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Nice to see a tradition
Radio Caroline, the tacitly approved “pirate” station, got in trouble by announcing the death of King Charles. A technician was debugging one of the control computers and came across the digital “tape” prepared for the event. Hmm. What is this? Let’s listen to it and find out… He thought he was listening privately but instead…
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Positive signs from the neighborhood (redated)
Jan 13, 2026: For 20 years a vacant apartment building was the worst thing in the neighborhood, constantly squatted and constantly visited by cops who weren’t allowed to do anything. This situation was NOT understandable. The property was owned by an LLC who could afford to fix things if they wanted to. In 2017 the…
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I’ll never understand politics.
The evacuations were called off Sunday, except for the specific area of total destruction, essentially one neighborhood with about 500 houses. Initially the evac zones included about 20k houses, including some areas that couldn’t possibly be at risk. This neighborhood was never included. By a mysterious coincidence, the constant flow of new arsons stopped on…
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Exception to Manweller
Continuing with Pew and polls. Most Americans, both D and R, dislike data centers, and mobilize strongly to protest data centers in their city or neighborhood. The people agree on this question. Here’s a puzzle. The “two” “parties” actually DIFFER on this question, not just in talking points. Repooflicans force people to accept data centers,…
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Pew proves Manweller
Fun fact from Pew. 15 of the current 100 senators were straightforwardly appointed, not fakely “elected.” Some because the previous occupant was convincingly dead, others because the previous occupant was hired by the executive branch. The former type are often spouses or relatives of the convincingly dead predecessor. Since 1990, 24 senators were appointed, and…
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Electrotyping, part 1 of 3
August 2026: bringing this series up to the front to celebrate a smart decision by Kansas City. As pointed by Robert Bryce, the KC planning commission rejected a proposal to replace the Kellogg bldg by a tall AI data center. GOOD. Ansel Kellogg built a HUMAN data center specifically to keep small country papers alive…
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Electrotyping, part 2 of 3
[August 2026, bringing this series to the front to celebrate KC’s decision to keep the Kellogg Building.] = = = = = Part 1 showed the essential process of electrotyping in a small-scale experimental setup. Real factories like Kellogg’s Patent Insides used bigger machines in mass production. Here again is the Kellogg building in KC,…
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Electrotyping, part 3 of 3
[August 2026, bringing this series to the front to celebrate KC’s decision.] After the type is set into a form, suitable for ordinary printing, the electrotype process begins by smashing the form into a thin layer of wax on a metal plate. The metal plate will become the negative electrode in the plating vat. The…
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Bit of syntax fun
Seen at substack, wasn’t meant to be funny so I didn’t snark it there. Word order is important, and singular/plural agreement is important! Some mayflies live only hours as adults, Kevin McMullen MD writes, after having lived for years as a nymph.
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Candidate worth supporting
Manweller’s rule says elections aren’t allowed to change things, so I’m sure this one won’t work. Nevertheless, Natalie Poulson is a viable candidate for state legislature after this week’s top-two primary. She was a teacher until 2021 when she refused to wear the Trump-Inslee strangulation device and refused to force her students to strangle. She…
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Zinger
I haven’t been reading MindMatters for a long time. Busy with work, health troubles, didn’t see a lot of interesting stuff there. Checked again today. Denyse O’Leary has written a world-class zinger. She knocks out Ethan Siegel, a world-class contemptuous asshole, and by extension all the academicians, politicians and journalists who play the same obnoxious…
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Abbottizing
The firefighters talk about halting new sources of ignition but they’re missing the MAIN source of ignition. Texas governor Abbott solved a similar problem with fake “asylum seekers”. He reshipped them all to NYC so the people who claim to love them could have them. Time to apply the Abbott trick here. Evacuate the entire…
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Having fun
Trying to break away from the fire crap. Altman is invading the world with theft, and the world is doing a pretty good job of fighting back now. Locally, Avista was negotiating with an unnamed prospective customer, then sensibly decided to halt. Al French, a long-lasting county commissioner who is usually rational, was trying to…
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Bet on a bet
I’ll go out on a (so far unburned) limb with this one. Premise 1. Arsonists are at work in several areas, not just the Catholic Criminalities zone west of the river. Some of them are clearly homeless or crazy, some are driving cars. Some are using matches, some using blowtorches, some tossing lit plastic bottles…
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Unsurprising but satisfying
Given activities in recent years, the chance of criminal arson for Saturday’s fire was somewhere between 100.00000% and 100.00000%. Now the bet is verified. Via Spokesman, Aaron Forrest Farinacci has been arrested for causing the Old Trails fire that destroyed 700 structures. He lived in the Catholic Criminalities homeless apts, which is (only coincidentally) the…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 