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Right Angle: Backstage (08-25-2020)

When three massive intellects gather in one small rectangle, the ship of history shakes loose from its moorings and charts a better course toward a hopeful horizon.

When three massive intellects gather in one small rectangle, the ship of history shakes loose from its moorings and charts a better course toward a hopeful horizon. Thank you to our Members who provide the tide.

44 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage (08-25-2020)”

I briefly met Steve Jobs back when I worked for a small software firm using NeXT computers back in the early 90s. Dude definitely had a reality distortion field around him.

Of all the many systems I worked on over my career developing software, NeXT is still my favorite.

BTW, anyone else ever get to work on an Apple Lisa? I got to do that before “GUI” was a recognizable term. That was fun.

Yes, I ‘worked’ briefly on the Apple Lisa, or rather saw engineer-types slobber in joyous delirium over it.
That was back in the day, to make a short story long… I had to take a computer course (programming, Fortran) in college in order to complete my B.S. in Math. It’s the 70’s and I’m floundering after college trying to find a job, not knowing what I’m suited for and what’s suited for me. I finally settle for a clerk/typist job (to get my foot in the door, little did I know it), and suck at it, terribly (those were the days of actual typewriters, where the number of words per minute was clocked, and no mistakes). Luckily, blissfully, my boss saw my potential (I’m not sure where he found it) and started me in on little programming jobs to get my feet wet while he converted me from clerk/typist to Mathematician (see, that gets capitalized!) to computer programmer, which was the going thing back then. One or more of his engineers were working with the very new and exciting Apple Lisa. I didn’t know enough to be excited… but later, Apple II’s came out, then the Macintosh, and to finish off the story, I’ve personally owned nothing but Apple at home ever since. BTW, we also used Xerox machines early on for the pretty stuff, word processing and graphics.

The media and the looters are certainly complicit when the ONLY facts that matter are that the cop was white (lower-case w) and the perp was Black (capital B according to AP style guide).
When you tell Black people that they will be shot by white police no matter what they do, do you think you are encouraging compliance with police directions?

Bill, if you want what appears to be a truly bad shoot, look up Ryan Whitaker in Phoenix. A noise complaint brought Phoenix PD to his home at 1am. Ryan answers the door armed. When he realizes it’s police, he drops to his knees with one hand raised and his other hand is putting the gun on the ground when he is shot.
You don’t hear about that one because Ryan was white.

Reference my two previous posts, the police just announced that he admitted to having a knife and that one was found in the car!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bill, you have to watch coming to conclusions this fast. You stated that he got back into his car and was sitting in it when he was shot. That is not true. He reached into his car like he was retrieving something and the cop yelled knife, knife, knife. He did not try to enter like he was sitting down, he reached in to get sdomething.
The officer was pulling on the back of his shirt to try and stop him. The man had already been taised and got up from that. He was a wrestler and strong.
You are very smart and able to figure things out just fine, but you are not waiting for all of the information.
As an ex-cop myself, I may not have shot him yet, but I also might have. If he were to retreve a gun or knife, he could have stabbed or shot the officer before the officer could stop him.

Yes, your description is accurate. He didn’t open the door and get into the seat. He leaned in like he was going to retrieve something on the floor or under the seat or center console. There has yet to be a confirmation of whether there was a weapon of any sort in the car. The shooting was preceded by a vigorous struggle near the vehicle on the passenger side, with Blake extracting himself and walking around the front and opening the door with his back to the officer(s). It wasn’t clear at what point Blake was tazered. What is clear though is that he was not there to “break up a fight”, he was the cause of the fight and a participant. The police were called to intervene and stop him.

Exactly! Police departments are, pardon the pun, shooting themselves in the foot on these because they hold back information. They should give all the info they have, stating that it is subject to change later.
I do not understand Bill jumping in on these without his usual deep investigation, as he did this on another shooting recently. After doing real research on stories like Travon Martin, Michael Brown and many others, he just seemed to look at a quick video on this and let his emotions cloud the picture. The suspect was not sitting in his car and shot in the back! Lol
Come on Bill, research the story a bit, then be our pundit.

