Author: polistra
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National Savings Day is real now.
National Savings Day is an obviously commercial “day”, founded by Capital One in 2017 during the 15 years when “savings” was a cruel myth. I guess Capital One hoped to bring in more deposit money without paying for it. This year, for the first time since 2008, Savings Day is NOT a cruel joke. Banks…
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Reprint on computing history
Linked in previous. Also, this 2012 item continues to draw occasional readers or bots, so maybe it’s worthwhile at least to bots. = = = = = START REPRINT: Via uCatholic.com: The computer was originally invented to do just that: compute. Numerical calculations were its sole intended purpose, and words were never in the realm…
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Doesn’t hit the main point
A bitcoin lover interviews a bitcoin realist. Kudos to both of them for conducting a civil and informative interview. Important question around minute 12: No, there’s nothing interesting at the core. There’s no “technology” at the core. It’s just an array, which is a universal part of every computer program. The bitcoin array is an…
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Need more metrology
Wolf has fun with a fake IPO based on a small Vietnamese auto company. The owner created a huge number of shares and manipulated the meme stock bros to jack the “market cap” up to 216 billion for a few days. The meme bros stole as much as they could from the sucker bros, and…
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Two errors at once
Watching the “independents” fall into line with the warmongers like passive iron filings under a strong magnet. Influencers and marketers lose both influence and quality when they stray from their specialty. Bud Light is an error on the consumer side. A specialist in beer loses customers when it strays into gender politics. A specialist in…
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50th anniversary
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Enid flood. If the weather had waited two more years to pull such a crime, it could have shifted the blame to global warming. Unfortunately the Innovative Disruptive Gaian theology hadn’t been invented yet, so primitive dumb savages blamed the weather itself.
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Better choices
Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Look, if you really want to honor ancient women in technology, Ada is getting tired. She didn’t invent anything, she was just a writer who explained Babbage’s invention and saw some of its potential. Babbage wasn’t the main source of modern computing anyway. Calculators with decimal dials were widespread a…
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Hmm…
Interesting admission in CoinDesk’s live coverage of the Sammy trial and other bitcoin-related events. A lobbyist who helps bitcoin companies deal with regulation said: The regulators have shut down the major banks who served the crypto industry, and placed strong restrictions on other banks. If you can’t work with a bank you can’t succeed in…
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What makes men happy?
Vintage.es has a set of 1910 photos showing all the employees of a gas and electric utility in upstate New York. Some are office workers, some are laborers, some are skilled technicians. Correlation: The men who are holding a tool, or posing with a truck, are smiling and proud. The others are expressionless, which was…
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Can’t they at least TRY to get it right?
Headline: Exercise or Pills for Depression? Study Finds Pros and Cons to Both Well, I know what to expect from a “social” “science” “study”, but let’s look anyway. First problem: The volunteers were asked if they were willing to be randomly assigned into these groups, and if not, picked the one they preferred. Most went…
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Pretty neat trick
Most people were getting tired of permanent war. Repooflicans were more tired than Dems. Time to dial 9/11! Now all the “independents”, even those who never write about foreign policy, are singing the old familiar song. Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran! Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran! The Trump cult went along instantly because evangelicals are citizens of…
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Historical first
For the first time in history, a famous star agrees with me about an important issue!
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Definite and speculative
Noted on this morning’s walk… A walnut tree dropped a dozen nuts in a dozen seconds from one branch, then stopped. Caught my attention because most of them were falling on a roof, making a loud noise. The same branch on the same tree dropped nuts on the same roof during my walk a few…
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It’s just gangland 2
Today is Columbus Day, Native American Day, Indigenouses Peopleseses Dayses, and Leif Erikson Day. Everybody’s gettin into da act! Thinking in gangland terms clarifies the succession here as well as our foreign wars. Columbus Day was made official in 1934. Before 1934 schools recognized Leif Erikson as the first Euro colonizer. Who owned the gangs…
Polistra's Mill 