Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

RIP: Dave Mason, 79

2026-04-22T03:19:55Z

If you're into older rock, Dave Mason is a name a name that you'll either recognize right off the bat or you won't. But when you hear the people whom he's worked with, and what he's done, then you start to wonder if you haven't heard of him.

Here's the first two paragraphs from the Variety obit:
"Dave Mason, solo artist, a founding member of the band Traffic, writer of the classic rock songs “Feelin’ Alright” and “Hole in My Shoe” and sideman to the Rolling Stones, George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix, has died, according to an announcement from his publicist. He was 79.

Mason was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the other original members of Traffic in 2004. In the 1970s he enjoyed solo hits with “Only You Know and I Know” and “We Just Disagree,” and over the years he also performed or recorded with David Crosby, Graham Nash, Michael Jackson, Cass Elliot, Leon Russell and others."

Let me repeat some of those names. A founding member of Traffic. The Rolling Stones. George Harrison. Jimi Hendrix (he played 12 string guitar on All Along The Watchtower). Crosby and Nash. Michael Jackson. Momma Cass. He also was a member of Fleetwood Mac. Feelin' Alright was not a hit for Traffic, but it pretty much launched Joe Cocker's career.

AND inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A singer, writer, and performer. Triple threat. Definitely a formidable and accomplished artist. Cause of death was not released, though two years ago he cancelled a tour due to unspecified heart issues.

A great one has taken his final bow.

https://variety.com/2026/music/obituaries-people-news/dave-mason-dead-traffic-feelin-alright-rock-hall-fame-1236727460/

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RIP: Chuck Norris, Nicholas Brendon, and Robert Mueller

2026-03-29T23:36:56Z

Two weeks ago saw some notable deaths. Starting with Walker, Texas Ranger.

Chuck Norris was admitted to a hospital in Hawaii with an undisclosed condition and passed away the next day. He was 86. Chuck was the real deal when it came to martial arts: he was a genuine fighter and invented his own style. He fought Bruce Lee in one movie and went on to starring in his own action series, becoming quite a viable icon on his own. Delta Force was one shoot-'em-up what was pretty big for him. Later he moved to television in Walker, Texas Ranger, slowing down his moves a bit as he aged.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/chuck-norris-dead-obituary

Nicholas Brendon, 54, to older fans, will always be Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, initially a slightly buffoonish character in the 'damsel in distress' role who gained some competency as the series went on. He had an identical twin who co-starred in one memorable episode. He had previously suffered a heart attack from a then-unknown heart condition, had several spinal surgeries for a congenital condition, and like many young actors, he was also known to have addiction problems which may have hastened his demise. He is the second Buffy actor to pass away after Michelle Trachtenberg (2025). Brendon also appeared in Criminal Minds, Without A Trace, and Private Practice.

https://gizmodo.com/buffy-star-nicholas-brendon-has-passed-away-at-age-54-2000736404

Robert Mueller. The former director of the FBI and a special prosecutor passed away at 81, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's four years earlier. He served in Vietnam and was wounded rescuing another soldier, earning a Bronze Star. He became a lawyer after leaving the military, ultimately joining the Justice department prosecuting homicides in DC. Later he was appointed to head the FBI by George W. Bush a week before the 9/11 attacks. He then shifted the focus of the FBI to fighting terrorism, an understandable reorientation considering the times, and left the Bureau in 2013.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein brought him back in 20917 as a special counsel to investigate the Russian involvement in the 2016 elections after the President fired the director, James Comey, and that's when the fun began. Mueller's final report on election interference did not exonerate President Trump, but he felt that it was not proper for criminal charges to be brought against a sitting President, that the Senate should fist remove him from office, then charges should be levied. Trump, of course, viewed the report as a full exoneration.

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/21/nx-s1-5755800/robert-s-mueller-iii-ex-fbi-director-who-led-2016-russia-inquiry-dead-at-81

Our "Beloved" President, the class act that he always is, said on a 'Truth' Social post minutes after Mueller's death was announced - direct quote - "Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!".

