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Grudges count 2
A few days ago I hoped that Pence would channel his personal grudge against Trump to move the party in a different direction. His actual announcement video is ‘highly produced’, full of standard quotes and standard images, which is normal. Until this month I would have dismissed this as meaningless, but this month gives us…
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One advance
This 1950 episode of Hollywood Byline is in my bedtime OTR playlist. It happened to be playing when I woke up after a much-needed heavy sleep. The guest in this episode was Celeste Holm, and the discussion at the moment of waking was postwar economics in Hollywood. In the sleep/wake transition state, I thought it…
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Always missing the editor
Typical AI point-missing, neglecting the role of editors as usual. = = = = = START QUOTE: In the wake of artificial assistants, searching the “traditional” way will get thrown out as the internet totally transforms; nonetheless, it might take a while for AI to fully replace search engines like Google or Microsoft’s Bing. Until…
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Another semi-auto
From Chilton’s Motor Age in 1921. The Kurtz semi-automatic was a preselector, which wasn’t really new. Preselectors with pushbuttons were sold on the 1913 Winton. The notable part of this ad is the clear floor, which was later used as the selling point for column shifts. Also the parking brake was in the dash, with…
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Vultures
Paparazzi working for DailyMail are somehow spying on Elizabeth Holmes in prison. They caught her holding hands with her husband briefly, which is supposedly against the rules. GODDAMNIT, she’s trying to be a normal human, a normal wife and mother, and you’re preventing her. Vultures. Journalistic malpractice.
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Maybe not so stupid
One of the perpetually annoying tricks of movies and TV is the Girl With Glasses. She’s an ugly duckling with glasses. When she removes the glasses she instantly becomes an irresistible sexpot. Life doesn’t work that way. Or does it?
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Trite but true, untried but true
Branching from previous item about the two Cindys. I figured out the truth when I stopped listening to Rush’s VERSION of what the Cindys (and Naomi) said, and started reading the ACTUAL TEXT of what they said. It was NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL. Previous AHAS always came from finding a primary unmediated source.…
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AI vs bitcoin
Just a rant. Curve fitting and simulation have been major tasks of paper math for thousands of years. Analog and digital computers were devoted to predictive simulations for 100 years. Using the curve to generate text is relatively new but it’s an inevitable extension of the earlier uses. Eliza was “creating” text in 1964, and…
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‘Economies of Scale’ is fake
The latest upload at American Radio Library is an internal RCA publication from 1940. It lists patents and academic articles by RCA’s engineers, and has some articles about various parts of the company. One of those parts is the Export Division, which I hadn’t thought about. Auto companies often made interesting variations for export, which…
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Trustable ticket
Barrett is talking about RFK etc with his frequent cohost Cat McGuire. Barrett lost his skeptic’s license to the “virus”, but still holds realistic views about other subjects. Barrett and McGuire are solidly in RFK’s cult, though recognizing that he would inevitably converge to DNC orthodoxy. They bring up Cynthia McKinney as a guaranteed non-converging…
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Grudges count.
Pence has entered the meaningless “election”. Unlike the other pointless puppets, Pence has a personal grudge against Trump and isn’t afraid to say so. He was mercilessly tossed around for 4 years and wants revenge. Disgruntled cofounders sometimes create lively new enterprises, and rarely converge back to the company that kicked them out. Might be…
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Some companies have learned.
The corporations who haven’t yet figured out QT are properly making news and causing boycotts. It’s worth noting that SOME big corporations have caught the wind change and altered their steering. Starting around 2018, USBank and Citibank both used the same rotating set of splash screens for their logins. The pictures showed aggressively Die-Verse and…
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Mabel would be proud
The 1920 phone operators didn’t win their fight against Strowger. One of the Hollywood unions, the Directors Guild, just won a fight against the new Strowger. Groundbreaking agreement confirming that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members. They also gained improvements in royalties and residuals, which…
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Palate cleanser…
I’m barnstorming the semifinal install and check of all courseware modules, mixing new ones, reprocessed old ones, and unprocessed old ones. As I run through each lesson, I’m reminded again of the remarkable engineering in our anatomy. Time for a break. Here’s a piece of engineering in the palate and pharynx. For orientation, this picture…
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Trying to clarify
Inspired by Mabel, trying to clarify my thinking about the line between publisher and common carrier. First: Section 230 of the Communications Act was a bad piece of “law”, undoing a very old balance and a very old distinction. In the 1990s the new online publishers like Yahoo and Myspace didn’t look like newspapers, so…
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Polistra's Mill 