Tag: defensible times
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Stages
Doomberg, a prolific and pseudonymous bitcoiner, reveals how Twitter worked and how Xlon changed it. Summary: Like all social media, Twitter had Lurkers, Participants and Creators. Twitter was different from other media like Youtube or Facebook or old-fashioned publishers, because Twitter didn’t pay its creators. Instead, the Creators were meant to use Twitter as a…
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Zenith animism
Zenith always added life to its products. The fancier radios had ‘entertainment on all sides’, with active dials and Magic Eye tubes and lively controls. Their fanciest record changer in the ’50s had one uniquely analog feature. The speed was smoothly controllable. Other phonos selected 16, 33, 45 and 78. The Cobra-Matic could be set…
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Zenith origins
Earlier this year I modeled some of Zenith’s more famous and interesting products. How did Zenith start? It was a classic garage inventor story. Ralph Mathews had a unique talent for mechanical invention, and he also had pretty good connections and luck. He started the right business at the right time. Mathews was building and…
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The Jones not taken
American Radio Library has added a few issues of Radio Topics from the early ’20s. One article was highlighting services provided by radio. First a bakery was using one-way radio to dispatch its electric trucks: More importantly, businesses were using radio as a premium in the Duane Jones sense, and sometimes a self-liquidating premium, paying…
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The one peacetime year
Still reading Pat Foster’s books on Willys and Jeep. The Jeep obviously began as a military project, and typically 60% of its income was from military contracts. The company always produced a variety of specialized vehicles for sole military use, along with the dual-use Universal Jeep. The company was an attractive and productive acquisition because…
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Today is UFO day!
Time to revisit the UFOdeo! We’re looking at an old tourist court, with a shady-looking truck and trailer parked in one of the spaces. It’s a 1915 Pierce truck, with some unique features. The four-speed transmission had a semi-freewheeling device. When you pushed the clutch down all the way, the input shaft of the gearbox…
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Unspeakable now
A single 1947 episode of ‘ABC Hollywood Tour’ is preserved. It was a Hollywood gossip show mixed with a sort of quiz. The lady who could answer the question would get the DREAM OF A LIFETIME: A BEHIND THE SCENES TOUR OF HOLLYWOOD!!!!!! Host: Do you want to take a Hollywood Tour? Audience in unison:…
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T Phlps cd
American Radio Library has started a section for Telegraph Age, a long-lasting magazine that ended up as Communications News. A 1903 issue includes several glowing praises for the Phillips Code, which I hadn’t heard of before. It was common among newsmen, and was apparently equal in speed to Pitman or Gregg shorthand. True shorthand is…
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Where the ice goes
[Redated after several addendums…] I’ve got a brief break in courseware, so decided to do some ‘fun’ graphics. The Ice Plant piece earlier this year didn’t include the destination of the ice. So here’s a condensed version of the original set, with the destination added on. = = = = = How did the ice…
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Centennial soup
Campbell’s no longer makes Printanier soup, but it does still make Vegetable in beef stock, and I eat it all the time. It’s especially nice on a coldish June day like today, 50 degrees with rain. This summer is a reward for two previous hot ones. From a 1922 Ladies Home Journal: The only influencer…
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True cybernetics
Reading about the Geniac ‘logic machine’ reminded me of an IBM machine that turned digital counts into an analog balance measurement. This was cybernetic in the true sense, directly modeling an analog neuron. Modern AI is strictly digital. WHEN ANALOG FERTILIZED DIGITAL IBM started with the purely digital and mostly mechanical Hollerith sorter. The sorter…
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Bitgosbank?
Via Protos: Texas has passed a law requiring bitcoin “banks” to be proper FULL-RESERVE banks. No fractional reserve. Even better, bitcoin “banks” must follow the old 1936 banking laws, keeping their customer deposit business strictly separate from trading and speculating. Glass-Steagall prevented serious bank failures when it was in place. The current mess began when…
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Da yoots GET IT.
Poll gave yoots a choice of losing social media or losing “voting” “rights”. They’d rather lose “voting” “rights”. This is a good sign. They’re full Machiavelli. They’ve figured out that “voting” is utterly pointless. = = = = = Looking more closely at the poll article, it gets even better. Is astrology a science? Is…
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Snobascope
Kirn retweeted this item from a film snob who saw only the lens in Carlson’s “I’ll be baaaaack” clip. Shoutout to my bro @justingum (we worked together on Hoaxed w/ @scooter_downey) He shot this clip using anamorphic lenses to give it that beautiful epic feel. I’ve seen several film snobs triggered that Tucker would dare…
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Reprint on astrology
Rehashing my hypothesis about astrology. = = = = = START REPRINT: Picking up from previous post on James Ferguson. Previously I showed a couple of science entertainments using static fields to drive gadgets. Ferguson’s main focus was orreries or planet simulators. He began with another static-driven toy: From the top: In action: A simple…
Polistra's Mill 