31 December 2016

More than six months since the Taste of Reston event, I have found no occasion to ride the Fairfax Connector in the meantime and so, no use for the free passes I got that day. The passes expired today.

Morgan Richter is taking the week off so this is a good time to catch up with a The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie courtesy of a DVD set I was recently loaned. The case warns that the enclosed disc may not play back in recorders or PC drives but my LG Super Multi DVD Writer GH24NSC0 handled it without issues. The disc isn’t closed captioned, boo. The Spy With My Face is an expanded version of “The Double Affair” which I analyzed back when I didn’t know to include the time of the screen capture in the filename. I’ve tried to find all of the same frames that I found interesting before, regarding eye locking, head turning, smirking, when the cigarette girl passes by, he can keep his balance, a narrowbody United jet, compact four-door sedan, TWA, Pan American, final drive, pass through a familiar tunnel, Illya hotwires, Serena, the framing between the versions is slightly different. The movie begins with the assault on the house that would later be the concluding set piece of “The Four-Steps Affair” (previously), the establishment of a Thrush agent and his training and refinement into a double of Napoleon Solo follow (conveniently, these scenes also explain U.N.C.L.E. and its operations for the movie-going audience). Among the scenes added is one with the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters receptionist in a blouse the color of orange sherbet, where she must endure Napoleon reading off the names of the women who have called and left messages. Solo calls a stewardess of his acquaintance and her roommate Taffy (Jennifer Billingsley, she was 22) answers, he makes a dinner date with Sandy (Sharon Farrell, she was 23). Mr. Alexander Waverly promptly assigns Napoleon to work on the captured documents and as the evening wears on there is no end to the project and the stood-up Sandy lounges on her couch provocatively. Illya Kuryakin is way ahead of his friend and is willing to complete the project without further assistance and even spot him some U.S. currency. The added scenes continue with Sandy in a bra and half-slip, Solo breaks in for some canoodling, the inflatable clown was bugged. We rejoin the episode in progress with the attack of the toy robots. Senta Berger was also 23 years old! Solo and Serena interrupt their kissing to get naked, the presence of a handgun allows a turn of phrase. The episode returns with the arrival of the double. The fall of the real Solo into the arms of a woman (Donna Michelle, she was 18 when the scenes were filmed) is smuttier in the movie. The addition of Kittridge in Waverly’s office positively identifies his origin as Australia, Mr. Waverly is not amused. On the flight to Europe, the double kills Kittridge, Illya plants a card in the man’s wallet. An extension of the stock footage of a Pan American flight shows it to be N707PA, there’s an NTSB report from June of 1962 of an encounter over Puerto Rico with two military aircraft. There are more added scenes as Kuryakin of the computers-keep-me-warm persuasion asks stewardess Taffy out for drinks, and Illya uses the card he planted to leave the dead agent as Taffy and Sandy’s problem. Taffy said yes, though, and later they chat in the inn’s lounge with increasing libidinousness. The double tries to move on Serena in the steam room, but she is not interested in this substitute and his inadequacies. Even Kuryakin has figured it out by now, but the Thrush operatives leave Illya to broil, Taffy saves him. I have an idea that “school bus” has a Dodge Power Wagon front. For the second time, the real Solo falls into the arms of a woman. U.N.C.L.E. agents tolerate their colleague kissing a Thrush agent and then kissing the innocent, but Kuryakin has spent enough time thinking and planning and he must now act and Illya walks away with Taffy.

Of all my purchases of Star Trek landing party accessories over the decades, most are oversize, the closest to the products of The Wand Company were those from Diamond Select Toys, although the curve in the ribs of their phaser type 2 was never satisfactory, and their communicator is porcine in comparative thickness.

30 December 2016

22 million households still resist: Not Everyone Wants to Shop on Amazon (via).

I’ve been automating typographic quotation marks for at least 11 years and have U+201C and U+201D memorized by now: Has the Internet Killed Curly Quotes? (via).

There was one mention of an A-mount lens that wasn’t of the APS-C variety. At some point, Sony will realize that sending me mail like the “2016 Holiday Gift Guide” will not pay off for the company.

29 December 2016

So many words for a few seconds of video: The Virginia Avenue Tunnel is halfway finished, meaning bigger freight trains can now pass through DC. The work started last year in May.

Medium Cool: An Interview with Actress Marianna Hill (via). The long blog post about her extended family and careers as actor and teacher has no screen capture from the “Breath of Steele” episode of Remington Steele which was edited for DVD because of music copyrights. The disc itself is old fashioned in having both “subtitles” and closed captioning on line 21, VLC had difficulty with the signal but this capture is completely spelled out.

It may have looked like snow, but… the transformation of the “Trade Center Shopping Village” (seriously, Shary Thur and her associates need to look at the pylon sign on site) into the West End Shopping Center calls for gluing panels of foam to the facades, the kind that disintegrates on the slightest provocation into small particles. The former site of the post office remains unoccupied 2½ years after the move.

28 December 2016

There’s skepticism in my News Feed, but Tanjug is the first to believe in my time line: Ana Ivanović završila igračku karijeru (via). Serbia’s national broadcaster squashes the aspect ratio of her Facebook Live announcement of retiring from professional tennis.

When I first checked the comments for mention of the Bone Fone, no other reader of The Verge was old enough to remember: LG loves neckbuds so much it made a neck speaker. By 1982, the JS&A Group was struggling but Joseph Sugarman never really went away.

It is also a fact that I did not possess the Star Trek Original Series Phaser Universal Remote Control. The route from Crozet to Staunton to Lewisberry, Pennsylvania to Lorton seems a bit of a spiral approach to delivery…

27 December 2016

The construction at the corner of Duke and N. Paxton is but one of nineteen sites in the citywide bus stop shelter improvement project.

Death Probe Part II offers more of the same thrills seen and heard in the previous episode: a Soviet planetary explorer tearing through “Wyoming,” Army guys driving around in mismatched vehicles, Col. Steve Austin battling the more powerful machine, and the presence of a medic with attitude. John de Lancie gets a “with” in the end credits, and his dramatic swoon upon seeing the bionics where the probe has damaged Austin’s arm deserves nothing less. “The probe travels in a preset pattern as I told you.” Tensions rise as the probe’s expected course threatens populated areas and a dam, the drop of an explosive from a helicopter to create a fireball with a high temperature fails to have any discernable effect and the lander continues its course. Oscar Goldman orders the evacuation of Eagle Lake and from somewhere comes footage of families getting on a U.S. Air Force bus and a C-130 plane (including 63-7860 taking off, this was delivered in 1964 and reached Davis-Monthan in 2007). Irina Leonova (Jane Merrow) is feeling a little guilty at the problems caused by her construction and its programming, she idly wonders what might have happened between them if Steve wasn’t an American colonel and she wasn’t a Soviet captain—the recovery of Popov (Nehemiah Persoff) lets Steve postpone any answer. Popov dawdles on taking aim while Steve attempts to draw out the probe into a clearing, but the wire-guided missile with the same alloy in its nose is ultimately no more effective against the probe than the explosive was. Dr. Rudy Wells arrives to patch Steve’s arm, and his chatter prompts Steve to develop a theory about the probe’s internal pressure which doesn’t withstand any scrutiny. He’s seen a threaded socket on the top of the probe, Leonova says it’s for a loading ring (she means an eye bolt and says it should be 12 centimeters in diameter, the delivered rod is barely 3 cm in diameter, the uncredited Army man says it’s threaded to 12 centimeters but that’s also dubious). The closed captioning says “(ROMANTIC MUSIC)” and Steve will indulge one smooch. Austin climbs into the yellow-painted Bell 204B N1WA from Wright Airlift International, it crashed 6 years later with a subsequent fire with 2 occupants aboard, but no fatalities resulted. The probe is going in circles in the spillway, Steve sets the “jury-rigged” helicopter to hover, and lowers himself to the level of the probe. The probe deploys its arm and circular saw, eventually Steve succeeds in threading the bolt and securing the hook against the power of the helicopter’s engine but in his climb back his bionic arm gives out. Setting the helicopter to climb, Steve struggles to put on a parachute as observers expect the probe to explode at any moment. There’s some suspense when the probe does explode and Oscar comforts Irina, then the parachute is spotted. Later that evening, Irina has found a red dress to wear with a pair of black heels while enjoying the company of the American colonel. When Oscar arranges the flight back to the Soviet Union for tomorrow, it’s entirely possible that Irina has plans for the rest of the night.

MetaFilter found the normal-speed version of the video about driving through 240+ green lights in Manhattan (via) and there is no honking (previously). SeaMonkey 2.46 can do full-screen HTML5 video playback, woo.

26 December 2016

Whatever your condition, it could be worse: a third of those over 65 in rural Serbia still have a dirt floor, among other indignities (via). The oldest daily newspaper in the Balkans does not link to the Red Cross of Serbia or the Commissioner for Protection of Equality (which also has an English-language version of the presentation’s announcement, Older People in Rural Areas).

The blog of the local blogger has been quiet for 2 months, the Twitter account again a parade of quotes and bot-like thank-yous, but accounts on Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook remain semi-active. The Google+ account is gone.

WAMU.org can calm down (previously), SeaMonkey 2.46 is released! The browser reports itself as Firefox 49.0, from September, the release that abandoned Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion. The search button has lost its icon, otherwise a mixed bag: SeaMonkey 2.46 is the first version which bundles the Firefox developer tools… The option to ask about cookies was removed from the Mozilla backend code.

25 December 2016

When the work relies on LaserDisc and MS-DOS and other stuff from 20+ years ago, what’s a museum to do? Art In the Age of Obsolescence.

Twitter might insist that Summary Card with Large Image should point to A URL to a unique image representing the content of the page but that’s not what I implemented at WamaLTC and The History of Wamalug at its Original URL, I feel better seeing multiple accounts in my timeline that don’t heed the admonition that You should not use a generic image such as your website logo, author photo, or other image that spans multiple pages.

The system and its culture was built during the cold war, focused on rapid translation between order and execution. Cheery thoughts from The President and the Bomb: Redux (via).

24 December 2016

I explained a local news story in stop-motion Legos. Here’s how (via) relates how an animated feature at a Florida newspaper was made: How the plan to fix Tampa Bay’s most important bridge fell apart, told in Legos (via).

The Bureau of Indian Affairs doesn’t have any of its regional offices in New York City now, and it probably didn’t back in 1966, either, but this didn’t stop the sign painters on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Indian Affairs Affair”. Before the teaser is done, the wooden sculpture in front of the office will be used as a disguise to follow Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin will demonstrate his in-depth knowledge of the indigenous peoples and their practices, attacks will come by flaming arrow and thrown blade, a battered 1956 Buick Special Convertible Coupe will burn, and a message will be sent using smoke. The last episode of the second season is generally considered a very low point (second opinion, third opinion, fourth opinion) although it does offer something for fans of men in bondage. Sharyn Hillyer as Wanda is an authentic connection to Star Trek, all roles by “pedestrian” Tom Curtis in that series went uncredited. Mr. Alexander Waverly interrupts Napoleon’s spin on the morning’s events—which Wanda might not have bought in full—and passes on a report that a Thrush nuclear expert has entered the Cardiak Indian Reservation outside of Oklahoma City where Chief Highcloud has gone missing. Kuryakin is ordered to Oklahoma, while Solo is assigned to find the daughter of the Chief. Thrush’s top man in Oklahoma, L. C. Carson (Joe Mantell, he was 50), is nursing a multi-generational grudge against the native population, the abducted Chief (Ted de Corsia) is not cooperative. Napoleon finds Charisma Highcloud (Angela Dorian, she was 21) dancing on stage, and he likes what he sees. (The dancer on stage in “Western” costume does not get a credit.) Charisma is suspicious of the secret agent’s motives, but the driver of the 1963 GM ‘New Look’ gasses everybody at the bus stop and she is abducted and brought blindfolded and screaming to Oklahoma in a 1966 Imperial Crown four-door hardtop. Once they’re inside the standard-issue MGM mansion, she has questions and Carson genially answers them but a reunion is not happy. Outside, Solo listens in from what I think is the silver 1966 Dodge Charger. In the time that Charisma and Napoleon have taken to get to Oklahoma, Illya is only now approaching the reservation’s border in a 1948 Dodge B-series pickup truck from the Tulsa office, he has… doubts about Solo’s actions so far. Kuryakin is captured by locals on motorcycles (specifically the 1967 Honda CL 77), Charisma attempts a reconciliation, Napoleon uses a communicator dart, he will not be hearing from Illya soon. Dr. Yahama (Richard Loo) remains entertained as he waits in a shack for couriers from four countries, and Kuryakin is now “disguised” as he proceeds with the plan that got him unbound. Waverly executes the shrug. Solo fights a Thrush cowboy, the Highclouds are fairly certain they’ve never seen this guy before, but they roll with Illya’s gestural language. Carson humiliates and assaults Charisma, she defends herself with thrown bottles and books but neglects the fireplace tools. Napoleon jumps through a window and joins the fight but they give up easily in the face of one Thrush rifle. The next morning finds the four in bondage and Solo looks for dancing music on the radio to get Charisma wiggling (Kuryakin likes what he sees). Carson tells Frank (Nick Colasanto) to burn down the mansion with the captives inside. At the shack, a mix of four 1961 Jeep CJ-5 ‘Tuxedo Park’ and one Jeep CJ-6 show up (A Brief History of the “Tuxedo Park”). From the boxes delivered by the four Thrush couriers, Dr. Yahama assembles what he calls a transistorized hydrogen bomb—it blatantly has at least 2 tubes. Napoleon knocks out Frank and locks the cowboys in the back of the truck, Illya really does say zed. Carson explains the four briefcases and the caravan sets off, Carson sees an attack in the making. Kuryakin drives and Solo stands in a 1962 Land Rover 88″ Series IIa as they’re joined by other men of the Cardiak nation. The Imperial handles off-road just fine. Carson orders the Jeeps to form a circle around the Imperial, but this will not save Thrush today. Napoleon shoots open the briefcases, confident that Carson has kept the bomb for himself. Waverly arrives in his own Imperial, I assume, and assures the agents that Dr. Yahama has surrendered the bomb to U.N.C.L.E., also he says something snippy about Illya’s attire. Faced with Charisma’s wish to return to New York, her father advises her to marry within her ethnicity, and the episode ends on an ambiguous note—did she think her father meant the mystery man “Little Beaver”? Kuryakin will not be marrying anyone just yet.

The soundtrack does not include any honking at pedestrians still in the crosswalk, because this guy driving through Manhattan isn’t stopping for green lights: NOAH 240 (via).

23 December 2016

T is for “Thanks.”

As of version 6.0.8, the AMC Theatres app has “Added ticket stubs to My Tickets” but… the restored feature has some teething problems. The assignment of thumbnails is haphazard, and the presentation oddly starts with the oldest ticket it can find (from 2011, I saw Cars 2 a year after Toy Story 3 with no visits in between). Meanwhile, the company has been acquiring: AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Carmike Cinemas, Inc., Becomes Largest U.S. Movie Exhibitor and AMC Theatres Becomes Largest Movie Exhibitor in Europe and the World Completing the Acquisition of Odeon & UCI Cinemas Holdings Ltd.

What’s good for people of other countries… Public Law 114-281 has yet to show up at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom authorizing legislation & amendments page, but the International Religious Freedom Act was amended a week ago to state in the congressional findings that the freedom of thought and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs as well as the right not to profess or practice any religion.

22 December 2016

Serbia in the news again: Russia arms Serbia amid tensions with NATO.

I’ve figured out what House #6 at the AMC Hoffman Center 22 has become: “The Total Cinema Experience” of Dolby Cinema at AMC. A “Signature Entrance” , lasers, and soundtrack-transducing seats are a part of it. This week, Rogue One has received the color grading necessary to support the high-contrast projection. All presentations are in 2D to support an asserted maximum highlight brightness of 30 ft-L.

From last year: The Woman Inventor Behind “Monopoly”.

21 December 2016

The alleged confusion could be addressed by insisting on the adjective bovine like The Star Trek Encyclopedia does: Soy, Almond, Coconut: If It’s Not From A Cow, Can You Legally Call It Milk?

When Susan reads the proof of her ex-husband’s new novel Nocturnal Animals, the dramatization of the car used in the ill-fated family journey does not match, in sound or in dynamics, its on-screen identity as a Mercedes-Benz 240D.

I went to some effort to create an angled doorway in my new Patient First construction—and in the CVS/pharmacy before that—so NOW the construction toy company makes a dedicated part and includes it in an expensive upcoming set: LEGO’s biggest modular yet: 10255 Assembly Square [Review] (via).

20 December 2016

That’s still not close enough to sway my loyalty (card): Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Announces New Theater In Northeast.

A fast-moving object entering U.S. airspace calls for the scrambling of stock footage of interceptors—a pair of F-4 Phantom II fighters—and a 3 a.m. call from Oscar Goldman to Col. Steve Austin, Steve does not wear a top to bed. Meanwhile, at a Soviet missile farm, a decorated military officer (Phillip Pine) hassles the female operator receiving reports on the CRT in English, she tells him that the probe has landed in the United States, in northern Wyoming actually, she is not credited even though she speaks. (The coordinates on screen need a minus sign to resolve but there’s no reason to believe the production traveled to Basin, Wyoming.) Some of the animals on a farm in that area are agitated, then with a rumbling the Death Probe appears! The device crashes through a fence and takes no heed of shotgun blasts, it uses a manipulative arm to bend the firearm and the farmer Zack Meesham (Don Dubbins) is ready to drive away in his Chevrolet Cheyenne 20 pickup when the device turns and heads north. Have you looked at the sky lately? Soviet agents in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Vancouver are activated by coded telephone calls. The production does not credit Joanie, a fashion model who would be worried about a mole, not mold. (Cindy Crawford was not yet 10 in 1977 and not removing her mole was still in the future.) The sleeper agent has a variety of cameras slung around his neck. The three agents converge on the “Eagle City Inn” in “Wyoming” riding in a post-1972 Dodge Dart Custom taxi. Oscar and Steve leave Washington, but the three agents have already reached farmer Meesham and indulged his tale of a Monster from Mars. They report to another man back at the inn, he’s accompanied by a serious brunette in a taupe jumpsuit and black mock turtleneck. Oscar drives a 1977 Ford LTD station wagon in U.S. Air Force blue with no wheel coverings and no roof rack—maybe the production was trying to fake a lower trim that didn’t exist that model year—aware that they’ve been preceded to the farm by someone posing as Mr. Oscar Goldman of the O.S.I. They listen to an agent repeat the farmer’s story not knowing the real farmer has been tied up out back until Steve starts really looking at the man’s accessories and realizes he’s an impostor! The agent with alligator boots (Ryan MacDonald) takes poison upon capture, and while Steve is able to get the capsule out of the man’s mouth, the agent is no good for interrogation and he’s taken away in a 1964 Cadillac ambulance (perhaps this one used on Kojak). The other two agents try to set a trap with their Buick Skylark coupe (maybe another veteran of Kojak), but Oscar is tired of their game—he pulls a snub-nosed revolver on the woman! Beverly Garland as “The Secretary” was sufficiently well-known to get an “and” credit at the top of the episode but she was posing as a reporter with the farmer, she was a secretary at her job in Chicago. It’s Steve’s idea that Oscar climb over the fence and try to avoid getting shot, Goldman is dubious but he heads into the field anyway. Steve takes a wheel cover and tosses it Frisbee-style (possibly as an homage to amateur UFO pics of the time) and disables the man “Mechanic” (Bill Fletcher), the agents are taken into custody and their access to poison is denied. The sheriff of “Radley County” (Ross Elliott) has a 1974 Dodge Coronet, he’s been very confused by the burst of activity in the locality, also he says farmer Zack has been found. The production does not credit the inn’s housekeeping staff startled by the sudden entry of Oscar and his posse (including General Wiley, Walter Brooke), she also speaks. Oscar is mad at missing the other Russians but trusts the room telephone anyway, he calls the unseen Secretary—his superior, that is—to ask for diplomatic channels to be pressed with the Soviets regarding the activities of their agents. Steve shrugs when asked if the device is dangerous. Top agent Popov (Nehemiah Persoff) is riding with the still serious woman driving a Jeep CJ-5 in the woods, Irina Leonova (Jane Merrow, she was 35) is tracking the probe she’d built, it was intended for a mission to Venus. The equipment she’s using has little labels in Cyrillic stuck on, a tiny attempt at verisimilitude I might not have expected. Popov explains that her failure to transmit a signal to shut down the lander—which is reacting defensively as if encountering the worst of conditions on Venus—means he will have to employ the contents of a locked box to destroy it so that Americans are denied the knowledge of the hardy new alloy used in its construction. The Army search is under the command of a captain (Austin Stoker) and is conducted with a nine-slot Jeep, a CJ-5 in olive drab, and stock footage of a Bell UH-1. Actually, Oscar says “All right, get outta here” for Steve to start his own search, and Steve responds with “It’s nice to be appreciated. ” Popov is knocked out by the probe and didn’t have a chance of using what Irina presumes is a missile that can take out a city block. Steve remembers Irina from their previous meeting in a first season episode nearly 3 years earlier, no effects are used for the flashback, Oscar remembers her, too. Steve and Oscar are very solicitous of Irina’s condition, look who’s getting a neck massage. The second time through, there was something about that voice… the production does not credit the medic who reports Popov’s condition, but it must be John de Lancie. Steve chases after the device through the California landscape passing for Wyoming, and lobs big rocks at it, but the device is designed for conditions on the Venusian surface, and the fight does not go well for Steve. To be continued… and then they have to identify on which program. Jane Merrow has a YouTube channel where she shares a clip from the episode. I don’t remember the episode, but the production design of the Venus lander—built atop a 6-wheel ATV like this one, perhaps—and the menacing sound would have been very impressive for the younger audience at the time.

Artificial intelligence is going to make it easier than ever to fake images and video while Machine Learning Has Transformed Google Translate.

19 December 2016

That makes a second person to express mild surprise that I do not already possess a Star Trek The Original Series Communicator Bluetooth Handset, hm. I haven’t bought any Star Trek stamps, either.

Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates for Medicare Patients Treated by Male vs Female Physicians (via).

I should be more confident about this polybagged processed food: “Product of USA, Tunisia, or Pakistan.” Bad things can happen on U.S. farms, too, but you wouldn’t know it from How are Dates Grown?

18 December 2016

Fairfax County is the first local jurisdiction I’ve noticed to benefit from what appears to be an ongoing statewide project by VDOT: Retroreflective Borders on Traffic Signal Backplates – A South Carolina Success Story.

One speculation about the in-universe purpose for the detail on the studio model (via) of the Enterprise is the “ion pod” mentioned in the “Court Martial” episode. The word that students of the model use for the detail has a rude meaning.

The movie features very pretty people in a science-fictiony setting, but Passengers is inciting spoilers at The Verge (Passengers is the new Titanic, but way worse) and at Vulture (Wait, Passengers Is About What?).

17 December 2016

Fourteen adults made it to the Wamalug meeting today, but elsewhere… First winter storm wreaks havoc across Baltimore region, with deadly 67-vehicle pileup on Interstate 95 and I-495 Death Saturday: Police Say Man Killed After Walking Away from 23-Vehicle Crash.

Illya Kuryakin drives a 1964 Sunbeam Tiger Series 1 hard in pursuit of a 1961 Jaguar XK-E Series 1 through the California hills—did they really use just one white stripe to separate directions in 1966?—but as day turns into night a stone marked “INGOLSTEIN 55KM” is missed… aaaand we must be in “Europe.” (Capitalizing the letters in the symbol for kilometer is an error on the part of the production.) The recap of the late second-season episode at The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Round Table Affair” has more patience with the sitcommy plot than I do, but Ingolstein is a small country that’s become a haven for many big criminals, and Illya’s driving through the gate and knocking over the statue of Saint George has landed him in trouble while his quarry is protected. Kuryakin is assumed to be “American” perhaps because the Cold War or any of its ramifications do not exist in the series. It’s a funny sort of city jail that allows Illya to retain his communicator and possess binoculars. Mr. Alexander Waverly specifies full diplomatic kit with striped trousers for Napoleon Solo, who heads to “A Convent near PARIS, FRANCE” where he interrupts the field hockey game—or maybe it was more of a fight—that duchess Victoria (Valora Noland, she was 24, but her character must be much younger if there’s a regent) is playing and informs her that her uncle Prince Fredrick (Reginald Gardiner, he was 62, a veteran of nearly forty years in the business) has let his expensive tastes bankrupt the country and allowed the criminals a sanctuary there. The jailed Kuryakin cautiously expresses a reciprocal wish for proximity with agent Linda. The Internet Movie Car Database missed it: Napoleon drives a Mercedes-Benz 220SE cabriolet to Ingolstein (again, the headlights betray the U.S. model, maybe it’s this one). Vicky wore her leg and knee protection all the way from Paris?! Points for her character’s determination to return at once, I guess. Victoria wishes to set things right but her decision won’t sit well with the criminal types. Solo is cheeky and not quite clear on why Illya should want to leave his cell. Prince Fredrick has a specific message for the duchess and for any unmarried woman in a bad situation. The criminals releasing Kuryakin and Napoleon from the armoire. The town crier announces the impending wedding and Mr. Waverly is not impressed—his agents have failed again—and he orders the marriage be stopped. Illya has to explain to Solo that by “babe” he means the “small kind, you know, three weeks old, with a weeping mother.” Napoleon’s first thought was about the, ah, larger kind of babe. Hijinks ensue with a semi-secret tunnel, a sword in stone, improbable love, kidnapping, a new suitor, an armored challenger, a swordfight, a flail fight (a potentially apocryphal weapon, more at The Curious Case of the Weapon that Didn’t Exist (via)), and a winner, time for a new hat and some beer. The short bus with the snout of a Dodge Power Wagon is a well-used 1946 model with a Gillig body, it turns out.

Ford is discontinuing most of its model-specific Twitter accounts next Friday and consolidating on @Ford.

16 December 2016

P-39 hit and killed crossing freeway.

A Wamalug meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, what the weather will bring, though…

LEAVE HILARY DUFF ALONE!

15 December 2016

The incident was actually back in 2013: Yahoo admits it’s been hacked again, and 1 billion accounts were exposed.

“What happens to people who die with no next of kin?” An unflinching look—that is to say, with dead bodies on screen—at the answer for Los Angeles in the late nineties: A Certain Kind Of Death - Documentary (via).

Justin Long did not know that Herbie Fully Loaded actually paid off for him: An oral history of ‘Get a Mac,’ Part 1 (via (via)), there’s also a Part 2.

14 December 2016

The sign at the door of House #6 at AMC Hoffman Center 22 says it’s the subject of “testing,” hm.

The website of NEXTEP SYSTEMS has nothing to say about the operating system driving the branded self-order kiosk at a local grocery retailer. I’m thinking Windows Server 2008 R2 as released in 2009, but the Start button looked much the same in Windows Server 2003. A stock install couldn’t be anything later because Windows Server 2012 took on the appearance used in Windows 8, and Windows Server 2016 has the look of Windows 10.

Fairfax County will get to spot out-of-service ART buses someday: Arlington to Buy Springfield Site for Bus Heavy Maintenance Facility (via).

13 December 2016

At long last, the “Face Palm” emoji, U+1F926 (via, Gruber was waiting for U+1F943, “Tumbler Glass”).

With a font inspired by MICR for the episode’s title and opening credits accompanied by computer-y chittering, The Ultimate Imposter is already different. Surrounded by fine computer equipment like the ADDS Consul 580 terminal which—spoiler alert—is already transmitting TECHNIQUE OF MIXING INKS FOR INTAGLIO PRINTING OF CURRENCY, Joe Patton (Stephen Macht, he was 34) is the subject of yet another experiment by Dr. Rudy Wells. Perhaps inspired by an episode of The Prisoner from a decade earlier, the multi-talented medical professional is attempting to demonstrate direct transmission of knowledge from a computer into Joe’s brain, but the results so far have been sporadic and the team fears Oscar Goldman will cancel the project. Jenny (Pamela Hensley, she was 26) is an OSI agent who’s fond of Joe and has advised him to stop the experiment. There’s no credit for you, mopey DATA technician (there isn’t a credit for the three white-coated men without lines, either). Closed captioning, that should be “Complete transmission takes 44 seconds.” An overload provides an opportunity for the ostensible star of the show to destroy government property, but Joe remains unconscious. Over her protests, Oscar sends Jenny away on a mission regarding (groan) plates for printing $20 bills stolen from Treasury, Col. Steve Austin is said to be testing an airplane at Edwards. Joe eventually regains consciousness and the project is doomed, but then it becomes apparent that Joe has retained the most recent transmission. (A skeptic might point out that memorizing the first six verses from the first chapter of Genesis is not a stretch of human capability, also Wells didn’t notice the omission of “And the evening and the morning were the first day” in the fifth verse.) The project is revived, and there seems to be no limit to what Joe is capable of learning, but he runs away to his favorite beach and wants to quit until word comes from the field that Jenny is in distress. Volunteer English teacher Joe asks to be given the knowledge to pass as the chemist who’s traveling to compound ink for the possessor of the stolen plates and also how to get Jenny out of her situation. Oscar agrees, Joe is trained, and with the real chemist held in a New Orleans jail overnight, “Montrose” arrives at the compound of Marius Stenger (David Sheiner) in “Puerta Azul” in the back of a Mercedes-Benz 600. Joe is brusque, forgoing the offer of lunch with wife Lily (a second role for Margaret Fairchild) and a daughter, and Marius is immediately suspicious. Downstairs in the printing room, Joe identifies the plate as (groan) from the United States Mint. (The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing gets no respect on this series, as part of Joe’s training Oscar asked for technical assistance from the Government Printing Office!) Daughter Lorraine (yes, it’s Kim Basinger, she was 23) is kept in the dark about the family business, she’s not heard from again. Joe uses his transmitted learning to make a putty to dissolve steel while Lily makes a call to learn more about the chemist’s identity. Joe tells henchman Mark that he’s going to take a walk, instead he goes into the room across the hall where Jenny is being held. He’s caught, but his machine learning allows him to answer the questions Marius, gun in hand, poses, although Joe has some trouble with recall. Joe ruins the plates and at 5:45 a.m. begins the escape plan. If Jenny has been flying helicopters like the Bell 47G for years, why didn’t she just start it up herself?! Instead she waits for Joe to fight a henchman, then others arrive in a Jeep shooting. (Hensley was cheaper as a visible passenger, I suppose, with a man doubling for Macht as the actual pilot at the controls for take-off.) N1135W had sustained substantial damage before the episode (NTSB reports for 1966 and 1974) and I was hoping no one had died in it later, but—NTSB report for 1978 indicates one dead, another seriously injured in a crash that destroyed the aircraft. Joe Patton has changed his mind about continuing the project and working for Oscar, Steve has some advice for him about that. The character’s creators had hopes for a series, they tried again a few years later.

Serious thoughts for troubling times: Listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The unjust piety of ‘safe evangelical environments,’ from Oney Judge to Larycia Hawkins.

12 December 2016

Maybe that’s why some of the newspaper’s dispensers disappeared and the others weren’t filled each week, from last Tuesday: The Washington Post Sells El Tiempo Latino to El Planeta Media.

Americans’ life expectancy dips as middle-aged see uptick in death rates.

From August, the label went away but not the ranking: Google Search removes ‘mobile-friendly’ label, will start negatively ranking mobile interstitials in 2017. Still among the 15% of sites that remain unfriendly: the official website of Wamalug.

11 December 2016

Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965 (via).

I’ll have to get my traffic tie-up reporting elsewhere, the sycophancy on the local CBS News radio station is already hard to take. CIA Concludes Russian Interference Aimed To Elect Trump.

Curator at the (U.S.) National Air and Space Museum Dr. Margaret Weitekamp writes about another artifact of science-fiction entertainment production in the museum’s collection: What Would an Alien Spaceship Look Like? (via). Presumably, nothing like the one in this new short from the Muppets.

10 December 2016

WamaLTC concludes its year of displays, last building standing. Look for us in 2017!

The recap of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The King of Diamonds Affair” admits that the episode has cars and identifies one make, with “Somewhere in Soho LONDON” there’s a curbside lineup that actually includes vehicles of UK origin! That’s a 1956 MG A Roadster Mk1 in front. Sadly, the 1951 Jaguar Mk. VII with which Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin visit the shop of Pogues Plum Pudding (in the standard MGM alley, of course) is of domestic origin (left-hand drive). A small-time actress (unnamed, Lisa Mitchell was nearly 26) eating some pudding in Chumley’s Tea Room broke a tooth on a rough diamond potentially worth a small fortune—or £400 in 1966, whichever—but Victoria Pogue (Nancy Kovack, she was 31) dismisses the possibility that the odd contamination has anything to do with her company. The departure of the two agents is spotted and reported, soon five examples of the 1964 Sunbeam Imp Sports Sedan are giving chase through the backlot stuffed with cars from Europe. A bowler-hatted gang shoots from umbrellas and Napoleon swerves into a shop. Mr. Alexander Waverly checks in on them from headquarters by video conference as uncredited Agent #32 opens a capsule of smelling salts and waves it under Solo’s nose, she proceeds to delicately pat at Illya’s head and give him a shoulder massage while Napoleon has a series of why is this happening side glances. A new source of diamonds in Brazil has the potential to cause world economic trouble, U.N.C.L.E. research has decided they’re actually from the mine of Sir Percival Peacock. A visit to the Peacock company vault with its closed circuit television and a scale under the safe should mean that everything is accounted for, but Solo and Kuryakin are suspicious as they wedge themselves into a 1962 Triumph TR4 which is actually RHD!! Waverly directs them to the expert on how the Peacock diamonds might have been stolen, Rafael Delgado (Ricardo Montalban, he was 45) is conveniently in a local prison. The two pose as a producer and writer in trying to get Delgado to explain how he might execute such a heist—but Rafael had them pegged from the start and eventually tires of the conversation. A 1946 MG TC passes, the two agents dressed in jumpsuits and flat caps proceed underground beneath the vault and find an apparatus left behind by the thieves. They lower the safe, open the safe, and discover only buckshot inside. Delgado is smuggled out of prison in a Dodge A100 van (the “laundry” van must have had a decent set of clothes in back for Rafael to change into) on the orders of the leader of a bowler-hatted gang. Blodgett (Larry D. Mann) speaks a lot of Italian as he complains about Delgado’s loose talk with the two agents. Rafael takes Blodgett’s Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn Touring Saloon by Freestone & Webb and visits the Pogues shop in disguise, Agent #14 (John Winston) reports his arrival. Delgado turns up the charm on Victoria before meeting his inside man, Freddie, who’d mixed up the shipments, as only pudding reached the alleged mine in Brazil. Rafael escapes out the back way and Freddie knocks out Napoleon, Pogue is confused by his actions and she faints. From his fire-escape ladder perch, Illya watches as “The Family” (cousins of our friends in Chicago, he presumes, maybe he means these friends) shows up with a 1951 Dodge B-series truck to load all of the diamond-laden tins of pudding. Freddie kills Agent #14 and Blodgett kills Freddie not knowing that one of the large shipping boxes they’re loading contains Solo and Victoria. A small plane with a trailing landing gear (possibly a DC-3) carries the reluctant coconspirators and more to “RIO DE JANEIRO BRAZIL” and “Somewhere in the JUNGLES OF BRAZIL” but searches for “FAR EASTERN DEV. CORP. LTD.” and VR-SZZ have no useful results (although, VR-S would have been a British colonial prefix for the Straits Settlements) maybe it’s one of these. Kuryakin recovers somewhat from being shot at and landing in garbage and reaches the U.N.C.L.E. office in Brazil where the closed captioning thinks they’re talking Spanish. Pogue and Napoleon are discovered and Blodgett wants to shoot them, but Delgado proposes a more complicated death. Illya heads upriver with two local agents, Rafael releases Solo and Victoria from their temporary bondage as he plots to make off with the diamonds. The missing loot is noticed and death by cannon is set for dawn for the three of them. Kuryakin scales the wall of the fort, I mean mine, and the two agents sow confusion with a miniature open-reel tape player and gunfire (the one in the insert lacks a cover and has no speakers). Illya cuts Napoleon loose, Solo frees Pogue, and Victoria cuts Rafael’s bonds, but Blodgett shoots Delgado. I see nothing fruity in the drink prepared for Kuryakin in the finale, I think that’s a seltzer for his cold, he’s had no real medical attention for hours. The second opinion finds the episode well-paced, while a roundtable review by neophytes says it’s underwhelming, “poorly written and painfully boring.” A focus on the Hillman Imp from a fourth opinion. The first time through, I found Napoleon’s jealous side glances hilarious.

IDG AFK, said the Virginia official reviewing requests for personalized license plates, probably. Of course it is on a DON’T TREAD ON ME plate. But try to get (or keep) a plate expressing godlessness…

09 December 2016

Verizon refuses to release update that would kill Samsung’s Note 7.

The proofreading of the Star Trek Encyclopedia wasn’t 100%, the entry for the Fabrini Book of the People alleges a cross-reference to the kjsdlkjd people. There isn’t such a cross-reference and about all that can be said about them is that they live on the home row.

Enjoying Route 66 when money is not a problem: Across the U.S.A. and back: 8,000 miles in an 80-year-old Packard.

08 December 2016

While the region responds to the opening of the behemoth across the river, more locally signs for the Portner Brewhouse are up, with an opening set for late this month.

No responsive design here! “LILEKS (James) :: Hello.” is still around, although the link to the Star-Tribune offers nothing past August, and the what’s new section is silent past March. There’s plenty of <div align="center"> elements in the HTML 4.01 Transitional structure of The Bleat, which began in 1997. Unfortunately, his devotion to conservative web design does not guarantee performance in old browsers, Netscape Communicator 4.08 cannot find a script and also the error-handling fails in any browser. I mostly lost interest in the Minnesota-based blogger about a decade ago (last exception).

5 Things I Learnt as a Designer at LEGO.

07 December 2016

Sometimes you can pay more for a worse experience, if you want: 495 and 95 toll prices were very high on Tuesday. Here’s why that happened. Spoiler: it was a crash blocking a part of the toll lanes. You’re supposed to know that unusually high prices mean non-express travel times. I don’t have an E-Z Pass transponder because I wouldn’t use it often enough for the company to let me keep it.

AMC Theatres debuted a new website design fairly simultaneously with the new app, it makes a request for my geographic location with every page loaded. Showtimes did not display in SeaMonkey on the first visit… the website that Wmata previewed in July has gone live, it also makes a request for my geographic location with every page loaded. Since my Mac Pro is connected to my router by Ethernet cable, I wonder what the browser is telling the site… apparently the new hotness for brands is a chatbot, oh, no, WamaLTC doesn’t have a conversational interface.

Twenty years ago, I drove to Pennsylvania in a car in which, it was later assessed, the differential was self-destructing. It was the start of a miserable week.

06 December 2016

The “Balkan” restaurant opened 2 months ago, so DCist is on it: First Look: Ambar Clarendon’s Upgraded Taste of Belgrade.

Oscar Goldman dictates a memo to the Secretary while in a decade-old Lincoln Continental limousine headed east on Independence Ave past 9th St NW, using the Panasonic RQ-212 last seen in the hands of Dr. Wells. A spirited driver, I suppose, could have gotten him to Andrews AFB in less than 10 minutes. Task Force—a 4-door Dodge Dart with vinyl roof behind the title—has Col. Steve Austin undercover as “Ferguson” hanging out at a gym looking for entrée to a mercenary group. San Diego’s airport has an “h” in its name, someone made a mistake, that’s a Boeing 727 Goldman flew in on, he calls Peggy Callahan back at the office in D.C. from his Cadillac Fleetwood limousine. When the agent assigned to backup Steve’s mission has a medical emergency, Callahan must improvise. The recruits are brought to a “Camp Sta-Fit” pointedly described as in California, where the “training” is mostly running after a sweet and very clean buttercream-colored first-generation Ford Bronco convertible. They also climb a tree and jump from it into the Bronco. Steve arouses the suspicions of the leader Sgt. David Harraway (Alex Cord) who vaguely remembers “Ferguson” from somewhere. Callahan is working as a waitress at a local diner and she and Steve manage a short conversation over the jukebox and on the dance floor, she’ll be north of the camp pursuing a new hobby of rock collecting. Oscar is supervising the transport of a missile, the centerpiece of Project Hornet, from its assembly point in San Diego to its testing site in Nevada. They’re not even going to drape the missile! A question is raised about the scenic route’s security, but Major Pell is reassuring, only the audience knows he’s an imposter. The team still doesn’t know their mission, but Steve’s already learned it involves U.S. Army uniforms. Steve risks a late-night visit to confer with Callahan in her Dodge camper, her questions about the conspirators’ plans as to where and what go unanswered but Steve now knows why David is suspicious—as a major, Austin ruled at Harraway’s court-martial. The morning’s mission starts with the team leaving in a large van and then Harraway blows up the camp, Callahan escapes injury but Steve’s note is burned, her walkie-talkie and camper are damaged. Oscar’s supervision is from the vantage point of our friend, Bell Jet Ranger II N30DB, the scene looks like it should be the tunnel used in Duel (plays music) along Soledad Canyon Road but maybe not. The mercenaries use a sleeping gas to knock out the Army troops and replace them. The seventh checkpoint passed, the International Harvester R-series truck is driven into a warehouse where the team starts stripping the missile for parts. Harraway finally clearly remembers the Major. Harraway now does something very stupid (this blogger repeats the mistake), he calls the Bronco a “Jeep,” boo. It’s a double cross! Whew, they only blew up an old (actual) Jeep, not the Bronco. In those days, a sub-second insert of a black Cadillac’s headlights was acceptable to illustrate the crash of a green Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon with hidden headlights! With the bad guys caught, the Army personnel safe, and the missile parts accounted for, Oscar and Steve relax at the diner with a beer (or two). They find Peggy Callahan there, unwilling to give up her job because she and the county sheriff are sweet on each other (it’s Jennifer Darling’s last role in this series, but she would return in The Bionic Woman’s third season).

There’s always a complainer (previously): Defense Department Expected to Study Helicopter Noise.

05 December 2016

Greater Greater Washington wants in on the website redesign trend.

The post-sundown assault on Sunday might be outside the identified area: there have been 24 DWI arrests and six crashes within 500 feet of the intersection of Beauregard Street and Little River Turnpike since the beginning of the year.

Some of them like it that way ಠ_ಠMillions in US still living life in Internet slow lane.

04 December 2016

What’s in it for them to do so? Another local Korean woman taps the “♥” for one of my Instagram posts from last summer. She travels a lot.

Inspired by reading Paul Ford’s ode to emulation of old computers from 2 years ago, I tracked down a virtual machine for Windows 3.11 for Workgroups—conveniently already in the VMDK file format—and while Netscape Communicator 4.08 doesn’t get the Forbidden 403 response code from my sites like it does in my Windows 98 Second Edition virtual machines, it does crash upon encountering the social networking links.

From 2 months ago, the condensed story of capacitance videodisc: The Doomed Effort to Make Videos Go Vinyl (via).

03 December 2016

When I left Sykesville at three o’clock this afternoon, the WamaLTC display was… still a work in progress, so it is only an assumption that it was open to the public at any later point. WamaLTC’s next demonstration of coordination and logistics is Saturday the tenth.

