I don’t think it’s a hijack to try to clear this up, the thread is not about just one subject, and each one is sometimes fleshed out.
The wiki recounts a long story of legal events, The part about the pardon comes long after he swindled European royalty and there is little detail. He previously avoided extradition through an appeal based on process. The wiki cites this without a link: " Kenworthy, E.W. (December 29, 1962). “Officials Silent on Factor Case”. The New York Times . p. 4."
Re:
In late 1962, Factor was scheduled to be deported to the United Kingdom but received a presidential pardon
My google-fu has let me down - I can’t find the detail of John Factor’s “pardon” of extradition. OK, so he wasn’t extradited, so something happened, and I’m certainly not an expert on US presidential pardons; but looking at the wiki page on pardons (hey, I said I’m no expert!) I have this definition:
A pardon is an executive order granting clemency for a conviction. (continues)
And looking at the wiki page on extradition I have:
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other’s law enforcement. (continues)
Which, so far as I can tell, isn’t a conviction, it’s an administrative procedure. So how can it be pardoned? At which point I’m stepping out of this, apologizing for the small hijack, and hoping that someone who is an expert can help me out.
j
The wiki has confused things. In 1962 Factor was pardoned to avoid deportation. That deportation was based on crimes he was convicted of in the US. Not for crimes committed elsewhere. The government was attempting to deport him because of those crimes. He was then pardoned for those crimes and thus could not be deported.
The wiki has confused earlier crimes he was charged with in other countries with the independent action of the US to attempt to deport him. The New York Times article may be found below. Might be paywalled.
Thanks - that’s helpful. The reference to citizenship in '63 makes sense now. So for many years his US convictions were a basis for removing him - to face British justice, as it happened - until they were pardoned.
(I did find that article, and you’re right - it’s paywalled.)
j
IIRC I was watching an old “I Love Lucy” and the end credits listed Max Factor. Until then, I thought it was a made-up product name, like it was the biggest (max) influence (factor) on becoming beautiful or something like that.
So I made this challenge for anyone who wants to take it. Which of these products are named for real people and which are fictional. Answers are spoilered. 12 possible…
Duncan Hines (cake mixes)
Betty Crocker (cake mixes)
Bartles & Jaymes (wine coolers)
Howard Johnson (restaurants, hotels)
Johnnie Walker (Scotch)
Juan Valdez (coffee)
Mrs. Butterworth (syrup)
Sara Lee (baked goods)
Chef Boyardee (canned Italian food)
Lorna Doone (shortbread cookies)
Marie Callender (pies)
Dr. Martens (shoes)
Answers
REAL-Duncan Hines: Wikipedia Duncan Hines was an American pioneer of restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name.
FICTIONAL-Betty Crocker: Wikipedia- Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was originally created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 following a contest in the Saturday Evening Post.
FICTIONAL-Bartles & Jaymes: Wikipedia-The product line is remembered for its folksy television commercials, created by Hal Riney, which ran from 1984 to 1991. Two older gentlemen characters, Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes, sat on a front porch and related their new discoveries or projects on which they were working. The characters were patterned after the winery’s founders, Ernest and Julio Gallo.
REAL-Howard Johnson: Wikipedia- Howard Johnson’s, or Howard Johnson by Wyndham,[4] is an American chain of hotels and motels located primarily throughout the United States. It was also a chain of restaurants for over 90 years and widely known for that alone. Founded by Howard Deering Johnson, it was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S. throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with more than 1,000 combined company-owned and franchised outlets.[5]
REAL-Johnnie Walker: Wikipedia- John Walker was born on 25 July 1805. His farmer father died in 1819, and the family sold the farm. Their trustees invested the proceeds, £417, in an Italian warehouse, grocery, and wine and spirits shop on the High Street in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland.
FICTIONAL-Juan Valdez Wikipedia-is a fictional character who has appeared in advertisements for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia since 1958, representing a Colombian coffee farmer. The advertisements were designed by the Doyle Dane Bernbach ad agency, with the goal of distinguishing 100%-Colombian coffee from coffee blended with beans from other countries.
