thewayne | Entries tagged with rip

Gordon Bell passed away. He was an early employee of Digital Equipment Corporation and a key creator of the PDP-1 mini-computer, which launched an amazing series of computers. He also was the "namesake of the ACM's prestigious Gordon Bell Prize, created to spur innovations in parallel processing"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/gordon-bell-an-architect-of-our-digital-age-dies-at-age-89/

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/05/21/2058226/gordon-bell-an-architect-of-our-digital-age-dies-at-age-89

Robert Denard was quite a clever bloke. He figured out how to pair a transistor with a capacitor to store a bit of rewriteable memory.

Prior to Denard's discovery, memory was stored in magnetic cores. It was a bulky and balky process that was pretty low density. What Denard did pioneered the development of the internet in our pockets.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/robert-dennard-father-of-dram-is-deceased-also-known-for-his-foundational-dennard-scaling-theory

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/05/17/1812210/robert-dennard-inventor-of-dram-dies-at-91

You may be thinking, what, the famous aircraft designer? Nope, his older brother. Burt is the plane designer.

Dick's biggest claim to fame took place in 1986 when he and his copilot, Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck) flew around the world, NON-STOP and WITHOUT REFUELING, in an aircraft designed by his famous brother Burt. That plane, the Voyager, was a heck of a craft. It experienced an engine failure eight hours from completing its historic journey but they were able to get it restarted and land safely. For this trip, Dick, Jeana, and Burt were awarded the Presidential Citizen's Medal by Ronald Reagan.

The takeoff weight of the Voyager was more than ten times the structural weight of the aircraft! And it took 14,000 feet of runway before Dick rotated and got the plane into the air!

Burt always wanted to fly and was not only a certified pilot in high school, he was a certified flight INSTRUCTOR in high school! He joined the Air Force during the war in Vietnam and flew 350 combat missions, being shot down once and having to eject a second time over England. He was awarded a Purple Heart, twice the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, among other citations.

In a 1985 interview with the Washington Post, Rutan said "All I’ve ever wanted to do is fly, and there are only two types of flying worth a damn: test pilots and combat, the rest is repetitive and boring and should be left to bus drivers.” What a fitting statement from an aviation great.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2024/may/06/legendary-aviator-dick-rutan-mourned

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dick-rutan-whose-round-the-world-flight-made-history-dies-at-85/ar-BB1lVEyl

*sigh* I so wish Jeff Lynne would reconstitute the full band. Of course, several members are dead, including a bunch of the string section, and now Tandy is gone.

Tandy started as the bass player after the first album, then Roy Wood, the then keyboardist left, and Richard stepped in. He was revered as a keyboardist and it was said that he could play anything with a keyboard. He also did some background vocals, such as Mister Blue Sky. He left the band in 1986, but rejoined when Lynne formed Jeff Lynne's ELO in 2014. Tandy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2017.

I would have loved to have seen a jam session between him and Keith Emerson! That would have been wild.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9ezkkng7k2o

Lewis was well-known for appearing on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he was a stand-up and appeared in various films and TV shows. For me, it was Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men In Tights as Prince John. A brilliant performance in a very silly movie.

He had been battling Parkinsons for several years. He was 76. The big band upstairs now has another for one heck of an opening act! Can you imagine him and Robin Williams firing back and forth? OMG!!!

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/richard-lewis-comic-curb-your-enthusiasm-dead-1234977977/

The band upstairs gains a truly outrageous vocalist and writer extraordinaire, and we lose an icon. Mojo passed today at the age of 66. The statement from his family does a great encapsulation of the core of Mojo:

“August 2, 1957 — February 7, 2024 Mojo Nixon. How you live is how you should die. Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire…,” his family shared in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.

“A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right… & that’s just how he did it, Mojo has left the building,” his family’s statement continued. “Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back. Heaven help us all.”

He is perhaps best known for two songs in particular: Don Henley Must Die, and his first big hit alluded to in the above paragraph, Elvis Is Everywhere. Don Henley's known for being kinda thin-skinned and performed the song with Mojo live!