Kuryakin is very pleased with Angela’s choice.

“Somewhere in North Africa” where “Middle Eastern” music is playing, Napoleon Solo enters a club alone. (Davis Roberts had been acting for nearly 20 years.) The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Deadly Goddess Affair” polarizes opinions, this blogger calls it aggressively forgettable while a second opinion finds it a pleasant little spy-vs.-spy diversion with a delicious scene-chewer of a villain and his knife-wielding second, and some cool byplay between our heroes. Neither mentions that absolutely no cars show up, boo, more insights on Tumblr. At least the dancer (Stassa Damascus) wasn’t typecast. Solo successfully plants a bug allowing him and Mr. Alexander Waverly and Illya Kuryakin back in New York to overhear the conversation among local Thrush operatives Col. Hubris (Victor Buono, he was 27), Malik (Joseph Sirola, 36), and the ill-fated decryptor Hamid (David Renard, 44) about Thrush Central’s plans to take over Africa and $10 million to be delivered by a robot plane. Waverly’s plan is to intercept the plane while it’s over the “Isle of Circe” where innkeeper Narouz (Michael Strong, 47) tells Napoleon and Illya that Mia (Brioni Farrell, she was 25) can’t wed local policeman Luca (Dan Travanty, also 25) even if he forgoes a dowry if her oldest sister Angela (Marya Stevens) isn’t married first. I found it difficult to accept that Angela was older, but Stevens had been in the business a decade and this was her last credited role. Solo signals the robot plane to release its package, the dollars have turned into lira upon landing. Angela is asked to pick one of the Americans to marry, she chooses Napoleon. Col. Hubris and company have arrived on the island, they capture Solo and assume Kuryakin is dead, there is lying and subterfuge and fighting and, finally, some bondage with a threat of drowning. Illya’s entrance reveals the money’s location, his fight with Malik gets him very wet. With the innkeeper set to marry Angela, Luca can wed Mia, and Col. Hubris is sent on his way without plans or money, our heroes stay unwed.

With Firefox 52, Responsive Design Mode has changed, and the browser now changes its user agent string automatically with the choice of a device. The Rappahannock Model Railroaders have switched to using WordPress, though, so I can’t re-test the responsiveness of their previous design.

02 December 2016

Preserving Star Trek’s Musical Legacy.

The new WAMU.org is responsive, clean, and contemporary, so they say, the redesigned site for a local NPR affiliate must be using one of those browser-age plugins to complain that my browser is old and as prospects for an update of SeaMonkey get dimmer I may have to switch soon.

Striking Portraits of Lonely Cars in 1970s New York (via).

01 December 2016

The AMC Theatres app for iOS has been “completely reimagined” (as well it should be, given its predecessor). The “ticket stubs” feature seems to be gone.

The Matchbox die-cast toy only called it the “ALFA CARABO” and possessors of it were the envy of the neighborhood: Wedge Wonders – the Influence of the Angular Era in Automotive Design.

Serbs have been able to see a popular Disney movie in recent release under the name Вајана since Thursday, no box office report yet.

30 November 2016

Firefox 0-day in the wild is being used to attack Tor users.

The Embassy Gulf Service Station which I photographed as a Mobil 4 years after its listing in 1993 on the National Register of Historic Places is still around: Dupont Circle Development Derailed By Historic Gas Station (Yes, Historic).

A Simple Explanation: VLC.js (via).

29 November 2016

When your food is other people’s business assets: Kill permit issued for mountain lion P-45.

The almost seasonally-appropriate A Bionic Christmas Carol brings Col. Steve Austin to Oscar Goldman’s office on the day before Christmas for their annual lunch, but instead Oscar sends Steve to investigate the Budge Corp., there have been problems with an environmental system they’ve been contracted to develop. Mr. Horton Budge (Ray Walston) runs his namesake company with a miserly dedication and humorless devotion to work that prevents employees from keeping a decorated tree they’ve purchased on the premises or from singing carols after clocking out. When a test of the “Martian Environmental Test Module” system leads to a man’s incapacitation, the Dodge B-van based ambulance drives off with six rotating beacons on its roof (very likely the same ambulance as on Colombo that broadcast year). Austin considers this injury reason enough to hold up work on the project and take a break, but Mr. Budge orders the employees to continue through the night regardless of the calendar. The closed captioning creates a false repetition. Mr. Budge’s chauffeur Bob Crandall (Dick Sargent, he was 46) invites Steve to dinner with the wife and kids, driving Mr. Budge’s 1968 Lincoln Continental into town for some last minute shopping. Would a real miser like Mr. Budge have a car that was less than a decade old? Waiting in line at the busy “Kids World” store, Steve gets an earful of local gossip (the judgmental store clerk played by Ann Dusenberry—she was 18—didn’t get a close-up), he says nothing about the toys from The Six Million Dollar Man on the shelf behind the counter. The Crandalls are both a bit mature to have such young children, Antoinette Bower was 44 (Quinn Cummings was 9, Adam Rich was 8, and the production does not credit the performer who played the youngest). Nora explains that her husband Bob was Mr. Budge’s accountant until, desperate for money to pay for her health issues, Bob embezzled from the company accounts. Rather than prosecute a relative, Mr. Budge heavily garnishes Bob’s pay and humiliates Bob on a daily basis. Mr. Budge’s house is part of a long tradition of using the Bates house from Pyscho (via), the wraparound porch was a later addition not seen in the series of horror movies. With some calipers and a magnifying glass and montage-worthy scoring, Steve decides that relentless corner-cutting in the pursuit of profit is the problem at Budge Corp., not sabotage. Oscar has no home life, his open shirt the previous season notwithstanding, so he’s in the office when Steve calls to relay his conclusion. Taking “inspiration” from the children’s earlier reading—the failure of America to honor the copyright of Dickens’ original is notorious—Steve takes a paving block from the driveway and bionically fashions a tombstone. (Walston was 62, but Steve bionically carved a birth year of “1916” making the character 60.) Steve puts on a Santa suit and takes advantage of Mr. Budge’s medicated state to show him the tombstone, have him listen to carolers, and eavesdrop on the Crandall family and their conveniently relevant conversations. Christmas morning, Steve is back in the clothes he was wearing the previous day, sitting at Horton’s bedside. Mr. Budge’s initial mood is quite cranky, a pamphlet of carols falling out of his coat reminds him of the night’s lessons and he is eager to set everything right. That’s a big cassette deck that Mr. Budge is using for the sleigh bell sound.

The fuel port on the ST says NO to E20-E85, so I’m not supposed to complain about E12: EPA increases the amount of renewable fuel to be blended into gasoline.

28 November 2016

The cut on my finger joint is witness to a struggle with the power brush nozzle replacement, silly company expects customers to Replace belts every 3 to 6 months but that won’t be happening.

The Baltimore Police Department was well-behaved in our absence (previously), no ill effects on the WamaLTC display were noted.

A trip to a grocery store is a reminder that the problem of “fake news” is not some 21st-century development, as the current form of National Enquirer dates from 1967.

27 November 2016

The Polar Express has delivered its last trainload of passengers to the B&O Railroad Museum and WamaLTC has left the building. Photographs from a different guy who also avoided my section entirely (in the album, anyway, for now, look in the photostream, there’s some).

Shouty merrymakers, or shout-out to relatives? #HOLLADAYS (More prosaically, boo, it’s just a pajama sold in various sizes for the whole family at a Minnesota-headquartered retailer.)

The proposed Snowpiercer TV series could fix the film’s mistakes.

26 November 2016

A minor announcement from La La Land Records: the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Collection 4-CD set includes tracks from the animated series.

“Somewhere in India” a tiger is being hounded by beaters towards a 1965 Imperial Crown Convertible in which sit Prince Panat (Lee Bergere, made up to be considerably darker than his later role as Abraham Lincoln on Star Trek), his associate Colonel Quillon (Alan Caillou, the screenplay writer with an ethnicity to match his character), and visiting agricultural expert Suzanne de Serre (Jill Ireland, another Star Trek connection this week). A man she recognizes as the prince’s pilot desperately pleads that she share the truth about this principality, so she visits U.N.C.L.E. headquarters where I’m confident Mr. Alexander Waverly called her “Miss” before invoking the interest of some busybody organization in toppling the prince. The trip to “India” is established by two clips of the Boeing 707-320B Intercontinental Turbo Four in manufacturer’s livery (the previous summer, N761PA had experienced an incident in flight with amateur filmmakers aboard) and… a steamboat headed upriver. The blogger at The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Tigers Are Coming Affair” finds much to dislike about the episode (except for the exposed chests of various men) but has nothing to say about Baron Cosimo (Carmelo Manto, he was 34) and Drusilla Davina (Florence Marly, she was 46) as they have no discernable role in the plot, but I’ll give them their moment. Napoleon Solo is posing as a writer for Sage magazine, with Illya Kuryakin as his TLR-toting photographer (possibly a Yashica 635). Vaughn’s line reading for “jungle war stories” has an angry edge to it, 4 months before the actor spoke out against the war in Vietnam at a Young Democrats of Marion County, Indiana dinner. The agents’ cover is already worthless, Napoleon and Suzanne head out the next day in a 1950 Plymouth Special De Luxe Station Wagon and barely escape with their lives after learning nothing. They plot to head upriver to find out why de Serra’s supplies and stocks of pesticide keep getting stolen. Panat’s heartfelt urging that Suzanne have more consideration for the rich is surely a political statement by itself, he only had to wait a few decades for such a foundation. The forces of the World Congress of Underdeveloped Countries are standing by for word from Solo. The man Kuryakin had asked to guide him (Ken Renard, remembered by his pastor) has been murdered and Illya is left among the tethered goats to attract a tiger. de Serre can no longer stand the fate of the goats and frees them, she finds Kuryakin. Illya takes a rifle from a bare-chested man and shoots a tiger, Panat lies to his companions. Suzanne looks for physical comfort in Napoleon’s lap, but Ferak (Jose de Vega) and Kuryakin interrupt. After some fighting in which Illya gets his clothes very wet, they discover the stolen supplies. de Serra explains that the compound is an insecticide only when used as directed, as a concentrate it’s a defoliant. The Internet Movie Car Data Base either missed the 9-slot grille Jeep or decided it’s too common to mention. They escape pursuit in a boat and head to a local played-out ruby mine which Solo, Suzanne, and Kuryakin enter. They find the pilot’s wife, Ninea (Kenley Sprague, her only credit, although possibly she wrote screenplays under another name, making her 23) who tries to explain the defoliant leading to displaced farmers and their slavery in the ruby mines subject to chlorine gas scheme the prince has established. Ferak’s been killed and the new plan is to lure the members of the World Congress for Undeveloped Countries (somebody was lax) to their deaths and blame it on rebels. Napoleon capitulates when Suzanne is threatened and doesn’t have a code word for I’m being coerced, Illya gets a handshake. Quillon has big plans for the arriving boat. Kuryakin and Solo escape the mine, the boat approaches, and the prince is tired of Suzanne’s moralizing prattle about the deaths of people she doesn’t even know. Napoleon’s shooting eventually get the dignitaries to turn around, spoiling Quillon’s plan. Suzanne pushes Quillon and Panat into the river, and keeps them at bay with her boots. The agent at the front desk of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters as Suzanne describes her next missionary trip is more mature than usual. This second opinion is generally upbeat, a third opinion finds it not as awful as it could have been.

WamaLTC has been doing displays for longer than most of our guests have been parents.

25 November 2016

Listening to WTOP-FM in the morning and listening to WTOP-FM in the evening, I conclude that nothing happened today.

Who told marketers that three e-mails in one day would generate a positive response?

I wonder what operating system it uses: a “warm start” of the Gilbarco Veeder-Root fuel dispenser at a local retailer similar to this image in the company’s Flickr account delayed my purchase.

24 November 2016

Pfft: Give Thanks For Siblings: They Can Make Us Healthier And Happier.

The call with the mechanical voice warned that my Microsoft Windows license key was expiring and that I should call back, my confidence that the call was a scam rose even more when the telephone number was expressed as one eight zero zero… once upon a time (before 1996, that is) the only toll-free number in the United States was one eight hundred. Microsoft advice on Avoiding technical support scams.

Family togethereness is overrated: The Last Unknown Man (via).

23 November 2016

The view from the bus yesterday: Pre-Thanksgiving Traffic Already Looking Pretty Miserable.

So far whenever a retweet of a “Season 2: The Resistance” episode from the GQ video series “The Closer with Keith Olbermann” appears in my Twitter timeline, I think of Howard K. Smith anchoring for the “Freedom Network” on V.

I haven’t followed the Hess Toy Truck into cyberspace: Why a half-century-old toy remains a popular holiday gift.

22 November 2016

The B&O Railroad Museum publishes a rate chart for facility rentals, the Baltimore Police Department was in the roundhouse last night to award promotions.

With The Thunderbird Connection being a 2-hour episode, how much of it will be shots of T-38 Talon jets flying around? The answer should come as no surprise: a lot. Col. Steve Austin arrives at an Air Force base in a 1974 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a Nevada plate (at least on the front). He’d been vacationing in Las Vegas, but Oscar Goldman has a mission for him in the resource-poor Middle Eastern country of “Burdabi,” where the United States has sympathy with “rebel forces” who, 6 months after the assassination of the country’s king, report death threats against the 14-year old prince. The plan is to have Austin replace one of the pilots on the United States Air Force Thunderbirds flying team and rescue the boy while they’re in the country as part of a U.S. gesture to celebrate the country’s independence. The name is simplified, but there’s still a Thrift-D-Lux Cleaners in the Vegas area, suggesting that the parking lot encounter between Steve and a pretty blonde was location shooting while the production was at Nellis Air Force Base. While training to be a part of the team, Austin has a close encounter in the air with another T-38A (64-13245 reached Davis-Monthan as an AT-38B in 1991) and the pilot turns out to be Jan Lawrence (Susanne Reed, her birth year is not common knowledge), she’s the Volkswagen driver from the parking lot. Presumably that’s an authentic 1970-1971 Dodge D-series pickup in Air Force blue as Jan explains the ingredients for a proper apology. Their first dinner date at his pad goes well, all we see are two USAF pilots chatting over coffee. Austin continues to train for the aerobatic stunts required to be part of the team, while Oscar and Jan watch, Steve has a medical problem to justify the presence of Dr. Rudy Wells in the opening credits. That white Thunderbird and green Fury (previously) are still parked in front of the USAF Hospital in “Ventura”! Steve is too manly to cancel the mission for any surgery he might need. Jan joins a more casual Oscar to watch the Thunderbirds leave for Burdabi, their landing there is observed by the military ruler Mahmud Majid (Robert Loggia). The episode will never acknowledge how the support team made it to the country. Burdabi can afford only a Volkswagen Transporter and two mismatched Jeeps to place the pilots in a villa under armed guard. The rebel leader Ahkmed Khadduri (Ned Romero) makes contact but is quickly discovered and jailed. Steve tries to visit the prince, but the youth betrays him and Steve is placed in the adjoining cell. Shali Giba (Martine Beswick, previously) visits with a stern demeanor to cover up the passage of a note to the American Colonel, she’s part of the conspiracy to get the prince out of the country. Steve confers with Ahkmed. Majid does not seem overly burdened with responsibilities of state and personally visits Austin in jail to have him released, this is part of a ploy to have him killed while making it look like the rebels are responsible. An impromptu firing squad in the desert is foiled by a bionically uprooted tree thrown at the riflemen, Steve disables their early-fifties GMC truck by kicking the tires, he throws away the CB radio and runs off. I’d like to think that after 2 weeks on the flight line together that Oscar and Jan have developed a rapport, I guess the Air Force also had Ford F-150 trucks in the fleet (there’s also a Chevrolet C/K in the background of an earlier scene). Oscar tries to assure the team leader, and Jan, that Steve must still be alive no matter what Majid has said. Steve breaks into the jail and frees Ahkmed, the prince is persuaded to join them, the production found a suitable exterior location on the north edge of Glendale, California in the Brand Library & Art Center which was built as a mansion in 1904. The quartet (Steve, Ahkmed, Shali, and Hassad) head into the desert, the prince learns his actual standing with the country’s military and sees poverty for the first time. Their arrival in the village, however, has been spotted by an informant (Than Wyenn, ten years earlier he’d been the main villain, now he gets a credit but not even one line to speak). Steve’s new plan calls for a 1959 Dodge tank truck with, hm, unconnected Arabic calligraphy on the sides. Frustrated that the escapees have eluded his own forces, Majid orders the American pilots and mechanics inside (away from the T-38s) ostensibly for safety but more to figure out how the youth is to be smuggled out of the country. Steve infiltrates the airport and joins the pilots, he’s getting dizzy spells again. Burdabi mechanics find the compartment in the T-38 nose intended for the prince-smuggling, Majid has a new idea—an altitude bomb under Austin’s seat to take him, and the inconvenient reminder of the previous regime, out over America. The team takes off and performs their show with Hassad in the nose, the bomb is armed on the return flight to the U.S., and it’s Jan and her memories of barnstorming in a Stearman that saves the day by figuring out how Steve can release the canopy and get rid of the bomb before it explodes in the plane. Closed captioning, that should be “Flare out on my command.” Lawrence will graduate and she’s headed for Hawaii, they part ways, the 20th Fighter Squadron was at George AFB.

After Rash Of Red-Signal Overruns, Metro To Begin Train-Operator Testing.

21 November 2016

Opioid Addiction Crisis Declared a Public Health Emergency in Virginia (via).

The “North Pole” part of the Polar Express event at the B&O Railroad Museum relies on two evaporating snow machines. First photographs on Flickr of the WamaLTC display from some guy who avoided my section entirely.

Powerful backdoor/rootkit found preinstalled on 3 million Android phones.

20 November 2016

Metro Identifies Potential Collision Risk With 4000-Series Railcars.Metro will start running 4000 series cars only in the middle of trains. Might 4000s be completely phased out soon?

WamaLTC and The History of Wamalug at its Original URL should be set with the mask icon: MacBook Pro Touch Bar icon preview, and why it matters.

After the first weekend of THE POLAR EXPRESS event, not one individual (pajama-clad or otherwise) has seen fit to “follow” @WamaLTC.

19 November 2016

WHO: Zika is no longer an emergency, it’s now a chronic threat.

A “Madax Vacuum Cleaners” 1948 Ford F-1 Panel van backs into a storeroom and delivers bullets and grenades (and other stuff, helpfully labeled) while up front Napoleon Solo darts the salesman and assists an unsatisfied customer who’s unaware this store is a front for Thrush. The customer is the sole link to Star Trek that I could find, Joyce Perry would write “The Time Trap” for Star Trek The Animated Series. Illya Kuryakin is prepared to stop the van’s getaway with a rocket launcher. With the location thoroughly compromised by U.N.C.L.E., top-ranking Thrush operative Vincent Carver (Ray Danton) drives up to the store in a gold 1964 Plymouth Barracuda (the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 220 behind him among several vehicles that will be seen repeatedly) with a bomb in a vacuum cleaner, Solo is injured in a way that he downplays for Mr. Alexander Waverly. Thrush files are expected to be transported soon, Illya proposes action in a way that says too much about his partner’s injury. Mr. Waverly assigns Napoleon to inspect the renovation of the U.N.C.L.E.-owned brownstones adjacent headquarters. There’s an Opel Kadett wagon parked in front of the club “The Bealer’s” that will never move regardless of the time of day. The eponymous location for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Discotheque Affair” offers its customers a mature lady dancing in a cage to jazz music (Evelyn Ward plays Farina, she was 42) while Tiger Ed (Harvey Lembeck) feeds the energy on the dance floor. Oakes (Hans Gudegast) arrives from Thrush Central with a faint sniff of disgust, to relay instructions for direct counter-moves against U.N.C.L.E., among them a scheme to bug Waverly’s office from one of the adjoining brownstones. Sandy Wyler (Judi West, she was 22) is a resident in 3F and she’s not happy that the rent is going up. What is Solo holding? When she walks away, Oakes and Carver and two handymen proceed with installing the transistor-based eavesdropping devices in her apartment, the closed captioning missteps once, and again because in 1965 Mr. Waverly would have been calling her “Miss.” When the work is interrupted, Carver shoots, and they leave the dead body in the space behind the wall. Neat, maybe, but forward-thinking, no, as acting on the successful bug leads U.N.C.L.E. to immediately suspect a leak. The comfortable septuagenarian has little sympathy for that tenant’s complaints, Napoleon is inadequate to the task of being firm with her, but what Wyler wants is to not pay any rent. Solo suggests she marry a man, she has one in mind already actually. While Napoleon’s at hand, Sandy complains about the stink in her bedroom, turns out Thrush wasn’t so neat. Kuryakin presses the interrogation of Wyler, Solo has an idea—he does not say it will endanger the innocent. The bug is disabled, Oakes and Carver return to Wyler’s apartment, presumably Oakes says something leering about seeing Sandy’s backside, Carver turns on the charm. There’s a slightly newer Ford panel van in the street as they leave. Napoleon interrupts the work (or not) in her apartment, Oakes surprises him, the fight ends with one “painter” shot and Oakes falling out the third-story window. That Opel’s still parked in front of The Bealer’s, Illya plans to visit the club in the evening, and Wyler is auditioning to be a go-go dancer, Farina is not impressed. Kuryakin’s cover is a bass player in the house band, Farina is using the evening to get sloshed. Any classism in the closed captioning identifying German but not what Tiger Ed speaks? Tiger Ed drives Farina away in Carver’s gold Barracuda, Napoleon follows in a 1965 Dodge Polara convertible. Illya finds the Thrush “records” planned to be moved tonight, they’re 45 RPM vinyl platters. Tiger Ed has found a sawmill somewhere in the city. Kuryakin is caught (all the other dancers were Thrush operatives), some very minor bondage for Sandy. Farina is threatened with death by saw, she protests that’s too hokey. Solo fights Tiger Ed and rescues Farina. Mr. Waverly sits in his regular Imperial hardtop, he’s so obviously checking out Farina’s legs and gold boots. Farina leads Napoleon to the back door, Illya and Wyler are bound with rope in a cell. Solo cuts through the door and gets the drop on Carver but Farina has remained loyal and Napoleon must join the two in the cell. Carver sets a virtual fuse, gasses the dancers to sleep, Solo frees his arm but he’s too late, the fire’s started, Farina is gassed, but by this point Carver is outnumbered. Sandy says she’s accepted Freddie’s proposal. Kuryakin is off to Prague, and Napoleon won’t accept being separated. A second opinion finds it a mixed bag. The production does not credit the young women playing the Thrush agents, there’s at least seven.

Not So ‘Standard’ Anymore: The Manual Transmission is Almost Dead.

18 November 2016

As all show times for THE POLAR EXPRESS event at the B&O Railroad Museum this weekend and post-Thanksgiving are sold out, “please note that NO on-site ADMISSION will be available for purchase at this event.”

With temperatures in the mid-seventies, today was a perfectly opportune day to take out a Sapphire Blue 1968 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 Convertible for a drive along local streets. Hm, regarding that additional symbol on the decklid, there were no convertibles built as the Hurst/Olds that year, among other discrepancies one might note at this distance. This “pace car convertible” in Peruvian Silver would appear to be a tribute of some kind—the easy removability of the door decals is a clue—as the actual Hurst/Olds pace car was a 1972 model.

The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach (previously) is used as a geographic touchstone in the story of Sand’s End (via).

17 November 2016

This Day in Labor History: November 17, 1968.

Office Depot Allegedly Diagnosing Computers With Nonexistent Viruses To Meet Sales Goals.

Using patents to learn how stuff works – Stud Sensor.

16 November 2016

There’s no hint of a plan to use them for issuing traffic violations: More and more law enforcement are happily expanding their drone fleets.

The region sees a lot of air traffic of various types, this is the second of a pair of helicopters headed south along I-395 yesterday, I identify this one as an AH-64. I hesitate to think this is a harbinger of times to come, but it’s not everyday that attack helicopters fly low following a local thoroughfare like that.

Maybe the driver saw my double-take and maybe she didn’t, a new neighbor has a right hand drive Jeep Wrangler. Huh, from August, no rural route postal carrier qualification needed: You Can Buy a New Right-Hand-Drive Jeep Wrangler in the U.S.

15 November 2016

I first noticed 2 weeks ago that “Firefox has been alerting developers of this issue via the Developer Tools Web Console since Firefox 26” but the plan to discourage interaction with unencrypted sites has been discussed since at least January: No More Passwords over HTTP, Please! Apparently there’s a preference to make the red slash over the lock UI active in the regular Firefox 50 released this week, without it Brickshelf just gets the encircled “i”.

Director Cliff Bole provides audio commentary for Vulture of the Andes, the existence of aerial footage from some documentary on gliders was the impetus for the episode. Most of the sailplane N-numbers decode as a Schweizer SGS 1-26E glider. The “11th Annual International Soaring Championship” is underway, the team from the country of “San Lorenzo” has attracted the attention of the U.S. Air Force for flying over prohibited locations in the vicinity. Oscar Goldman describes the suspicious ambitions of team leader Byron Falco (Henry Darrow) but only gets the attention of Col. Steve Austin once Oscar shows Steve a photograph of the team’s pilot Leslie Morales (Barbara Luna). Steve heads to “Furnace Wells,” California, in a Lockheed L-1329 JetStar 731 which was part of the aircraft manufacturer’s corporate transportation group. Driving up into the Malibu hills in a Mercury Monarch Ghia 2-door, he finds a blue Ford Econoline van stuck off the road and Morales sketching a vulture. Steve lifts the van out of the dirt and easily lies to her about being only a spectator when it comes to gliding. On her next practice flight, Leslie has put a Kodak Instamatic X-15 in the canopy, and she discovers that Steve is actually also a pilot (Oscar placed him on the U.S. team). Once they’re back on the ground, Steve spills out the contents of her purse and sees something suspicious. Steve rescues a boy from getting caught up in the tow rope of the next launch and damages his bionic arm, he heads to the lab of Dr. Rudy Wells which Bole says was in Thousand Oaks, the plot turn was to provide time for a promotion. (Reid Rondell would die at 22, less than a decade later, working as a stuntman on Airwolf.) Falco visits Goldman and demands ten Phantom F4s or he’ll attack U.S. facilities by missile, letting Goldman think the launch will be from San Lorenzo. With Falco’s next request to drop something over a place the government has warned them about, Morales is starting to doubt his story that what she’s been dropping on these locations were “listening devices.” The license plate on the front of that blue Ford Econoline is different from the license plate on the back. In Steve’s absence, Oscar calls in agent Pete Marteen (Bernie Kopell, 6 months away from The Love Boat), whose cover is a sleazy photographer who tapes over the wordmark on his Nikon F. Pete places a tracking device on Leslie’s glider. The Piper PA-18 that tows her up again later crashed in Alaska leaving both aboard dead more or less immediately, the passenger lived for 4 hours. The story is we’ll see this Ford LTD with its dented door again in a later episode. Marteen tracks her to the vicinity of a fenced location. Falco insists on delivery of those military jet fighters and theatens a missile attack the next morning on the Monroe Development Corporation. Oscar Goldman leaves his gauntlet button undone in a crisis, he calls the place the Monroe Testing Center. Marteen and Austin arrive at the facility to observe the missile attack (the area looks like the Vasquez Rocks while avoiding the most iconic views, Bole says nothing about the location) and Steve confirms his wild hunch that the attack is from somewhere local. Falco threatens more missile attacks, and Oscar orders Steve to find the launch base. When Steve gets back to the airstrip, Morales has already left, Steve takes a glider up and spots a Chevrolet van and figures it’s her. (Bole says there was no second unit on this series, so maybe this van is from some other production.) Austin lands the glider, enters the building through a roof vent, and accuses Morales, calling it the Monroe Test Center, she was still convinced all they were doing was planting “listening devices” for industrial espionage to aid her poor country. (No one ever says it, but the sign on the gate actually calls it the MONROE NUCLEAR TEST FACILITY, maybe Falco left that aspect off the maps.) Falco and his buddies surprise Steve and tie him up, but he breaks the rope while insulting the guards about their knot work, disables their Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup by yanking out the floor shift arm, and runs in the direction of “Lovejoy Buttes” on the basis of a hint in one of Leslie’s bird sketches. Steve avoids Falco’s attempt to shoot him down, Falco tries to drive off (the blue van is a Ford Econoline again) but Steve tosses another missile and disables them and tells Leslie it was just javelin tossing practice that helped him out, sure.

The surveillance aspect was developed specifically for the Chinese market but “unintentionally” included for everybody who bought the low-cost Android devices online at Best Buy and Amazon: Chinese company installed secret backdoor on hundreds of thousands of phones.

14 November 2016

The sign for the Van Dorn Plaza was replaced recently, so far only the most major tenants are included. The local shopping strip hasn’t tweeted in nearly 4 years.

I never liked how much the train leans on that curve: Slowdowns On Yellow, Blue Lines Make You Late? Metro Says They’re Not Going Anywhere.

Restored TOS Navigation/Helm Console Ready for Spaceflight (via).

13 November 2016

Tickets for “THE POLAR EXPRESS” event at the B&O Railroad Museum (previously) are sold out. The B&O Railroad Museum is CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC on November 16-21 and 24-28 inclusive for this event.

At least this one should be of no particular concern: Over 300 million AdultFriendFinder accounts have been exposed in a massive breach.

Someday I will find a website for a model railroading club that is mobile-friendly, today is not that day. The club’s tri-fold flyer is on glossy card stock and displays a logo commemorating the club’s 25th anniversary this year, but the site’s copyright is stale and the last original tweet was 3 years ago. But, they’re a tax-exempt corporation with officers and dues, so…

12 November 2016

Cutting the B30 would mean no more trips by transit to Ellicott City and back, the least of the region’s problems: Metro’s Proposed Bus Cuts Worry Riders With Few Potential Alternatives.

“Somewhere in Rome” a small tour bus with the snout of a Dodge Power Wagon pulls to a stop in front of an eatery while nearby Napoleon Solo is outnumbered by men wearing hats intent on beating him up. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The When In Roma Affair” also offers painfully American tourists, George Sparks carries a Kodak Pony 135 (Camerapedia, Stuart Nisbet was 31), his wife (Kathleen Freeman, she was 46), his cap gun-toting son Sammy, and Darlene Sims (Julie Sommars, she was 24). At U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in the communications room, Wanda (Sharyn Hillyer, she was 23) senses she’s been too informal in trying to contact Napoleon and changes her salutation when Mr. Alexander Waverly and Illya Kuryakin walk in on her. Solo had been in possession of some “formula” hidden in the bottom of a perfume atomizer, Waverly assigns Kuryakin to follow through, back then one could be in Manhattan and still expect to catch an international flight within an hour. Meanwhile, Napoleon suffers at the hands of underlings while the local Thrush rep, Bruno (Than Wyenn was also 46), chats over wine with Cesare Guardia (Cesare Danova, he was 40). Vito (Sig Haig, he was 26) reports no progress with the U.N.C.L.E. agent, Bruno orders Solo released. Having survived the electric device, Napoleon still has the energy to have his head turned by an uncredited chambermaid. Solo checks his hotel room for bugs, when he finds Illya in the room’s closet, he blabs everything not knowing Vito is outside listening. Darlene finds the atomizer in her bag where Napoleon dropped it earlier and offers some to her travel companion. Kuryakin drives up to the tour group’s hotel in a 1967 Chrysler 300 convertible, pulling in alongside Bruno’s 1967 Imperial and Guardia’s 1960 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet Pininfarina Series II (the sole Italian car in the episode). With Sims at dinner, Illya plans to search her room, but his wall-climbing is interrupted by a loud Sammy who eventually cajoles him into reading a bedtime story. Kuryakin searches Darlene’s room, and gets a rope around his neck courtesy of Vito. Calculating that the location of the atomizer is Sims’s purse, Cesare gets the assignment to use his charm to get Darlene out of the hotel. Solo arrives at the hotel but before he can put his lockpicks to use, he finds Illya in the hall closet. Guardia enchants Darlene long enough for Vito to take her purse, there’s a car chase shot day-for-night through some familiar woods, Vito and the agents crash but after the fight the atomizer is still not found (because Mrs. Sparks had it). Bruno is asymmetric, he and Vito want Cesare to continue the assignment. Frustrated that the perfume has run out, Sims tosses it in the trash bin, and the efficient (uncredited) chambermaid already in the room takes it out right past Napoleon and Kuryakin where she’s accosted by Sammy. Darlene has heard of U.N.C.L.E., she gets a call from Guardia, and our duo are on the trail of the trash which the hyperefficient Rome Sanitation Department has just picked up. They commandeer the tour bus, get advice from Central, and drive past a lot of English and German cars to the dump. Solo is quick to assert the futility of any further search, Waverly is not happy. Illya’s so helpful. Cesare has brought Sims to the palazzo but he hesitates to invite her in, maybe it’s the way Bruno and Vito are waiting for them. In the tower, Darlene is bound and gagged and injected with “truth serum” but she can tell them nothing. At ground level, Napoleon and Kuryakin are captured and Vito takes the initiative to create a Batman-worthy trap which Guardia undoes. Fists are thrown, shots are fired, and it turns out the empty atomizer hadn’t ended up in the dump, Sammy had taken it from the chambermaid he’d threatened with his cap gun. Back in New York, Waverly gives Cesare a medal for heroism and it sounds like marriage might be in the offing when Wanda arrives with burlesque music on the soundtrack and turns almost everybody’s head. A second opinion likes it.

I hear WamaLTC participants displayed at BrickFair New Jersey last month (here’s some evidence, NJ Transit by Alan Bernstein, microscale by Stuart Roll, tall buildings by Kevin Loch, countryside vista by Lori Roll) but in the absence of any branding, there’s no rationale to include the event on the site.

11 November 2016

Eh, I was prepared to put away my eyeglasses, but the movie was restarted and we all got a re-admit pass. Deprived of AMC’s First Look and denied any trailers, the demanding customers in House #2 at the AMC Hoffman Center would not put up with an out-of-focus presentation.

Tomorrow’s recap will be in the shadow of this: Robert Vaughn, Who Starred as Napoleon Solo in ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E,’ Dies at 83.

I had hope my previous attempt at rendering Arabic didn’t exhibit this problem (Language is messy, part 2: Arabic script in “Arrival”) but the characters are separated looking at the file in BBEdit and I didn’t use the dir="rtl" attribute.

10 November 2016

The state of local free print journalism is so parlous that transposing the simplest press release is difficult, and the link to LGBT Friendly Alexandria in the print edition this week misses a couple of letters. (Some of the problems in the local free print journalism field are self-inflicted, from 5 years ago: The Fall of a Paper Tiger: Gazette Packet Owner Peter Labovitz Headed to Prison.)

There’s no word yet on how long the WamaLTC display installed September 17, 2016 at the National Toy Train Museum will remain available, I’ve also yet to hear a list of contributors that goes beyond what I can already guess from looking at the creations. This morning’s Facebook notifications were the perfect distillation of what I face as webmaster for WamaLTC, it’s too bad I can’t “Share” them.

Thank you, Tire Pressure Monitoring System. The Focus alerted me to a condition on the first start-up in a while, I had figured out last week there was a problem when my gauge didn’t even register a pressure. Apparently it was some road debris in the inner sidewall.

09 November 2016

There was room for следећи (next instead of new), oldest daily newspaper in the Balkans, this isn’t true until January, ugh: Трамп нови председник САД.

That same week in 1976 on ABC 40 years ago, Carol Jones played Carly, the surfer girl, in the serious first-season episode To Kill an Angel of Charlie’s Angels where Kelly Garrett is shot by a child. Here she is driving a red Mustang convertible that’s already a decade-old beater and bad-mouthing public transportation to the little boy and his kitten. The amusement park at the center of the action is now the Cinemark in the Pike Outlets in Long Beach.

Actually, I had noticed its disappearance from local grocery shelves even as I’d moved on: The Long Death of Product 19, the Most Beloved Cereal You've Never Heard Of (via).

08 November 2016

Virginia 2016 Presidential And State Election Results. Unofficial results for the downballot.

This “Special 2-hour Movie!” was first shown 40 years ago this week. Dr. Rudy Wells, among his many other medical duties and national security responsibilities, has developed a new implant surgery to help the paralyzed. The production does not credit the simian used as the procedure’s first success. Oscar Goldman explains that the search parameters have found one ideal candidate in Kanab, Utah, he’s not seen again as The Bionic Boy unfolds largely on location in that town. Col. Steve Austin drives a 1973 Ford Custom 500 Ranch Wagon, the theater marquee promises Jaws on July 30th, putting the filming about 11 months after the blockbuster’s initial release in 1975. (The “Kanab” was at 29 W. Center St.) The punched card had no address, so Steve asks the lady running the Clark’s Service gas station, she directs him to a baseball game, where he finds Andrew Sheffield (Vincent Van Patten, he was 18, playing 15 according to TV Guide) umpiring and ruling against the Kanab Falcons and its star player Joe Hamilton (Greg Evigan, he was 22). Steve meets Andy’s sister Valerie (Joan Van Ark, she was 33) and his friend Judy Grant (Carol Jones, she was 20). Andy’s injury is a result of joining his father searching for indigenous people’s remains to plunder on a local mountain subject to frequent rock slides, his father’s death and the desire to prove him right about the location of the burial grounds haunts him (there’s no mention of any mother). Steve explains the proposed surgery, then carelessly lets the Sheffields see his bionics in action, Andy agrees to the surgery. The “Kanab Hospital” accepts Master Charge. Valerie takes comfort from Steve’s presence, but he will never show any romantic interest in her. The surgery the next morning proceeds, Steve flashes back to the flight that injured him. After some suspense to pad the episode with a radio interfering with some of the medical equipment, the operation is considered a success. Three weeks later, though, the publisher of the local newspaper, Vernon Craig (Richard Erdman, he was 51), thinks otherwise. Another week goes by as Andy struggles to walk, his mental resistance is broken when Steve arranges for Joe and Colleen Lightfoot (Kerry Sherman, she was 22) to visit. Montage time, Andy gets better. Frank Gifford (he was 45) arrives to help Steve see how well Andy does at football, some concern arises about what’s happening with his legs. Dick Van Patten (he was 47) has a cameo as a shoe salesman, weirdly, Andy says his size is “about a 9.” Andy continues to show increased strength in his legs, he’s also hiding some pain. A driving lesson in a 1963 Chevrolet C10 pickup goes wrong when Andy stamps a hole in the floor. Mr. Craig gets more suspicious, so he snoops around the hospital, and finds a crate, apparently the OSI inventory namespace is well-known. Valerie drives to the “Summer Fantasy Dance” and barbecue on a windswept lakeshore in a first-generation Ford Bronco, Joe and Colleen pull up in a second-generation Dodge Colt. Steve has a grand ol’ time slow dancing with the Clark’s Service lady, not so much with Valerie. Mr. Craig threatens to publish speculation about the bionic nature of Andy’s legs in The Kanab Crier, Steve cajoles him into delaying publication. Andy blames Vernon some for his father’s death. After his first play in the big football game the next day being an implant-assisted touchdown, Andy sneaks off to climb Haunted Mountain. Steve eventually notices that Andy isn’t coming back, Judy confesses to what she’s noticed about his interest in returning to the mountain and the pain in his legs, Steve drives off and dodges new rock slides as he runs up the mountain. At the top, Andy has found a cave with artifacts inside, Steve removes one from its context and takes it, boo. Steve carries Andy down the mountain, Dr. Wells operates again, and Andy’s going to be ok. Oh, TV Guide, there are seventeen candles on the cake delivered by Mrs. Moapa to the birthday party. A second opinion thinks Steve’s a suitor, among other errors.

The Cubs, the 108-Year-Long Streak, and Old Man’s War.

07 November 2016

A world without the Mac Pro (via).

Flickr’s browser support policy (previously) definitely makes some sense for Microsoft Internet Explorer (e.g., IE10 was the first with any support for flexbox) and maybe some for Safari (“More HTML5 support” or just “Support for -webkit-calc()” whatever), but I can’t figure out why Google Chrome 20 and Opera 15 are specified other than the fact that Chromium 28 represents the first use of the browser engine Blink underlying them both, unless it’s because the release allowed use of @supports conditional blocks.

The talk of “patent vaults” is overblown, as patents are not secret, maybe portfolios would have been better: Estates of Mind (via).

06 November 2016

The Roots of Route 66 (via).

This American Life in the “Act One” segment of the episode Master of Her Domain… Name can’t imagine an adult alive today that doesn’t know how to use a desktop personal computer. The narrator needs to get out more, and I don’t mean just because there’s some other candidate in the race who’s also said not to use a computer (via).

Ars Technica has been dithering about the switch to https everywhere for at least 17 months since publishing this (Web Served: How to make your site all-HTTPS, all the time, for everyone) so maybe I can relax. I’m not happy that my host is not on the latest cPanel, though.

05 November 2016

Time to stop fighting it, I can ask for “one adult” ticket all I want, what I’ll be sold is the ticket coded SEN.

Mr. Alexander Waverly is exasperated with a defecting Thrush scientist who just wants to see his son again so, eh, he just gasses Armand Warshowsky into unconsciousness and complains about the slow delivery, Illya Kuryakin is ready with a jeweler’s loupe to inspect the mechanism. He and Napoleon Solo are sent to “SOMEWHERE IN THE MOJAVE DESERT” to destroy a stock of “poisonous, hypnotic” gas wearing overalls and carrying U.N.C.L.E. guns, they’re soon grappling with Thrush guards and—oh, come on, that alarm box is plainly corrugated cardboard with a slice of dowel stuck on—there’s also an ordinary wristwatch timer on the explosive Solo plants. After the explosion, Illya drives away in a 1948 Dodge B-series Stake Truck with Napoleon in the back. Armand’s son Bartlett (Jay North, he was 14) studies at the “LA CHAPELLE SCHOOL SWITZERLAND” and Thrush is intensly interested in retaining the famously hyperintelligent 13-year old. Kuryakin rides a Triumph Trophy TR6 into the “Swiss” mountains where he’s shot at by the passenger in a 1965 Imperial Crown 4-door hardtop, he fails to stop the assassination of the older Warshowsky by toy airplane (the sole deadly toy in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Deadly Toys Affair”) . Solo gets a cover as a wholesaler of toys with debilitating, but not immediately deadly, effects. The image of a “Polar Atlantic” jet is squeezed, I’ve stretched it for the thumbnail and its link target, Napoleon trips passenger Joanna Lydecker (Diane McBain) into his lap (she was 24) and she’s impressed he’s reading a Новая Заря newspaper [the headline refers to the Watts Rebellion earlier in the month]. The flight lasts overnight and Illya is also aboard, undercover in “tourist” as her hairdresser and maybe more. They meet Elfie van Donck (Angela Lansbury, she was 39) at the weakly established “INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT SWITZERLAND” (compare), Lydecker is a friend of the young Bartlett’s aunt. Joanna is the first to react when Solo is abducted and she fights multiple goons to rescue him. Napoleon and Elfie head to the school in a 1965 Dodge Polara convertible (missed by The Internet Movie Car Database) where the headmaster (John Hoyt) and his Thrush overseer (Arnold Moss) are plotting, not knowing they’re being observed by Bartlett. Noubar Telemakian is joking, the Van Allen belts are an exoatmospheric phenomenon confirmed 7 years earlier. van Donck immediately senses that Bartlett’s armed minder is more man than boy but Bartlett is not interested in Solo’s covert message of liberation. Lydecker is looking for more… hairdressing and the steward inflames her jealousy with talk of a girl. Joanna catches up to Kuryakin on the school’s grounds, but soon Lydecker’s loud indignation (silenced only by a kiss from Illya) leads to their capture. Eschewing a rucksack and climbing tools, Napoleon seeks out Elfie as his ticket onto the school grounds. Joanna and Kuryakin have their wrists tied and hung from meat hooks in a refrigerated room. van Donck stages a crash of the Dodge and they start finding clues as Bartlett packs for a hasty trip to the Near East. Solo accepts a leg up to get over the school wall and they reach Bartlett but the young man has on his mind only revenge for his murdered father. How did Mr. Waverly pitch Illya’s assignment to gain employ with Joanna as a “professional Romeo”? Lydecker’s valiant swing of an ax against the locked door has no effect, Kuryakin starts a fire on the knob, McCallum and McBain must have trusted the special effects guys because those are some big flames. There may have been more than one explosion in the building as everyone runs around in the hallways, Elfie has a pistol now, then our heroes race across the lawn spewing poison gas for the helicopter where van Donck takes care of the pilot. Elfie handles the controls of a Bell 47J-2 built in 1963 and owned by Oregon Helicopters of Culver City which could (barely) seat 5, its N73906 registration doesn’t match the Swiss HB-Xxx pattern for helicopters. A second opinion finds it a mixed bag, the episode is well-tagged on tumblr.

