Denro’s brother is living the radio DJ dream I lived for a while, but gave up, so long ago. He’s covering the overnight shift on MVY Radio, on Martha’s Vineyard. Yeah, the island off the Cape Cod shore where the Obamas have an expensive house, but without any top secret documents in the basement.
Monday night Rich played one of my very favorite “recent” (2010) tunes, and I didn’t even request it.
This one you can click (or tap).
This Bizarro comic strip last week got some people exchanging views, once again, about the validity of Roy Lichtenstein’s work.
In cartoonist Wayno’s blog he tells of his thinking behind the strip. (I’m amazed Google still hosts blogs.)
http://waynocartoons.blogspot.com/2022/08/copycat-crime.html
David Barsalou’s extensive research project, Deconstructing Roy Lichstenstein, reveals every one the comic book panels that were copied by Lichtenstein.
David and I were fortunate to have had Barbara Harris as our Art History instructor in college.
http://bostonvoyager.com/interview/check-barbara-harriss-artwork/
Jack Kirby was born on this day in 1917. The late-50’s comic strip Sky Masters of the Space Force was superbly illustrated by Jack, with perfectly complementary inking by Wally Wood. Note: Kirby/Wood refers to writer Dave Wood, not the unrelated Wally.
The last panel in that strip reminds me of the famous rocket sled tests performed by Dr. John Stapp.
Stapp’s groundbreaking Air Force work, testing the limits of human endurance under extreme conditions, was nothing like the ghoulishly criminal experiments conducted by the Nazis. Stapp was entirely practical in considering the effects of supersonic flight on pilots, and his data was invaluable when the manned space program began. The 3-point lap belt for cars came from Stapp’s research. The PBS series American Experience profiled Stapp in its “Space Men” documentary.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon on the left, and the guy on the right lives up the street.
Another fun fact: That WebP image is about 66 KB. This JPG image is about 155 KB.
I hadn’t used the SiriusXM PC application for a while, because it doesn’t support Chromecast. Launching it today, there was only a blank white window.
Okay, so the application is old, with the very surprising implication that it was created using a utility called Nativefier. And I’m supposed to re-create it myself with an updated version of Nativefier? Seriously?
https://sourceforge.net/projects/nativefier-project.mirror/
Returning to the Microsoft Store and checking the reviews, I see that others are complaining about the blank window.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/siriusxm/
Giving Nativefier a try sounds like fun, especially if Chromecast comes along for the ride. For now I’ll just run the SiriusXM player in Chrome.
On another techy note, I was notified the next WordPress update, to 6.1, will switch from JPG to Google’s new WebP image format. I’ve been experimenting with WebP, and the screenshot above is an example. With adjustment, a significant reduction in file size is possible compared to JPG, with comparable quality.
Everything with my WordPress installation on Bluehost is… uh… it’s working perfectly. There are some minor residual issues on older posts, resulting from the fixes implemented last December, but nothing since then. If ignorance is bliss, and there’s a problem ready to appear that I haven’t seen yet, considering the technology troubles I waded through getting to this point, I’ll enjoy my ignorance.
Glacier melting due to climate change has revealed the long-lost promotional film the Rolling Stones made for “We Love You” in 1967.