Police were called to the scene because Blake was causing trouble and were told there was a warrant out for his arrest. The individual who needed to de-escalate the situation was Blake. All he had to do was comply with officer instructions.
Wait for the facts, Bill!

In this case it wasn’t the police holding back information, it was the attorney general, who was charged by the governor to take over the prosecution. He attempted to withhold the body camera evidence and much more until the trial. He is still withholding information. The Mn attorney general is Keith Ellison – need I say more.

Extremists generally don’t have any friends but other extremists. They get caught in a positive feedback loop among themselves and convince themselves that everyone, or a preponderance of everyone, thinks like they do and everyone else is just too cowardly or stupid to say anything. This is a well known phenomena that is part of FBI and other organizational training on dealing with domestic terrorism (the real kind, not the made-up kind about all former military service members being potential terrorists.)

So when something like George Floyd’s death happens there are people who believe that is the “spark” needed to ignite the nation in revolution. They’re wrong about this because it’s not and never has been. It’s simply a criminal act that most Americans disapprove of and we’re not likely to burn down our country over it.

Not very long after the Murrah building bombing in Oklahoma City I was sitting in a bar in Arizona talking to a guy. He seemed like a normal enough sort and as the Oklahoma City bombing was in the news our conversation eventually meandered around to that topic.

The guy who seemed so “normal” adamantly took the position that the bombing was the “spark” that was going to set off a revolution. He was dead serious too. He felt strongly that McVeigh and Nichols were Patriotic Heroes who would go down in the history books as great men. I’m not joking here.

I pointed out to him that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were nothing more than run-of-the-mill nutcases who managed to pull off a fairly large criminal act and that was the way the vast majority of Americans see them — and how they would be viewed by history. I said they were cold-blooded murderers who blew up a building with kids in it, a building full of people who had little to nothing to do with their perceived grievances. I pointed out that made them the opposite of heroes and great men and my view was the view of the majority of our fellow countrymen.

The guy didn’t get upset. He just figured that I was either too stupid or too scared to outright agree with him and that with sufficient persuasion and evidence I would change my mind. He did not and could not see that his position was foaming-at-the-mouth dog-nuts crazy.

I’m telling this story so people will understand the mentality that was triggered to violence behind the death of George Floyd. Many of the people responsible for the recent violent, destructive riots believe that they’re the vanguard of the “new revolution” and think they must keep those riot fires burning to succeed. Many who participate in the violent destructive riots are there merely because they like being violently destructive. Either way, they’re all genuine criminals and that is the way the history books will record them.

As a footnote — I’m just guessing here because it’s been a very long time since I did any sort of active opposition to this kind of stuff but … I’m reasonably certain that those who are provoking and abetting actual violence, who also happen to be the most likely ideological actors, are fairly well infiltrated by now and having their pieces quietly removed from the chessboard. All according to our laws of course. One thing that was drummed into me over years and various capacities is that the good guys follow the rules and the bad guys do not. If you don’t follow the rules that makes you one of the bad guys, no matter what rationale you apply. You don’t get to change or make up the rules as you go along. Something that James Comey and his contemporaries clearly forgot.

For the GUI and the concept of mouse-move cursor-something happens, we can really thank Alan Kay of Xerox Parc fame. My favorite tech quote came from Alan, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”.

Imagine, waiting for a full context investigation before a rush to judgment. Imagine the MSM actually waiting. Imagine the Democrats waiting for the full investigation before blaming Trump. Imagine Justice front and center. Then take a look at the world we are actually living in. Does it match what you imagined?

Alice’s Through the Looking Glass is a closer fit.

No matter what, this won’t end well.

Bill, Have you seen the new video of the shooting in Kenosha where the cops were wrestling with the perpetrator before he got up to go to his car? Did you also know about the warrants for the man and his record of altercations with police?