Bulb-outs are #3 on the list: 16 Ways to Design a Better Intersection—And Better Cities (via).

04 November 2016

Shin Godzilla was supposed to have a one-week run, but it lasted three at the AMC Hoffman Center 22.

This still wouldn’t help the cheesebrain drivers in the approaches to Landmark Mall: Ford Wrong Way Alert (via). The bus drivers are much too kind to them.

Why do people still use Brickshelf? This message is also available to users of the regular Firefox, but I noticed it first in Firefox Developer Edition because all the tabs in the Tools Console are active by default: Password fields present on an insecure (http://) page. This is a security risk that allows user login credentials to be stolen. Tonight’s Marketplace cautions that soon, such unencrypted sites will be made more obvious: Google Chrome is going to crack the whip on unprotected websites. WamaLTC and The History of Wamalug at its Original URL (and this site) don’t have logins, but the sites will be caught in the future browser messaging about a lack of encryption anyway.

03 November 2016

Among the many ideas for criminal acts in the LEGO City range for 2017, why isn’t one of them ATM skimmer fitting? By now, this is an old (from 6 years ago, the “Wachovia” at the Bradlee Center: Would You Have Spotted this ATM Fraud?) and rampant and recurring crime. Hm, using a bulldozer to knock over a bank is a real thing… in Denmark!

A review of the stylesheets I’ve written doesn’t locate any where I made use of the general sibling selector despite browser support which goes way back. This may change.

No more cumulative for Windows 10 users: Windows switching to differential patching in the Creators Update (via).

02 November 2016

In reading through the Star Trek Encyclopedia I have already discerned an error: identifying the black-haired woman at the end of “Assignment: Earth” as a particular individual (even if others might have done so before and others will again) has never been properly sourced.

This is directed more towards “frontend applications” but maybe I can learn something: 8 simple rules for a robust, scalable CSS architecture (via).

In recapping the “Kill Oscar” trilogy for the past 3 weeks (revisit Part I, Part II, Part III), I have not mentioned the previous John Houseman/Lindsay Wagner collaboration, such restraint.

01 November 2016

From August, I haven’t seen one yet: New Cruisers, New Makeover!

That’s Rudy narrating the recap that starts Kill Oscar Part III, not Oscar, although this time through the footage the closed captioning is careful to tell us when it’s ROBOT OSCAR speaking off-screen. The Bionic Blonde finds four looks in this episode. Jaime Sommers brushes her hair in her room at the National Medical Center, she and Col. Steve Austin are watching the news on a Panasonic color television as Howard K. Smith (no longer an actual co-anchor at ABC News by 1976) reports on a storm system, and to be fair to the closed captioning, Smith does clearly say it covers an arch across the U.S. southeast. The cutaway, besides positioning the set at a different angle, covers the brand logo but not the “Quatrecolor” symbol. Dr. Rudy Wells barges in without knocking to tell Steve he has a meeting at the Pentagon and to order Sommers back into bed, Jaime persuades Rudy that she’s ready for action. The armed forces are preparing an assault on the island location of Dr. Franklin and the stolen weather machine. In simpler times, the Pentagon had a small helipad and no barrier along Washington Boulevard on the west side. NSB Chief Inspector Hanson calls the weather disturbances a virtual seige and lays out three options. The 24-hour clocks in the room adjoining the meeting don’t recognize the renaming of Saigon the previous summer, also, late morning in Vietnam is late in the evening the previous day in the Washington area, so the daylight stock fly-by isn’t a match (a blogging exclusive, as this gaffe has not been noticed previously). Wells, Sommers, and Austin arrive at the meeting, her skirt is much more pleated than when she was sitting on the hospital bed so I mistook it for a different outfit at first. Wells, besides his other medical accomplishments, now offers a psychological profile of Franklin and a tactical assessment of Franklin’s use of a cyclone to surround his island base. The military men vote to attack notwithstanding the young lady’s concern over the captured Oscar. Much stock footage of B-52s and F-4s and naval vessels follows, and as Franklin increases the storm’s energy to deter the attack, Steve and Jaime approach Admiral Richter (Sam Jaffe) to request passage on an atomic submarine. There was still a small class of diesel-electric boats operating in 1976, so the distinction was necessary. Richter is fond of Goldman from the Cuban Missile Crisis days, and orders a rendezvous with an attack sub. Franklin orders faster winds and the armed forces retreat, Richter belatedly informs the command of his actions. Franklin’s misogyny is deeply rooted, not once does he acknowledge the presence of the captive Peggy Callahan (Jennifer Darling) standing next to Oscar Goldman, as he considers his situation. The production didn’t credit the performers who played Charlie and George in Part II, either, and the pair of presumably-human male guards don’t appear to have survived the move to “Saint Emile Island.” The submarine nears the island and finds the surface waters roiling, the submarine’s commander is quick to want to scrub the mission, but Steve asks to leave by the torpedo tube and on her show, wherever Steve goes, so will Jaime. Jaime reaches the shore first, she’s quickly spotted by a fembot-piloted helicopter patrol (the fembot’s weight approaches the load limit for a Hughes 269A). Franklin talks through a speaker on the helicopter and allows Oscar a word, Goldman reiterates his final orders in the event of capture. Oscar points out that regardless of whether Jaime or Steve kill him as ordered, or try to rescue him as Franklin suspects, they will not stop until Franklin is stopped. Franklin orders the storm be moved over the island to slow down the bionic woman, Jaime’s chased and she loses consciousness from the impact of a falling tree. Reviving, Jaime disables faceless fembot #006 with a thrown rock and takes its clothing. Austin comes ashore, Franklin sneers at the idea of a “male counterpart” and orders Katy to assist in capturing him, her obedience routines only barely prevail in accepting the order instead of challenging her creator again. There’s a fight on the beach as Jaime intervenes between Steve and the helicopter, her attempt at deception in the fembot uniform doesn’t last long—no one points out the failure of #006 to reestablish communication—fembot #003 pulls a cable and the helicopter is disabled. Franklin orders the weather machine be set for winds of 80 knots (still within the lowest classification on the Saffir-Simpson scale), and his last human colleague resists the decision. Steve takes off his wetsuit and all he has on is a pair of shorts and shoes, ok. The storm worsens and is no longer under the weather machine’s control, the water behind the dam is rising, too. Steve and Jaime evade the fembots chasing them across the rough terrain, and they make it to the dam and across, while the three remaining fembots are disabled by lightning strikes, including Katy (“No!” Franklin screams, #001 must have been his favorite, he always had a replacement face for Katy ready). With defeat close at hand, Franklin allows Goldman to leave (still not admitting to Callahan’s presence) and returns to the self-destructing weather machine and the many RCA televisions around the control room. The dam breaks—in slow motion, through the magic of old anamorphic movie footage—and as the water approaches the base, Jaime tries to reach what remains of Franklin’s humanity. Like anyone in the audience would know who Wagner was, teleplay author Arthur Rowe. The sky clears, the submarine signals, and all is well. This episode has no documents.

The Servo project (previously) was a prelude to a plan to displace the Gecko browser engine in Firefox: A Quantum Leap for the Web (via (via (via (via)))).

31 October 2016

Apple is ditching its iconic startup chime with the new MacBook Pro.

After natural disasters, elderly survivors show cognitive decline.

Annandale/Mason has nearly half of the county’s pedestrian danger zones.

30 October 2016

Multiple examples of the Philips Italy BI 180 A “Cadetto” table radio have been a victim of amateur repainting of the cabinet over the decades, if these photographs are any guide.

The “Lincolnia” station would have been at the intersection of Little River Turnpike and Beauregard Street: Why is there no Metro line on Columbia Pike?

The presence of a familiar name, one of my contemporaries at The Cavalier Daily, drew me in to this long read about a bright star who drank a lot: The Writer Who Was Too Strong To Live (via).

29 October 2016

I see a ghost in it, but the sign itself is not spooky. In the background, the French-Lawler House was built in 1893, it’s zoned commercial now, a former resident died last year. A plan 2 years ago to create a boutique funeral home that would have avoided parking minimums by practicing obscurity was denied.

Leo G. Carroll’s credit spoils whatever surprise there might have been in his playing a distant cousin, Quentin Lester Baldwin, and Susan Oliver’s credit gives her three names to match even though nobody will call her “Ursula.” A cat yowls at a caped man in a posh neighborhood, he enters one of the mansions and stabs a pajama top. At U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, Napoleon Solo is suffering while having his knee exercised by Sarah Johnson (Leigh Chapman) when Mr. Alexander Waverly enters carrying the knife, he’s volunteered his subordinate’s assistance to his cousin Lester. Solo identifies the knife as a “Gypsy dagger” and says “Gypsies are one of Illya’s specialties” so he calls Kuryakin and asks if he’s free. ⌘-F: the recap of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Bow-Wow Affair” spares our modern sensibilities and sub silentio changes the episode’s repeated use of “Gypsy” to Roma. Illya’s guesses as to why Solo is using a crutch are all wrong. If bodegas in the big city can have cats, why shouldn’t headquarters? Baldwin is host to a séance guided by a visitor, Delilah Dovro (Antoinette Bower). Lester’s niece Alice answers the door, Kuryakin has arrived. (The recap has many unflattering adjectives for Alice, largely based on these first few minutes, e.g., K: “Mr. Baldwin?” A: “No. He’s my uncle”, but Oliver’s delivery there is Airplane-worthy, this was a mere 2 weeks after her taking a chance on some pilot for a science-fiction series, many of her mannerisms for Vina are apparent in this role as well, that pilot eventually did lead to a series, Bower would play Sylvia in “Catspaw.”) Dovro’s statements are unnerving, but Illya’s attempt to be scientific about the little skull are thwarted. It’s a mixup anyone could make. Kuryakin also follows fashion? (He’d just accused Dovro of wearing a “Paris original.”) Baldwin suspects the intrusion was a threat to get him to sell stock in Andram at a loss. Illya is introduced to Lester’s dog but he insists on staying the night, Alice likes the idea. The intruder is back, and after a commotion heard in his room Lester is found dead. The dog survives Kuryakin’s tranquilizer darts, responds poorly to Napoleon’s command, but readily performs for Susan. Mr. Waverly is not impressed with Illya’s report and acts unkindly towards his cousin’s dog. A pattern is developing that people are selling their Andram stock after a dog’s attack, Kuryakin visits a recent victim. The intruder, the hospital intern that stole Illya’s coat, and Dovro have a nice house with a pool. As the inheritor of Lester’s stock in Andram, Alice is now protected by U.N.C.L.E. She gets a call from Andre Delgrovia (Paul Lambert), the intruder with the cape, and while Kuryakin is distracted writing her suggestions in his U.N.C.L.E.-branded notebook, two dogs enter. With the help of some cayenne pepper, Illya and Alice escape in a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (which they later abandon), Kuryakin photographs the dogs (the Whittaker Micro 16 again, he might be holding it upside down) and sees them taken away in a 1965 Dodge Coronet 440 station wagon. There’s enough time for one or two smooches, if Alice insists, but Sarah is too efficient for anything more. There’s a long scene with Pat Harrington, Jr. as Guido Panzini, a comically Italian expert on dogs, the actor died in January. A Morris Minor 1000 2-door convertible is used to stage Alice’s abduction, Illya is left in the road. At night, Kuryakin heads for the Delgrovia estate on Long Island, with… a “Napoleon.” The closed captioning misunderstands Alice’s epithet, fink, as Delgrovia and the rest try to intimidate her into selling the Andram stock (he wasn’t listening when she said they’d been sold to Kuryakin). “Napoleon” turns out to be a fox Illya is using to distract Delgrovia’s dogs. Kuryakin enters to rescue Alice, a fight ensues, and Delgrovia is mauled by his own dogs after Illya sprays him with Panzini’s formula. Mr. Waverly arrives at the estate’s gates, and the two Napoleons meet. Kuryakin and Miss Baldwin eschew Solo’s offer of a ride in the 1965 Plymouth Belvedere (the other car might be a 1965 Chevrolet Impala) and walk into the night. How cruel of the end credits, Jesslyn Fax played Mrs. Willard, I suppose, not Mr., hm, everyone listed after her would be in Star Trek. The consensus of opinion (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th) is that the dialog really carries this episode.

There’s something worse than a Fiat 500L? Consumer Reports’ Predicted Reliability For 2017 Models. Oh, never mind: “The main trouble spot? Ford’s dual-clutch automatic transmission.”

28 October 2016

Lighting the Starship Enterprise (via), Douglas Trumbull on his role in making Star Trek The Motion Picture probably has nothing new.

They Live and the secret history of the Mozilla logo (via).

As long as I create and maintain web sites, and BBEdit doesn’t run on iOS, I’m stuck, I guess: The future of PCs and Macs is expensive.

27 October 2016

Zika May Be In The U.S. To Stay.

There was a project to redesign Brickshelf earlier, the decision at LUGNET to no longer display the name of the author of posts may have hampered my search, but looking through old Wamalug files I found a link to the unsolicited effort: Brickshelf Viewer (BSV) was a user interface written in PHP by Bram Lambrecht (that domain is parked now). A review of the Wamalug site as it existed when I took over on April 23, 2003 located an abandoned page with a specific date I could add to clarify a bit of Wamalug History.

A spin on one of my few favorites from The Next Generation: Star Trek’s Feminist Statement: Believe Women (via).

26 October 2016

This is why your Facebook updates sometimes appear in huge font.

Precision Radiation Instruments started in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles where it later merged with a record company to take advantage of a $2 million loss, but the instrument that NSB agent Miller is using looks like one from the company’s Model 111 series, which was a scintillator detector, not a counter with a Geiger-Müller tube. The use of capital letters on the gauge to mean milliröntgen/hour (mR/h) would not be acceptable today. The roentgen per se remains acceptable domestically as of 8 years ago.

The ability to analyze a recent browser by its release date rather than the version number may be why SeaMonkey 2.4.0 (which reports itself as Firefox 43.0, released in the ancient times of last December) activates browser support messages at some sites. The Firefox release notes for developers—not to be confused with the Firefox Developer Edition and its release notes—are more comprehensive about the changes I’d previously downplayed. Who’s up for styling the unprefixed :any-link?

25 October 2016

The entrance to House #6 at the AMC Hoffman Center 22 is closed off, hm. Recliners on the way?

The recap takes up the whole teaser, with a number of alternate takes (Oscar Goldman’s final order, for example, is shown on a motel-grade RCA XL-100 set instead of the 19″ Trinitron built into the Sony LV-1901). Kill Oscar Part II begins with a building standing in for the “National Medical Center” where Jaime Sommers remains unconscious, it’s seen a few times as characters travel between there and Goldman’s office. Col. Steve Austin has returned from White Sands and Dr. Rudy Wells is still concerned that Jaime is rejecting her bionics. NSB Chief Inspector Hanson (Jack L. Ging) knows about Jaime’s robot story and is taking a hard line about any heroics Austin might be thinking about. Wells injects Sommers to revive her so Steve can ask her about what happened. Jaime is left alone, conscious, with the robot Lynda still in the building, but last night’s instruction to kill maybe no longer applies as Steve and Rudy build a device to reset Jaime’s ear and determine the frequency of the robots she was hearing. Franklin has had the air conditioning fixed, he’s got a scarf now, and learns through the robot Lynda’s eyes that Steve is bionic. The frequency has changed from being a byproduct of the robot’s transistors to a communications channel, whatever. OSI has a satellite now, and Steve determines the location of Franklin’s base while robot Lynda watches. That Bell 206B Jet Ranger II with registration N30DB appears again (it gets a “NASA” seal this time), Steve is able to fly to Franklin’s base and set down. The air conditioning must be set quite low, Katy is wearing a black uniform as the robot observes Steve’s landing. The production does not credit the faceless fembot assisting Katy in the control center. Austin approaches the base, he’s hailed by Callahan, Steve bends some bars and releases her from confinement by lifting her off the window sill and setting her down (clue 1). Katy is sent to fight Austin—in the clothes she was wearing last night to attack Sommers instead of her new uniform—but the robot Callahan quickly loses her face. Franklin tries to goad Austin into surrendering, but Steve is able to damage the communications antenna and the robots lose direction. Security guards Charlie and George give chase, Steve finds Lynda and figures she’s real, Franklin walks away, and Steve finds Oscar in bondage. (I thought I’d found a flaw that others had overlooked about how the robot Oscar knows about the “Kill Oscar” order if everyone else had to learn it from playing the videotape, but the robot Callahan was watching with them.) The base starts exploding and Steve takes off, the helicopter rolls to the left (clue 2). The production does not credit the faceless fembot holding the live Callahan. Late at night, Goldman orders the weather control station moved to Base 5 and Wells operates on Sommers in a long sequence of stock footage as Austin waits. Rudy, in his office wear rather than surgical scrubs, tells Steve that Jaime will be ok. Lynda contemplates her robot duplicate, Rudy says it weighs 482 pounds (clue 3). Lynda signs out and Rudy starts poking at the robot’s face and head with a screwdriver. Steve finds Oscar waiting for Jaime to awaken, she does when Steve takes her hand, the (ROMANTIC MUSIC) starts… the Bionic Blonde reserves her biggest emotional reaction for this kiss. Steve calls it a night, and Franklin is fixing the communication with the robot Lynda. Steve goes to visit Oscar first, though, and while he might be slow, the creaking floor and the way Oscar crushes a pencil underfoot finally allows Steve to figure out he saved a robot Oscar. The production does not credit the faceless fembot holding the live Goldman. Steve returns to Rudy and shares his conclusion. Robot Oscar drops by and orders Steve to Hawaii, but Steve manages to postpone. Robot Oscar calls Hanson and tells him that Austin is a robot. The next morning (new clothes) Steve is apprehended, the geiger counter buzzes as robot Oscar said it would, that garage has three Mercedes-Benz cars with California plates, including a dark blue pagoda model. Steve escapes the NSB agents and finds Lynda still at home. Steve sneaks into the medical center, Rudy has prepared a microwave device to interfere with Franklin’s ability to receive audio and video from the robot Oscar. A big fight ensues when the robot Oscar arrives, Steve eventually subdues and deactivates it. Jaime feels fine, but Lynda tells them her robot duplicate has revived, it speaks in Franklin’s voice as winds howl outside and emits (MANIACAL LAUGHING) as he boasts of having the weather control system. This episode affords no documents, to be continued.

Ford Focus RS500 plans at risk over concerns for Mustang GT, Shelby GT350.

24 October 2016

Ah, those heady times 12 years ago when I was the star contributor to the operation of Brickshelf, at least since then the password recovery function was implemented even if nothing else from the priority list was. The page setting out the contribution levels no longer exists, but the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has a capture, the “Brickshelf.com Member Contribution System” had seven tiers.

That was close, a weekend of repeated “Your account is locked” notices regardless of how many temporary passwords Verizon sent had me looking up @VerizonSupport and a telephone number to try today… when I was finally able to log in late last night and could snag my latest bill.

This is my over-the-head view of the Goodyear Airship Control Car C-49 on Saturday, as a comparison with the set on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Take Me To Your Leader Affair” (previously). The interpretive panel might delicately call it an airship but online the word blimp is used more often (e.g., from its acquisition 5 years ago: Historic Blimp Gondola Donated to the National Air and Space Museum).

23 October 2016

Eh, maybe it’s time for a sit-to-stand desk accessory, if it wasn’t for the combined weight of my displays, boo: Herman Miller Just Redesigned Its Iconic Aeron Chair.

I was pressed yesterday to reconsider my lack of identification for the four-jet passenger airplane in The Very Important Zombie Affair earlier, I’ve decided it’s a five-across Convair 880 or Convair 990. The livery remains a mystery, it isn’t an American Airlines Convair 990 because they were using only one (red) stripe then (and the red-white-blue sequence from the top is the opposite of that used by the airline later). Yes, there’s The Internet Movie Plane Database but it’s even less complete than the one for cars.

The “barfblog” has this rejoinder to the Fast Company article I linked earlier: Sounds like any other restaurant: Chorizo, comebacks, cocaine and customers barfing as the missing point about Chipotle.

22 October 2016

Wamalug’s display was not listed among the activities at today’s Air & Scare at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, but 15 or so participants showed up anyway. The club didn’t get a sign prepared in Nuptial this year, either. For future Flickr captioning use: the Wibault 280 was an all-metal low-wing cantilever monoplane powered by three propeller engines.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Four-Steps Affair” inspires divergent opinions, especially in light of its origins as a way to use plotlines developed to extend earlier episodes when presenting them as movies overseas. This second opinion likes the result very much, while this third opinion is less impressed, I think the episode moves at a good clip. U.N.C.L.E. agent Dancer (Miguel Landa) enters the scene driving a pre-1965 Chevrolet Chevy II, seeking refuge at his lover’s house. A skeptical Mr. Waverly takes his call, but the line is cut before the message is complete. Angela (Luciana Paluzzi, she would appear in Thunderball the next year) has a photography studio upstairs and she cooly betrays the agent to machine-gun fire through the opened window. At U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, Kitt Kittridge (Donald Harron) and Illya Kuryakin puzzle over Dancer’s last message as Mr. Waverly maintains his optimism that those the agent was protecting (a 10 year-old boy who’s a religious icon in his unnamed native Himalayan country, a guardian, and a post-dental surgery nurse) are still safe. The call to Napoleon Solo catches him in the arms of a woman and Sarah (Leigh Chapman) relays the situation and might be flirting with him, too (Napoleon cooly lies about his activity). Kittridge and Kuryakin find Miki (Michel Petit) and his companions safe at a different photography studio but the attempt to get them out in a 1965 Dodge Custom 880 wagon is complicated by a Thrush assault that leaves Kaza (Malachi Throne) wounded , Kitt has a medical opinion. There’s bad closed captioning as Illya notices he’s no longer in control of the car, the pursuing Volkswagen Transporter panel van with an antenna on top is responsible. Check out that distinctive “walnut grain insert” on the top-of-the-line wagon! They’re guided into a trailer and taken to a Thrush mansion where the three are held captive. Before Chrysler came to dominate the vehicle choices on the series, Solo drives a 1963 Lincoln Continental convertible, finds Dancer’s abandoned Chevy II, and sniffs out Angela in the backseat. Angela’s very pretty and Napoleon is interested in her charms, but he remains cautious as they enter her house and when he finds evidence that Dancer had been in the house earlier, Solo becomes even more apprehensive. Napoleon’s able to evade the lighting setup—this second time, it’s clearer that the lights are activated by the movement of the window and not by any affirmative act by Angela—and Angela is shot. A scene is created to transition between hairstyles to bridge the separately filmed episodes. Mr. Waverly tells Solo that Angela’s wounded and unconscious and the two of them visit the healing and conscious Kaza, but the guardian denies any knowledge of Thrush. Kuryakin uses a spoon and a mousetrap to distract the Thrush guards and escape but the boy’s nurse Kelly Brown (Susan Seaforth) turns back to get her purse and they’re all captured again. As Mr. Waverly threatens Kaza with interrogation, Napoleon feigns inattention, Kaza grabs Solo’s gun and shoots them, but it was loaded with blanks and the clip has a homing device. Kaza drives a 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 (obviously not through Manhattan) and reaches the mansion before the Ford Econoline with agents led by Napoleon and Kitt, they attack the house and rescue Illya, Miki, and Kelly. The road to the airport was recently filmed, rectangular taillights on the Ford Thunderbird first appeared on the 1964 model. In the terminal’s waiting room, Solo makes a move on Kelly and Miki has trusted Kuryakin with an important assignment.

The craters were getting too big and numerous to ignore: DASH Bus will avoid Landmark Mall while it repaves next week, Metrobus advisory.

21 October 2016

The story of the crash of a GG-1 locomotive-led passenger train into Union Station in 1953 is a perennial (previously): Picture this: You're nibbling breakfast at Union Station when a train plows through the building. Now that WamaLTC has a Union Station and several GG-1 locomotive models, the thought has already been expressed…

SeaMonkey 2.4.0 has been out since March and identifies itself as Firefox 43, and the release of 2.4.6 has been stymied by localization in the build process. Fortunately, there haven’t been any new elements or styles recognized in more recent releases of the minority browser.

When The History of Wamalug at its Original URL and WamaLTC wouldn’t load, but hannaher.net would, I realized it wasn’t my host: DoS attack on major DNS provider brings Internet to morning crawl; The Feds are investigating today’s massive DDoS attacks.

20 October 2016

Somewhere in Portland, a Mercedes-Benz 180 is still running (h/t Cohort Outtake: Mercedes “Pontoon” On The Go).

The B&O Railroad Museum Ellicott City Station reopens on Friday, November 25 to kick off the Holiday Festival of Trains. Please note that due to the late reopening of Ellicott City Station because of historic July flood, the Washington DC Metropolitan LEGO Group’s LEGO layout will not be on display this year at Ellicott Station Station. Area! Metropolitan Area! It’s on every page of our website!

Letting go of the past, slowly: The System 7 Today Forums Will Be Permanently Closed October 1st, 2016 (via). A review of the browser collection on the premises means Firefox is updated everywhere—except for MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, where I’ve downloaded and installed TenFourFox 45.4—and it’s clearly the only relevant no-hacks-needed browser back to Snow Leopard and Windows XP.

19 October 2016

A use for reward points, maybe: Here’s the Beautiful New STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA.

The study was done in Colombia, but the conclusion must come as a big “duh” to anyone in the region’s rush hours: The wealthy commute later, get to take more direct routes. Meanwhile, a plan—or bluff or threat—to simply close subway stations outside of rush hour which I missed last week.

New historic marker commemorates a vanished black community in… the blog might call it Annandale, but the park is west of a very familiar medical building on Woodburn Road.

18 October 2016

The pseudo-class :nth-last-of-type() is the surprisingly well-supported trick I have been looking for the past week. I’ve been giving the Opera Developer Tools a try (oh, Firefox has a “dock to side of browser window” option, hm), it’s been… interesting seeing how specificity plays out.

When last week I described Col. Steve Austin’s pose as a “disgruntled OSI scientist” I was tempted to add like there’s any other kind and surely by this point the Secretary or some Congressional committee should have held Oscar Goldman responsible for how often this happens. John Houseman’s Dr. Franklin, introduced in Kill Oscar on The Bionic Woman as the first part of a three-episode crossover-and-back-again arc, is the epitome of disgruntlement with the OSI and its director. When even the Bionic Blonde recap identifies the color, make, and model of various cars and there are no documents, my role is limited. Baron Constantine (Jack Colvin, playing up an accent) arrives in a single-window Learjet 23 (which would have been about a decade old when the episode was first broadcast, Franklin pronounces his name with a short “i”) in some hot location, the financier demands to know the results of the money spent so far and is puzzled to learn that instead of pursuing the theft of a weather control device from OSI as they had agreed, Franklin’s been engineering female robots for obedience (he calls them “Fembots”). Franklin rips off the face of Katy (Janice Whitby) and in this way persuades Constantine that his plan of replacing some OSI secretaries is the surest path to their mutual goal. Jaime Sommers drives west past the White House in a 1976 Ford Mustang II on her way to the OSI secured parking garage, actually Goldman’s office is in the opposite direction. She’s followed by Lynda Wilson (Corinne Michaels, playing secretary to Dr. Rudy Wells) in a distinctively-colored 1976 Datsun B210. Oscar Goldman’s secretary Peggy Callahan (Jennifer Darling, again) is feeling harried this morning, the clock on her desk is the same as that seen in Jaime’s home a year earlier, Jaime adopts an Austrian accent and poses as a psychoanalyst to help her through the crisis. Rudy has some plan to improve Jaime’s hearing, but she hears the weather control station down the hall malfunctioning and rescues Col. Steve Austin from the uncontrollable lightning generated therein, a game of handball and a promise of dinner later follows. The conspirators have no problem getting their 1974 Dodge Tradesman van into the OSI garage. Lynda tells Rudy good night—it's still bright outside—and walks past a Fiat 124 Special T 1600 with a doubled-up license plate and she’s quickly replaced. (Oscar’s office is in the District, but the view from Rudy’s window is somewhere more forested.) Sommers visits Callahan again and hears through the intercom how Goldman treats his secretary, that should read diplomatic corps’s been after me for years. Trouble out west, the weather control station at “White Sands” has failed in the same way, and Austin is assigned to shut the project down. Oscar meets Jaime in a public square—I found it eventually in a result for the search los angeles public square terracotta roofs italianate—in front of Pasadena City Hall, the black cupola visible as Sommers pulls in to the OSI garage earlier means that entrance is in the same neighborhood, the principle of least travel holds as the intersection of N. Garfield Ave. and Ramona St. is one block north. (There’s a vacant lot in all online maps where that entrance was, in the middle of the block; the views from the van are probably all Pasadena, too.) Callahan is replaced! With two fembots in place at OSI headquarters, Franklin and his associates learn about Jaime’s bionic powers, the scientist remains resentful of Goldman’s funding of Rudy’s bionics project over his own robots and weather control machine. The next phase of Franklin’s project is to kidnap Oscar Goldman. Oscar walks past a 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV and waits for Jaime by her (presumably rented, but from where is not clear if she flew in from California, the car has D.C. tags) Mustang II, he’s attacked—and when he falls, there’s a red 1968 Dodge Dart 2-door (guide) behind him. Constantine thinks Sommers should have been taken as well, but Franklin is taking no chances. A GMC ‘New Look’ passes (in stock footage I noted last year) as people gather in Goldman’s office for the investigation to begin. “They found the van near an airstrip in Bethesda,” sure. Goldman’s safe is opened, and although it might be a “U-matic” box that they pull out, the tape they play in a Sony LV-1901 television/video cassette recorder must be Betamax. The tape is the source of the Kill Oscar order, as beyond money and power, Dr. Franklin wishes the satisfaction of proving to a living Goldman that as OSI director he was wrong about the potential for the scientist’s ideas about weather control and cybernetics, although that is but a small fringe benefit at this point. Oscar has cause to regret the orders in case of his capture now that two innocents, Callahan and Wilson, are held alongside him. Jaime visits Peggy at home and catches on that it’s an imposter with strength equal to her own and the fight is on—Katy loses her face, again—and Jaime jumps down four stories and damages her legs. Sommers ends up bedridden with Wells planning to tune down her bionics so she’s unconscious—was that a consequence with Barney? no, it wasn’t—and he doesn’t listen to her insisting she was fighting robots—the Lynda replacement walks in and we know that Franklin has just ordered the robot to kill Sommers once she awakens… to be continued!

If WamaLTC were to have a browser support notice like Flickr does—currently the closest equivalent avoids specifics—it might well say IE6+ even though I have no way of testing in IE7, IE9, or IE10, a similar situation holds with saying Opera 10+.

17 October 2016

The Ingredients Reign campaign‒another AMC First Look pre-show advertiser—stands no chance of getting me in again: Chipotle Eats Itself (via).

Amusingly apropos of recent activities, from last year: Back from the Dead: Using Apple’s Abandoned Safari for Windows Today. It’s easier to start a Windows XP virtual machine than to find an old Mac on the premises.

Leonard Nimoy stashed Tootsie Pops in his Tricorder (via) is a strangely unsourced report on John Dwyer and his test for authenticity of the remaining Surviving Tricorders.

16 October 2016

Safari Responsive Design Mode is not a substitute for having a device running iOS Safari. That is all.

This week, one of the tired crew that writes letters to the free local weeklies is complaining about the loss of parking spaces should the King Street-Old Town Station get rebuilt and what Van Fleet misses as a driver and parker looking from his sixth-story perch is the pedestrian viewpoint. The current plan for King Street-Old Town Metro Access Improvements Project is like earlier plans—stalled for years while seeking funding despite a death—that tried to reduce the pedestrian/bus conflict zones at the station. Trying to think now which driver for DASH I haven’t seen in over a year: Woman run over by Alexandria DASH bus is awarded $4.5 million by jury.

There’s all sorts of stuff on a side-mount pumper these days, E210 in the sun yesterday.

15 October 2016

WamaLTC used to have displays in October—our bailing on Vienna Oktoberfest last year might be one reason why we didn’t display at the event this year—and I would miss the local fire department’s open house, no such conflict today. Station 208 only had a reserve pumper on hand, I already built one of those!

This time no outrage, it really is Miami Beach with the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels along Biscayne Bay, but some dubiety (perhaps undeserved) for the BOAC Douglas DC-7 landing as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin arrive to make contact with a dissident from a despotically-ruled Caribbean nation. They luck out and an assassination attempt fails, a car chase through the MGM “New York” backlot follows—prominently featuring the operation of semaphore traffic signals which would have been hopelessly out of date even in Los Angeles—as Solo and Kuryakin in a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere taxi try to evade a second assassination attempt by the passenger in a red 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury in an all-Mopar universe (save one Opel Kadett) where the stake truck that stops them is a Dodge medium-duty D-series. They get to the hotel room of Señor Delgado (Ken Renard) and his wife Conchita (Isabelle Cooley) with a fight already in progress, a tossed “voodoo” doll leaves the dissident comatose and through inattention—or a double game Mr. Waverly did not brief them on—Delgado is abducted. While the author of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Very Important Zombie Affair” might ably addresss the lack of authenticity in the episode’s depiction of Afro-Caribbean religious practices, it completely misses the burn when Illya reads a Spanish-language newspaper and pauses to translate for Napoleon. The duo head to “La Puerta del Cielo” (Kuryakin explains what it means to Solo, I thought he knew Italian) and upon their arrival at the hotel are witness to staff manicurist Suzy trying to sneak out of the country, without success because the nation’s strongman favors her work. Their would-be assassin is Capitán Ramirez (Rodolfo Acosta), he arrives to escort them to the presidential palace but agrees to a stop in the hotel’s barber shop first. Solo offers Suzy a way out of the country if she helps them, Linda Gaye Scott was 22 and kept her eyes wide open for this role. The production does not credit the monkey performing as the sidekick of El Supremo (Claude Akins). Delgado is clearly not in a normal mental state. El Supremo orders the U.N.C.L.E. agents removed from the country, they’re taken in a 1966 Chrysler 300 convertible (its windshield removed) which Illya somehow has managed to sabotage and the last plane that day leaves (I’ve yet to identify the four-jet airliner or its livery). Suzy is found (alive) in their hotel room’s bathroom and the three head to a dive and learn where to find Delgado. Ramirez, convinced that Suzy swapped the hair trims and nail clipping, collapses. Taking the soldiers’ nine-slot grill Jeep, Illya drives to the guarded Delgado residence where Conchita tells them they must visit Mama Lou, the priestess who taught the self-styled president. El Supremo revives Ramirez as Illya continues driving until the gas runs out, they find helpful zombiefied political prisoners, and eventually reach Mama Lou. Ramirez has beaten them again and ordered her to poison the agents. Once he realizes he’s been duped, he shoots. Before she dies Mama Lou curses the name of El Supremo, who shows up and dismisses their power over him. Kuryakin—obviously no one in this country ever searched him—shoots a dart at the doll and El Supremo collapses. Delgado remains as president of the provisional junta. A second opinion judges the episode a success.

The construction at 4580 Duke Street has finally knocked down the sign for Tres Hermanas, the Aldi is expected to open across the street from a Harris Teeter by the end of the year. There are people who would shop at both.

14 October 2016

Wherever did she get the idea to lend her name for a share of the profits? Lindsay Lohan Has A Nightclub In Greece. Meanwhile, Jamie Lee Curtis condemns Trump’s disturbing remarks about Lindsay Lohan.

The mystery deepens… Intervju Donalda Trampa i izvinjenje Srbiji – autentični, izmišljeni ili podmetnuti? …but that page at Nedeljnik I linked to yesterday no longer exists, the publication is quite willing to link to the coverage of the situation, e.g.: A Magazine Said Trump Apologized For Bombing Serbia And All Hell Broke Loose.

So that’s why the signs have changed, from last year: Sleepy’s sold for $780M to rival Mattress Firm.

13 October 2016

A semaphore traffic signal at the Intersection of Western Ave. and Santa Monica Blvd. (via An amazing new look at Great Depression-era Los Angeles).

Just another fire to stamp out for this campaign, the story fell apart over the course of the day: Donald Trump’s Denial of His Reported Remarks on the Balkans. Previously, I had presumed that some Serbs in diaspora are single-issue voters for whom this stand would be decisive: Трамп: Бомбардовање наших савезника Срба велика грешка (via). The oldest daily newspaper in the Balkans does not link to Tanjug or the exclusive interview at Nedeljnik. A publication that was serious about its pro-Cyrillic stance would not use latinica in its URLs, huh, RTS no longer has Cyrillic in its URL either (example: reporting the denial). (For my readers who don’t read Serbian, Newsweek picked up the story (revised to include the denial, via).) Before the denial, the timing of the interview made sense (With Nowhere to Turn, Trump Lobbies For Serbian Vote) but the ethnic appeal wouldn’t make sense numerically.

This is more annoying for those still using the older operating systems: Windows patches start getting cumulative for 7, 8, 2008, and 2012. I tell people that I never looked back after creating the Windows 10 virtual machine.

12 October 2016

The presence of a Japanese Sign Language interpreter at press conferences by government officials is just one element needed to update a 60+ year-old classic.

There was a minor backup on the way to the movie last night: Terrible Evening Commute for Many.

President Obama Speaks About the ‘True Meaning’ of STAR TREK (via).

11 October 2016

See if I buy one now: Ferrari Officially Abandons the Manual Gearbox.

A well-dressed thief takes the “Project Fusion” documents from a small vault down the hall from Oscar Goldman’s office as H＋2＋O = Death begins and the Secretary is not happy with the lapse in security. Because the ultimate recipient, “Omega,” is not aware that the project has not met expectations, Col. Steve Austin sees an opportunity to entice the thief to strike again. Steve meets Dr. Ilse Martin (Elke Sommer, she was 36) in the O.S.I. parking lot and he bionically cleans the battery terminals in her Ford Mustang II. Goldman, Dr. Rudy Wells, and Austin plan to fake the operation of a breathing device by connecting it to the nuclear reactor in Steve’s bionic arm, Martin discovers the three testing the deception—sure, the O.S.I. has a swimming pool for testing—but she learns nothing despite her prior work on the project. Steve goes undercover as Dr. Mark Porter, a disgruntled O.S.I. scientist, to attract the attention of a wealthy businessman who owns a marine park in Los Angeles. The stock footage of Steve’s flight west is so generic, it’s of the Boeing 747 shown at the Paris Air Show 7 years earlier (h/t: Boeing’s Iconic 747 May Be Flying Into The Sunset). Once he’s in LA, Austin experiences reduced power in his bionic arm, Wells and Goldman advise him to return, but the chance to meet those interested in Project Fusion is too important to postpone. As an aspirant to the good life, “Porter” drives a Lincoln Continental Mark IV. The production does not credit the killer whales performing as Orki and Gorki, but they are probably Orky (II) and Corky (II) at Hanna-Barbera’s MarineLand, the latter remains captive—40 years later—at SeaWorld San Diego as “Shamu.” As “Porter” negotiates for $5 million in gold and more for the breathing device, the elusive Omega is listening in. Steve finds his Lincoln sabotaged, spots Dr. Martin driving a green Ford LTD, this seems suspicious, he gives chase along some ocean front. Confronted, Ilse asserts that she’s a double agent. Steve (and Oscar) are very trusting of ordinary telephones in this episode. Steve prepares to demonstrate the breathing device in the park’s main tank, Omega’s armed minions move in under orders from the hat-wearing man in the mid-70’s Dodge Sportsman camper conversion, the stickers are more or less offensive. Ilse also has a medical degree, convenient; once Steve mentions his real name, it clicks for her that he’s the astronaut. Steve solders himself back to full bionic strength, he promptly dives into the tank while there’s still a rip in his bionic arm. There’s a fight, Oscar is not happy that Omega got away. Sommer plays Ilse like she’s physically interested in Steve, but Steve barely reciprocates.

Wamalug and WamaLTC have yet to face this, though other clubs have, and also the convention-attending community: Death and MetaFilter.

10 October 2016

Like that’s more scary than before: One election-system vendor uses developers in Serbia (via).

The power of prayer, from Friday: Sad Ted Cruz Phone-Banks For ‘Nominee’ He ‘Supports,’ Whomever That Might Be, No Way To Know.

A potential drawback to sharing designs: Lepin Moves from LEGO Sets to LEGO Fan Designs.

09 October 2016

Big problems in the Midwest: Mouse in the house? You're not alone as Minnesotans seek out help; Mouse infestation causing headaches in MN lakes country.

The vehicle seen in this week’s episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is not a Mardi Gras float built in a backyard but actually a Goodyear Vee Balloon, the subject of United States Patent 3,151,825 issued in 1964 for “V-shaped configuration of tethered balloons”, which was otherwise used for logging. Before working for Goodyear, the inventor Paul K. Kindling was the helmsman of the Graf Zeppelin on its 1928 voyage to the United States, he visited Goodyear in Akron then, he died in 1972. Tethered balloons aren’t normally manned, but the set for Sparrow’s control cabin vaguely looks like the gondola of a blimp, a nice touch.

At least one individual at the meeting on Saturday noted the resemblance of the inset windows in concrete look of the bank at 4651 King Street to a building in the District, the Wikipedia entry for the James V. Forrestal Building is detailed on the process of getting it built, my photograph with my first SLR in 1978 was a mere 9 years after it opened.

