steem

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (785-788)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These are pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s (maybe earlier and/or later but these are what I have sampled so far). These came to me second (third?) hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are several thousand...maybe as many as 10,000. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Apparently, getting your pictures processed as slides used to be a fairly common thing but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides (circa late 1950s) that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a somewhat decent flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a rather large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a close family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed (presumably) stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, either because a more specific date was hand written or there was something to specifically date the photo in the photo itself, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date. No doubt there are some exceptions.

Click on one of the images or the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.

Not much in the way of labels or dates on this set. They were probably taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The first features Leo setting up a camera, they next features a building and rainbow, the third shows a girl in a dress and the final photo is a close-up of some flowers.


Leo




The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can be found here.

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Computer & Video Games (January 1982)



Computer & Video Games (January 1982)

Computer & Video Games (CVG for short) was one of the U.K.'s longest running video and computer games magazines. The print magazine was published from 1981 to 2004 with a website carrying on until 2015. The January 1982 issue includes:

  • Mailbag - Problems, praise, comments and criticism
  • Four Octagons Puzzle - We present our program to solve the free puzzle - how does your match up against it?
  • Games News - What could you be playing in 1982? We catalog the latest computer games packages
  • Chess - Some classic computerized blunders, Max Bramer proves that computers are only human after all
  • Bridge - Alan Hiron deals out some history on computerized bridge
  • Arcade Action - Reports on the arcade game tipped as a winner for '82
  • Speed Race - Grand Prix thrills on TI-99/4A
  • Changing Hearts - A marvelous pattern puzzle on the Atari to test your logic
  • Tank Battle - The Sharp screen becomes a battle field as tank commanders stalk one-another
  • Treasure Hunt - Danger lurks in the deepest recesses of your Apple
  • Dragon Druggin' - It's wizardry against dragon's breath as fantasy finds its way onto your PET
  • Life - A classic computer game. Put Life in your Atom
  • Entrapment - Can you think on the move and box in your opponent before he traps you. For the quick-witted on the Tandy
  • Three 1K Wonders - Mole, Swag and Android Attack, three reasons to unwrap that Christmas Sinclair.
  • The Bugs - A mangled micro... a recurring threat to Santa... who can be to blame?
  • Adventure - Will you dare the Deathmare? Keith Campbell did and he may never be the same again.
  • Brainware - Ian Pedder's first Mind routines puzzle had the beating of most of you - now try his January brainteaser
  • Kit Korner - Keith Mott peels the skin off a Tangerine
  • What's in Store - Counting off the shopping days left to Christmas 1982 yet? Well the toy industry is. We reveal some of its plans
  • Practical Programming - Ted Ball is on the trail of the Bugs
  • Softporn - We uncover the seamier side of computers. Elspeth Joiner tries one of the new generation of pornographic games
  • Video Screen - Best sellers - we look at the cartridges which lead the market. This issue, Intellivision's Soccer
  • Sounds - David Annal investigates a "microchip orchestra"
  • Graphics - Garry Marshall's invader is up and running. Now shoot it
  • Down to BASIC - Moira Norrie looks at loops and graphics
  • Reviews - Follow in Daley Thompson's Decathlon footsteps
  • Software Glossary
  • Hardcore

...and more!

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

gfyunat3

Monday, September 21, 2020

Computing Today (May 1983)