Since this episode was filmed, I’ve seen the enlarged and enhanced video of the Kenosha shooting. He wasn’t getting into his car. He was leaned over, reaching under the seat. There has been no mention of whether a gun was found, but that doesn’t matter.
The police officers involved had every reason to believe -based on his history- that he was retrieving a weapon!
He had thrown off 4 officers trying to restrain him, and was ignoring their commands to surrender.
IANAL, IMHO, etc, but I think the shooting was justified. As always, there is more to the story, and that will be determined by the professionals.
In the mean time, the response on the streets of Kenosha is tragic and wrong. This cannot end well.

Phil, it hasn’t ended yet, but it isn’t going well. Two dead because of the riots, more injured and significant property damage.
And the 17-year old that did the shooting–self defense or not, is in huge trouble. He’s underage, with a gun in a state he is not a resident of . . . it just keeps getting bad.

We should take bets as to what headlines from PJ Steve will pull for the lightning round.
My guesses: KFC no longer Finger Lickin’, CNN changing the Chyron mid feed to eliminate the word violent, Herschel Walker and other black men at the RNC get Uncle Tom trending, FB using a photo of Kevin Hart in a story about Usain Bolt testing positive for Covid-19.

I’ve always wanted to see that episode of ST: Next Generation, where faced w/ an unpleasant reality, Picard gets up on his high horse and speachafies about doing what is right. Then, instead of the intrepid crew of the Enterprise somehow pulling a rabbit outta their hat, they fail completely. The people who had no hope of survival die anyway. The Enterprise is horribly damaged, killing crew and civilians alike, and Picard’s actions really tick-off some god-like alien.
That ep where Worf let the Romulan die brought joy to my cold dead heart.

Their women? Who are they? The Dems are the single women and minorities party. Married women vote Republican

Don’t forget to add the women “wanna bes” to that list. It’s a small bunch, but very lour.

The Kenosha cops were originally responding to a domestic violence call against the guy they shot, wouldn’t the cops be obligated to stop the guy trying to flee in his car (discounting the weapons possibility) since the kids being in the car would make it a kidnapping? After all, the lion’s share of child abductions are committed by one of the parents. What responsibility do the cops have to stop a person, a suspect of DV w/ a violent felony warrant, to flee w/ small children in his custody?

The police would be justified in shooting him for no other reason than to prevent him fleeing with young children in the vehicle he was using to flee. Had they let him drive off in the car with those kids and one of the kids died as a result of the pursuit there would have been hell to pay … and the cops would have been wrong in allowing that to happen, too. As it was, viewing the video, I think the cops showed excessive self-restraint in even letting him get to that vehicle.

What I heard more recently (and probably 4th or 5th hand) was he was “in the middle” of a current and ex girl friend that were in a fight. I would guess, if the reports were correct that the kids AND woman were in the car, that he and one girl were dropping off or picking up the kids from their mother (who I would guess is the ex). The police on scene may or may not know that, since I don’t know how long they were there or what they learned.
My verdict on the situation is all of that aside, if you turn your back on the police, refuse to follow their orders and do anything but walk calmly down the street with an announced intention of walking to (some specified location) you are likely to get shot, whether there is a gun under the seat or not.

Being just a little bit GAFy (Goth as…), all this “dark” and “funeral” talk is making me hopeful for the next 4 years. I’m just gonna crank some Type O Negative.

I agree w/ you re: lawn mowing IF you’re talking about those big ole industrial riders that lawn services use. But consumer grade lawn mowers just give me a warm fuzzy “sounds of suburbia” feeling.

The Democrats have invested heavily in public unrest and violence as a justification for their draconian public positions in spite of the damage the Dems are waking up to the foolishness of this position.

Also, (since Bill will focus on the media treatment this won’t be part of the show) there is a lot of suspicion that the looters and vandals came up to Kenosha from Chicago, which is about an hour south.

Regarding Kenosha (about an hour from me) maybe the other cities aren’t burning because they are all burned down?
It was nice to hear the family, during their press conference on Tuesday, tell people to be peaceful and not burn or loot. They also yapped about humanity and treating their poor child as a human, ignoring the jump to conclusions accusations they themselves were hurling at the officers.

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