48 Comments

Apple won't let me watch free episodes sans detailed registration and payment method.

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Digital Rabbit Ears TV: (The Medium of the Future as we all become Poorer)

I recently cobbled together a pair of improvised rabbit ears (from steel core insulated washing line, two telescopic (metal) back scratchers, horse vet tape and tin foil wrapping for coaxial shielding) - all plugged into the back of 12 year old Samsung monitor. As I could not find coaxial "cable" [UHF / VHF] cable on my property nor a pair of suitable rabbit ears - something that used to be so ubiquitous.

The old monitor / "TV" has a digital TV (from the "Air") decoder on board - so do most TVs / Monitors that are newer than about 16 years old. You have to go through various sub-menus to make your TV/ Monitor rescan and "Compile" all the channels / frequencies it was able to detect.

In spite of the prominent mountains to the East I receive about 40 channels FREE but for some inexplicable reason PBS and its hand full of channels was not in evidence.

First impressions are truly horrific other than re-runs of the A-team and various Star Trek episodes OG to Star Trek Next Generation , Voyager , DS9 etc. etc. on the "Hero" channel. Never seen Maguiver(sp), nor "Leave it to Beaver" nor "Sanford and Sons" (seemingly a ripp off of Steptoe and Sons ) - nor various episodes of the Lucile Ball show (with Ricky Arnez (sp) [Weird how Desilu Studios was bought by RED Digital Cinema - a truly surreal experience when I visited a few years back for the Launch of Hydrogen -3d phone - a strongly featured 'Artifact" in the movie 'Don't Look Up" .].

Etc. etc. - I think you get the picture, (Apologies for digressions and unnecessary detail.). But to think only thirty years ago when I lived in DC I used to watch some FOX on analog Rabbit ears b'cuz Start Trek with Patrick Stuart (TNG) , Simpsons only a few season deep, Murphy Brown (on a different channel) to be tuned into using a giant knob... etc. etc. FREE.

However two things I'm MOST shocked by are the Fundamentalist Christian channels like Scripps (TM) and OAN One America Network.

I'll preface this that I'm a staunch Atheist and yet Scripps seems to be interviewing the Governer for Hawaii about all sorts of environmental issues + and issue I NEVER heard of with some sort of US military fuel dumping there that is making people (particularly children) - very very sick + all sorts of hydrological / geological diagrams to explain what is going on.

Disturbing that OAN cunducts a lot of interwiews from the Capital Building.

Distrurbing that there are almost wall to wall drug company adverts - but learnt for the first time that Covid 19 is still the 5th biggest killer in the USA out of all diseases and still very burdonsome to hospitals - discovered that from a Moderna drug commercial.

Really amazing to see the hispanic / latino / spanish language channels out in full force and a lot of soccer matches televised that one would never normally see. Seems the advertisers are fostering a sort of European "Vibe" for upwardly mobile Latinos and Latinas. Sort of a new Hispano-Yuppie "Go get it/ go getter " modality and strongly marketed towards Latina women.

There's a lot going on and some real eye openers and ways of catching up on past American culture (unapologetically ) white bread - but helps one understand what half of the republican base is all about that put Trump and other climate deniers in key positions in the Legislature. + you see the reflected source of misogynistic and smarm-tastic attitudes as displayed by the Creepy Dweeber contigent of the gerontified (sp) bench of the Republican party - You know the ones that sexual troll AOC etc. 'cuz these embarrassingly misogynistic and patronizing TV shows from the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s seem to be playing endless re-runs in their respective heads between their ears - "Rent Free".

its FREE and you don't have to sign up for anything.

Just think of it as getting an Anthropological Ariel to understand what America is really made of and increasingly so (as I say ) as we all get poorer collectively.

The picture (being digital) comes in clear as bell - sometimes clearer than internet TV / subscriptions from a hot spot - fewer compression artifacts.

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My gosh! I don’t understand a word you said but that is impressive!

