Tag: defensible spaces
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It’s deeper than iPhones
Latest from Kirn: Today I went to great lengths to express myself clearly in several interactions — with a server in a restaurant, a hotel clerk, etc — and was met in each case by a sort of cheerful, glazed, and rather stubborn incomprehension. Frustrating. Strange. Felt almost astrological. Commenters cite iPhone distraction, which is […]
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Downtown upstairs
Old downtowns had a separate world upstairs, and often another separate world under the sidewalks. An item in today’s EnidBuzz gives us a glimpse of one upstairs world: Opened in 1923 as the 900-seat Billings Theatre, built by William S. Billings and his wife Henrietta, who lived in apartments above the theatre. It later became […]
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When the S in ESG really meant something…
EnidBuzz featured the Failing company, and linked to a longer article at Okla Hist Soc. I always admired the deco architecture of the building, but had no real connection with the company or its drilling rigs. The commenters filled out the story. The company treated its workers well, and the founder’s family semi-retired into real […]
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Gold Spot
Looking through some 1930 issues of Broadcast Advertising, noticed an ad for Doc Brinkley’s station. This was aimed at national corporations, so it’s thoroughly bland and objective. Also found an ad for WIBW, my late-night comfort in the ’50s. High culture all the way! WIBW was mainly aimed at farmers, but it also had live […]
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Islands
Kirn is active tonight! No man is an island, but perhaps ten thousand people can be an island, and society can be a chain or network of connected yet still largely self-sufficient islands. This ever- enlarging, ever-consolidating pyramidal model is showing its age. = = = = = START REPRINT: Hawala or scrip is the […]
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Reprint on cultural dominance
Linked this 2017 piece in previous item. Worth a reprint if only because it’s smarter than anything I can write now. = = = = = START REPRINT: A couple days ago I tossed in a techy sidenote on UNARY VARIABLES, just as a random pointless pun: ANTI-WAR is the key. Left and right, liberal […]
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Inspiring lyrics
EnidBuzz asked for misheard lyrics. One commenter said that her school always sang the state song, and she had her own version and her own image of the song. Original words: Oklahoma, where the wind comes whistling down the plain And the waving wheat can sure smell sweet When the wind comes right behind the […]
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I missed the best part.
The remarkably realistic comment by the Harris Poll included a quote from Ice T. I was enamored of ‘analog people’ and didn’t notice the POWER of Ice T’s suggestion. It would [be] kinda dope if Musk bought Twitter and just shut it off. It’s powerful because shutting off is THE NORMAL PURPOSE of buying a […]
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Gets it
The Enid Buzz fb page asked who had CB radios. Here’s a reply that GETS IT: The FCC did regulate CB indirectly. CB radios had to be prepackaged. The manufacturers had to keep the power below 5 watts ‘gross’, and had to maintain accurate frequency. Homebrewers who built 1 kilowatt amplifiers got caught pretty quickly. […]
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Should have stuck with SW
Still on info input and output…. Censorship is all about info inputs, and the criterion is caste, not content. Correct Persons are allowed to insert their info into the closed-circuit web. Incorrect Persons are not allowed to input. We’ve been conditioned to assume that Twitter and Google and Apple are the ONLY channels. Simply and […]
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Statusotopic mapping?
If we start from my unconventional thought that secrecy is the default, what happens? If we treat this as the baseline assumption, what about “innovation” and “robust debate”? First some clarification. I’m talking about secrecy and language within a family or tribe or guild, not secrecy between all individuals. Language forms the circle and keeps […]
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Revising a conventional guess
In previous item about a strangely primitive tube-based spy rig, I casually dismissed transistors as not ready for prime time. That was true in the early ’50s, but Russian equipment famously stuck with tubes long after transistors were generally reliable and consistent. Sputnik used submini tubes while our satellites used transistors. Sputnik got there first, […]
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Reprint on the uses of expertise
I’ve reprinted this list many times in various contexts with various additions. Feels like a good time to reprint it again, connecting it to my recent language-based comparison of facts vs commands, and this week’s UFO obsession. This version of the list is from 2017, with a good discussion of factual experts vs commanding experts. […]
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Probably not an April Fool
Apparently this isn’t an April Fool. It should be. “Scientists” are trying yet again to communicate with Autistic Messiah Aliens, using really stupid NFT-style images. The new spacebound note, named the Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG), is the latest in a series of attempts to contact other lifeforms in the universe that date back to […]
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Zenith
I haven’t made any new graphics in MANY months. I used up my graphics gumption during 2020, in a frantic outpouring of science as entertainment to counterbalance the Nazi torturers misusing “science” as a god of genocide. During most of 2021 I was just weary, bombarded with especially awful weather along with the torture. 2022 […]
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