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/trump-rejoiced-i-m-glad-he-s-dead-just-minutes-after-it-was-announced-robert-mueller-had-died/ar-AA1Z8lVW

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RIP: The CIA World Factbook

2026-02-06T16:42:12Z

The internal classified version was started in 1962 as The National Basic Intelligence Factbook. It was a resource that gave you very detailed information about countries around the world: form of government, economic information, population and make-up, etc. Very useful information. It went public in 1971 as the World Factbook and later joined the World Wide Web in 1997 in an unclassified version. It was available between '71 and '97 in print form and on CD.

And now it's gone. Any page for any country that you may have had linked now redirects to the closure notice. Everything's now inaccessible. Of course, you can still look into it via archive.org, but the information was updated regularly when the site was live, and it will now grow increasingly stale.

No reason given. The CIA was subject to the same chainsaw-trimming that most other government agencies were given courtesy of DOGE and the Muskbrats. We also have the intense administration's dislike of facts. Either or both could have contributed to its demise.

But with a little luck, in a possibly truthier future, it could be resurrected. There's no doubt that the CIA found the resource useful, so it may again become available to the public in a better tomorrow.

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-cia-stops-publishing-the-world-factbook-184419024.html

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/spotlighting-the-world-factbook-as-we-bid-a-fond-farewell/

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/05/187252/cia-has-killed-off-the-world-factbook-after-six-decades

EDIT: added Slashdot link.

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Well, I buried my brother Rick yesterday

2025-12-24T16:45:36Z

The weird thing was how tremendously relieved I was after it was over! My voice recovered almost immediately - I didn't lose it, it just dropped an octave or so - and my energy came back almost entirely. My back is still massively sore, but that's another matter entirely. I think perhaps that I began mourning him as soon as he entered ICU and that I didn't realize it.

This evening, after stopping at an old friend's open house/party on the way out of town, I heard to Tucson to spend the night. It's maybe a quarter of the way or so to Cloudcroft. And the hotel is past the downtown area, makes it much easier getting out of Tucson - not that it's that difficult, especially given the much lighter Christmas Day driving.

The funeral went well, with one massive surprise. I expect my cousin Ron - who is a preacher - to give a little talk. And instead I ended up giving an extemporaneous eulogy for 20 minutes which went very, very well. I kinda wish it was recorded. I received several compliments on it.

Maybe me delivering the eulogy is part of the relief.

So today I'm off to the U-Haul where I'm storing his truck and camper trailer, I have to move it, also a woman is coming by to inspect it, she's interested in buying it. Can't do the inspection until 30 days after he dies, at that point it can be re-titled. After that I have some errands, then back to where I'm staying to finish packing, get some more rest then head out.

Far too much fun.

I will leave you with this. We wanted a poem for the little handout pamphlet for the grave-side service, and Russet and I didn't like any of the canned ones that the funeral home had available. She started surfing on her phone for ones written by or about gold miners/mining and found an absolutely perfect one! We dropped the third verse and cut down on the fourth and ended up with this. It does a very good job of encapsulating a lot about my brother:

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
    And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,
    And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
    And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
    They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
    And they want the strange and new.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,
    Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
    In the glare of the truth at last.

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
    He's a man who won't fit in.

-Robert W. Service (condensed)

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RIP: Steve Cropper, a Blues Brother and master session musician

2025-12-04T01:56:37Z

Steve passed at 84, no announced cause. He was a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who co-wrote Green Onions, In The Midnight Hour, and (Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay! Now THAT is some talent! He appeared in both Blues Brothers movies. Most importantly, he was the founding guitarist of the Stax label house band during their prime, also playing on Sam & Dave's Soul Man, later covered by the Blues Brothers.

Rolling Stone placed him at #45 in the 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time!

The linked article includes a live studio performance of a shorter version of Booker T and the MG's Green Onions, an absolute classic! It is a little disturbing in that the audience is just sitting there... :-) I'm kind of amazed that Green Onions is just a quartet!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/steve-cropper-booker-t-mg-stax-records-guitarist-dead-1235477205/

This video is pretty good and very interesting!

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RIP Dick Cheney, 84

2025-11-04T16:08:12Z

Or should that be good riddance to bad rubbish? Depends on your voting preferences perhaps. Well, mine are fairly well known.

He died from "...complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease." He had already had one heart transplant in 2012 after a long history of cardiovascular disease.