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Elizabeth Ro (writes) --> "My gosh! I don't understand a word you said but that is impressive"

Ahhh I see what you did there - Brilliant / Bingo ^^^^ @Elizabeth Ro

Apparently I need to watch even more episodes of the A team ... and study (more diligently) the playbook of such luminaries as John "Hannibal" Smith, Arthur Templeton "Faceman" Peck***, H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, and from breakfast cereal fame (not Cluster-B) but Bosco Albert "B.A." Baracus.

Threes Company and it's ilk are hard to leave on for more than 25 seconds... gotta draw the line somewhere ????

_____________________________________________________________________________

^^^ Ohhh here,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_A-Team_characters#Howling_Mad_Murdock

________________________

Albert ?

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"Face and Peck" : At the moment I'm struggling to get through a book titled 1984 b'cuz I know the bit with the hungry rats trying to eat Winston Smith's face off is less than a chapter away.

Was and is Eric Blair and the BBC reaaaaaaalllly that important ?

Especially today and tomorrow ?

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Just think of it as "Anthropology Ears" for America's Past - Present and indubitable FUTURE.

Worth spending the time and having a serious look.

AND it's FREE - comes out of the air for no money and no personal data or credit cards handed over.

Maybe APPLE should rebroadcast "EXTRAPOLATIONS" on Digital Rabbit Ears TV.

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Weirdly Scripps and OAN were interviewing key experts about the UAW and of course media experts (from Los Angeles) - about Murdock becoming Chairman Emeritus for various Murdock entities.

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I have the same experience. Forcing one to create an account (even a free one for a limited time) is not the same as "being in front of the Apple paywall". Too bad, I was really quite pumped!

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Not sure what changed (maybe the Apple folks?) but I was finally able to connect and watch. A bit uneven (the whale sequence seemed heavy handed) but later episodes are truly excellent. Spent way too much time this weekend bingeing. Highly recommended if you have the time.

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it didnt réquire payment method.

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Can't even sign up for paid Apple Plus let alone free. We tried for 30 minutes or more and it's not going to work no matter what info we gave them.

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Hi Michael: This might not be the best place to say it: But Michael, I think it's time you do a podcast episode on the Migrant Crisis, and what you think we and the WH should do about getting control of the narrative on this. So far it looks like the GOP has the reins of messaging that it's Biden's Crisis, made worse by an "open" border, letting it all just pour and pour in, etc....

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It won't make a difference about the people migrating state to state! Those that are citizens. As climate change pushes people out of their homes, they will go to other states too.

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So Freakin' annoying. It's IMPOSSIBLE to accesss any of this on these terrible streaming services. It says i have an account then it's a half hour of BS - BOTH Apple TV and ROKU are horrible and will NOT let me in to see it free. I guess i will have to wait a year till it hits the library. APPLETV and ROKU SUCK

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Glad I read this before I wasted my time with Apple. Everyone! Go to your local library and ask them to purchase the series either on DVD, or MP4, etc. They'll find a way.

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Make sure they buy FOUNDATION first ;-)

Dead Ringers with Rachel Weisz (on Amazon Prime) - is beyond excellent - I would give it six stars out of five if I could...

Buuuuuuuuuuuuu----uuuuut

The principal photography and color grading and lighting and set design and true dynamic range that was employed and MUCH darker and mature tones** and color pallet used meant that the usable color gamut and color space basically "Crashed" / completely crushed / solarized to the point of woefully unacceptable compression artifacts.

Why do I even mention this ?

As to your VERY excellent suggestion that Libraries should be buying / "trading" in such media-content.

In other words [DEAD RINGERS] - the set design - themes and cinematography were absolutely artful to rival anything Kubrick ever set to film. <--- AND I really mean that.

So can't wait to re-watch DEAD RINGERS on Blue-Ray. Simply to gain the full (as intended) imagery.

@Barabara - excellent point and my point that streaming services really f*ck with the actual imagery that was created due to horrendous compression and color artifacts.