I have one album by Mojo at the moment: Horny Holidays. And it is wonderful. It includes a cover of Santa Clause Go Straight To The Ghetto among lots of other good stuff. I'm definitely going to acquire some more, he was a heck of a rocker.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said “I don’t want to be taken seriously. I’m a cult artist.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mojo-nixon-dead-obituary-1234964257/

99% of you are going 'WHO?'

But if you like your computer having accurate time, he's the dude to thank.

Dave invented the NTP protocol which lets your computer and other devices synchronize their internal clocks with recognized time standards. While this doesn't seem like a big deal, the internet would literally be pretty much impossible without accurate time synchronization.

He passed away quietly and peacefully at home, Vint Cerf, another early computer luminary was notified by his daughter.

From the article: "Aside from his work on NTP, Mills also invented the first "Fuzzball router" for NSFNET (one of the first modern routers, based on the DEC PDP-11 computer), created one of the first implementations of FTP, inspired the creation of "ping," and played a key role in Internet architecture as the first chairman of the Internet Architecture Task Force.

Mills was widely recognized for his work, becoming a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1999 and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2002, as well as receiving the IEEE Internet Award in 2013 for contributions to network protocols and timekeeping in the development of the Internet."

A truly accomplished computer pioneer.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/inventor-of-ntp-protocol-that-keeps-time-on-billions-of-devices-dies-at-age-85/

*sigh*

Peter Schickele was a brilliant composer, having made over 100 symphonic works of various sizes, many of which were 'discoveries' by the little known lesser member of the Bach family, P.D.Q.

I always remember my introduction to PDQ Bach through an album called Live and On The Air. It was a collection of skits, one of which was an announcer suffering an increasing amount of distortion, culminating in an explosion and then a little voice in the distance explaining that the rear wall of the studio seems to be gone and 'we'll be back in a minute'. There's also a wonderful video of an opera that he made, referenced below, called The Abduction of Figero, conducted by Schickele. One of the mezzos is singing something or other (been quite a while since I last watched it) and she gets mad, culminates in her singing 'In fact, I'm not even going to sing my aria!' and she storms off the stage. Camera cuts to Peter at the podium, leafing through the score, he addresses the orchestra, and says 'Okay, let's skip to the letter Q'.

I always wanted to see him perform live, he was quite an entertaining performer when doing the PDQ material. But he had a problem with PDQ: he was a highly-trained composer, and he had problems when wanting to perform his own material. People were waiting on the edge of their seats for something funny to happen, for the twist! He was kind of trapped by the success of his 'discovered' works. I heard at some of his works he rappelled or bungee jumped from the rafters to his piano to start the show.

From the Muppet Wiki:
Peter Schickele (1935-2024) was a composer and pianist, perhaps best known for his satirical alter-ego P.D.Q. Bach. In the early seasons of Sesame Street, Schickele scored several live action films produced by Mark Sadan and Kirk Smallwood, including three riddle films ("Tomato," "Skin" and "Tire") and "Where the Garbage Goes."

A classically trained musician, Schickele attended Juilliard with Philip Glass. As P.D.Q. Bach, an obscure and questionably talented son of Johann Sebastian Bach, Schickele created a complex history of continually unearthed "lost" recordings and compositions. Notable works include "Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion," "Classical Rap, S. 96th St," "Toot Suite," "Canine Cantata," and the operas The Stoned Guest and Oedipus Tex. He introduced his P.D.Q. Bach concerts as "Professor" Peter Schickele of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople.

Under his own name and identity, Schickele co-wrote music and lyrics for the musical Oh! Calcutta! (with Robert Dennis), arranged songs for Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie, and scored the sci-fi film Silent Running and John Korty's films The Crazy-Quilt and Funnyman. Animation projects included scoring and narrating a video adaptation of Maurice Sendak's work and serving as musical arranger for the "Pomp and Circumstance" segment of Disney's Fantasia 2000.

We were fortunate to have his marvelous humor for as long as we did. He made opera and classical music approachable to all by making fun of it. I'm very sad at his passing, but oh so very glad that he was here, at least for a time.

