Tag: defensible times
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We weren’t always stupid
I was skimming through some 1966 RCA periodicals at American Radio Library just for jollies. RCA was demonstrating a fancy time and temperature screen generated by one of those newfangled Electric Brains: Ping! That’s KHQ in Spokane! Nah, impossible. The last time I watched broadcast TV was 2010. They couldn’t have been using the same…
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What we lost
In previous item I focused on our loss of innovation and flexibility after we switched to all finance and all monopoly. China and Russia didn’t make the switch, so they continued working with LIMITED RESOURCES. Now they’ve beaten our stupid MAX-FINANCE and MAX-THEFT approach to AI, with a technique that can run on normal computers…
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Reprint again on Russian tech
Apparently China has busted our idiotic monopoly on job-destroying AI, which might bust the AI stock bubble. The bubble was bound to pop anyway, and some observers thought it would pop soon. All stock bubbles pop when the inflators want to cash out. Of course the Chinese effort might not live up to its claims;…
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Bad future?
One of the industry films in my bedtime playlist (probably from 1955) cites stats about the power of the auto industry. One out of seven Americans worked directly for car makers or their suppliers, and another two out of seven depended completely on cars and trucks. Most of these films tried to extrapolate current stats…
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Satisfying metaphor
A dream this morning formed a metaphor. I had finished one piece of a courseware project … [this is true, not a metaphor] … and told the maid to send out the result. [THE MAID? WHERE DID SHE COME FROM? I’VE NEVER HAD A MAID!] Later I checked the mailbox and saw that the maid…
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Materials and Methods
Following on previous item that mentioned the primacy of MATERIALS and METHODS. I’ve hammered this subject repeatedly. Here’s one of the better hammers from 2014. = = = = = START 2014 REPRINT: Reading another stupid “study” on improving nutrition, it struck me that Portion and Serving are extremely peculiar units. They are new instances…
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Constants and Variables, interstate edition
Constantly quoted by the usual quoters: Central planning always fails, THEREFORE we should trust freedom-loving Libertarian anti-centralizers like Larry Fink and Jeff Bezos and Elon. If you think Larry and Elon are the opposite of central, you’re too stupid to breathe. Variable truth: Central planning by government is VITALLY NECESSARY when it helps ordinary people.…
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Tiny example
Our conventional view of the past is 100% wrong in every way. Everything we learned in school and media is violently wrong, either by giant omissions or perfect falsehoods. This is true in tech and industry as well as politics and economics. Our conventional history of every invention and industry is wrong. One tiny but…
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Reprint on black upperclass
Linked in previous item about the black upperclass, worth a reprint. This shows that the current trend in business and politics and “journalism” isn’t brand new. = = = = = START 2017 REPRINT: As US businesses continue to INTENTIONALLY REJECT HALF OF THEIR CUSTOMERS, it’s worth remembering a time when the trend was reversed.…
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Black IOOF history
This is even more interesting than the white IOOF. Black lodges started in NYC in 1843, twenty years after the white lodges. From the Official History of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, published 1893. I’m including an unusually long quote because it’s powerful and important history. = = = = = START QUOTE:…
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It’s all about reciprocity
The key to success for a Mutual Benefit Society is a proper mix of real business and social enjoyment. Starting in the 1920s, the purely commercial insurance firms absorbed and destroyed the MBS movement, leaving only the social side. Without the BENEFIT part it’s just a drinking club. Odd Fellows preserved some of the real…
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More from IOOF in the 1920s
Continuing from previous item. The annual report of the Wisconsin state IOOF for 1921 proves that the organization was truly an insurance provider and a mutual company, along with its social functions. Note the payments of sickness benefits and life insurance. The income was well beyond the payouts, and the lodge maintained a large investment…
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Where Harding got his purpose
Eureka Lake started me reading about the Odd Fellows. They have maintained their original functions pretty well for 200 years. They work for peace, tolerance, mercy, and fellowship. A 1920 magazine from the Virginia state lodges shows how their steady purpose responded to Wilson’s brutality and unceasing propaganda. This attitude may have been widespread at…
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Mysterious Fairmont
While looking at old maps around Manhattan, I noticed another area that always seemed mysterious. It occasionally appeared in dreams. Next to the highly formal city there were a few highly informal rural areas with scattered houses and undefined streets. Just across the river to the southeast was an area called Fairmont on maps. It…
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Eureka Lake
In 1966 I was exploring the Manhattan area. Southwest of town I found a huge brick building with a nice porch, fronting a peaceful little lake. The building looked like a hotel. On a nearby corner was a little country general store. Checking maps, I found that the building was the Oddfellows nursing home, and…
Polistra's Mill 