Grilling High Tech CEO's, medium rare

Congress hauled the CEO's of Google, Apple, Facebook, and a couple of others up in front of a Congressional committee today.  Questioning ran from hard to hostile.  Republicans accuse them of censoring conservative posts and advertisements.  Some Congresscritters want to regulate them.  I doubt that will work.  The only people who really know what the sites will do are the software guys who write the code.  Those people all work for the company management and will conceal anything that management wants concealed, and keep on doing in secret things the regulators want stopped, like gathering user data and selling it.  I don't see how any government regulators could ever understand what was happening and control what is going down.  Those regulators will come to work, put in 8 hours a day, draw their pay, and put out press releases telling how great they are doing, but they won't actually control anything important. 

More effective would be to use the old Sherman Anti-Trust act to break the big boys up into smaller pieces, like they did to Standard Oil better than 100 years ago.  The new pieces would have to compete with each other for users and advertisers.  If users and advertisers want a platform that does not censor them and does not sell their data to other advertisers, such a platform will emerge, rapidly.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle, 1883

This is the Ur-Robin Hood book.  It has all the Robin Hood stories that I ever heard of, Robin Hood’s quarterstaff bout with Little John on a log over a stream, Robin Hood winning the Sheriff’s archery contest, Meeting Friar Tuck, slaying Guy of Gisbourne.  The only story left out is Maid Marion, her name is mentioned once but that’s it.  The language is middle English, thee and thou, everything is merry, withal, and more.  Gives the stories some flavor.  This is a new edition that turned up at the good old Village Bookstore.  We had a copy of this in the family way back when.  I don’t remember (or never knew) what happened to it. 

   The book is a telling of the Robin Hood stories.  It just tells them without any attempt to discuss whether Robin Hood really lived or is he just an English legend.  It doesn’t really matter, the stories are good stories, be they legend or real history. 

The pilots should have gone around.

Pakistani International Airlines crashed an Airbus A320 (flight PK8303) back on 22 May of this year.  The aircrew got out of position on the approach to landing.  They should have gone around again to get themselves at the right altitude, but they did not.  Where they should have been at 3000 feet, they were actually at 7500 feet.  The tower suggested that they go around to loose some altitude but the aircrew did not want to.  They managed to get the plane on the ground, but it was doing 200 miles per hour, a dangerous and ridiculous landing speed for any sort of aircraft, especially a passenger carrying aircraft.  Hot jet fighters have a landing speed of only 180 mph, to land a transport at that speed is very dangerous.  What is worse, for some reason the crew had retracted the landing gear and forgotten about it, so they made a wheels up landing at 200 mph.  After which, the crew decided to try for a go around.  They got the plane back in the air, but the engines had been banged around so hard when the plane landed wheels up that both of them failed.  The plane clobbered into a residential area less than a mile from the airport.  All but two of the 99 passengers and crew died.  One person on the ground was killed too.

   During the investigation following this accident, it was discovered that 262 of Pakistan's licensed airline pilots were flying on bad licenses.  It seems that those 262 pilots had not taken the written exam, but had paid someone else to take the exam for them. 

Is your college offering on-campus instruction this year?

A lot of colleges, many in California, won't open classrooms on campus this fall.  They will expect students to watch videos online, read their textbooks, and absorb the necessary knowledge to pass the tests, assuming they bother to test, sitting at home and web surfing it.  And to pay full tuition for the privilege. 

Was it me, especially if I was an entering freshman, I would opt for an out of college year.  Take a job, enlist in the armed forces, hike the Appalachian trail, work on a ranch, rebuild a classic car, do a winter as a ski bum, ride a bike across the USA, sail around the world, anything rather than pay outrageous tuition for the privilege of watching U-tube videos. 

Assuming you have not sent in the tuition check yet, you can tell the college you are taking an off year, and will be back next year.  And the colleges will have to grin and bear it. 

"Studies" to be required of California Students

The rule of thumb for college students is "avoid any major with "studies" in it's name.  Like gender studies, black studies, ethnic studies, ecology studies, etc, etc, ad nauseum.  Stick with real majors like English, History, Engineering, French, Chemistry, Spanish, Physics, Russian, Business administration, premed.  Even the ultra boring education major, if you can stand the boredom, it will get you a teaching job upon graduation.  Now, in contradiction to years of wisdom, the California legislature wants to require every college student be subjected to a course in "ethnic studies" as a requirement for graduation.

Casablanca Bogart and Bergmann, 1942

Released in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor.  Black and White.  Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, is running a nightspot in Vichy France controlled Morocco.  The Nazi’s are muscling in on this nearly orphaned French colony after they defeated and occupied France in 1940.  Rick’s Café Americain has an American jazz band, brass and piano, fine dining, and casino gambling.  Rick’s place is full of refugees from the Nazi’s all trying to get to America, where the streets are paved with gold, and the Nazi’s cannot reach.  Rick looks all sorts of American, wearing a tan trench coat and a Fedora hat. 

   Into Rick’s café walks Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman, looking like a million dollars.  Ilsa is Rick’s old flame.  They were to flee Paris by train just ahead of the Nazi takeover of Paris.  They were to rendezvous at the railroad station.   Ilsa never shows.  Heartbroken, Rick is dragged on board the train by his trusty retainer and band leader Sam.  When Ilsa arrives at Rick’s café in Morocco she is sporting a tall handsome Resistance hero, Victor Lazlo, as a husband.  For the rest of the movie we watch Rick and Ilsa come to terms with the situation.  We see slippery Vichy chief of police, Captain Louis Renault, played by Claude Rains, maneuver between the Nazis, Vichy France, Rick, Victor Lazlo, and assorted low lifes.  We hear classic movie lines such as “Round up the usual suspects.” and “Play it again Sam.” and “Here’s looking at you Kid.”

  One of the best flicks old Hollywood ever made, a flick for grownups, rather than teenaged boys.  Eighty years have gone by and it still works.  I just finished sorting and inventorying my collection of VHS tapes and decided to watch this classic last night.  My aging VHS player still works. 

New drinkable beer

Great North Aleworks. IPA India Pale Ale  7% alcohol.  Pretty decent.  India ale and beer was originally brewed in England, barreled, and shipped by sailing ship around the Cape of Good Hope to India.  To keep it from spoiling on the long voyage it was brewed with an extra dose of hops.  Modern India ale and beer still has the extra hops, giving it a good strong beer flavor.  Presby's market carries it, in cans, with some kind of high tech six pack yoke made of black plastic.