08 October 2016

2016 Ford Focus RS Long-Term Test – May the FoRS Be With You, Always.

The title assures us that all of the subsequent stock footage of radio telescopes is “Somewhere in the CARIBBEAN” but the Land Rover 88″ Series IIa with Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo inside clearly rolls into a set, it’s the island observatory of Dr. Adrian Cool. They’re pranked on their arrival by the “pop” of a paper bag by the noted radio-astronomer’s daughter, Coco (Nancy Sinatra, adding pink boots to the “The Rebel Chick” in the Pink Bikini persona from the release of her “Sugar” album earlier in the year). Illya is not impressed and Napoleon presses on with their assignment. Dr. Cool is disappointed that Mr. Waverly hasn’t traveled to to see him personally on this matter of considerable importance, recent signals suggest that a space vehicle is approaching Earth, and Dr. Cool wants Mr. Waverly’s assistance in forming a conspiracy of silence among other radio astronomers. Coco is abducted, and Solo watches ineffectually as she and Kuryakin are taken away by boat. Napoleon flies a helicopter—where he found one is not clear (or, as clear as how they got to that Land Rover in the first place) and the bubble front in closeup is like that of a Bell 47 ‒and the answer to how he’s controlling the aircraft while using binoculars to search for the boat and communicating with Mr. Waverly is: he’s using his knees. Solo has lost track of the boat but sights a yacht headed for Dr. Cool’s island, the man who put up the money for the observatory has come for a visit. Simon Sparrow explains to Dr. Cool and his assistant, Dr. Trebush, that the signals that have excited them are not real, but rather the result of a grand plan by Sparrow to hoax the world with the benefits accruing to himself. The conspiracy to create an alien visitation is not inherently silly, it formed the basis of The Outer Limits episode The Architects of Fear, after all, but before it’s over The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Take Me To Your Leader Affair” will take it there anyway. Illya and Coco are being held in bondage long enough to make sure that Dr. Cool cooperates, Kalmus orders the rope and tape gags removed and offers Coco a change of clothes. It was perfectly ordinary Friday evening family entertainment, Kuryakin places the rope around Coco’s neck to second the suggestion, Coco likes this man’s approach, within a minute, she is talking marriage. Solo is shot down, he’s rescued from drowning by Sparrow’s fiancée, Corinne Ackers (Whitney Blake was 40, but Napoleon is eager to take his usual approach). The house where Illya and Coco are being held is “Somewhere in LOUISIANA” and she’s changed into a straw-colored ribbed turtleneck and black leather trousers, Kuryakin insists on duty first and starts work on removing a bar in the window. Reports of the approaching space vehicle are coming in from other observatories and the Council of Nations is concerned. Kuryakin manages to set off an alarm before learning much, he’s back in the attic for The Coco & Illya “Combo” by the time their captors react. “SPARROW DYNAMICS” is so obviously the MGM lot, the use of the Piranha car makes sense there, less so in-story in (or near) Louisiana. From Napoleon’s delicacy with the door and the caress as he walks away, I’m guessing it was hard to keep closed. The man at the company’s employment office accepts Solo’s flimsy pose of a thermodynamics engineer, Sparrow quickly rushes Napoloen into a wind tunnel. Corinne arrives in a pale blue 1966 Imperial convertible (her fiancé has a matching black hardtop) and saves Solo again. The production took out the deeply curved windshield on her car, a feature since 1957. They smooch and talk about motivations, Corinne’s is revenge. Meanwhile Coco is still trying to interest Illya in the life of a musician, they spot Sparrow’s arrival. Kuryakin uses the elastic from his briefs and an ink bottle to knock out one guard, they see a craft which Illya suspects is the “asteroid” Dr. Cool thinks he’s been tracking, they’re captured again. (I’ll identify the craft tomorrow.) Solo and Ackers replace two members of Sparrow’s crew, when Simon says to drop Illya and Coco into the ocean, surely he means the Gulf? Mr. Waverly and representatives of the Council of Nations have gathered on Dr. Cool’s island, loyal company man Trebush injects Dr. Cool to prevent him from telling the truth, there’s an odd lack of urgency from the others over his “heart attack.” Sparrow impersonates an alien over the radio and sets himself up as supreme leader of the world. Kalmus recognizes Ackers under the helmet, he is the first out the hatch, Illya and Coco team up to toss another minion out, Corinne shoots Simon four times, he is very dead even though no holes appear in him or his seat back. (The helmets only serve the story point of disguising Solo and Ackers, since Sparrow doesn’t transmit video to the fearful world leaders.) Trebush’s injection wasn’t fatal, Coco has found a sparkly top, matching slacks, and shiny pumps all in gold, Illya hasn’t run away yet, and Napoleon is still interested in Corinne, so plot holes or no, a happy ending.

The local jurisdiction’s real estate assessment search page gave me the result that the building at 4651 King Street now housing Wells Fargo and a co-tenant was built in 1967, and the hint that before Wachovia, it was a location for First American Bank—what it was in the preceding decade remains elusive. My other contribution to today’s Wamalug meeting was the Floyd’s 99 Barbershop/Verizon Wireless Zone Premium Wireless Retailer combo. (My rendition isn’t super-faithful.) Floyd’s 99 Barbershop was founded in 2001 and now has 100 locations in multiple states including several in the region, but maybe they’re easy to overlook if you’re not in the market for a “fun, high-energy” cut and those attending the meeting hadn’t heard of it. “The Wireless Zone® franchise system is the largest independent, carrier-exclusive, wireless retailer in the country.” I guess now that I’ve displayed creations based on the buildings on either side of it, I should build the Safeway at 3526 King Street.

07 October 2016

Cops arrest hundreds of people allegedly involved in IRS phone scam in 9 locations across Mumbai earlier this week. The details of the operations in the Mira Road call centers doesn’t exactly match the synthetic voice heard earlier this year, but local authorities don’t believe they are done investigating. The more local press does not use the proper U+20B9 (₹) symbol for the Indian rupee adopted in 2010, continuing to use a typographic substitute (“Rs”) for the generic U+20A8 (₨) rupee symbol. It’s also helpful to know that crore means ten million (10⁷).

The replacement wireless card has been nothing but trouble for a week, the bigger antenna made no improvement, even with an antenna on a cable I was getting RSSI values of -75dBm (and worse) when the mouse was next to the antenna! There was also extremely jumpy mouse movement and frequent disconnections. The alleged fragility of U.FL connections notwithstanding, whew, I have restored the operation of the old Bluetooth card and despite similar signal strength values have semi-smooth mouse movement with the antenna behind a monitor. I most missed side-to-side scrolling in BBEdit. This advice is no longer true but the signal strength values can be read by option-clicking the Bluetooth menulet and selecting a device. I left the new card in so as to not disturb the Wi-Fi feature, this seems to work when invoked, so let’s take the Microsoft wheel mouse upstairs and avoid touching anything inside the computer again.

I’ve long avoided using Apple’s photo management software but that’s harder to do on the iPhone. The new “People” characterization in Photos for iOS (Hands-on with the new Photos features in macOS Sierra and iOS 10) recognizes the faces of four different humans: me clean-shaven, me with a beard, the cover model on a perfect-bound magazine, and a WamaLTC display participant. With access to my entire photographic history, the iPad mini recognizes eleven people, three are me…

06 October 2016

The Yahoo! Weather widget is not responding today. With the system’s abandonment 4 years ago eventual failure should be expected, the first mention in these pages was over a decade ago.

Two-way traffic but no parking in Ellicott City: County preps for Main Street reopening Thursday. The intersection at the Ellicott City Station seems to have been open since sometime last month.

Eventually, someone in WamaLTC might build a Siemens ACS-64: MARC replacing electric locomotive fleet with high-speed diesels (via).

05 October 2016

These Barriers Between 7000-Series Metro Cars Pose A Safety Risk, Say Blind Riders.

I saw no need to see it a second time: Star Trek Beyond Lukewarm at the Box Office. Heh, “beyond lukewarm”… beaten by The Angry Birds Movie on this list of international box office receipts for 2016, and way behind the #2 movie for the year. Some have an opportunity to see the trilogy again, during IMAX Space Week later this month.

Two doors down from where Palace Radio & TV used to be is set to be Virginia’s first rakia bar: Ambar to Open for Dinner Wednesday.

04 October 2016

So far, the directive is thought to apply only in Pennsylvania: Verizon workers can now be fired if they fix copper phone lines.

Cheryl Osborne is doing “research” on caged apes—no matter what the closed captioning might say—alone on an island when one of the chimpanzees breaks out of a cage, almost as if the ape was bionic. (Sole guest star Ina Balin was 38 and on the rebound from depriving North Vietnam of 217 orphans in the final weeks of the war the previous year , the story of her adopted children would become a part of Jem, the cartoon series, and she would die 14 years later.) When Osborne does not respond to radio hails, a phone call late at night finds Oscar Goldman (and the un-seen Sally) still in the office. Col. Steve Austin and Dr. Rudy Wells fly a helicopter in daylight to the island, from where is not explained. Osborne’s work was a very secret OSI project using drugs for intelligence expansion. N9150F was a 1972 Hughes 369HS (it says “Hughes 500” on the side, though) that also appeared in The Bionic Woman, the type had a normal range of 600km (372 miles). Wells sits to starboard but Austin holds the stick, this was actually normal in the civilian version, compare with the Bell JetRanger. They find Osborne’s laboratory in great disarray, a chimpanzee attacks Wells, and one bite makes him The Most Dangerous Enemy as the drug—passed from saliva to blood, I guess—makes him stronger and more high-strung. Steve pursues the chimpanzee that bit the doctor, Wells lies to the ship offshore about their situation, this cuts them off from help. Osborne tries to tranquilize Steve, this doesn’t work, but Cheryl is concerned that an infected Wells has only hours to live. At the top of the episode, Osborne was dictating into an open-reel deck, now Wells listens to her notes on a Panasonic RQ-212 mini cassette deck. Paranoid, Wells escapes their attempt to tranquilize him and the multi-disciplinary doctor takes apart the helicopter’s radio and removes the battery and ignition coil. As night falls, Steve and Cheryl try to camp outdoors and they talk non-romantically (Lee Majors was younger than Balin by 1½ years, and Austin always treats Osborne as a peer, maybe author Judy Burns was responsible) but Wells sends a propane tank down the hill—this blogger thinks it’s an oxygen tank—they escape the explosion and return to the lab where, the next day, Steve works on the broken radio as a lure. Dedicated scientist Cheryl is wearing the same clothes for a fourth day despite the prominent placement of laundry hanging on clotheslines outside the lab. Wells knocks over the lab’s water tank, wrecks the radio again, and escapes Steve’s net. The chase is on, but driven by jealousy of Steve’s bionic power, Wells has set a trap with the parts from the helicopter to render Steve’s legs useless. Did Wells really find a well-labeled “magnetic induction coil”? It looks much more like a battery, surely the point of establishing that Wells took a coil is that he would unwind the wire and work it into the rope with which he planned to ensnare Austin’s ankles to establish a magnetic field. Intent on staying super-strong, Wells tries to drag Osborne back to the lab for more serum, instead he falls into that television staple, quicksand. Steve gets out of his bind, catches up to Cheryl where Rudy fell in, the two struggle to rescue Rudy, and whew, it’s the fourth act, they are successful. With the Secretary’s permission, OSI will continue to fund Osborne’s experiments while exerting more control. Austin flips through a magazine and finds photographs of some model/actress that Oscar finds pretty (he’s actually the one who whistles, Rudy hasn’t entered the office yet, the images are of Farrah Fawcett-Majors, the big photo is from her role as Trish the previous season). In a scene played for laughs, Oscar is left by himself with Cheryl’s favorite chimpanzee from Tanzania as she, Steve, and Rudy head out to lunch. The production does not credit the simian performing as “Billy.”

WamaLTC news: an exhibit takes shape at the National Toy Train Museum in Pennsylvania, I wish this Flickr user would create albums, something to mention at the next Wamalug meeting on Saturday.

03 October 2016

Someone remembers it’s #MeanGirlsAppreciationDay.

“CarFit is an educational program that offers older adults the opportunity to check how well their personal vehicles ‘fit’ them.”

Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test.

02 October 2016

Facebook invites me to look back a year.

The B&O Railroad Museum is CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC on November 19, 20, 25, 26, and 27 this year, but for those who purchase tickets for THE POLAR EXPRESS event there is an extra benefit (During this event ONLY, the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area LEGO Train Club will display their amazing LEGO model train layout completely constructed of LEGO pieces at the “Polar Express North Pole”. This display will not be on exhibit at any other B&O holiday event at the B&O in Baltimore or at Ellicott City Station.)

The B&O Railroad Museum Ellicott City Station remains closed until further notice, the Howard County executive has new headaches to manage after Investigation finds evidence of ‘discrimination’ and ‘pervasive’ harassment by Sheriff James Fitzgerald and Howard County Sheriff Refuses to Step Down Despite Discrimination Claims.

01 October 2016

A year ago I had solved the problem of weak Bluetooth connections, today I reintroduce the difficulty by installing the card which promised Bluetooth 4.0, ugh. This is why I maintain an emergency USB mouse close at hand. So far Wi-Fi works, AirDrop is successful, and Bluetooth is not unresponsive exactly—here’s hoping that means all those nasty U.FL connections were made correctly—just that the range is about 18″… so maybe the next step is a bigger antenna.

The Exploding Balls of Leigh Chapman.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Love Affair” begins with an outrage: THAT IS NOT NEW YORK CITY. The location due south of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial has been an airport since 1941: History of Reagan National Airport. There’s at least eight aircraft in the stock footage: closest to the camera is N37583, this was a Douglas DC-6B delivered to United Airlines in 1957, flown until 1971, exported to Chile in 1972, and scrapped in 1983; Lake Central Airlines isn’t described as serving the Washington, D.C. area, but there’s a Convair of some type bearing its name in the middle distance; and, a twin-rotor helicopter takes off in the far distance. Illya Kuryakin’s wait inside the terminal at “Gate 14,” though, is backed by an image of the tower at JFK. Dr. Margaret Armindel was on the nonstop flight from Boston, but she’s had a heart attack and won’t be continuing her journey, Illya takes her effects from the stewardess (no more roles for Linda Kennon after this). At U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, Sarah Johnson says the MIT scientist is 38 and makes her project sound like the then-secret Project Orion. Mr. Waverly ties the scientist’s travel to the disappearance of others from both sides of the Iron Curtain, and takes a call from “County General” (apparently the city’s boroughs are also state counties) that Armindel has died. The producers couldn’t be bothered to fake a ticket to a revivalist meeting, Sarah has volunteered to take the place of Armindel (Leigh Chapman was 26 and would later become more well known as a screenwriter, she took up underwater photography and continued posting to Google+ up to 4 months before her death in 2014), Napoleon Solo volunteers to “cover” her. Sarah and Napoleon arrive to find the seat already taken by a woman, Solo immediately changes the plan and takes the seat as Brother Love (Eddie Albert) continues his preaching. The interloper is Pearl Rolfe, a postgraduate student in sociology at Hunter College (Maggie Pierce was 34) gathering material for a term paper. Pearl disappears while Sarah and Napoleon confer and then Solo is knocked unconscious, a link between Love and the missing scientists is now more likely. Napoleon and Kuryakin head out to a fundraising party on the “island” where they talk smack about the upper classes in a 1964 Chevrolet Impala convertible which Illya parks between two Cadillacs. Solo is quickly intercepted by the local society reporter but he grabs her miniature camera—a Whittaker Micro 16 made in Hollywood in the late forties and she isn’t holding it correctly—and exposes the film. Magda’s actually another acolyte of Love (maybe Napoleon saw her ankle bracelet which he’d spotted at the revival). Following orders, Solo creates a fuss but Rolfe is now part of the flock. Magda leads Napoleon into a trap, no, actually, he wasn’t that observant. Kuryakin watches as two Cadillac limousines leave the premises, the tracker indicates that Solo is inside the older one! Napoleon’s talking fast to stay alive, Love tosses a grenade to incapacitate Kuryakin. Mr. Waverly will rip the paper out of a teletype while Sarah is missing, but can’t be bothered to do the actual decoding. The United Love Brotherhood regroups in Los Angeles by helicopter, where Dr. Hradny continues work on the… satellite? Solo is taken to a room where his health is dependent on the microfilm he turned over, he suspects surveillance and he isn’t wrong. Tracey Roberts was 55, Albert 60. Solo eludes the cameras, checks in with Rolfe, and overhears Hradny telling Love that the microfilm is worthless (with a little spacing, “LOVE” covers the “STATES” on the rocket booster stage models). Hradny is receptive to Napoleon’s argument that Love will never fulfill his promise to get Hradny’s sister out of Poland but Magda foils Solo’s plan to escape, the three are herded into one room and Love leaves a time bomb set for 8 minutes. The acolytes fastidiously pack up the models of the planned spacecraft. Dr. Hradny works under Solo’s directions to burn through the wire restraints and Solo and Rolfe pack the models into the helicopter set to carry Love to the island and pull back their monk’s hoods so Love will know he’s about to die. Returning to JFK’s “Gate 14” (again) Pearl and Napoleon smooch, Kuryakin wraps up the loose ends, our heroes compare injuries. A second opinion considers the episode Bond-ian, a third finds it decent but unfocused.

Philip Moyer tried to get all my Amtrak creations at the last Wamalug meeting into one frame. I write the link into the page for the meeting while the Brickshelf upload’s still in moderation and then forget to check it later.

30 September 2016

If it’s not advertised in NCM First Look, I don’t know about it, there’s some HBO production imminent: The Long, Weird History of the Westworld Franchise.

A LEGO® store in the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City mall did open earlier this month, this weekend brings additional promotions.

I started my transition away from Brickshelf 2½ years ago, but obviously some people continue trying to make use of the ancient photo-sharing site and wasting everyone’s time with the wait for moderation and general flakiness.

29 September 2016

Just say no to a QR code, DASH Bus.

I thought it called itself RT now, the Serbian news agency still calls it Russia Today: FBI objavio zaplenjena dokumenta o Teslinom “zraku smrti” (via). In the absence of links, it’s not clear what the references are to, there is a Nikola Tesla entry in the FBI Vault of FOIA’ed documents, added a week ago. This may be Tanjug’s source: FBI wanted Tesla’s ‘death ray’ invention for War Dept, documents show. The idea, still promulgated as the tweet embedded by RT shows, that the death ray was real is sad, Tesla’s understanding of electricity had fallen behind the scientific consensus by the time of his first trip to Colorado in 1899 and never improved. Tesla’s self-confidence in his mental functions and self-promotion in the press meant he never tested his grandiose claims at any smaller scale.

Someone sounds confident in referring to “Christmas in Purcellville”: WamaLTC will be participating in this yearly event. For now only the parade is listed on the town’s calendar, so until I can coordinate with the town’s event specialist—oops, promoted to Division Manager, Parks & Recreation in the meantime—on such details as the name of the event I shall hold off editing the club’s home page.

28 September 2016

Optimism: No Shutdown: Senate Passes Measure To Fund Government Until December.

The blogger I linked last week is more comprehensive but the plot synopsis of this week’s episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is riddled with errors. The first CT scanner reached the United States in 1973 and 1976 saw 17 companies offering scanners so while it’s not impossible for the nightclub comedian to have received a CT scan, it’s not what’s on screen—the actors plainly state “x rays” multiple times, and two radiographs are displayed. The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) was created by the state in 1969, so there’s a limit to the age of the footage of a van-based ambulance… Buick Riviera leads to Kojak.

Wells Fargo execs’ bonuses slashed as feds investigate and employees sue (via).

27 September 2016

Debris, Third Rail Power Cables Involved In Friday Track Fire At Metro Center.

So many buttons.

The fin is a ’59 Dodge.

Mid-seventies Audi 100.

1968 Plymouth Fury.

The previous season had a fourth episode that featured a celebrity, Sonny Bono, so why not another…. Double Trouble begins without the synchronization sound productions usually require, the teaser is entirely in voiceover even with all the characters in the same room and on screen. Billy Parker (Flip Wilson) is the unwitting recipient of an implant the size and shape of a TO-5 package, the conspirators tell themselves that now they can control the nightclub comedian’s behavior. This ability and Parker’s resemblance to the newly elected prime minister of the Republic of Vorzana will be helpful to them in reversing the planned announcement of the country’s switch in allegiance from the Soviet bloc to the Western capitalists. The stock footage of New York and the use of Universal’s “New York” streets on the backlot have the city playing itself. The Dipsy-Doo Room seems to offer a fairly demographically limited audience—for that matter, the conspirators are white men controlling Parker, nothing thematic there, and they manage it without the use of a keyboard, hm. Parker is hit by a basic 1973 Ford Torino taxi outside the club where he’s performing and taken to a local hospital while Col. Steve Austin is undergoing some midnight testing at the “National Medical Center” (presumably in the Washington area) with Dr. Rudy Wells. The reach of the OSI is such that Oscar Goldman is alerted to the significance of the shadow of the implant in Parker’s head x rays minutes after they’re taken. Goldman is ready to blame the Russians and Wells admits the possibility for cerebral control. Oscar tells Steve he’s now a bodyguard for Parker, he and Oscar fly a Boeing 727 to New York (25 minutes later is already daytime, whatever) where one of their rides to the hospital is a 1969 Lincoln Continental Executive Limousine Lehmann-Peterson with the footage taken from a 1970 episode of McCloud (which explains the 1970 Ford Galaxie, the 1970 Dodge Coronet taxi, and the U.N.C.L.E.-era Dodge Monaco in the background). Goldman (the actors ride in a Cadillac) worries that Parker is but one of an unknown number with such an implant, he casually mentions that they’ve “altered” the patient’s chart to remove the mention of x rays, one of the conspirators has already been snooping. Steve tells Billy that the club sent him and spots a conspirator at a distance when they send a test command. Oscar returns to Washington where his office has been redesigned with a big world map and lots of controls on his desk. Austin follows Parker to his usual hangout, Billy has a gambling problem which Steve is able to defuse by crushing a cue ball, Parker also has a steady “girl” who goes unnamed until—wait, how does Steve know she’s called Susan? She seems to like Steve, maybe it’s the suits he’s wearing on this assignment. The conspirator in the field who drives a mid-70s Thunderbird wants more money, he sends two thugs to fight Steve but they are quickly defeated. Parker has disappeared, he spent the night riding a taxi, he calls Susan in the morning, he’s now wearing a nun’s habit, she finds Steve at the club. Steve and Billy reunite but the command arrives to push Steve into a (“DIG WE MUST”) Consolidated Edition construction pit. The prime minister of Vorzana is betrayed and Parker is controlled to join the conspirators in the back room of the gallery where he’s given a mustache and a speech to practice. Steve breaks in and beats people up, demolishes a computer or two, problem solved. The episode can’t end without Mr. Wilson’s catchphrase. There hasn’t been a new podcast since July.

Hey, Bad Moms did this, too, but it wasn‘t a fictional movie about real people so The Verge doesn’t mention it as an example: The manipulative gimmick of adding real people to fictional movies.

26 September 2016

Monday-morning quarterbacking: a burning townhouse smells like cooking, two other neighbors dismissed the sensation on the same basis.

I was looking up the URL yesterday because the service company’s truck (or someone else with a similar purpose) has been in the alley working on the house across the way almost every day for 4 months since the discovery of the body.

I listened to WAMU-FM and followed along on MetaFilter and eyed Twitter apps.

25 September 2016

The local residential and commercial restoration and cleaning service company, or more likely a general contractor, may be busy in the future in view of the visit to the neighborhood today of E210 and T208 for the purpose of fire suppression.

With the name of the locale in the episode’s title, no on-screen identification was needed: the story of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and its headquarters along Queen’s Road Central and the neighboring Bank of China Building. The actual view in the episode is probably somewhat prior to 1965 in the absence of any other tall buildings.

Political cartoonists react to the Wells Fargo situation, none of them acknowledge the multiple joined serifs in the wordmark with which I am (now) familiar from my recreations for my most recent build using the Clarendon face.

24 September 2016

The National Museum of African American History and Culture which opens today already appears in Apple Maps (and Google Maps, Microsoft needs to step up, Maps in Windows 10 still shows the grassy field between 15th and 14th Streets in the background of this earlier visit to the grounds of the Washington Monument). The square building with a terraced bronze exterior visible from the street is only about 40% of the museum.

This is the single best line of this episode.

Agent 22 and Illya have a moment.

The wharf-side setting as The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Hong Kong Shilling Affair” begins is not as convincing as others say, maybe it’s the steamboat in the background. Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are in “Hong Kong” on the trail of a courier, Solo is more interested in the cheongsam-wearing companion. What Max is carrying is also of interest to a mildly multi-ethnic gathering at a mansion where Mr. Cleveland (Gavin MacLeod) auctions U.S. government secrets—there is no reason to believe, though, that there were ever Nike missiles in Panama. At “The Smiling Fish” bar, Max holds out for more money, Merry (Richard Kiel) starts beating him up, and the fracas—and especially the body parts visible because of the cheongsam’s split side—attracts the attention of a handsome passerby (Glenn Corbett). Merry easily swats away the newcomer’s attack, stabs Max, and leaves. The courier uses his dying breaths to talk of a Pine Tree Shilling and a dragonfly. Heavenly Cortelle advises Bernie Oren not to approach the police (driving a Simca 1000), she runs off when Kuryakin and Solo approach them. Inside U.N.C.L.E.’s Hong Kong headquarters, Napoleon tells Bernie that a Pine Tree Shilling is a 17th-century American coin while Agent #22 (Irene Tsu, she played Harry Kim’s mother on Voyager, she’s listed as Jasmine in the end credits) sews a microphone-transmitter onto their guest’s jacket. Solo and Mr. Waverly confer by videophone about this week’s innocent, Napoleon offers Oren money to pose as Max’s partner and the multi-talented Illya plays mahjong with Agent #22 as they listen to Bernie’s meeting with Heavenly. When Oren takes a sampan ride from the same woman who brought Max at the top of the episode, Solo breaks out the gas masks. At the bar with an English-only sign, Bernie is outnumbered. Rescue accomplished, Napoleon pays Oren (who somehow knows Mr. Cleveland poses as a toy manufacturer) and sends him away, Kuryakin has an odd warning about the next part of the plan. Solo misses the silhouette and dismisses the noise of Cortelle’s 2″ heels as he infiltrates the house, Heavenly is following. Napoleon finds Bernie, the guard geese, and Merry, but Merry gets the drop on him and now Mr. Cleveland has something new to auction. The unseen Apricot advises of the arrival of a new bidder and Bernie phones in a tip to the local constabulary, the sound effect of tires screeching for their arrival in a Volkswagen Type 2 23-window Sunroof Deluxe is optimistic. Merry, having knocked Oren and Solo semi-conscious, places the two in a trash container, and is pleased at the prompt arrival of a trash truck. Cortelle manages to keep up with the truck—in her tight dress and heels—and sees it dump its load in a river near a fancy stone bridge, she rescues them but she ignores Napoleon’s muffled requests to be freed as she is obviously besotten with Bernie—the feeling is mutual, and he joins her side. Solo and Kuryakin have learned of the new bidder, the Mongolian arrives at Mr. Cleveland’s house spouting misogynistic inventions about life in his homeland. Finally, the desirability of the coin is explained: it’s a fake? One made from a hardy metal used “in the nose cones of the American long-range missiles.” Who does Miss Wong work for? She hands Mr. Cleveland a pistol but had to endure the less-than-professional touches of Knopfagel earlier. Mr. Cleveland shoots, Oren and Heavenly fall from the skylight, Apricot arrives! Of course the Mongolian is Illya in disguise, he spots the embroidered dragonfly under Apricot’s cheongsam. Apricot orders a change of venue and they head for the wharf-side bar. Meanwhile, Napoleon establishes his bona fides with the chipper sergeant and they enter the house to find Kuryakin’s U.N.C.L.E.-issue sidearm as evidence that it’s not just a sales meeting in progress. Illya reveals that Apricot is the sampan woman because of course a criminal mastermind trafficking in high-value stolen property has time to ferry random strangers around Hong Kong’s waterways. With Sgt. Fauntleroy’s arrival, Cortelle is revealed to be a lieutenant in the local law enforcement community, but soon she’s busy smooching Bernie behind the bar and Kuryakin hands Solo the fake shilling. No one is credited as Apricot, Miiko Taka is listed as Jade, though. A second opinion apologizes for all the script’s missteps and finds it fun.

The operating system for people with at most one desktop Mac, apparently: Maybe Be Careful with OSX Sierra.

23 September 2016

It was just a small ball of flame: Fire, Smoke Reported at Metro Center Station; Trains Single-Tracking.

How long has the former Burger Delite had a red roof? My photograph from last year soon after its closure gives a hint of the change and others made apparent by comparison.

The DASH Tracker has a “Text-only version (for text-readers and mobile devices)” which after a day’s use in the field I knew wouldn’t meet the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. It does not, the test returns three reasons (mobile viewport not set, links too close together, text too small to read) and a look at the source confirms mobile Safari was trying to cope with a page written to HTML 3.2! The first reason would disappear with the addition of <META NAME="viewport" CONTENT="width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0"> which I’ve implemented myself so I know it works. More subtly, the <style> element was a valid part of an HTML 3.2 page and even if the browsers available in January of 1997—Lynx 2.6, Netscape 3.0, Opera 2.1, IE 3.0, and IEMac 2.1—wouldn’t have understood any declarations therein, surely a browser running on a mobile device receiving the web page over LTE these days would and instead of playing with <font> elements in the script they could apply rules to div#routeDiv ul li like {font-size: larger; padding-bottom: 2ex;}. This is something I have yet to test in the wild.

22 September 2016

The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA), in partnership with the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, and in conjunction with Try Transit Week and Car Free Day, announced a Groundbreaking Ceremony for the West Ox Bus Garage Expansion today.

The commenters will soon have something else to complain about, I’m sure: County drops plans for temporary homeless shelter.

This morning: Yahoo is expected to confirm massive data breach, impacting hundreds of millions of users. This evening: Yahoo says half a billion accounts breached by nation-sponsored hackers.

21 September 2016

My local finance unit is “out of stock” of the first-class Star Trek stamps.

The stock footage of F-104C Starfighters seen in this week’s episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is the same batch that spots the Enterprise in the remastered “Tomorrow is Yesterday” (but the specific aircraft 57-0915 closest to the camera is also seen in the original version of the episode, that aircraft ended up in the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale).

Trying to download this was today’s time waster: macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review.

20 September 2016

The name of a particularly large banking company is in the headlines today, so it’s just as well that a shipment of parts made it from Stryków today and I was able to complete my model of the branch at King Street and Walter Reed Drive: ‘You Should Resign’: Watch Sen. Elizabeth Warren Grill Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. I haven’t yet represented the banner for the co-tenant in the building.

Husbands in the 70s.

They would separate 3 years later.

Ok, so I’m not the only blogger to make it to the fourth season, but with Nightmare in the Sky the closed captioning people were having difficulty: radar (maybe the sound is sonar); Colonel (maybe the script promoted him but Richard Anderson knew better); Max (this voiceover guy got it wrong, everyone else does say Mac); cold (maybe no one wanted to correct the star’s wife). Oscar Goldman and Steve Austin have been chauferred in a 1973 Cadillac Series 75 limousine to a tiny control tower at an unidentified location, while overhead a 20-year old Temco TT Pinto jet trainer formerly in the Navy stands in for an experimental aircraft worthy of stealing and selling clandestinely on the international market. The test pilot is someone Steve knows, Kelly Wood—Farrah Fawcett-Majors returning in a role she played in the first season, the character gets the full hair deployment throughout this time around—who reports a “Japanese Zero” just before she and the aircraft disappear. She’s found “wandering the desert 70 miles from here” during the commercial break but she doesn’t remember anything useful about what happened afterwards, Oscar is not impressed. In an idiot’s move, Steve breaks out Kelly before bed-check, but Oscar keeps quiet about who could’ve torn apart the fencing at the window. The next day, after finding some safari-look jumpsuit for the escapee, the two head out into the California highlands in an old Willys MB or Ford GPW painted yellow which everyone calls a Jeep. Kelly is freaked out by the apparition of a pilot, Martin Davis (Donald Moffat), who recently disappeared in the area, Oscar is still not impressed. The bad guys remotely disable the Jeep, start shooting, then when the Jeep explodes, they call it a day and drive away in a first-generation Ford Bronco. The turncoat Larry Stover (Dana Elcar) drives a 1971 Chevrolet full-size station wagon. Continuing their hike, Steve and Kelly find the XJ-7 hidden under camouflage netting. In another bonehead move, Steve rips the spare tire off the Bronco instead of quickly undoing the lug nuts (the bad guys hear him). Steve never disables firearms before tossing them away, just a pinch would do it. Kelly straps herself in, an alarm goes off—N69AJ was based in Van Nuys on a certificate issued in 1968, later converted to Super Pinto configuration, the registration was canceled in 1976 after the episode’s broadcast for the purpose of exporting the plane to the Philippines, where it is presumed crashed and destroyed by the country’s Air Force. With Kelly aloft, Steve explains to the audience the laser-based holograph which fooled her earlier with images of a Zero and the missing Davis, it’s used again to bring her down. The production is forced to mix shots from wildly different times of day into one scene, television is always in a hurry. For a conspiracy which already has a powerful holograph projector and a way to remotely disable ignition systems, their plan is to capture a military cargo plane and get the XJ-7 out of the country that way. Steve breaks himself and Kelly free of the rope bondage and fights the bad guys, trapping them in the control trailer and disabling the control systems. Bizzarely, the conspirators also have a flyable Zero on hand (either it’s one of these or a substitute). Steve reassembles the XJ-7 single-handedly and relegating Kelly to the back seat they take off again and engage in a dogfight. Stover is forced down by the arrival of stock footage of F-104s. No one tell Jaime Sommers—Steve’s plan for the evening includes a single rose, some sparkling wine, romantic music on a stereo 4-track tape, and a dance or two with Kelly before Oscar manages to break the hangar door down and take him back to Washington.

The many vehicles of Trafic.

19 September 2016

The announcement arrived today: DASH Tracker is HERE!

After 8 years, is it time for a swap? I’ve ended up with 0-byte length files twice in the past week: Sony’s new flagship camera shoots 12 42-megapixel photos per second.

For about 5 hours this evening hannaher.net was unresponsive, my host shifts the blame: A major Internet service provider is currently experiencing a network issue which is negatively impacting our services.

18 September 2016

What people missed by not getting to WamaLTC’s display on Saturday (via) in time was the debut of stickers for “Dunbar ARMORED” and “BRINKS” and also of the full set representing The Broadway Limited Amtrak train out of Ivy City in January, 1980.

John Scalzi reflects on blogging after 18 years of doing it:

It’s an interesting time to be doing a blog, still, because I think it’s safe to declare the Age of Blogging well and truly over, inasmuch as personal blogging as been superseded in nearly every way by social media, including Twitter (my favorite), Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat and so on and so forth. I’m not planning on mourning blogs in general — as a phenomenon they had their moment and it was a relatively good one — but it is interesting to watch the blog tide recede, with just a few die-hards left to do them old-school, like I do.

Do I need to start taking snapshots again? There was an aggravating one hour, 40 minutes this morning while Windows 10 refused to launch. I was ready to blame the new release of VMware Fusion 8.5.0 installed on Tuesday, but Mac OS X virtual machines and Windows 8.1 launched without incident, ultimately, the repeated invocation of Automatic Repair must have worked.

17 September 2016

WamaLTC is not responsible for any Facebook Page you might find using its name.

Don’t worry, what we did won’t be in my report.

The consensus is that the early filming of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Brain-Killer Affair” led to the characterizations and other production elements not quite matching later episodes, and yet… Mr. Waverly is playing chess in some Manhattan club with a gentleman from the State Department (Liam Sullivan) and berating him for some recent diplomatic missteps. The waiter (Bill Quinn) poisons the next round of cognacs and Mr. Waverly collapses. Napoleon Solo’s invocation of Code 20-A finds Illya Kuryakin getting his sock darned by another agent as New York’s Section 2 springs into action. Unfortunately, U.N.C.L.E. didn’t think to have a secure hospital with vetted medical personnel standing by, so instead they deliver the agency’s top man to a clinic where everyone is in the employ of Thrush. Solo splits up the leads offered by the names in Mr. Waverly’s last utterance, Illya is sent to chase down men who have already died, while Napoleon gets to meet this week’s innocent, Cecille Bergstrom (Yvonne Craig, she was 27), funny how that works out. Solo returns to headquarters in a 1964 Chevrolet Impala Convertible, here he meets one of Mr. Waverly’s peers, a Mr. Samoy (Abraham Sofaer), fresh in from—eh, since 2001 we’re supposed to have been calling it Kolkata. Another visit with Miss Bergstrom is needed before the link between the names can be understood. Jason (Roosevelt Grier) starts assembling the U.N.C.L.E. special but Dr. Dabree (Elsa Lanchester) takes him out temporarily and starts to question Waverly. She’s not dead: “Korzos’s secretary has been most helpful.” There’s yet another visit to the Bergstom domicile which finally lets our heroic duo understand that every attending practitioner at the clinic is bad news, but the plotters are ready for Illya’s return. Dr. Dabree is so very happy with the results of her questioning, but Dr. Elstrom (David Hurst) is having second thoughts about his involvement. Standard Thrush procedure, Cecille in tape bondage. Kuryakin and Solo infiltrate the building and put several bad guys out of commission. Cecille might think Napoleon is about to remove her gag, but no, not just yet. The nurse (Nancy Kovack) and Dr. Dupree escaped aboard a DC-6, it turns out, but Cecille gets to have that fancy date she’d always dreamed of for when she had money. This second opinion finds the episode “generally well executed.” Six of the actors would later have roles on Star Trek, I’ve linked the entries on Memory Alpha. Why would Solo routinely carry smelling salts?

Earlier this week: Sugar industry bought off scientists, skewed dietary guidelines for decades.

16 September 2016

Once again an advertisement in a local free weekly is the most informative, the local transit system’s real-time bus tracking system is live at the subdomain tracker.dashbus.com. I salute the outgoing General Manager and everyone working at DASH Bus and Clever Devices to make this possible. So far I see a changed cover photo on Facebook and more at Instagram, maybe they were planning to make the announcement closer to Monday. #DASHTracker

A couple of participants have backed out of tomorrow’s display by WamaLTC in the Kogod courtyard because of a perceived need for better coordination and understanding of the display logistics. Once again, the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V is too English and too hyperbolic for the occasion, but… I’m going to regret this—

Judging a book through its cover is less information-dense than the actual THz-using result, “New computational imaging method identifies letters printed on first nine pages of a stack of paper” (via).

15 September 2016

The location was mildly convenient for those panic-driven need for a replacement Ethernet cable situations: Staples at Pinecrest Plaza closing next month. Earlier, the building had housed a Fresh Fields.

Decades ago, I asked rhetorically, “Want to go down the crooked street, Fred?” and maybe someone has photographs of me driving my Mazda 626 LX 5-speed down Lombard Street between Hyde and Leavenworth, but now everyone wants to do that and more: San Francisco Considers a Toll for the ‘World’s Crookedest Street’.

I’d deleted the draft sentence because surely criminals couldn’t be that stupid, but they’re at it again, twice today: it’s not a final notice if you keep calling.

14 September 2016

The depicted second page from the Brinks Product Brand Language Guidelines gives me what I need to put a finishing touch to an older project: Pantone 286. Visitors to WamaLTC displays often ask how I prepare the stickers, I try not to bore them with talk of encapsulated PostScript and such like.

Save The Link (h/t Ate Up With Motor).

I needn’t have rushed: Windows 10 Anniversary Update rollout will take 3 months.

13 September 2016

A free local tabloid offers The Mother of DASH Is Starting a New Chapter on Sandy Modell stepping down as General Manager of the Alexandria Transit Company. Because the publication deliberately chooses only good news to include, there is no mention of the failure during her tenure—oh, I am premature, there’s still another 9 days of summer and Modell will stay on for the rest of the year—to establish real-time bus tracking.

Shalon remembers everybody.

After the recap of the first part that played on the other series, those in the know recognize that the season opener for The Bionic Woman also has changed credits, adding Martin E. Brooks. The Return of Bigfoot Part II begins with school teacher Jaime Sommers in our favorite helicopter, N30DB, how convenient that it was found after Col. Steve Austin made off with it in the previous episode. Jaime jumps to the forest floor below to continue her search for Steve, and… last week I wrote that the time line converters are not transporters, but Kenneth Johnson wrote this script just to refute me, I guess, because Nedlik and Sasquatch travel instantaneously from their new hideout (identified on screen as 1800 miles south “ON THE COAST OF MEXICO” but mapped further inland) to California to attack Sommers, but Gillian manages to steal a TLC from Faler and uses it to rescue Jaime. In the non-rogue aliens’ battered redoubt, Jaime helps out by cranking a generator to charge the batteries that are left after the battle, meets Apploy and Shalon—Stefanie Powers has the courtesy this time of having Shalon appear to suffer from her injuries—and asks for help with Steve’s medical situation. Gillian then takes Jaime from California back to Mexico so quickly that Jaime doesn’t experience an interval—she wouldn’t ask where she was if she’d walked there. The Bionic Blonde ably covers most of the nonsense that follows, including the sudden expertise and authority Dr. Rudy Wells develops in geology after the rogue aliens’ drilling through the earth’s mantle threatens widespread tectonic devastation. There are no documents for this episode, although it marks the first use of music by Joe Harnell. Gillian infiltrates the compound where Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells are waiting for Austin to die and uses her memory reviver as a medical scanner, and under Shalon’s remote direction, Gillian is able to use the neotraxin to save Steve. The location of Nedlik’s new base looks to be close to the Durango Volcanic Field. The budget for stock footage was taken up by erupting volcanoes and flowing lava, so none could be afforded for the evacuation of the entire Pacific Coast. With Nedlik defeated and the stores of neotraxin returned to California, the aliens start the process of recovering from the rift, and don’t even require a memory wipe for our bionic duo, Oscar never believed Steve anyway. Shalon, though, is near death in suspended animation. Jaime hugs Sasquatch, who in turn taps Steve on the shoulder. I found at least two errors in the closed captioning, there’s probably more: prostration; White. Is there something Nedlik isn’t telling us? All of the rogue aliens present as male.

The vehicles of Play Time are more diverse than noted, because the contributors choose not to identify cars considered to be too common.

12 September 2016

It’s been a “while,” all right, it’s been 2 years since placing that pre-order for a novel at the Barnes & Noble site.

I’m not giving the more knowledgable participants in WamaLTC displays a chance to tell me that the internal bearing trucks I had under the Amtrak Heritage Fleet cars at Saturday’s Wamalug meeting are wrong for the period, I’ve rebuilt them to at least have external bearings—if not quite all the detail of the original.

So that’s what “Original Building” means, the 96-bed facility opened in 1961: Inova Fairfax Hospital Celebrates 50th Anniversary! The Tower opened in 1969, it would be another 20 years before the facility prohibited smoking.

11 September 2016

An OS 9 odyssey: Why these Mac users won’t abandon 16-year-old software (via).

