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Year-end recharge
Trying to recharge my purpose batteries after a deep discharge this year. Reprinting the basic Foy Rebellion piece written in 2022 when the Bush-Trump torture chamber was still running full speed in the demon-owned states, including here. = = = = = START 2022 REPRINT: Yesterday I was discussing the cultural IMPERATIVE to re-employ ordinary…
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Year end shit for 2025
I guess I’ll turn this 2014 reprint into the annual Year End Shit. It’s a heartfelt piece expressing how I feel about the world, and has some up-to-date resonance. Normally I try to reprint or link my best tech history piece or my best blog writing. This year I’ve been tired and distracted by external…
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Imagination, not Intelligence part 2
The silliest point-missers think the I in AI stands for Intelligence, and bash it for “hallucinations” instead of logic. Nope, the I stands for Imagination. Altman knows what he’s doing and knows who he’s destroying. There’s no need for a new kind of intelligence. COMPUTERS BEAT RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CENTURIES AGO. The first mechanical adders were…
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Self-shooting fish in barrels
“Science” articles about longevity and happiness ALWAYS miss the true cause. Latest stupid example: Playing tennis is the best way to stay healthy as you get older. To make it more obvious, the headline calls tennis “racquet sports”, whatever that means. Who plays tennis? Rich assholes play tennis. Assholes who have private doctors and private…
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Another “fair” source
I haven’t bothered with ANY news lately while I’m trying to push through a frustrating stage of courseware. Another “unbiased” source has popped up. Allsides News aggregates the news in three columns, from left, center and right sources. Previous attempts always revealed the standard journalistic viewpoint with hidden assumptions and loaded words, ESPECIALLY on “climate”…
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Carver and AI
Seen in the anti-AI department of Substack: = = = = = START QUOTE: When everyone has an advantage, it is no longer an advantage. When everyone can learn and create anything at the click of a button, your advantage comes from slowing down, focusing on your craft, doing the right things manually, and acquiring…
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Originalist interpretation
We’re back to the noble and idealistic purpose of our founders: PIRACY. So far we’ve boarded and stolen three oil tankers. Venezuela dares to export oil at a time when we don’t like Venezuela, so we are officially entitled to steal the ships and claim the oil. Gang logic. Our founders were pirates. They wrote…
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Almost up to TRS-80!
Windows 11 has achieved what previous tech predictors thought impossible: It matches the performance of a TRS-80 with cassette drive memory, or the first PC with 144k floppies. Fine work, Microsoft! Sardonic off. I’ve been using Win 11 for several weeks now, so I have a good idea of how various programs run. Absolutely everything…
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LemonADA
This month I’ve been grinding through the mostly annoying** task of adding ADA alt-text to courseware. It’s annoying (as abovementioned) because there are few if any blind students in speech and hearing, and because this material is intrinsically visual, not amenable to verbal description. The guidelines are vague, contradictory, and mandatory. You must obey but…
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Free as in
The “investigator” types finally got what they wanted in the Epstein mess. Now they’re shockedshockedshocked to find that the vast majority of pages are redacted and blank. Assuming here that the “investigators” are naive (not bloody likely!), they’re misinterpreting one word. They think the F in FOIA means Free as in Free Speech. In fact…
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Was she the first to say it?
I’m rereading Pat Foster’s book on the Nash Metropolitan, written in 1996. The book prominently features an interview with Evelyn Ay, Miss America in 1954. She was the official ambassador for the Ambassador and the official revealer of the Metropolitan. From my previous item on the subject: Transcribing the corporate part: The relationship with Nash…
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Building a better bot trap
This is funny as hell! WSJ let Anthropic run an office vending machine with AI. Their employees baited it with TREMENDOUSLY smarter and sneakier bot traps than I’ve been trying here! The AI went along with requests to make all items free, ordered a live fish, ordered a Playstation, and announced a Communist Revolution in…
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Thanks, Avista!
Yesterday was a bad windstorm. Not as bad as 2015 or 2021, but significant. After it was done at noon yesterday, about 1/4 of Spokane was powerless. Avista got to work, and this morning ALL of those outages are fixed. The map has a few brand-new outages, probably trees that were leaning after yesterday and…
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Why don’t they USE their goddamn AI?
Microsoft and most other software makers are proudly using AI to track your preferences, and SUPPOSEDLY to adjust the software for your preferences. FALSE. There’s no adjustment. Two specific examples. (1) Firefox claims to be using AI, but their adjuster has never noticed that I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS type in the top URL bar. In…
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LemonAIde 4
Just recording this for my own purposes, since this is a purely private diary with no human readers. Last week I tried an experiment. The bots who steadily “read” this blog were focusing on one particular item about the Phelps induction telegraph. There’s no reason for this item to be hugely popular. I tried replacing…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 