Author: polistra
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Two cities, six dwarfs
I was checking weather radar and noticed some rain around the Tri-Cities, possibly moving this way. As usual I tried to remember the Tri-Cities and as usual missed one. Kennewick, Pasco, and ….. Dopey! The Six Dwarfs would be a pretty good personality test. Which seventh dwarf is missing in your brain? I have Dopey,…
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Super-random thought
On this morning’s walk, my old eyes thought I saw some miniature writing on the pavement. First thought: Micro-graffiti! Neat idea! Turned out to be a piece of plastic food wrapper, transparent with white letters, so it looked like white paint on the asphalt. Still a neat idea. In other forms of art, miniatures are…
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Taft liked EVs
More from the same 1909 Motor age: = = = = = A Baker electric express wagon of 1,000 pounds capacity is the latest addition to the White House garage, already notable for the fine collection of cars purchased for the use of President Taft and his family. Two Pierce-Arrow cars, a White steamer, a…
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Primly and properly
Speaking of subjunctives… There are lots of old jokes about proper prim Bostonians. Maybe they’re right. Motor Age in 1909 has some pretty pictures of the motoring conditions around President Taft’s “summer capital” in Beverly. Nice Stickley typography. I’d say the summer capital is almost large enough to hold Taft. Alongside this picture: the article…
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Skill vs status
Carver in 1913: Start where you are. Work with what you have. Make something of it. Never give up. Here’s a fable showing what happens when you disobey Carver. Around 1915, Ford’s total mastery of high quantity at low price forced everyone else out of that position. Later, Cadillac’s total ownership of the luxury market…
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Nash wasn’t first
Continuing snippets from Curt McConnell’s book Great Cars of the Great Plains. One of his five featured cars is the Spaulding, built in Grinnell. Like most early automakers, Spaulding was a carriagemaker first, and wisely returned to carriages and furniture after his car faded out. His car wasn’t technically interesting like the Great Smith; it…
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Good analogy
In the Programmer Humor section of Reddit, a smart metaphor from India: Bangalore as a city seems to be like an application that was coded entirely on production. And different releases were attached later on through adhoc APIs. To some extent this describes every city, but the global/modular distinction is valid. I’ve made this analogy…
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A craft that adapted
Looking for more info on old trucks and such, came across the American Blacksmith journal from 1917. Real work and real creativity adapt smoothly to changed circumstances. The evil Innovative Disrupters cackle at the “obsolescence” of buggy whips and blacksmiths, because the evil Innovative Disrupters are demonic genocidal murderers. In fact blacksmiths simply broadened their…
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What’s the purpose?
The D party here in Wash is proposing mandatory “voting”, like Australia. I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish. No state has ever done this, and it’s a safe bet that some “court” will eventually block it, which won’t make any difference and won’t be obeyed. Government does what it wants. Do they think…
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Way beyond Shannon!
THIS goes way beyond Shannon info. This is world-overturning info, and I’m not kidding. A 9-volt battery is simply a package containing six AAAA cells wired in series. A 6-volt lantern battery is simply a package containing 4 D cells wired in series. This is like learning that wheels are really ice cubes painted black,…
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Repayoleth
Via Coindesk, an interesting consequence of obscure bankruptcy laws. Sammy’s NGO posing as a “bitcoin bank” owned about 1/3 of current congresscritters. There’s an interesting difference in how the slaves treated their wages after Sammy’s NGO went into bankruptcy. Under bankruptcy law, all outstanding payments from a bankrupt company can be clawed back to repay…
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Jesus H Christ /// Edit: No, fuck it.
China sends a perfectly visible balloon over US, and another one over Canada. Pentagon claims to have known about it all along, but decides not to shoot it down because environmentalism or something. Remind me again why we have a “defense” “department” and a TSA and NORAD and all this other shit? Oh, now I…
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Good point, best point
Pretty good point from Kirn: AI Chatbots simply formalize & make explicit the profoundly inert nature of collective thinking that made real artists & writers attractive in the first place. They are more important than ever now, in fact, as second-rate pseudo-creativity has consolidated itself as never before. Vastly stronger point from one of his…
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Best hard answer
Haven’t done one of these in a while. Question at EnidBuzz: What tastes better a little burnt? Most of the answers were marshmallows and bacon. The last one hits the mark.
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