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_Schickele

Outside of the somewhat more hardcore programming geeks, his name will be almost completely unknown. But his impact on computer programming will long outlive him.

He invented Pascal, which begat Delphi. He was involved in the development of Algol. Basically he was one of the seminal forces in developing computer programming languages throughout his career, which was a long one. Borland's Turbo Pascal was a truly revolutionary release back in the Dos days.

Interestingly, he did not intend Pascal as an actual production programming language. He wanted it used as a teaching tool to introduce people to structured programming, which it was very good for.
He intended Oberon language as a programming tool.

I took Pascal twice. The first time, it just didn't click. I probably wasn't quite ready for it, and I don't think the book was that good. But the second time, everything fell into place: great teacher, good book, and more experience under my proverbial belt. And I fell in love with it.

One thing that I thought was absolutely fantastic about Pascal was the assignment operator and the equality operator. In many, many languages, you assign a value to a variable by using the equals symbol, thusly:

A = 1

Commonly described as A equals one. Seems clear, right?

In Pascal, you use the assignment operator:

A := 1

Described as A is assigned the value of one. A little more unambiguous.

In languages that use the equals symbol, when you want to evaluate an expression, you have a problem. In mathematics, you just use the equals symbol to test for equality. But if you're using that symbol as an assignment operator, you're running a risk of confusing the program compiler or messing up the logic of your program.

If you say

if A = 9 then (do stuff)

What are you saying? Do stuff if A = 9, or are you assigning the value of 9 to A, which is a true statement? Many languages started using == to test for equality. Thus you get

if A == 9 then (do stuff)

In Pascal, since you have an assignment operator in the := syntax, you can say

if A = 9 then (do stuff) and it's unambiguous!

I always thought that was syntactically brilliant, and always gave Mr. Wirth great kudos for it.

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/01/04/0126247/niklaus-wirth-inventor-of-pascal-dies-at-89

Tom was the older of the musical comedy duo, The Smothers Brothers, playing the 'dumb' one to his brother Dick's more straight man. They had a show on CBS for three seasons during the '60s that was quite controversial and surprisingly successful, slamming all sorts of norms. It criticized the government, the involvement in Vietnam, and finally the network pulled the plug after claiming that they did not submit the show to network censors in a timely enough fashion.

The duo continued to tour and eventually got an anniversary show back on CBS. In a monumental feat of bad timing, it was during a writer's strike! However, the Screen Writer's Guild recognized the importance of their show, both historically and the anniversary, and gave them a waiver to let the show be made and broadcast. And one of the opening numbers had the entire writing cast on stage performing 'Ghost Writers In Disguise' with all of them in tuxedos and wearing Groucho Glasses. It was lovely seeing Steve Martin out there in Groucho Glasses, this show was one of his first big writing gigs when he was starting out.

In 2008, the brothers were awarded a lifetime Emmy for their achievements, it was presented by Steve Martin. Late in their careers they bought a winery and vineyard in California that apparently bottled pretty good stuff.

The Rolling Stone article has a video of The Who performing My Generation on their show in 1967. I don't think I ever saw video of The Who performing in that era, it's really good!

And I had completely forgotten about Yo-Yo Man! Tom was so good with that thing, I was always lousy. I could usually make it go up and down and that was about it.

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/tom-smothers-dead-smothers-brothers-1235851343/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/tom-smothers-comedy-smothers-brothers-dead-obituary-1234936771/

She died from injuries sustained in a car accident outside of El Paso, TX. She was 65.

The band was initially formed as a quartet, subsequent changes saw it change to a trio, Lynch leaving, and the ultimate name change to The Chicks. Lynch was co-lead vocalist, then lead vocalist, before leaving the band almost 25 years ago.

This Variety article is a very nice tribute and information source:
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/laura-lynch-dead-dixie-chicks-1235850102/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/laura-lynch-founding-member-dixie-chicks-dead-obituary-1234935667/

https://www.avclub.com/r-i-p-laura-lynch-founding-member-of-the-chicks-1851122196

Lear was 101. He was known for creating such transformative television as All In The Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, The Jeffersons, and Good Times. And get this - he consulted on a few episodes of SOUTH PARK! I'd kind of like to identify those and see them! President Bill Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts.