To guide construction of period-appropriate cars to follow the Amtrak 4909 GG-1 which I built 4 years ago and the Penn Central-black Amtrak 4911 GG-1 I built more recently, I made use of the Amtrak Equipment Plan and Data Manual (NRPC-CMO-117) to select specific cars to model: a baggage car, one of Amtrak 1150-1170, formerly Santa Fe 3660-3683; a 54-seat coach car, Amtrak 5264, formerly Seaboard Coast Line 5264; and a 50-seat coach-snack bar, one of Amtrak 3951-3970 (there was not a 3955), formerly Penn Central 3201-3221. The absence from this manual of a coach car with a balcony at the trailing end (which I photographed at the end of the train I rode in 1980) led me to understand that at that time Amtrak permitted the attachment of privately-owned cars if they were painted to match Amtrak equipment. I used what I had learned about coach construction and their use of little windows in the bathrooms to construct the private varnish car. I took the number “4911” from an image taken on an earlier train ride, now that I upload the image of the Penn Central-black GG-1 that pulled my train, “4902” is as plain as day, oops, that’s a sticker I’ll have to change (and did change). Amtrak would retire the GG-1 fleet 16 months later.

A new follower on Flickr is mean at his blog: I think I’ve found a mall even more pathetic than Staunton Mall. I’ve only heard stories of what the Staunton Mall is like.

10 September 2016

Now it can be told, I did build that SunTrust drive-through at 3580 King Street (previously).

“London” stores have signs in French, sure.

As The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Odd Man Affair” opens, Illya Kuryakin is headed to England aboard a twin-engine propeller plane (a model of a Martin 4-0-4 perhaps) and keeping tabs on another passenger. When the crew ask Raymond to submit to a search, he uses the camera around his neck (a Spartus 35) to shoot the pilot and threaten the stewardess, and then he uses a clear belt to blow a hole in the fuselage and presumably fall out of the airplane into the Channel. In London, the instigator of a conference of terrorists and extremists is pleased at Raymond’s disappearance. In New York, Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo rather incautiously examine the contents of Raymond’s luggage (which includes a grenade which Solo detonates) in Waverly’s office and a plan to impersonate Raymond is developed, the first step is to show up unannounced at the apartment of Albert Sully, an U.N.C.L.E. agent with war experience who’s been inactive for years after boggling his last assignment. The three fly Pan American on a Boeing 707 to “London” where Sully tries to ditch the younger agents at every opportunity, the taxi he takes to a pub is a left-hand drive Opel Kadett. Bryn Watson (Barbara Shelley, she was 33, the same age as Robert Vaughn) was a courier in the war and knows much more about Raymond than Sully ever did. Thanks to Illya’s pure presence of mind, they’re able to track Sully down and with the widow Watson’s help the quartet proceeds to “Hyde Park” where a message is directed at the previously-presumed dead “Raymond.” Kuryakin and Solo get Mr. Ecks to stab himself instead of Sully and perform a Weekend at Bernie’s routine with the body, then Watson foils Mr. Wye’s attempt to shoot them but Napoleon gets a shoulder wound. Watson and Kuryakin get to the “Soho” strip club and Sully’s impersonation is in danger when a woman approaches him. The main act is a dancer in a grass skirt, bikini top, and lei who eventually starts fingerspelling with one hand, Illya expresses conventional terminology for the time but Watson recognizes it as something the real Raymond created during the war (Abby is not tracing letters in the air or using the two-handed BSL fingerspelling, some of the signs look like ASL fingerspelling which is one-handed) and realizes it’s the next instruction. (Suzanne Tara might have been typecast.) Sully makes a mistake which exposes his deception so Kuryakin starts a brawl and Watson joins in. They escape the nightclub and take an Austin FX3 to the mansion of Mr. Zed where Illya’s skills of observation are necessary to keep Sully alive. Watson was a courier at 13? The meeting of anti-government types to discuss a merger with the minions of the left begins. Watson fights off Mr. Wye, in the ensuing confusion people get shot and Mr. Zed detonates the charge which is now under his own lapel and dies. Sully intends to maintain his pose as “Raymond” and with Solo recovering there is one last meeting with Watson. Others like the finale to the first season, too. The book got a credit (it was very new)!

Four years ago: The Portrait Gallery and American Art Get the Google Art Project Treatment.

09 September 2016

At least I think I closed all of my accounts there: 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired after 2 million fake accounts discovered.

The regional recall announced previously has this week been expanded to include my Ford Focus ST, letter goes out to owners next month, repairs planned for next year.

The completion earlier this year of the Inova Women’s Hospital & Children’s Hospital at the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus has largely obscured what they’re now calling the North Patient Tower, after a concurrently-built South Patient Tower was constructed where the main entrance and bus stop used to be. I should stop being surprised that new construction features “all private patient rooms.”

08 September 2016

Spoiler: they’re old and low-income. 13% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they? (via).

Much More Than A 5-Year Mission: 'Star Trek' Turns 50. A locally-headquartered federal agency joins in celebrating the anniversary. Also, How Vasquez Rocks, L.A.’s onetime outlaw hideout, became ‘Star Trek’s’ favorite alien landscape (via).

I’m grateful to an obscure website with an .nl top domain for identifying Pantone 485 and Pantone 300 for the colors in Amtrak’s 1971 graphic identity by Lippincott & Margulies. I’m able to retire a project card or two, but when the result will be revealed is less than certain. There’s a Wamalug meeting on Saturday, though.

07 September 2016

Sal has gloves now? I should make a 1984-style “memory hole” joke… their absence was a long-standing slip-up in characterization that the cartoonist went back to correct only recently (via).

Definitely cut back and shop BrickLink more: Lego is so popular, it can’t keep up with demand.

The vehicles of Mon Oncle, the film does not explain how Monsieur Arpel is able to drive into his garage in the evening and then drive out of the garage in the morning.

06 September 2016

I could cut back on the visits to the retail locations, the BBC says the LEGO company is doing ok.

Steve buttoned up.

No one told Jaime about Trish.

I think Shalon remembers Steve.

Ok, guard, I’ll just stand here innocently.

This must have been the episode I’d been warned about, the first minute of The Return of Bigfoot starts the fourth season with a “Federal Gold Repository” built like a county jail and Oscar Goldman casually telling Col. Steve Austin that the O.S.I. routinely monitors police channels—the beginnings of a surveillance state in 1976!—and our hero wearing a mustache and his shirt open halfway down his hairy chest. Rudy Wells (Martin E. Brooks, now in the opening credits following Richard Anderson) has a new facility for which, in the absence of documents, I don’t have a location. The Bionic Blonde has more outrage about the episode because it’s the first of a cross-over pair with its sequel on The Bionic Woman. The audience knows that it was Bigfoot that destroyed the jail cell, I mean, the vault, but Austin had his memory wiped after his encounter with the aliens who’d built the tall anthropoid last season and is having difficulty understanding why the cast in Rudy’s office bothers him now. Austin and Sommers go out for a run and an alien (Sandy Duncan, she was 30) is employing a prop even more pathetic than the time line converter that had all the podcast participants laughing—it’s just a box with the stub of an antenna! Gillian visits Steve later that night and uses her memory reviver to deliver a recap of the previous episodes, she also has a wrist communicator to video conference with Shalon (Stefanie Powers). Some weakly motivated factionalism among the aliens means that Shalon and the others in the underground redoubt are suffering from injuries—she certainly doesn’t look it—and also that the thefts will continue with Austin the only plausible suspect while the rebels prepare a new base for world domination (they also took all the medicine for themselves). Oscar Goldman is not happy and has agreed with the National Security Bureau to keep Steve under house arrest, while Jaime totally non-suspiciously hangs outside the door and hears everything. Steve escapes and (off-screen) commandeers N30DB in pursuit of the rogue aliens who are building a force field with their loot. In trying to thwart the Sasquatch’s efforts to obtain the remaining element needed, Steve is grievously injured, and only Jaime believes in him and can hear his whispered advice and admonitions. There’s no entry for this episode at the Internet Movie Car Database, that Volkswagen and the big sedan in the background on the Universal backlot are the only automobiles seen. The time line converters they move around with are not transporters, the aliens must have an iron constitution and some super-durable shoe bottoms that they can hike for miles across California’s mountains—and the nyosynthetic Sasquatch is barefoot!

The red-orange 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger by the Land Rover yard is long gone, this “Find of the Day” is in much better shape. Hemmings had to remove the ability to comment on the FOTD because people were so mean.

05 September 2016

Living the eighteenth-century life isn’t easy: Finding a good hourglass.

5 Writing the Other Fails And How To Avoid Them: A Guest Post.

Ford Focus RS not extreme enough? Meet the Focus RS RX.

04 September 2016

The Smithsonian Channel doesn’t play nice with SeaMonkey so I streamed Building Star Trek in Firefox (via (via)). Oh, clever, Ariel O’Connor is identified as “Conservator, Smithsonian Institution” which is true as such.

Amtrak operational status for my local station (via) simulating the operation of a split-flap display, the site also offers a map-based view of train location.

With the addition of a media="screen, projection" declaration to the site-specific stylesheets here, these pages are now largely safe for visitors using Netscape Communicator 4 (a safety lost when I switched to link 2½ years ago). Visitors using a Macintosh, that is, in the Windows 98 virtual machine the browser still gets a Forbidden 403 message.

03 September 2016

The Ford Focus RS: The Blue Oval’s best is a performance car for the people.

Napoleon Solo leads in a 1966 Dodge Charger (with the same silver exterior and red interior as seen in an earlier episode of the third season) and Illya Kuryakin follows in a… 1966 Dodge Coronet 2-door sedan with the Charger grill, I guess, as he grouses about the assurances of other U.N.C.L.E. agents that Alexander Waverly sitting in the back seat of a 1965 Imperial convertible making its way through the backlot is safe. The attempt on Waverly’s life by a remotely triggered bomb under the street fails—the planned route being a security failure will not be questioned—and it was a prop made by Section 5 in the back seat anyway. Waverly’s desire to accept an honorary degree from “Blair University” despite the risk of another attempt to kill him means that his favorite two agents are sent to his alma mater for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Cap and Gown Affair”. Kuryakin is already on campus undercover when he hears the announcement of a protest meeting from a pair of loudspeakers attached to a Ford Model A. “What are we protesting?” he asks of Minerva Dwight (Carolyne Shelyne, another actor who decades later showed up as an engineer in the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation) and she takes an immediate liking to Illya, he corrects the orthography of the sign she’s been painting and joins the protest (he has to be taught passive resistance) which is soon shut down by the campus police. Solo’s arrival has him meeting Patricia Darling (Melanie Alexander, she wasn’t on Star Trek even once) who is waiting to see the dean because of the courses she’s failing—the day before the senior class is set to graduate? It’s not the biggest problem with the script. Thrush has a plan to take advantage of the demonstration planned to protest Waverly’s presence to assassinate the U.N.C.L.E. leader. Minerva makes Illya nervous with her talk of eugenics and offspring and fourth-generation supermen, a classic reaction. The off-campus agitator Gregory Haymish sends Solo and Kuryakin to an appointment with some Thrush thugs, they escape past a 1967 Dodge Coronet and head for the “girls’” dorm with trepidation on Illya’s part and ennui on the part of the residents. Thanks for sharing, Solo. A pillow fight—in the middle of the afternoon with all the dorm residents in peignoirs, baby dolls, or jammies—subdues the thugs and Minerva is relieved to decide that Illya is not so middle-class after all while Patricia is giggly about her lack of education. With Haymish in custody after he aimed a pistol at Solo, Thrush’s new plan is to impersonate the dean to complete the assassination with predictable who’s-who consequences—the closed captioning is fastidious in distinguishing the two. Waverly arrives in an Imperial sedan for the graduation ceremony while Solo, Kuryakin, Minerva, the dean, and the dean’s psychologist friend are subjected to an electronic learning machine set to flood the room with a poison gas if they answer wrong—which they do for the 340th question, as none of them know the fifth place of π and are quite insistent on being wrong about it, too. (The machine makes mistakes, too.) Patricia’s presence in the plot is answered by her attention to some closed-circuit television of the room our heroes are sealed into. The action converges on the graduation ceremony where Waverly’s speech drones on and Agent 24 steps up to shoot, still wearing the face of the dean, at Waverly but his aim is spoiled by Solo tossing a mortarboard. I don’t think Napoleon even asked the young woman if he could take it. Minerva switches her affections to Solo while Patricia targets Illya and Minerva sees a problem in their future—are they all in summer session or what?! This second opinion finds it fun without recognizing any skeeviness, I am disappointed my dictionary doesn’t have any form of the word skeevy.

Life at a Minnesota-headquartered retailer: I told an older gentleman that the new hotness in residential lighting was LED and not the CFL that he’d asked me to help him find. The cost scared him off, though, I’ve gotten that reaction before. It’s been more than 9 years since I installed compact fluorescent lights in the kitchen and one had gone dark and its replacement sure does light up immediately.

02 September 2016

Actually more a caution about decades: The Last Days of L.A.’s Mountain Lions? (via).

The local transit system has been real quiet on the subject recently: Loudoun transit launches real-time bus tracker (via). It’s not an app.

No pressure on “the last living cast member” of Star Trek’s first pilot: Catching Up Laurel Goodwin, Yeoman Colt from "The Cage" (via).

01 September 2016

Local representative took the opportunity to pun yesterday in response: Governor McAuliffe Announces New Investment, Jobs in City of Alexandria: Port City Brewing to Expand Brewery Operation, Increase Local Agricultural Sourcing Commitment.

Train to Busan: S. Korea’s Hit Zombie Film Is Also A Searing Critique Of Korean Society.

The Investigative Report on Analysis of Patent Examiners' Time and Attendance (h/t) asserts, among other conclusions, that The findings of this investigation, however, suggest that at least some examiners have surplus time. The URL of the United States Department of Commerce made me add an escape to a style rule to prevent the appearance of an icon representing a Word file.

31 August 2016

One Month Since Deadly Flooding, Ellicott City Announces New Rebuilding Resources.

I figured the character had to be an invention—no implausibly hot girlfriend is mentioned in the source story: The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders (via). I’m less rattled by the substitution of a Ford Escort for a Mazda Protegé.

If there’s a 26th Annual Modular Train Display Show on November 12-13, 2016, there’s no mention of it at the site of beneficiary Rockville Lions Club or on the calendar of the Rockville Senior Center.

30 August 2016

Slightly reassuring: VMware says, “We’re not dead,” updates Fusion and Workstation for free.

Col. Steve Austin flies into “Andrews” in a U.S. Air Force T-38A with the orange nose, wingtips, and vertical stabilizer that designate a trainer aircraft, and, sure, those must be the Maryland mountains in the background as he lands. An episode written by Kenneth Johnson, third season finale Big Brother has almost 3 minutes go by before a pause in the stock footage (including a slow drive along Madison Avenue in Manhattan from 109th Street to 110th maybe a decade prior to the episode’s broadcast) allows the story to begin. Steve’s on vacation, and an old friend who is the director at a juvenile home in the District talks to him about promoting a new program, Big Brothers, for delinquent kids (actually, the association had its origins in 1904 and was chartered by Congress in 1958) and instead of recording any radio or TV spots Steve ends up with one of the troublemakers as his charge for the weekend. Steve first takes 16-year old Carlos Delgado to see Oscar Goldman and finds Jaime Sommers in the office, too. Jaime’s reaction to Steve’s volunteering to be unsupervised with an underage character for hours is much subdued compared to the last time something similar happened. The “heavy” neighborhood where Carlos and his siblings live is on the Universal backlot, but the film vehicle wranglers did get an unusual assortment of vehicles together, like that 1963 Chrysler Newport with faded paint passing the early seventies Mercury Marquis. Carlos has an exasperated older sister (very much so, Maria-Elena Cordero was born in 1943, making her older than Lindsay Wagner) who must find the younger brother’s reading choices more congenial. Another closed captioning error, sounds more like all to me. Steve’s in touch with the youth of the day, he says “dig?” to make his point. Steve explains that the Mercedes-Benz coupe he’s driving is a “company” car, but that is probably so the “Motor Pool” can replace the stolen wheelsets off screen—surely a penny-pinching Oscar Goldman would specify some basic Ford, or maybe a Pontiac Grand Prix, for the famous astronaut. There’s more stock footage when the Colonel takes Carlos up in a jet to reawaken the young man’s dream of being a pilot. This is the last episode the Tumblr blogger capped and there is a pick-up basketball game in the alley to resolve the differences between Carlos and the local hustler Smiley. Andrews Air Force Base is host to small aircraft, either a Cessna 172 or a 182, offering pilot training, this makes perfect sense for a military base, a search for the one clear N-number did not yield anything useful. Another music cue sheet.

The new location for Hannaher’s in Fargo (a green field in Apple Maps by the ramp from southbound I-81/US-29 to US-10) has a LEGO®-friendly design and selection of elements, colors, and textures.

29 August 2016

Yugo Next (via) is a promotional video for the 1995 art exhibit which repurposed the car (previously), some of the artists talk about their work. The video shows creations which I either missed or which didn’t make it to Washington, D.C., I visited the exhibition on two separate days carrying different cameras with color films of different speeds inside.

If not Hooters (previously) perhaps Tilted Kilt (h/t) will do.

They’re all in the District, so: Metro launches 45-day public Wi-Fi pilot at six Metrorail stations, seeks public feedback (via).

28 August 2016

When I ask “why are we listening to this [person]?” when Weekend Edition Saturday is on, sometimes it’s a challenge as to whether I mean the guest or the host, but I missed this segment yesterday after turning the radio off: And The No. 1 Scrabble Nation In The World Is…

The redevelopment of Belgrade’s waterfront (previously) proceeds: How an Entire Street Gets Illegally Knocked Down Overnight.

Kindle crashes and broken PowerShell: Something isn’t right with Windows 10 testing.

27 August 2016

The Zootopia Box Office (via) counter has come to a halt at $1,023,227,498.

This week’s rewatch is when I realized that Argelius is an anagram of u+Algiers.

With the first frame of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Come With Me To The Casbah Affair” we are expected to believe the episode is set in “Algiers” but actually the scenes set outdoors are impressively detailed and populated. Col. Hamid Ibris is the poetry-reading, self-indulgent head of THRUSH in the city, but he and his assistant Ali do not know that his other assistant Pierrot La Mouche (Pat Harrington looking a lot more brown than he did as a Sweet brother) is planning to sell a code book to U.N.C.L.E. so he can impress his crush Janine Durant, the proprietor (not a waitress) of a local bistro, with a million francs. Janine can barely stand Pierrot and she fights off his unwanted physical affections. Illya Kuryakin arrives at the bistro, Hamid recognizes him as an U.N.C.L.E. agent and the ensuing gunfight leaves Kuryakin knocked out from a dropped flagon of olive oil. Conveniently, Napoleon Solo is also in the city, and his visit to Illya in the hospital establishes the existence of an U.N.C.L.E. health-plan card. Waverly tells Solo to purchase the code book from La Mouche but insists that “U.N.C.L.E. is not a lonely-hearts bureau” so Pierrot’s new demand for the guaranteed companionship of Janine must be refused. This second opinion guesses that Napoleon rides to the Casbah in a “(very old) Citroën” but the Citroën Traction Avant Familiale was built for a long time and the particular one on the backlot that day might have been less than a decade old. Solo flashes a card and enters the Casbah, where he is promptly brought to La Mouche and taken captive. Hamid explains his difficulties to his girlfriend, the belly dancer Alesha. (The other belly dancer “Camille Grant” died in 2014.) Kuryakin leaves the hospital and reaches Janine at the bistro, where they escape Hamid and Ali and spend the night quietly in an adjoining hotel. Napoleon is smooth with the lies and even more so when Solo switches places with Pierrot because Alesha has a plan to retrieve the book by seducing the inexperienced Pierrot. Why wouldn’t a resident of Algiers already know this? Spending the night with Illya has Janine dreaming of Pierrot and warming to him, while Napoleon’s extended alone time with Alesha was bugged by Hamid—although why shortwave would be used is a mystery. Hamid is violent with Alesha upon her return, Solo gave her the wrong book. Based upon the eavesdropping, Hamid and Ali capture Kuryakin and Janine and tie them up and threaten them with “red-hot” pincers they can hold without gloves. When Pierrot discovers the bug, Napoleon escapes. It pains me to report that it is not true that Once free, Illya unties Janine. It is Ali who unties her hands once Hamid decides to use her to bargain with Pierrot, and then when Illya jumps down and runs off, Janine undoes the ropes around her ankles by herself. The small courtyard of the climactic confrontation has a Mercedes-Benz (from the chrome on the fintails and around the windows I take it to be a W111), an early Ford Mustang hardtop with vinyl roof, and some early-30s car. The ensuing gunfight only injures bad people, with Pierrot saved by Alesha’s metallic clothing which he had stuffed in his top. Kuryakin’s facepalm is the only sensible response to Solo’s quip about rhinestones. Waverly joins them for some sweets, Janine forgets about her bistro because of the love of a man, and Alesha’s attempt to sell the code book to Waverly fails when the message is that Hamid is discharged from THRUSH.

The description of the Smithsonian American Art Museum LEGO Family Day on September 17th in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard doesn’t mention any display by a local club of adults.

26 August 2016

The images in the gallery are not a part of the PDF: Finding the Nuts and Bolts of the “Enterprise”. The markings (previously) are authentic.

The vehicles of Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot are not all French.

I extend my sympathies to the supervisors at a locally-headquartered federal agency if the suggestion of 360 reviews is implemented. I’d hoped to photograph the display of the finalist in an internal innovation contest, but the screens were dark this morning.

25 August 2016

Signs say the Metrobus NH2 route is starting October 23rd: New bus route will connect Huntington Metro, National Harbor. The signs also say not to pay attention to the route’s presence in apps before then.

There’s a second one in the area?! Car Show Classic: 1980 Rover 3500 (SD1) – Rover Over Here, Again. I considered myself lucky to have caught the one 7 years ago.

Atom bills itself as “The Future of Movies” and the app’s benefits are planned to go nationwide by summer’s end, AMC Theatres is a partner: Atom Tickets Continues Strong Growth with Addition of New Theater Partners. So far the app seems to be for people with friends with the free time to join them for a night out but not the patience to wait in line and fuss with paying for anything in person.

24 August 2016

The Hoffman Center location is one that closed, the sign invites patronage of the Kingstowne location: Ruby Tuesday’s Closing Restaurants – Alexandria Area Effect Unknown. The location along Fruitville Pike in Lancaster, Pennsylvania is still on the website so I guess I can keep this creation together.

This was 2928 N. San Fernando Blvd. in Burbank, California in 1976. Perhaps Joy Western had moved on by that point.

The location used for exterior filming in yesterday’s episode of The Six Million Dollar Man represents some extended industrial history. By 1956, this address was one of two laboratories for the research activities of the Western Precipitation Corporation of Los Angeles. The synopsis of the company’s history from its origin in 1907 to the consent decree settling the antitrust charges of 1945 leaves out a government agency’s determination of excessive wartime profits (Western Precipitation Corporation v. R.F.C.). Many corporate reshufflings followed its acquisition in 1959, and in this century, it seems to have become part of Babcock & Wilcox.

The identity protection service I was signed up for as a consequence of the OPM breach last year now alerts me that an email address has been compromised online (because of the Myspace breach publicized earlier this year)—the exact email address the service just insisted on changing my UserID to!

23 August 2016

From last week, here we go again: Revealing the Colors of the Star Trek Enterprise.

A Ford Mustang fastback, less than a decade old, and just another piece of junk in 1976.

The Bionic Badge takes place in some slightly alternate universe where the components of an atomic device—looking at the list of parts stolen so far, Col. Steve Austin calls it a “bomb”—can be obtained by burgling lightly-guarded commercial warehouses in an unnamed metropolis somewhere south of Sacramento (but the City Hall and Federal Building in Van Nuys are apparent in some shots). I seem to have overrun the producers of the podcast with this episode, in which Oscar Goldman smiles as he assigns Steve to go undercover as a policeman to see if the responding officer on those burglaries is on the take. Greg Banner is 48 and looking forward to retirement and a pension (blame the typist of the prop, Noah Beery was 62), and Steve Amory is his unexpected new partner. The episode was produced by Kenneth Johnson, which might explain why the footage of police cars doesn’t match: first, it’s a Plymouth Satellite, second, it’s a Ford LTD, and third (this is the one the actual actors use) it’s an AMC Matador, and this mix will continue throughout the episode. The Internet Movie Car Database hasn’t covered this episode despite a crucial scene where Austin is stalking some suspects through an automotive junkyard. That location in Sun Valley is still a junkyard! The building used for the police station exterior is at 14555 Sylvan Street, in another decade it would reach the National Register of Historic Places for being the Van Nuys Library which opened in 1927 (in the photograph from 1978, the sign above the door calls it the Bureau of Fire Prevention/Department of Traffic so there were some intermediate uses not otherwise acknowledged), there’s still a big parking lot across Vesper Avenue. Susan Gay Powell is not the only veteran of an earlier episode, she’s one of at least six returnees, by this time she was 28. While in California, Steve does his off-duty close surveillance of Greg by driving a brown Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a car phone (the 3-hour time zone difference is never noticeable when Steve calls Oscar). Oscar remains suspicious of Banner, but Steve thinks different even after nearly getting shot by his partner during an interlude on the Universal backlot. The production returns to location filming with Austin running through an alley south of the “police station” (more specifically, the alley that runs west from the alley that joins Erwin St. and Delano St. west of Van Nuys Blvd.) and Steve has a new suspect who drives a Ford Mustang II Ghia in Dark Brown Metallic (5Q). He flags down an old Plymouth with a taxi shield that’s peeling to give chase. The Golden State Motor Hotel at 2900 N. San Fernando Blvd. in Burbank was built so the rooms looked inward, giving the outward-facing walls a very institutional look, it hasn’t changed much since then, but the warehouse next door at 2928 is no longer two stories. The prop taxi has a different shield on the other side, hm. It’s just a bunch of white guys—and the suspect Steve followed—with an atomic bomb inside the warehouse, no big deal, so the police launch some tear gas and manage to capture everyone without any casualties.

How to Report Possible Car Tax Evaders [in Fairfax County] (via).

22 August 2016

Today I noticed that the local transit system had disappeared from an app. I had to rely on the Google Maps app instead! There’s been no word I can find on the availability of the promised real time bus information.

After all the virtual helicoptering I’ve done over Los Angeles because of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.—and I’ll have done more by tomorrow—I should know this: What do the numbers on helipads mean? The Los Angeles rule for rooftop helipads on buildings over 75 feet tall was rescinded 2 years ago, 40 years after the rule’s adoption.

The Death of Flair: As Friday’s Goes Minimalist, What Happens to the Antiques? (via). TGI Friday’s, previously. Argh, Mefites post the link a few minutes after I composed the dispatch yesterday, but it’s a great read nonetheless.

21 August 2016

The cars, trucks, and motorcycles of Jour de fête have been (mostly) identified already, so has the bicycle Tati was riding.

I’d guessed that the multistory building in yesterday’s episode was in Los Angeles and not a stock shot of San Francisco because of the presence of the Plymouth convertible driven by a character, so maybe this view of urban sprawl was also L.A. and not the more northern city. My first look around the freeways wasn’t working, but assuming that blur along the horizon at the right was the H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D sign and backing up from there… I first recognized the angled structure adjacent the Harbor Freeway (CA-110) at W. Olympic Blvd. (a UPS facility at 950 Blaine St.) and backing up east some more found the hotel at 1020 S. Figueroa St. (now the Luxe City Center but scheduled to be demolished soon) and the building at 714 W. Olympic Blvd. (the Petroleum Building). The long, narrow building I had started out looking for is gone, the Apple Maps 3D imagery was taken in 2012 when the parking lots on the east side of the Staples Center were used for a Mattel Hot Wheels promotion in connection with the ESPN X Games. The Hotel Figueroa at 939 S. Figueroa St. is still there (undergoing renovation and set to reopen in November), but much of the rest on the east side of the freeway has been torn down and replaced (or not) as those “blocks… have gone from blighted to blooming.” Maybe there was a simpler way to figure it out—I called it the principle of least travel—the shot was probably taken from an upper floor of the second-tallest building in Los Angeles at the time! (It doesn’t appear on the timeline of the tallest buildings in Los Angeles because it was no taller than City Hall.) The production crew were already there to film the Fury III entering the carport…

Or you can think of it as Serbian basketballers win silver, Americans too strong (via): USA men’s basketball claims gold with dominating win over Serbia. The final score was 96-66.

20 August 2016

This is what happens when there’s no easy way to check its operation: Windows 10 Anniversary Update breaks most webcams (via).

Bouchet doesn’t actually smile in this or any other scene.

The blogger at Preppies of the Apocalypse was taking a break from the recaps of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. this week, so let’s dip into the archives with The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: “The Project Deephole Affair” from last October, a second season episode with much to like about it. As the episode begins, Illya Kuryakin has evaded Thrush only momentarily by taking a room at the Hotel Bismark for himself and a Dr. Remington under his protection. The leader of the bad guys, self-consciously sitting prettily in the back seat of a black Imperial hardtop, is Narcissus Darling (Barbara Bouchet, she was 22½, her role as Kelinda 2 years in the future). Napoleon Solo arrives in a 1966 Dodge Coronet taxi and a rent-evading gambler from the adjoining room takes the tranquilizer dart and our heroes manage to escape. The next morning, Solo pulls up to Del Floria’s in a 1965 Dodge Polara convertible and has his head turned by a random passer-by brunette. The plan is to keep Thrush thinking the gambler Conway is the scientist they want to kidnap, while U.N.C.L.E. gets the real geologist to a conference in San Francisco. A very glamourous shot of a TWA Boeing 707 in flight, and another when it lands. San Francisco itself is represented by the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with its mid-span anchorage. Illya is oblivious to Darling’s presence on the same flight, and Napoleon has eyes only for his partner and misses her exit, too. Solo drives Conway in a pale yellow 1965 Rambler American, but the attendant at the filling station is a Thrush agent. Kuryakin, still completely oblivious, has been waiting for Solo there in a 1966 Plymouth Fury III convertible for about 30 minutes. The quick installation of a “drone control” leaves Conway at the mercy of Darling’s remote piloting from a pale gold 1966 Imperial Crown. Some stunt driving on a freeway gets Solo back into the American. Illya follows the Imperial to the garage of a multistory building—there’s an older Lincoln Continental outside, and the elevator he rides has a marker for “13”—but he’s expected. (By virtual helicoptering through downtown Los Angeles in Apple Maps 3D view, I found the Occidental Center Tower at 1150 S. Olive St., the first modern skyscraper in L.A., completed in 1965. The USC name is set to replace that of AT&T.) Marvin Elom is photophobic and also the brains behind the plan to use one of the elevator shafts in the building to drill deep and instigate an earthquake to destroy California (the drill hits oil instead). This time the closed captioning might have gotten it right: “I want a clayton dramper on her ferringclyde.” Oh, no, Miss Darling, Solo might tell himself, we are going to grapple like we did in Portofino when she was 18½. There’s no more cars until the tag (1, 2), but every Thrush agent other than Narcissus is shot (or falls down the elevator shaft), perfect late-Friday evening entertainment.

Something to follow on Twitter tomorrow, I guess: USA-Serbia men’s final could save forgettable Olympics basketball tournament.

19 August 2016

With other locations having made the switch to the Speedway name, it’s strange that the Hess Express at 5652 Columbia Pike retains its branding.

“The Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Confederate Memorials and Street Names, which was established by Alexandria City Council in September 2015, yesterday submitted its final report.” I probably shouldn’t have read the public feedback, although a few mention a television series with a second season starting in Jaunary (Mercy Street Season 2 First Look (Video) #MercyStreetPBS) and the tourists who might be attracted to the city by the series’ more balanced look at life during the war as a reason to move away from holding on to one-sided 1950s-era decisions honoring the losing side and what they were fighting for in Virginia—to reverse what they held to be the Federal Government’s perversion of the powers under the Constitution to the “oppression of the Southern slave-holding states,” that is to say, among other burdens, the right of other States to deny the slave-holding power within their own borders. The revised inventory of Confederate street names makes no mention of McConnell or Whiting (and Taney was outside the scope of their work).

Somewhere in there is an explanation for why we sort: Hedonism and the choice of everyday activities (via).

18 August 2016

The Wamalug Yahoo! Group is abuzz over the impending availability of the Mega-Bloks U.S.S. Enterprise™ NCC-1701 construction set, but I note from the instructions that the potential swooshability depicted photographically is a fraud, the completed assembly is intended only for mounted display.

Don Beyer Statement on ‘My Social Security Access’.

Some of those 2,000+ heavy users of the comment system will just have to go back to trying to call in to C-SPAN: NPR Website To Get Rid Of Comments.

17 August 2016

No let-up, from Monday: Metro Faces More Pressure From Feds, This Time For Red-Signal Overruns. It never ends: Inspection Blitz Finds More Track Defects; Metro Adjusting SafeTrack Schedule.

The professor eschews the style rule text-transform and just types all caps: NEITHER SILENT NOR THE MAJORITY.

Once upon a time people could be satisfied with the basics (Curbside Classic: 1961 Ford Falcon – Simply Original and Just Right) but soon, about 60 years later: Ford to mass-produce a completely self-driving car within five years (press release).

16 August 2016

I gave up on modems (the kind that connect to telephone lines, that is) 6 years ago without too much sentiment: Saying Goodbye To Old Technology — And A Legendary NYC Repair Shop.

Love Song for Tanya begins with a shot of a building façade which must be from a previous episode because the sign—which I missed the first time through—says “KNUZ TELEVISION STUDIOS.” I might be forgiven for thinking the setting is California just on that basis, and then Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers show up together talking about the great afternoon they’ve had together and Oscar Goldman assures Jaime that he has a driver standing by for her… but the confusion about this episode’s location has only started. Goldman asks Austin, however improbably, to escort Tanya, a young Russian gymnast on her first visit to the United States, for a few days. Sommers finds the idea terribly amusing and reminds Oscar of her availability should any handsome Russian men need escorting. Jaime heads back to Ojai and her teaching job, and as the participants in the 74-minute podcast (alternate location) point out in their comprehensive takedown of the episode, the stock shot that follows is Fifth Avenue (at East 58th Street, looking south) in New York City. After Steve and Tanya take in a Chekhov play in translation, they head to Mom’s Restaurant—the podcast misses the repeated use of a small set of cars, including that maroon Mercury Capri on the corner—and Elizabeth Treadwell’s single credit as the waitress (possibly she was the socialite known as Liz who was more famous for dating George Hamilton and Rod Stewart). Cathy Rigby plays the gymnast, she was 23 at the time, but her fame had come at 16 at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico, and her character’s indefinite age is one of the many criticisms of the episode. Sheila Wills, though, is the saleslady in the clothing shop, and she has had a career since then. Scats Gymnastics of Huntington Beach is still in business, but it wasn’t until Ivan tries to run them down (he’s part of a conspiracy seeking to derail détente, and they figure Tanya’s death in the United States will disrupt relations between the two countries) in a 1974 AMC Ambassador in F8 Golden Tan, perhaps, and Steve gets a look at the plate that I realized this entire episode is supposed to be set in D.C.! The only document at the Bionic Files is a music cue sheet, this is the alleged note from Tanya from a Cyrillic typewriter (translation) and this is the confidential file on the weightlifter (while the text of the file is hysterical for all the reasons given in the podcast, the participants miss that it’s backed by a page of the script). Steve follows Aleksi, whose 1974 Lincoln Continental exhibits some nose dive when the valet brings it around to the hotel entrance, to the grounds of a school for girls which is actually the home base for a super-secret spy ring the Russians have been running for years. Rigby’s charm is muted by the accent she uses, and the potential creepiness of the mature astronaut spending hours alone with the young woman is always present.

Serbia in the news again, oh: Biden Faced With Ultra-Nationalists Chanting ‘Vote For Trump!’ In Serbia (photo).

15 August 2016

Briques, plastique et robots : une visite à l’usine de fabrication des Lego.

I had this idea 4 years ago that candidate Romney had managed to get to Election Day without releasing tax returns, but apparently I had actually missed the release about 6 weeks before the election and there they are. Over fifteen thousand dollars in medical expenses (all health insurance premiums) was not enough to deduct them against 7.5% of adjusted gross income. Also, ha-ha, $6 in interest income from a Bank of America account.

Multiple hotels have been disappointed by my not making any on-premises purchases: 20 hotels suffer hack costing tens of thousands their credit card information.

14 August 2016

The bouncing heart is only at #134?! Every Joke from ‘Airplane!’ Ranked (via).

The stream of Howard County Executive Allan H. Kittleman on Twitter is focused on the recovery of Ellicott City.

I’m told that the WamaLTC display at BrickFair this year had as a guest Andrew Mollman of Okilug, he was responsible for at least the Amtrak locomotive and coaches. As a 501(c)(4) non-profit club they’re far more ambitious than WamaLTC has ever been, with regular meetings and named officers, too, but the group’s name is inconsistent, with references to OKILUG, OKI Lug, “OHIO KENTUCKY INDIANA LEGO USER GROUP” and “OHIO KENTUCKY INDIANA LEGO USER’S GROUP” scattered about.

13 August 2016

The first annoyance with the Anniversary Update (I downloaded the installer stub directly) is that the keyboard focus is stuck on the All Apps listing. I suppose I should update the second virtual machine.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Monks of St. Thomas Affair” begins with Illya Kuryakin at the wheel of a 1966 Dodge Charger (the luxury car that’s also a sports wagon) as Napoleon Solo disconsolately eats a hot dog, there can’t be any second meaning in Illya’s suggestion of tacos. Their mission to rescue the laser researcher Dr. Lambert is thwarted by an attack from Thrush agents driving by in a 1966 Imperial and an explosion when they enter the house on Felton Avenue. Waverly is dismissive of their failure and his nose for liqueur leads him to identify the remains of a bottle from the rubble and to send Solo to the monastery where it’s made and Kuryakin to follow the Thrush agents they saw in the Imperial. The Alps need no title and a distant shot establishes the monastery as Napoleon meets some dogs, a friendly monk, and the sinister head of the order who has displaced Waverly’s friend. Kuryakin’s plan seems to have been to walk off with the Thrush agents’ luggage in New York but the two succeed in having their bags checked and they catch their TWA flight to Zürich anyway. Waverly is flabbergasted at Illya’s dilatory approach. It’s only when Solo returns to his hotel that we get a SOMEWHERE IN SWITZERLAND title—right after Waverly told Kuryakin that Zürich is quite close to the monastery. Solo immediately takes note of the fetching young woman on the antique telephone in the hotel lobby. Celeste Yarnall was not yet 22 and her role as the kick-ass Yeoman Landon was over a year in her future. Solo listens to a lot of stuff. There is some banter about shirt size with the Thrush agents, a dustup, and a handwritten plea discovered in a bottle, but first Solo has Andrea investigated by U.N.C.L.E. before accepting her story that she’s the niece of Waverly’s friend at the monastery who’s jittery about her engagement to “square” Adolf. Thrush may have been flying a TWA Boeing 707 from New York, but their arrival in Europe is marked by a piston-engined propeller-driven Swissair DC-7C and the Zürich airport (it’s a TWA 707 again when the Thrush agents follow their luggage out, and Kuryakin emerges). This second opinion correctly identifies the Renault Dauphine the Thrush agents drive from the airport to the William Tell Tavern (followed by Illya on a 1967 Honda CL 77). I also see a Simca 1000, possibly the same one seen being driven in “Switzerland” in another episode, and a Vauxhall L-series. While citizens go about their business past the Zigarrenhaus, Waverly warns that Thrush has plans to destroy the Louvre in Paris—but first, some minor bondage in rope, then chains, and an intimate moment between Andrea and Napoleon. There can’t be any second meaning, either, for Solo’s instructions to Andrea ostensibly regarding an explosive under his lapel. As an episode filmed early in the third season, it’s not as silly as some of the others, but there’s no surprise that there’s more bondage and the denouement involves finding Andrea’s uncle alive and largely well, a rousing fistfight, and the capture of the bad guy held at bay by the return of the dogs. The biggest strain on credulity is Mr. Waverly flying from New York to Paris and standing anxiously in front of the Mona Lisa with only a guard for company (this never happens) trusting that his top agents will save the day.

Today’s newcomer to a Wamalug meeting said he had consulted the dot-com, which is fine. Should he ever be interested in the history of the club, though, the dot-org will be there.

12 August 2016

Wamalug?! My latest follower on Flickr is a musician, railfanner, and LEGO builder who exhibits at the Fairfax Station Railroad Museum, but he gets the name of the club that put on a display at the Manassas Heritage Railway Festival this past June completely, utterly wrong. Maybe the WamaLTC banner could be bigger…

Oh, great, Bob might be thinking, now that we’ve equipped half of WamaLTC’s participants with an equivalent processor: Almost every Volkswagen sold since 1995 can be unlocked with an Arduino.Volkswagen keys are insecure, but so are everyone else’s (via).

I have been diligently creating snapshots in VMware Fusion but the Anniversary Update has yet to appear: Microsoft starts testing Windows 10’s next major update.

11 August 2016

2 Dead, Others Missing After Explosion at Maryland Apartment Building, Fire Officials Say.

I find it hard to believe that 94.4 percent of Springfield Town Center space is now leased or committed or even 86.9%. Admittedly, a review today shows that some of the locations marked as “proposed” in the marketing PDF from April have been occupied. My walking tour passed some Đ-free advertising.

Not-as-prompt uploader Abraham Friedman has his own album of photographs from this year’s BrickFair (via) and I did a quick study of how to search Flickr for multiple tags to come up with this search for those also tagged WamaLTC.

10 August 2016

The ability to create a Facebook Page without linking it to a personal account seems to have disappeared in the intervening months since I first got the idea: Administering Facebook Pages without an personal Facebook profile.

No Fixed Abode: Triumph of the Grille.

There’s more adults who have a “my Social Security” account but not a texting-enabled cellular telephone than I would have expected and they are complaining about the Social Security Administration’s implementation last month of mandatory multifactor authentication, my representative has written a letter.

09 August 2016

If no one comes forth with a list of participants in WamaLTC’s display at BrickFair this past weekend, maybe I can use the photographs of prompt uploader Bob Hayes to figure it out.

The Golden Pharaoh begins with a stock shot of a building which I can now recognize (after being schooled earlier) as the New York Public Library, but the plot requires it to be an art museum somewhere in the District—an art museum that doesn’t know to keep its most valuable objects encased. It wouldn’t have helped, though, because when Oscar Goldman assigns Col. Steve Austin to accompany the return of a traveling exhibit of Egyptian artworks to “Levanta,” he’s the first to notice that the prime artifact has already been replaced! Suspicion quickly falls on the shipping intermediary Republic of Kalny and a “Capitol Gas Company” 1973 Chevrolet Step-Van appears outside its embassy, but before Steve can operate the “gold detector” inside he lifts up an “ELECTRIC POWER” manhole cover to solidify their disguise, hm. Steve recognizes another old flame, Trish Hollander (Farrah Fawcett-Majors, in her third character role in the series, with hair fully deployed), driven in a 1958 Bentley S1 Continental Flying Spur Saloon H.J. Mulliner. She’s set to marry the vice consul as a way to placate her many creditors and settle her debts, but the participants in the 72-minute podcast are not impressed with her gold-digging character or much of any other part of the episode. Actually, she remembers Steve’s drink as vodka. Steve told Oscar that Trish’s 25 now, so how old was she if she knew Steve as a Captain? 12?! How quaint, a Rolodex card (part of Steve’s plan to get in the embassy’s museum). There is a Wilson Building in the District now, but even in 1976, it wouldn’t have had only mid-sixties Plymouth models on the street in front. Steve drives to the Tri-City Brick Yard and its hidden gambling establishment in a 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450 SL and ends the episode cuddling in front of a fireplace with Trish.

