-
D-tag? What D-tag?
American Radio Library has added a nearly complete collection of Funkschau, a German electronics newsletter. It started publication in the 20s and is still in business. The magazine scarcely noticed WW2. Near the end, a few articles on DIY parts appeared, but the mix of theory and construction and review remained constant as the pages…
-
Oz is not dumb.
Everyone is making fun of Dr Oz’s grocery video. Let them eat Cruditay. BUT: Youtube has dozens of his grocery shopping videos (segments from the Oprah show) for the last 10 years. They look and sound like the new one. Most are about prices. So this latest grocery price video isn’t a first try, it’s…
-
Immersion is the key
Looked again at the Austin “free” university, which is still waiting for accreditation so it can say the same things all the other universities are saying. The website had an article by Boghossian, one of the big Cancelleds. This led to his Youtube channel where he “challenges” the beliefs of the wokesters in Socratic style.…
-
Swift would appreciate this
Via Brownstone, a magnificent Swiftian article by Thomas Harrington. In merciless detail he “thanks” all the demons who censored and cancelled and fired and condemned the heretics, for their wonderful “apologies” and “reconciliations” now that the demons have silently admitted the heretics were right all along. Outside of Swiftian fables, of course, facts do not…
-
Did you realize Paul had a band before Wings?
A discussion among UX nerds about the addictive properties of Infinite Scroll. I had completely forgotten that there was a time before Infinite Scroll! I noticed Infinite Scroll for the first time in 2015. It was novel and a bit disorienting, but I liked it, and immediately realized its addictive kick. = = = =…
-
Yang is dumb.
Andy is at it again, pretending to solve our problems by introducing fancy gimmicks in the “voting” system. As far as I can tell from his glitzy but vague website, he doesn’t have any actual plans or proposals for economics or industry or peace. He just wants rank-choice “voting”. Pre-Yang nasty complicated voting: Yang’s New…
-
Straightening up a fact
Last month, pointlessly trying to counter the standard notions about Soviet vs US, I wrote: While Stalin was alive, Soviets had no physical way to listen to the West. Instead of tunable radios, all citizens had Muzak speakers hard-wired to the official cable system. They could choose from two or three official channels. Anyone who…
-
Everything is needed and used
I’m halfway tempted to place this under Thiel questions because it seems so obvious and so completely unrecognized. Maybe it’s more recognized than I think, but I sure as hell don’t see it in the usual “science” websites and newsfeeds and forums. Writing and reading are hard-wired parts of the human brain, just like speaking…
-
Status is all.
Facts do not exist. Status exists. Latest “news” item via New Superstitionist: We have ignition! An analysis has confirmed that an experiment conducted in 2021 created a fusion reaction energetic enough to be self-sustaining, which brings it one step closer to being useful as a source of energy. The fusion ignition took place on 8…
-
Ask and ye shall…
Previous item about AI and creativity made me wonder what AI would do when instructed to draw an old car. Would it come out hopelessly weird like a ’62 Dodge, or would it be a statistical average of all old cars, like the generic advertising cars? Neither. Ian Fischer has made a movie solely by…
-
1906 reprint
Linked this in previous item. It’s worth a reprint. = = = = = START REPRINT: Looking for old info on coherers, ran into a US Census publication from the magic year of 1906. The Census bureau wrote a splendidly informative article on the present condition of electricity and electronics, getting everything right and describing…
-
Latest Kirn quibble
Kirn’s latest pithy point: We need a few experts on the history of experts. Such a figure could estimate their average accuracy. My guess is that it hovers between 1 and 2 per cent. If it were any higher, we would not have needed new ones every few years. This is a beautiful observation about…
-
Some fishy rambling on AI
Creativity can be measured commercially. A new product gains profit when it serves some people better than an existing product. Duane Jones emphasized the need to find your niche and defend it. An older product generally broadens and simplifies to be halfway pleasing to a broad range of cultures and places and personalities, which leaves…
-
Done with Substack
I had already passed through the point of not much fun, realizing that I enjoy writing more than reading. The facts and insights from various writers are not Shannon information. For the ‘cancelled’ elites like Dan Rather and Bari Weiss, Substack is just a money-making rest stop on their way back to the Real Establishment.…
-
Might be on the right track
Most research on human vs chimp misses the point. Most research focuses on physical differences like skull shape and jaw shape to explain why humans speak and apes don’t. Feedback ‘factors out’ such differences. Within modern humans there are similarly large differences in size and shape of bones, and we all speak. Here’s a physical…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
