coach at Vanderbilt.
The team is 0-8 this season, and Mason was 27-55 in approximately six seasons.
Science Sunday!
Today, I thought it might be fun to take a tour of MIT’s research reactor.
Longer bonus video: “It’s Rocket Science! with Professor Chris Bishop”. Including burning toast (does Professor Bishop have a flambe license?) and a demo of hypergolic propellants.
Coach Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn out in Detroit.
The two were tasked with elevating the Lions from their perpetual state of mediocrity to a perennial playoff contender, and instead brought more despair to a franchise that has not won a playoff game since 1992.
The Lions went 13-29-1 with Quinn and Patricia in charge and are in the midst of their third consecutive losing season. Patricia’s .314 winning percentage was far below that of the man he replaced. Jim Caldwell, who Quinn fired after going 9-7 in 2017, won 54.5% of his games, best among full-time Lions coaches in the expansion era.
I always say: “It’s not Thanksgiving until Detroit loses.” And the final straw seems to have been Detroit losing to Houston, 41-25.
Not exactly firings, but I don’t have any place else to put these:
1) The Denver Broncos have no quarterbacks for their game tomorrow against the Saints.
Driskel tested as COVID positive on Thursday.
2) Santa Clara County (who you may remember from “iPads for Permits”) has banned all contact sports in the county for the next three weeks, at all levels: San Francisco 49ers hardest hit.
You know, they told me if I looked hard enough, something positive would come out of this. And they were right.
