Random News Stories

[Steve Guttag]

It's not forgetting but the U-Matic was never targeted to the home-market, let alone as an audio-only recording device. The U-Matic had a very long and distinguished life span. It could be argued that it had a bit of a parallel path to eliminating the open-reel video formats from Quad through Type-C and even the first Digital 1-inch open reel...that succumbed to DBeta and HDCAM...with the end game coming with HDCAM-SR...essentially taken out, prematurely, when the floods of Japan eliminated the supply of blank tapes forced people to look for non-tape based media storage. Cassette Tape video media's days were already numbered but the inability to obtain the blanks sped up the the departure.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

I think everyone seems to be forgetting the first video cassette format, the 3/4” tape U-MATIC that Sony demonstrated in 1969 and commercially introduced in 1971. Many U-MATIC recorders had built-in TV tuners and we’re not much larger or heavier that the first generation of Betamax machines.

[Leo Enticknap]

IMHO, there were two important aspects of the cassette that this obituary didn't cover. First, though it was never conceived or intended as a high quality format, aftermarket manufacturers, both of equipment and tape stock, did develop it into an attempted replacement for the consumer 1/4" open reel technology of the '60s and '70s, in the '80s and early '90s. They introduced technologies such as chromium dioxide and evaporated metal particle tape, and higher end recording and playback decks, Nakamichi dominating this niche for most of this period.

The other is that Sony took the concept of the tape cassette and applied it to other systems. As with everything Sony does, many were short-lived (e.g. the Elcaset, which put 1/4" tape into a cassette), but others, notably the Betamax/Betacam/Digibeta cassette (the physical form factor of which must have been used in for at least half a dozen tape formats in the end), became an industry staple for decades. It could be argued that the videocassette was what really enabled electronic news gathering to go mainstream (yes, there were "portable" 2" quad VTRs made, but they really required a professional weightlifter who also had a PhD in electronics to use), and that had its origins in Ottens's original invention.

[Mark Ogden]

If there was ever a piece of gear that I once owned that I loved, it was the Sony WMD6C Professional Walkman. Dolby B and C, lines in and out, variable pitch, everything. It seriously rivaled the Nakamichi CR7A in my home system for quality. It went all over the world with me. I seriously regret selling it, in part because a good condition one goes for $400 to $500 on eBay these days.

[Steve Guttag]

The Walkman certainly didn't hurt the Cassette's cause. It was definitely a pretty popular format in the '70s and grew heavily during that era. If you were to look through various audio/stereo magazines in the '70s, particularly "Audio" which did a buyer's guide edition each year...you could see how many companies were offering cassette machines and how many models each offered. It grew geometrically in that era. It effectively killed off reel-to-reel except in the high-end market (for home use). For the person making their own recordings (either mix tapes or safety copies, if not originals of either music or recitals...etc.) your choices were Reel-to-Reel or cassette. 8-track was just pre-recorded stuff and were notorious for short operational life with inconvenient track changes.

Cassette made inroads on that too as most every car stereo (either OEM or aftermarket) shifted to cassette too. All of this predates the Walkman. The Walkman moved "stereo" into the portable world so that it could be with you, wherever you were (mass-transit into work, jogging, airplane...wherever).

Had Sony not done it, I'd think, eventually other companies would have gotten there too. Sony always has a way of refining and presenting a technology where esthetics have as much importance as the technology. It helps sell the format. The original Walkman was a sleek piece for its day.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess if it wasn't for Sony's Walkman, the compact audio cassette would never have been as popular as it was in the 80s. Philips has always been good at concepts, but often failed to read and play the market. Without Sony, the CD probably also would never have gotten off the ground.

While Philips is a Dutch company, pretty close to home, back then, I personally always preferred the slick, industrial design of Sony products, compared to the often still very "retro-looking" Philips designs. Apparently, this also inspired the late Steve Jobs when contributing to the design of the iconic first Macintosh.

[Leo Enticknap]

From The Daily Telegraph, obituaries page:

Lou Ottens, who has died aged 94, was a Dutch engineer credited with inventing the compact audio cassette, a development said to have “democratised” music by providing fledgling bands, who lacked the budget for a recording studio, to get their music on to the market, and allowing fans to create homemade “mix-tapes” of favourite songs from the radio or vinyl records.

In the 1960s, as head of product development for the Philips electronics factory in Hasselt, Belgium Ottens became frustrated with the unwieldy reel-to-reel tape recorders the factory produced, which involved the user having to thread thin magnetic tape through mechanical guides, and decided there was a need for an audio device that was cheaper, less fiddly and small enough to fit into a jacket pocket.

