Author: polistra
-
QT, KYC, KYW
I’ve been having schadenfreudisch fun watching various accounts of Budweiser’s idiocy. Most people are focusing on the specific politics, but the problem is simpler. QE made it possible to ignore the BASIC RULES OF BUSINESS. Know your customers. Keep your customers. Know your workers. Keep your workers. In the era of profit, successful businesses followed…
-
Deeply familiar
Vintage.es has some pics taken by an early railroad photographer in Kansas and New Mexico. The Kansas scenes are deeply familiar. Here is the railroad running along the banks of the Kaw. This is where Polistra lives. (See the icon above).
-
Poor assumption
This writer has some interesting details of digital journalism, but he starts from the assumption that “news” and “investigative journalism” are intrinsically valuable products that NEED to be made, whether profitable or not. Bad assumption. Nobody actually needs “news” as it’s commonly formed. We could use prior warning of incoming weather and demonic government projects…
-
Chrysler didn’t play
Another random automotive thought: Chrysler never played the sportster game. In 1952-1955 EVERYONE was introducing special distinct sporty roadsters. GM had Corvette, Fiesta, Skylark, Eldorado. Ford had T-bird and Continental. Absolutely all of the independents joined the trend. Nash Healey, Hudson Italia, Crosley Hotshot, Kaiser Darrin, Willys Jeepster, Packard Caribbean, Studie’s perfect coupe which quickly…
-
EA fable
Interesting dream this morning. I was working with a Balaji type. He was talking fast, in long sentences with lots of NUMBERS. He was building fences all over the world, trying to cell off all the humans so they would die and he would be the only survivor. I tried to tell him that he…
-
No Okies there
The distinctly NYC/SF “independent” opinion page called The Free Press ran a Thurberish column countering our standard sentimentality about dogs. Famous Author Sherman Alexie joined in the comments and made a joke which none of the NYC/SF people caught. Secrecy is the purpose of language.
-
Wrong sense?
This morning’s paper mail included an envelope with an interesting visual texture, which turned out to be a tactile texture. The paper is very slightly corrugated, so the fingers vibrate when handling this envelope. Rumble strips. Was the ad aimed at old folks losing their vision? No, it was from Beltone Hearing Aids. Makes sense,…
-
Soundscapes
Sarah Hepola’s latest smoky podcast is intensely based in NYC, with NYC sounds in the background. She’s discussing the difference between NYC and Dallas soundscapes, garbage trucks and jackhammers vs crickets and frogs. Reminded me of a couple items I’ve done on the subject. From 2022, a fable based in NYC’s earlier soundscape, dominated by…
-
Inexcusable
Several articles are noting ChatGPT’s LIBELOUS habit of mixing and matching biographies. For instance, Brian Moore, an Australian mayor, is suing OpenAI for slander. In 2008 he worked in banking, and reported a money-laundering scheme to the authorities. ChatGPT insists with the full weight of authority that he was the CRIMINAL, not the WHISTLEBLOWER. This…
-
Another zeitgeist flip?
Another interesting flip in the cultural and partisan landscape. The Hill thinks this is the year when past their prime women as defined by Don Lemon are in the spotlight. The zeitgeist is mocking a judgment by the PERFECT aristocrat. Lemon ticks ALL the Die-Verse boxes, and was a leading high priest of DNC and…
-
More consequences of QT
Half-baked thought, continuing along the lines of WHERE ARE THE GODDAMN PHILOSOPHERS? Now that the free money of QE/ZIRP has dried up, many pointless projects and pointless IPOs are going away, starting with the huge totally pointless project of bitcoin. Corporations are suddenly realizing that they need customers. Free-money woke idiocy doesn’t work any more,…
-
Baobab
The Episcopal denomination is rejuvenating itself by rejecting its decaying Western branch. This schism took a lot longer than other church renewals, probably because most of the money and property were controlled by the decadent branch. The healthy roots in Africa and Brazil, containing 85% of the church’s people, finally dismissed the money and issued…
-
Trust ceiling
Still thinking about media, Batya, etc. Looked at a Gallup page on media trust to see if anything new is happening. Nothing fresh, but noticed this long-term graph that shows what media wants. Everyone says that Watergate was a shining example of Letting It All Hang Out, and renewed our trust in media. Nope. Watergate…
-
God believes in ether
Until 1920 most discussion of electricity and radio was based on the assumption of an ether. Michelson-Morley DIDN’T wipe out the ether. It was wiped much later when quantum quackery took over the doctrines and creeds of “science”. Here’s a nice clear example from a 1904 book by Frederick Vreeland, the inventor of the weirdly…
-
Nobody’s ever said it?
RFK appeared with Kim Iversen, and rather oddly discussed the firing of Carlson: “It’s kind of shocking that they threw him off. He was saying things that nobody has ever said on TV before. He was talking about advertisers dictating content — pharmaceutical advertisers getting newscasters on the networks to say things about vaccines that…
Polistra's Mill 