Tag: The Breakfast Club

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Cuban missile crisis fuels Cold War clash at UN; China’s UN seat changes hands; ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ battle takes place; Author Geoffrey Chaucer dies; Golfer Payne Stewart killed in plane crash.

Breakfast Tunes

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Dawn of the UN; Dwight Eisenhower vows to end the Korean War; Suspects caught in D.C.-area sniper shootings; Concorde makes last trans-Atlantic flight; ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry dies.

Breakfast Tunes

So, almost a Million for an Apple 1.

Did I mention I have a 2C new in the box?  I do, actually.  Also a Commodor 64 (not in the box), 3 TS 1000s (1 in box), couple of XTs (with Monitor, try finding an MDA today), an all ISA AT, a P-386 500 driving 98 SE and 4 x 8MB drives, and various other spare parts that I could assemble into different configurations of different vintages.

I started out playing Star Trek over a 300 Baud Modem on an ADAM 3A Terminal using CompuServe and did my first programing in COBOL and RPG on Holerith cards.

So I’m not old, I’m well connected.

I started out in the biz with a translation of an Insurance Rating program from TRS-80 to Apple Basic (anyone remember Romar?  It was like the very first clone).

The machine that’s missing from my collection is a Kaypro 10.  64K and 10 Mb of C/PM goodness that I developed my bread and butter XTab app on that I have ported through a variety of iterations of MS-DOS, CCPM, DesqView, OS2, and Windows.

I’ll tell you this- there is no money in poetry for machines or maintaining them either.

I’ve ended up with a skill set that includes 7+ languages- COBOL, RPG, FORTRAN, BASIC, C (and about 5 variants), Postscript and HTML, and MS Macro as well as a heap of hardware that I’m willing to let good homes adopt as well as friends and family who accuse me of being a cat lady who never met a stray I didn’t like.

I have a friend who collects rarer hardware than that.  He has a Poly-88 with full OS source directly from one of the developers.  It’s good for what a 4K 8088 with a hard sectored floppy and an S-100 bus can do.

I also ended up with bookshelves of Bytes, PC Mags, Dr. Dobbs, and Computer Shoppers.

Sigh.  It all ought to go to a museum.  My current main ride (down at the moment after a voltage surge) is a Asus M4A88T-V EVO USB 3.0 with 16 Gb and a 3.7 6 Core AMD Athlon II.  Because it’s not working I’m on my laptop, an HP 6475b sporting the same 16 Gb and a 2.5 Dual Core AMD A4 so don’t cry for me Argentina.  I think the voltage surge screwed up my Windows virtual memory file, but I haven’t tested that yet.  If I have to replace the Motherboard it’s $120.  If I have to replace the CPU it’s $170.  If I have to replace the memory it’s $130.  I think the hard drives are recoverable (already have the important data) but they’re $80 for 2 Tb.

This is why there is no money in computing.

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News

Henry Ford Museum acquires 1976 Apple-1 computer

Dearborn Press & Guide

Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2014

“When acquiring artifacts for The Henry Ford’s Archive of American Innovation, we look at how the items will expand our ability to tell the important stories of American culture and its greatest innovators,” said Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford. “Similar to what Henry Ford did with the Model T, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs put technology directly in the hands of the people with the creation of the Apple-1, completely altering the way we work and live. The Apple-1 was not only innovative, but it is a key artifact in the foundation of the digital revolution.”

…

Only 64 of the originally produced 200 Apple-1 computers are known to exist – with 15 of this group known to be operational. In addition to the central Apple-1 motherboard, the acquisition also includes a hand-built keyboard interface, power supply, facsimile copies of the owner’s manual and schematics, Sanyo monitor and Apple-1 Cassette Interface.

Just as an aside, the part about “first pre-assembled personal computer ever”, not true.  Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080, Poly-88.  What these all lacked was an integrated video terminal and keyboard.

I was there and I bootstrapped a paper tape reader from front panel switches and I swore I’d never, ever touch a computer in my life.

Heh.

• Partial Solar Eclipse 2014 Arrives Thursday. Here’s How To Watch It Safely, By Macrina Cooper-White, The Huffington Post
• Sun Unleashes Powerful Solar Flares, Disrupting Radio Communications, By David Freeman, The Huffington Post
• Ancient Bones Show Roman Gladiators Ate Vegetarian Diet, Drank A Weird Tonic, By Jacqueline Howard, The Huffington Post
• King Tut Had A Club Foot And Other Deformities, New ‘Autopsy’ Shows, By Cavan Sieczkowski, The Huffington Post
• Man’s Genome From 45,000 Years Ago Is Reconstructed, by Carl Zimmer, The New York Times
• Procedure on Paralyzed Man Stirs Hope and Caution, By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times
• ‘Hobbit Humans’ Actually Might Not Have Been Human, by Jennifer Viegas, Discovery

