Criminal law, Society

Teens Beat To Death 81-Year-Old Man Attending Granddaughter’s Wedding

This is one of the saddest stories of the year. George Leroy Baker III, 81, left Tempe, Arizona to celebrate his granddaughter’s wedding in Lynchburg, Virginia. Walking across the street to a diner from his hotel, some teens allegedly beat him to death for fun.

The three teenagers were walking down the street when one allegedly said he would beat the first person he met — to impress a girl. Baker walked right into the dare and died for it.

The teens included two 16-year-olds and a thirteen-year-old. They have been charged with murder but their names have been withheld.

Baker appears to have been a wonderful father and his family must now deal with this tragedy at what should have been one of the happiest times for the family.

Source: AZ Family

Jonathan Turley

600 thoughts on “Teens Beat To Death 81-Year-Old Man Attending Granddaughter’s Wedding”

  1. Blouise, Thanks for whatever I could accurately provide, Slarti’s corrections to my postings are the real deal though. I looked for vids that would provide a proper introduction, UTube has dozens of fractal vids but I wanted something pretty that would provide a context. I’m really happy you like the ones I chose.

    One of the neat things about the result of zooming is you find many tiny areas that posses symmetry and if you pick a nice color scheme and cycle the colors (outward or inward) it acts like a geometric mandala. Really, really nice and restful effect. There are some UTube vids showing that function also.

    I wasted a lot of time wasted, listening to Pink Floyd or other trance-like music, mesmerized by my newly generated mandala. It was a nice way to prepare for going to sleep and kind of meditative. Good times. 🙂

  2. Blouise,

    The video is a reasonable layman’s explanation of fractals – if you can install a version of fractint on your computer (it’s a pretty small program) it’s fun to play with.

    ^..^ * (many),

    Thanks for bringing this up – after downloading a bunch of fractal generators I got to thinking about fractal dimension and how I can use it and realized that by computing the dimension of the orbits of my model in phase space I might be able to come up with a synchronization metric – something very helpful for a paper I’m working on…

    Unfortunately, I have to nitpick a bit on your comment to Blouise:

    ^..^ * (many) said:

    Blouise, The basis of fractal art is the Mandelbrot Set (Google for the definition- it’s serious math) but the important part of the description is this: “When computed and graphed on the complex plane the Mandelbrot set is seen to have an elaborate boundary which, being a fractal, DOES NOT SIMPLIFY at any given magnification.” (Emphasis mine)

    What’s more, the Mandelbrot set is ‘self-similar’ which means that approximate copies of the whole thing can be found inside the original at any scale, no matter how small. The boundary of the set (the border of the black area in the middle), while being a closed curve, is infinitely long. The easiest way that I know of to think of this is to imagine measuring a coastline. If you use a ruler that is a kilometer long you will get one number, but if you use a shorter and shorter ruler the length you measure will increase. For the Mandelbrot set, if you measure its boundary with an infinitesimally small ruler, you will get a length of infinity.

    Various programs let you zoom into any point of the Mandelbrot Set and manipulate the image using color and various rendering options. Other programs and options in some programs allow you to transform the image into 3D shapes and landscapes. Save the image and viola’, trippy math art.

    I would just add that the Mandelbrot set is just the beginning of trippy math art…

    The programs aren’t large but the computation of the image can use a lot of computing power since the image is a graphic representation of an iteration of a mathematical equation, the ‘deeper’ you zoom the higher the iteration of the equation generating that point, literally millions/billions of iterations:

    No. Generally, as you zoom in you don’t change the maximum number of iterations. The problem is that as you zoom in, you need to be able to do more and more accurate calculations leaving you with a tradeoff – accuracy of calculation and hence the level of detail vs. computational time. Just for an example, one of the programs I downloaded today reached it’s limit around 140x magnification. Another one allows for setting the number of digits of accuracy in the computations so you can explicitly make the choice.

    “Iteration in mathematics may refer to the process of iterating a function i.e. applying a function repeatedly, using the output from one iteration as the input to the next. Iteration of apparently simple functions can produce complex behaviours and difficult problems [If I felt like editing Wikipedia, I would remove ‘and difficult problems’ here – the key point is that simple functions produce complex behaviors.]– for examples,…” Wikipedia

    Contemporary computers make generating images pretty fast. Google “Fractal” and go to any site and check out the ‘gallery’ for examples of what is being done.

    On my old Apple II+ it took a program I wrote on the order of an hour to produce an image of the Mandelbrot set – my current computer can produce a much higher resolution image in less than a second.

    AND there are a lot of different basic equations (‘sets’ I believe they’re called [‘Equations’ is the correct term.]) for generating fractals and one can tinker with those basic equations, one is not limited to the Mandelbrot set. Yu can see the potential to spend much of ones (life) time ensconced in the basement, generating images 🙂

    The two basic types of sets are the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets (given an equation, there is one Mandelbrot set and infinitely many Julia sets). Mandelbrot set is like a map to the Julia sets – there is a different Julia set associated with each point in the plane and where that point lies in relation to the Mandelbrot set determines characteristics of the Julia set. For instance the Julia sets associated with points inside the Mandelbrot set are connected (all one piece) while those associated with points outside the Mandelbrot set are made up of an infinite number of pieces. The standard Mandelbrot and Julia sets you see are based on the equation z -> z^2 + c. Using another equation in its place will get you a different Mandelbrot set and infinitely many more Julia sets.

