COBOL rules, loosie eggs, dead cats
It's Thermos Bottle Day!
Information, essential and otherwise, for the day ahead.
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
The Trump/Musk firehose of folly continues, and it’s impossible to review all but the most egregious outrages here. The Associated Press, NBC, Aljazeera, and The Guardian are my masochistic picks for keeping up to date. Frankly, it’s a bit exhausting, but what the heck- knock yinzselves out.
If COBOL is so problematic, why does the US government still use it? If you've gotten cash from an ATM, you've interacted with a COBOL-based system. Here's why this old programming language will probably outlive us all.
Bronx bodegas are selling "loosie" eggs because of soaring prices.
21 DOGE staffers resign, saying they won't help 'dismantle' public services. In their resignation letter they note the firing of 40 of their co-workers last week "endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and Americans' data less safe."
There are six tropical storms in the Southern Hemisphere. Wonder what our hurricane season will look like this summer…
Good pop music or a dozen eggs for $3? You can only choose one.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day: Victor Hugo
“Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”
--Victor Hugo (Wikipedia link)
(More Victor Hugo quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Among other things, today is- in no particular order of importance-
KGB REPORT STUFF! (Click on link)
Quotes by or about persons born on this date (Click on link after name for quotes):
1564 – Christopher Marlowe, English playwright, poet and translator (d. 1593)
1802 – Victor Hugo, French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1885)
1852 – John Harvey Kellogg, American surgeon, co-created Corn flakes (d. 1943)
1916 – Jackie Gleason, American actor comedian (d. 1987)
1918 – Theodore Sturgeon, American author and critic (d. 1985)
1920 – Tony Randall, American actor, director, and producer (d. 2004)
1932 – Johnny Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2003)
Other birthdays:
1829 – Levi Strauss, German-American fashion designer, founded Levi Strauss & Co. (d. 1902)
1846 – Buffalo Bill, American soldier and hunter (d. 1917)
1866 – Herbert Henry Dow, Canadian-American businessman, founded the Dow Chemical Company (d. 1930)
1887 – William Frawley, American actor and vaudevillian (d. 1966)
1908 – Tex Avery, American animator, producer, and voice actor (d. 1980)
1928 – Fats Domino, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2017)
1945 – Marta Kristen, Norwegian-American actress
1945 – Mitch Ryder, American singer-songwriter
1947 – Sandie Shaw, English singer and psychotherapist
1953 – Michael Bolton, American singer-songwriter and actor
Commentewear! - Shirts with attitude On This Day:
1616 – Galileo Galilei was formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.
1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the island of Elba.
1909 – Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, was displayed.
1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, was launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation establishing Grand Canyon National Park.
1920 – German silent horror film classic "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" released.
1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation establishing Grand Teton National Park.
1935 – Robert Watson-Watt demonstrated a system that led to the development of radar.
1945 – World War II: US troops reclaimed the Philippine island of Corregidor from the Japanese.
1966 – Apollo program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.
1971 – U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signed United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
1983 Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album hit #1 and stayed #1 for 37 non-consecutive weeks, eventually becoming the best selling album of all time.
1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center exploded, killing six and injuring over a thousand people.
1995 – The UK's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapsed after a rogue securities broker Nick Leeson lost $1.4 billion.
1998 – Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen.
2012 –17-year-old African-American student Trayvon Martin was shot to death by neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.
2023 –Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams faced widespread condemnation for his comments about African Americans in a YouTube show, prompting his strip and up-coming book to be cancelled.
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KGB Quotations Database Search (KGB Quote-A-Matic)
DCL Dialog Online (an archive of my DCL Dialogue columns which appeared in DEC Professional (later renamed Digital Age) magazine from March, 1987 through December, 1995.)