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Uniquely powerful cults
The two modern political cults are uniquely powerful. Both of them can vacuum the brains out of previously clear and rigorous thinkers on any subject. A few months ago I saluted historian Robert Sandel for debunking several myths. I liked his work so much that I bought and read his book. Most of it is…
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Not the best use
From a Canadian radio trade journal, August 1945. The Tech Lords were already working on grandiose new projects using military methods for civilian purposes. I’m all for amortizing, but you need to choose the RIGHT existing technology! = = = = = START QUOTE: Until now, television’s main problem has been the question of “bending…
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Reprint on limited resources
In previous item about Krugman and Cobol I linked this 2014 piece. I was talking about Modern Monetary Theory, which turned out to be a passing fad. MMT was just a fake philosophy to justify the standard Wall Street and government method. Never save, never produce or preserve anything. Create counterfeit and pour it into…
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Magnificent observation!
The Full Press podcast includes Tara Henley, Peter Menzies and Harrison Lowman. All three are hardass realists about journalism, holding no hope for renewal or reform. Around 17 minutes in this episode, Henley gives one MAGNIFICENT rule. TRUTH SHOULD BE REPLICABLE. Best observation on journalism I’ve ever heard, and the FIRST time I’ve heard a…
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Replacing MIL Cliff
Maybe it’s time to replace my favorite Mother-in-law / Cliff / Cadillac metaphor. An adventurer kayaking off the coast of Chile was swallowed by a whale, then immediately spit out. Good news: The whale didn’t swallow him. Bad news: Even whales don’t like his taste.
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Back to Lessing
In October I switched from bus to taxis. At that point the laziness was necessary. After a series of hard dental sessions and bad weather I had built up an overanxious and overstressed condition, with bad balance, constipation and lots of weird little anxiety symptoms. The balance trouble made it nearly impossible to stand steadily…
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MIL Cliff
About 40k federal bureaucrats are being fired. The old Mother-in-law / cliff joke applies perfectly. In the broadest sense I’m glad to see Trump breaking Parkinson’s Law. The devil is in the details. Some bureaucrats, specifically the Die-Versity types, are mother-in-laws for the real economy. They just bitch and lecture us, serve no useful purpose.…
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He’s right for once!
Krugman is usually wrong about economics, but he’s hit on a splendid truth here. Elon’s attempt to take over the Treasury for his own psychopathic purposes will be stymied by old-fashioned mainframes running Cobol. YES! Tech tyrants hate mainframes and Cobol. Cobol requires you to lay out everything carefully and maintain constant order. You can’t…
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What does he think he’s doing?
The guy who runs the Spokane News facebook page has a good thing going. Facebook lists 270k followers, which is the whole adult population of the Spokane metro. I check the site several times a day, more often when power outages and windstorms are around. He posts police reports on crashes, overdoses and fires, and…
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Remarkable similarity
I remembered that Canada had a more formal anthem before O Canada was adopted in 1980. I hadn’t listened to it in full before. Now it reminds me FIRMLY of the Macedonian anthem. The tunes are similar. Both are packed with specific names and places and the dauntless deeds of old heroes. Macedonia: I went…
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Solid victory
A court has laid down an important decision against the AI thieves. An AI gang was stealing info from Reuters’s Westlaw database and using it to build its own competing product. The judge found that Reuters’s copyrights were infringed by the thieves. In this specific case there won’t be an actual payment because the thief…
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Could learn, won’t.
Polls show that Trudeau’s party is overtaking Poilievre’s conservatives. There’s a wildly obvious lesson here. If you want customers, offer a GOOD PRODUCT that can SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS. If you want votes, offer a GOOD PRODUCT that can SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS. Before this year, Trudeau was a poisonous product and his party had lost all…
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Brutalist typography
This 1970s film is teaching journalism students about proper design. It’s unapologetically brutalist, in the same denaturing spirit as Corbusier in architecture or Cage in music. Remove all beauty. Remove all decorations. Remove all variation and improvisation. Only stark colorless rectangles are allowed. Replace it with squared-off type masses… Short words, short sentences and short…
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Celebrate reform
I’m obsessing on Canada lately, which is definitely atypical and surprised me when it happened. What’s going on? Since 2020 I’ve been HUNGRY to find ANY government ANYWHERE** that is doing the right thing. I don’t ENJOY hating all rulers. It isn’t fun. Before 2020 I appreciated several governments, notably Russia. In 2020 all governments…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 