He and his development team came up with the idea of encasing a slimmed-down version of the reel-to-reel tape in plastic housing, and the audio cassette, marketed as “Smaller than a pack of cigarettes!”, made its debut at the Berlin Radio Show in 1963.

Soon afterwards Philips patented the term “compact cassette tape” and developed a player to handle the new format. Rather than patenting the design, however, Ottens urged Philips to share the company’s cassette technology, and subsequently struck a deal with Sony to make the Japanese company’s soon-to-be-ubiquitous portable cassette player, the Walkman, released in 1979.

Ottens thus helped to establish a uniform standard that ensured cassettes sold in one country would work in another; the compact cassette also superseded the bulkier “8-track” cartridge that had remained popular, mainly in North America, for in-car dashboard players.

As well as revolutionising the pop music scene (it is said that hip-hop would never have taken off without it), the tapes also were used to record telephone messages and books, and used in pocket dictation devices and car stereos. Streets all over the world suddenly seemed to be full of people plugged into their Walkmans.

The cassette fell out of favour from the early 1990s after they were overtaken by compact discs, which not only offered better sound quality but had the undeniable advantage that they could not get tangled up in the works. Ottens was also part of the Philips team which contributed to the invention of the CD in 1979.

In recent years cassettes have experienced something of a revival, though Ottens was bemused by the resurgence of a technology he regarded as obsolete. In 2016 the spry nonagenarian appeared in Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape, in which the director Zack Taylor invited his audience to celebrate “the worst format in the history of music”. Some people, Ottens observed, “prefer a worse quality of sound out of nostalgia”.

The son of schoolteachers, Lodewijk Frederik Ottens was born in Bellingwolde, in the Netherlands, on June 21 1926 and brought up in Hilversum. Fascinated by technology from an early age, during the Second World War he built a radio so that the family could listen to broadcasts from London during the German occupation.

After graduating in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical College (Institute) of Delft (now the Delft University of Technology), he joined Philips in 1952 and in 1960 became the head of product development for the company’s Hasselt division, which specialised in audio equipment, including turntables, tape recorders, and loudspeakers. In 1969 Ottens became Director of Philips Hasselt.

After contributing to the development of the CD, he worked on a Philips team that introduced it to the market with Sony in 1982. His only regret, when he retired in 1986, was that it was Sony rather than Philips that had developed the Walkman.

Ottens’s wife Margo, whom he married in 1958, died in 2002. Their three children survive him.

Lou Ottens, born June 21 1926, died March 6 2021

[Frank Cox]

A newspaper is planning to open a casino to pay the bills.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tor...sino-1.5931827

Torstar Corp., owner of the Toronto Star, the Hamilton Spectator and other papers, announced on Monday it plans to launch an online casino betting brand in Ontario this year.

"We are excited at the prospect of participating in a regulated online Ontario gaming market with a made-in-Ontario product," said Corey Goodman, Torstar's chief corporate development officer, in a news release.

After decades of being controlled by a trust owned by the families who founded the Toronto Star in 1892, Torstar was recently bought by an investment company called Nordstar, which promised to maintain the company's focus on producing "world-class journalism befitting the Star's storied history."

Torstar has since its founding espoused the so-called Atkinson principles, which are focused on advancing progressive causes.

Torstar's new owners say they are branching into online gambling to help pay for those continuing efforts.

"Doing this as part of Torstar will help support the growth and expansion of quality community-based journalism," co-owner Paul Rivett said.

• Torstar posts losses as print ad revenue falls year-over-year

The company cited government data showing Ontarians spend about $500 million a year on online gambling, with the vast majority going to grey market websites domiciled outside Canada, where there is less legal and regulatory scrutiny.

Under current rules, only the Ontario government itself is licensed to conduct online gambling, but the province's last budget opened the door to expanding the market to other companies some time this year.

Torstar says its plans are contingent on those government plans moving ahead.

Rivett said it's to everyone's benefit for an Ontario-based company like Torstar to become a player in the province's industry. "We want to ensure the new marketplace is well represented with a Canadian, Ontario-based gaming brand so that more of our players' entertainment dollars stay in our province," he said.

[Leo Enticknap]

Potentially good news if there is anything to this. From Barron's:

The Pandemic Could Be ‘Effectively’ Over by April, According to J.P. Morgan

The current trajectory of Covid-19 cases and vaccinations implies that the global pandemic could be as good as over in just a couple of months, a team of J.P. Morgan analysts that includes global head of quantitative and derivatives strategy Marko Kolanovic said on Friday. That’s a much faster timeline than the market and most economists are working with.

