Saturday Morning On The Road Again Links

by | May 18, 2024 | Daily Links | 113 comments

Saddling up and heading out, this time for a swing through New Hampshire and Connecticut. These are both states refreshingly devoid of Southern heat and humidity, thus suiting me better than my last expedition. For the exactly two of you who give a shit about audio, I’m picking up a pair of classic speakers (that I’ve been wanting for decades), then attending a press event for a new technology that involves 3-D sound. And I get paid for the trip, so I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

Know what else is nice? Birthdays, and today’s include a guy who famously described my ideal date; a guy who pioneered photo-blogging; a guy who showed that having personality problems will keep you from being as famous as Einstein; a local commie; a guy who was too stupid to hold on to a sure thing; a guy who was a hero to the teenage man with candy; a pioneer of making buildings look like the boxes buildings were packed in; my favorite director from Hollywood’s classic years; another NYC lifetime grifter; the auteur of floppy feet; the human vacuum cleaner (and an incredibly nice guy); his antithesis; and Mrs. Robert Fripp.

And from there, we do a smooth segue to Links.

 

Buffalo Bill was one of the great unsung sitcoms.

 

Long form piece on the Obama Biden plan for the Middle East. It’s not pretty.

 

So I could be the next Ted Williams?

 

Back up the cloud with another cloud. That’s the moral of this story.

 

As stupid as American politics is, something like this almost seems normal.

 

As stupid as American politics is, something like also seems normal.

 

Of all the really dumb ideas out there, this is certainly one of them.

 

Old Guy Music today is a great song given a great treatment by a great band. And it summarizes the way I’m feeling.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

113 Comments

  1. Ted S.

    This guy should have been Old Guy Music, since it’s his 80th birthday today.

    • Ted S.

      You’ll probably know just one song that he sang, but he’s also a prolific songwriter, having co-written this and this among many others.

  2. Suthenboy

    You know what I am not seeing? I am not seeing the idealogical grandparents of today’s leftists coming forward and saying they never dreamt that the peace/love movement of the ’60s and ’70s would come to love them some rapists, murderers and calls for repeating the genocide of the ’40s and ’50s. Where is Jane Fonda and her ilk now?
    They were evil commie shitbirds then and they are evil commie shitbirds now.

    • Suthenboy

      That was supposed to be ’30s and ’40s.
      More coffee please

  3. Ted S.

    Why is nobody asking what Hamas’ “day-after plan” is? The one where they have to admit at a minimum that Israel is inviolable within at least the 1967 borders and that there no such thing as a “right of return”?

    • Suthenboy

      They have elaborated on this before.
      Their stated goal is the murder of all jews. They dont care about anything else. They won’t rest until every jew everywhere on the planet is murdered.
      That mentality permeates Palestinian culture. It really is undiluted evil. In many ways so are the motives and goals of the WEF.

    • rhywun

      Because it would be unseemly to acknowledge that this administration’s day-after plan for Hamas is to attack Israel again.

    • Chafed

      Because that would acknowledge they have agency. If they have agency, then they are responsible for their atrocities.

  4. Suthenboy

    Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show wintered over across the Ouachita from Jonesville, La.
    My great grandparents ‘had Bill over for dinner’ a few times.

  5. Gender Traitor

    “Unprecedented” Google Cloud event wipes out customer account and its backups

    “Save all your files to The Cloud,” they said. “It’ll be safe and convenient,” they said. 🙄

    Now, I’m not that great about backing up files, and it’s not as if I have anything that important, but I DO occasionally back stuff up. When I do, I do it to PHYSICAL MEDIA that’s in MY possession. I’m funny that way.

    • Nephilium

      Remember, the cloud is just someone else’s computer.

    • Ted S.

      Although you might want to have the backup in a different physical location.

      We never got the memoirs of actress Kim Novak because the first copy and the backup were destroyed in the same fire.

      • Gender Traitor

        Good point. It would be easy enough to keep one or two thumb drives at my office…which will work until I retire. Then I get to decide if I trust either of my sisters to keep them…or if I want to see them that often. (No, the CU doesn’t have safe deposit boxes.)

      • Ted S.

        And don’t keep your will in the safe deposit box. Grandma and Grandpa did that, and when Grandma died nobody could get into the box without someone from, I think, the Secretary of State’s office as a witness.

