-
The Sonnabend solution
Thinking about Hudson led to a random thought about governments. Studebaker and Packard made plenty of identifiable constant mistakes, obvious to outsiders at the time, not just in hindsight. Above all Studie overpaid shareholders and underpaid factories and research. Packard kept trying to compete in luxury cars after Cadillac unquestionably owned the niche, and outsourced…
-
Probably right
Earlier I noticed that the Trump cult’s email spam resembled the incessant calls from a moody menopausal ex-wife. Do you still love me? Why haven’t you responded? I would never expect this from YOU! Kirn has noticed the same thing, describing it from a different angle: A lot of the political $$$ solicitations I’m getting…
-
Revelation, not reveal
Looking up something about analog computers, ran into this NASA publication on the history of fly-by-wire. The really interesting part of the book is NOT the computing part; it’s the basic history of flying with wings. Each profession and skill has its own internal history and base assumptions, which are rarely understood by outsiders. Sometimes…
-
Relative prospects
Expanding on cars vs religion. Major food companies always offer a wide variety of subtypes within their one specialty. Each company offers at least three types of soup or pickles or cheese or wine, often hundreds. As I noted last week, successful car companies did the same. One size fits all = bankruptcy. Religions are…
-
Now they’re Hudson
Religion Unplugged writes about the growing pains of the Anglican schism. ACNA split off 15 years ago, and has grown mostly by attracting people from non-liturgical churches who were hungry for liturgy but didn’t want the lunacy that comes with the ‘mainline’ package. ACNA didn’t anticipate the intake, so its bylaws were written to satisfy…
-
DuchampGPT
Altman flipped the purpose of computing. Computers started out as mass-produced bookkeeping. Hollerith’s counter mechanized and regularized the process of organizing and sorting census entries, which had grown beyond the ability of human clerks to handle. The switch to mass production was easily understood. Other manufacturing processes were being automated at that time with great…
-
Why is that wrong?
Rumble is suing Google for showing Google’s own products first in searches. When you look for maps, Google Maps is first. When you look for financial advice, Google Finance is first. Why is that wrong? Advertising is normal and natural, and advertising your own product is just logical. Why would Google want to boost its…
-
Lawyers understand Desistance
Via Protos, with the usual caution, a BEAUTIFUL lesson on why you should always hire a lawyer. Logan Paul, like Craig Wright, is a professional criminal and professional suer. A bitcoin developer made the mistake of working with Paul on a fraudulent (redundant) bitcoin project. The project failed like everything in the bitcoin world… =…
-
Misread
Someone on substack showed a public service ad for an EU “counterterrorism” task force. The big headline is PREVENT TERRORIST ATTACKS! My old eyes saw it as PREVENT THEORIST ATTACKS! which makes more sense. The “terrorists” we’re supposed to prevent are developed and created by the real terrorists, the THEORISTS of Deepstate. The real terrorists…
-
Dying empires
Thomas Harrington writes a true masterpiece at Brownstone. He says historians and other observers are using Rome as the comparison with our Dying Empire (as I did just yesterday**) but the true comparison and the true lesson is Spain. We’re now retracing Spain’s path with different words. Because Spain had the power to print money…
-
Dying empires continued
Continuing the timeline from Harrington’s magnificent insight. What happened next? After Spain’s religious and primitive empire was defeated by the superior tech and finance of England and France and Italy, the same damn thing happened. France took the tech and science learned from Islam, along with the secular reaction of the Protestants, and overmodulated it…
-
Rarely discussed
Here’s a random chain of thought. This week I’m playing with a somewhat different graphics project after reaching saturation with the pinfeed to pigskin line. There’s a lot of detail work in this project, with absolutely no monetary benefit. For a moment I felt guilty about wasting time. Stupid! The cost and benefit of experimenting…
-
Not so dumb
Yesterday I was chuckling over Wells Fargo’s stupid misestimate of human behavior. They signed a 10 year contract with a credit card company that was offering discounts on rent, provided the landlords would agree to the deal. Wells itself would bear the cost of the discounts, so the landlords wouldn’t lose. Wells figured that very…
-
Hours vs years
Breaking Points headlines this piece ‘Dying Empire, Gaza Pier collapses’ Hmm. I seem to recall that another Dying Empire built piers in the same ocean, not too far from Israel… This article shows a 2000-year-old pier still holding up, while our pier collapsed after a few weeks. Not even 2000 hours, let alone 2000 days…
-
Gaian grammar
Religion Unplugged, the successor to GetReligion, constantly beats the drum for “climate emergency”. It’s a good reminder that “global warming” was a Christian scam before it was coopted by CIA and turned into a secular religion. One aspect remains constant. Apocalyptic Christians always miss the meaning of prophecy. A prophet is telling us what WILL…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 