The J.P. Morgan analysts aren’t concerned about the potentially more contagious U.K. coronavirus variant, referred to as B.1.1.7., which has been discovered in dozens of countries and more than 30 U.S. states. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the U.K. variant could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by March.

“The spread of the B.1.1.7. variant is not inconsistent with an overall decline of Covid and an end of the pandemic in Q2 due to vaccination, natural immunity, seasonality, and other factors,” Kolanovic wrote on Friday. “…While the dataset is still small, statistical analysis of current vaccination data is consistent with a strong decline (i.e. effective end) of the pandemic within ~40-70 days.”

That range means somewhere between the end of March and the end of April—in other words, just around the corner.

The J.P. Morgan quants analyzed the impact of vaccination rollouts on Covid-19 cases and the rate of spread in areas where the U.K. variant was and was not widely circulating. They found that the post-holidays spike in cases in both the U.S. and the U.K. were “almost identical,” despite the U.K. variant not being detected in the U.S. yet.

They also noted that cases in Denmark during the same period rose even faster than in the U.K. and the U.S. And since then, cases in Denmark have been declining more quickly despite the U.K. variant becoming more prevalent in the country at the same time. Likewise, new coronavirus cases in Florida and California have come off their January peak faster than the national average, despite those two states having a higher rate of U.K. variant cases than the U.S. overall.

“This is another example that an increase of B.1.1.7. prevalence can be consistent with a decline in overall cases (e.g., due to seasonality, vaccination, or natural immunity),” Kolanovic wrote.

The J.P. Morgan analysts also looked at the global vaccine rollout. They found that on average, for every 10% increase in vaccines administered, new Covid-19 cases have declined at a rate of 117 per million people. That compares with a median spread of 230 Covid-19 cases per million people in the analysts’ sample of about 25 countries.

Just using those two figures and assuming that the current pace of vaccinations remains constant—and that social distancing and other preventive measures remain in place—gets the quants to their 40-to-70-day estimate.

The team’s analysis comes with a disclaimer: The calculation assumes no hiccups with the rollout or supply of vaccines, and ignores regional differences in geography, demographics, and the uneven distribution of vaccines. But the current round of vaccinations targets the lowest-hanging fruit: People over 65 have accounted for about half of hospitalizations and some 85% of deaths since the pandemic began. Vaccinating that group will likely have a much larger incremental impact on beating back Covid-19 than the next group of younger and less susceptible people.

The pandemic’s economic damage will likely long outlast the end of rapid community spread. But, unsurprisingly, the J.P. Morgan analysts’ calculations have them bullish on the companies and assets most sensitive to a post-pandemic recovery. They advise using any near-term pessimism as an opportunity to buy the dip.

“Any weakness in reflation and cyclical assets should be used as an opportunity to increase exposure to the reopening theme, in our view,” Kolanovic wrote.

The market, however, isn’t pricing in an end to the pandemic that soon. If consensus expectations come around to J.P. Morgan’s view, expect stocks in sectors like energy and financials to shoot higher. Commodity prices would continue to climb, as forecasted demand would increase. Treasuries would sell off, and rates would jump—which could be problematic for high-multiple growth and technology stocks.

An effective end to the Covid-19 pandemic before the summer is not the consensus view on Wall Street, and a lot could still go wrong. But given current trends, the math works.

[Frank Cox]

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...itar-1.5909331

It's pretty metal,' says man who turned his uncle's skeleton into a guitar

Florida musician says this was ‘the best way to honour’ the man who introduced him to heavy metal


CBC Radio · Posted: Feb 10, 2021 6:00 PM ET | Last Updated: February 11




Florida musician Midnight Prince, right, says he imported his uncle's medically prepared skeleton from Greece and turned it into a guitar. (Submitted by Midnight Prince)

A Florida musician says turning his late uncle's skeleton into a sick guitar was "the best way to honour" the man who first introduced him to heavy metal.
The Tampa, Fla., musician, who goes by the moniker Prince Midnight, says he crafted the instrument out of the medically prepared remains of his Uncle Filip.
"It's pretty metal to play a guitar made out of skeleton, I have to say," he told As It Happens host Carol Off.
Prince unveiled the final product — called the Skelecaster — on his Instagram.

The Skelecaster is the result of lots of bureaucratic wrangling, family skirmishes and experimental craftsmanship, Midnight said.

His Uncle Filip died in a car accident in Greece in the mid-'90s at the age of 28, he said. Per his wishes, his remains were donated to science, and his skeleton was used in medical school classes there for decades.