Computing Today (May 1983)
Computing Today is a multi-format computer magazine that was published in the U.K. in the 1980s. It features computers readers from North America would probably recognize such as the Atari and Commodore 64 but also a number of computers that were never sold here. The May 1983 issue includes:
  • Consumer News - A plethora of products for the home computer user.
  • Business News - Up-market offerings for the small business environment.
  • Soft Wares - More programming power for your micro.
  • Into Atari's BASIC - We take a further look at the way Atari have arranged the BASIC language on their 400 and 800 systems.
  • Spectrum Book Survey - Every time Sinclair launch a new machine the market is flooded with books, the ZX Spectrum's no exception!
  • Getting Adventurous - This month our bold adventurer takes a look at the world of text-only adventures as created by the daddy of them all, Scott Adams.
  • Oric Oratory - Launched to challenge the ZX Spectrum the Oric appears to offer excellent value for the money. Our reviewer gets under its skin for a close look.
  • Special Software Offer - Software going cheap if you take advantage of our money saving coupon.
  • Going FORTH Again - Following our series on the language last year we take another look at some of the more advanced features.
  • FORTH Comes Home - The Jupiter Ace offers FORTH as its standard language so it could be an ideal machine for those of you wishing to go your own way.
  • Micro Data Base - In the second part of our data base feature we add the finishing touches to the package with the necessary machine code program.
  • Printout - An open space to air your views.
  • Market Survey - Eight pages of acts and figures to help you unravel the information you need to make the best choice of micro.
  • Club Call - All the latest from your local
  • CT Standards - Our symbolic code for graphics characters explained.
  • Next Months's Computing Today
  • Computing Today Book Service
  • The Valley
  • Froglet
  • Mini Calc on Apple
  • Special Subs Offer
  • The ASP Adventures
  • Apple Adventures
  • Home Computing Weekly
...and more!

Friday, September 18, 2020

The Ignorant Mob Assault on Rand Paul Shows How Political Tribalism Undermines Progress

Following the death of George Floyd in May, a bipartisan national consensus emerged that serious criminal justice reforms were needed. This put emphasis on an issue that already had broad spectrum support.

Polling shows that a clear majority of Americans support reforms such as ending “no-knock” search warrants, limiting police use of chokeholds, eliminating the civil liability shield for abusive police officers, mandating dashboard and body cameras, and more. In fact, even a majority of police officers support these reforms.

So why hasn’t Congress actually accomplished anything? Well, the disturbing saga that just played out featuring Sen. Rand Paul reveals the problem in a nutshell.

An irate mob swarmed the Kentucky senator and his wife as they left the Republican National Convention on Thursday evening to walk back to their hotel. Video captured shows the Pauls being shielded by police officers as members of the mob scream obscenities at them. Agitators then try to push past the police and assault the legislator and his spouse.

“Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House,” the senator tweeted afterwards. “Thank you to [the DC Police Department] for literally saving our lives from a crazed mob.”

“Thursday night felt like being in a terrifying dystopian novel,” Kelley Paul wrote in a Washington Examiner op-ed after the fact. “The mob swarmed me and my husband… We rushed up to two police officers, and I believe that is the only thing that kept us from being knocked to the ground. As the mob grew and became more threatening, we literally could not move, and neither could the two officers for several minutes. The rioters were inches from us, screaming in our faces.”

“Mobs are terrifying,” she continued. “They looked at us with no humanity — just a vicious and righteous zeal.

What’s particularly ironic is that these agitators were screaming obscenities about criminal justice and the death of Breonna Taylor at one of the most outspoken champions of police reform in Congress.

The assailants screeched things like “Say her name!” and “Breonna Taylor! Breonna Taylor!” Yet they were harassing the very senator who met with Taylor’s family and worked with them to craft legislation banning the “no-knock” police search warrants that led to her tragic death.

That’s right: Rand Paul literally introduced the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act.”

Paul has also championed other criminal justice reform causes such as sentencing reform and demilitarizing the police. It’s no exaggeration to say that he has done more to advance criminal justice reform than almost any other elected Republican in America.

None of this mattered to the mob that menaced Paul and his wife. The agitators, and some left-wing commentators, were too blinded by tribalist hatred of Team Red to even acknowledge the basic fact that Paul has explicitly worked for justice for Breonna Taylor:

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Join us in preserving the principles of economic freedom and individual liberty for the rising generation

This is just a sampling of blind partisan hate that has poured Paul’s way. The ignorance and bigotry of this behavior is manifest. But it’s all part of a broader phenomenon, and this disturbing affair reminds us how partisan tribalism makes progress impossible.