Aside from masterminding the 2003 war in Iraq with no solid basis in facts, Cheney served as an aide to Richard Nixon, stayed as deputy White House chief of staff under Gerald Ford, then Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush with a unanimous Senate vote of 92-0. He also served six terms as a House member rising to become minority party whip.

I will say some good things about him, surprisingly:
-He softened his views on LGBTQ issues when one of his daughters came out
-He voted for Harris in the 2024 election
-He absolutely loathed our current president, stating “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said.

“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it. He knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know.”

Amusingly, starting yesterday the Doonesbury reruns on the Washington Post web site began the series of a Walden reunion where the returning grads are dividing themselves in the tent between pro- and anti- Bush supporters. Rather ironic timing.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/04/politics/dick-cheney-death-obit

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RIP: Hulu! The streaming service goes dark at the end of the year.

2025-10-09T16:24:11Z

Disney is shuttering Hulu. They're migrating its content to Disney Star, which is apparently its home for more adult-themed content.

Hulu began almost twenty years ago in 2007 as one of the older streaming services. But, of course, Disney can't leave good enough alone and has got to absorb it into its own branding. We began watching Hulu a while back with Only Murders In The Building and a couple of other shows, but we haven't been watching much in the way of television of late. I've been wanting to cut down on our streaming subscriptions, and ABC/Disney cancelling Kimmel was a good excuse. Their bringing him back wasn't nearly enough for me to consider paying again for a service that we don't watch enough.

https://www.pennlive.com/life/2025/10/disney-to-officially-shut-down-hulu-after-20-years.html

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RIP: Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, aged 91

2025-10-01T20:16:25Z

The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed her death earlier today of natural causes, she was on a speaking tour in California.

What an amazing life and career! She never attended university, instead she completed secretarial school and did odd jobs in London until she visited a friend's family farm in Kenya in 1956. While there, she met archeologist Louis Leakey, who hired her as an assistant and secretary. He had been interested in sending a researcher to study wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and assigned Jane the task in 1960.

Three months into her observations, she saw one "stick a long grass stem into a termite mound, withdraw it, and eat what he’d pulled out.

“It was so obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool,” Goodall wrote.

When she cabled Leakey about the discovery, he famously wrote back: “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Because of this and other significant findings, she was admitted into the doctoral program at Cambridge in 1961 despite not having an undergraduate degree.

Amongst her honors were "the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a dame of the British empire."

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jane-goodall-dead-obituary-1235439125/

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RIP: Robert Redford, aged 89

2025-09-16T13:21:02Z

What a career! I think the first thing that I remember him from was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but he did so many things! Amongst them: The Way We Were, Electric Horseman, Ordinary People, Out of Africa, Sneakers, Quiz Show, and two Avengers/MCU movies - Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Not to mention starting the Sundance Film Festival!

In his early television days, as so many actors did, he did a lot of episodic work, including: Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Maverick, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, The Virginian, etc. He also did stage work.

And the awards! From Wikipedia: "an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014."

An amazing career and quite a legacy of work left for us.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/robert-redford-actor-director-dead-obituary-1234810387/

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Forthcoming RIP: the Typepad blogging service

2025-08-28T19:34:02Z

At the end of September, Typepad goes dark. And with it, all of the blogs that have been accumulated over the last 22 years.

Interestingly, their front page has buttons for Start Now and Pricing & Sign Up, but they stopped taking new accounts several years ago while reassuring then-current users that the service would continue on. At least until the end of September.

Their Need Help? page has info about the shutdown, including refunds for people who have paid beyond the shutdown date and information on exporting your blog.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/one-time-wordpress-competitor-typepad-ends-its-slide-into-obscurity-by-shutting-down/

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Zod kneels before the Phantom Zone one final time. RIP Terence Stamp, 87.

2025-08-17T22:22:47Z

Terence Stamp was a notable actor who made his mark in many, many films. The first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeves, Star Wars Episode 1, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, His Dark Materials. Other work included a Federico Fellini film of an Edgar Allen Poe story, various voice work, Modesty Blaise, Young Guns, Bowfinger, Wanted, the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie, The Adjustment Bureau, Miss Peregrin's Home For Peculiar Children, and more. His final film was Last Night In Soho (2021).