I WISH they had an option where you could download* a higher fidelity version of a serious movie in advance and then play it back "Cashed" without the chronic "Wavelet " and gamut crushing / Dynamic range crushing / 'Art Murdering" artifacts.

It used to be that ONLY quality gives way to convenience buy now a days seems you get neither.

__________________________________________________________________________________

* I would happily wait for a 1/2 hour to an hour pre-download for a more complete and expansive codec.

** American movies and TV series tend to over light and wash things out deliberately whereas other non-American film makers try to reach for more painterly darker palette with subtle tones and almost Goya like shadows.

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I'm sorry, but your comment about the wind not there anymore, I find hard to believe. There will always be wind movement, BUT the trade winds are already disrupted, and are in diffrent directions than before. Therefore giant wind farms, if they are fixed and can't rotate to face the wind, are worthless. I think they are crazy idea that never should of happened! Smaller, more mobile spinning generators would have been the way to go and like the old farm windmills of old, they can move to face the changing winds by just adding a tail fin. They can be attached easily to home roofs and integrated into a solar pannel grid system.

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I'm a 'frayed knot said the pretzeled string running a steel comb through it's Terminus. ;-) <--- See good FOUNDATION reference there.

All I can say is Thermodynamics is Be-yat*h.

Edison tried this back in the day with local low voltage DC power stations in New York.

Thermally and electrodynamically extremely inefficient.

Unfortunately Westinghouse and Nikola (sp) Tesla were right ----> later due to financial difficulties merged to become GE, [General Electric company].

~ tangent cam /* That now buy media companies, who's CEOs cranky MOM had the authority to get various News-tainment channels unplugged. B'cuz 1950s GE electronics used in IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devises) killing US service men and women in the Religious Oil Wars in the gulf during the Bush I and Bush II eras and beyond.

~ tangent cam - off */

The Materials science for composites that are stable long term for windfarms is not there yet. Things fail and have to be replaced at great expense for what are essentially organic composite "Mega" structures.

The ironic dependency of fossil fuel supply chain is required to make Wind Farms "Viable" :-(

Wars don't really help with that.

In 2018 the USA consumed 4,222.5 terawatt- hours (TWh) of electricity.

The increased demand for electricity can and has increased annually by as much as 3.2% [Almost sound like Biden there]. ^^^

A kilowatt Hour is what your home or apartment meter might read on a 200 Amp domestic (service) panel. An old school hair dryer might be 1000 watts. So a Kilowatt hour is like leaving a hot hairdryer on for an hour. Or using a tea kettle continuously for 1/2 an hour.

A trillion Watt Hour is a Trillion Watts of electricity used in one hour.

Or one Billion Kilowatts used in one hour. or one billion hair dryers run for an hour.

4,222.5 terawatt- hours (TWh) is four thousand two hundred and twenty two and a half BILLION hair dryers run for one hour.

The electromotive force required to meet the domestic requirement of a 200 Amp domestic panel let alone power a hair dryer is extremely challenging.

+ other energy uses and sources in the USA in BTU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States

^^^ Expressed as "British Thermal Units".

I think the movie "Remembering Yang" had it right (on Hulu if memory serves me right)..

Use a washing line or towel.

A tumble-dryer might be of order of three or four hair dryers.

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Sort of a foot note re: Hair dryers left on for an hour - one should not leave such an old school small hot wind making machine ON for extended periods of time...

But brings to mind the unwieldy and counter intuitive nature of such annual energy consumption numbers.

In honor of one of our greatest environmental activists on the Senate floor,

May I introduce to you a more comprehensible unit of power consumption,

The μB or "Micro Bernie" .

Hear me out you will see why.

1000 watts ---> 1KWh ---> [Thousand Watt hair dryer left on for one hour ],

1KWH = 1 μB or 1.0 x10 ^-6 Bernies (raised to the -6th power),

[There is such a pre-cedent as we already have Micro Henrys (for inductance) and Micro Farads (after Faraday) for capacitance.]