Mild humor from 2005: Sesame Street - Grouch Apprentice with Donald Grump (via (via)).

08 August 2016

Maybe they just want to see a movie: Aggressive raccoons seen in Swamp Fox area.

At first impression, the fact that the One Bus Away app identifies the number of a specific bus on a route seemed a bit much… until I boarded a bus displaying NOT IN SERVICE and I was just curious if it was really the one I wanted to be riding. Whew, it was.

This is why I heard no clatter from that Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen almost 3 years ago: VW’s Emissions-Cheating Defeat Device Was Developed By Audi In 1999 to Reduce Noise (via).

07 August 2016

The Disneyland Riverboat Game by Parker Brothers was a 1960 release (better graphics) for the family on a budget, it might have been reissued a decade ago.

The touch -t YYYMMDDhhmm "Pictures/Sony α900/[folder name]" command is what I’m going to be using to fix the folder modification date after changing the file names so the numerical value is over 10,000. I looked through 1,171 previous folder modification dates to fix the ones that didn’t match that of the first photograph that particular day.

With the conclusion today of this season’s BrickFair, the closing of the Ellicott City Station Museum indefinitely (or permanently as the case may be), and the previously mentioned schedule at the B&O Railroad Museum, WamaLTC has no displays to announce.

06 August 2016

BrickFest participant favorite watering hole Carpool Expected to Close Next Month or sometime soon, anyway.

The scene is set with what commentators agree is footage recycled from a earlier episode as The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Thor Affair” begins in an unnamed country with a President who’s been fasting for 17 days to inspire the creation of a global disarmament conference. A random cat induces a sneeze which saves President Fazir Nahdi from a sniper’s bullet. Not only have Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, watching the President’s speech from among the throngs in the square, failed to stop the assassination attempt, but as this second opinion points out, Illya picks up the rifle and ruins it as evidence! Despite the duo being captured at teaser’s end, the rifle ends up in Waverly’s office as Act One begins—with Illya still handling it! A title places the subsequent action in GENEVA SWITZERLAND as the would-be assassin places a device in Solo’s luggage. Munitions king turned toy manufacturer Brutus Thor has changed his mind, though, and tells his minion Kiru (Arthur Batanides, looking a lot more brown than he did as Lt. D’Amato on Star Trek) that the plan has been switched from killing Nahdi to exploding the conference and its many visiting dignitaries. Having endured the indignity of a tourist class flight (which we don’t see), Solo and Kuryakin now face an unhelpful desk clerk at the hotel, when they meet this week’s innocent—literally a school teacher. Nahdi arrives on Thor’s personal plane, N9881Z was a Beech C45-H deregistered in 2007 according to the FAA N-Number Inquiry but there’s a discrepancy in the number of vertical stabilizers. Ah, the single tail was part of a PacAero “Tradewind” conversion (h/t), weird that it went back to factory configuration. Kiru and Thor wait for the President beside an Imperial with impressively thick doors while our heroes ply the school teacher with daiquiris at the hotel’s bar. Illya’s reaction to being told he’s cute by Nellie Canford of Newport News is non-romantic. Thor’s cat has no use for your so-called key light. Nellie’s cab ride—a right hand drive Austin FX3 in a drive-on-the-right country—takes her past the same street used as Switzerland in another episode but now the corner shop advertises sigaretten because, uh, Dutch is one of the languages spoken there? (Not in Geneva, it wouldn’t be, the German word would be zigaretten.) Solo is inconsolable: [BAG EXPLODES]. Nellie explains that she can hear radio transmissions through her tooth and this gets Solo and Kuryakin very interested in her staying with them, because of her talent, yes. When the inevitable happens and Nellie exposes that our heroes know too much they’re taken to “Lake Geneva” in a Volkswagen Type 2 panel van and bound up inside a cabin. One can tell it’s “Switzerland” by the 1966 Dodge Monaco outside, sure, the steamboat on the opposite bank is another clue. Canford is on the floor with ropes at her wrists and ankles while our heroes are hanging upside down as well, and they get snippy with each other. Once freed, the trio work together to subdue their guards. They try to hitchhike back into town and the cars that pass them by, a 1965 Simca 1000 and a red Volkswagen Beetle with a roof rack, and the Jaguar XK-E driven by the guy who stops because of Nellie’s exposed thigh, have all been seen before in this episode. The plan, such as it is, is to keep Nellie drinking to the point she is no longer shy around them in case she overhears something again. She switches from the browns she’d been wearing since the top of the episode to a pink sheath. With Kuryakin assigned to scope out Thor’s villa, and a title assuring us that Solo and Canford are in the “Palace of Nations, GENEVA,” the tension rises as the “first globally televised peace conference” gets under way. Waverly watches thanks to Telstar, the mention of which in a broadcast is like how Skype gets called out these days. I can see nameplates for Greece, Mexico, Italy, France, S.A., Belgium, Japan, Argentina… Unfortunately for Kuryakin and his prowling around the villa, the toys Thor makes are armed, and he drops his communicator, but he survives and uses Thor’s cat as a weapon and uses Thor’s wrist communicator to speak to Miss Canford (saying “Nellie” just once to get her attention). Solo saves the day, and the next title assures us the scene is in NEWPORT NEWS where Miss Canford is telling her kindergarten class all about her trip to Geneva and New York while Solo and Kuryakin and Waverly are embarrassing themselves at the back of the classroom. There’s a putatively political message on the blackboard, this episode was first broadcast on October 28, 1966 (that is, nearly 15 months before Robert F. Kennedy began his campaign for president). Who was H²? Strange that a North American plant should have been in front of their hotel in Geneva. Linda Foster was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she was 22.

Bad news for Steve Austin: People look guiltier when their actions are viewed in slow motion.

05 August 2016

Fairfax City Mayor Faces Drug Charges After Meth-For-Sex Sting has the better headline but lacks the details found in Three Arrested for Distribution of Methamphetamine. The Chicago Tribune tries to make this national news.

The Howard County Council Extends the Executive Order for State of Emergency for Ellicott City until September 7. Comcast steps on a rake again.

I noticed it last year and so: The United States Navy is finally getting rid of their blue uniforms (via).

04 August 2016

After war, the Yugo, and 60 years, Serbia’s Zastava shuts down.

NTSB Briefs Findings from Limited Investigation of WMATA Derailment.

Ford recalling 830,000 vehicles to replace side door latches in sunnier, hotter states.

03 August 2016

Since it’s still there 3 weeks later, I say they’ve priced it too high: Patti O’Malley’s Car & Truck Center of Finksburg offers a pearl white 1960 Lincoln Continental convertible for nearly $30,000. I had let the navigation in my Focus choose the way to Hunt Valley for Shore Leave 38, and the used car dealer on the corner was on an approach from the west I hadn’t taken before.

The WamaLTC display at BrickFair starts taking shape today, public admission is on Saturday and Sunday. The layout will include a reference to the Ellicott City Partnership’s fund to assist merchants and residents with flood recovery. The B&O Railroad Museum Ellicott City Station Remains Closed until Further Notice. This will be a continuing story for months: Ellicott City clock returned to Main Street, set to 9:20.

Awkward times at the next dental visit, eh? Does Flossing Help Or Not? The Evidence Is Mixed At Best.

02 August 2016

This has been planned for a while, as the comments make clear: At the King Street Metro, parking is out and a pedestrian plaza is in.

The Secret of Bigfoot Part II begins only after the credits (a dilatory recap preceded them) with a Ford M151 bearing the convincingly dazed wife half of the “earthquake sensor” team from the first part. With Col. Steve Austin still missing somewhere in the stock footage of mountains, Oscar Goldman’s plan to use a 50-megaton device on his personal say-so is questioned only once the bomb’s on the way, the military accepts his reassurance that it’ll be used underground. Kenny Johnson misspeaks, in his commentary he says B-52 when the plane on screen in the stock footage is consistently a C-141. I can’t see a tail number, but the nose bears the mark of the 63rd Military Airlift Wing which was based at Norton AFB (although that hangar and tower in the background remind me of a previous episode, Edwards doesn’t have a runway matching that direction). Steve has been getting to know the aliens and their mission on this planet better, Shalon (Stefanie Powers) is particularly interested in continuing her “research” on the human and his parts. Oscar treats earthquake predictions like characters in Star Trek The Next Generation treated radiation exposure—believing their effects to have split-second timing. A tremor hits a few seconds after the prediction, regrettably the plan to explode the nuclear device must proceed and San Francisco is seen in more stock footage. The 71-minute podcast notes that the aliens aren’t prepared for earthquakes, which sounds dumb for the region, but the participants find even dumber the time line converter which takes a small project box and adds a light, a dial, and a button marked “ON/OFF” with which the aliens purport to be able to adjust their physiological experience of passing time—their 2 year mission on Earth so far has seen 250 years of human activity pass.

SPACEDOCK shows the process of painting and assembling the studio model of the Enterprise. It’s cut to the length of the track “The Enterprise” from Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Star Trek The Motion Picture. Margaret Weitekamp, Malcolm Collum, and Ariel O’Connor are among the Smithsonian staff I recognize from previous visits to the Emil Buehler Conservation Laboratory at the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum at the Open Houses the past 2 years. O’Connor has moved on to a new position more in line with her resumé, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

01 August 2016

Historic Ellicott City Faces Long Recovery After Flood Tears Through Main Street.

I tell people I’m not destitute—standing at the Pick a Brick wall in a LEGO Brand Retail store filling a large cup should have made the remark superfluous—but from my reaction to when a grocery store tries to overcharge me by $2, one might wonder…

Some people really do like that Yahoo! Weather app: CEO Marissa Mayer Treated Yahoo Like A Think Tank, Not A Sinking Ship.

31 July 2016

The clock at the intersection of Main Street and Maryland Avenue getting knocked down is the least of it: One Dead, Two Missing as Floodwaters Surge Through Ellicott City, Maryland. It got worse: 2 dead, emergency declared after historic Ellicott City ravaged by flash flood. The linked photo gallery (via) includes a few scenes from the intersection with the clock, a gift to the city which lasted 15 years.

The sale of a lager under the mark of “Spirit Tesla™” in the United States leads to much hand-wringing over trademarks and national pride (via). Was the beer the result of a request from this Chicago-based distributor of premium Serbian beverages as Tanjug reports, or was it another importer and distributor in the suburban Chicago region? Also, the beer label with the typeset character trademark owned by Bozić was first spotted 2 years ago but other than that stellar reporting from the news service with the motto “Correct.”

The Big Internet Brands Of The ’90s — Where Are They Now?

30 July 2016

My analysis of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Off-Broadway Affair” was 4 months ago.

I’ve completed the project to give every thumbnail on the Build page a link to a larger version of the image. I couldn’t always find a version as large as (1024×768)px, so there was some uprezzing. Once upon a time, that was the size of the entire screen!

Florida Governor Says Local Mosquitoes Have Transmitted Zika Virus.

29 July 2016

Just another day on the heavy-rail transit system: Metro Train Derails at East Falls Church Station. A re-railing crane, you say? Sections of Orange, Silver Lines Closed After Derailment.

Uh-oh, the effective date of the local municipality’s transit system service changes has been moved back to September 4th, no word on what effect that has on the deployment of real time bus information.

I personally think all transit workers are at risk: Report On ‘Zoned Out’ Metro Drivers Gets Fresh Attention After Signal Overruns. WAMU continues: Fired Train Operator Was Rushing To Take Break, Metro Says Of July 5 Incident.

28 July 2016

The Balkan eatery Ambar (previously) is said to be expanding.

Local blogger has a comment-generating post: Did an Alexandria, Virginia Restaurant Refuse Service to Police? Betteridge’s law of headlines is thwarted, the answer is largely yes: Two Employees Fired for Refusing to Serve Dinner to Uniformed Va. Police Officer (via). I’ve never been in a Noodles & Company—their advertising during the AMC First Look pre-show a few months ago notwithstanding—so I don’t know whether the lack of one “cook” creates a problem like when a pharmacist refuses to dispense prescriptions, but ultimately it was the derogatory behavior of the employees that was the bigger problem that evening.

Patrick’s of Pratt Street, one of Baltimore’s oldest bars, to close (via).

27 July 2016

Just another feature: You can’t turn off Cortana in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (via).

For the one-hundredth entry on the Build page, I revised the file in the LDraw format of the 7000-series WMATA Metrorail cars to match the creation’s current condition. I’d made the file in 2014 because I thought I needed help having a four-car set at our displays. I displayed just a pair of cars in 2013 but ended up building another pair the following year without help, and since then I’ve modified the couplers to afford less swiveling and annoying variations in inter-car spacing. I’ve seen the actual rolling stock but never actually ridden in a set.

What about ordinary creativity? The description of evidence of “a causal impact of negative emotions on outstanding creativity” could mean trouble: How Are You, My Dearest Mozart? Well-being and Creativity of Three Famous Composers Based on their Letters (via (via)).

26 July 2016

Roddenberry Vault: Original Series Recovered Footage Blu-Ray.

The episode The Secret of Bigfoot is one that some people remember very well but all I recall is being told that Lindsay Wagner had been in a collision. (This newspaper report from a couple of months later does not identify the low-slung 1968 sports car she drove into a tree in Coldwater Canyon on January 18, 1976. She would later marry the boyfriend.) I’d been warned that this rewatch project meant this episode was in my future, and the author Kenny Johnson suggests in the commentary that some parts are cringe-worthy and deserving of Mystery Science Theater 3000-type scorn and, sure, he’s not wrong. The episode begins with a married team installing “earthquake sensors” in allegedly uninhabited forests along a fault in California and the presence of Oscar Goldman and Steve Austin explained as security for seismic sensors originally designed for military surveillance with classified specifications certainly puts an interesting light on a previous episode. The newly installed sensors suggest the presence of a volcanic vent in the area which hadn’t been previously known, sure, the astronaut also knows how to interpret seismic signals. That night there’s an attack on the military base that overturns a 1973 Ford F-Series truck. The secret of Bigfoot is revealed and Steve is taken into custody by aliens who speak English with more vocabulary, Stefanie Powers is their leader. The next cut after her promise to study him, Col. Steve Austin looks down at her cleavage, because of course he does. A cliffhanger is needed to lead into Part II, so Goldman just happens to have a nuclear device on call and the authority to deploy it, because of course he does. There’s a 106-minute podcast with many participants, they challenge the idea that Wagner’s scene was after her collision (she would have had less than 2 weeks to heal).

The case of the vanishing pandemic: Deadly bird flu flies the coop in the US (via).

25 July 2016

Just south of the Vasquez Rocks Park: Sand Fire grows overnight to 35,000 acres (via).

Verizon’s purchase of AOL last year got a link in these pages, which is one more than I expected to find when I started this sentence, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that multiple attempts recently to share screens with another AOL IM user through Apple Messages have failed…

I’m trying to think if I know anyone who uses the operating system, I remember installs of 7 and 8.1 at the last WamaLTC meeting, but with the update to the operating system expected to be pushed out next Tuesday it’s something to do instead of BrickFair. Windows 10 Anniversary Update: the 10 best new features.

24 July 2016

The control tower that would have been standing at New York International Airport in 1960 (as seen in the episode yesterday which was first broadcast in 1967) does not survive, it was replaced in the early nineties and demolished later in the decade. The new tower was the tallest when constructed but that superlative is no longer true.

I guess something had to be done, but ugh: Verizon Reportedly Prepares To Buy Yahoo For $4.8 Billion.

That’s weird, the SunTrust location search doesn’t admit to anything at 3580 King Street, the unconventional structure at the corner of Marlee Way has long intrigued me for its small size, metallic-look sheathing, and angled features. If there’s a branch of the same bank in the Bradlee Shopping Center just up the street at 3610H King Street, then the size makes more sense for only having to support the drive-through lanes. It’s less than 3 weeks to the next Wamalug meeting. Only two of the lanes at the stand-alone drive-through station are in use, one lane is for an ATM, the other is for “Teller Connect,” a two-way video conferencing apparatus the bank started installing 2 years ago.

23 July 2016

The Fisher-Price™ Classic Chatter Telephone™ is a low importance toy.

The period-correct control tower of John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The tall lady on the sidewalk was at the airport, too, but our heroes take no notice.

Solo gets no respect: “Well, I’m sure that at a time like this, he can control…”

The Beetle in front of Mama Sweet’s address is the color of the female Thrush uniform , hm.

At the “U.N.C.L.E. TEST RANGE” as The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Hula Doll Affair” begins, Illya Kuryakin is doing his best to maintain his cool despite the presence of a “ girl ” in the control room wearing a yellow jumpsuit. Edy Williams would wear less later in her career. With a Thrush plan to kidnap Kuryakin by dragging away the phone booth he’s standing in foiled by the presence of NYPD officers, he and Napoleon Solo take a taxi to Del Florio’s tailor shop where almost every car on the street is a Dodge. A second opinion finds the episode funny if silly (it’s always been silly that Mr. Waverly’s office has windows but now it has a thermometer, too) while a third opinion finds it a satire on corporations and family life in America: “They don’t make board rooms like that any more.” Indeed, the episode is heavy on septuagenarian Waverly lamenting the licentious appetites of one agent and the incompetence of the other. A case in point, Illya dismisses the possibility of a Thrush headquarters in Central Park even as U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in Washington, D.C. was earlier depicted underground in a bucolic setting. A power struggle between two brothers in the local Thrush hierarchy leads to Solo being lured to their headquarters without much resistance and the first innocent is a new secretary who arrives in a pale blue dress with cap sleeves and a low neckline but is soon wearing the standard uniform, an orange ribbed knit dress with a contrasting purple mock turtleneck collar and panels down the sides and patterned hose. Wendy Thyme (Grace Gaynor) learns that her hours at the “business” are numbered, though. Kuryakin is sent to conduct surveillance on the mother of the brothers Sweet (Patsy Kelly) which he does from the closet of the adjoining flat. Napoleon makes the best of being captive (to protect Wendy) and starts getting in to his pose as Number 26 from Thrush Central and then he’s left alone with her in Thrush headquarters with just one guard shambling around. The second innocent is Marge (Bobbi Jordan) who starts her day in paler oranges and blues, she’s the resident of that flat where Illya is spying on the neighbor. When Waverly hears a woman’s voice over Channel D, he assumes that Kuryakin has the same urges as Solo on top of letting the brothers get away. When Mama Sweet catches a cab, it’s another Dodge and she’s suspicious of the driver, but that’s a Chrysler in the background. Hijinks ensue and people die. The escape hatch from Thrush New York’s 13th floor headquarters is hidden behind a corporate directory.

I’ve been avoiding en-pee-ar this week because its commentators use adjectives like strong instead of deranged.

22 July 2016

The Alfred Morris 1991 Mazda 626 is still driven even as the owner now plays for some sports team that isn’t local (via).

The patron wanted everyone left in the theater to know: “Is that it? I’m disappointed. I liked Into Darkness better.” Myself, I’ll go with, eh, it wasn’t terrible. What was I saying about a credibility gap when characters trust an old ship to fly in space? That happens in this movie, too.

The local transit agency has service changes effective August 21st, an advertisement placed in one of the local free weeklies promises the real time bus information (previously) will premiere the same day. This announcement that a second phase of the website design would have a real-time information component was only 7 years ago.

21 July 2016

An abbreviated history of the Baby Benz, from the 1940s to the 1960s.

I’ve moved on to Yosemite, but this Microsoft move will render the client for Snow Leopard useless: This transition means that old peer-to-peer Skype clients will cease to work. (Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room.)

A poor headline left open the possibility (via) that maybe some other country’s company might continue, but nope: Last known VCR maker stops production, 40 years after VHS format launch.

20 July 2016

Charlottesville Then & Now compares photographs taken in the 1910s with the same scenes last May. There’s a similar page for the evolution of spots around Grounds but the photographs didn’t display for me in SeaMonkey (until I removed all the e-mail campaign tracking parts of the URL).

The ninety-ninth entry on the Build page is a locomotive I built 7½ years ago—if I relied on solid-state storage I don’t know that I would have been able to find the GIF I used for the “CSX” sticker. I’d created the crop of a CSX Transportation logo in the Windows XP days. I really should have something special lined up for the one-hundredth entry, hm, what’s left to do…

The surface parking lots in the Hoffman Center area have been closed and patrons of the AMC Hoffman Center 22 have been advised to use the garage described as at 2380 Mill Road (the entrance is really on Mandeville Lane). Yelpers are not happy. Last week, the movie theater validated my ticket, this week, I was handed a “follow-up” ticket. Upon my return to the garage after seeing a movie (“Safety lights are for dudes”) there was a Oxford White Ford Focus ST parked next to mine, which makes it at least the third time my car has started a mini-flock (example).

19 July 2016

The AMC Theatres loyalty program Stubs is introducing a new benefit, perhaps inspired by the TSA: separate lines for tickets and for concessions for paid subscribers to the Stubs Premiere tier.

As Hocus-Pocus begins, Col. Steve Austin is back in form driving a 1975 Mercedes-Benz 450SL to a clandestine meeting—in the middle of a sunny street with no cover—so that he and Oscar Goldman can meet the insider driving up in a 1974 Lincoln Continental from a criminal organization that has recently come into possession of a U.S. Navy code book as part of a payroll theft. When a 1974 Plymouth Fury comes along, the insider figures he’s been exposed but Oscar insists (“We offered you amnesty only if you’d help us”) that the plan to infiltrate Austin into the top guy Wharton’s circle must go on. Austin trains to give plausibility to his cover as a magician seeking an audition at The Blue Tiger club (on the backlot behind this 1974 Datsun B210) and he also suggests partnering with Audrey, the ESP -capable young woman from last season who’s conveniently at a junior college within driving distance. While she’s no Lindsay Wagner, the return of Robbie Lee does gives the episode a bounce. Oscar Goldman goes undercover over the telephone as the booking agency representing the magician Steve Andrews. No Imperials for them this time: government agents drive a 1974 Ford Maverick to the Hall of Justice, and the man Baxter who could expose Steve and Audrey escapes in a 1962 Checker Taxicab but Oscar—who is not happy again—has more agents available, and Baxter’s tackled just in time. The magic act Steve and Audrey put on succeeds in intriguing Wharton and he insists that Andrews and his mind-reading assistant stay the weekend at his compound. Steve is caught looking for the code book, and when he’s bound with rope and tossed in the meat freezer, Audrey shows some of the executive authority of a gang leader to pressure the insider to get him moved. The podcast is only 85 minutes but it’s padded with material from a 109-minute podcast featuring the author of the original story treatment for this episode and his experiences in Hollywood. All the bad guys end up in the compound’s swimming pool. There’s that Ford Falcon with a wooden bumper that showed up earlier in the season in The Bionic Criminal! The kids at John Quincy Adams Junior College are all right, Audrey’s boyfriend Jack recognizes the name of one of America’s moon-walking astronauts.

VRE sees Record Ridership As Commuters Avoid Metro last week, but with SafeTrack Surge #4 concluded, the parking lot across the street has filled again.

18 July 2016

Someone is optimistic: a famous company is looking for a retail store manager at a new location, the LEGO Store at Fashion Centre at Pentagon City is expected to be open by September (h/t Mike).

Holding the camera above my head—not a great plan, my apologies to Dark Matter fans.

At Shore Leave 38 I wanted to try to avoid including heads in my photographs from the audience this year while only carrying a 70-210mm zoom lens, so sometimes I stood up—I felt wobbly but most of the results are ok, especially considering flash use was forbidden during Masquerade. Maybe I could aim between the heads while sitting if I had a zoom lens that’s longer at the telephoto end… actual lessons potentially learned include: don’t leave batteries and storage cards in the vehicle (when you need them, you don’t want to lose your seat); don’t rely on rechargeable batteries for the flash (you will exhaust them all and they take hours to recharge); and, don’t sit on the far side of the ballroom from the hall entrance when the Boogie Knights perform (the microphones cover the cheek from that angle). The sign language interpreter worked the stage all day Saturday (from Boogie Knights presentation through to Masquerade) but I never heard an introduction and I haven’t found a badge to read. The etiquette is likely to ignore her, but some of the guests made a big deal of her working and may well have annoyed her and no one was sign language interpreting on Sunday.

The communal police in Serbia appear to have been established in 2009 in order to “to improve the quality of life in each local self-government” but certainly by now their reputation as an agent of state harassment is established.

17 July 2016

It’s been 20 years, none of the photographs I took at Shore Leave 18 in 1996 have made it to Flickr yet, just this Hummer on the way there.

I suppose I should hang on to the older shirts I found in my closet, they hark back to that dimly-remembered time when cotton threads weren’t treated for wrinkle resistance and there were eight buttons down the front of a shirt, not just seven.

When Barbara Bouchet speaks of her career in films, it’s long enough ago that she may be forgiven for remembering some of the locations as being in “Yugoslavia” (at the time, they would have been) but perhaps less so for not knowing the name of the languages spoken there.

16 July 2016

Perhaps their notability did not merit inclusion in Wikipedia, after all, the website I linked to in my comments at Flickr no longer resolves, and they are reduced to a Google-hosted page.

“Somewhere in SICILY” the caption promises, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Super-Colossal Affair” begins with Napoleon Solo with camera in hand—probably a Leica IIIf—as he and Illya Kuryakin spy on a “family” conference. The mansion’s courtyard has at least a 1966 Imperial Crown and a 1966 Mercedes-Benz 250 S and another Imperial but, as this second opinion notes, the chase vehicle switches to an older model. A 230S? The action moves to “Somewhere in BEVERLY HILLS” and Kuryakin poses as a pool repairman and what he says is funny because Illya just got done planting listening devices in the area while Solo listens from a Ford Econoline. Later, the action moves to a movie studio—there’s no title for the switch of scene—and our heroes pose as members of the press (Screen Bits) with Solo scribbling in a notebook and Kuryakin wielding a Nikon—maybe an F. Exposed later as not-of-the-family, they try to escape and run past something that defies identification. The criminal scheme solidifies in a plan to have one old man put together an atomic bomb to destroy Las Vegas. I can’t tell if the production is joking about Frank Cariago taking this approach seriously. When that doesn’t work, the patriarch comes up with a bomb. The sin city needs no on-screen identification, I guess, and Mr. Waverly is in town and driving himself. The chase is on, pitting Ginger DeVeer’s 1954 MG TF against a B-25J Mitchell taking off (N3675G has been to air shows and appeared in a number of productions and is still flying from its home at Planes of Fame Air Museum) as Mr. Waverly gambles among the senior citizens (and maybe also serves as a cutaway while Kuryakin descends with the bomb). This season was doomed to be remembered as silly.

People can get excited about Wegman’s and while a year later I haven’t been to that location I was able to walk through the one in my current neighborhood and pfft… the Kroger in Richmond had a more extensive selection.

15 July 2016

Where do mountain lions hunt in Los Angeles?

Still promised for this summer… DASH Bus Time!

This appears UK-based, but could be amusing nevertheless: @thecatreviewer.

14 July 2016

I ran out of blank CD-Rs just as the space taken up by the files for the sites I author exceeded the 700MB capacity of one.

The professor’s reading assignment 4 years ago was an excuse for me to explore the era’s automobiles, but others can find deeper meanings: The Hard Lessons of Richard Wright’s Native Son. The body of the post uses <em> rather than <cite> to italicize the book’s title.

If “an upcoming event” is code for BrickFair, I thought I was internationally famous for not attending.

13 July 2016

No availability at an AMC Theatres MacGuffins Bar & Lounge reported yet: Star Trek Golden Anniversary Ale. There’s already been a Vulcan Ale from the same brewer.

My identification of the building seen at the beginning of Welcome Home, Jaime last week was no less satisfying for Wikipedia having gotten there first, and this week’s episode of The Bionic Woman posed a challenge, too. Jaime Sommers enters an alley, and a search for the painted sign on the building in the distance yielded nothing. The truck pulls in behind her and a red “RCA” sign (about 8 years old at this point) is just visible at the top of the multistory building, it’s the RCA Building at 6363 W. Sunset Boulevard (and now home to the Los Angeles Film School). Looking around the area in Apple Maps using the 3D feature, I found at 1518 N. Cahuenga Boulevard a building which may date to 1880 and regardless of age has had many uses over the decades and one of them must have been multigraphing. The reverse angle shows the apse of the Blessed Sacrament Church at 6657 W. Sunset Boulevard and the two vehicles converge on Wilcox Avenue across from Hornburg (a Jaguar dealer since 1947 but I see several Mercedes-Benz models in the service lot). I still haven’t had any success with the season opener of The Six Million Dollar Man, though.

I hope Bob is cool with the ninety-eighth entry on the Build page being the GG-1 locomotive in Amtrak livery that I adapted from his multi-part file as shared on Brickshelf.

12 July 2016

Ana Ivanović has married (via), more. It’s been 9 years since her first mention in these pages.

The publicity still at Getty Images linked last week shows a fashion seen in this episode, Welcome Home, Jaime Part II, one of the seven looks worn by Jaime Sommers found by the Bionic Blonde in her analysis. (The photography site mislabels a publicity still from a scene in Part I.) Jaime is driving home in her 1975 Datsun 280Z listening to the radio—amazingly, it might be a radio that matches the car—when there’s a flash and billow of smoke underneath and a henchman in Carlton Harris’s employ uses a Concord security camera to record the aftermath. A closed captioning mistake when Oscar Goldman explains it was sabotage: he says line, not lining. In their mock argument while her home telephone line is bugged, Jaime confuses the step increase that Oscar offers for base pay. Harris and his son Donald have an awkward chat about moral relativity. Is that a strobe on the front of Jaime’s flip clock? Having lured Miss Sommers to the alley behind the “Bank of Ojai” with the promise of great wealth, Carlton has his chauffeur aim the 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 down that alley towards her while an accomplice drives a 1970 International Harvester Loadstar into the alley from the other direction to force Sommers to jump to avoid getting crushed in-between. The podcast participants sneer at the possibility that this is taking place in Ojai, and the unlikelihood of a multistory building in that bucolic town lends credence to their skepticism, but I’ll reserve my identification of the exact location for a blogging exclusive tomorrow. I regret to disagree with the Bionic Blonde after concurring in the count of seven, but in her recap and as a guest in the 102-minute podcast she describes the video player used by Harris at his beachside compound to play back the footage captured at the top of the episode as “VHS,” when the documents make it clear a ½″ tape video recorder was requested on location and the open reels are prominent in any case (VHS reached the United States a year later). The logo has been taped over, making the identification of the video recorder difficult, but the similarly-treated television is more recognizable as a Sony Trinitron KV-1510. The star filter mentioned in the shooting schedule gets used most prominently on the drive by limousine to the first theft—except that in this one scene, the headlights are closer together than on the Cadillac, so it’s probably a 1969 Lincoln Continental! Donald drives a 1975 Ford Econoline to the site for the second theft. The third theft Carlton asks of Jaime leads to the Bunker-Ramo Corporation facility at 31717 La Tienda Road in Westlake Village, the Microgramma Extended Bold might be an undisguised portion of the actual sign at the time. After various corporate mergers and such like, it’s been the site of Calvary Community Church since 1999. This selection of screencaps captures the two instances of Jaime causing sparks, so I’m not going to be redundant.

The scam callers giving me “final notice” of an Internal Revenue Service lawsuit are using a synthetic voice today. The CallerID appearing as WIRELESS CALLER fails to add any credibility.

11 July 2016

The drumbeat of https:// is getting louder, as browser makers plan to gradually change their UX to display non-secure origins as affirmatively non-secure. A cPanel-provided Let’s Encrypt plugin is expected later this year, because with my web host failing to appear on this page, the instructions for manual installation have seemed more daunting than any potential benefit provided.

The local grocery stores that don’t have a certain perfect-bound periodical for sale on their shelves have no problem stocking periodicals devoted to firearms. More than one is so specialized as to have the name of a single type in the title.

Serbia Offers Two Former Guantanamo Detainees Humanitarian Resettlement . Serbia’s national broadcaster reports without linking its sources: Reuters, The New York Times, and the State Department release in the name of the Secretary John Kerry.

10 July 2016

See Mountain Lion Kittens Just Discovered in the Santa Susana Mountains, and more.

The fencing on pedestrian bridges has always been about protecting the vehicles below rather than pedestrian safety.

I’ve yet to figure out the pattern for when the Tumblr favicon in the bookmarks toolbar in SeaMonkey gets filled in and when it’s just an outline.

09 July 2016

All the lights on my Arris CM820 were green yesterday but my internet connection got an amber “unavailable” rating in the AirPort utility app, so… the xfinity My Account app tried to tell me at first that the problem was my modem, but eventually the app admitted that Comcast was at fault. The outage—which lasted for hours and may not have been limited to my account—meant that no reports of the latest version of BBEdit crashing when I try to edit the attributes of an <img> element using the popup dialog could be sent.

A first-gen Chevrolet longbed in the background.

Mr. Waverly, isn’t this how Chernobyl started?

Victoria’s not happy.

The episode begins with a random blonde licking her fingernails as two window washers outside her window betray their pretense by eschewing any safety equipment. A few cars are visible on the backlot streets as Napoleon Solo follows a woman with less than a professional interest when… he’s distracted by a pear tree in a shop window. The mark of a previous season’s villain leads The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Yukon Affair” to quickly head for the “Yukon Territory” but not before an alarm goes off in Waverly’s office when Illya Kuryakin takes the lid off the improbably-named quadrillenium X and agent #34 holds her pistol, finger on the trigger, and aims at the agents responding. The coordinates Waverly reads off the tape from the computer (N 68° 41′, W 144° 4′) places them firmly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, so maybe the episode should have been titled “The Yukon-Adjacent Affair.” Solo and Kuryakin are quickly captured upon their arrival in the frozen north—oh, come on, that is just foam bobbing in the water tank—by harpoon-bearing indigenous people. The closed captioning gives up when a woman in indigenous clothing enters the igloo where they’re held: our heroes try English, German, French, Italian, Hebrew, then two languages I don’t know before continuity comes through and Illya tries Serbian, Napoleon follows up with “how?” before starting to flirt. The stock footage features both a horse-drawn sleigh and some dog-pulled sleds, while the local saloon offers can-can performers. A second opinion is devoted mostly to the villain (George Sanders as G. Emory Partridge, here expressing dissatisfaction with the local population). The villain’s niece could have just asked Solo his size but that’s no fun. A third opinion is mostly dissatisfied but judges the casting of Tianna Gabrielle a redeeming aspect of the episode.

An unsourced report of a local agency headquarters up to something: Eisenhower Ave Lanes Closed Tonight for 24 Hours #VATraffic. There’s a median along that street so limiting travel to one lane in each direction may be too much trouble.

08 July 2016

The Hook & Ladder Company 8 firehouse at 14 N. Moore Street in Manhattan doesn’t appear to have any rooftop apparatus, good to know. It should be closed for renovations no matter what Yelp says. I’ve… truncated the LEGO® set of the building for inclusion in future displays.

One of the more than nine thousand United States Postal Service Ram ProMaster® 2500 Cargo Vans, this one was in service on N. Washington Street.

In 2 weeks, Serbs will have already had the opportunity to see some third installment in a franchise which is 50 years old this year (via), but for TAJNE AVANTURE KUĆNIH LJUBIMACA (via) they will have to wait until next month. The journalists at Serbia’s national broadcaster can’t embed the actual subtitled trailer (via) while Taramount can’t find the LJ—or should that be Lj—on its keyboard.

07 July 2016

The list of TOP TIER™ Detergent Gasoline Retailers (via) has lengthened since I last looked.

At the time, I would hear that it was a Christ allegory, but that was just heteronormativity in action: Decoding the Transgender Matrix: The Matrix as a Transgender Coming Out Story.Yes, The Matrix is A Transgender Film, and Some of Us Noticed That A Long Time Ago.

This week I skipped it, but Member Appreciation Day at AMC Theatres will no longer mean half-price tickets. The loyalty program (still called Stubs) is bifurcating and the discounts will be dollar-based in both tiers. The change started in April, the trademark application filed in October.

06 July 2016

Enterprise Renovation TV Documentary Due in September (via).

This week, I went back to the ninety-fifth entry on the Build page and added an MPXpress® MP36PH-3C locomotive bearing the MARC wordmark. The sticker doesn’t match the brick nearly so well on the actual model, but if Arch 1×3×2 with Curved Top (6005) is available in Medium Stone Gray now, there should be enough time to shop before the next display opportunity. The file modification took about 2 hours because of course it’s completely different inside. This model has fewer than 500 pieces.

Something to notice the next time I’m trying to find the Gazette-Packet in print: Bertucci’s Closes in Old Town to Make Way for Five Guys.

05 July 2016

Tomorrow should be interesting: WMATA SafeTrack Surge 3 & 4: July 5 - 18.

The DVD set for the third season of The Six Million Dollar Man follows The Winning Smile with the first two episodes of The Bionic Woman. The first is Welcome Home, Jaime and between this selection of screen caps, the recap by Betsy Dodd (The Bionic Blonde), the 130-minute (!) podcast, and the comprehensive coverage of the automobiles (1973 Buick Estate Wagon, 1966 Cadillac DeVille convertible, 1958 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe, 1975 Chevrolet Corvette, 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, 1975 Datsun 280Z, 1975 Ford F-150 XLT Ranger, 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire, 1966 Mercedes-Benz 230 Lang, 1969 Plymouth Belvedere) surely there can be hardly anything I can contribute, right? The podcast even notes the bad closed captioning! (That should be “hand,” duh.) The source documents strive to explicate when this episode was broadcast, and certainly the caption at Getty Images is not helping and the photograph does not represent any fashion worn in this episode. So, anyway… Oscar Goldman dictates a memorandum to The Secretary late at night on what might be a Sony TC-55 but the brown case doesn’t match. The location of the brain surgery that left Jaime Sommers waking up afterwards looking fabulous resisted identification—until a hazy memory of Colossus The Forbin Project led to the answer: it’s the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California-Berkeley. Carnegie Tech merged with Mellon Institute in 1967 so it’s just barely plausible that Jaime would remember her alma mater on the basis of its name for her first year there. The image used in testing Jaime’s memory is actually of Altgeld Hall at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Jaime’s description of starting a tennis career after her degree is squeezed ( the USTA says it usually takes 10 years or 10k hours of training and competition to reach the pro level even as the age of entry for women has declined only about 16 months over the decades). Steve’s stepfather flies N1ZW, which was a Beechcraft Baron listed by the FAA as “destroyed,” a result of the crash on February 12, 1980 (see the sixtieth page) near Bloomingdale, New York with three fatalities: Dr. John L. Marshall was traveling to the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, he died of his injuries while his companions were judged to have died of hypothermia in the remote location. Across the episodes, Jim’s truck has changed from green to brown. The podcast missed this lapse in closed captioning accuracy (Jaime said “service brat” there). Hands off the Z, Tom. The trees in Ojai are exactly the same in Jaime’s flashback as the present day, the producers never were any good at time lapse.

A Writer’s Word Processor explains why some might be interested in Running WordStar for DOS Under Windows.

04 July 2016

This feature might have been interesting (Facebook’s new multilingual composer lets you post in several languages at once) but activating it killed my ability to use the Paste command, so, nope.

I have to be 100% bored before I check to see what’s happening at Google+, so, from last week: Updated guidelines for LEGO Ideas projects. The 3,000 piece limit means the Springfield Tower has no chance of inclusion.

For those last holdouts while it’s still free: Microsoft goes full-screen for final Windows 10 upgrade nag.

03 July 2016

I probably missed a good time at the National Air and Space Museum when it stayed open overnight. None of TrekCore’s photographs of the Enterprise studio model (via) are from above eye level—the tyranny of using a tripod, maybe? When the barriers are removed, photographs from below eye level would be on the to-do list as well.

Non-Serb journalists have no problem with the l-word: Novak Djokovic loses to Sam Querrey at Wimbledon 2016. The BBC can’t find Đ on its keyboard?

Obviously I can’t pre-order it from my fav non-Amazon online bookseller: Revised Star Trek Encyclopedia.

02 July 2016

The Wendy’s was demolished and now this: Hard Times Cafe in Clarendon is Closing.

That Mercedes-Benz will be seen in “New York.”

Solo might be thinking, “I knew that.”

Illya prevents her from stopping the torture, hm.

The series really liked a gold Barracuda.

The author of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Birds and the Bees Affair” uses the word “car” six times to describe the very shiny little black automobile in which Solo and Kuryakin drive up to a clock shop serving as the headquarters of U.N.C.L.E. in “Switzerland,” even this second opinion tries to identify the vehicle without a decisive result, it’s a 1958 Renault Dauphine. She’s more interested in the people and devotes special attention to Illya’s incompetence throughout the episode—but misses his use of the communications equipment in a headquarters that’s surely thoroughly compromised by the death of every agent inside? The action soon returns to “New York” where Napoleon is complaining about the tailoring of his trousers after their drive into the lake, this sets up Mr. Waverly for a good burn at Solo’s expense. Their target is a world renowned entomologist and compulsive gambler (John Abbott as Dr. Elias Swan, more than a year before his appearance as the temporary head of the council on Organia) who would certainly be of interest to Thrush for his development of invisible killer bees. Kuryakin is assigned the task of monitoring purchases of the honey the bees feed on, perhaps on the basis of his recreational reading habits and general bee knowledge, and the fetching Hungarian health-food shopkeeper Tavia Sandor certainly seems smitten with him on first sight. Napoleon plays the casino table where Swan is losing all the money Thrush bad guy Mozart is paying him to develop the bees as a weapon and while Solo escapes the plans to dispose of him right there, Illya’s visit to the dance studio that serves as Mozart’s cover in the city is cut short when he’s overcome by a scratch from a poisoned record needle wielded by the brunette who was trying to get his nerdy self to sign a contract just a few minutes before. Mozart has Kuryakin (and the innocent Sandor he’d prodded to join the studio as an “instructress”) shackled and subjects them to an aural torture until Illya agrees to get Mozart and the invisible killer bees into the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Napoleon sneaks in, rescues Dr. Swan who goes on about his bees (“They’re a form of being, a higher form, really… better than our civilization, anyway”) and Sandor. Swan suggests the bees Mozart has released can be tracked by sonar, so, sure, U.N.C.L.E. has a hard-working 1964 Dodge A100 ready for the task. There’s some repetitive driving around the backlot before the climax on the roof before the silly second season episode can end with Kuryakin walking away with Sandor while Solo wonders how that happened.

The next step after establishing @WamalugHistory and @WamaLTC was adding the elements for Twitter Cards, I think something has changed in the meantime because only the Player type of card requires approval now—ah, yes, Twitter used to require per-domain approval before cards could be used.

01 July 2016

A slight improvement from 4 months ago, now that RealFaviconGenerator prepares the SVG files required for the “Pin Tab” feature in Safari on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Possibly this site’s icon isn’t showing up because I leave the <link> element and its nonconforming rel="mask-icon" attribute in a comment, although the declaration of #00a859 is honored, hm.

