Cold. Then warmer later. It started mid 30sF yesterday but got all the way to mid 70sF and I expect that today too. It’s really pretty nice by afternoon. The sun and clear sky feels nice.
I didn’t do much in the morning. Some auction and pc stuff, and a bit of housework, but nothing on the list. By the afternoon though, I did get some stuff done. Took some stuff to the shop and then spent a couple of hours sorting and organizing. I’ve started to clear out some of the stuff I just threw down anywhere and make room for the last of the stuff from storage.
I’m sorting stuff for my local consignment auction, and for ebay. I’ve got far too much stuff that will only sell on ebay. I also have some stuff to sell locally by myself. Past time to actually sell some of this stuff.
I’d like to get some money for the stuff so I can STACK!
It’s a conundrum.
nick
Friday. Good morning!
There is still a dusting of snow on roofs and lawns, and the temperature is around or a bit below freezing. The roads are clear.
Lots of work to do today – the usual punishment for having had the afternoon off yesterday… ah well.
Time to make some porridge and warm up my office chair.
Have a good day.
Analog? Gen X gave us The Pizza Box Dream, which drives the grifts of The Real Life Tony Stark, and pursuit of $20 Reeboks, that led to Sears being replaced by Amazon. I’ve lost track of how many lives and capital were destroyed building the current communications CoDominium which lets X-ers watch “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” reruns on their friggin’ phones.*
X-ers inflicted their own damage due to rectal cranial insertion.
And I’m a member of the “Ferris Bueller” high school graduating class of 1986.
*Nothing against Sabrina, but the program, cancelled 30 years ago, is in the top 10 programs currently on Paramount Plus, just above “The King of Queens”** on the charts. “Starfleet Academy” isn’t even close.
**And nothing against “The King of Queens”. Jerry Stiller was genius in the early seasons.
Oh, and just wait until the sex robots arrive. We’ll see how “analog” Gen X is then, men and women.
Fixed that first line.
Dodge paid for the R&D on the Jesus Truck. Tony doesn’t have the capital for a new model.
Tesla could never produce “luxury” on the level of Lexus or the Germans.
Which rides better — The wife’s Highlander or your cousin’s much more expensive Tesla.
Be *honest*.
40F and clear. Coffee is brewing. Had half a giant grapefruit. Will have the rest of my breakfast soon.
I’ve got a doctor appointment this morning, followup from when I thought I’d detached my retina, but it turned out to just be the goop and jelly in front of the retina.
Later in the day I have a couple of pickups. Can’t even start them until 12 pm and 3pm.
Until then I’ll have to find something to do…
n
As predicted, Trump is moving his attention to Cuba.
Trump Signs Executive Order Declaring National Emergency to Address Threats from Cuba, Threatens Tariffs on Countries Giving Oil to Cuba – Calls Cuba a “Failing Nation” (VIDEO)
and we’ll see if Canada can stand the heat.
Trump Threatens Canada with 50% Tariffs on ALL Aircraft, Says He’s Decertifying Canadian Planes in Response to Canada’s Refusal to Certify Gulfstream Jets
my bet is on ‘no’.
n
– Too bad they didn’t use the KK K act, as the irony would have melted the internet.
n
Slipping standards..
From a nationwide FedEx email…
FFS, they don’t even have spell check turned on?
n
Analog? Gen X gave us The Pizza Box Dream
@greg, did you watch it? He’s not saying that GenX isn’t part of the digital world, but that they grew up without it, and it formed them and their brains in a way that is very different from the follow on generations that grew up in the digital world.
He calls genx the “bridge generation” which I ‘ve seen other people use, because GenX experienced the transition.
I found his observations about safety and how we perceive it, spot on, as well as his observations about time, patience, internal vs external supervision, etc. I didn’t see anything that was so far off it threw me out of the narrative, and that’s rare for that type of content.
n
I wonder how many people have been killed while operating a Zamboni. My guess would be one.
n
As it is, the LSM/PLTs/BLM are freaking out about Don Leh-mon‘s arrest. And Cornel West said the country is “niggarized” on CNN, live. Amish don’t give a shit about Leh-mon nor do any LSM outlets.
Serendipity. RBT on kids…
emphasis added.
n
My son and I are headed up to my brother’s 300 acre ranch outside Centerville, Texas. They are going to shoot deer and I am going to watch. With my bad right shoulder, I am not going to shoot a 6 mm or 7.62 mm rifle that kicks my shoulder like a mule. My brother has an out of season culling license for his ranch.
