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Where’s the effect?
Stoller is extolling a new decision by the Federal Trade Commission to ban non-compete agreements. FTC claims this will raise wages by $2000 for an average worker. This doesn’t make sense. Non-compete agreements have been around for a long time. They were always used for executives and salesmen, and apparently they’re now used in other…
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Who invented the earth?
Multiple choice quiz. Who invented the earth? A: God, 4004 BC. B: Random quantum fluctuations evolving atoms and molecules and planets, at a quantum indeterminate date and time. C: Carl August Steinheil, 1837. Correct answer is C. = = = = = Steinheil was a physics prof who got interested in the new sport of…
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Rats leave sunk ship
Protos continues to track a semi-local connection to the Sammy story: Moonstone Bank chief legal officer Joseph Vincent, a former top banking regulator, has left the financial firm, after being with the bank for just eight months. Vincent joined Moonstone, one of the smallest banks in the country, which gained national attention late last year…
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Unbash when deserved
I’ve bashed TheFederalist a couple times lately, so I should unbash when unbash is due. In this podcast on the idiotic soap opera of Congress, they get down to HARDASS realism. They recognize that the “political” parts of the federal government, including “elections”, have been completely nonexistent and nonfunctional for several decades, and they also…
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What if PO had bought it?
From previous item, Morse ran the first real commercial trial of his system for the Post Office, but they decided it wouldn’t be profitable enough for full implementation. If the PO had bought Morse, many things would be different. After our PO turned him down, Euro POs made better offers, and most of them quickly…
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Birthday gift for Carver!
Today is Carver’s birthday.** Neurologists have given him a nice gift today: a newly found structure that redesigns our understanding of the circulatory system. = = = = = START QUOTE: The tissue is a thin membrane encasing the brain that keeps newly made cerebrospinal fluid – which circulates inside the brain – separate from…
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Reprint: Trying a question
Looking at Statcounter for the old blog, noticed several of my semi-regular readers are looking at this item about plant intelligence. I can’t tell if they’re mocking it or discussing it, but it’s definitely one of the better things I’ve written. I was highlighting and extending what Francis Darwin and Dorothea Pertz were saying in…
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Reprint on pay vs value
Linked in previous item, worth a reprint. From 2018. = = = = = START REPRINT: Yet another proposal to counteract big money in politics: At their heart, political campaigns are no different than any other organization: they need to raise revenues and then spend it to meet their objectives. Organizations are responsive to who…
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Never hear the question
Random observation connected to my long-lasting theme on government as a business. Real businesses, at least when seeking profit, try to keep existing customers and bring back missing customers. Now that QT is starting to restore the profit loop, we should see more of this attitude. Even before QT, online businesses routinely detect that I’ve…
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What’s worse than DDT?
Reading a Reddit thread about sounds we used to hear. Modems, rotary dials, antenna rotors, the 15750 horizontal flyback in TV (interestingly, the thread has 15,700 comments right now!), dial tones and busy signals. I’m mostly analog, never switched from landline to cellphone, so some of these are still common for me. One steady theme…
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“Earlier than thought”
Morse received a government grant to test his telegraph in 1845. Here’s an account of the first official message, from a hagiography of Exalted Saint Morse, dismissing all earlier and later inventors. = = = = = On April 1, 1845, the line which had been worked as a curiosity was opened for public business.…
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More on Stalin and language
Continuing from here with Stalin’s remarkable essay on language. The PDF includes several letters written to various academicians after the ‘Ask Me Anything’ session at Pravda. In one of those letters he deals with the silly gesture-first idea, which was apparently popular among Soviet academicians at that time. = = = = = START STALIN:…
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They don’t make em…
A NYC writer observes Sammy’s arraignment: An uncomfortable-looking SBF pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was seen chewing the corners of his mouth throughout the 30-minute hearing and smearing on lip balm, which he squeezed out of a little black tube. Last night I was listening to a 1950 Mutual newscast including a parallel…
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Another bitcoin metaphor
I’ve already tried a mathematical analogy for bitcoin, as a robotic abacus. Then I tried an office equipment analogy, as a super-expensive rare precious file folder. Since I was admiring elegant old cars a few days ago, how about an automotive analogy? Well, blockchain is just a simple ordinary array, nothing fancy, EXCEPT that it…
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Even Trudeau?
Trudeau does one good thing in his miserable demonic life. A law banning ALL foreigners from buying property in Canada went into effect on Jan 1. Real populism is gradually percolating into governments and corporations now. Trump and Boris were fake populists, setting the cause back instead of forward. The NAZI “virus” genocide they started…
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