THREE volumes of memoirs, a novel, and a cookbook were also amongst his accomplishments. His voiceover work included Elder Scrolls IV, Halo 3, documentary voiceover work, and music video appearances. He shared a house with Michael Caine before they both made it big! His brother, Chris, was a rock music producer and manager and was largely responsible for bring The Who to prominence! That's more of an interesting footnote since Terence probably didn't directly have an effect on that event. OR DID HE?

Among his awards and nominations were a Golden Globe Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and a Silver Bear (German) as well as nominations for an Academy Award and two BAFTA Awards.

He was a busy man.

https://gizmodo.com/superman-and-star-wars-actor-terence-stamp-dies-at-age-87-2000644162

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RIP: Two musical legends, Chuck Mangione and Tom Lehrer

2025-07-28T04:54:26Z

Chuck was 84 and passed away in his sleep. The Grammy-winning jazz-man was best known for two numbers, Feels So Good and Bellavia, the latter named after his mother. Feels So Good spent 25 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at #4! Mangione also "composed and performed “Give it All You Got,” which was the theme song for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York."

An excellent career. He passed away in his sleep on July 22 at the age of 84. While it may have happened, I never heard of him having any problems with drugs or the law.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/24/entertainment/chuck-mangione-death

Tom Lerher had an amazing life. He was a math prodigy and entered Harvard at the age of 15, completing his Masters at 18. He did not complete his doctorate, preferring to remain a grad student. He taught at various universities throughout his career, mainly settling in Santa Cruz, CA. But he was also an amazing musical political satirist with a very sharp POV. His music career was fairly short, lasting from the '50s through the early '70s, his music remains tremendously popular even though he wrote only 37 songs over 20 years and made only 109 public performances.

He also composed music for The Electric Company and for This Was The Week That Was.

He passed away Saturday at the age of 97. His friend who announced his death 'did not disclose the cause'. I find this an utterly ridiculous statement - LERHER WAS NINTEY-SEVEN! HE WAS BLOODY OLD AND HIS BODY WAS KIND OF TIRED OF KEEPING HIM ALIVE!

One brilliant thing that Lehrer did a few years ago, and I posted about it here, was that he released all of his music to the public domain! Recordings, lyrics, everything! All of it released for the enjoyment of all, forever. I thought it was a truly magnanimous gesture.

I had heard that he said that he stopped making music when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, saying 'There's nothing left to parody.' I don't know if that's true.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/27/entertainment/tom-lehrer-death

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/07/27/2347205/tom-lehrer-satirical-songwriter-and-mathematician-dies-at-age-97

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RIP: OZZY OSBOURNE!

2025-07-22T20:10:26Z

Literally just a couple of weeks after his farewell blowout in London, Ozzy passed away last night, cause of death not disclosed, possibly not yet known. He suffered from Parkinson's, not to mention injuries from a late-night fall suffered not long ago and compounded from an extensive history of drug and alcohol use. He was 76.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ozzy-osbourne-dead_n_58d28a9fe4b0f838c62e57fd

The RS article may be behind a paywall:
www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-dead-obituary-1227265/

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RIP: Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys, aged 82

2025-06-12T04:36:23Z

Brian was the last of the three Wilson brothers, Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis drums. The other two members of the Beach Boys, Mike Love - a cousin - and Al Jardine, are still alive.

Brian has been in a medical conservatorship for the last year. Trouble with alcohol and drugs probably accelerated things. He met his last wife at a car dealership where she was working, which began a chapter where it was found that Wilson's psychiatrist was exploiting him and his finances, eventually resulting in a restraining order. When his wife died, Wilson entered into a decline, finally culminating in the conservatorship.

There's so much that can be said about The Beach Boys and their influence on music and various groups and musicians, and their being a core for surf/beach music in the '60s. I spent a few hours tonight revising a bunch of my Beach Boys music for my band in Lord of the Rings Online and adding some more songs to my catalog, I think I'll be performing them tomorrow night in an impromptu concert as I need to do some testing on my band as I've been having some system problems.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/brian-wilson-beach-boys-dead-1234810073/

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-beach-boys-visionary-165711806.html

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RIP: VAL KILMER?!