    I hope this brief explanation was helpful. Once it get beyond this explanation I start getting confused. 🙂

    I hope that my elaborations and corrections were helpful as well – and if there’s anything you’d like me to try to explain, just ask… this is one of my favorite areas of mathematics.

    I should mention that the fractal in my gravatar is neither a Julia Set or a Mandelbrot set, but a different kind of fractal that comes from using Newton’s method to find the roots of an equation (in this case the characteristic equation of my model of two coupled nephrons). Well, I’ve got to go and write code to compute fractal dimension…

  3. Lottakatz,

    WOW!! I’m glad I checked in before going to bed. That is absolutely fantastic … I even started to experience a bit of motion sickness but never mind that … I’ve been hearing about Fractal Music for a long time but never really grasped the concept of “Pink Noise” … the younger kids know all about it and create some unbelievable things … I’ve been to “concerts” which are really more like exhibits but never really been able to grab anyone and sit them down and say, “Explain how you created this to me.”

    Imagine learning about Fractal Art and Music on a legal blog!

    Okay, I did some cut and paste so I can study this off the blog site. Thank you so much. I can’t wait for tomorrow to get started!

    I bet I’m going to have to get a Mac before all this is done … I’ll just tell my husband it’s your fault.

    Seriously, thank you!

  4. Blouise, The basis of fractal art is the Mandelbrot Set (Google for the definition- it’s serious math) but the important part of the description is this: “When computed and graphed on the complex plane the Mandelbrot set is seen to have an elaborate boundary which, being a fractal, DOES NOT SIMPLIFY at any given magnification.” (Emphasis mine)

    Various programs let you zoom into any point of the Mandelbrot Set and manipulate the image using color and various rendering options. Other programs and options in some programs allow you to transform the image into 3D shapes and landscapes. Save the image and viola’, trippy math art.

    The programs aren’t large but the computation of the image can use a lot of computing power since the image is a graphic representation of an iteration of a mathematical equation, the ‘deeper’ you zoom the higher the iteration of the equation generating that point, literally millions/billions of iterations:

    “Iteration in mathematics may refer to the process of iterating a function i.e. applying a function repeatedly, using the output from one iteration as the input to the next. Iteration of apparently simple functions can produce complex behaviours and difficult problems – for examples,…” Wikipedia

    Contemporary computers make generating images pretty fast. Google “Fractal” and go to any site and check out the ‘gallery’ for examples of what is being done.

    AND there are a lot of different basic equations (‘sets’ I believe they’re called) for generating fractals and one can tinker with those basic equations, one is not limited to the Mandelbrot set. Yu can see the potential to spend much of ones (life) time ensconced in the basement, generating images 🙂

    I hope this brief explanation was helpful. Once it get beyond this explanation I start getting confused. 🙂

    Not sure if this will load- its HD. A deep zoom from the Mandelbrot Set.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foxD6ZQlnlU&fs=1&hl=en_US]

  5. Blouise, the explanation of what a fractal is in this video is in great part word for word from Wikipedia so I thought this would be a good vid to post by way of example:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFcya99hHM&fs=1&hl=en_US]

  6. W=^. .^, I went to the Fractint site to d/l their latest version of Fractint DOS and many of the links are dead- I d/l’d it from a mirror site though:

    http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/getting.html

    One of these 3 programs- Frain200 (FractintDOS), Winfract or Mandelbulber -should provide a bit of diversion.

    Slarti, yes, I want the computer too, LOL. The Mandelbulber has a Windows install extension so I’m going to take it to my Windows partition and see if I can install it, my Mac partition won’t cooperate with it and I’m a Mac novice, I don’t know how to ‘trick’ it into doing what I want 🙂 I too am going to just play for awhile.

  8. I wish I understood what you all are doin’ and talkin’ about ’cause it sounds like a lot of fun! I don’t have any room on my hard drive anyway, so I’ll just stand in the corner and watch the big kids play. Please keep the exhibits coming … they are mesmerizing.

  9. Rhubarb said:

    I’m always happy to put my money where my mouth is, how about you sloppy.

    I stand by every word and rhyme I have made on this forum

    So do I. My name is Kevin Kesseler and I’m a mathematical biologist – you can look up my publication history (scant as it is – although a paper on which I am the first author was submitted this week ;-)) if you’d like. I hold a Ph.D. in mathematics from Duke University and have absolutely no desire to be a lawyer. Would you like to establish any bona fides?

    you somehow find that Bud is not a hypocrite even though he states that murder out of revenge is okay but revenge is not okay

    Since Buddha’s already dealt with this straw man, I’ll just point out that he favors justice (which includes an aspect of revenge) over revenge alone and implicitly believes that assassination can be justice rather than just revenge. I doubt you’ll get very far with most of the readers here if you keep lying about things that they can check out for themselves by merely scrolling up…

    an opinion forge[d] out of anything but logic is invalid
    what about a rape victim having an opinion that all men are rapists
    is that illogical? I fucking well think not as far as she is concerned, no logic in that opinion, just personal experience and pure emotion.