      • Fourscore

        My brother had the key to Mom’s safety deposit box. My other brother and I met brother with the key, we went to the bank together, he came out with the contents, enough cash for an inexpensive funeral. There was $60 left, cash brother wanted to divide it, other brother and I told him to take his wife out to dinner. Everything worked as planned.

      • ZWAK came for the two-fisted tentacle-fighting, stayed for the crushing existential nihilism.

        My son is a signatory of our safe deposit box, just as I was for my father. You can access a deceased/whatever persons box with a warrent, but they will have to drill the locks if there is no key.

    • Rat on a train

      – We backup our system daily.
      – Have you ever tested a restore?
      – No.

  6. Suthenboy

    “Back up the cloud with another cloud. That’s the moral of this story.”
    There seems to be a lot of that going around here lately. Jesus, it’s gonna rain again? All of my plants are drowning now and the bayou is way out of its banks.

  7. Gender Traitor

    …a new technology that involves 3-D sound

    Is there an explanation of “3-D sound” somewhere on the Intarwebs that’s comprehensible to mere mortals (who had sucky public elementary school science educations?)

    • Old Man With Candy
      • Gender Traitor

        Thanks!

    • Timeloose

      I’ve been contemplating building my own transmission line speakers from a kit for the hell of it.

      I never listened to any so I’m reluctant. I believe they are pretty directional.

      3 D sound in an interesting concept. I do remember hearing some speakers that were able to be extremely directional, wherein they only were loud where the there was constructive interference.

      • Timeloose

        Looks like they are good at making very low frequency sound. Might be a good brown note generator.

      • Old Man With Candy

        In the bass, nothing is direction (wavelength is long). If they’re based on the Martin King designs or math models, they’re likely to be good. Worst case, seal them off and EQ.

  8. Suthenboy

    Look, WEF wrote a narrative, decreed it to be so and it must be so. Never mind that Hamas shit all over it, it shall come to pass.

    ME politics is like a plumbing job. “How’s that bathroom repair going?”
    reply: “Everything was going just fine until….”

  9. rhywun

    Is the administration still our ally?

    Digging in, but sounds like “No” to me.

    THis is some pretty scandalous stuff. And nothing else seems to be happening.

    • Suthenboy

      The naivety of having to ask that question is….well, I have no words.

  10. R C Dean

    “picking up a pair of classic speakers”

    Such a tease. What are they, I wonder?

    I wish I could say I can remember having good enough hearing that I could appreciate super-high-end audio, but I really don’t. Weirdly, I always buy much nicer audio setups than I can “hear”, if you know what I mean.

    • Ted S.

      Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill.

      • juris imprudent

        Rayburn was a Texan. You could’ve gone with McCormack.

    • Fourscore

      The problem is not knowing that which I can’t hear. Women’s voices are lost on me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

      • Sean

        Heh

      • Chafed

        No wonder you’re still married.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Allison Ones. These will join my main listening room regulars from Quad and NHT.

  11. Timeloose

    Good morning my Glib Globs.

    I didn’t know that the Maxwell equations were transformed by another. I like that so learn something new every day on this site.

    • Old Man With Candy

      It is indeed ironic that the “Maxwell Equations” which terrorized us as undergraduates are actually “Heaviside Equations.” If that sort of geekery appeals to you, I strongly recommend Paul Nahin’s biography of him. Really excellent and stimulating reading.

      • Timeloose

        Thanks Old Man.

    • Fatty Bolger

      That birthday caught my eye, so I checked out his wiki page. And this was on there:

      In 1887, Heaviside worked with his brother Arthur on a paper entitled “The Bridge System of Telephony”. However the paper was blocked by Arthur’s superior, William Henry Preece of the Post Office, because part of the proposal was that loading coils (inductors) should be added to telephone and telegraph lines to increase their self-induction and correct the distortion which they suffered. Preece had recently declared self-inductance to be the great enemy of clear transmission. Heaviside was also convinced that Preece was behind the sacking of the editor of The Electrician which brought his long-running series of articles to a halt (until 1891).[13] There was a long history of animosity between Preece and Heaviside. Heaviside considered Preece to be mathematically incompetent, an assessment supported by the biographer Paul J. Nahin: “Preece was a powerful government official, enormously ambitious, and in some remarkable ways, an utter blockhead.” Preece’s motivations in suppressing Heaviside’s work were more to do with protecting Preece’s own reputation and avoiding having to admit error than any perceived faults in Heaviside’s work.

