Author: polistra
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What lasts longest?
There’s no doubt that music came before speech. We’re part bird. What lasts longest in memory without dynamic refresh? Music. Just now I happened to read the phrase ‘little drops of water’. Immediately my internal jukebox selected and played: Little drops of water, little grains of sand, Build the mighty oceans, and the (something) land.…
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The power of a name
Reading a brief biography of Lavoisier in the 1901 volume of La Nature. The biography emphasizes the role of his wife Marie-Anne. Both were born rich, both were educated early and strongly to favor their own peculiar talents. Antoine’s father recognized that the family name would be best honored by letting Antoine serve science instead…
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Revolutionizing the Web!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Zuck is finally abandoning his idiotic Legless Metaverse shit and laying off all the employees. This was inevitable when the free money stopped. Is he refocusing on Facebook, trying to Ctrl-Z its interface to a previous form that was actually usable? No, of course not. Usable is CRIMETHINK. Improving a HUGE AND PROFITABLE BUSINESS is…
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π
π Day again! Since I’m talking typography lately, I’ll hash and rehash a couple items from 2019. = = = = = Thinking about Trump as Pied Piper. When the metaphor first appeared in those DNC emails I didn’t quite understand it. After learning that Trump is Roy Cohn’s protege, I understand it PRECISELY. Agents…
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AskedAnswered
Haven’t done these AskedAnswered things in a long time. This one just begged… Assessment: Titanic.
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I can see it now…
The Ankler is discussing the bank runs as a future movie….. I can see it now. It’s an Effective Life. Sammy as George Bailey. Caroline as Marian the Librarian. William MacAskill as Oddbody. Powell as the bartender: “This is a HARD BANK. We serve HARD MONEY to HARD MEN. We don’t want no Bitcoin Twinkies…
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Sounds fucking familiar
When you think in terms of trusts and monopolies, government policies are much less mysterious. Copyrights and patents are NOT about encouraging innovation. Their sole purpose is to BLOCK innovation by outsiders. Environmentalism is NOT about clean air, it’s about raising the price of oil and coal. This was already obvious in 2010. The latest…
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Spring rebirth
Polistra and friends enjoy a refreshing spring shower now that warm weather has finally arrived. Thank the Lord and thanks to Jerome Powell for continuing to hold the line despite universal screeching from the vultures. Real business and thrift have a chance of rebirth now. = = = = = Graphics footnote after posting: The…
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Type trust?
In looking through old catalogs of printing supplies, I kept seeing this declaration: We are not part of the Type Trust! What was the Type Trust? From a book listing all the known trusts, How did it break? Classic LBO tactics, same as now. Pick up a mortgage on part of the company, force payment,…
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Another flip
Persia and Saudi are becoming allies and taking the China-Russia side. Saudi has been slowly and carefully moving eastward. Several years ago they started buying weapons from Russia, and they hired Rosatom to build a new power reactor. This new linkage with Persia should worry the US empire more than the commercial ties. Starting in…
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Bet they’ll flip on this
The fake “ideologies” of the “two” parties have flipped on most of their fake “issues”. Here’s one they haven’t caught yet. For many decades “both” parties have been screeching about immigrants getting to “vote”. D wants immigrants to “vote”, R wants to keep them from “voting”. The actual party preferences of several major immigrant groups…
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Older and clearer thoughts
The two “bank” crashes this week resulted from a bizarre reversal of basic definitions. In 2017 I had some broader and clearer thoughts on the subject. = = = = = START REHASH: While feebly attempting to “think” about REAL VALUE vs FAKE VALUE in banking, I noticed a basic fact. So far I can’t…
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Anyone could own?
Last week I was trying to show that one individual has always been powerless against the rulers, but an organization or union has always been capable of pushing back against demons. 4. Before Hollerith, record-keeping and calculation were partly mechanized by printing presses and typewriters and abacuses and cash registers. Anyone could own an adding…
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Mistimed silliness
Vintage.es shows a silly invention from 1941. It’s a phosphorescent mitten to make your hand signals more visible to following drivers. Might have made sense in the ’20s, but by ’41 many car brands offered optional turn signals. The demonstration is especially silly because it’s a ’41 BUICK, which made turn signals STANDARD in ’38.…
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Today is…
Today is ‘Festival of Life in the Cracks Day’! Saluting a hardy survivor that lives in the cracks, reprinted from Sept 2019. = = = = = This week’s big rain triggered a ferocious sprouting of a ‘ground cover’ plant in ALL of the street cracks. The streets are a dense web of cracks now,…
Polistra's Mill 