TEK 4012 High Resolution Graphics Terminal

A little bit of history.

My friend Jack built this terminal out of bits and pieces back in the late 1970's, more or less. If memory serves, it had a resolution of 1024 by 768. Of course, it was a monochrome green screen. A new one from Tektronix cost around 14 grand, which makes it about as much as pretty nice new car, or two. This was just a terminal mind you, not a computer. Just a display and a keyboard. It communicated with the (Master Control) computer over a serial link running at the then astounding rate of 9600 baud.

Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks

I'm not quite sure about this tune. The video portion is pretty useless. The tune seems insubstantial and the lyrics foolish, but I still enjoy the heck out of it. Music is magical.

Attack ad? I got your attack ad!

California Bob sent me a link to one Newt Gingrich's ads attacking Mitt Romney. I thought it was pretty weak, but then I don't give a shit about Newt or Mitt or any of those other jackasses in the so-called Republican Party.

Here's my theory. The Republicans do not want to win the Presidential election. If they won they wouldn't be able to blame the Democrats for anything, so the people would blame the Republicans, which means come the next election they would all be booted out. The way things stand now they can blame Obama for everything while they continue lining their own pockets while simultaneously destroying the country.

That's how you write an attack ad.

The Way Back Machine

This is just a little creepy. Nine zillion years ago, back when I was a lad, I wrote a letter to Boy's Life. I remember it because it was like the only letter I wrote during that era and as such it was a pretty big deal. They never printed it. I wasn't surprised because my letter, modeled on my other favorite magazine, MAD, was a little cheeky.

But now Iowa Andy has uncovered this self same letter in a digital copy of Boy's Life. Since my letter was never actually published in the paper version of the magazine, I can only conclude that historical revisionists have doctored the record. I do not know why someone would do that, but I suspect their reasons are nefarious. Shades of 1984.

Update January 2021 replaced missing image.

(un)-Quote of the Day

Tanya’s profanity flows like a mountain spring, so quoting her here is pretty much impossible.- Marty Hughley - in a review of  The North Plan, a play now playing at Portland Center Stage.

Moneyball

Interesting movie. No car chases, no gun battles, no sex, not even any romance. There is some baseball, but not much. This video clip is the only "artistic" bit in the whole movie.

Make that a gripping movie. What is it about then? I think it is about figuring out what to do. It's kind of like gambling. You take the cards you're dealt, you figure out what you think your best course of action is, and then you place your bets. It's about waiting, lots of waiting, though you don't have to suffer through it, this is the movie version after all. It's about making decisions and acting on those decisions, especially when everyone around you is telling you that you are wrong.

Jonah Hill did a fine job as as Peter Brand (aka Paul DePodesta), the totally stereotyped number crunching geek.

Durable Goods

We have these several window blinds in our house that use a string to raise and lower them. After you raise them by pulling on the string, if you let go, some little widget inside the header box grabs the string and holds the blind open. If you want to let the blind down, you need to pull on the string just enough to release this catch, and then move the string over to the side so that when you let the blind down the little grabber widget does not grab the string and you can lower the blind all the way down.

Could not get this one particular blind to go down. Finally noticed that the string had worn a groove in the plastic bezel that surrounds the hole. Pulling straight down on the string put the string in this groove, which prevented it from moving to the side, which meant the little grabber widget was not going to relenquish its' grip.

Our current work around is to pull the string to the side FIRST, before exerting the force needed to release the little grabber widget. Someday I will replace the bezel. Yeah, right.