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Mean vs median
A classic case… Some literary type on Substack stated as a fact that the average person reads 12 books per year. Others came in fast to give the real fact: the normal or typical person reads 1, maybe 2. The literary type was using mean, which is always pulled up by outliers like literary types…
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Non-hostile divorce
Most successful companies started as hostile divorces or shotgun marriages (LBOs). In autos, all the big names but Ford and Packard started as splits or buyouts**. Hudson’s origin was unusual. It was founded by salesman Roy Chapin and engineer Howard Coffin. Both originally worked at Oldsmobile. When Oldsmobile was bought by Wall Street types who…
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Stupidly annoying
Yesterday this blog received more “reads” in 7 minutes than it did in the previous year. 1510 “reads”, all from one dubious source. Liquid Web LLC doesn’t seem to be known as a spambot, and it’s not a Facebook or NSA or Amazon portal. It’s just a web hosting company, taken over and enshitified by…
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Mechanical is better
A passionate defense of informal justice by Michael Moore: = = = = = START QUOTE: Yes, I condemn murder, and that’s why I condemn America’s broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry and I condemn every one of the CEOs who are in charge of it and I condemn every politician who…
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Reprint on MECHANICAL laws
Continuing from previous item, reprinting this piece on the specific subject from 2021. Real profit works mechanically when the mechanism is set up to increase profit for the whole business or the whole government. The setup fails when the mechanism makes a single exception for the billionaires who STEAL profit and taxes from the business…
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Reprinting the IBM 650
I’m returning to blessed normal after six months of bad anxiety and bad balance. Part of the return is regaining a broader set of interests and a broader use of learning and skills. Programming skills are returning just in time for a new courseware project. Programming includes a fascination with early computers, including older analog…
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Was this his purpose?
After reading Mangione’s whole manifesto, a highly literate account of his mother’s endless pain and his own endless pain, plus the endless failure of United “Health” to honor its own CONTRACT, I had a new thought. He will probably get better medical care in prison than he did outside the walls. Prisons are NOT ALLOWED…
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STOP THIS SHIT.
Media is abuzz with the “mystery” of UFOs over New Jersey. Even the fake “independent” commentators, like Saagar, are getting into the act. Our Martian hasn’t been around for a while. He dropped in to give one message: STOP IT! You’re ruining your own reputation for independence! A drone is not a UFO by fucking…
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Repeating Dewey’s mistake
Duane Jones was frustrated when his ad agency was hired by the Dewey campaign in 1948. He was assigned to run national radio advertising for RNC. Jones understood the Electoral College and wanted to concentrate his firepower on the six swing states. The RNC insisted on spending money equally across all states. They also understood…
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Brilliant!
Stoller is on a roll. People who make a lot of money from killing people with spreadsheets like to pretend to be very offended when anyone points out health care is a matter of life and death. Brilliant line. Direct echo of a perfect song for our times. Some will rob you with a six-gun,…
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Three parallels
Since 2008 I’ve been trying to highlight and illustrate better ways of solving the problems created by Wall Street. The New Deal was the most effective solution. It was preceded by Mutual Benefit Societies in the 1880s, then Social Economics around 1910. All three movements continued in various ways until Wall Street finally killed everything…
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Real purpose
Headline says it all: Return-to-office mandates are associated with an exodus of high performers, research finds This reveals the real purpose of RTO. Profit is NEVER the goal of rich fuckheads. Wall Street HATES BUSINESS AND PROFIT. RTO was designed to kill jobs and destroy business, just like everything else Wall Street does. LBO all…
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So that’s it!
Occasionally a Substack note is truly informative. This morning one of the nature photographers showed a mass of leaves and sticks and described it as a squirrel drey. First, I love learning an old-fashioned word with a highly specific meaning. This one isn’t contrived like the alleged terms for groups of animals. (eg a murder…
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Good work!
Via Stoller, Lina Khan has notched up one BIG victory before NYC Trump returns and breaks everything again. Khan won a court injunction to halt the merger of Kroger and Albertson. If allowed, the combo would be larger than Walmart, and would be able to raise grocery prices without limit. It would also close down…
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One exception, as before
NiemanLab has done its annual year-end collection of thoughts about the current state of “journalism” and what’s needed for the future. In 2016, only one of the pieces was relevant. It said simply that “journalism” is refusing to do the right thing and shows no sign of starting to learn from its richly deserved bankruptcy.…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 