Even Democrats and liberals who disagree with Paul on everything else ought to appreciate his work on criminal justice and seek to work together on the issue. Some, such as Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, have done so in the past. But increasingly, many on the Left instead indiscriminately vilify all Republicans and are unable to view them as anything other than inherently evil members of Team Red.

Such partisan venom—to say nothing of literal mobs—makes cooperation toward shared goals impossible and sets back progress. If the other side will still hate you and never give an ounce of credit, why would any elected official ever stray from the party line?

Unfortunately, tribalistic behavior is hardly exclusive to the Left.

Some prominent Republicans and conservative media commentators regularly engage in similarly tribalist and blind opposition to Democrats. (Although, thankfully, the Right is far less prone to mob violence and rioting than today’s Left). However, other Republican leaders like Senator Paul have shown a willingness to reject tribalism and work with anyone across the aisle, from Rep. Ro Khanna to Sen. Bernie Sanders, where common ground can be found.

Simply put, tribalism is to progress what bleach is to growing grass. Until more Americans can view our political opponents not as inherently evil enemies but as real people who aren’t always wrong, no meaningful change can be accomplished.

Brad Polumbo
Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo is a libertarian-conservative journalist and the Eugene S. Thorpe Writing Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The Ignorant Mob Assault on Rand Paul Shows How Political Tribalism Undermines Progress

Friday, September 11, 2020

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (781-784)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These are pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are several thousand...maybe as many as 10,000. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be a fairly common thing but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides (circa late 1950s) that we found after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a somewhat decent flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a rather large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a close family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed (presumably) stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, either because a more specific date was hand written or there was something to specifically date the photo in the photo itself, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.

A couple of these photos are from a February 22nd, 1958 wedding. The others are undated but likely from roughly the same time period.




Lil + Leo




2/22/58 - Hal, Pat + Del - Vicky - Dressing the Bride


Pat + Del

Thursday, September 10, 2020

TV Gamer (June 1984)



TV Gamer (June 1984)

TV Gamer was a relatively short-lived gaming magazine published in the U.K. in 1983-1985. the June 1984 issue includes: Cover Feature
  • Adventure Games - Enter a new and fascinating world with Mike Lewis' guide to being a silicon adventurer. With 15 special adventure games reviewed.
Exclusive
  • Steve Kitchen: Games Designer - Read Darrin Williamson's revealing account of one of America's most famous programmers and his two year design marathon on Activision's Space Shuttle
The Arcade Scene
  • Dragon's Lair - How to get a kiss from a maiden who looks and sounds like Marilyn Munroe for only 20p. Andy Harris guides you through the country's most popular disc game
In Depth
  • Star Raiders - Try Atari's HCS version of this fine space codkpit game with David Harvey.
  • Atic Atac - Dave Bishop reveals the elaborate details of the haunted house with 151 (or more?) rooms.
  • Alechemist - Rescue your kingdom from the evil warlock in this unique adventure.
  • Adventure - David Harvey unravels this fine old VCS stalwart.
Game of the Year
  • TV Gamer Awards - Readers tell us which are the year's greatest games.
Special Feature
  • Chris Tarrant writes - Being a TV personality is no protection from trauma when you are subjected to a day's screen games.
Systems
  • Oric-1 and ATMOS - Darrin Williamson tries out the new ATMOS as a games player - how does it compare with the tried-and-true ORIC-1? Read on.
Competition
  • Cartoon Caption - Win an Oric ATMOS and find a caption for Dicky Howett's cartoon.
Reviews
  • The latest and the best games
Regulars
  • Editorial
  • News
  • Top Score
  • Top 20
  • TV Gamer Club
  • Advertisers and back matter
...and more!