But then, one day, the school no longer had any use for the bones, Midnight said. Filip's parents had since died, so the responsibility for his remains fell to Midnight's mother.No one's ever made a guitar out of a skeleton, to my surprise. So there is a little bit of a learning curve

- Prince Midnight, metal musician

Cremation was not an option for the Greek Orthodox family, he said, so his mother was stuck with two options — pay for a burial plot, or continue to pay a monthly fee to store the remains.

"She didn't want to pay for that anymore. And then I was like, 'I'll take care of it,'" Midnight said.

"So I went through all the red tape, which is a tremendous amount of trouble. You've got to contact the funeral home. The State Department's involved."



Midnight says his uncle, pictured here, introduced him to heavy metal when he was a boy. (Submitted by Prince Midnight )

Eventually, the musician was able to get Filip's remains shipped to him in Tampa. At first, he says he wasn't sure what to do with them. Then, inspired by his guitar maker friend, the idea struck.

"It just popped into my head. I'm going to turn Uncle Fil into a guitar. And I was like, that is the best way to honour him. He would love that idea," he said.

Midnight says he has fond memories of listening to metal with his uncle, and seeing him perform at shows.

"Uncle Filip was a super metal head," he said. "He got me totally into metal when I was a little kid because he was my mother's younger brother, so he was closer to my age, and took me under his wing."

The idea didn't go over well with his mother at first, he said.

"When this first started happening, she was really upset. She said, 'It's sacrilegious. He needs to lie, you know, and rest,'" he said.

"And as she was walking away, I was like, 'You think Uncle Fil would rather be a guitar, or a box of bones?' She threw her arms up. She goes, 'Probably the guitar.'"
'It's got some quirks'


Making the guitar was no easy feat, either.

"No one's ever made a guitar out of a skeleton, to my surprise. So there is a little bit of a learning curve," he said.

"Originally, I was drilling into the vertebrae, the bones, and one cracked and broke. And so I was like, well, I've got to re-assess how I'm going to do this."

He ended up welding a metal bar onto the spine and attaching it to the bridge and neck of an old Fender Telecaster guitar. He also attached red and blue wires, reminiscent of veins and arteries depicted in medical books.



Turning a human skeleton into a guitar was no easy feat, says Midnight. (Submitted by Prince Midnight)

"It is not a typical guitar, so it's got some quirks, to say the least. But sometimes the limitations we have with our tools are what make the products great," he said.

"When you are trying to strum inside a rib cage, it limits how long your strokes with a pick could be, right? So that tends to make a heavier kind of tone when you're strumming. So, yeah, it has a certain sound to it, and I think it sounds great."

But most of all, he says it makes him feel close to his uncle again.

"I feel like Uncle Fil is not just here now figuratively; he's here literally too," he said. "I'm literally giving my Uncle Fil hugs while he's figuratively with me, creating, you know, heavy metal riffs."

---

[Leo Enticknap]

Giggle.

Here is one that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't just seen it in print. So we've all seen stories about the 30-something female teacher who is caught shagging a male high school student, complete with the usual quotes from the perp's attorney about how sorry she is, and the carefully crafted statement from the school district designed to deflect lawsuits, right? The Daily Mail does about one a month. However, this teacher in Redlands elevated the phenomenon to new heights: she appears to have had affairs with students in every single high school in the frickin' district!

Source: Redlands Daily Facts - My emphasis

Another alleged victim of former Redlands High School teacher Laura Whitehurst sues district

‘There is a good reason why Redlands Unified School District is the national poster child for sexual abuse of students,’ says the plaintiff’s attorney

A former Redlands High School student has filed a lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused by former teacher Laura Whitehurst in 2007, and that teachers, counselors and administrators failed to report it to police.

In the second lawsuit filed on behalf of one of Whitehurst’s accusers, the first of which resulted in a $6 million settlement in 2016, attorneys allege more than a half-dozen Redlands Unified School District and Redlands High School administrators, counselors and teachers were aware of allegations that Whitehurst was having sexual relations with students, but failed in their obligation as mandated reporters to notify police.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, Jan. 29, in San Bernardino Superior Court by the Irvine firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, alleges Whitehurst, a former English teacher and soccer coach, began having sex with the student in 2007, when he was 14 years old. Whitehurst admitted to police in 2013 she had sex with the boy 10 to 15 times in her classroom and at her Redlands apartment, according to a police report.

In her seven-year career with the school district in which she taught briefly at all of its high schools, Whitehurst, according to the lawsuit, had a specific method of inviting male students, ages 14 to 18, into her classroom, where she would engage in sexual discussions and/or have sex with them. Whitehurst also dated students and had sex with them at her home, according to the lawsuit.

