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Gig torture
Listening to this Evan Barker podcast as background noise spawned a new thought. Around the 30 minute point they’re talking about the horrors of 2020. = = = = = Old thought: I constantly shout the verified proven truth. 2020 was a worldwide torture camp planned by Bush and implemented by Trump. For decades right-flavored…
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You already have what you need
Reprint from 2021, linked in previous. = = = = = START REPRINT: One of the small pleasures of life is pulling an ace from your sleeve. One of the BIG pleasures is creating independence and self-sufficiency, defeating the all-consuming Github. I use Poser intensively for work and play, for courseware animations and blog stuff…
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Wow, that’s unimpressive.
Yesterday I was noticing some “instant animation” by one of Altman’s drug sellers. First thought: Wow, that’s impressive! Second thought: Wait. 3d programs like Poser and Blender could do that sort of thing a long time ago. And I was writing Python programs to automate those moves 20 years ago. Natural facial expressions, syncing with…
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Same arrangement!
Still trying to find pictures of my St Joe Folly House, I bought a little book assembled by the Museum Hill Historical Society. It doesn’t include THE house, but it does include this one with a tantalizingly similar secret tunnel. Transcribing: An enormous secret tunnel that once led to the Nunning Brewery can still be…
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It wasn’t just a fucking idea.
Gizmodo features a rebirth of the nickel-iron battery. About goddamn time. Unfortunately the authors totally miss the real history. Their headline says Edison tried to build an EV battery in 1901. Scientists just made it work.: = = = = = START QUOTE: Great minds often think ahead of their time. This was certainly true…
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Balancing the vectors
Most of us can’t do anything about Altman’s crime. Publishers are in a unique position, able to make an economic difference to Altman’s minions. Publishers are caught between two countervectors. On one side they recognize that many authors are already wired up to Altman’s machine. On the other side they recognize that Altman is a…
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Wrexperts
Previous items about guilds, and Lampert steering Sears into the iceberg, reminded me of a previous highly productive line of thought. Rehashing a couple pieces written in Feb 2020, just before Bush and Trump hijacked and wrecked the entire world. = = = = = I was thinking and reading about the remarkable continuity of…
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Where is the advertising guild?
I got an email from an organization called West’s Awake. It sounds like something I might want to support. It also sounds familiar and might be something I supported in the past. I won’t check the links because it could easily be a scam. If it’s a real organization, it just missed the chance to…
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Never need them again
EnidBuzz features a new clothing store in downtown Enid. I recognized the location instantly. Sears. It’s an awfully big building for a startup clothing store. Sears formerly sold everything but food. Tools were in the basement, so that’s where I shopped in the 70s. Bought a whole lot of metric Craftsman tools, still have most…
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We know what we’re missing, asshole.
Via NiemanLab: [Surveyed] adults from 206 counties that fit Medill’s definition of news deserts (“counties with no professional source of local news, such as a print or online newspaper, based within that county”), and adults from counties you might call news oases (those with 30 or more professional news outlets). Many people who live in…
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Time for Mistletoe 2.0
Via NiemanLab, small newspapers are struggling with the Post Office’s recent service cutbacks. Some papers are still operating the old-fashioned way, listening to their own real customers, running their own real press and sending out real papers. Before last year the PO service was tolerable, but now ‘media mail’ is down to a low priority…
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Self-disengaging algorithm
Substack’s latest “update” prevents me from responding to its twitteroid Notes. I can write comments on full articles, but when I try to leave a reply on a Note it shows a big blank panel that won’t let me write. The panel seems like it should be conveying a warning, but there’s no text or…
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Make beauty
Since the Bush-Trump torture chamber of 2020 I’ve been peeling away from Machiavellian shit. Trying to pay near-zero attention to politics and media noise. Focusing on making beauty and order where possible, trying to do the right thing though it’s never rewarded and usually punished. I’ve also been turning off subscriptions to writers who show…
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Wrong in opposite ways
A couple of online comments on the public school system got me thinking. The result of the thought surprised me. One of the criticisms is extremely old. Public schools prepare you for assembly line jobs. The other is a bit newer: Public school trains you to follow instructions, not to complete tasks on your own.…
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The most damaging bullshit
In the 50s and 60s, every “fact” we learned in school or heard on TV was wrong. Some were wrong by omission or distortion, most were flatout diametrical bullshit. We should have listened to our grandparents instead of our teachers. Maybe the most damaging “fact”, emphasized constantly in school “science” and “health” classes: Don’t exercise…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 