Author: polistra
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Doubling the insult
While writing previous item, I was trying to determine that the Heinz soup thrown by the protesters was actually made in England, so I wouldn’t be accidentally ruining my point. Heinz’s own website, full of ESG legalism, doesn’t answer the question, but incidental Google mentions made it clear that Heinz does produce soup in England.…
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Punching backwards
The idiot protesters tossing soup on Van Gogh are an easy slapdown in a hundred ways. They’re wearing hair products and clothes made from oil, built in China in factories that don’t bother with any of our pollution laws. The products were shipped from China on ships burning bunker oil, the dirtiest of all fuels.…
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Bimetallism cubed
Screencap from an ad in one of the Reddit bitcoin zones: Finance is failing and DeFi can fix it. But not yet. Right now the tools for DeFi are not sufficient to allow devs to build secure apps etc. This is what happens when a cult of inexperienced THEORY MEMORIZERS are led around by galaxy-brain…
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Shannon in schools
Continuing as always on the Sputnik theme. Schools should only train SKILLS. The verbal material we “learned” in school was worse than useless. It was either false or irrelevant. If schools are going to include verbal material at all, it should be USEFUL material. Shannon information. History should be Machiavelli and Parkinson, preparing the students…
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What is an expert?
I decided to delve back into the archives of Edmund Berkeley’s magazine ‘Computers and Automation’. I’m looking for a specific vaguely recalled item that I haven’t re-located yet. Meanwhile, this editorial from May 1969 deserves sharing. = = = = = Title: The cult of the expert. It is an old human habit, when you…
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Politics and science
Continuing to notice the peculiar tone of political emails. The word devastate seems to be at the top of the choice stack. It can be used internally: “We’re devastated!” The reader is supposed to empathize and throw money at the candidate to rescue him from devastation. It can be used externally: “Trump is DEVASTATED!” The…
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Montessori
I’ve been bemoaning the lack of school-based training and entertainment-based training about scams and swindles. Experience is the ONLY teacher, but there are two ways to acquire experience. Ideally a training experience should put you through most of the real situation without danger to your life or wealth. Whether intentionally or not, the DAO swindle…
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Deepfake worries again
MindMatters is worrying about deepfakes again. While AI deepfakes have political ramifications (digitally cloning world leaders, creating false news, etc), the actual human qualities of our lived experience may grow ever dimmer in lieu of the metaverse and its deepfake minions. If I can choose my own virtual world, the actual created order loses its…
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AI Lincoln
Madman Lincoln advised scammers and tyrants to fool different types of people in different ways. Everyone has a weak spot, and your job is to hit all of them. In modern times the procedure has become a bit too mechanized and obvious, thanks to AI and copy-paste. These are from the Metaverse category on Medium.…
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Random rust thoughts
I’ve always been annoyed that the auto industry was based in Rust Central, but built cars for use in Arizona. Kaiser could have switched this trend if Henry Kaiser had been USING HIS OWN COMPANY’S TALENTS. Aluminum was the core of his business in 1947, and he could have made cars with aluminum bodies. Rustproof,…
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Spam non-bark
Deleting the latest pile of email spam while still thinking about Zuck and VR and gaming….. Realized a complete non-bark. Email spam mentions all sorts of current events and current media characters, presuming the reader knows what’s what and who’s who. For instance, today’s political spam assumes that I know Gretchen Whitmer and Kari Lake.…
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A clear view of exp vs linear
One basic fact about money is always understood by the plutocrats but never explained to the peasants. We hear inflation numbers or exchange rate numbers, and the influencers of “left” and “right” base their appeals on these fake numbers. Even the bitcoiners, who claim to be entirely outside government and banking, always treat official “inflation”…
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Are you excited? Zuck knows.
Headline: Legs are coming! Are you excited? Zuck’s VR world, after 5 years and 10 billion dollars of development, is finally about to add LEGS to the figures. CG graphics, including all videogames, has included legs for 30 years. Only Zuck World forced everyone to suffer from sacral agenesis. Reading below the headline, apparently the…
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Another faker down
I’ve been following Straight Arrow News since June. They made an impressive start, claiming to enforce the Fairness Doctrine. They featured a ‘Bias Meter’ gadget and invited readers to use it as a poll on articles. Today they finished converging to the norm, as usual. This article on “climate” is written strictly and totally from…
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Geo vs Helio, Rectangular vs Polar
Since today is what used to be called Columbus Day, a couple of rehashes from 2014 or so… Hundred Flowers Toxic Sludge Factory #125, sometimes known for mysterious reasons as “Seattle”, has decided to get rid of Columbus Day and replace it with “Firstses Nationseses Indigenouseses Peopleseseses Days.” (Yous gots to haves lotses ofs excessesese…
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