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Actuallied up
Normally the press release or abstract of a serious scientific article is better than the article. University publicity departments have some excellent writers. They capture the essence of the dry article and spice it up into an attractive story. Here’s an exception. It’s a study of engraved rocks in a cave, made 15000 years ago…
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I missed the best part.
The remarkably realistic comment by the Harris Poll included a quote from Ice T. I was enamored of ‘analog people’ and didn’t notice the POWER of Ice T’s suggestion. It would [be] kinda dope if Musk bought Twitter and just shut it off. It’s powerful because shutting off is THE NORMAL PURPOSE of buying a…
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More Kirn Kibble
Since I’m quibbling with Kirn today, here’s another. You went to college and want to learn to write well? Here’s a tip. Vanquish from your mind the entire slate of terms you heard only in classes & used only in papers. Ditch “hegemony.” Forget “problematic.” Scuttle “instantiate.” Excellent and very old advice. Most of the…
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Amazing graph
Cited by Batya, this is an AMAZING graph. It’s the percent of NYTimes headlines occupied by each president from Wilson through Biden. Most of the chart is rational and expectable. Presidents who made more news (wars, depressions, scandals) got more headlines. Unexpectedly there’s not much D vs R difference**. Aside from the regularity, the chart…
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It’s all about personal power
Kirn’s latest pithy paragraph: A lot of what passes for politics these days — the policing of language, the stamping out of heretical opinion, the cancellation of offbeat, difficult figures — feels to me like a step in the construction of a universal operating system for humans. Many in power must dream of it. This…
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Guessing game
Speaking of “news” and purpose: The “leak” of a potential overturning of Roe undoubtedly has a purpose. Politico published the leak and we know Politico is the Bush family website. It’s deep deep Deepstate, and we can start our assumptions from that simple fact. All Deepstate leaks are extortion in one form or another. I…
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Already answered, but missed a point
Okay, we know that “journalists” have stopped serving any function. That’s tired territory. Batya is covering it thoroughly and usefully. Purpose-based question: If reporters DO have a real function, the function should be definable in a basic biological way. It should be the same for a beehive or a tribe or a city or a…
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Analog people
Speaking of professional critics vs reality…. The Harris Poll shows about 2/3 of Americans approve Elon’s takeover of Twitter. Sharp comments by the CEO of Harris: It’s a reminder that the views of Twitter’s blue-checkmarked class, professional pundits, and journalists often diverge from the views of most Americans. Perhaps they should spend less time interacting…
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Interesting Constants and Variables question
Since I’m in a programming mood lately, this caught my attention. Saagar is listing various political celebrities who suddenly gained and lost Twitter followers since Elon announced his takeover. Many of these changes are reversals of long-lasting trends, and they don’t seem to correlate neatly with R vs D. Saagar also notes that the takeover…
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Keinpeilempfänger
Fifth in a vaguely defined series on obscure secret electronics, after SCR-268 and Tenzor and Peilempfänger and Kleinstpeilempfänger. = = = = = American Radio Library has uploaded new issues of the British Post Office Engineering Journal. Why did the GPO have an engineering research facility? Because the GPO managed ALL communication in Britain. It…
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The dayest day of all?
According to the daily log at Enid Buzz: Happy May Day! It’s also Couple Appreciation Day, CSS Reboot Day, Executive Coaching Day, Frequent Flyer Day, Global Love Day, Bereaved Mother’s Day, Permaculture Day, Workers’ Day, Keep Kids Alive Drive 25 Day, Law Day, Lei Day, Loyalty Day, Mayday for Mutts, Mother Goose Day, Motorcycle Mass…
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Not free
My version of Santayana: Those who don’t know that history repeats are doomed to be ruined by the repeaters. Those who think academic cancelling is new and abnormal will waste their time fighting a permanent and natural tendency. Frank Edwards runs down the history of academic censorship on the subject of ET life. In 1880…
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Not hypocrisy
Cited by Kirn: The overlap between champions for censorship today, and champions for an “open Internet” and “free speech” during the #NetNeutrality fight in the mid 2010’s, is virtually 100%. Apparently this is meant to show ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘flipflopping’. No. It’s perfectly consistent. It’s just quality control on the PRODUCTS. I called it back in…
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If we assume….
UFOlogists have tried to explain the timeline in various ways. The larger type has been documented for thousands of years. The smaller discs were first publicly described in WW2, with both sides seeing flocks of discs and each side blaming the other. There was a postwar ‘pulse’ of the bigger type in ’47, then another…
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Explicit tag
I’ve been using the Entertainment tag on the UFO and Fortean items lately. I should make the connection more explicit. The Forteans were trying to pull science back into the realm of entertainment and mystification and fascination. Their constant theme, starting with Charles Fort himself, was that Big Science is no longer observing Nature with…
Polistra's Mill
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