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Learned something from clickbait
Microsoft Edge fills its base page with clickbait. I haven’t managed to turn it off yet**, so I’m irresistibly clicking. This story caught my attention because I visited Muncie in 1968 while campaigning for Gene McCarthy. I remember Muncie as a pretty place, with an especially wonderful park by the river. I learned several things…
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Part of a trend
Via Denyse as usual, Dembski analyzes what Google is really doing. = = = = = START QUOTE: As Google characterizes its mission, it is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” And how better to make it universally accessible and useful except to repackage it and present it as…
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No, it’s not neofeudalism
I’ve made this point before. It’s worth repeating. Everyone is referring to the gig economy as neofeudalism. The personalities are unquestionably feudal, the same insane inbred incestuous imbecilic aristocrats who ruled Europe for 500 years. The system is the exact opposite. Feudalism was based on TWO-WAY OBLIGATIONS. The lord was required to support his serfs…
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Maico Chromalyzer
Here’s a puzzle. This industrial newsreel profiles Maico hearing aids, among the earliest adopters of transistors.** Like Zenith, Maico made both audiometers and hearing aids. Around 17 minutes, the film shows an interesting gadget that I’ve never heard of before. The Maico Chromalyzer was used for training deaf speech. The teacher spoke sample words and…
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Three layers
There are three layers of customers, requiring different business approaches and different levels of risk. Bottom: Poor people. Poor people don’t have money. They can’t buy big items. Selling at this level is hugely risky, and only the biggest and most predatory firms can survive. There are two paths to success at this level: subsidize…
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Not surprising
Another item from Eurekalert. Careful experiments show that the often-repeated blue light keeps you awake claim is not a correlation. I’m not surprised. Blaming the physical characteristics of the technology is an INTENTIONAL DISPLACEMENT. It’s a frame-up. McLuhan misunderstood television in a similar way. He thought the dots in the picture caused TV to be…
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Year-end shit
Not gonna bother with a complete list. Mostly I’m just tired and used up this year, after three years of defending my soul from the “virus” monsters. Trying to step away from the keyboard into a more analog life. For my own records, this item from February is probably the best new understanding of the…
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ELEGANT!
Via Eurekalert, an absolutely brilliant measuring technique for a long-established measuring tool. Balloons have been gathering info about weather conditions and radiation from the sun and stars for 120 years. These Japanese researchers used the old tool plus several fiendishly clever tricks: = = = = = START QUOTE: Based on the high sensitivity of…
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Fuck the “informed citizen”.
Lately some folks on both “sides” are complaining that nobody worries about conditions in other parts of the world, or conditions in other social classes. Everyone is focusing on our own “lived experience” and ignoring Ukraine and Israel and Yemen and Elections and The Soul Of Democracy and The Environment and Official Economic Statistics. Lived…
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When a character rewrites the book
What if Winston Smith was a real man who rewrote 1984? What if Bernard Marx was a real man who rewrote Brave New World? What if the Obama character in ‘Love in the Ruins’ was a real Obama who rewrote ‘Love in the Ruins’? It happened. Obama, of course, didn’t write it, but his corporate…
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Illustrating the point
Self-parody is sometimes accidental. This discussion at the Federalist is unusually fair and reflective. Ryan Grim is talking about different fundraising and media styles on Right and Left. He mentioned ActBlue as a highly successful funding system, which isn’t matched on the right. (WinRed tries, but it’s nonfunctional. They started billing me for a monthly…
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Why do I defend Hollywood?
Why do I worry about the survival of Hollywood? I haven’t liked anything they produced since 1970, and very little since 1950. Everything they produce now is intentionally awful, devoid of empathy and depth. Mike Gioia writes a spirited defense of the new independent producers, emphasizing that AI will give more power to the independents…
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The original Cave Gas
Vintage.es has an article on a unique place operated by a unique man. Colonel George Chinn served in WW1 as an explosives expert, then returned to serve in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. He designed the M19 grenade launcher. After WW1 he coached football for a few years, then decided to make use of his explosives…
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Good.
Earlier I was hoping that Substack would respond in a firm adult way to the attempted witch hunt by ex-Twitterites. Now founder Hamish has done exactly the right thing with this Note. He hits all the necessary points and declares all the necessary values, precisely in the spirit of the Fairness Doctrine.
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You asked for it, you got it
The Repooflicans are calling Colorado’s decision to remove Trump from the ballot “unconstitutional”. Leaving aside the plain fact that the “constitution” was deleted in 1803, there’s nothing wrong with a state deciding who can be eligible. The “constitution” said NOTHING AT ALL about popular votes for President. In fact it assumed that states would NOT…
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