      Some things never change, huh?

  12. Ted S.

    a guy who famously described my ideal date;

    Happy birthday Lynne Truss!

  13. The Late P Brooks

    I read (most of) a long CNN screed about Butker yesterday. You’d think he strangled Taylor Swift’s puppy with the Pope’s rosary.

    • juris imprudent

      Yes, let’s criticize a member of the League that was once graced by Ray Rice, Aaron Hernandez and Rae Carruth.

      • Nephilium

        I read the transcript of his speech, and while there are some things that I disagree with, I didn’t find anything obviously offensive in it. Well, unless you think Biden and Pelosi should be considered good Catholics in communion with the Church.

      • ZWAK came for the two-fisted tentacle-fighting, stayed for the crushing existential nihilism.

        It is just a version of radical personal freedom, and the raw hatred of anything that denies that concept.

      • Nephilium

        Meh. There’s some distinctly Catholic stuff in there… which would make sense for a practicing Catholic, giving a commencement speech at a Catholic school. I’m sure the feminists weren’t happy about the part about women getting married and having kids portion as well.

        For those who are interested, the transcript.

    • rhywun

      I read (most of) a long CNN screed about Butker yesterday.

      I am so, so sorry.

      I don’t have that kind of fortitude and tolerance for pain.

  14. Sean

    I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/18:
    *21/21 words (+5 bonus words)
    📖 In the top 3% by bonus words

    I played https://squaredle.com 05/18:
    *37/37 words (+10 bonus words)
    📖 In the top 11% by bonus words
    🔥 Solve streak: 317

    • Ted S.

      I played https://squaredle.com 05/18:
      37/37 words (+14 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 2% by bonus words
      🔥 Solve streak: 1

    • rhywun

      I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/18:
      *21/21 words (+3 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 13% by bonus words

      I played https://squaredle.com 05/18:
      *37/37 words (+6 bonus words)
      🎯 In the top 13% by accuracy
      🔥 Solve streak: 263

  15. The Late P Brooks

    “Samuel Alito should apologize immediately for disrespecting the American flag and sympathizing with right-wing violent insurrectionists,” Jeffries said in a statement in a press release Friday.

    Spoken like a real Amurrikkkin.

    • juris imprudent

      I’d normally say Jeffries should fuck himself, but he and Durbin both want to be all in, so they can fuck each other.

    • R C Dean

      Except I don’t think flying the flag upside down is disrespecting it. I thought it was a distress signal.

      • Sean

        Yes

    • Sean

      I think all commie rat fuckers should have their US citizenship revoked and be removed from our soil.

      • R C Dean

        So you’re saying the helicopter rides should go over the ocean?

    • Old Man With Candy

      It’s a lot more like the original Pixies version. The singer is excellent, thanks for the tout!

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Yes, let’s criticize a member of the League that was once graced by Ray Rice, Aaron Hernandez and Rae Carruth.

    The league rushed its head of diversity and inclusion to the bully pulpit to disavow the heretic.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Except I don’t think flying the flag upside down is disrespecting it. I thought it was a distress signal.

    Distress takes many forms. If Elena Kagan had flown her flag upside down the day after Trump won in ’16, they would have called her heroic.

  18. Timeloose

    I’m hosting a ripper of a party today for Mrs. Time’s PhD graduation and birthday.

    Music will be a big part of it as will be various smoked meat and gravies.

    • Ted S.

      So we have to call her Dr. Mrs. Grandma Timeloose now?

    • Common Tater

      Congrats!

    • Timeloose

      She is a EDd same as the First Lady. She however did quantitative research on teachers in the STEM field and retention levels. Her sample size and stats were relevant.

      Ted S yes.

    • Donny Three-Fingers

      Congratulations!

      • Timeloose

        Thanks all

    • Nephilium

      Happy 21st to Mrs. Timeloose. 🙂

      • Timeloose

        I’ll let her know you said that. She will be grateful.

    • Sean

      Congrats and Happy Birthday to the Mrs.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Gucci handbags at dawn

    Asked for comment by CNN earlier Friday, Greene’s office said, “the only member that brought up any reference to color was congresswoman Crockett.” On social media Friday, Greene doubled down on her comments and slammed criticism from within her party about her behavior.