Tech News

• Coming of Age in Cloud Computing, By Quentin Hardy, The New York Times
• Chinese Hackers May Have Attacked Apple’s iCloud, Reuters
• Google Wants Inbox to Be Your Email System for the Next Decade, By Farhad Manjoo, The New Yprk Times
• Apple Pay Fail: Some Bank Of America Customers Getting Double-Charged, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• Former NASA Engineer Uses iPhones, Androids To Make Extra Creepy Halloween Costumes, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• Google Makes Super-Subtle Change To Stephen Colbert’s Search Results, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• How To Keep Your Embarrassing iPhone Photos As Safe As Possible, By Sara Boboltz, The Huffington Post
• The Future Of Umbrellas Is A Stick That Shoots Air At The Rain, By Harry Bradford, The Huffington Post
• Skull Analysis Reveals when did ancient Europeans started drinking milk?, By Bret Urgamy, Capital OTC

Science Oriented Video!

The Obligatories, News, and Blogs below.

Well, I have only one article for you to ponder this morning, and I feel pretty vindicated in light of it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone among liberals.

Obama Is a Republican

They were not wrong. In my opinion, Obama has governed as a moderate conservative-essentially as what used to be called a liberal Republican before all such people disappeared from the GOP. He has been conservative to exactly the same degree that Richard Nixon basically governed as a moderate liberal, something no conservative would deny today. (Ultra-leftist Noam Chomsky recently called Nixon “the last liberal president.”)

No jumping this morning! So how you doin’?  😀

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Thomas Edison perfects workable electric light; Anthrax scare claims first of two U.S. postal workers in Washington, DC; Britain wins Battle of Trafalgar; Actress and author Carrie Fisher born

Breakfast Chuckle

I have 3 things for you all this morning.

First, this should be a great interview, and it will be live streamed. See the link for more info:

Lawrence Lessig interviews Edward Snowden

Institutional corruption and the NSA: Edward Snowden will be interviewed (via videoconference) by Lawrence Lessig about the NSA in a time of war, and whether and how the agency has lost its way.

Jump!

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Today in History

Breakfast Tune – Keep That Skillet Good & Greasy

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

So, Romanticism.  I’m conflicted.

In some ways it’s like admitting you have a sick fascination for fascism (which is by the way the political movement most closely associated with the intellectual impulse).

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.

The movement validated intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe-especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities: both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to a noble status, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a natural epistemology of human activities, as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to raise a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism.

Enlightenment is too sterile and demanding.  The raw reductionism of rationality leads directly to a mundane Midlands mindset of grinding machination.  Creativity and animal passion replaced with cogwheels of clockwork conformity.  How is an artist to express themselves by appealing emotionally to the audience within the rigid formality of classical conventions?

Silly.  With more cowbells of course.

Yeah Romantic Music is the skull thumping big hair skinhead (part of it is ignoring the cacaphony of cognitive dissonance and instead succumbing to volume of environmental noise and pressure of your contemporaries) pierced tattoo sporting rebellious child of “art” that became instead the ironically normal bastard of spiritual sanctity until displaced by the truly nerdy in a snot sleeved glasses pushing tartan flannel shirt kind of way by the self-awareness of modernist (have I mentioned I’m in therapy?), post-modernist (therapy cures nothing and I need the eggs), and contemporary (without chemicals life itself would be impossible) environment.

Have I mentioned I’m into Techno?

No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.

In addition to inspiring Hitler and Francis Ford Coppola Wagner’s Ring Cycle  embodies every bad thing you’ve ever heard about Opera.

I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.  It smells like… victory.

Anyway, let the fat lady sing and get your sitz on for 15 hours of The Ring.

Das Rheingold

Die Walkure

Siegfried

Gotterdammerung

Oh, Opera not enough for you.  Well Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Arab oil embargo fuels energy crisis; Americans clinch revolutionary victory at Saratoga; Deadly quake hits northern California; Mobster Al Capone convicted of tax evasion; Playwright Arthur Miller born.

Breakfast Food for Thought

Revealed: how Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

The company behind Whisper, the social media app that promises users anonymity and claims to be the “the safest place on the internet”, is tracking the location of its users, including some who have specifically asked not to be followed.

The practice of monitoring the whereabouts of Whisper users – including those who have expressly opted out of geolocation services – will alarm users, who are encouraged to disclose intimate details about their private and professional lives.

Whisper is also sharing information with the US Department of Defense gleaned from smartphones it knows are used from military bases, and developing a version of its app to conform with Chinese censorship laws.

Mussels.

