Into the Night (1985) with Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer and Classic LAX

Into the Night is a 1985 John Landis film that features iconic Los Angeles locations in various key sequences. My favorite is the climax / end of the movie that takes place somewhere in LAX in one of the walkway terminals with a great mosaic. Now destroyed by the tendency in Los Angeles to destroy famous landmarks.  

Or maybe not.  Apparently some number of the mosaics and their tunnels still exist.  It is not clear to me, at least, whether they are open to the public.

David Bowie has a cameo as an assassin.  

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089346/

Better Watch Out, Greenland!

Better watch out, Greenland!  You had better stop sending drugs to America!  GOD has sent the Great One to make America great again!

Watch Out, Canada! You're Next!

Watch out, Canada!  Better stop sending violent drug-crazed immigrants to America!  GOD has sent Donald Trump, the Great One, to make America great again!  You could be next unless you do exactly what you are told!

Comforting News from Justice Roberts

In the new year, with the United States a fascist dictatorship, our supreme court justice took the time to send comforting news.

He said that the constitution was in good condition and there was nothing to worry about because we had a great leader, one appointed by God, and it was up to us to follow his leadership faithfully and America would be great again!

Symbolics Related on the Internet Archive

Tom McMahon is uploading a variety of historical documents to the Internet Archive.  The links here are to those which are Symbolics related.

From the LA Daily News, an article about Henry Baker

https://archive.org/details/symbolics-has-a-way-with-computers-henry-baker

The cover of the Symbolics World News of May 1985

https://archive.org/details/symbolics-world-news-may-1985

Credits for Stanley & Stella in Breaking the Ice

https://archive.org/details/stanley-and-stella-breaking-the-ice-credits-06

Bernie Greenberg's Advice About Email on the Internet Archive

Tom McMahon is putting various historical documents on the Internet Archive.  For technical reasons, the search engines, whose services we must all use, do not search that corner of the internet, so we are putting a reference here in the hope that they will notice this url and add it to their all seeing, all knowing database.

This particular document is Bernie Greenberg's famous discussion of email.

https://archive.org/details/bsg-a-guide-for-sending-email-part-i-april-11-1984

It is also very short, two pages, which I have included below.

White Papers from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center on the Internet Archive

Tom McMahon is putting a variety of historical materials on the Internet Archive where it may, perhaps, survive the collapse of our civilization.  For a variety of technical reasons, it seems that the search engines do not crawl that corner of the Internet universe and so this is an experiment to see if we cant use my blog to add these documents to the larger collective unconscious. 

This particular collection is of white papers from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  Many years ago, when I was probably working at the RAND Corporation, I saw my first Alto.  You can not imagine what an impact it had on me.  This is the future, I thought to myself.  As it turns out, the hardware and the software that they conceived is everywhere, but the idealism and intelligence which lay behind it got lost in the mad rush to steal the ideas by Apple and the others.  

Find the white papers, courtesy of Tom McMahon, here on the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/alto-a-personal-computer-xerox-parc-august-7th-1979-copy

At UNC, the Robotic Doggy

I visited UNC Chapel Hill and in their robotics lab there was a Boston Dynamics "doggy" named Spot.  The graduate student working on it was working to turn it into a rescue dog using an Nvidia Jetson which would be on top.  The doggy was spectacular.

Air Pollution, Los Angeles, Climate Change, the Trump Administration

 

Its worth noting that when the Trump administration destroys a major diplomatic effort to *begin* to deal with the pollution from container ships, that they are deliberately affecting the health of everyone in Los Angeles.  Google AI informs me that:

The twin Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the single largest source of air pollution in Southern California, responsible for a significant portion of regional emissions. They contribute over 10% of fine particulate matter (\(PM_{2.5}\)) and nearly a third of nitrogen oxide (\(NO_{x}\)) emissions in the basin, which are major components of smog. \(NO_{x}\) emissions: The ports are responsible for approximately 10% of the region's total nitrogen oxide emissions. In 2021, spikes in pollution were observed due to congestion, with ships idling offshore.\(PM_{2.5}\) emissions: The ports contribute over 10% of the region's fine particulate matter, a pollutant linked to significant health risks. Cancer risk: Diesel exhaust from the ports accounts for more than two-thirds of the cancer risk from air pollution in the Los Angeles basin. Impact: The combined emissions from the ports rival the daily emissions from all 6 million cars in the region.

Halloween 2025

Valerio Street got at least 30 separate groups, perhaps an average of 3 per group.  I dont know how young the youngest was, but she was very cute and very, very young.