For those among us who are technology-avoidant but nonetheless drive: Virginia’s Newest Transportation Map Is Here (via).

Orson Welles smoking in an airport! This, and other horrors await in the 1972 movie, Future Shock.

30 June 2016

Alvin Toffler has died at 87 (via), I was rereading Future Shock a decade ago.

While the bus was waiting to turn, I saw that the Japanese Auto Care shop in Arlington had Korean lettering on the building. Google Translate says that 자동차 정비소 means “Auto Body Shop.”

There’s good news for—well, whomever’s in charge of the HTML wrangling at the official site of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area LEGO® Train Club Users Group and over at BrickFair—fewer favicon declarations are needed now! New favicon package – Less is more.

29 June 2016

The ultimate Apple I/O death chart with an addition by John Gruber (via).

For the ninety-seventh entry on the Build page I offer models of the first two waves of 35-foot Gillig Low Floor Hybrid buses purchased by Alexandria Transit. A simple model with almost 400 parts, the first file took 3 hours to create and it took another hour to adapt it for the second. There were visitors to the WamaLTC display in Richmond that recognized the DASH Bus scheme.

The Enterprise studio model wasn’t lit yesterday at one o’clock, maybe the schedule will start next month. Conservator Malcolm Collum explains to TrekCore that they had to give up on the desire to simulate the warp nacelle effect without motors, which might be why the National Air and Space Museum are limiting the time the lights and motors are engaged. When the barriers are removed, I’ll be able to confirm that the other two artifacts in the case are the stand upon which the model was filmed and one of the original wood nacelle caps (maybe the person with the winning bid of over $7,000 has loaned it).

28 June 2016

I can confirm: Enterprise Studio Model Back on Display (via). There’s more barricades up now as a Sally Ride exhibit is completed, so the angles in TrekCore’s video weren’t available to me.

This week it’s a D.C. Transit GM New Look.

Oscar Goldman is not at all happy.

A possible escapee from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (a Morris Minor 1000, previously).

What are the producers of The Winning Smile trying to tell us when they have the bad guys, intent on kidnapping some important “hydrogen fusion” scientist who recently retired from OSI—remember, it’s soul-crushing drudgery for any non-astronaut to work there—drive a 1973 Imperial Lebaron 4-door hardtop while the government agents accompanying the scientist in pursuit of more computing power drive a 1972 Imperial Lebaron 4-door hardtop? Oscar Goldman’s secretary Callahan, driving a 1974 Ford Pinto Runabout in this episode when last season, she had a Mustang II, is suspected of espionage. For an episode set in “Maryland” and the apparently bar-infested neighborhoods around Goldman’s Capitol Hill workplace, Steve drives a 1975 Datsun 280Z around the recognizably southern California sprawl (centering around the intersection of Riverside Drive and Mariota Avenue in Toluca Lake) a lot. The 95-minute podcast points up the car’s similarity to one used in the first episode of The Bionic Woman as Jaime’s car with bonus fashion analysis and car commentary from The Bionic Blonde. No wonder Callahan’s dentist friend needed money to start his solo practice, the stock shots place his office in the Atlantic Richfield Plaza towers at S. Flower Street and W. 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles, they had been completed just 3 years earlier. There’s many vehicles missed by IMCDb.org, the most expensive (now, anyway, not sure about the value of a nearly 20-year old car in 1975) or at least very rare (one of fewer than eighteen hundred ever sold) might well be a white Continental Mark II in the background when Steve and Oscar reach the garage. It’s been 21 years since cars could drive along Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House, although that import in the curb lane was having trouble making progress.

That’s not good: High-severity bugs in 25 Symantec/Norton products imperils millions.

27 June 2016

Forgotten audio formats: Elcaset.

The day’s schedule of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on Friday ends before the National Air and Space Museum opens its renovated main gallery at nine o’clock… never mind, maybe I can see it tomorrow: USS Enterprise boldly goes from the Smithsonian’s basement into the main gallery.

Allstate ranks driving safety in D.C. as below that of Glendale, California, based on collisions (via).

26 June 2016

I should really just say no this time: AMC Theatres offers a free download of either previous reboot Star Trek movie with an online purchase of tickets for the third scheduled for release next month. There’s also a marathon at the Tysons Corner Center location of all three.

After helping break down yesterday’s display, I was walking back to my car and all the cars had West Virginia license plates, this made sense… but… why did my black Ford Focus ST have West Virginia license plates now? Oh, birds of a feather or something. (Subsequently, it’s more obvious that it’s a newer model.)

WamaLTC’s next scheduled display is at BrickFair in Chantilly, Virginia, the first weekend of August and after that… I have been told nothing. While we get about 3 second’s worth in the Fairfax Station Railroad Museum’s Year in Review YouTube video, we’re not on the schedule there for this year. The B&O’s Magical Holiday Express is scheduled for December, with the MUSEUM CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC for the Thanksgiving and pre-Thanksgiving weekends we’ve had previously as display opportunities. The Ellicott City Station hasn’t updated its calendar that far ahead.

25 June 2016

My journey to see the small display for an appreciative audience by WamaLTC at the Relay for Life of Jefferson County event at the Jefferson High School in Shenandoah Junction, West Virginia took me across the nation’s longest delta-frame bridge which crosses the Shenandoah River carrying WV-9 between the Virginia line and Charles Town. The structural steel system of the bridge was built by union labor, it wasn’t there the last time I was headed up this way (previously).

With The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The It’s All Greek To Me Affair” taking place in “Athens” and some adjoining coastal region, it’s all sporty convertibles as U.N.C.L.E. and Thrush vie for some important papers—until Mr. Waverly shows up and the production can’t decide whether he’s riding in an early fifties Cadillac (seen driving up the winding road), a 1949 Cadillac (based on the grille and split windshield), or a pre-1967 Imperial (because of the door handles). Manolakas is driving a red Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider which looks a bit rough, I think he’s lost the central grille, actually. Illya Kuryakin is pursuing in a (maybe) sea-blue Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider which is in better shape. Napoleon Solo follows in a red Sunbeam Alpine convertible. Linda Marsh as Kira Macropalous, in under a decade she would be the less captivating “Lost Love” on The Six Million Dollar Man. The daughter of the terror of Thessaly (semi-retired) has some costume changes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) while the suits worn by Solo and Kuryakin must serve for however many days the plot requires. A second opinion reinforces the mystery of the female U.N.C.L.E. agent who appreciates a classical education but who then disappears on the Acropolis, and the new U.N.C.L.E. code that looks more like classical mechanics homework, but doesn’t have the same fondness for the two leads in the same bed. Surely the most fantastic part of the episode is when Illya says that U.N.C.L.E. agents don’t carry large amounts of cash but operate entirely in credit cards—in 1967! in Greece!

The identification of an “Anniversary Collection” for the title, Serbocroatian-English Dictionary, at the University of Pennsylvania Press is unhelpful in the absence of an “Add to cart” link (possibly an ebook release is planned for later in the month). The otherwise most recent edition of 1990 was noted for the inclusion of computer terminology. The compiler died in 1998.

24 June 2016

Sketching Towards a Perfect Train Logo.

Three weeks after I made a post to Instagram of the Virginia Railway Express trainset I had on display at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Keolis North America has shared the image in that post, the VRE followed up later. No response yet from the Fairfax County Police Department also included in the display…

Who Owns Star Trek?

23 June 2016

Take that, Roman alphabet-using new media: the longest-published newspaper in the Balkans gets its own square in the Serbian capital (via).

Argh, I placed an order for a compact disc from my go-to tax-evading source thereof and the next day found the Zootopia soundtrack at the nearest Minnesota-headquartered retailer, in the children’s section.

The test flight that launched the airline was 2½ years ago. This failed government airline got a 6-week makeover — and now it’s coming to New York. The announcement of service to New York City was last November. From Belgrade To The Big Apple: Air Serbia Makes History As First New York Service Takes Off.

22 June 2016

A bunch of guys having automotive fun: CC Nashville Meet-Up Outtakes.

For the ninety-sixth entry on the Build page I first revised the tenth entry to have the file and model conform to each other and add stickers, then adapted the file to change its construction and its colors. I looked again and that part in the roof is still not available in the color needed. The Virginia State Police has changed its URL in the decade since I last touched that file.

Photos: Rain Wreaks Havoc On Cleveland Park Metro. Time lapse video (via).

21 June 2016

Maybe the issue has wider relevance, the comments for today’s Breakfast Links at Greater Greater Washington are overwhelmingly about the Reston Town Center plan to institute paid parking.

Two jobs keep him out of trouble nights, that is.

An old-look GM D.C. Transit bus!

“You mean like the astronaut?”—says no one ever (any more).

Lou Gossett is Clark Templeton O’Flaherty, the black man with an Irish name mopping the floor of the hallway outside Oscar Goldman’s office. He’s also Col. Steve Austin’s handball partner. Goldman is fed up with the inadequacy of his agency to stop a 6-month stretch of thefts and sets Austin to investigate using his bionic eye in the infrared to detect a phosphorescent chemical which has been applied to the top secret folders in circulation. (The stock photography is hilariously over-the-top in depicting the soul-crushing drudgery that leaves everyone working at the OSI who is not a former astronaut nearly brain-dead.) The uniformed guards who are supposed to shred secret documents instead demonstrate massive ineptitude (to which the 80-minute podcast takes repeated exception) and when Steve sees the telltale glow on Clark’s mop handle he eschews his usual Mercedes-Benz SLC [C107] and starts following the suspect in a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. O’Flaherty’s first stop gives a number of actors bit parts—maybe even a sole credit—and Austin has no reason to notice the 20-year-old Kaiser mixed in curbside with the Monte Carlos. The C Street SW side of the FAA building gets a cameo as the shadowing continues. Steve’s suspicions are even more aroused when Clark switches from a 1966 Cadillac DeVille Convertible to a “$12,000” 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE [W108]. Is Dr. Marchetti in town? There’s a 1969 Triumph TR6 that appears twice. The podcast identifies the “most expensive condominium apartment in town” as the Sheraton Universal and, sure enough, the letters spelling it out at the top of the building are apparent. Hallaway’s failure to react to Austin’s name can’t be blamed on rural living, not like last time. Gossett was destined for greater roles, but this one isn’t a total embarrassment.

Honestly, folks: these are the kinds of details that make or break a movie (via).

20 June 2016

Look who changed their banner image on Facebook this morning.

The number of people who see a WamaLTC display is more our host’s problem than ours, in my opinion, so I didn’t see the value in being written up in Viva Reston Lifestyle Magazine (the current issue roiling the target audience is the plan for August: Parking at Reston Town Center Will Soon Cost Money — Sometimes). This year our visitors were very interested in where we were “based” and once again, WamaLTC disappoints, we have no base.

Anton Yelchin’s Jeep Was Included In Rollaway Recall Linked To 41 Injuries.

19 June 2016

Find Other Ways To Get Around Monday, Metro And Other Officials Say.

I got lucky with identifying the Vauxhall L-series using Google Image Search, but telling people to photograph the WamaLTC seal and drop the result into Google Image Search wouldn’t work out nearly as well, it turns out. I can see a color-based argument for visual similarity to the marks of the organization formerly known as the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (although WamaLTC currently specifies different Pantone colors).

Since none of the vehicles I drive has one, this comes as a small comfort: Backup cameras haven’t stopped drivers from backing into stuff (via).

18 June 2016

The local outpost of Sears Holding Corporation had an in-store announcement about free Wi-Fi, I never noticed, the free Wi-Fi is supposed to have been around since 2011. Which one of these access points would you trust?

Anne Francis is just gathering her veil.

The plot of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Giuoco Piano Affair” from the series’ first season of 1964 is roundly criticized for being nonsensical and the setting (once we leave New York and its party scene) is some coastal region of the “Andes” in no particular country with villains who mostly fancy yachts. The stock shot of an airplane in flight appears to be a Boeing 707-320B in demonstrator colors making it N761PA and an aircraft with some subsequent history. (Pan American’s service to South America reached to Buenos Aires with connecting service to Santiago, so the choice of airline is plausible.) Napoleon Solo and the innocent (Jill Ireland returning as Marion Raven) arrive in “Boridqua” in a right-hand-drive post-war Vauxhall L-series, probably a Velox and possibly from 1948 based on the lack of turn indicators, making for a very rare appearance of a non-domestic market vehicle in this series! (Both Chile and Argentina have right-hand traffic—the latter switched in 1945—so this unusual choice was nevertheless wrong.) Scheming criminal mastermind Gervaise Ravel (Anne Francis) and her bankroller Harold Bufferton (John Van Dreelen) arrive in town to do their scheming and bankrolling in a Cadillac Fleetwood 75 limousine. The complicated story of kidnapping and discussions of chess play and impromptu surgery and corrupt local police and hiking in the mountains pursued by local “Indians” reaches its denouement with Ravel on her knees as Solo has outsmarted her with a post-war (third generation) Chevrolet Suburban in the background. (After looking at postwar Chevrolets and Plymouths, I dropped the screen capture of the car Solo and Raven ride to their hotel into Google Image Search—which decided the image was of a “car”—and the Vauxhall was on the first screen of results.)

The Fairfax Connector took advantage of some synergy today at the Taste of Reston with the New Flyer XD40 Xcelsior available in both RL and LEGO® form… and for my contribution to the Family Fun Zone I have a complete set of the giveways the transit system had on hand.

17 June 2016

The Parable of the Polygons (via).

The municipality’s response to the Metro SafeTrack project varies based on the location of the closure. Also, there have been “some technology glitches” with the Real Time Bus Information System project but “the schedule is still calling for a summer unveiling” or so they said at the May meeting of the board of directors.

The account’s presence in the Messages app meant an occasional attempt to connect from some (presumed) creep: In memoriam: Yahoo to shut down legacy Messenger app August 5.

16 June 2016

I tried downloading a “Serbian” subtitle file for Zootopia and adding it to the playback of the DVD in VLC, and it didn’t work all that well—even if it had, I should be suspicious of an .srt file (as viewed in BBEdit) that has Krv! Krv! Krv! but no i… smrt! in the first scene.

Star Trek Barbie Vina Doll is a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive follow-up to the announcement of New Trek Barbie Dolls earlier this month. It’s weird for Mattel to supply Spock with only a communicator, sure I can remember one episode where Uhura held a tricorder, but in how many did Spock carry one…?

I thought it was funny. Within an hour, the cartoonist had established a response status of 301 Moved Permanently for the old URL (making the URL in his comment the correct one).

15 June 2016

I missed that on my previous visits: Aldi Has a Very Impressive Barcode Strategy.

For the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, the Herocomm.com site (previously) has expanded its scope to include information on all three landing party prop groups, adding phasers and tricorders to the discussion of communicators. A “then-young son” of Set Decorator John Dwyer is mentioned (again). The display of a tricorder at the National Air and Space Museum in 1992, whatever its provenance (straight handles and blue indicators, but I don’t see any slide switch on the crossbar), with closed panels is interesting (the compartments behind the doors should be empty). Also, the phaser exhibited with a black body and white handle can’t have been authentic, as all such props are said to have been repainted over the course of the series.

Next Steps for Legacy Plug-ins (via) for users of the upcoming Safari 10, even on Yosemite.

14 June 2016

The South Korean marines on the North’s doorstep (via) uses some new and obscure K-pop band as linkbait. Al Jazeera, your workflow shouldn’t be a part of the URL.

In Divided Loyalty Colonel Steve Austin has been sent to some country that borders Finland, hm, but the multi-ethnic guards around his target all drive a Willis MB ‘Jeep’, sure. The license plates have Roman characters so what country could it be? Oscar Goldman’s visitor at the top of the episode entreated him to help her brother Leon re-defect after 15 years so that 14-year old son Alex wouldn’t come of age in an authoritarian State. Oscar has questions, but the man’s alleged expertise in, ooh, solar energy could make his return to the United States worthwhile, so Steve is sent off with a map, some photographs, and the clothes on his back. Seriously, no food, no water, not even a jacket? The 71-minute podcast does the usual drawn-out but bang-up job of analyzing the plot and this television review in the July 1976 issue of the Society journal has additional mean things (which aren’t necessarily wrong) to say about this episode. Neither analysis has anything to say about the inadequacy of the isolated “research center” (which looks more like a residential mansion inside and out) for any progress by Leon in his field. Austin’s propagandistic advice about Alex’s potential in the West is pretty much a hardy perennial as also heard in some recent release…

I don’t use folders, so I see a screenful disappearing from the iPad mini: iOS 10 will let you delete most of Apple’s default apps. But no, boo, Game Center is not on the list.

13 June 2016

CC Capsule: Monday Morning Rarities – 1988 Mazda 626 Turbo, Sleeper Personified.

How Blogs Work Today.

Goodbye, OS X: Apple’s new desktop OS is “macOS Sierra.”

12 June 2016

Clickbait headline disguises a Packard Super-8 One-Sixty, possibly from 1942: Cool Antique Car For Sale in Alexandria.

Apple Maps is trying to persuade me that it would be less than 10 hours if I took the Staunton-Blacksburg-Bristol-Knoxville route, but I have a prior obligation to WamaLTC: See You (And The Chrysler Turbine Car) In Nashville Next Weekend.

The lack of a working subway past midnight will s—I mean, be a pain: the 40th Birthday of the National Air and Space Museum will start with an opening ceremony on the North Terrace (the side facing the Mall) at 8:30 p.m. followed by public access to the newly renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall (including the studio filming miniature of the U.S.S. Enterprise) starting at nine o’clock. For the first time the Museum will stay open throughout the night with special guests, ongoing activities, all night films, music, tours, a scavenger hunt, and more. All activities are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

11 June 2016

It was time to delete the Harris Teeter app, which is now designed solely to promote the pickup and delivery services and totally useless in finding a store when you’re traveling.

This week’s episode The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Cherry Blossom Affair” begins at “New York Airport” where Thrush manages to murder a prominent geologist carrying a film of utmost importance to U.N.C.L.E. in the waiting room while Napoleon Solo’s attention is with a random congenial sunglasses-wearing brunette. Waverly’s office has a political map of the entire world applied to only a small portion of a sphere which presumably leads to distortion everywhere south of the Arctic Circle. Solo and Illya Kuryakin are sent to “Japan” and more specifically “Kiru” (possibly a reference to Kiryū) to investigate Thrush Eastern and the movements of Cricket Okasada (described by Waverly as 26, the same age as France Nuyen at the time) who lost her own film to Thrush in the confusion at the airport. Okasada’s repeated visits to the novelty shop feature one authentically Japanese vehicle (a 1964 Honda T500) while the rest of the cars on the backlot street are sadly but predictably left-hand-drive US-market versions of European cars—except for a gold Plymouth Barracuda that the Internet Movie Car Database missed! (This episode was filmed in the 4th week of September of 1965, and it’s not the same car, it has the MY1965 turn signals.) Illya tries to avoid the fate of Thrush Eastern’s previous victim of this trap. Where does Napoleon get his English-language popcorn container? Inside the academy—which is closed to the English-reading public, anyway—Solo’s attempt to escape by grabbing a woman does not go well. There’s marionettes of samurai, a dubbing room, bamboo horticulture, inept policemen, an unvetted air conditioning repairman, and Mr. Waverly successfully extracting Miss Okasada from Napoleon’s grasp so, sure, another review of this second season episode is favorable despite numerous quibbles. When the totally not-lying Kuryakin is trying to get Okasada to help him, he pronounces it uncle but to the local police he says each individual letter.

Quora - Zootopia -Session on Jun 9, 2016 (via Tumblr).

10 June 2016

There’s finally activity at 3000 Duke Street, prompting speculation: Will Yates Pizza Palace Open in 2016? The signs that went up 2 years ago were changed to Coming Soon… it’s been 6 years since Generous George’s closed.

I thought the Shoppers Food closing in Penn Daw 5 years ago was because of redevelopment, but I was wrong, the local chain of grocery stores has been closing more locations than it opened for a while and this is one of the more recent: Hobby Lobby to replace Shopper’s Food in Woodbridge. One of the contributors at the Shoppers Food fan blog is a consistent tapper of the fav button on my uploads to Flickr.

I only ever saw it one summer, myself: Light Pollution Hides Milky Way From 80 Percent Of North Americans, Atlas Shows.

09 June 2016

The much-shrunken publications section at Micro Center is a mix of the very ancient (multiple copies of a guide to using Mac OS 8.6 which must be from 1999, give the operating system a try) and the very current (guides for the latest operating systems and devices like tablets… for seniors).

The Zootopia home video release makes a big deal about the antenna topper on Finnick’s van (the “Lobos” mixes the body of a Dodge Tradesman with the headlights of a Dodge A100) but I hadn’t seen any discussion of the content of the mural. It’s my headcanon that the roles of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl in the legend of Mexico’s volcanoes are played by a fox and a rabbit, but I can see where the princess might be a fennec.

This looks “safe”: a participant in WamaLTC displays proposes a 12V battery to power 9V LEGO® Trains. Our next display in just over a week is a location where electricity is not supplied.

08 June 2016

The ninety-fifth entry on the Build page was a comparative breeze, less than 4½ hours. The electrical mains-powered version of the Virginia Railway Express MP36PH-3C locomotive has not been cooperating during recent displays. The Power Functions version awaits another day, I can find no evidence of an LDraw file for the Train Motor. Time to learn how to author a part…

Situation normal, all… Newest, Shiniest Metro Cars Aren’t Available On First Lines Hit By SafeTrack (via) because they can lose contact with the third rail on either side of the Rosslyn station.

I’ve bought 8 home video releases since 2009 and The LEGO® Movie predates the participation of Warner Bros. in the project, so the feature of an audio description has gone unnoticed: Welcome to the only complete listing of audio described commercial videos in the USA! The describer for Zootopia has a British accent and the script she has to read can be quite judgmental about body shapes.

07 June 2016

RARE 1979 STAR TREK: The Motion Picture PREMIERE!! (via).

Look how clean that LTD is.

It really is a map of Atlanta.

The (unseen) death toll has risen to three before the teaser of The White Lightning War is over, Treasury agents have died of rattlesnake bites in the Georgia countryside pursuing a moonshine operation with a Washington connection. Steve Austin and some new facial hair head south to Morgantown to shake things up in a shiny Ford LTD 4-door pillared hardtop that turns heads when he arrives. The 75-minute podcast does what it can with the clichéd setting, repeat players, old cars (there’s a 1957 Pontiac Star Chief Catalina Hardtop, a 1957 Ford Custom 300 Fordor Sedan, and a 1941 Dodge W-Series Tanker Truck while the bought-and-paid-for sheriff drives a 1973 Dodge Polara and the big boss Beau Willis has himself a white 1975 Cadillac Sedan DeVille; also, Oscar Goldman stands by in the Georgia forest—overnight???—waiting by the radio-telephone for a call in a 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood 75) and other nonsense but they like Katherine Helmond’s performance as Middy, proprietor of the general store and the widow of a fourth victim of the Willis criminal enterprise. Quinten’s plane in flight and the one that lands are both high-horizontal stabilizer twin-jets with wingtip tanks and two brown stripes down the side, so I forgive myself for not noticing the switch, but closer study shows the registrations are from different countries.

The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitle track tells me that Finnick listens to French hip-hop.

06 June 2016

#kubrick - The Simpsons - Candice Drouet (via).

Thursday’s shows were the last at the AMC Hoffman Center 22, and the release didn’t need me this week anyway: ‘Ninja Turtles 2’ Opens #1 With Soft $35M While ‘Zootopia’ Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide.

According to this recounting of a guest’s standards for a nice hotel on a Tumblr by concierges, my hotel in Richmond was nice because the bed had metal panels from the boxspring to the floor.

05 June 2016

A Mercedes-Benz 200 Diesel in Iowa: CC Outtake: 1966 Heckflosse Reporting For Duty.

After nearly 8 years, the odometer in my camera turns out to have only 4 digits. The ten thousandth photograph depicts (in a slightly blurry way) the variable speed limit signs which are part of the active traffic management on I-66. Good to know for now, because certainly I saw no one paying them any heed: No decision has been made yet about whether variable speed limits will be treated as advisory or legally enforced. Slightly contradictory information.

The number of views on my photographs in my Flickr account went past 3 million early this morning.

04 June 2016

Show’s over, go home. The 22nd Annual Manassas Heritage Railway Festival is done.

Groovy music playing.

“Yes, sir. Ha.”

No second meaning here…

…or here.

The penultimate storyline of the series is ably handled in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Deep Six Affair” so let’s see what I can find “Somewhere in LONDON” (actually it’s Bank junction)… the racially-insensitively disguised Illya Kuryakin arrives in a car which I identify as a Rolls-Royce Phantom III (it’s also the only right hand drive vehicle we’ll see filmed for this episode purportedly happening in England). Illya’s subterfuge is successful in freeing Napoleon Solo and another agent from local THRUSH boss Commander Krohler (Alfred Ryder), their escape takes them past a 1961 Plymouth Fury with left-hand drive, but Solo is more interested in the esteem in which Krohler holds him. Agent Lisa Rogers tells Mr. Waverly that an U.N.C.L.E. jet is leaving in 4 minutes, but what we see is just a Pan American Boeing 707. Peter Bromilow as Morton, U.N.C.L.E.’s head of operations for England (and, obviously, for the rest of Europe), is consistently shown as towering at least a foot over the other performers. Waverly doesn’t like to lose a good agent to marriage—or is there something specifically about Morton’s fiancée Laura Adams that worries him? (Illya and Napoleon snickering at the idea of leaving the job for a woman, maybe.) This is all we see of the convertible which Solo drives that evening to take Laura home. Morton and Adams are quickly captured by Commander Krohler and they’re brought to his mansion—it’s morning now, huh, he must live far away from “London”—in a 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood 75. No middle manager’s Ford for Morton, he drives a 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220SE Convertible [W111]. I imagine that a Triumph TR4 is small enough that Solo is almost embracing Kuryakin. Waverly’s suspicions were well-founded and, yet, Krohler is disappointed as well. The submarine interiors are laughably high-ceilinged and spare.

The Art of the Title takes on The Six Million Dollar Man.

03 June 2016

I have yet to figure out any connection between the title of the episode of some television series and “A Roy Rogers in Franconia.”

SafeTrack starts tomorrow, and from the tone of the regional media, the area is doomed. The comments about some survey (One in Five D.C. Residents Would Prefer to Live in Old Town Alexandria) match my impression of Old Town residents from reading the local free weeklies.

The 22nd Annual Manassas Heritage Railway Festival will once again feature N&W Class J 611 on display and under steam after the morning excursion returns. The eight o’clock departure will see WamaLTC and the other model railroading clubs setting up under the roof of the Harris Pavilion. Hm, two wintery princesses will accompany the regular excursion trains on Saturday.

02 June 2016

I checked the license plate in CC Capsule: Gremlins before realizing that the stripes and wheel covers meant that there was more than one green Gremlin in the region.

Well, actually… as I’ve pointed out before, the movie is called Zootropolis Grad Životinja in Serbia, and the dubbed trailer calls the character Николиц Дивљи instead of transliterating “Nick Wild,” but otherwise the anonymous scribe(s) at Serbia’s national broadcaster repeat most of the facts about yesterday’s news from China about a destructive child: Случајно уништио фигуру од „лего“ коцкица, вредну 15.000 долара!

No… I’m pretty sure that the Inova Wi-Fi Connection isn’t named Wayport anymore. I’m even more certain that the splash screen is not mobile-friendly (the “Accept” button is not a big tap target).

01 June 2016

If ZOOTOPIA Was a Dramatic Movie - (HD Movie Trailer) (set to the music of the Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens trailer) (via).

Every young person approaching a WamaLTC display and reaching over the shields must be considered similarly capable and inclined. Man Spends Days Making Zootopia LEGO Statue, Child Destroys It In Seconds. The club does not put much effort in accommodating their height, either. Kid destroys $15,000 LEGO sculpture an hour after new exhibit opens. Your child’s ability to see is merely a (potentially) happy byproduct of our getting together and not actually a primary goal of ours.

It is important to recognize that having a unique password per account is far more important than length, complexity, randomness, or anything else you’ve been told that you need. This might be the right time to just delete the apps and forget about the account: In order to protect our users, we have invalidated all user passwords for the affected accounts created prior to June 11, 2013 on the old Myspace platform. Delete your Profile.

31 May 2016

KISS and Make up (via).

With The Blue Flash Steve Austin continues his pseudonymous undercover work where no one he meets recognizes him as the former astronaut. This time he’s posing as a longshoreman to infiltrate an operation in the Port of Los Angeles smuggling microprocessor chips (with performance in the kiloflops range). The lab has fitted him with a sensor so that when his hand passes over a microprocessor circuit he gets a flashing blue light in his bionic eye—presumably a rare act in 1975 but it would be really annoying these days. The agent previously on the job is hauled away in a 1971 Buick Electra 225 and the lady renting the rooms is taken in a 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire but on the docks there are more cars like that copper-colored Maverick. Steve helps the landlady’s son by bending back his twisted bicycle. The 73 minute podcast makes a big deal of Oscar Goldman’s open shirt, but I think it’s a decent way of acknowledging the time difference between the coasts. That’s probably the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the background of the scenes on the docks, the building at Berth 158 may no longer be standing. When did Mrs. Cook and Ernest learn that his name was actually Steve?

On Credits and Creators: Star Trek’s Evolving Main Titles (via).

30 May 2016

The quotes from the Serbian version of Zootopia served their purpose, but 101 minutes after leaving Richmond, I’m back and can resume the usual drivel.

Not one person from “Wamalug” was recognized visiting the LEGO® User(s) Groups/LEGO® Train Club Show in the Kelly Education Center this past weekend. These other people were also too busy doing their own thing, boo.

Hm, I wonder how Pennlug manages its Twitter account, Introducing TweetDeck Teams would be more interesting if the company hadn’t rid itself of the apps for iOS, Android, and Windows.

29 May 2016

„Треба да нађу правог пандур да реши.”

Can you ’ship it? The Nature Connects®: Art with LEGO® Bricks by Sean Kenney exhibit includes a fox about to pounce upon a rabbit. It’s just over a week until Zootopia is released on home video.

The GRTC doesn’t believe in overdoing the use of its wordmark. The swoopy lime and purple at the back is very like the Metrobus scheme.

28 May 2016

„Није ствар у томе колико нешто желиш, него да ли си за то способан!“

There is one four-wheeled vehicle in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Deadly Quest Affair”. A second opinion. I’m taking a pass on the series this week.

There’s probably nothing that the Virginia Railway Express can do with its scheme that would prevent parents from telling their children about the “Amtrak” locomotive on the display.

27 May 2016

„Зотрополис, блистави град, у коме животиње свих врста, грабљивци и плен, живе заједно у миру и срећи.”

“It’s so weird… and awesome.” Yes, young lady, you have hit precisely the WamaLTC brand promise.

“Roots” Remake Gets the Drudge Treatment.

26 May 2016

„Е, па ми смо звучни. И немој да очекујеш извињење.”

My portion of the display was setup by three o’clock with the Springfield Tower and a restricted selection of buildings. The rest of the participants… eh, why not visit the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden this weekend and see? The displays by the Richmond LEGO Users Group and the Hampton Roads LEGO Users Group should be worth the admission, anyway.

Small victory: my Harris Teeter VIC card works at Kroger.

25 May 2016

„Али истина је, Зотрополис није савршен, и баш као наш свет не живе сви у слози.”

The elderly audience at the post-lunch screening got a chuckle out of the scene that starts this Main Trailer for The Nice Guys.

Eventually a commenter points out the exact location: Main Street and Pickett Road then (1980) and now (2016).

24 May 2016

Microsoft has been less than fully successful in convincing people to be on Windows 10, Saturday’s gathering had just as many computers running Windows 7 and Windows 8. OneCore to rule them all: How Windows Everywhere finally happened. Turns out that “everywhere” has been getting smaller: Windows Phone market share sinks below 1 percent.

Carla is very interested in that Virginia Slims advertisement.

This is probably a fake MPD cruiser on a backlot in California.

Cahuenga Peak? Trust me on this, D.C. has no mountains down the street.

When the title of the episode is The Bionic Criminal, the return of race driver Barney (Monte Markham) will not go well. Steve is already convinced that it’s a bad idea for Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells to reactivate the super-strength in Barney’s bionic limbs as soon as he hears about the plan, but it’s a fait accompli and described as a controlled experiment, so he goes along. Barney ducks out after only some of the testing to head for a local track where he spins out a 1972 Monte Carlo stocker, assaults the car’s owner, and flees thinking he’s killed the owner. Disturbed by his poor handling of the car, Barney seizes an opportunity put forward by a mysterious visitor to the track and is soon flipping an armored truck on its side and making off with small bags of cash (later described as containing $1 million and making them rich even after any split). To keep Barney compliant, his wife Carla is abducted. The Internet Movie Car Database identifies a number of vehicles for episode 03.09 including a red Ford Econoline that looks much like the one in the previous episode, but it’s incomplete—I got the impression that the District of Columbia in this episode has only about 16 cars registered total as the same ones kept driving by or appeared parked. (This Mercedes-Benz 200, for example, is seen at least 5 times, maybe the drivers were told just keep driving back and forth while the camera’s rolling, no one will notice.) This 79-minute podcast does not confuse the name of the race car owner and the visitor, they also mention Carla’s shorts but say nothing about how they fit. Austin’s Mercedes-Benz 450SL is riding on the OEM rubber, they look like truck tires on the 14″ wheels, but they’re considered small nowadays.

Some participant in the WamaLTC display this weekend, probably: “Planning. What a bizarre concept.”

23 May 2016

They don’t play this kind of trailer in front of Zootopia, I’d hoped to be spared: Star Trek Beyond trailer gives us a good look at our new bad guy.

The Kemp Mill Records story from Washington City Paper a few years ago. The location in the Bradlick Shopping Center was still active in October of 1993 when I purchased Belinda Carlisle’s Real on CD, but the presence of Tower Records in the region among other pressures would lead to bankruptcy and further retail turmoil leaving a single store. I found her memoir from 2010 in a thrift store and after I’ve finished reading it, I can confirm that I am missing only her French-language album. Also, I never purchased VH1 Behind the Music: Go-Go’s Collection.

Five Below in the Plaza at Landmark is open, the first day was planned for last Friday. They must not have been impressed with the existing sidewalk, either, it’s been entirely replaced. What “teens, pre-teens and their parents” would want with Matchbox die-cast miniatures, I don’t know—a gift for an even younger sibling, maybe—but I picked up a Tesla Model S in dark blue for $1.

22 May 2016

No Flash player needed (previously): SNL | Season 41 Episode 19 | Brie Larson.

Unwebbable, or, why my attempts to display screenplay-like texts (previously, previouslier) are doomed to failure. Still, I’ve eliminated the inline style for the monospaced font and abandoned the nth-of-type rule and revised the posts to use <h3> and <p> elements, because <dt> and <dd> aren’t allowed in <blockquote> elements.

The WamaLTC site has been a dot-org for 16 years, so seeing someone accept the default dot-com domain in a web browser yesterday should have had me like the mime in The Angry Birds Movie because… really? Fortunately, we still have a redirect active.

21 May 2016

The problem of water in the doors of a Nissan Altima would appear to be routine.

This week’s recap of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The THRUSH Roulette Affair” begins with “Somewhere in the Caribbean” (exactly the on-screen title with which the episode begins) and is again comprehensive with its treatment, the island setting and the Club Thanatopsis set give me much less opportunity to contribute. The stock footage from some earlier decade used to establish that our heroes start out in Manhattan gave me pause because after the tilt up, the top of the building… didn’t look much like the Empire State Building. The episode never says where Kuryakin takes Colonel Avecedo sightseeing, but after some dead ends with the original pre-1964 Pennsylvania Station and Columbus Circle and wandering through the borough in Apple Maps with 3D turned on, the shot actually looks past The New York Public Library on 5th Avenue to 500 5th Avenue and the Salmon Tower Building along W. 42nd Street. The woman at the counter of the travel agency takes Solo’s $20 then has her THRUSH colleagues intimidate him into leaving, but Napoleon sets some rags to burning outside and the N.Y.F.D. responds with a Mack C ladder truck speeding past more contemporary vehicles. The rest of the plot plays out in a “awfully lengthy and belabored” way—we don’t see any of the aircraft that bring first Illya, then Napoleon to the island, and only the fender-mounted turn signal monitors on the front of this car allow me to say it’s a Chrysler. A second opinion is also largely favorable to this product of the fourth season.

The WamaLTC meeting today brought together a number of operating systems for the purpose of programming in the Arduino IDE. I wrote -compatible in describing the boards because when VMware Fusion reports that a “QinHeng USB2.0-Serial” device wants to connect, there can be no contention that any of us had the genuine article.

20 May 2016

When I leave the wallet behind next time, the Apple Pay experience seems to be an adequate substitute.

The Metrobus scheme introduced in 1996 should be abandoned by now—the fourth generation scheme started getting applied in 2009 or so, after all—but it’s still on the streets, today I spotted two 2100-series high-floor Orion V buses in use, an outbound 29G and this 21A. These buses were purchased over 15 years ago, and despite any intervening refurbishment(s) they must be a pain these days for riders, drivers, and mechanics. Maybe I disassembled my creation too early :)

The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life offers 5 major advances we can thank bikes for.

19 May 2016

“배고픈 돼지 [hungry pig]” is the blog of a busy person who takes years between posts (via).

There’s something weird in the trailer for some new television series on Fox this fall (via). At 2m21s in, the second death by vehicular collision is by bus: the angular wheel openings, window arrangement, and louvers at the back make it a 40′ high-floor Gillig Phantom, while the colors, aluminum wheels, and stripe arrangement are the scheme the Washington regional Metrobus introduced in 1996, except that it looks to say TOPBUS and not “metrobus” on the side with solid lettering and outline lettering. The combination certainly doesn’t look like any modern-day Los Angeles transit bus and never existed in real life, either. Wmata never had a 40′ Gillig Phantom bus—almost a decade earlier, the agency had canceled an order for the longer model after cutting short an order of the 30′ model—and these shorter buses from 1987 retained their original scheme through to their retirement in 2001. The local DASH Bus has retired even the refurbished buses from that time, so this improbable scene might be the result of a texture-wrapped polygonal model. The Mustang could be real, though.

In a week, WamaLTC will be setting up to display at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Graden, I should probably begin planning what to take…

18 May 2016

A photo credit draws attention to this reporting on the unrest on the campus of the University of Minnesota 44 years ago this month: The Dinkytown Riots: Reflecting on the most violent time in U history. This regular 8 footage from the “Eight Days in May” shows a number of photographers on the scene.

It must be a coincidence that as soon as I inserted a Corel WordPerfect Professional X8 DVD in a drive attached to the virtual machine, a Windows notification showed up to suggest trying Office.

The verbs are ill-chosen in the headline Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time and article because what is happening (which isn’t made clearer until the fifth paragraph) is that Firefox’s share of the worldwide desktop browser usage reported by StatCounter is shrinking, but less than the share of Microsoft browsers is shrinking. The overwhelmingly popular browser from the advertising company with a search engine which I never installed has been around for almost 8 years and shares a layout engine with Opera—generally I only open Opera to update the app or to check a new style rule—and with Vivaldi which I’d read about but hesitated to download because it also shared the Blink layout engine.

17 May 2016

I probably shouldn’t trust the SanDisk Cruzer Glide USB flash drive that’s been through the washer and dryer cycles.

The episode One of Our Running Backs is Missing is a manly episode with football, gambling, and—what a surprise—more football. The sole woman Pamela (Pamela Csonka) is the wife of the football player Larry (Larry Csonka) that Steve Austin is here to see while he’s in the L.A. area piggybacking on one of Oscar Goldman’s official trips. Lee Majors, in his sole directorial credit in the series, didn’t sweat the details… in this episode, no one can drive from point A to point B in one car! The car parked in front of the bowling alley is a Buick Regal, but while Steve drives to the motor lodge, it’s a 1973 Imperial! To be fair, the substitution does maintain a similar color. (Steve and Lar’s run from the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena seems to start along Archwood Street at Morella Avenue heading west past Hinds Avenue, and end across from 7742 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, but the Villa California Apartments displaced the Starlite Lanes bowling alley at 7727 on the west side about a decade later.) Carl Weathers as Stolar drives away from Doyle’s Den in a Chevrolet Malibu, but as he gets closer to the hideout, it’s a 1972 Chrysler New Yorker! (The red Ford Econoline van in some of these screen captures is seen arriving at the ranch bringing the criminal team and leaving the ranch when Larry and Steve make their getaway, but nothing before or afterwards.) The participants in this 90 minute podcast are charitable to Majors as director, and generous to the other performers. Pamela is the sole credited woman, there is an extra in the bowling alley, and also the cleaning woman at the motor lodge. Pamela doesn’t look all that reassured by Oscar’s hand on her shoulder when Lar and Steve are missing.

Boo, the AMC Hoffman Center 22 has dropped the evening screenings. (Nick: “Wow. Isn’t that interesting.”) I get it, other people watch more television than I do: Zootopia directors explain that genius Breaking Bad spoof — exclusive. The responsible plan would be to wait 3 weeks until the home video release.

16 May 2016

This might explain some of the headless advertising seen recently: Say No to the Dress (via).

Nope, the cutting boards at the Ikea in Woodbridge are from China, Romania, and Vietnam.

Laugh all you want, I learned enough from last week’s episode to cut down a (small) tree today.

15 May 2016

Reassuring (not): Apple says it doesn’t know why iTunes users are losing their music files.

How long has Yahoo! Mail been using a dynamic favicon? It seems to me to be a few weeks but, apparently, much more silliness can be stuffed into an image of that type: DEFENDER of the favicon is a JavaScript remake of Eugene Jarvis’ brilliant arcade game Defender written by Mathieu ‘p01’ Henri and inspired by Scott Schiller’s experiment with generated favicons VU meter (via).

I can tell you that all of the rolling pins at the Ikea in Woodbridge are from China, but I should have been looking at cutting boards, too: Daccomet AG is a Swiss company that took over a factory in Ćuprija, Serbia which remains the only direct supplier from Serbia to IKEA. (A mistake? Apple Maps breaks with the consensus and instead identifies the place as Čuprija.)

14 May 2016

There was zero “Wamalug” branding visible among the exhibitors of Great Ball Contraption modules today at Scouting for Bricks until I raised the issue, this may be a hopeless cause.

