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As usual, not as usual
Enid Buzz asks: What are you interested in that most people aren’t? As usual the answers missed the most people aren’t part of the question. One hits the mark!
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Stevens was right the first time
From a substack article complaining about student reading skills: = = = = = START QUOTE: A professor at Stevens Institute of Technology says that she and her colleagues discuss the problem regularly, agreeing that they can’t assume students will do the readings. But if they simply go over in class what students should have…
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Cocktail
Mixed thoughts. Ingredient 1. Recently I learned a fact that isn’t secret but hasn’t been publicized. Jeff Bezos wasn’t an orphan. His grandpa was the founder of ARPA, which started developing the web soon after its founding. Ingredient 2. I’ve been writing this week about the old system of carrying on the family farm or…
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New thought about nukes
Gene Nelson, a pro-nuke substacker, notes the connection between anti-nuke activism and Big Money donors. Old thought: It always helps to look at the real profits from a movement. Coal and oil production have reached the highest levels in history, and every environmental law “coincidentally” makes coal more attractive and necessary, in the places where…
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Reprinted and examined
Linked in previous about bitcoin, worth reprinting and checking against later developments. = = = = = START 2017 REPRINT: Shared lies have been around as long as political partisanship. Both parties agree on a false definition of the problem. Party A says this is good, Party B says this is bad. Neither side is…
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Reprint inspired by reprint
The Reddit anticoiners have been reposting a somewhat older news item about a Bitcoin Cruise Ship that failed spectacularly, but luckily didn’t sink. The organizers imagined that they could be free from International Law, but realized too late that International Law is enforced strictly against ships. In fact the original purpose of International Law was…
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Some good info
Lots of good info in this conversation. Why congress is totally useless, who really has the power, when things changed, who changed things. I appreciate people who start with reality. These guests don’t bother with the textbook crap about “legislation” and “branches” and “rights”. They simply talk about what happens in DC. Their overriding rule…
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Interesting “coincidence”
Thinking about the parallels between 1968 protests and 2024 protests led to an enticing “coincidence”. The NSA web was started in 1968 by ARPA, founded by Bezos’s grandpa. The web’s first users were universities. The publicly announced first use was tracking academic research so NSA could coordinate and steal and manipulate. Reminded me of a…
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He gets the big point
Most of the time, both “sides” in each hot-button Machiavellian divider are missing the main point. The anti-bitcoiners are right about some details but miss the BIG point that every transaction on the web is perfectly global, perfectly centralized, and perfectly public. Here’s one anti who grasps the biggest point of all. He’s citing a…
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Protos is fucking stupid.
This is the stupidest article I’ve read in many moons. = = = = = START STUPID 1: Politicians will promise a lot to get votes. Despite candidates for the US presidency spending most of their time talking about broad public interests like healthcare, employment, inflation, and national security, they’ll occasionally make a narrow pledge…
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Indirect futility
Thinking about the plight of the younger generation, I’m reminded yet again of the magnificent quote from Schwellenbach: Futility is the nemesis of democracy. More accurately, futility is the nemesis of trust and civilization. When you’re punished for doing the right thing, you revolt. You vote and nothing ever changes. You work hard and can’t…
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Hard question
SpokaneNews asks: Question: Would you prefer law enforcement to chase fleeing vehicles until caught or allow them to go free for public safety. Not an easy question. My basic rule is that it’s better to bore a criminal than excite a criminal. Pursuit pushes criminals to drive faster and wilder, leading to crashes with innocent…
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Win-win
One of the idiotic “trials” of Trump for every fake crime in the world (except his real crime of imprisoning and torturing the entire country, which should have led to execution already) has reached a guilty verdict. Both sides got what they want. The D side can now officially treat Trump as a nuclear bomb.…
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Usable acronym for a movement
BreakingPoints headlines a poll of 18-30 voters. They’re HARDASS realists. Most agree with the accurate statement that ‘No matter which party is in charge, nothing changes.’ Most agree with the accurate statement that ‘America is a dying empire led by bad people’. Dying Empire Led by Bad People = DELBP. DELBP = DELETE BOTH PARTIES.
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How witch hunts die
Via Bloomberg: The trade association of Romance Writers lost 7000 of its 10000 members after one of its biggies accused another biggie of “racism” or something. Now it’s filing for bankruptcy. Witch hunts always die when the torch starts burning the lighters.
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 