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Time scales
Kirn pointed to this fascination with plant intelligence. “Another example of how living things are all animated, just at different time scales.” The video shows how tendrils seek a support. Plant intelligence is an odd branch of science. It’s been known forever by farmers and beekeepers and others who work with plants, and it’s been…
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Shkreli has a GOOD idea.
Shkreli has finished his 5 years in prison, and DailyMail has an informative interview. Is he reformed? Hell no. I understand the Shkreli type, and I understand prison, and I predicted correctly that he would be an outstanding mentor to other Bad dudes. From the DailyMail: At the top of his post-prison to-do list is…
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Kar Kontest Karma
The deliciously unbought Corvette NFT reminded me of another car contest with a beautiful end. = = = = = START REPRINT: In 1954 Nash held a ‘name this car’ contest to promote the new Metropolitan. They built a custom roadster using the same Austin engine as the Metropolitan, and invited entries to submit names.…
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The opposite of self-liquidating
Lately I’ve been somewhat fascinated by the use of interactive quizzes and ‘self-liquidating premiums’ in radio and other advertising. Smart marketers were able to gain permanent conversion to a product by offering small tokens or premiums, which were fully paid by the customer. NFTs are so horrible that they can’t serve as a self-liquidating premium!…
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Mao in action
From Canada: It’s official. Trudeau’s meeting with provincial agriculture ministers wrapped up yesterday. He is moving forward with a 30% fertilizer reduction. Farms will fail, land will he purchased by billionaires/the government, and people will starve. Farmers are rising up today. = = = = = This is pure explicit genocide, pure Mao, pure Pol…
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Double miss
Somebody on Twitter quoted Chomsky. [I don’t know if this is accurate, just copying what I read…] Chomsky: The US is living under a totalitarian culture much worse than Soviet Union. Soviet Russia could access BBC, Voice of America, German TV. Today Americans are not permitted to hear what Russians are saying. The US has…
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Entertainment spawns entertainment
From Gerard and Castor’s record of bitcoin idiocy: But Zhu and Davies have been telling the public — especially their creditors — how they lost money too, how they fear for their lives, and how they are so overwhelmed that they can’t turn over banking information just yet, but they’ll get to that soon, for…
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Intersection of old and new
Latest upload at American Radio Library is some 1978 issues of Practical Computing, the British equivalent of Byte. I was struck by the intersection of old and new. The technical new in 1978 didn’t really go anywhere. Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, Cromemco, Z80, Basic, Pascal. Contrary to the official myth written by Jobs, none of those…
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Where’s the advertising?
I’m genuinely puzzled about this mismatch of advertising and reality. Not disingenuous or sardonic. Some writers claim to see an incipient shift in establishment Repooflican politics, moving toward real FDR-style populism. Industrial policy, limiting immigration, encouraging one-income families. Supposedly some of the existing figures like Rubio and Hawley are moving in this direction. If this…
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Reprint on cultural dominance
Linked this 2017 piece in previous item. Worth a reprint if only because it’s smarter than anything I can write now. = = = = = START REPRINT: A couple days ago I tossed in a techy sidenote on UNARY VARIABLES, just as a random pointless pun: ANTI-WAR is the key. Left and right, liberal…
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Old problem, old solution
Denyse offers zero sympathy for the “problems” of Twitter: As we just saw, state attorneys general are suing Twitter for engaging in censorship. Meanwhile, Twitter is suing the government of India because it demands more censorship than Twitter is prepared to provide. In fact, governments worldwide had pressured Twitter to censor more, according to its…
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Clavecin oculaire, more ‘honest’
In the first item about the Clavecin Oculaire, I noted that my simulation was ‘dishonest’. I was simply coloring the individual strips of a display screen. This was physically impossible in 1740. It’s also too digital and precise. Writers who described Castel’s instrument disagreed on mechanical details, but agreed that the colors blended like music.…
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Getting into the act
I’ve been reading Ruth Moore’s wonderful book about fossils and fossil-gatherers. Today the weather decided to participate in my reading. Weathermen like to talk about historic storms… here’s a prehistoric storm. Despite the scary appearance, it didn’t DO much. No actual rain or lightning, just a nice cool breeze.
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Carrying AI in wheelbarrows
What’s going on here? This Thaler dude claims to have an AI system that creates inventions. Since 2019 he’s been filing lawsuits EVERYWHERE, from Germany to England to EU to South Africa to Australia to US. Thaler wants to be the owner of the patent himself, but wants the AI to be listed as the…
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The important story
Here is the important news story this week. The central bank of the EU has turned off the free money spigot. End of ZIRP and NIRP and QE. When money is loose, crime proliferates. It’s obvious at ground level: gold rushes, oil booms, cattle drives, postwar booms, Vegas. Whenever you have crowds carrying extra UNEARNED…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 