Author: polistra
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Just curious
I noted in reports about Sammy’s trial that Programmer Wang used the Py randomizer to generate the official daily trading volume. As an old Pythoner I was curious to see what was happening. Here’s the trick as shown and analyzed by BitMEX. The code is dense and “one-liner” to make it harder to read, unlike…
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Klaatu landed.
In the ’50s a constant theme of scifi was the benevolent alien who tried to persuade Earthlings to stop fighting. Of course the scifi writers were orthodox Deepstaters, so Klaatu was always talking to the “aggressive” “Communists”, never talking to the “gentle” and “peaceful” US bombers and intel agencies. Now we have an interesting invasion…
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Aphid day 2023
Oct 7, 2023, temp only 59, and already a giant swarm, almost as dense as a snowstorm. In the last few years the aphids have pulled a headfake before the serious swarm, but this one looks like the real thing. Birds are flitting and diving, catching bugs in midair. Seems like a lot of work…
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Writers aren’t auto workers
The Ankler writes about the aftermath of the writers strike: = = = = = START QUOTE: Downstream financial harm to adjacent businesses generates social and political pressures that further enhance that negotiating leverage — as long as striking workers can capture the hearts and minds of those affected third parties, and of the public…
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Where did it come from?
Thinking lately about printing presses and typewriters and political cults. The thoughts converged into the old phrase Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. I vaguely recalled using this for practice in high-school typing class. I didn’t like it. Unlike the quick brown fox, it doesn’t…
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Return to Trinity House
MindMatters is pointing to the latest Carbon Craziness from a major “science” journal. Not new. This is the permanent norm in academia. Science is Dillinger. Science goes where the money is. The major magazines have been screeching about Carbon for 15 years, interrupted only by their louder and more genocidal screeching about “virus”. Pointing won’t…
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It’s just gangland
I’ve been screwing around with this concept for several years and just now simplified it. After defeating Germany and Japan in WW2 we became the Axis. Until now I was thinking of the change as a mutation in the Allies. We brought over a bunch of Krauts and gradually let their craziness take over the…
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Blood is thicker
Michael Lewis’s defense of Sammy is so obviously bizarre that even Saagar and Krystal could see it! One of the commenters hits an important point: If SBF was a Nigerian scammer, I’m certain Michael Lewis would have a drastically different take. He’s not the only one who still defended SBF. These people saw him like…
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Auctions
Activists are constantly complaining about censorship and canceling. I’ve never been excited about those topics because I recognize that censorship is the default. Censorship is another name for editing. Publishers always choose what to publish. I realized much earlier that canceling is rarely what it appears. An executive who is fired for “political” reasons is…
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Spoiler vs mission rehash
Nate Silver, an orthodox D but also a fairly objective observer of strategy, thinks RFK will do less damage to Biden now that he’s running as an independent. I know nothing about political strategy, but I did reach the same conclusion earlier by a historical analogy. Mashing together two earlier items, first about RFK and…
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Pluponents in action
Vivek was giving his antiwar message in Iowa when some PRO-WAR protestors crashed into a car in his motorcade. He wasn’t in the car. First thought: This is opposite to the old setup. In ’69 we were protesting AGAINST the war. We got bashed and jailed. Second thought: Oops, not opposite at all, except for…
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Captive regulars
Nice self-explanatory picture. A downtown cafe, facing the alley, making no attempt to look attractive to walkbys. The background explains why. Downtowns were full of upstairs apartments and rooms. Most downtown apartments lacked kitchens. Residents used hotplates or simply ate in cafes. This cafe had a captive audience of reliable regulars.
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Sharp observation
Denyse offers a point worth remembering. Drop in referrals to elite-run legacy news media from social media pages reflects – I suspect – the fact that they are no longer needed the way they once were. Don’t try to fix the legacy media. They are not broken. They are just obsolete. Trad media now tell…
Polistra's Mill 