I wonder if my 4G phone will work on his ranch. He is the boonies as much as central Texas can get. I need a new phone.
Use your left shoulder.
One of those Henry’s you were looking at last year would be much gentler and probably qualify as a protective medical device.
LOL2 BillG
Jeffrey Epstein says Bill Gates caught sexually transmitted disease from ‘Russian girls’… then suggested secretly slipping Melinda antibiotics, new emails in DOJ release claim
“Reading weeks” where Billy was banging his mistress. Melinda got snookered, but maybe she planned it to become an instant billionaire.
I believe it.
Investigators Can’t Find Tapes Showing Fulton County’s 2020 Ballot Count Started At Zero, Board Says
Really tired of the voter fraud and the total disregard for voting law.
Don’t follow the law and the votes don’t count. Don’t give a flyin’ fart in the wind who gets “disenfranchized”–maybe next time they’ll put someone on charge who can find their backside with both hands.
News stories keep pratting about the statute of limitations. Screw that. The DOJ needs to move forward and bring charges for an ongoing conspiracy to cover up the laws that were broken in 2020.
How many people new about the missing 100 “tabulator tapes” ? Their silence is proof of the ongoing conspiracy. Round up everyone who knew and charge them. Let the look at 5-10 years in federal prison and see how long they can keep quiet.
And charge Raffensperger as part of the conspiracy of silence. POS.
Bill and I have been internet correspondents for 20 years or so. One of the commenters on his old (pre-Substack) Daily Pundit blog, Flight ER Doc, also comments at Instapundit. He pointed out that GLP-1 drugs have been in use for over a decade, and the risk/reward is at least qualitatively characterizable. (Wow, that’s an awkward turn of phrase.)
Anecdotes are not data. Recognizing that, my wide community contains a couple people who had to stop GLP drugs due to not tolerating the drugs, but no serious side effects. It includes a few who had no problems, like Bill Quick. That group all lost significant weight, although most of them plateaued at some point.
Most of them are resigned to taking the drug for the rest of their lives. While most people regain the weight after stopping the drug, there are exceptions. I’d like to think that paying attention to protein consumption and exercise would lead to being such an exception. In the event that won’t work, I’d rate the GLP drugs to be similar to insulin for diabetics and other similar medications for managing chronic conditions. You’re on those drugs for the rest of your life. Obesity is a similar chronic condition.
But I also recognize that’s wishful thinking, and I distrust big pharma. I also distrust the media, and their reporting on these drugs is all over the map. Online doctors that I trust either hate the drugs, or view them as last resorts. But they also all have their own axes to grind, and their own experiences. I’m still reviewing data and pondering.
P.S. @Ken, I think I remember your name from Daily Pundit. I followed SteveF and Pecan Corner(RIP) over here from there.
Minnesota Just Agreed to a Major Concession to the Trump Administration on Immigration Enforcement
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2026/01/29/tom-homan-says-minnesota-jails-will-share-information-with-icejails-eill-n2670325
“May”.
This only allows counties who are not blue-shiiteholes to do what they are required to do in the first place.
Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and various other smaller blue shiiteholes in Minnesota will keep on keepin’ on.
Every county in Minnesota should immediately get notice that all federal funds will be placed on hold if there is any lack of cooperation with federal immigration laws.
Except for Minneapolis and Saint Paul, which should get letters that their funds are already on hold due to their lack of cooperation with federal immigration laws, the failure of city police and county sheriff departments to provide emergency insistence, putting the lives of fellow officers at risk, etc.
well, nothing wrong with my eyes. At least, nothing that wasn’t wrong a year ago. Time to think about my pickups.
n
Grammar Nazi! Occaisionally this squirrel finds a nut.
STOPICE website hacked and info sent to Feds:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2026/01/30/top-license-plate-tracker-compromised-stopice-thread-n2424494
Well, that’s just hilarious.
The LSM and the Dems make it sound like the “peepul” are against immigration enforcement. The reality is quite different, and it seems that the pro-enforcement side is increasingly putting their skills to work in support of law enforcement.
Court Rules that Carnegie Mellon University Can Be Held Accountable for Taking Qatar Money to Permit Antisemitic Hatred on Campus
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=418326
Conspiracy to violate civil rights.
Damages plus, say $1 billion in punitive damages?