This week’s recap of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Master’s Touch Affair” from the fourth season has much to say about the men’s fashions, less about the cars, and nothing about what the women wear. Solo arrives in “Lisbon” by flying boat (very blue stock footage of a Consolidated PBY Catalina) and almost every single one of the cars in the background of the dock was previously seen in “Berlin” in the season premiere! Ok, maybe not the 1951-1953 Dodge B-series pickup truck that informant Petrakis drives (and Carey Loftin drove some famous trucks in his time). The cab Kuryakin drives from the dock and up the mountain is a 1967 Dodge Coronet (an insert during the ambush would have us believe it has a manual transmission). Solo is taken away in a dark blue sedan, a 1967 Plymouth Satellite based on the headlights upon arriving at Mandor’s villa, which a title assures us is “near Lisbon.” A car-free interlude follows while Solo meets Mandor (Jack Lord) who is trying to gain the confidence of U.N.C.L.E. after defecting from THRUSH—or has he? Meanwhile, Illya was left behind so he tries fixing the Coronet and he’s captured by a couple of men driving a Jeep and carrying THRUSH rifles, oops. Solo also gets to know Mandor’s current companion, Leslie Welling (Leslie Parrish) who’s a model doing her best to look pretty wearing a yellow sleeved mini-dress with a belt and not much else. Kuryakin has been tortured to the point where the closed captioning misses that his destroyed mind has been turned into a vegetable. There are omissions at the Internet Movie Car Database: the cute, sporty red convertible that comes out of the 1962 International Harvester Loadstar as Mandor’s gift looks to be a Sunbeam Alpine. Solo has a stowaway, though, Leslie is now wearing a sleeveless dress with a button front and a black diamonds in a white grid pattern and a black belt. Mr. Waverly arrives at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in “Lisbon” so that agent Rogers (whom he calls his secretary) can take Miss Welling off of Solo’s hands and so he can order Solo to rescue Kuryakin (a long car-free interlude with a dramatic explosion that has debris flying past whoever it was on that terrace). When the local THRUSH agent Valandros orders an attack against the former leader Mandor, his contingent is equipped with the 1959 Honda Super Cub CA102, the U.S. version, of course. Nothing but the finest American cars, albeit with mock foreign license plates, for him—even when Mr. Waverly is overseas, he arrives on the scene in a 1967 Imperial Crown 4-door hardtop. I missed this while, uh, watching the episode twice for this post, wasn’t agent Rogers supposed to be keeping Leslie safe in a penthouse? Maybe Mr. Waverly changed his mind. That car wasn’t there when Kuryakin was brought to the Valandros compound earlier, it’s a 1967 Plymouth VIP 4-door hardtop in Dark Blue Metallic with deluxe wheel covers. To conclude, Leslie wears a white dress with sparkly sequin appliques.

I cleaned my MouseRug® 2 weeks ago so, sure, it’s time for the mouse pointer to move extremely sluggishly in response to movement of the Apple Magic Mouse across it, ugh.

13 May 2016

After some months of diving through the original episodes and the unaired pilot here is a catalog of every shot of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original Star Trek (via).

Wamalug, BZPower, and WamaLTC plan to exhibit at Scouting for Bricks™ 2016 in Leesburg this weekend. This year’s Mattie Miracle Walk & Family Festival may still list WamaLTC as participating but WamaLTC will not display there on Sunday, and while the flyer for next weekend’s Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum Railroad Heritage Days describes a Lego model train display WamaLTC will not display there, either. WamaLTC is part of the LEGO® User Group (LUG) Train Show Memorial Day (observed) weekend where we will join Pennlug and Hardlug for the first weekend’s festivites when the Nature Connects®: Art with LEGO® Bricks exhibit open at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia.

My buddy Luis at the Apple Store in Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center tells me the store has been open for 3 years. It’s been 28½ months since the previous replacement.

12 May 2016

This Tumblr post agrees with my earlier transcript.

Even though the Ford Focus on Technology - Perpendicular Parking system relies on ultrasonic transceivers and not the backup camera, the Perpendicular Parking with Enhanced Active Park Assist feature backs the car into the parking space. Enhanced Active Park Assist on the New 2017 Ford Escape, but this model is not available with a manual transmission any more.

The rain took a break, the driver of this convertible presumably stayed in the vicinity anyway. Silly Instagram, debuting a weak new logo, and then demanding a minimum size for its new glyph.

11 May 2016

Photos: Courthouse Wendy’s Demolished.

For the ninety-fourth entry on the Build page, my use of Sticker Generator was made much more convenient by my (barely) figuring out the Shaping tool in Corel Draw and clipping the bitmap (derived from my photograph) around the ⌀ 32 mm space needed for the Car Mudguard 4 × 2½ × 2 (50745). Whatever dissatisfaction I might have expressed to the then-creative strategist in marketing about the transition between cab and box on the 6-wide original is assuaged by the use of the newer part Slope Brick Curved 2 × 2 × ⅔ (15068).

Staples And Office Depot Call Off Merger After Judge’s Ruling.

10 May 2016

I see only one handler wearing gloves (via)? A locally-headquartered agency has a new exhibit. Split Ford Mustang display highlights 50 years of pony-car style. Community Day is Thursday.

…being talked about over what looks like an ordinary walkie-talkie?

Steve respects her like crazy.

A gold Boeing 707 with brown stripes and a registry number I can’t quite make out is in approach to San Francisco. In the forest below, Oscar Goldman is driving a 1969 Impala hardtop coupe, the shoulder belts hanging from the roof. An OSI agent has gone missing in these woods on the trail of some equipment that shouldn’t be there, and Steve Austin and the stubble on his face have a undercover mission to find out why. Conveniently, the owner of the local logging company pulls up in a 1965 Chevrolet Suburban and Kelly likes what she sees. (No one will recognize Austin as an astronaut.) Later, when Goldman visits the neighboring missile research center, he’s driving a proper Ford LTD 4-door hardtop which might be a Brougham. I can tell you why the Wixted logging company is bankrupt, the foreman is driving a Land Rover instead of something more domestic with better parts availability. The bad guys bring the missile parts in a Dodge van and eventually SAM 26000 approaches and the tension rises. The Target in the Sky is not the President but rather All the key men in the President’s Cabinet. Steve saves the day at the last second with some tossed dynamite. There’s plenty to nitpick about this episode—these guys manage 75 minutes of it—, the location shooting is mixed with an earlier movie and the production tries to match a big rig with something smaller, but the well-seasoned cast makes this a halfway-decent episode. Steve grows a moustache over the course of the day, oops.

Microtek’s ScanWizard Pro became largely irrelevant after the move to Yosemite but a momentarily frustrating episode with VueScan had me looking at the Microtek site again and I downloaded ScanWizard Pro 8.1 for Windows, and… the program is not competent to see the scanner no matter how times I attach the peripheral using the VMware Fusion menu command. The Windows Scan app, though, does see the scanner immediately so whatever the problem is with ScanWizard Pro it’s not because I’m running Windows as a virtual machine. The slightly less-fully featured Microtek ScanPotter also works on Yosemite. Ultimately, I used all three scanner apps on a recent thrift store purchase, the result from ScanPotter was the best for iTunes.

09 May 2016

Ikea blames 7 years of delays on bureaucratic procedures: IKEA to start building first store in Serbia after long delay. The cornerstone was laid last month in a toll plaza south of the capital. The eighth crazy thing you never knew about Ikea: Ikea’s $37.8 billion in annual revenue is larger than the GDP of Serbia.

There was another fire on the subway this morning.

I missed this on Saturday, obviously I listen with less than 100% attention, but I can forgive a blog founder for recognizing the name on a nationally-broadcast radio show: Balloon Juice Shout-Out on Prairie Home Companion (Open Thread).

08 May 2016

That’s what you think, NBCUniversal: You’ll need to install the latest Flash Player for this content. Unlike at ABC, I can’t even play the clips on my Flash-free computer, so that cord is cut.

Subtitled by a fan, because Serbs deserve a chance to understand the humor, too: Key & Peele Substitute Teacher 3 (+ srpski prevod) (via).

The cheap off-the-shelf hardware employed by the researchers to present two Lego-driven robotic attacks on touch-based authentication in Toward Robotic Robbery on the Touch Screen (via).

07 May 2016

‘The Craft’ Reboot Is Actually Not a Reboot at All (via).

Normally I would report a rewatch of an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but this week Morgan Richter recapped The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: “The Summit-Five Affair” and did not mention any of the titles, vehicles, backlot locations, or plays for dominance I noted in the episode last month. That’s probably a Morris Minor 1000 at the curb as Solo walks through “Berlin.”

The display on my iPad mini of the WamaLTC page for the show in March had an anchor on the seven digits “964 2016” and I’ve deployed one of the supported meta tags (via) on that page to suppress the conversion of text to a callable telephone number on a mobile Apple device.

06 May 2016

Such optimism: Fifteen big shutdowns, and many smaller ones, will get Metro repairs on track. I was never able to get past the advertisement on the NBC Washington video of sparks and then a huge fireball at the Federal Center SW station yesterday morning, so I found the video elsewhere.

There is a gap in my SeaMonkey browser history between 3:35 p.m. and 4:06 p.m.: if you are the target of a pursuit by the Virginia State Police, know that Fairfax County and its police helicopter are just a call away, and my “community” is not a haven. This time no blood was left behind. This is an older Ford PI Utility, I didn’t get a clear view of the newer one on-scene.

Because Serbian and Croatian are different languages, Disney translated the verb-object part of Did you just boot my stroller? differently (I can’t be sure I’ve heard the subject correctly) with Јесли ти заклучалa точак? in Serbian but Jeste mi uhapsila kolica? in Croatian—but neither gets at the indignation Nick is expressing at the use of a police boot on a child’s stroller. AMC Hoffman Center has dropped the 3D presentation.

05 May 2016

I can only envy such lassitude: Historic Weed Week.

So I was looking at the scene with the UH-1N flying southwest towards the base in the episode of The Six Million Dollar Man that I watched on Monday, and there’s a non-rectangular building with proportions that remind me of the Lockheed U-2. This video from 1960 of a U-2 fueling at Edwards isn’t helpful in deciding the purpose of that building (which does not appear on the official map of dining facilities and areas of interest). NASA’s White Charger to the Rescue (via) and U-2 Dragon Ladies Landing At RAF Fairford (via) describe the use of high-horsepower automobiles as part of the takeoff and landing procedures for the jet with wings longer than its fuselage—but Project Aquatone from AIR FORCE Magazine shows that a 1955 (or a 1957) Ford Country Sedan wagon and a set of binoculars was perfectly adequate for a previous generation.

New restaurants, stores coming to Landmark Plaza.

04 May 2016

I may have been the only one in the nabe to even chuckle at “I loved you in House Bunny”: The Story Behind Keanu’s Hilarious Anna Faris Cameo. I had been struggling to recognize her—my first thought was Britney Spears (she wants to be remembered as a mother, though)—in part because it had been 8 years since I saw the movie where Faris played a “house mother” to a college sorority.

I’ve revised the ninety-third Moc on the Build page by adding the drive-through lane and bonus car. It might be the first time I used the minifig generator. I have not made the peak removable, although I was able to replace some blue plates with their equivalents in dark blue, these must have become available in the intervening 5 years since I built it.

NYFD says candles, not Nazis, to blame for NYC church fire. At this time, there is no FBI investigation, but I would say Serbia’s national broadcaster misspells the surname of the FBI spokeswoman in New York that it’s quoting (unless she pronounces it with a t).

03 May 2016

‘Fundamentally Flawed’ Metro Oversight Led To Deadly Smoke Incident, NTSB Says. Today’s meeting of the National Transportation Safety Board leads to Accident Animation WMATA Metrorail accident, L’Enfant Plaza.

The astronaut training at that school had ended by the time the episode was broadcast.

Steve only asks the one woman among the students for a dinner date.

There’s more than one mystery in The Deadly Test beyond which pilot from which country is the target when the stability systems aboard a training aircraft at a test pilot school malfunction while Austin is commandant of the school. The establishing shots appear to match the real Edwards Air Force Base and there really is a U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at the base. The UH-1N seen under the episode’s title entered Air Force service in 1970 and may be known as The Rock. Austin’s arrival at the base is in a different airplane from the one he was flying, the wiki notes the switch. The switch in station wagons, though, is overlooked: Steve and Oscar drive to the wreckage in a 1971 Ford Ranch Wagon, Steve and Oscar drive away from the wreckage in a 1972 AMC Matador. (The actual crash of a Phantom comes from an incident with a Navy F-4J in Saint Louis in 1968.) Steve and Jan walk to the glider and pass a Cessna 182L, this crashed leaving Santa Monica Airport in 1987 in part because the owner was unwilling to pay for suggested maintenance. The glider’s registry N-3463 shows it to be a Let L-13 Blanik built in 1969. The next day Steve and Jan take TF-568 up, this was a Northrop T-38A with a 1960 USAF serial number and no certain disposition, I’m tempted to think the scenes with the trainer jet were filmed for this episode because it would be more trouble to create an optical effect to place the aircraft in the same frame with the villain’s van. Oh, hey, it’s N30DB again. I guess it was the seventies, but the villain posing as a vending machine supplier drives on base with a loaded revolver in his van without any trouble. The rocket on a wire aside—the location shooting, the military hardware, the variety of cars on the action’s periphery, the cast, all add up to a decent episode, even if Oscar does not join in the laughter at the end.

What Happened to Google Maps? (via).

02 May 2016

Huge blaze devastates Serbian Orthodox Church in Manhattan on Easter Sunday (VIDEO).

I’m told some people like the dealer they bought from and that is why the license plate frame remains.

Halliburton and Baker Hughes Announce Termination of Merger Agreement (via (via)).

01 May 2016

I don’t suppose Wmata can be blamed for this disruption, no big deal: CSX train derails in Northeast D.C., possible hazardous leak.

What a lot of good it did them, from February: Why are Republican candidates vowing to spend billions on a troubled South Carolina nuclear plant? More recently: Plutonium mess: SC wrangling with DOE over nuclear waste facility, Russia grows angry.

Oh, sure, Corel releases X8 editions after I purchase the X7 editions and install them in the new virtual machine of Windows 10. I try to buy a separate license for each virtual machine (previously, X3 was 2 years old when installed in Windows XP Home but X6 was a month old when installed in Windows 7) and then not upgrade until the next, but with Windows 10 to be the last version of Windows, until the next version ….

30 April 2016

The quality of the audio in this playlist on YouTube of 6 scenes from Zootropola isn’t adequate for me to assess how the dubbing in Croatian compares with the Serbian—naturally, I suspect the latter performances are better matched to the originals—but the strangled to znači ne did make me laugh.

The phrase Fake Napoleon waltzes through U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in this otherwise attentive rewatch of The Double Affair is inadequate to capture the moment. A subtle tell that it’s a double for Napoleon that has entered U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in New York is Robert Vaughn’s performance which avoids all the eye locking and head turning and smirking Solo would normally do when encountering a female agent at close quarters—or any suitable woman, really, when earlier the real Solo is called to the telephone while on his dinner date it’s a wonder when the cigarette girl passes by on the stairs that he can keep his balance. The flight from New York to Washington is on a narrowbody United jet, probably a DC-8. I can’t tell what kind of compact four-door sedan the taxi is when they arrive at the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters for Washington, D.C., the C-pillar is too narrow to be an extremely new 1965 Chevy II. The four agents jet off to Austria. When the plane takes off, it’s a TWA flight… and while in flight and when it lands, it’s Pan American. The final drive up to Griffith Observatory®, uh, I mean, to the THRUSH compound somewhere in the Austrian Alps, is in a 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine including a pass through a familiar tunnel in the park. Solo escapes the camp by stealing a motorcycle and he’s chased by THRUSH agents in a truck as Illya hotwires a 1964 Opel Kadett [A] to follow Serena who’s driving a 1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder. The Internet Movie Car Database is taking its clips from the theatrical release which was in color. Ultimately, this episode is about the foolishness of changing passwords on an arbitrary schedule.

This project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art (via) has been rattling around in my drafts for almost 3 weeks, I thought it might run into the problem of enablement but the discussion at MetaFilter suggests it’s not so clear.

29 April 2016

It’s been a while since I checked on the local artist, a Liberty Meadows graphic was among those purged earlier this year: What the Hell is Frank Cho Doing? His schtick is wearing thin for some: Is Frank Cho The Last Champion Of Straight Men’s Boners In This Hellish Feminist Wasteland We Live In?

From Tuesday: Mercy Street PBS Announces Season 2 Cast Additions. Mary Elizabeth Winstead will be among those returning in that series. The subtitled trailer for Ulica Kloverfild Br. 10 emphasizes just how few words there were in it, curious that I can’t find the film in the Cineplexx archive. AMC Hoffman Center 22 dropped it with yesterday morning’s screening.

So hidden, they were nonexistent: The Hidden Costs of Having a Roof Rack on Your Car (via). Oh, the actual paper (linked) was about after-market roof racks, I have no data on that subject.

28 April 2016

The reviews for version 5.0 of the AMC app for iOS are scathing, as well they should be. The reactions on Twitter are profoundly negative, too.

Taramount film presents an English-language science-fiction thriller set in Serbia, opening today: PROCEP (THE RIFT) - TREJLER (via). There’s one familiar face in the cast, Monte Markham played The Seven Million Dollar Man (although obviously he was less important than the vehicles and their license plates)…

They mean the self-service kind of car wash: to clean a MouseRug ® the manufacturer recommends to use commonly-available high pressure spray wand devices at any car wash but I used a surgical scrub brush instead. The process was DEEZ-gusting but the result was worth it.

27 April 2016

To be fair, I wouldn’t recognize most popular 90s cartoons either: Teens Don’t Know Who ‘Daria’ Is And Now We’re Officially Ancient.

I like the quiet guy in the back seat.

The AMC Theatres site claims Video can’t be played because the file is corrupt. Once the link target is downloaded, though, the MPEG-4 file plays just fine in QuickTime Player—for OS X, that is, because the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has issued an alert to uninstall QuickTime for Windows as the only mitigation for the security vulnerabilities possible now that Apple has discontinued support for QuickTime 7 for Windows. (The file also plays normally in VLC regardless of operating system—it would have been nice to know earlier about the e shortcut.) I am not surprised to learn that Zoey Deutch is a daughter of Lea Thompson.

The connection to the Internet on the premises failed twice yesterday but resolved without any specific procedure on my part. Maybe I should learn how to Check for a Service Outage in Your Area.

26 April 2016

The “Plan Ahead… Pay It Forward” SmarTrip® initiative by the municipality’s transit system is over a year old this month and it’s still catching people by surprise. They’re trying to interest other systems in adopting the plan.

The closed captioning sometimes struggles with words in English, but an entire line in Japanese? That is apparently not a problem.

When a report of a feral human on a northern island reaches Tokyo, a powerful man summons a familiar face to lead a search for The Wolf Boy. Accepting the task is The Last Kamikaze from the previous season, and he requests that Col. Steve Austin join him. Oscar Goldman makes for a decent audience surrogate when he learns that Steve is headed to Japan for this purpose, spluttering into his coffee and neglecting his breakfast muffin in incredulity while complaining about budget cuts. Steve flies west in a Northwest Orient 747, he meets Kuroda in a shoe shop where the former soldier now works—those Japanese cars from last week’s episode are most likely seen again here—he flashes back to the previous episode, they take a train and then a boat to the island. No, Steve, what you rode into the forest with is not a Jeep. Once again the Internet Movie Car Database has nothing, but that was a Toyota FJ40. The outdoor locations support the drama as the duo locate the feral boy and tangle with a team of hunters intent on killing them all. There’s a tiny retcon where Kuroda describes his former hiding place as the Philippine jungle.

Serbian sci-fi film starring Stoya campaigns for post-production. The production’s website offers some Hangul for a no longer extant country (유고슬라비아, Korean Wikipedia page for Yugoslavia). Stoya’s accusation made headlines last November. Her role in the movie would appear to fit in a long tradition.

25 April 2016

I was looking for what Star Trek might be like in Zootopia, but… “This video contains content from Disney, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.” The vigilant machine has removed the target of most of the links in this MetaFilter megapost on Pigs in Space from 5 years ago, boo.

Someone is optimistic: Five Below is preparing the space for its future location in the Plaza at Landmark—the discount retailer with a gimmick must not have been impressed with the complete façade renovation of a few years ago—while yet another furniture retailer is going in where Tower Records was.

It’s not like driving in the region is less stressful than riding the subway, this is just for this morning: all lanes of I-95 closed for a multi-vehicle crash, all lanes of I-495 closed for a crash and fire.

24 April 2016

Could there be… Star Trek in Zootopia? Behold the name, Nicholas Piberius Wilde. A fourth viewing prompts the question—if Officer Hopps is not in the system, how does she get hold of his income tax returns?

A Smoke-Filled Red Line Train Was Evacuated On Saturday. Here’s What Happened.

I did some exterior on-site photography to research the 92nd Moc on my Build page, but here’s a YouTube video post to fill in where I didn’t go: Westinghouse “Banjo” Traction Elevator @ Springfield Tower Springfield, VA. The elevator controls show the ground level parking as the first floor and the top level as the fifteenth (which would make the mechanical level the sixteenth).

23 April 2016

Beard Papa’s cream puff shop opening in Skyline Center. I had a good experience at the Hollywood & Highland location in 2007, but that one seems to have closed in the meantime.

Is there anything to “The Re-Collectors Affair” that this rewatch missed… the hotel in “Madrid” may cater to Americans, but when the assassin calls out to the local police to boast of his kill he definitely expects them to understand his slightly accented English. With Waverly’s assignment of the mission, the scene shifts to “Rome” and Solo at least has the decency to speak Italian with the (naturalmente lei è abbastanza) postal clerk. He’s promptly kidnapped, though, and taken away in the only vehicle seen in the episode, a Mercedes-Benz W111 of some type. Its stacked headlights betray the vehicle on set as the U.S. version. Kuryakin’s report to base is handled by a radio operator with a look and cool professionalism that reminds me of the Moonbase operators on the later series UFO. The episode’s innocent (still a character type in the second season) takes a liking to Illya—the two are roleplaying an engaged couple almost immediately upon meeting—and winds up in bondage by the end of the episode (far milder than that of the first season despite the move to broadcast the season at ten o’clock Friday nights). Illya’s first move after tranquilizing the bad guy at the end is to untie her, what a gentleman by comparison. Ok, it’s an episode with a cat, maybe this detail was intended to remind viewers it was supposed to be Rome. Bonus analysis here and here and here.

COAL: 2015 Fiat 500L Urbana Trekking – I Bought One. That’s Got to be a Bad Omen For Fiat.

22 April 2016

I should count myself lucky that I took two close-ups of the roof of my construction at the 17th Manassas Heritage Railway Festival 5 years ago. The aerial views (whether in Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Bing Maps) don’t seem to have changed much in the meantime, so I might as well stick with the previous arrangement. I wrestled with the flex hose generator enough to fake the Technic Ribbed Hose segments, I hope semi-convincingly, on the roof and along the uppermost wall, but for my own use in reassembling at a display I’ll draw the string segments on printouts. Argh, I didn’t change the plate to a tile before saving the image. MLCAD is reporting over four thousand pieces.

I’ve only seen the movie 3 times, but I think that quotation should read, “Ha! You should have your own line of inspirational greeting cards, sir.”

HTTPS Everywhere: Encryption for All WordPress.com Sites includes the hosted domain I link to from time to time. My own host has been silent on the subject.

21 April 2016

None of the Sears and Kmart stores in this region, as it happens, are on this list: Here’s the List of the 78 Stores that Sears Plans to Close.

The algorithm at the movie theater chain may have noticed that I haven’t used the loyalty card in weeks.

The Capital Weather Gang thinks that because Smoke from the Shenandoah wildfire is wafting into the D.C. region people with asthma may have additional trouble breathing. Smoke was first noticed on Saturday afternoon. The AQI of 54 for the park itself is moderate.

20 April 2016

Was this Setup and tutorial for running LSynth through MLCad helpful? Not in the slightest. It’s more important to note the locations of the antenna accessories on the tower, that’s next. The hose generator was on a toolbar I’d removed to keep a single row for all toolbars in MLCAD, that’s why I missed it earlier. I should have had a topping out when the rebuilding in pursuit of the file reached the last tan Brick.

When I get around to making a file in the LDraw format for the construction based on this location, I should keep the slope bricks easily removable. I observed the decay of the peak last month and its previous fading in January.

Via the mysteriously not-yet-uninstalled Google+ app, from The Brick Blogger’s Classic style LEGO cars in official LEGO sets: LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes SDCC 2015 Exclusive Action Comics #1 Superman Building Instructions.

19 April 2016

Crystal City’s Metroway BRT is open and carrying passengers.

No one past the first row got a screen credit.

Backstage, the musical performer John Perry (Sonny Bono) suspected by Oscar Goldman of being The Song and Dance Spy gives his college chum Steve Austin a cassette of his latest album. When Steve drives to meet up with Oscar again, though, he has to wait for the radio to play one of the songs, because his Mercedes-Benz 450SL has only an AM radio, sure it would. The Internet movie car database has nothing on this episode, even though the globe-trotting through the magic of stock footage and studio backlots gives us the fantastic parking lot where Steve does the wagon-lifting, a Fairlane station wagon and a Crown Imperial Limousine by Ghia in “Guam,” and many Japanese cars in “Manila.” There’s even an attack by forklift. Linda (Susie Coelho) was saying customer, not coaster, but Austin might be… looking for something else. Coelho, Victor Mohica, and the other backup singers played by Jayne Kennedy and Susan McIver have all survived into this century. Bono would marry Coelho later as his third wife.

The sign from the Franconia-Springfield Parkway said, to I-95 use Backlick Road. Finding the ramp to the free lanes of southbound I-95 in Newington from there is like wading through increasingly desperate promotional screens that are trying to obfuscate the link to the free download.

18 April 2016

Will this specific release date (via) encourage me to purchase a Blu-Ray player? I guess I could connect it to an HDMI port on one of the monitors, maybe Dell even supplied a cable…

Me, explaining how a retail transaction works at Home Depot, after being told that if there’s no barcode on the item I can just leave with it: I still want to pay for this, though.

Another day, another fire in a tunnel disrupting commuters who rely on Metrorail.

17 April 2016

If the buyer turns out the lights on the domain, worst-case-scenario-style, that’s a lot of credentials I would have to update: For Sale: One Used Internet Company Called Yahoo. The first mention of the company name in these pages seems to be 13 years ago.

The LEGO® company changed the color of “green” baseplates last year, now what on the premises has a number of the old kind of green baseplate inside, hm. When I started a file in the LDraw format 5 years ago to try to plan this entry in the skyscraper race, there were no parts for the window frame and glass that I hoped to use through eleven stories, but that has changed in the meantime, and in the new file I started today I’m using the same unofficial part for the first floor door as I used in the IHOP Restaurant. If Brick Yellow means dark tan then I can change that plate in the corner.

The local blog Red Brick Town has revived with heavily programmatic posts and no explanation for the lapse. It’s not like anyone has commented in the meantime.

16 April 2016

The time-wastin’ can continue, I don’t see this message today when trying to play a YouTube video in SeaMonkey: “If playback doesn’t begin shortly, try restarting your device.” Maybe clearing the cache in the browser helped.

I’m no competition for this rewatch of “The Nowhere Affair” but let’s see if there’s anything besides knuckleheads, blabbermouths, and garden-variety perverts in this episode. When Napoleon Solo drives into view in a 1966 Dodge Polara convertible, there actually was a Nevada state route 29 at the time, but it was renumbered a decade later. The Nevada Department of Highways was founded in 1917 but is this intended to be a wooden sign that’s broken? It’s missing a bottom border and the southernmost tip of the state. Illya Kuryakin also drives a Dodge into Nowhere, this one’s better suited to the terrain. THRUSH’s analysis of the perfect intellectual, emotional, and physical match for Solo (after Tertunian couches the U.N.C.L.E. agent’s interest in women as a hypothetical with “Let us say” and “not-so-latent”) is performed using punch cards on a IBM Model 83 card sorter. Mr. Waverly arrives in the ghost town in a chauffered 1966 Imperial where he proceeds to push a megadose of Capsule B on Mara, who—if we take the character’s age to be the same as the actor’s—is describing losing her parents in the first year of the war, perhaps as part of Germany’s invasion of Scandinavia. Illya supplies the water, and the effect of total memory loss is instantaneous. Diana Hyland died 11 years later.

I am reminded of this whenever I have to type in iOS or Windows where I don’t have access to my OS X keyboards with the Latin ligatures, boo: In modern Serbian, Cyrillic-to-Latinica mapping is one to one, with two exceptions: the ligatures <љ> and <њ> map to the digraphs <lj> and <nj>, respectively (from, Cyber- Latinica: A Comparative Analysis of Latinization in Internet Slavic). Today, for example, there is only one instance each of those digraphs on this page, and they’re in this paragraph. Search for nj, though…

15 April 2016

The signs at the remodeled AMC Shirlington 7 are so proud of them, too: Using a Dyson hand dryer is like setting off a viral bomb in a bathroom. The movie theater chain was in the news for another reason this week (via).

Five weeks ago, I highlighted the presence of Dana Plato in the episode “The Bionic Woman” instead of selecting an image of Lindsay Wagner in the title role. I am taking this opportunity to remedy the situation. While she’s in the “U.S. Air Force Hospital Ventura” after the skydiving misadventure, Jaime Sommers needs assistance with breathing after the massive bodily trauma she experienced, but once the bionic surgery is done, the breathing tube is gone. The Air Force Medical Service was established in 1949 but there are currently no facilities between Lompoc (Vandenberg AFB) and El Segundo (Los Angeles AFB). Ventura is a straightforward drive from Ojai south along CA-33 (Current State Route 33 Conditions) to the ocean, Port Hueneme and the Naval Branch Health Clinic is to the southeast from there.

Soon all the businesses at Plaza at Landmark will have the sign no public restroom: County officials respond to concerns about Lincolnia homeless shelter follows Lincolnia residents oppose homeless shelter next door and Bailey’s Crossroads homeless shelter to be relocated to Lincolnia.

14 April 2016

The base fare is one dollar and seventy-five cents for this bus. Metrobus has added this phrase to the mechanically spoken announcement of route and destination. Meanwhile, just another day on the subway, I took exception to RT America’s phrasing.

When I returned from shopping across the street, the Chrysler New Yorker Brougham was gone. Curbside Classic has hit every year of this style, 1976, 1977, 1978, and I’ve metaphorically tossed a coin as to which model year these 19¼ feet of sedan belong to.

If I were to purchase another Apple USB SuperDrive, and could set it to region 2, and use VLC to play the PAL format, it’s not clear that a dubbed Zootropolis Grad Životinja would even be available, there is no Serbian dubbed release of Frozen, for example.

13 April 2016

The first to be retired for this reason, maybe, because it’s not even the first to be retired this year. The first of Metro’s 1000-series railcars to be removed from passenger service are being retired as new 7000-series railcars are joining the fleet: 1000-series Railcar Retired from Service (via). Even so, steering trailer is cool. Silk Road Transport has their own in-house design and machining operation for custom fabrication.

The Peugeot 505 along US-29 south of Warrenton has an inspection sticker in the windshield from October of 2009. The for sale sign inside says it’s a 1984 model but calls out “all power” and “heated seat” instead of identifying which of the available engines it has, the powertrain and its condition after 94,000 miles and 6 years of idleness seems a smidgeon more important, but then I’m not trying to get $850 for it. Is that… a Peugeot 504 in the driveway?

I’ve been inconsistent in my reporting but here’s a guide to the helicopter action in The Six Million Dollar Man. In yesterday’s episode Steve Austin is sitting in a Bell 47 but I wouldn’t know how to confirm which of the G models it is.

12 April 2016

Verizon won’t fix copper lines when customers refuse switch to fiber (via).

This time Kenneth Johnson really did mean the Annandale in Virginia. The idea that Annandale, Virginia hosted a federal penitentiary was surely most amusing to anyone familiar with the area. Could any viewer really believe Oscar Goldman when he announces the location of the explosive-laden truck as 25 miles southeast of Philadelphia, even if the production used a 1973 AMC Matador in the scheme of the state police? The Price of Liberty holds the Liberty Bell hostage for some Bicentennial boosterism and last-minute grandstanding about the heritage of the Founding Fathers, some people like it but otherwise, eh. The closed captioning only gets what you would want to do with an unwanted bomb right once, the rest of the time everyone is arguing about how to “diffuse” it. Col. Austin threw a wrench into the plan Chuck Connors had to escape in that 1974 Ford Country Squire, I missed the pun the first time through.

Structurally, this not-KFC in Arlington is almost in better shape than the one more local. ARLnow’s report from January: KFC on N. Glebe Road Closes, Reportedly For Maintenance.

11 April 2016

Of course it’s going to be dark if you leave the headlights off: Project Nightonomy: Autonomous Vehicle Testing in the Dark | Ford Fusion | Ford (via).

The signs haven’t caught up yet but the destination boards on the Metroway buses now say Pentagon City, it’s possibly been 2 weeks. Strange that I can’t find anything about it at ARLnow.

I’ll accept it as a reason people might drive these lanes on a weekend: the Customer Service Agreement for E-ZPass® in this state threatens Users who do not use their account for toll payment for period of six months may be subject to account closure.

10 April 2016

The Focus now says “All Systems Normal” but I should probably mention the “Engine Fault—Service Now” and “Hill start assist not available” messages the next time I have it in for service—or when the safe mode strands me in third gear.

A flashback to a time when Leopard was the new thing: Apple COMPLETE “Get a Mac” ad campaign compilation (with Bonus ads) (via). The operating system wasn’t relevant on the day of release but I had a chance to evaluate it 2 months later.

This is why Apple Maps insists on Wi-Fi being on to determine the current location of the Mac Pro: How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell (via). The geographic misdirection where I write to you from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, may or may not have something to do with Comcast implementing IPv6 across its network of residential customers.

09 April 2016

A little snow and soft hail wasn’t going to stop Wamalug from having a meeting.

The geographic indeterminacy of the first cut of The Summit-Five Affair with the title “Somewhere in GERMANY” is undercut by the very next cut with the title “U.N.C.L.E. HQS. Berlin”! The opener for the fourth season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. may have been more serious but no improvement in the mise en scène is apparent—the episode’s sole German car is an orange Volkswagen Beetle (seen several times, as is that pale blue TR4) and the locations remain blatantly a backlot, with the backstage entrance seen in The Off-Broadway Affair making another appearance. The bad guys use a classic 1951 Chrysler Crown Imperial Limousine (America’s Smartest Car) rather than a contemporary Mercedes-Benz 600. It took 31 minutes, but our fully suited heroes (tarnished slightly by Solo’s confession under psychological methods to being a THRUSH agent) are asked to wrestle a comely young woman wearing a babydoll and panties into submission. Susanne Cramer would be dead before the decade was over, her co-star would also be dead, in bizarre circumstances, a year earlier. Lloyd Bochner survived into this century, however.

It’s looking more and more like that issue was a fluke. No other grocery store took the chance, either.

08 April 2016

The box office for Serbia for March 25-27 seems to have disappeared, so I don’t know the movie’s performance in its fourth week, but in its fifth week Zootropolis Grad Životinja has slipped to fifth place as the presumably non-serious and non-gloomy My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 edges in at #1.

The IHOP Restaurant I built in 2011 is the 91st entry on the Build page. I used Helvetica for the ® and Zapf Elliptical for the RESTAURANT, with the balance being bitmaps and shapes, so no crisis over missing fonts today. One unofficial part and if there’s a generator for Technic Flex-System Hose, I didn’t find one. If every file in the LDraw format I author ends up as multi-part, I should just save it that way the first time.

I’m thinking about it, ok? Wamalug.com is available for backorder (previously). This month’s meeting is tomorrow.

07 April 2016

Well, ok, then, if Symantec says so: The spokesperson claimed the hospital had no evidence of any compromise of patient or associate data….

T’was not important enough to drive to Maryland: iPhone SE Availability Tightening Online and at Apple Stores (via).

There’s some at the Vehicle Maintenance Facility on Duke Street, from last year: USPS Orders 9,113 Ram ProMaster® 2500 Cargo Vans.

06 April 2016

I didn’t know it had begun: The End of Halliburton’s Merger With Baker Hughes.

Although Ruby Tuesday had started a switch to a Clarendon-based font in 2006, when I documented the prototype for my construction in LEGO® elements in January of 2010 there hadn’t been any change yet. Yesterday when Corel Draw X7 silently replaced the font in the file for the RUBY TUESDAY stickers with Georgia, some detective work was necessary to identify my substitute for a puffy Perpetua Bold. My research led to the Corel Draw 11 Disc 2 Extras which had the Lapidary 333 Bold I’d used to simulate the look.

This was happening around the time The Return of the Bionic Woman two-parter was filming: On June 30, 1975, the Ojai Post Office tower and sidewalk portico became Ventura County Historical Landmark No. 26, along with an old sycamore tree in Libbey Park nearby. The city itself followed suit in 1993 (via).

05 April 2016

It was too cold to drive the Focus this morning, and once I start virtually assembling a creation, it’s hard to stop no matter what’s going on outside, so… the 90th entry on the Build page. My first pass overlooked the asymmetry in arranging the exterior lamps.

Jaime is about to carve that tree bark, the closed captioning calls it a drill sound.

The Return of the Bionic Woman Part II picks up from the preceding episode with Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers continuing their drive to Ojai in the Ford LTD Country Squire, back then people in cars didn’t have to be shown wearing seat belts. The closed captioning can be specific (DIALS ROTARY PHONE) but has trouble with at Wimbledon and affect and other words. After the failed mission, months after Jaime died and was revived, the green Fury and white Thunderbird are still parked outside the hospital! She wears a red dress for the drive to Colorado Springs with her doctor at the end, he drives an equally red Trimuph TR6, no family-friendly station wagon for Michael. The trenchant analysis at the Bionic Blonde has a more complete report on the fashions, some of Steve’s were chosen to allow semi-plausible reuse of footage from other episodes. Bonus analysis by Christopher L. Bennett on the episode pair. One upside of Sommers leaving—they won’t play that song by Lee Majors any more.

Univision’s English-language joint venture with Disney promotes a recent release from the latter company with Imagining Zootopia (Full Documentary) and the unlisted video link has been shared on Tumblr. Oh, boo, today, The Verge has figured it out.

04 April 2016

The Pentel Wow! ballpoint pen blisterpacks are marked, in contradiction to this search result, as Made in India, and I have opinions about the quality—I have 3 left, should be gone by the end of the month.

The use of Sticker Generator 3.1 on Windows 10 is a success despite the antiquated demand for an 8-character filename, the Build page has been updated with the 89th Moc, and an associated Flickr album has been created.

FCC Unveils Consumer Broadband Labels to Provide Greater Transparency to Consumers, the name of Comcast is conspicuously missing from this list of approving companies (this is the actual 2015-2016 list of members of the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee).

03 April 2016

This is a preliminary export of my “Forever Young” McDonald’s from MLCAD running in Windows 10. Five pieces fell out while I was handling the model and I don’t see a logical place for them, oops.

Perhaps I could download the Safari Technology Preview into my OS X El Capitan virtual machine, but in the absence of any layout improvements none of the alleged benefits are of particular interest. Not seeing the benefits here, either: Microsoft Build: the 10 most important announcements.

A shutter decided to cut loose from the premises in last night’s wind—two of the bolts are sheared—but it could have been worse.

02 April 2016

CC Caselaw: The Lincoln Futura, The Batmobile, And The Building Of Character.

Twitter’s algorithm denied me this important tweet so I’m a few days late catching up with Richter’s The Pieces of Fate Affair recap. My own rewatch this week was The Off-Broadway Affair and the first bit of amusement is Solo answering the telephone at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, because it makes so much sense for the organization’s top spy to have the task of answering the general help line. Our heroes decide to investigate the theater she was calling from and arrive promptly in a car—please, this is a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda, the last of the first generation, maybe with Citron Gold poly as its exterior color? But it’s never seen again, and later when Kuryakin impersonates a plumber, he arrives in a decade-old Ford F-100. Illya manages to leave without arousing too much suspicion, but then Solo doesn’t take the message that he shouldn’t see the understudy again so well and he is taken to the lake in an Imperial. Kuryakin’s role when he joins the cast calls for brownface and no one says anything about it. For all the third-season silliness, the ribbing of the New York City theater scene, and Illya’s entirely legitimate complaint that it’s unfair Napoleon gets to dally with a lush young actress—Shari Lewis writing an episode of Star Trek was still in the future—while he has to do the actual dirty work, Solo does kill someone (unless that Thrush agent survived the bullet, the explosion, and the collapse of the rock ceiling without medical attention) proving this is still family entertainment.

This didn’t actually work before today: FaceTime for Mac (Yosemite): Choose which camera or microphone to use.

01 April 2016

This headline doesn’t know the difference between explosives and explosives simulants: CIA Leaves Explosive On Loudoun Co. School Bus After Training Exercise. Maybe the Associated Press is to blame, it was used everywhere, and foreign media are happy to maintain the same discrepancy between headline and copy because it makes the USA look stupid. Local journalism does better. Statement from CIA on K-9 Training Incident in Loudoun County, VA.

A Minnesota-based retailer is urging shoppers to pre-order a title which doesn’t have a release date yet. The third week for Zootropolis in Serbia saw it slip to fourth place, behind an animated action-adventure (Kung Fu Panda 3), a comedy (Браћа по бабине линије), although Serbian comedies have a tendency to turn insane, and an action crime-thriller (London Has Fallen). A trailer for Double Trouble, as it’s apparently to be known to English speakers.

Frankly, the Trader Joe’s loves celery advertisement (not found at their blog for such spots, hm) heard on WTOP-FM sounded like it should have been included in NPR’s try at rounding up some of today’s nonsense. Here’s some more, from the National Air and Space Museum: Tribble Trial Trends Toward Trouble. There may have been an escapee which reached the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

31 March 2016

Almost 2 years: The City of Alexandria has upgraded its 9-1-1 emergency service to accept text messages in addition to voice or TTY calls. This follows the availability in Fairfax County by 6 months and the availability in Arlington County by 4 weeks. Fairfax County also explains how to do it: do not use dashes when entering 911 into the “To” field.

Maryland hospital group hit by ransomware launched from within [Updated] but the ransom demanded of MedStar Health is the least of it, Kojo Nnamdi’s guest explains that the sale of patient data is where the money is. Time to plan an unnetworked, off-site drive clone: The ICIT Ransomware Report: 2016 Will Be the Year Ransomware Holds America Hostage.

By sticking with Snow Leopard so long, I missed it: With Mountain Lion, Apple officially drops ‘Mac’ from OS X name (via OS X 10.11.4 hidden framework hints Apple could rebrand it as ‘macOS’ (via)). Just this page has multiple improper uses, e.g., and it also means that the fascinating article Font Management in OS X is properly titled.

30 March 2016

The Nissan Altima is rated as Poor: New ratings show most headlights need improvement (via).

Doris Miller (played by Sally Field in a movie in current release) is a mature woman with a hoarding problem but the production design gives her only one personal computer, a beige box tower with a CRT monitor beside it on a table and an incongruous clear plastic keyboard with white keycaps and a beige mouse alongside. I don’t have the credentials to log in to the Roadside Attractions Online Press site, so this is a dark image taken from the trailer. Could Doris actually visit and use Facebook on Windows ME or whatever she’s using, I suspect not. The production uses its own graphic design to depict Facebook on-screen, a sensible decision on its own since the site changes often enough. Doris writes an ill-advised post on someone’s Wall, and in the theater it bothered me that the UI includes only a “Post” button, but… that’s how Facebook is now, maybe as a mouse user Doris didn’t know about using Escape to cancel.

It would have been simpler to remember the Saturation slider in Graphic Converter, hm: yesterday’s screen capture is courtesy VLC for Windows and Corel Photo-Paint because my usual workflow led to an oversaturated result. That’s not to be confused with VLC for Windows Store.