Tag: Foy Rebellion
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Electrotyping, part 1 of 3
[Redated and slightly revised after I decided to continue the subject. This was originally a single free-standing item.] = = = = = Electrochemistry was the first practical use of electricity. The first attempted telegraphs used electrolytic bubbles in water as the indicator. Stereotyping was already mature in 1840, as an industrial process involving papier-mache…
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Electrotyping, part 2 of 3
Part 1 showed the essential process of electrotyping in a small-scale experimental setup. Real factories like Kellogg’s Patent Insides used bigger machines in mass production. Here again is the Kellogg building in KC, placed in my down-home scene. Most of the Kellogg building was devoted to electrotyping, with hot-lead composition and the writers and researchers…
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Electrotyping, part 3 of 3
After the type is set into a form, suitable for ordinary printing, the electrotype process begins by smashing the form into a thin layer of wax on a metal plate. The metal plate will become the negative electrode in the plating vat. The form is placed face down on the wax layer forming a sandwich.…
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DST SES
Spokane News gave the usual DST reminder. Most comments were the usual. Here’s one wonderful exception. = = = = = START QUOTE: Thumbs up to those of us who still “turn clocks back” rather than notice the time on our phones seems off. I look forward to sowing mayhem in the retirement homes with…
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Would be nice but can’t happen
A new “study” finds an obvious fact of life but misuses it dangerously. = = = = = START QUOTE: With polarization and misinformation on the rise, new research explores a solution using interactive data visualization to inform and engage readers. Getting readers of a news story interested in numbers can be a challenge. But…
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I started with Foy.
This is a clever approach to Big Data. The researchers realized that data compressors like ZIP and MP3 work by predicting what comes next. They developed a simple prediction engine, just a few lines in Python, by using GZIP to generate the predictions. No need for a giant LLM, no need to pay Satan Sam…
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Trying for the Ig-Nobel
New study on a fashionable subject: Predicting potential problems of persistent plastic particulates Peer-Reviewed Publication I don’t know if the Ig-Nobel still exists. After science tortured and strangled the world for three years, not many folks feel like laughing at science. We OUGHT to be laughing and mocking the whole fucking mess, but there’s not…
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Reprint from a year ago
One year ago I wrote this. At that time I didn’t see much hope. Now I think we’re starting to see real signs of the changeover. Why is the ice breaking? Jerome Powell stopped the free-money music that was energizing the demons. = = = = = START REPRINT: We need a Foy Rebellion. Yesterday…
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WTF is he thinking 2
Continuing from here. I didn’t waste time listening to the DeSantis announcement. Reading about it is bad enough. He’s doubling down on strategic stupidity by trying to beat Trump at the nastiness game. WRONG BRAND! Trump is the literal killer app of blackmail and filthiness, trained by Roy Cohn. You shouldn’t get into the nasty…
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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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Not strange at all.
Kirn: The double-exponential unpredictability of AI and its potential to amplify evil may have only one workable antidote, logic suggests: moral absolutism. Wouldn’t it be strange indeed if the outcome of our wild tech experiments is a thunderous comeback for the 10 Commandments? Historically it wouldn’t be strange. After the 1789 Terror, France emphatically returned…
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Anecdata vs Anecfood
It’s odd… In recent years we’ve returned to correct science on overprocessed food. Our digestive system needs to work for its living, and it needs to chew up individual fibers to get the most out of nutrition. If we digest food before we insert it in the mouth, the system atrophies. This was understood in…
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Boutique advantage
At the moment, text-generating AI does a nearly perfect job of expressing views that can be found via Google and Wikipedia. I’ve seen some attempts to generate “opposition” views, and they always miss the mark in the same way that Youtube’s Suggested misses the mark. Suggested has picked up the fact that I like old…
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Trying too hard
Lately I’ve been thinking about art and copyrights and unions and such. While pondering such thoughts, opened an old issue of Collectible Auto to read while eating. This picture of an Airflow on the assembly line showed up first. The Airflow was a result of designers trying too hard for Disruptive Innovation. Chrysler wanted to…
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Getting closer
Kirn has expanded his peculiar argument against AI “art”. He’s on the angelic side of the fight, but his approach is destructive. He focuses on risk and vulnerability as the important factors that make human products human. THE PRODUCT IS NOT THE POINT. Peter Biles gets a lot closer: For me, knowing that a specific…
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