Parents raise concerns over heat issues in electric school buses in Lake Shore Central School District
Dec 18, 2025
https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/erie-county/parents-raise-concerns-over-heat-issues-in-electric-school-buses-in-lake-shore-central-school-district/
We’ve had some pretty cold weather in the ensuing 6-weeks.
How are the kids doing? Do they need federal assistance in the form of vouchers for an extra 5,000 BTUs in their book bags each morning? Can we extract the needed heat from the school boards? Should pols who support electric school buses have access to heat in their homes?
I’ve seen several videos made by people who were followed and harassed by those fun-loving free speech anti-ICE thugs. Seems to me that a couple of lawsuits against Mr. Austin and his friends might be appropriate. Course, filing such lawsuits would entail getting their addresses and making them part of the fling, which would be public information.
Quite possible, because I was intermittently active there, and on other conservative and libertarian sites. I figured that FirstName + HAM radio callsign was a pretty good choice for a unique identifier for most purposes.
I had a junk call today. I don’t know why they bother me. Fear? “They” have papers “for a legal matter” they are going to serve and I must sign when delivered. Or there will be penalties. This has been going on for a couple of years.
I’ve had nothing in the mailbox. Seems like I’d get a letter or something if this was legit. If it was the IRS I suspect they would seize my bank accounts and then ask questions.
Oh well.
I have the 1099-int form from my bank. I’ve downloaded the 1099-int from Treasury. I’ve downloaded the 1099-nec (whatever) from Big River but they also mailed it. I’m just waiting for the forms from SS and the 401k. I’m almost ready to do the taxes. Sort of excited because I want to see if I’m making little enough to not owe taxes. Because if I don’t owe, the refund should be the $2400 withheld by the 401k folks.
And if I do owe, I’ll figure how much less per month to draw from the 401k. Plans! I got one! ( ←- say that like Master Thespian.)
Last night was the usual Dog Potty Walk about dark. We have a routine. We get in the house, Penny might drink some water on her way to the living room. Buddy the Beagle plops on the kitchen floor while I disconnect his leash. Then watches me while I take off my gloves and coat and then his collar. Lock the door. Turn the kitchen lights off. Off he goes, to the rocker recliner in the living room.
Then when I turn off half of the lights in the living room, Penny gets up and goes to the bedroom. I hoist her up onto the bed and she’s happy. I fold down the covers on my side and fluff the pillow. No chocolates on the pillow ever happen. Buddy the Beagle usually shows up about then and makes a show of going to his bed.
Sometimes I go play with the Kindle and Buddy comes into the living room and usually gets on the sofa. Sometimes he gets to the chair first and I get the sofa. Sometimes I just go turn off the living room lights and brush my teeth and stuff and get in bed.
Last night, he’s heading to the chair as I picked up the Kindle. I beat him to the chair and said it’s my turn to sit here. He looked at me, looked at the sofa, and then acted like he was going to get on the other recliner. The leather recliner that I don’t let the dogs use. No Buddy, you know better, go get on the sofa.
Well, he got on the sofa and gave me the “why do you hate me” look for a couple of minutes… then went to sleep and started snoring.
I got bored with the Kindle, turned off the lights and went to brush my teeth. There he is, my little stalker, laying just outside of the bathroom on the carpet, watching me. He likes me, I’m his human, for some reason.
Ha, ha. BillyG is running for cover. “Not me! That didn’t happen! It’s a lie!” I bet Melinda is thinking “shit, did he slip me something?”
Watching the glucose monitor in almost real time is surprisingly entertaining. My ‘normal’ during the day in between meals seems to be around 100, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Whatever that means.
I got a big spike after lunch, which I didn’t expect. I wonder if the ham I eat has a bunch of added sugar?
—–
D2 has a school thing tonight, W ate out late in the day after a site visit, and D1 has her own plans. No cooking for me tonight, so I just ate some red beans and rice with sausage. I’m watching the glucose level to see what happens. 92 mg/dL seems a bit low as a starting point but then I was really hungry as I didn’t have any beef jerky while driving around today.
Nothing in tonight’s auctions that I really want or need. I did win another 200A automatic transfer switch. That will eventually go to the BOL and the Generac branded one will stay here.
Temperature never got much above 50F, and the sky never cleared. Bright overcast was the best it got.