REAL-Sara Lee-Baker Charles Lubin owned a small chain of Chicago bakeries in the early 20th century. Among his products was a cheesecake named after his young daughter, Sara Lee Lubin. He later changed the name of the business to Kitchens of Sara Lee, and when it was later acquired by the Consolidated Foods Corporation, it became one of the company’s leading brands. Based on that strength, Consolidated Foods adopted the name Sara Lee for the whole corporation. Sara Lee didn’t follow her father into the baking business, but instead has worked to encourage and support women working in science. Real or Fake: The Names Behind 12 Famous Food Brands | Mental FlossFICTIONAL-Mrs. Butterworth: As much as we wish there were a family of Butterworth’s out there running a syrup company, there just isn’t. The matronly talking syrup bottle was designed to evoke a homey hot-breakfast feeling by the Pinnacle Foods brand. The Real (And Not-So-Real) People Behind Your Favorite Food Brands
REAL-Chef Boyardee: The spelling is phonetic, but the man is indeed real. Ettore (Hector) Boiardi started working in the kitchen of New York’s famed Plaza Hotel after emigrating from Italy.The Real (And Not-So-Real) People Behind Your Favorite Food Brands
FICTIONAL-Lorna Doone. The shortbread cookie was most probably named after the main character in R.D. Blackmore’s 1869 novel Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor.
The Real (And Not-So-Real) People Behind Your Favorite Food Brands
REAL: Marie Callender. Marie was a real person, but she wasn’t involved in her namesake enterprise. In 1848, when he was 20 years old, Marie Callender’s son Don opened a wholesale bakery to make pies for restaurants. He named the business after his mother because he thought it sounded better. What a good boy.
The Real (And Not-So-Real) People Behind Your Favorite Food Brands
REAL-Dr. Martens-(Wikipedia) Klaus Märtens was a doctor in the German army during World War II. While on leave in 1945, he injured his ankle while skiing in the Bavarian Alps. He found that his standard-issue army boots were too uncomfortable on his injured foot. While recuperating, he designed improvements to the boots, with soft leather and air-padded soles made of tyres.[3] When the war ended and some Germans recovered valuables from their own cities, Märtens took leather from a cobbler’s shop. With that leather he made himself a pair of boots with air-cushioned soles.[4]
Over most of that route, scheduled services would have been faster (and magnitudes cheaper) than a private train.
If you were wealthy enough for a private car, what you did was run a private train out from your country estate, then hook the private car up to the scheduled service.
Given the location of the baseball grounds, the private train wouldn’t make sense at all – because of scheduling constraints a private train starting at some odd time would run slower and eventually be overtaken by a mail train.
Interesting random fact: American passenger rail was killed by airmail. When the trains lost the high-value mail contracts, fast passenger rail services became marginal, and were phased out.
The impending doom of your old Smart TV
Much of internet traffic, including streaming video and streaming audio, is authenticated/encrypted by information exchanged using public key systems and certificates. The certificates are typically valid for a limited time – days, months or years --, and are renewed as required. The certificates are validated/authenticated against root certificates which are typically valid ~ 25 years.
The root certificates are known by your phone, tablet, computer, smart device, or smart TV, and occasionally you may get an OS update which updates the Root Store. If not… well the root certificate used by your App may have been 20 years old when the app was first issued. Your root store may have contained a related certificate that was only 15 years old, enabling the an App update to switch certificates and continue working for another 5 years.
But not all root certificates are related, and, unless you get an OS update, eventually all of the certificates in your Root Store will age out. When that happens none of your streaming apps will work.
This affects your old Apple iPad: if it’s too slow for OS updates, it doesn’t get Root Store updates, and Apps start aging out.
But it particularly affects Smart TVs, because (1) they typically don’t get OS updates, and (2) they typically use network Apps. In theory, your brand-new TV could be good for 25 years, then none of the Apps work. In practice, it’s starting to happen right now, like the first couple of pop-corn kernels popping. Big streaming providers are putting in place temporary workarounds to stay on air, tiny providers are withdrawing support from old devices, stuff that was bought 10 years ago is approaching end-of-life.
Most digital stuff that was brought 10 years ago has already reached EOL anyway, particularly smart TVs. But this is a fun new way for your stuff to become inoperable, one that you probably hadn’t thought about.
True - the team could have a private car hooked on to a scheduled train. But having to depend on scheduled services after a long, extra-innings game could cause problems. There wasn’t once-an-hour service between LA and Chicago in the 1930’s or 1940’s (how many trips per day were available in those years?)
Most (all before the late 30’s) MLB games were day games - starting at 1 pm. 99% of the games would be over by 6 pm, so any evening departure would be convenient. Long night games (and daytime double-headers) would probably necessitate an overnight stay.
