Category: Uncategorized
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Github and OCD
Random thought after wrestling with Audacity yet again. Every new version of every major program gets fussier and fussier about handling the STUFF IT’S SUPPOSED TO HANDLE. Browsers reject more and more file types and websites for “security”, even though I know AVG will handle REAL malware for me. I just tried to use Audacity…
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More delicious Chateau Schadenfreude
The headline is enough: Blockchain-powered Carbon Offset Company Starts 35000 Acre Forest Fire in Spain Musical accompaniment. Land Life is a carbon offset company that focuses on reforestation, and speaks about its “autonomous planting, remote monitoring and blockchain verification”. ‘Autonomous’ means ‘Equipment started fire with nobody on scene to put it out.’ ‘Remote monitoring’ means…
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Legacies
EnidBuzz posted a ‘memory’ picture of two ladies dressed up in silly style, riding banana bikes to work. Both worked at Sears, and they were doing the annual Crazy Day in 1968. Commenters had positive memories of the ladies and Sears. This one wins: I worked at Sears back in 1976 and knew Lucille, she…
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Just before the terror
Looking into the Clavecin Oculaire led to a broader view of French science just before the terrorist revolution turned “science” into the horrible unstoppable god of torture and war. The clavecin was a PLAYFUL USE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE. The musicians and scientists who tried it out were HAVING FUN. Several other scientists and writers…
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Possible answer
Convective thought, triggered by the ascendance of Sunak as Boris’s replacement. Fact 1: In the last 10 years, immigrants from India have been filling the elite slots that were formerly held by Anglos and Jews. This is happening in NYC banking, in Silicon Valley tech, and in some parts of academia. Now the new elites…
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Sharing is meaningless
At least Evolution News isn’t playing the fake surprise game. They acknowledge that the habits of academia are permanent. Scientific progress is being impeded by a culture in which scientists jealously guard their research instead of sharing it. Keas says the problem seems to have gotten worse in recent years but isn’t a new one.…
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Reprint on chaos vs order
Statcounter showed that somebody was reading this item, written in early 2020 just before the “virus” hoaxocaust. Feels like a good time to reprint the item, in the context of chaos vs order. = = = = = START REPRINT: In previous item I mentioned a question that has been itching me for a while.…
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No quibbles on this one….
Question by Kirn, and excellent answers by the responders. After a point, the main thing money can buy — that I can see — is more money. Yet few seem to stop at this point, or even slow down. So maybe there’s something to be had in life I don’t know about. Power? Is power…
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More clavecin oculaire
Here’s a short harpsichord piece by Jean-François Dandrieu, roughly contemporary to Castel. Called La Contrariante, it’s a pretty good demonstrator for the clavecin oculaire. Two melodic lines chase each other across the keyboard like squirrels mating. Later note: This demonstration helps to debug the animation. The stripes on the display screen are correctly positioned wrt…
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Irresistible attraction
I’ve been hammering on the strange shibboleth of bitcoin. Influencers who are realistic and skeptical about most topics are selling bitcoin. Influencers who are realistic and skeptical about bitcoin are utterly insane about other topics. At the corporate level this balance doesn’t apply. Nearly all corporations have tried to get on the bitcoin train at…
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Clavecin oculaire
I haven’t been “inspired” to do a tech history piece for a while. This instrument came in through one of those offerings from Academia.edu. I’m surprised that I’d never encountered it before; it stands at the intersection of everything I’ve been doing for the last 20 years. Louis Bertrand Castel invented the color harpsichord or…
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The 1950 Census is online!
This piece was tacked onto an item about political personalities. As I was thinking about Obama, I noticed that the 1950 Census was finally available. I then started writing about the census as a footnote. Here’s the part about the census on its own, with a properly searchable title. (Learning the metalesson from the census…
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How old?
Earlier I mentioned a 1953 interview with science writer Ruth Moore, who was pushing her book Man, Time and Fossils. I decided to buy the book, mainly as spiritual ‘pay for value’. I opened it, not expecting much of substance, and got a tremendous surprise. This is the best non-fiction book I’ve ever read. Moore…
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Non-barking cult
Basic fact: When a political party has a BIG PERSONALITY, the party develops a personality cult. In recent decades the Repooflicans had two big personalities, Reagan and Trump. Both became the PERSONAL center of the party. In recent decades D hasn’t matched those two. Bill Clinton is the same size, but he didn’t have a…
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Hotshot salesman
I enjoy highlighting the business uses of miniature cars. Metropolitan. Bantam. Crosley wagons. Here’s an unexpected one from a 1954 broadcasting trade journal. The Crosley Hot Shot was designed as a midget racer, not a business coupe. = = = = = Here’s my Poser version of the Crosley wagon, and here’s my Bantam. I’ve…
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