Tag: skill-estate
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Impressive and depressive
Now that I’ve got the dull parts of the new courseware version out of the way (switching out images to adjust for changes in DRM) I’m returning to the fun part. I’m reviving and modernizing some complex programs I wrote in the ’90s, so they can be presented as ‘accessories’ to the courseware. The impressive…
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Random rust thoughts
I’ve always been annoyed that the auto industry was based in Rust Central, but built cars for use in Arizona. Kaiser could have switched this trend if Henry Kaiser had been USING HIS OWN COMPANY’S TALENTS. Aluminum was the core of his business in 1947, and he could have made cars with aluminum bodies. Rustproof,…
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A clear view of exp vs linear
One basic fact about money is always understood by the plutocrats but never explained to the peasants. We hear inflation numbers or exchange rate numbers, and the influencers of “left” and “right” base their appeals on these fake numbers. Even the bitcoiners, who claim to be entirely outside government and banking, always treat official “inflation”…
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Money as delta
Both sides in the pointless battle between bitcoin and fiat are missing the biggest point. I’m also missing it most of the time, though I did hit it once or twice. I was reminded of the point by the recent amazing finding about spores. Like many actively living things, spores contain an abacus that counts…
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Wasted imagination
Inside the convoluted world of bitcoin scams, a lot of super-smart nerds are working hard, probably for very little pay, to develop ever-denser convolutions. Here’s one sample found on Medium. There are HUNDREDS of projects like this, each with its own purposeless purpose, always ENABLING USER to do something that no actual human could ever…
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Pointless peeve
I keep hearing rumors and claims that the Repooflicans are learning lessons about the importance of JOBS and SKILLS. So far I haven’t seen any evidence for those rumors and claims. Here’s a column by AEI that doubles down on the same old shit in the WORST possible way. The column is mainly by Phil…
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Booms and busts
An essayist at Medium gives us 12 quotes from Beat Generation philosopher Alan Watts. I read the piece to see if his selection was the same as mine. Nope, it was disjunct. He remembered and treasured the stuff that I had tossed aside as mystical drivel. I read Watts when I was about 14, and…
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Refunders vs hoarders
This is completely irrelevant and overly nuanced, but it’s what I want to write about today…. Duane Jones, in his wonderful little book about advertising and human nature, gets hardass at times. He talks openly about forcing a purchase. Here he’s discussing the money-back guarantee: = = = = = Mr Burke was silent for…
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More Foy
Continuing on automation vs skills. An old-fashioned union could effectively solve the problem of AI taking over from artists. Union shops place a union label (sometimes called a bug) on publications and products. Bugs are much less common in recent decades, but you can still see them on some products, and they are useful information…
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We can’t even.
Thinking about those optimistic Air Force researchers in 1962 amid the hoopla about Man In Space. We were trailing behind the Russians in space and in telepathy. Sputnik got there first, Gagarin got there first, and Popov got there first in telepathy research. We were trying to catch up, and we DID catch up in…
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When Foy worked
Still thinking about the Foy solution for automation, I looked up some 1960 government studies on automation. At that time business and labor were mostly working together to protect skills and workers. Businesses understood that labor would strike hard if they fired workers unnecessarily, so businesses behaved decently. The study predicted correctly that file clerks and…
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We need a Foy Rebellion
Yesterday I was discussing the cultural IMPERATIVE to re-employ ordinary men after WW2. France implemented a similar IMPERATIVE after it recovered from the 1789 revolution, which turned its demonic vision of “science” into a god of war and torture. France returned to a strictly practical and concrete way of life, with careful regard for the…
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Immersion is the key
Looked again at the Austin “free” university, which is still waiting for accreditation so it can say the same things all the other universities are saying. The website had an article by Boghossian, one of the big Cancelleds. This led to his Youtube channel where he “challenges” the beliefs of the wokesters in Socratic style.…
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Natural beauty correlates with theft.
Still thinking about Bell Labs. I visited there once ‘on business’ when I was working in the acoustics lab at Penn State. I feasted my eyes on The First Transistor, which wasn’t under lock and key. It was just casually displayed in a glass case in the main hall. One of the Substackers wrote a…
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Reprint from 2016
In previous item I was bitching about modern podcasts failing to show the real balance of male and female in marriage. A similar change happened in drama and comedy, with a pivot point around 1960. Before the shift, spy shows and adventure shows had teams of men and women with everyone participating in appropriate ways.…
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