Back in the 50’s (and earlier), NHL teams used trains all the time - there was usually an overnight train running between any of the two cities (there were only six teams at the time - meaning a Boston-Chicago trip was the longest ride). I don’t know if the teams had private cars, or simply booked a whole car for the team.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this only applies to the TV’s built-in streaming apps, right? If (like me) you’re only using external streaming devices like Roku, Tivo, Firestick, etc., this shouldn’t be a problem. Or, worst case, you replace the $100 device instead of the $500-2500 TV.
Right?
I got a Panasonic smart TV in 2012, and it was immediately obvious how terrible the built-in apps were. I got an external Roku and have been using the TV as a monitor only, switching sources (Tivo, Roku, BD/DVD, computer) with a Yamaha AV receiver.
NASA has a launch site on VA coast. 16,000 launches there so far but no manned missions.
Wallops is fun. Unlike Canaveral, it’s real small and there are air arrival routes going into PHL & NYC that go directly over it at fairly low altitude. Lots of time to rubberneck at the facilities and occasionally a stacked rocket. Most of what gets launched out of there is not real big.
An interesting question is whether there’s any provision to update various TV’s firmware, either by a dongle or by network. Or even just to update the root certificate store and nothing else.
Any such capability is of course a door to malware, but could also be useful to the manufacturer if some model of TV is released and major bugs or incompatibilities are soon found that are leading to a customer service nightmare. Being able to “fix” the defective software in situ, might be a real benefit rather than needing to piss off 50K customers or have 50K TVs brought in to some service place to be updated in person. Which service place is exactly where in today’s electronics-are-disposable world?
That makes sense. Thanks for the info. I’ve always wondered at “Beef Vindaloo” as “Indian” cuisine, feeling that it was somehow…wrong.
Beef dishes are often found in Goa. There isn’t a nationwide prohibition on eating cattle in India, although it is considered socially unacceptable in many regions. I worked with an Indian from a place I can’t remember and his traditional diet back home had been a very limited set of vegetables. He wouldn’t have eaten the potatoes from a vegetarian version of vindaloo when he lived there. I never had a chance to get any more details about this, but other Indians here in the US looked upon his culture as something far out of the mainstream like perhaps the Amish here.
I’d assume that he was Jain. Strict followers don’t eat anything that grows beneath the ground as it disturbs animals that live in the soil. It is part of their belief system that all life is sacred.
One company plans to use NASA’s “chainmail” technology to make airless bicycle tires and – eventually – car tires.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90617436/this-company-wants-to-bring-nasas-airless-tires-to-your-bike
Another approach to that apparent conundrum is that “vindaloo” refers to a particular spiced sauce, potatoes, and {something chunky & protein-heavy}.
{Something} ranges from paneer to tofu to shrimp to fish to … to beef. Which particular protein is added is down to local tastes. In the local area of the USA beef is big; tofu not so much. In the local area of Indonesia I’d sooner expect to find fish and tofu vindaloos. In India, net of Goa ref above, it might more readily be Paneer, and some sort of lentil-based equivalent to tofu.
Having said that, as a USAian I’ve had lamb, paneer, & goat vindaloo but never tasted beef, pork, or chicken vindaloo. I’ve made tofu vindaloo at home, but overall paneer works better unless you’re out of paneer but not out of tofu.
For darn sure the details of almost any ethnic / foreign cuisine as sold and eaten in the USA says at least as much about our tastes and preferences as it does about the home country’s. cf. sugar-laden “Chinese” food, American style pizza, etc.
That sounds about right. There’s some chance I’ll see him again at a work conference if people start meeting face to face again. I’m retired but could attend some old work events after hours. I would like to ask him a bit more about it if I could. I do recall the part about not eating things that grow below the ground so that would rule out onions and garlic as well. Here in the US he is an ordinary vegetarian. He also had a very, very long name. He used shortened versions of two parts of his name to keep it down to 24 characters.
It’s only a little problem for you, but it’s a big problem for Roku, Tivo, Firestick etc 
And for Netflix and the Broadcast companies.
But yes. You expect digital electronics to stop working. But TVs? Us old folks expect TVs to work, then get moved downstairs, then to the spare room …
Yeah.
If the e.g. Roku I bought new last year wholly or partially quits next year because one of the root certs dates from 1998 I’m gonna be pissed. And not at CA or Thawte or whoever issued that now-aged root cert.
Roku sold me a device with a built in time bomb and I (and millions of other Americans) are not going to rest until we get a new functioning Roku for free. That way lies bankruptcy for Roku. Or whoever; I don’t mean to pick on them specifically.