Friday, September 4, 2020

gfyunat2

Home Computer Magazine (August 1984)



Home Computer Magazine (August 1984)
Home Computer Magazine started life as a magazine dedicated to the TI-99/4A under a different name. As it became clear that the TI-99/4A was not going to maintain its success, the magazine branched out to cover other popular systems as well, in particular the Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple II. The August 1984 issue includes: Features
  • Snap-Calc - Creating this mighty math matrix is a snap.
  • Bars and Plots - Colorful graphs can chart your figures.
  • Elementary Addition and Subtraction - An educational program for the preschool crowd.
  • Spider Graphics - Ah, what a tangled (and colorful) web we can weave.
  • Convertible for Comfort - Automatic conversion of machine language programs to DATA statements.
  • Programming: The Name of the Game - Pick a game, any game...and design it.
  • Colorfun - Match the color swatch to its name.
Product Reviews
  • Personal Editor - Ease of use makes this an outstanding text editor.
  • EasyWriter II - A powerful word processor for the PC...and Junior.
  • PFS: File, PFS: Report - Database management without intimidation.
  • Home Accountant - Financial management comes home.
  • Count-Sil - A Spreadsheet program for home use.
  • Doublestuff - Double the Apple's normal color and resolution.
  • Chivalry - Knights and Ladies abound in this board/video game.
  • Burgertime - Burger-building in a chaotic kitchen.
  • Alpha-Pak - Learning the alphabet is as easy as A-B-C.
  • In Search of the Most Amazing Thing - A nonviolent, educational, fantasy adventure.
  • Murder by the Dozen - Use your wits to track down "who 'dun' it."
  • Necromancer - Chasing zombies was never like this.
  • Microsurgeon - A "fantastic voyage" through your patient's bloodstream.
  • Trickster Coyote - Don't let the wily coyote cry wolf.
  • EasyScript - An inexpensive word processor for the C-64.
  • Companion - A helpful companion can esy writing's burdens.
  • Home Budget Jr. - A valuable program that's easy on your budget.
Logo Times
  • Binary Forest - 'Branching Out' with Smokey the Bear.
  • LOGO Flakes - Creative explorations with snowflake desings.
Gameware Buffet
  • Robochase - Pits you against rampaging robots.
  • Cyber-Cipher - Break the top-secret computer access code.
  • Wild Kingdom - Trapping tigers in a jungle maze.
  • Speeder - A game to make your own.
  • Boolean Brain - Wander down logic paths inside your computer.
  • Missile Math - Launching interest in multiplication.
Deparments
  • Inside/Outside HCM
  • On Screen
  • Letters to the Editor
  • HCM Review Criteria
  • Contents
  • HCM Product News
  • Program Listing Contents
  • Program Typing Guide
  • Industry Watch
  • Group Grapevine
  • DeBugs on Display
  • Index to Advertisers
  • HCM Classifieds
  • Home Computer Tech Notes:
    • TI
    • IBM
    • Apple
    • Commodore
...and more!

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (777-780)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These are pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are several thousand...maybe as many as 10,000. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be a fairly common thing but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides (circa late 1950s) that we found after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a somewhat decent flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a rather large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a close family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed (presumably) stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, either because a more specific date was hand written or there was something to specifically date the photo in the photo itself, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.

The first photo is labeled "Santa's Village" and like the other photos in this set was probably taken in the late 1950s. The second photo (of a baby) is the only one with any kind of date and it was processed in March 1958. The last two photos are nature shots with one of them featuring a porcupine.


Santa's Village


Processed March 1958


Porcupine in tree at Farragut



The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can be found here.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Minneapolis Law Preventing Business Owners from Protecting Their Own Property Backfires Horribly

Violent riots broke out in Minneapolis again on Wednesday night. This time, chaos rocked the city after misinformation falsely suggesting the police had killed an unarmed black man went viral. The violent outbreak sadly came as no shock, because by now, Minneapolis is no stranger to destructive riots.

