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Natural growth
Following on previous item about Sailer contours. Our homeless camps remain camps, with uncontrolled fires and craziness. They’re strictly illegal, not allowed to settle. In countries with softer governments, poor people build casual houses in their camps, and the houses gradually become more permanent, turning into barrios or favelas and gradually acquiring infrastructure. A similar…
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Deeper dodge
Via Yahoo, Reddit has made its first revenue report after entering the stock criminal market. Before the IPO it was owned by Conde Nast publications. The report shows revenue of about 3 dollars per user, but that’s not profit. The site lost 7 dollars per user. As always VCs are seeking a tax loss gimmick,…
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Contours
Reading the constant flow of ‘reported brush fires’, really homeless campfires gone out of control, I was struck by the perfection of Sailer’s altitude rule. Height = status. The homeless occupy the floodplain and hillsides next to the river. The urban Democrat types are on the first shelf near downtown. The working class and retired…
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Modern equivalent
Popup thought. For many decades, avant garde “art” was random messes with fancy titles. A picture of a few paint splashes was called “Evening soiree among thorns”. Radio and TV and movies made fun of this tendency, which eventually disappeared from painting. Now the musical alt-subcultures are the audio equivalent. All of the noise is…
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Why so late?
I noticed a picture of a school hall with lockers on both sides, and remembered the ritual of putting books into the locker two or three times a day. It was wildly impractical. We only had three minutes between classes, and at least once in each day we had to stop at the locker, unlock…
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Speaking of and speaking of
Speaking of legalizing pot, and speaking of old memes, here’s a pretty good meme seen online: What Would Jesus Do? And can we legalize that? It’s a good question. When you think of what Jesus did in a secular sense, as seen by the local government, every bit of it is STILL fiercely illegal. What’s…
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Sell amortize, sell non-amortize
Nash was the greatest of all amortizers, so the exceptions to the rule stand out. Hudson had two unique inventions, the failsafe brake system in 1936 and the stepdown body in 1948. Nobody ever copied the failsafe brakes, which were the BEST SAFETY FEATURE before seatbelts. AMC continued installing the simple failsafe system on its…
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-Anslinger
Bloomberg clarifies the new change in the legal status of pot. This doesn’t make it legal at the federal level. The change allows it to be prescribed by “doctors”, but only if it’s approved by FDA, which is guaranteed not to approve it. Neat backflip of the old Anslinger gambit which criminalized pot in the…
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More ZiG
Listening to more commentators, mainly African, discussing the new Zimbabwe gold-backed currency. Some of them miss an important point, others hit it squarely. Miss: The central bank doesn’t have enough physical gold to pay all notes “on demand”, so the currency can’t work. No. Banks NEVER had enough physical gold to pay all bills “on…
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Productive oddballs
EnidBuzz posted an ad for an apartment. Looks like an uninteresting but solid unit. The rental is $750, which is NOT hyperinflated. Back in 1980 an apt like this would be $350, and overall inflation is x2 since then. The address rang a bell, so I googlemapped it. Sure enough, the lot was formerly occupied…
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Agrees with observed
Another home run for Compact Mag after a few weeks of bunts and fouls. John Judis writes a comprehensive and clear article on the New Left in 1969 vs the New Left now. He agrees with what I saw then. Judis was more of an insider, while I was just a random protester, but I…
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Shared Lies of Gaia
The latest Wolf Richter podcast mentioned a VERY important development that cuts against all the standard Shared Lies. Canada has just completed a new crude pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, opening up a new export channel. Previously Alberta crude only flowed southward through US to Houston and New Orleans for refining and shipping. This IMPORTANT…
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I hate to defend…
Denyse has fun with an AI-generated police sketch. The twitterites who trolled the original had even more fun, comparing it to various ancient PC game graphics. I hate to defend AI, but this one isn’t bad. The suspect was in the north of England where quite a few people do look like that. Flat face,…
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Four, not three
The classic division of Aristocrats and Courtiers and Peasants was recognized commercially by car dealers as Conservative Prospects, Step-up Prospects and Luxury Prospects. Other marketers recognized the same three with different names. The bottom of each chain is minimalist and satisfied. The top of each chain is maximalist and satisfied. Top and bottom have a…
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Parallel failure
The jokes in previous item reminded me of another modern problem that Duane Jones, writing around 1951, would understand. Jones’s primary rule for advertisers and marketers: REPEATS WHEN SAMPLED. First get the customer to SAMPLE the product, for free or for a nominal price. If the product satisfies a need or desire, the customer will…
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