Getting chillier now that the sun is going down.
n
the “why do you hate me” look
– you’d think they couldn’t get so aggrieved, but every dog owner knows otherwise…
Goldens are the KINGS of the long suffering look.
n
Sorry if that came off snarky. I use my left shoulder. Don’t know why, I just do. I can shoot my .22 pistol just as well with either hand. And the Glock, heh, it’s just an attachment to either arm, point and shoot.
The various .22 rifles, left shoulder. Because I’m mostly left handed? But I can plink that tree rat out of the pear tree on right shoulder, too.
Back around 1994 I bought a mail-order rifle. A Russian 7,62Russ. About $100. Plus a box of ammo. Back when UPS made you sign for deliveries. This old rifle was coated with grease. It took a few days to clean it up. Yeah, the stock could use refinishing but it’s a antique. The rifle is stamped 1896. Double headed eagle and all that, too. Tsarist Russia, before the commie jew Soviet stuff happened.
I bought it as a cool piece of history. Sort of like collecting stamps or coins from the time.
So I get this rifle. It’s pretty cool. Like sewing machine cool. I cleaned it. Lubed it. It looks good considering how old it is. The local “gun experts” said it was a waste of money. Because you could insert a bullet into the end of the barrel to the shoulder of the bullet…. which means the barrel is worn out. Ok, y’all. I bought a box of bullets, let’s go shoot this thing!
I made the first shot. Because I’m the fool that bought it so if it’s gonna blow up…. right?
Well. The barrel might be wallered out. But on either shoulder I was hitting soda/beer cans from a couple of hundred feet away. Without wearing my glasses. Wallered out fit my eyes. I was hitting the cans or just a few inches away. Close enough to hurt ya. Closer than anyone else.
It has a kick. Not much.
Missy was at least half Lab. They don’t know, some big black dog jumped the fence and had his way with the mother.
Sensitive? Say a loud word at her? Sheesh. She would go hide somewhere in the house. Ah, come on girl, get out of the bedroom closet and using dirty clothes for a bed.
Missy was a great puppy dog.
He’s an idiotic moronic asshole. He’s worth how much money? And only two kids? He’s gay. If he was actually smart he’d be on W8+ by now and have about 30 children.
No really, offer “have a few kids with me and you get $100,000 a year in cash and all of the household bills are covered”.
Use your left shoulder.
I am so right handed that I cannot get the left arm to do any precision work. Not even a mouse.
If I get desperate then I guess that I will have to just learn.
My dad was a lefty. In first grade school, they tied his left arm to his side for a year or so. As a result he was very ambidexterous. But, he said he was the worst baseball player since he batted right and threw left.
I’ve been injured often enough and long enough that I can do most things lefty, if I have to and I concentrate on it. I always do some shooting lefty when I go to the range, including slide and mag release practice.
I don’t like it though.
n
I can’t mouse left handed.
I can’t brush my teeth with my right hand.
Left hand dominant. Left eye dominant. Left foot dominant. “Left handers are right thinkers!”
Learning how to use scissors in kindergarten was very very frustrating. It was years before I learned there is such a thing as left-handed scissors.
I was the only left-hander in 3rd grade when we started learning cursive. The teacher just looked at me and said, “Well, follow along as best you can.” That was my last instruction in handwriting and penmanship until college drafting class.
I throw with my left hand, but I bat right-handed and golf right-handed because that’s how I was first taught. I mouse with my right hand, because that’s how I started. It works out, mostly because I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts.
When I started flying, I had to use my left hand on the stick for the first few lessons. It was a big deal to me when I was finally able to transition to right hand on the stick full time.
New: Missouri Sues Census Bureau to End Counting of Illegal Aliens and Request 2020 Recount
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2026/01/30/new-missouri-sues-to-end-counting-of-illegal-aliens-in-census-and-request-census-recount-n2198689
Census records are sealed by law for 70 years. There is sufficient evidence of irregularities in the count–an unprecedented level of error in the first fully electronic census–in addition to the constitutional issues to warrant a full audit.
It is also worth noting that experienced census workers raised many concerns about changes in procedures, application of questionable policies, and the many intermediate managers who seemed to be under qualified and unsuited for the job. Promises and assurances that those concerns would be thoroughly documented in “after action reviews” were not kept.
Then, mysteriously, the numbers used for reapportionment tended to err on the high side with statistical improbability concentrated on some blue states.
The Democrats are very fond of running out the statute of limitations clock, and they have used the “settle the phony lawsuit by the cozy liberal accomplices with a consent decree” playbook too many times.
