Tag: skill-estate
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Ditch Witch is still there
Noticed on this morning’s walk that the TDS fiber workers are using a Ditch Witch excavator. Ditch Witch used to be in Perry, a town of 10k near Enid. Are they still there? YES. The company became a branch of Toro in 2019 but still manufactures in Perry, with 1600 employees. Good sign. In former…
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WRONG, asshole.
Stupid headline in Compact: Tariffs aren’t a manufacturing cure-all Yes they are, asshole. The most effective tariff is a .45 tariff. Instant death for the entire executive board and all shareholders, direct or indirect, of any corporation that imports one molecule of manufactured products, or employs or offshores one picosecond of labor from overseas. The…
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Lesson in skill-estate
I must admit one item from the Olympics is worth thinking about. Most competitors are expensively equipped and sponsored, with highly specialized custom-made gloves and clothes and helmets. They perform all the expensively trained moves. The shooting contestant from Turkey showed up in T-shirt and jeans, no ear protectors or goggles, looking like he just…
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Before globalism
Vintage.es has pix of Rome in 1955. Everything in the scenes is absolutely unquestionably Italy. Can’t be anywhere else. The buildings and people are instantly recognizable and the cars are ALL Fiats. No Kraut invaders or Yank occupiers. My attention was initially grabbed by the 3rd pic with a Topolino panel truck, and the 6th…
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It’s all in the TEST DRIVE.
Listening as usual to the auto dealer training films at night. They always emphasize the crucial importance of the TEST DRIVE. Persuasion and advertising might bring the prospect into the office, but only the TEST DRIVE can sell him the car. Duane Jones made the same point for soap and food products. SAMPLE the product…
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Skill pension
Amortizing pays. Storage pays. Never toss a possibly useful product! Now that I’m older and less energetic and less capable of complex programming, I can still USE the thousands of graphics items and Python tools I made during my peak period from 1995 to 2015. It’s a skill pension.
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Reprint on Soviet skill-estate
Linked in previous item, worth reprinting. = = = = = START 2014 PARTIAL REPRINT: What’s the moral of the story? Self-sufficiency. (1) When kids are educated through HANDS and MUSCLE MEMORY, they gain a deep and unremovable knowledge. Soviet math and science education did this. American math and science education relied on rote memory,…
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Metaupflation
Bloomberg does a good job with brief Features describing an interesting trend in business. Here they discuss upflation, which is a new name for a VERY OLD tradition. Packaged grocery items, in the ad or on the package, suggest new ways to use the biscuit mix or soup or tomatoes or scouring powder. These suggestions…
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Extending again
In previous item: Every real experience has non-verbal cultural factors that can’t be acquired through books or Google. This meshes with my assertion that secrecy is the default. Secrecy in this form is not enforced by government rules and censors; it arises from the natural barrier around the culture and experience of a group. The…
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Bad deal
Reading more of the AI criticism at MindMatters. Most of the complaints are about the talents and “consciousness” of LLMs, which are utterly irrelevant. Altman WANTS us to be arguing about the degree of creativity and the “consciousness” and the fake threat of grabbing the nuclear button. (Big Data has been on the nuclear button…
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Revelation, not reveal
Looking up something about analog computers, ran into this NASA publication on the history of fly-by-wire. The really interesting part of the book is NOT the computing part; it’s the basic history of flying with wings. Each profession and skill has its own internal history and base assumptions, which are rarely understood by outsiders. Sometimes…
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Reprint on utility and grammar
Reprint from 2021, just because I want to bring it back to the foreground. = = = = = START REPRINT: MindMatters tries to separate out human language from animal communication: Believers in human non-exclusivity do not appear to be especially picky about what counts as evidence for their views. For example, here’s a research…
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The reality check test
I listen to writers who agree with reality at points where I can check. Mattingly always fits at the points I can check, so I listen to him on other matters. In this podcast he’s discussing the (admittedly small) turmoil inside the Southern Baptists. Above all Baptists are NOT hierarchical. They disagree on many things…
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Back to Magic Lanterns
Returning to the crucially important theme of science as entertainment. Before science became a tool for war and torture in 1946, science was often mixed with magic and entertainment. The Magic Lantern was the intersection of the two. This time I’m not trying for historical authenticity; I’m mixing periods and making up things that could…
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Watching the football
VW has pulled back from the EV craze and decided to continue developing gas engines. They’ve moved most of their future development budget back into real car engines. The EV craze was partly motivated by Elon’s cult power and partly by Share Value imperatives. Elon’s prank follows the model of GM’s pranks from the ’50s…
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