    Yes, that is an illogical opinion. An understandable opinion in the circumstances, but illogical nonetheless. Dictionary.com says:

    il·log·i·cal [ih-loj-i-kuhl] –adjective
    not logical; contrary to or disregardful of the rules of logic; unreasoning: an illogical reply.

    So for this to be a logical opinion, the statement ‘all men are rapists’ would have to be true according to the rules of logic. Those of us living in the reality-based world recognize that this is not the case. Therefore it is, in fact, an illogical opinion. Now, it would certainly be reasonable hypothesis that a person in this situation might come to hold this opinion, but the opinion itself is patently illogical.

    what about the book argument: people write thousands of books every year demonstrating their free thought and their attitude to making it up as they go along – to prevent themselves from writing books about “making it up as they go along” – how stupid do you need to be to believe this?

    I have better things to do than to address an incoherent argument based on a straw man this stupid with a known liar like you.

  10. ^..^ * (many)said,

    “Have you seen this? I just saw it a couple of days ago. (I want to live there!) I want THIS program:”

    Very cool. I want the computer, not the software (well, both actually…). This may be the coolest fractal I’ve seen since a guy in a chaos class that I was taking used a lab with a dozen or so workstations to compute a Julia set over the quaternions (like the complex numbers, but with j and k in addition to i (the square root of -1), suppress the 4th dimension and project the remaining 3 dimensions into 2. It was sort of like a fractal doughnut. He also had a 30 second animation of 900 Julia sets associated with points along a diagonal line through the Mandelbrot set. I just realized that I could probably do that with my computer and software that I have and can write pretty easily – back in the late 80s it took over a month of CPU time on a lab full of computers…. Anyway, I just finished downloading ‘Mandelbulber’ right now (I’m a Mac person, too) – time to play.

  11. W=^. .^

    Fractint is one of the oldest Fractal generating program around. It is a DOS program and (I just checked) is still being updated. There is a Windows version that the developers came up with (Winfract) but it left a lot to be desired, it kept crashing my ‘puter. The major flaw with it became (for me) that the video card selection menu became obsolete and the resolution was low. The selections given for higher resolutions than 800×600 worked only intermittently or not at all for the DOS version. Winfract also had low default resolution and was way too buggy.

    This is the homepage for Fractint and it has the latest release of Fractint (DOS). There are a lot of commands to use so downloading the tutorial may be helpful. Lists of commands are in the ‘Help’ file of the program; use F1 to get there. I printed them out and referred to them in hardcopy because that’s easier than going back and forth to a new screen when I started using it.

    http://www.Nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/getting.html
    ——-

    There is a new Beta version of Fractint for Windows, I found this through Google and will have to give it a try:

    http://www.fractalforums.com/announcements-and-news/fractint-under-windows-(beta-5)/

    The Gallery section of this site is lovely. Use the tab to get there, you will not be disappointed. It looks like a lot of the fractals were generated with Mandelbulber or a similar program (if there are more than one) as they are images of Mandelbub’s. That program link is in the above posting. The above video is of a Mandelbub so obviously if the program linked in the above posting produces images like that vid or the examples in the Gallery of FractalForums that’s a gem of a program to have.

  14. It’s actually available, I just went to UTube and saw the link for a download so I downloaded it, I hope it works on a Mac ’cause that’s what I use primarily since my PC died. I partitioned the drive and have Windows on that other partition but it’s a tiny partition. I live to follow links and download freeware 🙂 I’m hoping this will be the 1 in 234 d/l’s that was worth the d/l effort.

    It’s Mandelbulber:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/mandelbulber/

  16. damn….someone lost an argument and went plumb off thier rocker….into nastyland!

    I miss the Turley touch….hope this trial is over soon….

  17. Slarti, “I haven’t seen anything else that compares (or compared) to the power and flexibility of Fractint. I’ll have to take a look around and see if there is a worthy successor out there…”
    —–
    Thank you. I had actually begun to question the soundness of my faculties over this matter; was I becoming inflexible in learning new things, was my ability to appreciate a change diminishing, did I no longer have the ability to understand new ‘stuff’, was I caught up in a false appreciation of a past experience for various (probably unhealthy) reasons? I look for clues that I’m becoming ‘calcified’ in my thinking or mental acuity so rejecting new programs that I should be able to master or enjoy gives me pause. That you feel Fractint had more versatility than you found elsewhere is reassuring.

    I sure wish a fractal lover would write the code to make Frctint compatible with current video cards or a fully functional Windows version.

    Have you seen this? I just saw it a couple of days ago. (I want to live there!) I want THIS program:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9ugnn8DbE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

  19. son=meones got bud for a dinner date – poor bitch

    i’m gonna go, see if 4 will take thiws shit

  20. Stow that

    there is no such thing as a wannabe lawyer on the internet, but then there is no such thing as an ugly fuck neither

    then there is no such thing as a hypocrite
    no such thing as a racist
    no such thing as a lying sumbitch

    all big an tough in front of their monitors

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