I’d suggest a settlement decree where the government will continue the investigation of 2020/2021 irregularities (not subject to statute of limitations if there is an ongoing conspiracy to cover up the earlier crimes and promulgate similar crimes to the 2030 Census) while agreeing to reinstate the question of citizenship (used from 1890 to 1950) on the 2030 U.S. Census to include not only citizenship but immigrant status legal or illegal, and explicitly exclude illegal aliens from the numbers used for congressional reapportionment. Followed immediately by a challenge by the state of Florida claiming that the settlement does not go far enough and asking for oversight of Census Bureau operations by FBI forensic analysts that require that the data entry and records gathering be done completely on paper with a bulletproof audit trail.
Friday night late, nearly Saturday morning. Up much too late. I watched the first episode of the Hobbit film (Peter Jackson version) after work, and then the YT algorithm got itself tuned in to things I absolutely wanted to see…
Documentaries about composer Ennio Morricone. There is a EuroArts video of Morricone conducting the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in the music from the Mission. The most beautiful version of Gabriel’s Oboe I have heard. https://youtu.be/W5bjDcLP2DM The oboist is Yeon-Hee Kwak. Sublime.
Now I really ought to sleep. Goodnight!
Nothing in tonight’s auctions that I really want or need. I did win another 200A automatic transfer switch. That will eventually go to the BOL and the Generac branded one will stay here.
My Generac 200 amp automatic transfer switch is a Siemens relabel. I like it that way. The Germans make good stuff. At least, they used to.
I tell people I’m ambidextrous, but that’s not exactly true. I’m right eye dominant, and mostly right handed, but I had no hand preference going into kindergarten. The teachers were the good kind; they didn’t want to force me to be one way or the other, but they asked my parents to watch me closely. Things like climbing on the furniture, did I go with the left leg or right leg first.
They ended up training me as right-handed. Which was fine.
Later, I learned to juggle, and then I taught a bunch of people. That’s when I realized how hard it was for a lot of people to both throw and catch with both hands.
I’ve gone through some periods lately where my eyes had retina issues, first left, then right. While waiting for the surgery in my right eye, I had to learn to shoot pistols ambidextrously, and rifles left-handed.
You’re supposed to use red-dot sights with both eyes open, but I have issues because of astigmatism. The dot reticle looks like a scribble.
Now I have cataracts; I wonder what it’s going to be like as I go through the surgery and lens tuning with that process. I plan to keep shooting regularly.
@denis, your link is wrong. I wanted oboe music, instead I got a wild boar hunting video.
Cool rifle, though.
Two bowls of red beans and rice took me right out. I was sleepy all day and the food just pushed it. I laid down rather than hurt my neck sleeping in the chair, and I was right out. looking at the sugar curve, the rise is slower, it tops out lower, but the peak is rounder and wider, and the downslope is also less steep than a normal meal (that includes carbs.) That means that if there is an effect, it took longer to come on, lasted longer, and longer to dissipate. I will have some interesting things to talk to the doc about.
———
One auction tonight had stuff I was interested in, but they always put a reserve price on lots, and it’s usually too high. This was a perfect example. Vintage lighters, watches, and pocket knives were almost all started too high. Most got one or no bids (because bidders hate reserves, even if they are spelled out like this auctioneer does.) They had what was listed as a vintage dunhill lighter, but was clearly a japanese copy (homage, since it wasn’t meant to be a copy or counterfeit.) The brand name was in the pictures, FFS, but they priced it like a dunhill. The only thing on my watch list that sold was a zippo that went for about $150.
Running an auction has costs, especially in time, and opportunity, so sabotaging yourself like that is stupid. Maybe the reserves came from the client but this seller always uses reserves so probably not. Crazy how counter productive some things can be.
———–
From the metal kit maker that I like to buy for D1, a kit that I want, just not at that price…
https://metalkitor.com/products/3d-metal-solar-system-model-kit-build-it-yourself-working-orrery-for-stem-learning
It’s not as sexy or visually striking as some orreries I’ve seen but it’s pretty cool.
D1 has built several of their kits.
n
Haven’t hit the lottery yet:
https://www.orrerydesign.com/
Shiny!
n
D1 is home from her party life so it’s time for bed.
n
Yes, I watched. The world is the Xers lotus eating fantasies made reality so they have an easier time ignoring it.