He brought up issues of the day that no other TV show would touch: breast cancer, inter-racial tensions, sexual liberation, etc. And I think television needed it.

He truly changed the face of television in America, and perhaps inspired the world.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/norman-lear-dead-1299936/

Justice O'Connor, appointed by Reagan, was the first woman appointed to the SCOTUS, served for 24 years. She was a part of the decision of Bush v. Gore, among many others. An Arizona lass, her parent's ranch straddled the Arizona/New Mexico border. She was roping and riding as a kid, later earning a law degree and practicing for free just to get her foot in the door.

What a career!

She passed from complications from long-term dementia.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/justice-sandra-day-oconnor-obituary-dead-first-woman-supreme-court-1234907171/

*sigh*

He was diagnosed with viral encephalitis last year and went into hospital early November for help with an infection. Presumably this did him in.

He was lead singer with the Pogues until excessive drinking lead to them firing him. He did some indie projects, reunited with the Pogues, left them again, fell down some steps leaving a studio resulting in a pelvis fracture which led him to being wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/shane-macgowan-pogues-dead-obit-1234809695/

Timothy McViegh has nothing on the body count that Henry racked up in Cambodia and other parts of the world!

This very long Rolling Stone piece is decidedly vitriol against Kissinger, and deservedly so. But is there anything good to be said about the man that can counter-balance the bad that he did? Considering the weight of the bodies he's responsible for, like 1/7th of the population of a country, I tend to doubt it.

It's interesting. Henry and Nixon in '68 managed to foil LBJ's plans for peace talks with the North Vietnamese. Likewise when Carter was running for re-election, Reagan had a back-channel deal with the Iranians to prevent the hostages from being released before the election.

Politics suck, and those heavily invested in them suck even worse.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/

Best known for appearing as Shaft in three TV movies, the actor passed from pancreatic cancer last week. He had also been diagnosed with breast cancer in '93 and was an advocate for testing. In addition to Shaft, Roundtree also appeared in Roots, among other things.

He was a talent and quite an inspiration to a generation of actors. He also saved MGM: Shaft was made on a $500,000 budget and grossed $12 million!

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/richard-roundtree-shaft-dead-obituary-1234861830/

Bit of a surprise. He was found in his swimming pool, apparently an accidental drowning. I'm guessing that he suffered some form of medical emergency and the drowning was a consequence of that.

While best known for his role in the hugely successful TV series Friends, he did a lot of work outside of that. He also did a huge amount of drugs, which may have contributed to his rather early death. That's one of the risks and consequences of the Hollywood lifestyle: even if you're clean now, the fact that you were a hard user a couple of decades ago can have consequences.

RIP, dude. Lots of your fans will miss you.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/matthew-perry-friends-star-dead-obit-1234865185/

The CBC began broadcasting a time signal on its shortwave station CHU on November 5th, 1939, the same year that it joined World War 1 and six years before the USA began broadcasting its time signal on their shortwave station WWV. The CBC Radio One time broadcast was discontinued unexpectedly earlier this month on October 9th. The reasons stated was that the Radio One broadcast is received through a number of means, including satellite reception, that can induce lag of several seconds, and in critical applications this cannot be relied upon.

You can still listen to CHU if you have a shortwave receiver and can pick up its signal, it broadcasts on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz, and are heard through central/eastern Canada and the eastern United States. More info on the station at https://www.radioworld.com/global/chu-canadas-time-station. One thing that I find interesting is they regularly send out QSL cards! (something that only ham radio geeks would be interested in)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/canadas-84-year-radio-time-check-has-stopped-because-of-accuracy-concerns/

For the science fiction geeks amongst us, the sound of CHU's time signal's Morse code broadcast was used for the sound of the Rebel's radar signal in The Empire Strike's Back! It's embedded in the Battle of Hoth scene.

https://swling.com/blog/tag/the-empire-strikes-back/

Sir Michael passed away in hospital of pneumonia, aged 82. While best known to American audiences for picking up the role of Dumbledore in the third and subsequent movies, I was introduced to him ages ago in The Singing Detective which is one heck of an introduction. He was a Shakespearean actor and once auditioned for the role of Bond, James Bond! Other films he appeared in include Toys, Gosford Park, Sleepy Hollow, and Johnny English Strikes Again. He appeared on Top Gear and took the final corner on two wheels, so impressing the hosts that they named the corner after him, The Gambon!

