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Real opposition?
If it’s real, this could be the first real crackdown on the Tech Tyrants by the Trump admin. It’s aimed at a sneaky trick by Amazon and other America-hating corporations to get around customs and tariffs. The ‘de minimis’ exception was made a long time ago to assist ordinary tourists who wanted to bring home…
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Idiotic
Substack is now following Facebook’s idiotic practice of keeping the SAME item on top of your feed for days at a time. The SAME item is never something you want, never something you actually read, and it’s usually stupid and pointless. Newspapers didn’t follow this rule. When a story was continuous, with new events each…
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Tired of the missed point.
A long time ago I got tired of people who miss the point of AI. You simply can’t argue or worry about the qualities and actions of the MACHINE. There’s no line between ChatGPT and the endless history of predictive math. Life is infinitely full of predictive mechanisms. Most plants and animals predict daylight, moons…
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Subscriber vs advertiser
Nice example of the difference between subscriber-driven and advertiser-driven media. When a business is focused on customers, it wants FEEDBACK from the customers. Collectible Auto has been pure subscriber since 1985. They often fix a problem when enough readers dislike a new feature, or dislike the deletion of an old feature. They listen to serious…
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Trump is a normal US president.
Canadians are working together to develop a newly designed nation. They’re doing it both officially and personally. It’s a fine thing to watch. MANY countries have been forced to develop their own best skills when we blockaded them. We pulled the same nasty trick on Cuba in 1960, Persia in 1980, and Russia in 2000.…
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Almost sounded good
Normally I skip the Youtube ads for gimmicks like perpetual motion machines. Ended up listening to one when it interrupted a clip I was using as background noise while eating. This one was a miniature air conditioner. The action is unquestionably interesting. Instead of compressing and expanding Freon in a closed set of pipes, it…
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Priority list
If governments want people to listen to crap about “climate” and “diversity” and “zoning”, they will have to do ONE THING first. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control crime. Control…
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Thanks, weather gods.
Just exercising gratitude. Last year we got too much heat. This year is a strictly average summer (so far). Mostly 80s, some scattered 90s, couple of 100s. Only a couple of storms, versus LOTS of storms last year.
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Not the only choices
Paul Vigna proposes frequent debt jubilees. He says there are only two motivations in an economy: greed and morality. He complains correctly that we’ve organized our economy on greed and debt. To favor morality more, he wants occasional debt jubilees, saying that ancient governments realized it was the best way of restoring stability and giving…
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More non-news from “news”
I keep watching to see if any of the powerful institutions have figured out what’s wrong. So far I’m not seeing any understanding here in US. Mexico and Canada have OFFICIALLY figured it out and started doing the right thing, which is the FDR thing. Will we ever get there? I suppose it’s possible. Until…
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X et XII, pars I de II
Discussions and school lessons on Roman arithmetic are solely about integers. In reality the Romans, and the medieval merchants who continued the tradition, handled fractions all the time using a sophisticated notation. Integers operated on a pair of 5s, not a simple base 10. Fractions operated on a pair of 6s, not a simple base…
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X et XII, pars II de II
After covering the Addiator I was curious to see if there were similar devices in earlier times. Rome used primitive abacuses, just stones sliding in grooves on wood. Not really a device. Googling medieval abacus led solely to this gadget: There’s only one source for the picture and description, a 1682 encyclopedia of ancient things…
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Machiavelli works
While I’m doing poll type stuff, here’s an unsurprising but worthy Gallup poll. Who owns bitcoin and related frauds? Men. More specifically, wealthy “conservative” men from 18 to 50. About 25% in this group own fraud, and 37% of all men. Only 17% of all women own fraud. Partisan advertising works for frauds like politics…
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Lowe’s perfect word
The “two” “sides” are pointlessly arguing about the network decision to drop Colbert. One side says the network was cowardly, the other side says it was brave. (I hardly know who the dude is, since I haven’t watched any TV since 2010 and never watched the late night “comedy” shows either on TV or on…
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Original jurisdiction
In April I was called to serve on a jury for a fraud trial. I got out of the box honestly, which saved my health. Fortunately the jury reached the correct conclusion without my dubious help. Sentencing was originally scheduled for July 23, but it hasn’t happened yet. I keep checking the court calendar. Today…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 