Author: polistra
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Can it happen?
Probably a stupid thought, but I feel like writing it down for my own thinking process. In previous item: = = = = = An outside thermometer tells us how cold it is BEFORE we go outside, so we can prepare. Online weather radar is an even better reporter. It tells us where the precipitation…
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Was Nixon fooled?
Nixon surrendered our economy to China after losing Vietnam to China. It was an unconditional surrender like Versailles in 1919. Before Nixon, our approach to China was uniformly stupid and innocent. Starting around 1890, we viewed China as a land of customers. All of our policies were aimed at befriending their government so they would…
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Speaking of reporting…
In this clip Batya does some actual reporting, brings us some real Shannon information. Batya has blown her overall credibility by bowing down to Fauci, but this time she performed the proper function of a remote sensor as I was discussing in previous item. Both “sides” had been treating the Congress speaker crap as just…
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What is a reporter for?
Matt Taibbi is following all the bad rules of “journalism”, which are the same as the rules of Deepstate. Protect sources above all. Never reveal anything that your source doesn’t want to reveal. Well then, what the fuck is your PURPOSE? You’re not reporting, you’re just an unpaid (or maybe paid) part of Deepstate. You’re…
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Where are they going?
I’m still wondering where Substack is going. Some of their hidden purpose is starting to show up with a focus on becoming the new mass media, led by Bari Weiss. This will inevitably lead right back to censorship. The same thing already happened with Bari Weiss’s other push, the “free university”. They’re still waiting for…
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Why miss a chance to show your skill 2
Brazil’s auto industry used to apply considerable design skill to its adaptations of foreign cars. Willys and Ford and GM and VW all had Brazilian plants that began with assembly and quickly expanded into truly original products. Now Brazil’s extension of our Deepstate is copying FBI products with no adaptation or originality at all. FBI…
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Speaking of Harding…
A Harding speech from Dec 8, 1922, a little more than 100 years ago. This is how a PROBLEM-SOLVING president would talk right now. Substitute NAZI TORTURE for war to modernize. = = = = = START HARDING: So many problems are calling for solution that a recital of all of them, in the face…
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Why miss a chance to show your skill?
This is one of my perpetual puzzles. In the ’40s and early ’50s, the best Euro cars tried amazingly hard to omit taillights. Designers who lavished close attention to shapes and grilles and roofs and dashboards simply ignored taillights, tacking on microteensy standardized pinpricks way down behind the bumper. Taillights were apparently obscene. Two haute…
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Random thought about dynasties
Thinking about the current medieval setup. One thing is missing. In Dark Ages 1.0, political dynasties continued for many generations, and competing dynasties warred for many generations. The worst wars were between families, not between nations. In Dark Ages 2.0, our national dynasties are strictly ‘horizontal’. Before 1900 there were a couple of father-son pairs:…
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Speaking of reinvention…
Speaking of reinventing old tech and speedrunning the Dark Ages: Back in 2015 when discussing old bookkeeping symbols, I caught a truly peculiar advertisement for a nightmarish toilet: I’m convinced the artists in the 1880s were on some kind of hallucinogen, perhaps ergot in spoiled bread. Now the nightmare has been reinvented with a more…
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Mercy for orphans
Sammy’s got a Substack now, opened just a few hours ago. In his first post he puts out some carefully lawyered-up caveats, and then bashes the bankruptcy CEO for not undoing Sammy’s crimes fast enough. Later: Various discussers are trying to figure out Sammy’s motives. At least one lawyer has already given up on him,…
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Curling
I’m back to animations of embryonic development, after a brief break for Steinheil’s ground. Today I’m setting up a cochlea model and trying to match the shape changes with the actual timepoints. We’ve got rain today, fortunately warm rain instead of snow or ice. Nice relief after a month of solid ice and cabin fever.…
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Milk comes from cartons
MindMatters is belatedly grasping the tenure problem. People who work inside academia have known and recognized this for many decades. My father saw it when he started work as a prof in 1957, and warned me about it. Everyone knows it, but outsiders, even outsiders who attend college for four years, don’t hear about it.…
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Trying again
Trying to talk myself down from Muzzle PTSD yet again. Even the fucking NY Times now acknowledges that self-muzzlers are weird and crazy. The mood of the elites has unquestionably shifted. They’re done. When the NY Times is done, the whole monstrosity is done. The agencies will keep pushing, but so far their pushes are…
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I don’t get it.
A failure of FAA’s air control system caused aircraft to be grounded for a few minutes or whatever. This is THE ONLY STORY right now, and Congress promises to “investigate” the glitch. The airlines (and buses and trains and taxis) STRANGLED AND GAGGED THEIR PASSENGERS for two fucking years, and media didn’t notice it. I…
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