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Another Bantam
Keeping up a tradition of showing Bantams whenever found… From an Oct 1939 radio trade journal. KDKA was introducing its ‘experimental’ TV station, and promoted it with the KDKA Special Events Car. The back seat passengers are Miss Pennsylvania and Miss America.
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Worth reading
Denyse at MindMatters points to an eminently wise essay on AI. Denyse: Others are worried that ChatGPT will detract from a “love of learning” and “critical thinking,” according to Bloomberg. The new AI tool has cast a wrench in plagiarism detection and poses even philosophical questions about what education should be FOR. According to college…
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Real AI vs Altman’s AI
This is pure fraud. Computers have been optimizing routes for 60 fucking years, long before the current generation of “creative” AI. The traveling salesman problem has always been a major part of computer science, a major force in developing PREDICTIVE big data, and it was mostly solved in the ’50s. Here’s a 1969 book on…
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The Exeter clock
This is a quickie, just a graphics project to pull my mind through the recent hot spell. The Exeter Cathedral clock was built in the 1300s and remodeled around 1890. It’s a geocentric orrery with a 24-hour dial, numbered as two sequences of 12. It’s not a freestanding clock. I’ve mounted it on a flat…
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Deepstate = Cheapstate
An Ockham thought after reading some theorists who attribute various emergencies to complicated PHYSICAL stuff like HAARP or “directed energy weapons” or “viruses” or “biochipped nanovax” or “escaped biolab projects”, etc etc etc. Deepstate is Cheapstate. Rich fuckheads never spend money unnecessarily. When you own the media and all the channels for the media, you…
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Same history, same purpose
The Christians and “conservatives” are still missing the MEANING of AI. = = = = = START QUOTE: But while AI can generate poems, stories, and essays, it can never grasp the meaning of what it produces. It’s not a sentient mind (despite former Google employee Blake Lemoine’s claim to the contrary) intent on communicating…
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Work with what you have
Chris Christie starts to pull ahead of DeSantis. Not surprising. DeSantis SHOULD have been the sole challenger to Trump. He courageously opposed Trump’s lockdowns and muzzles and needles, and protected Florida from Trump’s genocide. As soon as he started running for President he threw away his entire reputation and record. I can’t parse his reasons.…
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Metamach
Machiavelli’s book was written as a reference manual for tyrants. He was quite openly and scientifically telling princes how to divide and rule in all possible situations. What if you have a reluctant bureaucracy? What if you want to rule people with a tradition of autonomy? Recipes for every situation. Non-tyrants can read his reference…
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The sides aren’t always rigid
Not a new thought, just a reinforced old thought. The BASIC dividing line for civilization and economics and technology has always been: Who does it serve? One side says that everything must serve human beings. The other side says everything must serve Genghis or Attila or Caesar or Robespierre or Morgan or Zuck, depending on…
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Not that kind of store
Via Protos: Canada is requesting bids to develop a system to “store” bitcoin for local police. The headline and description imply secure storage of the private key numbers after cops seize them. Struck me as odd. Storing a number isn’t a problem. You just have to keep it away from the web where anyone can…
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Batya’s point again
Substack’s new Twitter-clone Notes immediately turned into the standard social media rats-nest, dominated by the Engagement Seekers. Batya: Every time you fire back hatred at a perfect stranger online, somebody makes a whole lot of money. Localizing: Who makes money? The perfect stranger, who knows exactly how to weaponize your hatred for profit. New thought…
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First world problem /// Edit: Oops.
/// Never mind. This was a false indication. Youtube had simply changed their API, which happens fairly often, and the maker of the download app hadn’t caught up with the change. =============== Youtube has started cutting off most downloads unless you pay for Premium service. Okay, fine. I’d rather pay than go for free. Customer,…
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When you’re a peasant
Mattingly at GetReligion is covering the elite/peasant divide with an emphasis on the consequences for journalism. Most of his commentary is fairly realistic. He says one thing that I’m not hearing from other commentators: Christian churches and colleges are not doing a good job of preparing youngsters to ENTER the elite places. I think he’s…
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Natural clock?
After pondering the eightness of natural money, and the twoness and fourness of natural sleep, the concepts merged in my tired brainlet into a question. What if clocks were consistently binary? Our clocks inherited the quadrants of Roman ‘watches’, mixed with the 12s and 60s of the Babylonian system. As with money, we say the…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 