I don’t know about Britain, but the US suburbs weren’t that boring in the early 80s. Most major urban areas had basic cable and UHF TV stations, and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” aired via first run syndication.
The way we interface to all the toys sits downstream of the art department of Stage 8/9 era “Star Trek”. The iPad creators at Apple openly acknowledge the influence, and the iPad actually came first at One Infinite Loop.
Ann Winblad. The get togethers between BillG and Winblad were part of a premarital agreement.
Lemon has a white great grandfather, a pretty crazy parentage situation, and a shaky academic past. He isn’t exactly a role model for young Amish youts.
37F in the shade. 40F in the sun. Bright outside.
————
@greg, I grew up 20minutes south of Chicago, in a small town (village by the local definition), but really a suburb of Chicago. You could walk back yard to back yard all the way to downtown if you wanted.
We might have been a little bit more exciting than what he presented in the video, but not much, and not for everyone. I remember TV stations signing off every night. I don’t remember when we got cable but it was probably after I left home for college. In my junior summer year I saw MTV for the first time while at a summer camp program at Bradley University in the dorms, so we didn’t have it at home. (blew my mind, btw) We had a VCR and a couple of movie rental stores in town, but we still had a wired remote for the VCR and the TV was 15 or 17 inches. You turned it on to watch something, then turned it off.
We played by the railroad tracks, rode our bikes on trails we made in empty lots, stole from construction sites, picked good stuff out of the trash while riding down alleys on our bikes. We once dragged a couch home for our club house. We practically lived in trees in the summer time and each had one we considered to be “ours”.
We didn’t knock on our friends’ doors, we stood outside and yelled their names until they came out or a mom told us where to go. Front door was for company, we always used the back door. I had a paper route, HO layout, and slot car racing.
I used my First Communion money to by a Radio Shack TRS 80 Model 1 in high school, but dad and I built an analog computer to do multiplication for a science fair in junior high. (two pots and a meter in a box- typical Popular Mechanics project). We had a storefront place where you could rent an apple II and play games by the ½ hour when I was in HS, and we got apple IIs for the school at some point.
I met Ward Christensen and visited his house, where he showed us the multiple phone lines in his basement running the first BBS. I think it was an aside to what we came to see, maybe a model railroad? Or maybe we came for the BBS but I was more interested in the RR. I can’t remember which of my HS friends took me there, or why we went, but looking back it was kinda risky for a couple of geeky teen boys, although not so unusual that it would raise eyebrows at the time. Men and boys could share a hobby and get together without people thinking about predators…
It might have been my friend who got bitten hard by the BBS bug, to the point where he was failing HS, and stealing phone service to log on to distant BBSs that took us.
I also went with a friend to a computer Users Group meeting, and met my first ham radio guys. They were kinda jerks and that derailed any interest I had in ham radio for a couple of decades.
Anyway, all the tech stuff I did was because I was a weird geeky kid with some weird friends. My normal friends and I did all the typical suburban 80s things and more. I even had a skate board after seeing a skate show on a vacation to Cali in the late 70s, although I just rode it down the hill and not as transportation.
All this to say, I think he’s spot on that GenX started in the analog world and our early childhood and formative years were based on that, while we participated in the dawn of the digital world and had dreams for it. I think one of the sharpest observations is that GenX thinks of the digital world as a utility, a tool, a place to visit to DO something and then return to ‘real’ life, while the following generations live in the digital world, and rarely leave it. The difference in the way our brains formed and our perspective is real.
I’ve noticed it with music and my kids- everything from every era is available to them, no filters, no curation, no CONTEXT or timeline. D1 has current hits and music from the 40s in her playlist and doesn’t make any distinction between them. It’s just music, and it is almost effortless, cost less, and instant. VERY different from our relationship with music.
But that’s a whole ‘nother article.
nick
Sunbelt suburbs got cable in the early 80s. Our local provider, Vision Cable of Pinellas, was so ahead of its time that the producers of “You Can’t Do That On Television” thank the system by name in the credits of the first few years of shows.
I consider basic cable to be one of Pournelle’s Cultural Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nuclear weapons dropped in the suburbs of Florida and California in the 80s would have done less long term damage.
Back then, a full range of basic cable, including the ESPN grift, along with a movie channel ran about $35. A lot of households got hooked and never cut the cord until the last decade when it looked like the Pizza Box Dream lotus eating fantasy was finally going to be reality.