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Electrical analogy
After noticing Google’s rectification of my Misinformation about 2008, I started thinking about an electrical analogy. My first thought was too literal. A full-wave rectifier does turn both directions of AC input current into a single direction of DC, but its goal is not the same as Google’s goal. Google is not interested in a…
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Are they learning yet?
I decided to peek at TheFederalist to see if the “conservatives” are starting to learn anything. They are at least noticing that Repooflicans are not serving ordinary people. This podcast shows a nascent understanding without discarding most of the biases that will prevent a more mature understanding. They think Woke/ESG started in the universities. It…
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Youtube’s punishment
After writing previous item looking back at 2008, it was time to cook and eat, so I clicked on one of Shkreli’s podcasts about Sammy and jail. Shkreli isn’t always right or honest**, but he speaks from real experience and knows how to entertain. While eating I allowed Youtube to autoplay for background noise. As…
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Looking back to 2008
Now that Powell has amazingly turned OFF the counterfeit, I looked back at the start. I wrote a sequence of pieces in Sept 2008, trying to organize my thoughts about the theft, and concluding with a major essay. Recounting the sequence… In this piece I outlined the Sharia and Soviet alternatives to capitalism, but at…
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Same/opposite
Okay, here’s a suitable year-end shit, inspired by reading Huxley’s 1927 essays. Compare events that came out exactly as I thought, versus events that came out the opposite way. Check my own biases and assumptions. = = = = = Exactly as I thought: In Feb 2020, when China started doing the lockdown lunacy, my…
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Good knockdown of a silly idea!
This article on the origin of language is sensible but sort of surprising. Apparently the idea that language started from gestures is becoming more common, and might even be the consensus assumption now. The first paragraph is eloquent: Some say language evolved by firelight, with our ancestors sharing stories deep into the night. Others suggest…
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Not woke, just literati
Kurt Mahlburg at MercatorNet is complaining about woke dictionaries. In 2020, Merriam-Webster infamously updated its entry for female to include “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”. Now the online edition of the Cambridge Dictionary has gone one better: in addition to being “an adult female human being”, a woman is now…
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W[h]ales
According to this piece at Medium, the planning for Charles’s eventual death started as soon as he took office. If he carries the good genes, the planners should have 30 years to get ready. The plan for Elizabeth’s death was called Operation London Bridge. The new plan is called Operation Menai Bridge, after the Menai…
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Mister Restitution speaks
Yahoo Finance is interviewing Kenneth Feinberg, The Restitution Man. He knows better than anyone else how to distribute the assets from complex semi-criminal enterprises. He brings out a basic fact: Many of Sammy’s creditors are criminals who knew they were laundering criminal money. He doesn’t quite hit the exact analogy. Bitcoin is counterfeit. Bitcoin was…
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Sun!
Polistra and friends salute the SUN, who appeared today after two months of absence. We accumulated 20 inches of snow quickly, followed by constant overcast or fog or added snow. Two days ago we got a dramatic meltoff with heavy rain and 45 degrees, which nicely cleared the roof. When the roof is loaded my…
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From an extremely same/different era
After finding the origin of ringers in this 1927 volume of Vanity Fair I started reading the rest of the magazine. 1927 was the peak of a Share Value boom, so it was like 2017 as measured by aristocrats. The two booms are drastically different as measured by peasants. 1927 was overgrown from a REAL…
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Ringers
I shouldn’t even try to think about politics. My record of mistakes is unbroken. Nevertheless, here’s one random thought after dipping a toe into media for a moment. It’s clear that both parties want to prevent DeSantis from rising to the top. He’s the only major politician who SOLVES PROBLEMS. All other politicians MANUFACTURE PROBLEMS…
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New thought on experiential lessons
Shkreli’s advice to Sammy got me thinking again about my 1969 jail experience and the BIG lessons learned. I kept the lessons about basic human nature, but I lost the lesson about government. (I restored the lesson much later after throwing away the TV.) Questions: 1. How did I lose it? 2. Why was this…
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Man vs machine reprint
Reading the endless (sometimes valid) commentary about AI and lost skills, remembered that I had hit the subject from an unconventional angle in 2014. This probably belongs in the Thiel Question category. It certainly deserves a reprint. = = = = = START REPRINT: Heard a PSA from a union-based group trying to restore full…
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