I don’t know how you like them (steamed, melted herbed butter with fresh squeezed lemon juice) but for me the essential ingredient is the mussel which should be fresh and lightly cooked so that the fat orange flesh fills the shell.

Mmm… good eats.

Anyway TMC and I have been on kind of a serial mussel quest where at least one of us will order them as either a main course or an appetizer when we eat at a restaurant that serves them.  What?  It surprises you that living on the East Coast as we do we occasionally get together for a “working dinner” that we can write off against the vast profits our little bloggy empire generates?  Oh, it surprises you we have profits.  Well, I was lying about that.  I’m only interested in the art and I have the bloody earhole to prove it (I’ll need some more Orpiment Theo, the light is perfect).

You can’t take me anywhere though because outside of the vaguely disreputable and repellent air that I cultivate as seriously as any other poet, I like to play restaurant games.

In this particular case we were outside on the deck of our newly discovered mussel shack watching the summertime promenade of perfectly ordinary, unsuspecting individuals pass.  Besides the harbor we had a view of a pocket park the chief point of interest of which was an installation of unique chairs and benches that didn’t look like chairs and benches.  The statue of Baal being recently in the news I noted the chair pictured.

Soon enough the trap was set as a young mother and innocent child entered the park and the energetic not exasperated one started climbing around on the public art.

That was when I announced in my best (and loudest) ‘Joliet’ Jake impression-

“Come, come little girl.  Sit in the lap of Baal.”

So those were my favorite mussels this summer, served in the classic manner and done to perfection though if you insist on Haute cuisine we also had a perfectly acceptable dish served with a shallot, garlic, and wine broth.

Oh, you want Science and Tech with that whine.

Ancient Cult Complex Discovered In Israel Dates Back 3,300 Years, May Be Temple Of Baal

By Dominique Mosbergen, HuffPo

10/15/2014 12:59 pm EDT

Archaeologists working in Israel have discovered an “ancient cult complex,” where people who lived thousands of years ago might have worshipped a Canaanite “storm god” known as Baal.

The complex was unearthed at the archaeological site of Tel Burna, located near the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat. It’s believed to date back 3,300 years.

…

Researchers said the site has already yielded artifacts that seem to confirm the complex’s cultic past. These include enormous jars that may have been used to store tithes, masks that might have been used in ceremonial processions, and burnt animal bones that hint at sacrificial rituals.

Itzhaq Shai, director of the Tel Burna Excavation Project, told Live Science that it wasn’t entirely clear which god the complex was dedicated to. But he called Baal — which ancient Middle Eastern cultures worshipped as a fertility god — the “most likely candidate.”

• Russian Hackers Reportedly Exploited Microsoft Windows Bug To Spy On NATO, Ukraine, Reuters, 10/14/2014 5:59 pm EDT
• Powerful quantum computers move a step closer to reality, Alex Hern, The Guardian, Tuesday 14 October 2014 10.43 EDT
• Lockheed announces breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy, Reuters, Wednesday 15 October 2014 11.57 EDT
• Smell Turns Up in Unexpected Places, By ALEX STONE, The New York Times, OCT. 13, 2014
• How to Make a Black Hole, Dennis Overbye, The New York Times, OCT. 8, 2014 (Autoplay)
• Giant kangaroo weighed 240kg, looked like a rabbit and walked like a human, Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Wednesday 15 October 2014 16.03 EDT
• Viking treasure trove discovered in Scotland, Libby Brooks, The Guardian, Tuesday 14 October 2014 14.27 EDT
• Chemical signal gives melanoma cancer cells a ‘green light’ to spread, Dr Nick Peel, The Guardian, Wednesday 15 October 2014 02.00 EDT
• Stem cell therapy success in treatment of sight loss from macular degeneration, Ian Sample, The Guardian, Tuesday 14 October 2014
• This Is Why We Love To Scare Ourselves Silly, By Macrina Cooper-White, HuffPo, 10/16/14
• NASA Braces For Comet’s Close Encounter With Mars, By Macrina Cooper-White, HuffPo, 10/13/2014 12:56 pm EDT
• Creepy ‘Vampire’ Grave Unearthed In Bulgaria, By Dominique Mosbergen, HuffPo, 10/13/2014 3:20 pm EDT
• Incredibly Rare ‘Beaked Whale’ Washes Ashore In Australia, By Macrina Cooper-White, HuffPo, 10/15/2014 2:59 pm EDT
• Lab-Grown Penises May Show Up Way Sooner Than You Thought, By Ryan Grenoble, HuffPo, 10/09/2014 12:59 pm EDT
• This Step-By-Step Guide Lets You Turn Your Phone Into A Cosmic Ray Detector, By Macrina Cooper-White, HuffPo, 10/11/2014 9:59 am EDT

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

-Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science Oriented Video!

Oblgatories, news, and blogs below.