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Better choices
Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Look, if you really want to honor ancient women in technology, Ada is getting tired. She didn’t invent anything, she was just a writer who explained Babbage’s invention and saw some of its potential. Babbage wasn’t the main source of modern computing anyway. Calculators with decimal dials were widespread a…
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Hmm…
Interesting admission in CoinDesk’s live coverage of the Sammy trial and other bitcoin-related events. A lobbyist who helps bitcoin companies deal with regulation said: The regulators have shut down the major banks who served the crypto industry, and placed strong restrictions on other banks. If you can’t work with a bank you can’t succeed in…
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What makes men happy?
Vintage.es has a set of 1910 photos showing all the employees of a gas and electric utility in upstate New York. Some are office workers, some are laborers, some are skilled technicians. Correlation: The men who are holding a tool, or posing with a truck, are smiling and proud. The others are expressionless, which was…
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Can’t they at least TRY to get it right?
Headline: Exercise or Pills for Depression? Study Finds Pros and Cons to Both Well, I know what to expect from a “social” “science” “study”, but let’s look anyway. First problem: The volunteers were asked if they were willing to be randomly assigned into these groups, and if not, picked the one they preferred. Most went…
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Pretty neat trick
Most people were getting tired of permanent war. Repooflicans were more tired than Dems. Time to dial 9/11! Now all the “independents”, even those who never write about foreign policy, are singing the old familiar song. Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran! Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran! The Trump cult went along instantly because evangelicals are citizens of…
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Historical first
For the first time in history, a famous star agrees with me about an important issue!
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Definite and speculative
Noted on this morning’s walk… A walnut tree dropped a dozen nuts in a dozen seconds from one branch, then stopped. Caught my attention because most of them were falling on a roof, making a loud noise. The same branch on the same tree dropped nuts on the same roof during my walk a few…
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It’s just gangland 2
Today is Columbus Day, Native American Day, Indigenouses Peopleseses Dayses, and Leif Erikson Day. Everybody’s gettin into da act! Thinking in gangland terms clarifies the succession here as well as our foreign wars. Columbus Day was made official in 1934. Before 1934 schools recognized Leif Erikson as the first Euro colonizer. Who owned the gangs…
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Just curious
I noted in reports about Sammy’s trial that Programmer Wang used the Py randomizer to generate the official daily trading volume. As an old Pythoner I was curious to see what was happening. Here’s the trick as shown and analyzed by BitMEX. The code is dense and “one-liner” to make it harder to read, unlike…
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Klaatu landed.
In the ’50s a constant theme of scifi was the benevolent alien who tried to persuade Earthlings to stop fighting. Of course the scifi writers were orthodox Deepstaters, so Klaatu was always talking to the “aggressive” “Communists”, never talking to the “gentle” and “peaceful” US bombers and intel agencies. Now we have an interesting invasion…
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Aphid day 2023
Oct 7, 2023, temp only 59, and already a giant swarm, almost as dense as a snowstorm. In the last few years the aphids have pulled a headfake before the serious swarm, but this one looks like the real thing. Birds are flitting and diving, catching bugs in midair. Seems like a lot of work…
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Writers aren’t auto workers
The Ankler writes about the aftermath of the writers strike: = = = = = START QUOTE: Downstream financial harm to adjacent businesses generates social and political pressures that further enhance that negotiating leverage — as long as striking workers can capture the hearts and minds of those affected third parties, and of the public…
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Where did it come from?
Thinking lately about printing presses and typewriters and political cults. The thoughts converged into the old phrase Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. I vaguely recalled using this for practice in high-school typing class. I didn’t like it. Unlike the quick brown fox, it doesn’t…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 