After all, Minneapolis is where the tragic police killing of George Floyd took place in May, sparking nationwide unrest. During the aftermath of that incident, violent riots consumed the city. Countless businesses were looted, vandalized, or burned to the ground, and multiple people were killed. In a jarring example of how deadly this chaos was, police found a charred body in a Minneapolis pawnshop days after the riots died down. Arsonists had murdered a man, possibly without even realizing it.

Yet even in the face of wanton destruction and violence, city ordinances are preventing Minneapolis business owners from protecting themselves and their property. As reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the city currently bans exterior security shutters. These are the type of shutters they pull down over a mall storefront when it closes, that would make it much harder to break in and loot it. They also prevent windows from being broken, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace.

Why are security shutters banned in Minneapolis? Because city officials say they “cause visual blight,” and “create the impression that an area is ‘unsafe’ and ‘troublesome.’”

Now, many business owners are running up against this regulation as they seek to protect their reopened stores from future flare-ups of violence. (The earlier riots destroyed at least 1,500 Minneapolis businesses.) Liquor store owner John Wolf saw his store looted after rioters broke in through his windows and stole more than $1 million in alcohol. He’s fuming at the city regulations that stop him from protecting his property.

“Times have changed," Wolf told the Star-Tribune. "I am going to spend millions of dollars to bring my business back, and I don't want to buy 20 window panes and have them broken the first day. Property owners should have options on how to protect themselves."

Technically, business owners can apply for an exception to this rule. But it is incredibly difficult to get such a variance approved.

A city spokeswoman acknowledged as much, reportedly saying that “while someone is authorized to file a variance, it is challenging to meet the legal findings that are necessary to grant a variance from this type of provision.” The city says it has only ever received one request—which it rejected.

"I have never felt so vulnerable,” car repair shop owner Mark Brandow told the paper. He wanted to install security shutters on his property in July but was told by city officials he was ineligible to even apply for an exemption. They are only now letting him appeal. In the meantime, his storefront remains boarded up.

"People in the neighborhood have asked me to take the boards off because it is ugly," Brandow said. “But I don't need to be pretty. I'm going to leave it ugly until I get some satisfaction.”

This predictable consequence is part of the irony of the law's justification. The city’s anti-blight measure created more blight.

f420ae73881b1598916653-thankyou.png

Join us in preserving the principles of economic freedom and individual liberty for the rising generation

Well-intentioned Minneapolis officials banned security shutters, because they wanted their streets to be more visually appealing. Yet they failed to consider that store owners would only seek to install security shutters for a good reason—that is, if they were necessary.

We now see the results of this folly. Boarded-up stores, shattered windows, and permanent “closed” signs are far more likely to “cause visual blight” than security measures. The results of rioting run unchecked surely do far more to make an area seem “unsafe” and “troublesome” than metal security shutters.

KB Balla’s destroyed sports bar, Minneapolis. Image credit: GoFundMe.

So once again, we see sweeping regulation backfire and have unintended consequences that achieve the exact opposite of their original goals. This is what FEE’s James Harrigan and Antony Davies dubbed the “Cobra Effect.”

They told the comical yet revealing tale of how an Indian city placed a bounty on cobras to try and solve their infestation problem, yet achieved the opposite result. Why?

At first, more people hunted cobras to get the bounty, and the cobra population decreased. Yet then individuals started breeding and raising cobras at home in order to get the bounty again. When the government cancelled the bounty because the population had seemingly declined, citizens released all the cobras they had been raising in their homes into the wild.

The end result was a worse infestation of cobras than the city had to begin with.

“Human beings react to every rule, regulation, and order governments impose, and their reactions result in outcomes that can be quite different than the outcomes lawmakers intended,” Harrigan and Davies wrote in explaining why the regulation failed.

So, it’s no surprise that preventing business owners from protecting their own property hasn’t beautified the streets of Minneapolis—it has left them in shambles.

Brad Polumbo
Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo is a libertarian-conservative journalist and the Eugene S. Thorpe Writing Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.