RIP

[rudy235]

Paulo Gonçalves

[xilman]

Roger Scruton

[S485122]

Originally Posted by xilman

Roger Scruton

From the linked article, about the uprisings in France in 1968, "He recalled later that the students on the barricades struck him as 'self-indulgent middle-class hooligans.'",. I suppose it is why he turned his allegiance to "self-indulgent upper-class hooligans.”
Having lived in the centre of Paris at the time (11 boulevard Saint Michel to be precise); I would say that in that period, students were indeed mostly middle and upper-class.but the student movement of the period can't be dismissed with that characterisation.

Jacob

[Dr Sardonicus]

Buck Henry

Buck Henry, who co-wrote the screenplay for the classic 1967 film The Graduate, co-directed 1978's Heaven Can Wait, and made regular appearances as a guest host on Saturday Night Live in the show's early years, has died. He was 89.

Henry died Wednesday in Los Angeles following a heart attack. Reports of his death were confirmed to NPR by a longtime friend.

The son of a silent film star, Henry also co-created the TV show Get Smart with Mel Brooks.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Gary Starkweather, inventor of the laser printer

Xerox had units working on other printers, but in a test of three prototypes, Mr. Starkweather's experimental laser printer was far and away the fastest and most effective.

Even then, it took some persuasion before corporate executives gave the green light to the laser printer, which finally hit the market in 1977. The Xerox 9700 became one of the most successful products in the company's history, making it possible to print directly from computers and leading to a revolution in printing technology.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Gary Starkweather, inventor of the laser printer

There goes a giant! What an impactful invention.

[a1call]

Even then, it took some persuasion before corporate executives gave the green light to the laser printer,

Makes you wonder what exactly are the prerequisites for advancing to executive positions in corporations.
Obviously has not much to do with any business sense or quite often with above average IQ.
Yet somehow millions are being made under their watch.

[Dr Sardonicus]

David Olney

Singer-songwriter David Olney has died at age 71, after falling silent and dropping his head in the midst of a performance at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida Saturday night.

Some news reports said he "collapsed" on stage, but that isn't quite true: Olney simply became still on his stool, leading some audience members and even the musicians beside him to think he was simply taking a pause, before they realized what had happened and lowered him to the stage.
<snip>
Olney was a revered figure in the folk-rock and Americana communities who had recorded 20 albums of his own as well as having his songs covered by Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury and his former roommate Steve Earle.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by a1call

Makes you wonder what exactly are the prerequisites for advancing to executive positions in corporations.
Obviously has not much to do with any business sense or quite often with above average IQ.
Yet somehow millions are being made under their watch.

Similar to politics in other environments, I think it has to do with possessing unjustified optimism and confidence, skill at schmoozing and lying, and knowing how to play golf and network and a zero-sum game of internal politics. Sociopathic traits seem to help advancement too. A person who sees and speaks the truth both positive and negative is soon considered unpromotable and not a team player. This can place a cap on intelligence or at least weeds out the highly qualified nerds in technology companies. Managers that place profits and schedule and politics over safety advance and get to overrule the knowledgable. (Think Dilbert.) This sort of thing resulted in a loss of a space shuttle with all hands and payload, and disastrous results for the schedule too, a full stop for 2 years followed by classifed-payload-only-catchup for two years, no science payloads for 4 years. Both shuttle disasters were cold January launches. Engineers expressed concerns and were overruled, and people paid with their lives.

Finance, law, military, and even economics education apparently do not equip a person well for dealing with natural laws and how they will inevitably play out in the real world, with consequences for many. I saw a video recently by a physics professor, who disdainfully quotes an economist's absurd claim that there would be no copper shortage "since it could be made from other metals". What, with a synchrotron, atom by atom, so it costs more than mined platinum or silver or diamond?
A reknowned instructor in an optomechanics course I took had an illustration in his course notes and an anecdote to go with it. It was a turbocharged diesel truck engine, that he had drawn up to convey to some military top brass the unreasonableness of the optics servo speed specification they had proposed. That was how much power it would have taken to accelerate a glass mirror to a new pointing direction. The general was writing specifications under the misapprehension that glass being transparent it should be as light as air and take no effort to move.

Back to topic. Laser printers are terrific.

However, dot matrix and later ink jet did very well against laser printers on the low print volume end. Laser printers these days come with actual minimum monthly page count recommendations, so some are not well suited to low volume users.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by kriesel

Sociopathic traits seem to help advancement too. A person who sees and speaks the truth both positive and negative is soon considered unpromotable and not a team player.

Sadly, /so/ true...

Originally Posted by kriesel

...and later ink jet did very well against laser printers on the low print volume end.

Inkjet tech can now also achieve /far/ higher resolution than laser, and better color "space". In some print houses *hugh* inkjet printers are often used instead of off-set for smaller runs.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Sadly, /so/ true...



Inkjet tech can now also achieve /far/ higher resolution than laser, and better color "space". In some print houses *hugh* inkjet printers are often used instead of off-set for smaller runs.

I love my Epson Stylus Pro 4880 inkjet very much. It produces incredibly rich prints with vivid clarity. Lasers can not compete. Having three shades of black (K, LK, LLK), and two each for Cyan and Magenta gives this machine tremendous advantage. Extra shades help produce smoother gradations. There are inkjets out there that go even further with additional ink colors, as well as light and dark shades to fill in the gamut.