Tag: Entertainment
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Classical symmetry
The Enid Postcards site runs a few hundred old pix in slow rotation, eliciting more or less the same comments every time. Repetition tends to bring out patterns. When I lived there I didn’t appreciate the SKILL of the bricklayers who turned out intricate and sturdy art on every wall, whether visible or not. Enid’s…
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Poor assumption
This writer has some interesting details of digital journalism, but he starts from the assumption that “news” and “investigative journalism” are intrinsically valuable products that NEED to be made, whether profitable or not. Bad assumption. Nobody actually needs “news” as it’s commonly formed. We could use prior warning of incoming weather and demonic government projects…
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Durable goods
Gaming is already larger than movies and TV shows in the younger generations. Hollywood and gaming are overlapping both ways, with movies based on games and games based on movies. The companies and executives are also overlapping both ways. Gaming still doesn’t show up in mainstream media, which almost solely covers Hollywood and TV stars…
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It’s an old truth
Buzzfeed is shutting down the “news” part of their service and continuing the part with quizzes and listicles and such. They’re realizing a very old truth, which pre-TV newspapers and radio understood well. Facts are not commercially valuable. Normal people don’t want to pay for facts because normal people have eyes and ears and neighbors.…
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Reprint on science as entertainment
From Dec 2020. = = = = = START REPRINT: Science is simply a form of entertainment, and we should treat it as entertainment. We should fund it the same way we fund sports or museums or orchestras or ‘serious’ theater, via season ticket holders. Big media is NOT entertainment and doesn’t fall into this…
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Pearson refuses to correlate
Continuing to read the 1905 Literary Digest… Karl Pearson, the master of stats, has a strangely familiar complaint. “At least 50 per cent of the observations made and the data collected are worthless, and no man, however able, could deduce any result from them at all. In engineer’s language we need to scrap about 50…
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The power of a name
Reading a brief biography of Lavoisier in the 1901 volume of La Nature. The biography emphasizes the role of his wife Marie-Anne. Both were born rich, both were educated early and strongly to favor their own peculiar talents. Antoine’s father recognized that the family name would be best honored by letting Antoine serve science instead…
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I can see it now…
The Ankler is discussing the bank runs as a future movie….. I can see it now. It’s an Effective Life. Sammy as George Bailey. Caroline as Marian the Librarian. William MacAskill as Oddbody. Powell as the bartender: “This is a HARD BANK. We serve HARD MONEY to HARD MEN. We don’t want no Bitcoin Twinkies…
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Pierce trucks 2
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 was slowed down, allowing a…
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Just for fun
Extracted from a 1944 episode of Fountain of Fun, performed by the Pratchett Sisters. Fast-moving complicated rhythm and intense harmony. Tuesday at Ten. As far as I can tell there isn’t a vocal version of the song online. Youtube has a couple of good instrumentals. Also by the same sisters, Surrey.
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Weather humor
The local Weather Bureau has finally figured out that you don’t gain trust by constantly screeching imprecatory prayers to Gaia and her Prophetess Greta. Cuteness works better. This is cute and educational at the same time. Science should be entertainment, not torture.
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~π
Today isn’t Pi Day, but a couple of half-decent Pi jokes showed up today. First, from a rare ’40s radio show, one of the many with high quality music and low quality but often funny comedy. This poem was featured in Fountain of Fun from November 1942 when rationing was the hot topic. Food and…
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AM hi-fi
Trying to avoid anxiety in supercold weather, I’m browsing through 1936 issues of Broadcasting magazine. Ran into a totally unfamiliar technology in a totally familiar location! W9XBY in downtown KCMO. At first I thought this was the well-known experimental TV branch of KMBC. It’s the same company in the same building, but different call letters…
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Tickled
This joke tickled me. Businessman calling entertainment agency: “How much will it cost to buy a large singing group? I need one for a formal dinner party.” Agent: “Do you mean a choir?” Businessman: “Okay, fine. How much does it cost to acquire a large singing group?”
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Launderette
Protos writes up a peculiar story about a tiny bank in a Palouse town that ended up as a node in Bankman-Fried’s crime syndicate. Farmington is a typical leftover small town between Spokane and Pullman. It briefly flourished as a rail terminal, then faded down to the magic number of 150. The Farmington Bank remained…
Polistra's Mill 