    “AOC isn’t intelligent. Jasmine Crockett has fake eyelashes. These aren’t attacks on personalities. These are just facts,” she wrote on X.

    [insert Monty Python “Battle of Pearl Harbor” sketch]

  20. The Late P Brooks

    I restored a set of what must be at least 40 year old bookshelf speakers recently. I think they came from Radio Shack. I put a set of 4″ Amazon car audio 3way speakers in the boxes. There is a discernible improvement in sound quality.

    • juris imprudent

      It’s interesting the different spin you get at the CREW website.

    • Chafed

      Spot on.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    It’s phobias, all the way down

    Americans traveling abroad for Pride Month should take precautions because of an increased risk of terrorist violence, the State Department said Friday in an unusual message to LGBTQ+ people.

    The State Department said in a travel advisory that U.S. citizens should stay alert in tourist areas and places popular with LGBTQ+ people. It did not mention specific threats or advise against travel.

    U.S. diplomats have been directed to email the travel warning to all Americans who have registered with the State Department while abroad, according to a U.S. official granted anonymity to discuss internal matters.

    The warning came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia.

    Your tax dollars at work.

    • rhywun

      International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia

      Just one day?

      • Fourscore

        I can pronounce them, I just don’t know what they mean. I tried to use them in a sentence but that didn’t help.

      • Nephilium

        Biphobia? Come on people, that’s just getting silly now.

        And I seem to recall it was the movement gays/lesbians who originally were anti-bisexuals (it’s not like the stock homophobe is cool with bisexuals).

      • Ted S.

        It’s fear of Bip.

    • Common Tater

      Interphobia?

  22. The Late P Brooks

    “Even as more countries make meaningful advancements towards full equality, LGBTQI+ persons continue to be sentenced to death for daring to live their sexual orientation or gender identity, subjected to coercive conversion ‘therapies’ and ‘normalization’ surgeries, discriminated against while receiving health services, restricted from exercising fundamental freedoms, and denied the dignity of same-sex partnership and fulfillment of family,” Blinken said in a statement.

    Needs moar “Queers for Palestine”.

    • rhywun

      Because lecturing other countries about their internal affairs is what his job is all about.

    • PutridMeat

      ‘normalization’ surgeries

      I’m so confused; are we supposed to be for ‘gender affirming’ care or against it now?

      (yeah, yeah, I just glossed over the coercive to be snarky).

      To quote Rhy: “so tiresome”.

  23. Donny Three-Fingers

    Anybody here do anything ham radio related? We aren’t too far into the sticks, but the San Marcos TX and more specifically, the part where it jumped the house on its way to tear up Martindale has me thinking about comms for travel, emergency, and fun. We had no power for a couple of days (nothing like the Houston area is experiencing) and no cell service for same. Had to drive through and around a lot of mess to check in with everyone. Taking my Technician exam online Monday.

    • R.J.

      Fantastic! I have been thinking about taking the exam as well.

    • Common Tater

      I’ve been thinking about taking the exam for years.

    • juris imprudent

      I’ve had the license for years but I’m not particularly active.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Least surprising thing you’ll hear all day: Long-expired Extra. From the days when we need to do 20wpm code.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Over the past year, LGBTQ+ people have been targeted in the United States through various anti-LGBTQ+ bills, amounting to over 500 bills introduced this year, according to the ACLU. The Human Rights Campaign also declared a state of emergency in 2023 for LGBTQ+ people due to the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ bills being introduced in state legislatures.

    Sounds like America is an existential threat to quiltbag-ism.

    • rhywun

      rise in anti-LGBTQ+ bills

      Bullshit.

      Only because groomers and anti-females infiltrated the club.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Centrists

    Third Way, a centrist think tank, is targeting former President Trump over his past comments about defendants not testifying because he has yet to take the stand in his New York hush money trial.

    In an ad dubbed “Coward” released Friday, Third Way dares Trump to take the stand in Manhattan, where he faces 34 felony counts for falsifying business records related to a payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter.

    Obviously, Trump should take the stand in order to allow the prosecution, as assisted by the judge, to drag a bunch of irrelevant issues into the courtroom, or he’s a chicken.

    • Chafed

      That was great.

  26. Mojeaux

    Okay, the Google article confused me. Was it Google or Amazon? Because this is the first sentence:

    “Buried under the news from Google I/O this week is one of Google Cloud’s biggest blunders ever: Google’s Amazon Web Services competitor accidentally deleted a giant customer account for no reason.”

