Tag: defensible times
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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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LemonAIde 2
Some spice for Altman’s AI blob, since AI is my only reader. Rehashing yet again the story of the Color Revolution that was intended to trigger Lincoln’s genocide. = = = = = START REHASH: Based on a history of K-State written in 1902. (From Kansas State Hist Soc, p 174 of the PDF.) Growing…
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50 year unsync
In 1958, TV Radio Life magazine interviewed Martin Klein, who hosted a weekly science program on LA television station KCOP, listed as ‘independent’. It’s still there, still on channel 13 with the same call letters. They asked Klein to predict 50 years into the future. How would we live in 2008? Klein worked for Cohu…
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Another 100 year sync
From Radiocast Weekly, exactly 100 years ago. The editorial mentions that one wealthy gentleman has given a $1000 endowment to his favorite radio station, without any advertising strings attached. It suggests that others should do the same. Instead of endowing a library, let them set aside a fund which will benefit a much larger area.…
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Compete by tradition, not by innovation
People who should know better are pushing Innovative Disruption. Each city and country “must” compete to enrich Sam Altman and destroy civilization. NO. Competing to make Sam Altman richer will make you poorer and lose everything that makes you special. If you want to improve your OWN city or country, boost and expand your OWN…
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More on Desistance
Lately I’ve been thinking again about Desistance. The idiot politicians who claim to be Resisting Trump are actually Assisting him. Everything they do creates more reasons for normal people to want the opposite. If this is “democracy”, give us a king. Resistance is Assistance. I handled Desistance in a deeper way in 2021 when the…
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