Great bit from the BBC obit: But he never took film as seriously as he did his stage work, even his appearance as Professor Dumbledore in six Harry Potter films, a role he inherited after the death of Richard Harris.

"I can't remember any of the films I've done," he once said. "You go from one to the other and they all blend into a big mass. I remember Harry Potter because of the costume I wore, just two layers of silk and carpet slippers. Very comfortable."

He was a great talent who left a great body of work with us. He shall be missed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66949848

BBC Obit: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39408742

McCallum's breakout role was in 1964's Man from UNCLE as Illya Kuryakin. He had a very long career as an actor, having trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he performed on stage, film, and television. Most recently he had a long run on NCIS and is still listed as cast.

His partner in Man from UNCLE, Robert Vaughn, passed away in 2016.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/david-mccallum-dead-obituary-1234831274/

Gary was 80 and had been suffering from Parkinson's and Lewy Body Dementia for several years. Pretty rough stuff. Lewy is what Robin Williams had.

Gary formed the band Spooky Tooth, was a friend and collaborator with George Harrison and played keyboards on one of his albums. He also wrote the song Love Is Alive. Perhaps most notably, he is credited with recording the first entirely synth album in 1975 that enjoyed broad success, The Dream Weaver.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/gary-wright-dream-weaver-dead-obituary-1234818058/

It's been a rough couple of weeks on the music industry!

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Page Summary

RIP: Another two computer pioneers, Gordon Bell and Robert Denard
RIP: Dick Rutan
RIP: Richard Tandy, keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra
RIP: Comedian Richard Lewis
RIP: Mojo Nixon
RIP: Dr. Dave Mills, 85
RIP: Prof. Peter Schickele, aged 88
RIP: Niklaus Wirth, 89
RIP: A comedy legend - Tom Smothers, 86
RIP: Laura Lynch, founding member of The Dixie Chicks
RIP: Norman Lear, a true television great
RIP: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 93
RIP: Shane MacGowan, lead singer of the Pogues, 65
At last, RIP: Henry Kissinger
RIP: Richard "Shaft" Roundtree, 81
RIP: Matthew Perry, aged 54!
RIP: Canadian Broadcast Corporation's time signal announcement, just shy of its 84th anniversary
RIP: Sir Michael Gambon, AKA Dumbledore 2
RIP: David McCallum, Man From UNCLE and NCIS
RIP: Gary Wright, "Dream Weaver"

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Entries tagged with rip

RIP: Another two computer pioneers, Gordon Bell and Robert Denard

RIP: Dick Rutan

RIP: Richard Tandy, keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra

RIP: Comedian Richard Lewis

RIP: Mojo Nixon

RIP: Dr. Dave Mills, 85

RIP: Prof. Peter Schickele, aged 88

RIP: Niklaus Wirth, 89

RIP: A comedy legend - Tom Smothers, 86

RIP: Laura Lynch, founding member of The Dixie Chicks

RIP: Norman Lear, a true television great

RIP: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 93

RIP: Shane MacGowan, lead singer of the Pogues, 65

At last, RIP: Henry Kissinger

RIP: Richard "Shaft" Roundtree, 81

RIP: Matthew Perry, aged 54!

RIP: Canadian Broadcast Corporation's time signal announcement, just shy of its 84th anniversary

RIP: Sir Michael Gambon, AKA Dumbledore 2

RIP: David McCallum, Man From UNCLE and NCIS

RIP: Gary Wright, "Dream Weaver"