2025-04-02T04:49:38Z

Aged 65. He had been diagnosed with throat cancer a decade ago, but had reportedly recovered from that. Pneumonia did him in, which is normally fairly treatable, says the man who is immune-compromised and had it five times in seven months in his late 40s.

He did a lot of very good work, definitely a career cut short.

This obit is rather short as a Rolling Stone Breaking News arrived in my email only half an hour ago.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/val-kilmer-dead-obit_n_67ecb4d4e4b0923ef8b48f70

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RIP: NaNoWriMo, 25 years of service

2025-04-01T21:50:03Z

National Novel Writing Month, held in November, has thrown in the towel and is no more. They put forth the challenge of writing 50,000 words in that month and offered a word count tool to measure your progress and awarded badges for the accomplishment.

However, the last few years have been turbulent, a questionable sponsor came on-board and then a flirtation with AI with a very dubious endorsement by the organization caused a large boycott last year. A general downturn in arts sponsorship over the years, and now no NaNo.

It's possible someone else will come up with a new name and organization, if so, we can only hope they adhere to a stronger code of ethics.

https://gizmodo.com/longtime-writing-community-nanowrimo-shuts-down-after-ai-drama-2000583619

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Official cause of death for Gene Hackman and his wife released

2025-03-07T21:35:02Z

The Santa Fe county coroner released the report today revealing what happened, and it's pretty sad.

Both deaths were from natural causes. The first death, his wife, Betty Arakawa, died on February 11 of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. Hantavirus is not very common outside of northern New Mexico and Arizona, it's spread by Eastern Deer Mice feces and saliva and can cause an asymptomatic infection. Gene passed away on the 18th from heart disease and advanced Alzheimer's. Reportedly his pacemaker logged his heart stopping. Could be the heart disease, could be Broken Heart Syndrome from his wife dying, or perhaps malnutrition of not feeding himself after she died? The advanced Alzheimers could account for him not calling for help.

No foul play is suspected but the investigation is continuing.

Very tragic.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/gene-hackman-cause-of-death-revealed-1235281821/

EDIT to add non-paywalled source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gene-hackman-betsy-arakawa-cause-of-death_n_67c9ea6ce4b0404dff30062e

To read Rolling Stone articles and avoid paywalls, open a private browsing window. Normally on PCs this will be a Ctrl-Shift-N. You can also install the Epic browser which focuses on user privacy and does not maintain cookies.

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RIP: Gene Hackman, 95

2025-02-27T15:39:39Z

Wow. Now, 95 is an extremely respectable age, but this is a weird one, and I'm just going to quote the Rolling Stone article:

"The actor, his wife of 34 years, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wednesday, according to Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza. A cause of death was not immediately available, though authorities confirmed there was no indication of foul play.

So I'm guessing either suicide(s) or probably gas leak, the latter being the cause of death of Weird Al Yankovic's parents a few years ago. Pretty tragic, it happened while he was on tour - and he kept the tour going and completed it, but stopped all press interviews after the shows.

His career was just too long and storied to sum up. His first Oscar nomination was playing Clyde's older brother Buck in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), his first win was 1971's The French Connection. The Poseidon Adventure, Superman and Superman II as Lex Luthor, Reds, Mississippi Burning, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the list goes on. For awards: five Oscar nominations (two wins), three Golden Globes (as well as a Cecil B. DeMille Award), and two BAFTAs.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/gene-hackman-obituary-1234810413/

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RIP: Michelle Trachtenberg, aged 39

2025-02-26T20:11:03Z

Michelle was found in her New York City apartment unresponsive. No cause of death has been announced. For a 39 year old, she has been an actor for 36 of those years! Perhaps most famously for Gossip Girl and Harriet The Spy, for me she will always be Dawn Summers, Buffy's kid sister in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember the utter shock of the reveal that *BOOM* Buffy has a sister? It was an amazing twist in a great TV series, and she was fantastic in that show. It's additionally sad as it's entirely possible that Buffy may be seeing a relaunch with Sarah Michelle Geller coming up: talks are in progress with a good producer, not Joss Wheden.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/michelle-trachtenberg-dead-obituary-1235280880/

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RIP: David Lynch, 78: iconic film maker

2025-01-16T20:38:07Z

David Lynch passed away today, no cause of death given but it was known he suffered from severe emphysema from years of smoking.

