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Clerihew Day
Well, actually yesterday was Clerihew Day. A new American Radio History upload from 1955 includes a couple of near-Clerihews. Like many large stations, KFI in Los Angeles sent out a weekly newsletter with a mix of recipes, articles about local affairs, and jokes and poems submitted by readers. Most of the jokes and poems were…
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Better on second listening
I linked Barrett’s interview with Paul Fitzgerald in previous item. Decided to listen again and focus on the broader political stuff, not just the high-status hippie stuff. Most of the interview is about 1980 and Afghanistan. The pattern is the same in all our “defensive” wars against Russia, from 1918 to 2022. We use fake…
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It’s not that complicated
Marks at MindMatters discusses the AI religion and overthinks the theology. Silicon Valley’s religion isn’t really AI-based, it’s just a personality cult. The company founder is God. Some founders (eg Holmes) say the words explicitly, but the form is there whether explicit or not. Older companies separated church and state. The boss was the emperor…
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Flow chart
Just for fun, let’s try another multiple-choice bet. Assuming Elon is really done with the game, Twitter has two choices. (1) Keep the litigation going, or (2) charge Elon a billion dollars as per the contract. Take the money and run would be the only conceivable choice for humans, but I don’t know how demons…
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Elon is out.
He’s outta here. Fortune mag thinks the whole weird game was just a distraction so he could sell a bunch of Tesla stock without destroying the value. On multiple choice tests, teachers used to advise sticking with your first semi-conscious guess. Gut is usually (not always) correct when facts are lacking. In this case my…
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Regeneration reprints, 1/4
After linking one of this series in connection with 2015, I think it’s time for an organized reprint in the new blog. Partly as backup in case the old blog suffers more cancelling, mainly to bring the pieces together in sequence. = = = = = START REPRINTS: This is a nerdy bucketlist item. Earlier…
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Regeneration reprints, 2/4
After using the MFJ regenerative receiver for a week, I’m getting the experience I wanted. The nerdy bucket-list desire of building and understanding regen. The regen control isn’t just a ‘booster’. Turning it changes the frequency of an internal oscillation, up to a point where it simply covers everything with a 16kc (or so) hiss.…
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Regeneration reprints, 3/4
Why am I focusing so heavily on analog gadgets with minimal automatic controls? It has to do with defensible spaces. Benedict spaces, if you will. In any important technology you can trace a path of gradual automation. At each step the machine does more for you, which is GOOD for most people UP TO A…
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Regeneration reprints, 4/4
I’ve been discussing manual regen controls, manual chokes, manual ignition timing. This line of thought originated from a specific conversation with Grandpa in 1962. Grandpa was dying early from alcohol and tobacco, and the family went to visit him one last time. As we hung around Grandpa’s house, or visited nearby parks, Grandpa kept saying…
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The latest phone-home
For several years I’ve been trying to disconnect from the ever-increasing Github auto-updates and phone-home “features”. In some cases I simply rolled back to the last unconnected version of a program, in other cases I’ve been able to write my own Python or EXE to serve the same purpose. The latest to fall is Gomplayer.…
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Rare miss
In contrast to previous item about the Federalist atypically hitting a point, Taibbi atypically misses. He has done proper reportorial legwork on one bitcoin-related “loan company”. He found and documented its connections to Wall Street. But many commentators (ahem!) recognized the problem 10 years ago, and many good reporters have already followed the trails to…
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Gedankenexperiment rides again
Listening to Hoeg’s detailed presentation of the latest turn in Elon vs Twitter. I’ve been puzzled by the importance of the bot count. Why is this the absolute deal-breaker? The political to gangster transform answers the question. Change the characters from political gangsters to old-fashioned non-political gangsters to spot the underlying pattern. Twitter is a…
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Rare truth
Every now and then I peek at the Federalist to see if they’re still hopelessly lost. In general they meet my expectations. Today I noticed a positive exception to the rule, on an unusual subject. The shitty quality of teacher training is NOT a subject that normally gets into the media or websites. Even websites…
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Useful Gedankenexperiment
Yesterday I proposed a sort of thought-experiment or useful metaphor: Constants and variables: When non-political gangsters are shot, our media and historians never play the crazed gunman game. We correctly assume that a rival non-political gangster hired the hitman. But when political gangsters are shot, we go directly to the random wacko myth and NEVER…
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Convergence is a big word
Kirn’s love for the Beats is misplaced, but his mention of the science-based conformity of the 50s is a solid and strong point. Conformity in a tech context means losing old information and old devices that were valid and functional. The scientific consensus of the ’50s was good on “climate” and excellent on viruses and…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 