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Never too late for the Right Thing
Several public-facing federal agencies have been taking the Canadian path to handle the psychopaths. Like Trudeau and Carney in Canada, they’re resolutely maintaining a good attitude toward the public even while the psychopath chops and whips their agency. In fact this is more than good behavior. It’s damn near saintly behavior, reminiscent of the early…
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Following the Users Manual
Trump has blocked Canadians from entering the little cross-border library in Vermont/Quebec. It’s been making news as a symbol of long-term friendship and tolerance, so the Trump admin had to do something about it. When people are unhappy and preparing to rebel, smart governments** try to SATISFY THE NEED instead of smashing down harder. Trump…
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Mother-in law and cliff
Speaking of beautiful old infrastructure… An old system is SUSTAINABLE by definition. Whether it’s a house or a car or a coal power plant, maintaining it and using it are CLEANER than building a new one. (As long as it’s still working properly.) Good news: An upstate New York coal plant has been restarted! Yay!…
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Random note on memory
I received a batch of 40 images from the book’s author for the next courseware chapter. I won’t necessarily use all of them in lessons; some won’t be relevant, and I may want to make my own 3d of some for animating. The chapter repeats and expands a chapter in the previous edition. Running through…
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Romantic vs engineer
Someone posted a picture of a snowy mountain with a dense pine forest in the background, and a railroad track with a freight train in the foreground. He described it as a beautiful Nature scene marred by an ugly human artifact. I see the EXACT OPPOSITE. The train is BEAUTIFUL because it’s a crucial and…
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Car grammar
The car sales training films are all about grammar, and not in the usual dumb way. (Upon whom, through which, in order better to drive, I haven’t cars.) All of the sales advice can be reduced to noun cases. This 1958 Chevy film** hits the points directly, but all of them from 1950s to 1970s…
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Pick a side.
Canada and EU are both sticking firmly to the irrational hatred of Russia. They won’t be able to achieve full independence from the US monster as long as they maintain the CORE INSANE BELIEF of US imperialism. Europe, of course, has been hating Russia and trying to invade it for hundreds of years. Napoleon, Kaiser…
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Was it time or space?
Thinking again about trust. A definite change happened in the early 80s. I don’t have enough ‘control variables’ to determine if this was a matter of national culture change or location. It could easily be culture by location, not culture by time. With that giant disclaimer, here’s the observation. In the ’70s, employers trusted me…
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True and deep
Myq Kaplan, a pro comedian, has been posting oneliners on Substack. Most are good puns, worth a quick smile or chuckle. This one is true and deep! The meek shall inherit the earth…. as soon as the bold are off conquering the rest of the solar system and don’t want earth anymore.
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Bikes not buggies
Vintage.es has a few pictures of the Studebaker factory’s showroom in 1909, along with a short and correct history of the company. The showroom displays a long line of buggies. At that time the company was carefully moving into the automobile business but still mainly a carriage builder. Surprisingly these buggies are all steel, built…
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Nope, still wrong
Seen in a meme: Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. No. Not even close. Science has nothing to do with truth or knowledge. Science solves problems. Every plant and animal solves problems all the time. Science is a carefully organized, measured and recorded way of solving problems. Organized and measured so…
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If Canada wants…
If Canada wants a REALLY BIG self-sufficiency project, they could build a pipeline to Europe. As I’ve noted before, there isn’t a lot of open ocean between Canada and Ireland. Ellesmere to Greenland to Iceland to Ireland would include frequent landfalls. The technology was already developed by Russia’s Nordstream, about the same length as the…
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Random grammar thought
Those old industrial films followed the radio “grammar” rules rigidly. 1. Never end a sentence or phrase with a preposition. 2. Never begin a sentence with if. Reverse the verb. 3. All verbs must be passive. 4. Don’t say I or you. Say one. 5. Every sentence must contain at least one which or whom.…
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Happy Blogday 20!
This month is the 20th anniversary of Polistra’s Mill. In the earlier years I marked each anniversary. The first entry was dated March 1, 2005. I started writing at Blogspot on March 14, and imported the previous two weeks from a brief attempt at blogging on LiveJournal. The tenth year seems to be the last…
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If logic worked
This week: It’s raining. It’s snowing. It’s sleeting. It’s hailing. It’s storming. It’s thundering. If logic worked on language we’d also say: It’s winding. I can see why tornado, graupel and lightning don’t work. The first two are recent imports and the third would be uncomfortably redundant. Wind is an old word and “should” behave…
Polistra's Mill
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