Lynch is best known for bringing us such iconic films as Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, and the Twin Peaks TV series. He also made the first film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, which was quite the spectacle though a miserable box office flop.

The Rolling Stone obit is a very interesting read. He wasn't really my cup of chai, but he was a rather revolutionary film maker and I can respect that even if his films weren't my thing.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/david-lynch-lynch-dead-obituary-1235238117/

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RIP: President Jimmy Carter, age 100

2024-12-30T01:57:03Z

His hospice stay has finally ended after over a year.

He had a rough time with his presidency, having an oil crisis and the Iranian hostage situation. The latter was further complicated with the incoming Reagan presidency meddling in that affair so that the hostages would not be released under his watch, which could have resulted in his re-election. Interesting thing to posit what situation the country would have been in subsequent years had Reagan/Reaganomics not come into power.

He was also one of three sitting Presidents to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, subsequently President Obama was awarded it.

Subsequent to his term in office, President Carter had a very successful post-election career with his non-profit Carter Foundation, doing election monitoring internationally and working to worked to eradicate the Guinea worm, which has been hugely successful. With his wife, they worked tireless building homes with Habitat For Humanity.

I would rate him as perhaps the most publicly vigorous and useful post-term presidency that we have yet seen. Interestingly, aside from a few books, he really didn't monetize his presidency and continued living a very modest life. A humble and modest man who has gone on to a very well-earned peaceful rest.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jimmy-carter-dead-obituary-794884/

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RIP: Thomas Kurtz, 96: co-inventor of the BASIC programming language

2024-11-20T17:32:41Z

Hard to imagine what programming would be like without his contribution to programming languages!

"Kurtz began teaching at Dartmouth upon receiving his PhD. After a few years, he and fellow professor John Kemeny developed the original version of the Dartmouth Timesharing System (DTSS), a method of sharing computer access across a network and a requirement for allowing multiple students access to BASIC."

At the time, there were only professional programming languages, such as assembler, possibly Fortran and RPG, available. They wanted to open the world of computers to students who weren't mathematicians or computer scientists to see what they could learn.

And boy, did they ever!

https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/11/20/0528224/thomas-e-kurtz-co-inventor-of-basic-dies-at-96

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RIP: Elwood Edwards, a day short of 75

2024-11-18T20:07:19Z

Elwood was a camera operator and jack of all trades at WKYC TV channel 3 in Cleveland, Ohio and a fanatic at catching typos.

A pretty anonymous guy. Except for one thing.

Years ago, he was paid $200 to record a few phrases.

"You've got mail!"

He was the voice of AOL's recorded phrases.

A little piece of computer trivia and history has left the planet.

If you scroll down the page, he appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and did several phrases for them.

https://www.wkyc.com/article/life/people/elwood-edwards-wkyc-employee-voice-aol-youve-got-mail-greeting-dies-74/95-940b6ed4-b90b-4c4c-b0d5-6c57fddb6546

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Much belated RIP: Melanie, 76

2024-11-09T02:35:47Z

Melanie, also known as Melanie Safka, was a singer/song writer/musician in the folk, pop, and country genres.

From her Wikipedia page: "Melanie is widely known for the 1971–72 global hit "Brand New Key"; her 1970 version of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday"; her composition "What Have They Done to My Song Ma"; and her 1970 international breakthrough hit "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)", which was inspired by her experience of performing at the 1969 Woodstock music festival.[3][4]"

She passed away early this year on January 23 of an unspecified illness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_(singer)

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RIP: Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead co-founder and bassist, 84

2024-10-25T22:19:15Z

Phil was an eclectic one, classically trained. Jerry Garcia handed him a bass and invited him to play with the band that would become the Dead. He'd never played a bass before, but jumped in, playing it like a low guitar.

After Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995 and the dissolving of the Grateful Dead, Lesh continued performing and recording, sometimes with former Dead members.

In 2015 it was reported that he'd contracted bladder cancer after having survived a liver transplant in 1998 from an old Hep-C infection. He and his wife of 40 years Jill opened a restaurant in California where their sons performed as the house band, Phil would join them for Grateful Dead song nights.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/phil-lesh-grateful-dead-dead-1234809976/

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