A yearlong investigation by the Southern California News Group exposed a more than decade-long pattern at Redlands Unified of administrators failing to report to police teachers who had a proclivity for grooming and sexually abusing students, including Whitehurst and former Redlands High School teacher and golf coach Kevin Patrick Kirkland. That failure allowed teachers like Whitehurst and Kirkland to continue sexually abusing students for years.

“There is a good reason why Redlands Unified School District is the national poster child for sexual abuse of students. More than 20 teachers and administrators in RUSD have been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with their students over the last ten years,” said a statement from Morgan Stewart, the attorney representing the former student in the lawsuit. “The district has spent millions on civil lawsuit settlements, and two students have committed suicide. There are at least 50 victims of sexual abuse within RUSD.”

The Southern California News Group investigation led to the implementation of new policies and procedures at Redlands Unified in reporting suspected sexual abuse of minor students and establishing firm boundaries between staff and students.

Stewart, whose firm specializes in representing victims of sexual abuse by teachers in public schools, called Whitehurst one of the worst predators he’s ever seen.

“The district had complaints against her for six years. If they had acted in 2007 and removed her from the classroom, she never would have injured our clients and other children,” Stewart said.

Whitehurst pleaded guilty in 2013 to six felony counts of having sex with two Citrus Valley High School students, one whose child she bore, and one Redlands High School student. She was sentenced to one year in jail, but was released on probation after serving only six months.

The Redlands High School student Whitehurst was convicted of molesting was not the plaintiff in the latest lawsuit filed against the district.

Redlands Unified spokeswoman MaryRone Shell did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

At least she didn't respond to the request for comment by inviting the journalist back to her apartment...

[Frank Cox]

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[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/weird/stick-u...as-cops-arrive

STICK UP: Woman distracts would-be thief with oral sex as cops arrive
A woman certainly got a mouthful while stumbling upon a robbery at a Slovakian gas station.

The unnamed woman entered a gas station in Bratislava, Slovakia on Tuesday night when she noticed a robbery in progress.

According to Slovakian media outlet Noviny SK, a 24-year-old man entered the gas station and allegedly threatened to kill employees if they didn’t empty the cash register.

After caving to demands, the employee reportedly handed the robber the money, who then in turn allegedly punched the staff member several times. The station employee then fled to a back room where another coworker was located and called the police.

Not satisfied with the amount of cash he received, cops say the suspect then entered the back room where he attempted to get more money from the store’s safe. The second employee reportedly bolted.

Wanting to thwart the robbery in progress, the woman customer then reportedly went up to the suspect and distracted him by performing oral sex on him until cops came.

The suspect’s pleasure prematurely climaxed when cops cuffed him.

Slovakian cops told media outlet TV JOJ that upon arrival they found a man and a woman lying half-naked on the floor, with the woman reportedly telling them “I don’t take him anymore.”

[Frank Cox]

https://deadline.com/2021/01/filmdom...ge-1234683823/

The Texas Alerts system sent out a strange message Friday morning – an Amber Alert for filmdom’s knife-wielding maniac Chucky the doll and his child.

The Amber Alert, typically used in the search for missing or abducted children, listed Chucky from the film Child’s Play as a suspect. The alert described him as a 28-year-old with red, auburn hair, blue eyes, stands at 3’1″, and weighs 16 pounds. He was wearing blue denim overalls with a multi-colored striped long sleeve shirt and wielding a kitchen knife prior to his “disappearance.”

The alert also listed Glen, the son of Chucky who was introduced in the film Seed of Chucky, as an abducted child. He was described as five years old, weighing 6 pounds, standing at 2’3″, and also with red, auburn hair and blue eyes. Glen was described as wearing a blue shirt and black collar prior to his “disappearance.”

Subscribers of the Texas Alert System received the email alert three times on Friday. The agency told television station KENS 5 that the alert “is a result of a test malfunction. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused and are diligently working to ensure this does not happen again.”

chuckiealert-1.png

[Randy Stankey]

Cats are crepuscular. They are most active at dawn and dusk when they are best able to take advantage of growing or fading light levels to catch prey. They will nap between those times, in the afternoon, to conserve energy for hunting at more advantageous times.

The 5 a.m. wake up call we get from our cats comes from a time cue that they get as the sun rises and sets.

This also explains why cats don't seem to care about weekends. Mostly, they don't. Their behavior is governed more by their instinctual prey drive than the activities of their humans.

This is all common sense but I'm still puzzled by how a bird can seem to tell time down to the minute.
Cats are easy to figure out compared to birds.

There's got to be a reason.