Tag: bemusement
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CNN’s mother
CNN and Fox figured out how to pose a soap opera as “news”. Stories run for months or years without any real plot movement. Shit happens, but shit has no consequences. The characters just keep on doing more shit. CBS introduced the genre in 1949. Only a few episodes of Wendy Warren and the News…
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Itchy
The semi-prosecution of celebrity bitcoin influencers bothers me. There’s nothing new about celebrity endorsers who know absolutely nothing about the product they endorse. Their managers and agents make the arrangements, and the celebrities just read the script like any movie or show. Punishing an action that was effectively legal at the time of the endorsement…
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Manual as usual
Tax time again. So far I’ve managed to avoid all the software solutions. For 53 years I’ve been figuring manually and sending a check. Once around 2010 I tried the IRS’s online E-file service, but it immediately urped when I tried to enter self-employment income from a 1099. Enough of that, back to manual. (Image…
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Nah, he can’t be that dumb.
Still pointlessly trying to figure out the motives of SBF. He keeps testing the limits, and the judge keeps clamping more limits. Obviously he’s a pro criminal type who simply can’t stop testing limits. Mafiosi from 1930 to 1970 belonged to the same personality but had more TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE. That’s the puzzle. Mafia bosses didn’t…
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Wrong word, same advice?
Randomly noted in a Reddit topic of ‘useful quotations’… How to survive in a tyranny: Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open. In 1969, Warden Copley gave the new intakes his standard speech. Imagine Edward G. Robinson as a gangster and you’ve got Warden Copley. I heard him say: Keep your mouth closed and…
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Ancient words continued
Following on previous item about the ancient details of possession… Yesterday I watched a stupid Youtube sales pitch for NFTs. Even now, after the whole fake entity has publicly collapsed, the scammers are still working hard. Old radio and TV shows about rackets dramatized this aspect. As the cops were hauling the swindler off, he…
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Opposite kind of “music”
Archive has a few episodes of Herb Shriner Time, which is the opposite of other old variety programs. Most have splendid music and crappy comedy. Shriner is a splendid comedian with atrocious “music”. The “music” was outputted by an entity called the Raymond Scott Quintet. Example: Powerhouse. This piece is mechanistic and ugly, in the…
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AI is like …. 2
Last month I observed that AI sometimes resembles the semi-dreams that pop up just before full sleep. Total nonsense in a plausible atmosphere. Fresh example from noon nap today. I was sitting in an aluminum folding chair on a beach. I was busy with mass-production piecework, wrapping little plastic objects in woolen socks so they…
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When was it invented?
From Motor Age in 1919, a brand new and clever method for ‘working a car into a small space’. “Not one driver in a hundred knows how to work a car into a small space to get near a wall or curb.” Still true after 100 years of required driving tests.
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Primly and properly
Speaking of subjunctives… There are lots of old jokes about proper prim Bostonians. Maybe they’re right. Motor Age in 1909 has some pretty pictures of the motoring conditions around President Taft’s “summer capital” in Beverly. Nice Stickley typography. I’d say the summer capital is almost large enough to hold Taft. Alongside this picture: the article…
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What’s the purpose?
The D party here in Wash is proposing mandatory “voting”, like Australia. I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish. No state has ever done this, and it’s a safe bet that some “court” will eventually block it, which won’t make any difference and won’t be obeyed. Government does what it wants. Do they think…
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What makes Sammy run?
Now Sammy is openly tampering with witnesses. He contacted one of the main accusers suggesting “reconnection”. Sammy is not dumb. He’s drugged up and spoiled and entitled and an incurable cheater, but I can’t see why a perpetual cheater would MAXIMIZE his own sentence. Was he planning to reveal these contacts during the trial? Witness…
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There must be a reason….
An observation on the peculiarities of social media algorithms. I wanted to write a couple of uncontroversial comments on Reddit, answering a linguistic question and a snow-shoveling question. I knew the answers to both, and the correct answers hadn’t appeared yet. So I signed in using Google as a ‘mediator’ and supplied both answers. After…
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Mercy for orphans
Sammy’s got a Substack now, opened just a few hours ago. In his first post he puts out some carefully lawyered-up caveats, and then bashes the bankruptcy CEO for not undoing Sammy’s crimes fast enough. Later: Various discussers are trying to figure out Sammy’s motives. At least one lawyer has already given up on him,…
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Write but not read
Just noticing an oddity for the hundredth time. ‘Write what you know’ is excellent advice. EXPERIENCE is the only thing that counts. When you know about a job or a skill or a place or a culture, you can IMMEDIATELY spot an outsider’s attempts to describe it. Staying inside your zone of familiarity also breeds…
Polistra's Mill 