Tag: Patient things
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Useful vs useless infrastructure
NewScientist has an unusually well-balanced take on the Altman Bubble. They are more balanced than usual because some of the Bubble Lords have gone over to the Official Dark Side, but nevertheless the article is fair. It points out that most of the data center investment is happening in unregulated “shadow banking” circles, so the…
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Coal is back!
Via Shepstone, Trump’s Dept of Energy is taking a huge number of general and specialized actions to stop the abandonment of coal and restore some recently closed coal power plants. The actions also reinforce a secondary use of coal in the processing of steel. If the coking plants are gone, we can’t reshore steel. Trump…
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First video game?
Visual displays were common in early telegraphs and railroad signaling systems. There’s nothing new about a visual GUI. Wheatstone’s first system in 1832 was meant for home use, though it didn’t succeed commercially. Here the bee is typing out a message: In the 1850s the magnificent Foy system for the French railroads used a visual…
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Things endure
Looking through old Billboard mags while chasing elusive info about Western Union’s public fax machines, ran across a permanent memorial to the last moment of sanity before political lunacy resumed. In Dec 1945 the treasury issued the FDR dime. Billboard, serving coin-op vendors, was concerned that the dime wouldn’t fit current machines, but the treasury…
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The Swami
First of three old coin-op machines. Starting with an overview of the cafe and a rehash of the Swami fortune teller. = = = = = Here’s a downtown scene. The cafe is on a corner, the Kellogg printing plant is across the street, and an apartment hotel is on the other corner. Duplex tenant…
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The Recordio
Second of three old coin-op machines. Again approaching the cafe… Entering the cafe with two larger coin-op machines on the back wall. = = = = = I’ve always wanted to depict the Wilcox-Gay Recordio. When possible I try to model things I’ve used or seen. I first encountered Recordio disks in the ’50s. My…
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The Metal-typer
Third of three old coin-op machines. Setting the scene again: The metal-typer is another old coin-op I used a few times. Back around 1960 I used one of these to make a medallion while waiting in the Topeka train station. I kept the medallion for a long time but don’t remember what I engraved on…
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Why didn’t this succeed?
Useful gadget seen in a 1923 issue of a Gernsback tech mag. A flashlight powered directly by a miniature generator. No rechargeable battery needed. Supposedly made in France. The light was in the end of the generator itself. The optional wire is a speculum used by doctors. The description isn’t complete; I’d guess the little…
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NSA from the start
More from the latest History Today. Courier services have always been around. Governments have used groups of runners or horsemen to carry official or commercial documents. The modern post office began in Italy in the 1500s, when the Tassis family organized a series of offices around Europe, serving the various duchies and kingdoms of Italy…
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Nulling the local balance
This year I’m trying to null the balance, make more beauty and order, do things the right way whether recognized or not, trying to restore the activities that were bombed by the Bush-Trump monstrosity in 2020-22. One of those activities was yard care. I’ve been mowing regularly but not sprinkling or trimming things. A nearby…
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Big things don’t hit the news.
Reading some railroad-related items on Quora. Three years ago, a Canadian insider mentioned that Canadian Pacific was about ready to buy Kansas City Southern, forming the first complete north-south railroad across all of the continent. Sure enough, the merger was completed in 2023 and fully running this year. This is BIG news for both countries…
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Medieval // REM
Not especially relevant, and I’ve said it before in a different context. When programmers add comments to code, we think we’re doing something new and modern. Here’s a piece of my C++ code from Audin, my all-purpose courseware engine. The active parts are on the left, and my explanations and reminders are on the right.…
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Cursed weight, sacred weight, part 2 of 2
= = = = = MEDIEVAL METROLOGY PART 4 = = = = = Why has gold been a standard** for so many centuries? Partly because it’s a suitable standard in a metrology sense. It doesn’t mix easily with other elements, it doesn’t degrade with time, and it can be purified and verified. But metrology…
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Red and black in daily life
The oldest principle in the ceremonial side of life is Say the black, do the red. Poets, politicians, priests, and publicists followed this rule. Churches formalized it with a series of actions (red) to be performed by the priest and the people, with standard TUNES (black) accompanying each action. Mainline churches and megachurches have abandoned…
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The Foy Rebellion HAS ARRIVED.
Headline: Art majors beat computer majors. = = = = = START QUOTE: For computer science and computer engineering, the unemployment rate in those fields was 6.1% and 7.5%, respectively — notably higher than the national average. Finance majors were 3.7%. By comparison, the unemployment rate for art history majors was 3%, and for nutritional…
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