    TF is this journalisming?

    • Nephilium

      It’s Google’s cloud offering, which is competing with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft’s Azure offering. Poorly written sentence for those unaware of AWS, or the writer/editor wanted to make sure AWS was mentioned as a cloud service as well.

      • Mojeaux

        or the writer/editor wanted to make sure AWS was mentioned as a cloud service as well

        That was my take, after having to read it several times.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Stage props being uncooperative?

    Students like sociology major Marq Riggins are frustrated over the run-up to Biden’s arrival, which, according to Riggins, included the seniors on campus having to move to other dorms for security reasons.

    “All of it shows that the school is more concerned about leading its sort of political agenda before it is celebrating the students that make the school worth something,” said sociology major Marq Riggins.

    He, along with other seniors at the historically Black college for men, expressed frustration to ABC News over the commotion the president’s appearance was causing and how it was drawing attention away from their own celebrations.

    “It’s pretty disrespectful to the student body to take this ceremony that’s supposed to be celebrating them and reduce it to like a political campaign,” Riggins said.

    This poor young black man seems ignorant and ungrateful, but Joe will set him straight.

    • creech

      Hey, show some sympathy, he’ll be back in chains if Joe loses this election.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    “This will be a moving commencement address,” Jean-Pierre added. “You will hear directly from the president on how he sees the future of this country and also the community they represent … he sees this as an opportunity to lift up and to give important message to our future leaders.”

    It takes a rich and powerful old white man to validate the dreams and aspirations of young negroes.

    • Chafed

      It’s the Team Blue motto.

  29. Gustave Lytton

    RIP Les Schwab. Built a great business on mediocre products. All of it flushed away under the successors and new owners.

  30. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    My mom loved Dabney Coleman!

    • Gender Traitor

      Reminds me of this. [TW: musical theater. You know, I could have hidden the TW in the “hover” text, but I’m looking out for y’all’s sensitive sensibilities.]

    • Ted S.

      I was thinking of this.

  31. Evan from Evansville

    Going to the Indy 500 Qualifications with Dad today. This will be an interesting adventure for several reasons. I’ve been to the Speedway before but not for events. I love cars and respect the engineering behind it all. The individuality of a car is its most defining purpose and feature. I especially love Top Gear and the Grand Tour crew. They are perhaps the most ‘natural’ trio of ‘unscripted’ people/ presenters/ characters I can think of. Especially with mass, global appeal.

    Dad is likely going to have several diarrhea attacks on this foray. Common occurrence, constant concern. No biggie, really. (Honestly, it ain’t. He’s just a 74-year-old who won’t quit exercising. Hard to wag one’s finger at, but he’s actively accelerating the process. Meh. I suppose we all are. Myself, especially.)

    I hope y’all have equally spirited Saturdays. Kyle Hendricks is my favorite current pitcher (for his history, not present performance). He can get through a lineup ONCE. That’s how he should be used, as the new Cubs long-man to ease the other young starters’ burden. He and Ben Brown should pretty much switch current places. Figure it out with Hendricks’ lack of velocity.

  32. Common Tater

    “UK: Asian Professor Claimed Sushi Restaurant Recommendation Was “Racist Harassment” By Colleague

    Professor Nana Sato-Rossberg took her employer to an employment tribunal in March, claiming that she had been racially discriminated against, harassed and victimized by her colleague, Provost Claire Ozanne. At the time, Sato-Rossberg was acting head of the department for Languages, Culture and Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London….

    One month later in the grievance, Sato-Rossberg raised a complaint about the perceived discrimination she was experiencing in having to provide evidence she had been discriminated against.

    ““… when it’s come to racial discrimination, SOAS should not put all the burden of proof on me. If CO [Claire Ozanne] cannot prove that she does not have any unconscious/conscious bias, my claim should be accepted. Since she is not anybody, but the Provost, who is supposed to be a role model. She must avoid even the impression of bias.””

    https://www.thepublica.com/uk-asian-professor-claimed-sushi-restaurant-recommendation-was-racist-harassment-by-colleague/

    CWAC

    • juris imprudent

      provide evidence

      Patriarchal, white-supremacist tricknology.

    • Chafed

      Yes, make her prove a negative. That’s built in to every western justice system 🙄