Tag: defensible times
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Inadequate story
Via LiveScience. Students at a tech school in Rome had been exploring under the school for a long time, as students will do. Last year they finally told their Latin teacher. She brought in archeologists who excavated more of the filled in parts. Turns out the caverns were once an above-ground mansion owned by the…
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We could
Long quote from David Lilienthal’s magnificent little book on the TVA. = = = = = There is a grand cycle in nature. The lines of those majestic swinging arcs are nowhere more clearly seen than by following the course of electric power in the Tennessee Valley’s way of life. Water falls upon a mountain…
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1891 teeth
The British government has ruled that Google must allow publishers to opt out of being eaten by AI. This is a good move, but it’s only one company and one country, and it DOESN’T REQUIRE PAYMENT for the gobbled-up material. It’s time for a new international agreement with enough teeth to bite back. A similar…
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He’s doing the boomer thing!
Via Spokane News again: Here’s a modern dude more in line with the boomer spirit! Not calling the Fire Dept, just being a normal young fool. East Sprague and South Dishman Rd, Police Activity Reported for a male climbing the billboard pole and railroad overpass. #Update reported a male trying to impress a female with…
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Got to do the boomer thing
Via Spokane News: 7500 East Buckeye, Reported teens climbed up on the roof of the school and now one requesting the Fire Department to help them get down. Even if we wanted the fire department we couldn’t reach them in a tricky situation. We KNEW help wasn’t available, so we DIDN’T get into tricky situations…
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Why was EFI late?
Random Ynot thought. Most automobiles received electronic fuel injection in the 80s, after computers and software took over electronics. Sophisticated analog EFI would have been easy in the 1930s with a little imagination. Bendix tried to introduce a transistor system in 1957, but transistors weren’t ready for the task yet. GM, Chrysler and AMC offered…
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Tired lament and good question
This editorial appeared in Western Architect in 1924. Some of it was the standard generational lament, some of it was specific and accurate. Is the world losing its sense of beauty? It would seem so. Has the ugliness of war, the unrest and delirium of peoples, destroyed all appreciation for things beautiful, and permeated all…
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An old-fashioned disaster
Noticed this at Spokane News page: 29900 West Jacobs Rd, technical rescue reported. For an adult female who fell in a well and is trapped. The address isn’t in the Spokane metro, it’s way out in wheat country near Reardan. I didn’t think water wells were fallable now. I’ve lived in houses with wells, just…
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Harding reprint
Trying to recharge my courage after a hard week. Two windstorms and a snowstorm, lost sleep, no progress on a tangled courseware problem. Reprinted from March 2020, Harding’s commentary on the condition of the world in 1920. Still magnificent. Audio and transcript are here. = = = = = START MAGNIFICENT SPEECH: My countrymen, there…
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Show, don’t tell.
If you want to sell a product or a religion you have to SHOW the product, not just tell us to buy it. Churches quote the New Testament and then viciously reject lonely and poor people. In 2020 the Democrats talked “resistance” and then lethally assisted Trump’s torture chamber, continuing it for two years after…
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It wasn’t just a fucking idea.
Gizmodo features a rebirth of the nickel-iron battery. About goddamn time. Unfortunately the authors totally miss the real history. Their headline says Edison tried to build an EV battery in 1901. Scientists just made it work.: = = = = = START QUOTE: Great minds often think ahead of their time. This was certainly true…
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It’s a valid point anyway
In previous item, the proposal to teach reliable signatures focused on a past era when signatures were easy to recognize and hard to forge. I argued that the signature itself isn’t nearly as important as the PURPOSE of the signature. Nevertheless, the marketing point is true. = = = = = REPRINT FROM 2019: The…
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Manufactured fine art
Got another Hudson book. This one doesn’t have many cars I haven’t seen before, but all of the illustrations are clear and high-res, suitable for closeup views. This ’39 shows the graceful detailing of stamped parts, typical of the Moderne era. The parking lights were horizontal strips on the hood sides. Closeup view of the…
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They don’t make them like that any more.
I’m too busy with courseware to do a proper tech piece, which wouldn’t get read by humans anyway. This little trivium will have to do. JL Hudson was not the founder of Hudson Motors. He was the biggest investor in the new enterprise, so the founders named the company after him. He got involved because…
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Russia was right as always
A pretty good rule for software in the era of accelerating “innovative” destruction. Older stuff keeps working. Newer stuff fails. When I switched from Win 7 to Win 11 last month, the rule held firm. Preparing for the switchover I bought some newer helper progs that allegedly work better on 11. They don’t. My main…
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