The basic scaling factor is derived from the reciprocal of the total amount of energy (in Mega-Joules) required to build an Ohio Class nuclear submarine [ (SSGN-727) ] divided by the number of Man-Golf hours - (1460 MGh / year) -to score and settle such contracts to bring into existence the same sea faring nuclear 'Apparatus".

So conveniently 1 Terawatt-hour = 1000 Bernies.

So roughly speaking the US annual consumption of electricity being 4,222.5 Terawatt hours goes to ...

4.2 Mega Bernies per year *

(roughly equal to ) ≈ 11.6 Killo Bernies / day. (US electrical Power consumption).

______________________________________________________________________________________

* I think you will all agree that 4.2 Mega Bernies is a much easier figure and concept for the rest of the legislature to wield and get their collective "heads" around.

"Electrical annual consumption has gone up at a rate of 0.3 Mega Bernies annually reaching a near alarming level of 5.9 ... Almost 6 Mega Bernies... We as nation must curb our appetite for careless and wonton consumption of energy before it is too late... "

Etc. etc.

_______________________________

Will double check my "Math" at some point (time willing).

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So broad strokes ~ US energy consumption via electrical means and generation

is approximately 42 Mega-Bernies over a decade.

[Forty Two].

A decade being a useful increment of time to plan around in political terms.

Hence the need for a quasi planet saving / "political" / Physics based human scale and metric that is easy to comprehend.

But obviously, unless we find progressively far more energy efficient means (to do what we need to do) then that figure will continue to climb.

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Haven’t watched yet but will soon. There is a saying that “the only failure is in ceasing to try” at this point we must not stop trying in whatever arena you most proficient in. Mine is Self Awareness and the pollution that is destroying Truth is toxic as heck.

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😴😴Whaa? Edison is the name of our local power company, not the guy! . Don't care, Edison was a greedy man and discredited Tesla. But it could of been a disaster if they used DC anyway. Although, alot of people got electrocuted with Edison back then. okay, you're getting off topic!

maybe we should use Tesla's atmospheric electrical towers to help with climate change. -- free electricity was his goal. Good Night! it must be Monday now in the UK.

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I excitedly shared this podcast and invited several groups of friends to view Extrapolations. Too bad Apple has several LOOPS that go nowhere trying to get to see a free episode without signing up for a 'free 7 day trial' - I will not do that. It took about 30 minutes and I finally got in on a NON-Private browser. Once I got started I was able to click on UP NEXT and get to each successive episode. But many friends wrote to tell me they couldn't get in at all. And tonight I can't get back in - even after having to create a new apple password and lots of other 'security' measures. It's looping on asking for the security code on one of my credit cards. Come to think of it - how would they even have that information!?

In summary, I LOVED the series, especially episode 8. But I think Apple owes you an apology for encouraging what looks like a clear marketing ploy. EXTRAPOLATIONS is a memorable series.

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It took me 22 minutes to build a pair of improvised rabbit ears for Digital (Air) TV and no information or money had to be handed over.

I bought Apple Gift Cards for my (adult) kids just so they could Watch Season II of FOUNDATION. <---- way better than extrapolations and worth signing up and handing over do ray me for.

But I will for sure take your excellent advice and take a gander at episode 8.

TIA.

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Dear Mr Moore.

How are you? Well I hope.

I am an Socialist and aspiring documentary filmmaker living in the United Kingdom. As a member of the Socialist party of England and Wales.

I was wondering if we could use a short clip from your film Capitalism: A Love Story for our social media videos?

Specifically 58:38 - 1:01: 37. This footage would be used to demonstrate not only the undemocratic, exploitative nature of capitalism but also that their is in fact a democratic, and more productive way of organising society, one which taps into the abilities of all human beings for the benefit of everyone rather than the profits of a few.

This footage would be used to advertise the parties existence, campaigns the party is involved in, events we have organised (demonstrations, blocking evictions, etc), and meetings.

As a party of the working class, and for the working class we don't have any wealthy financially backers, our money comes exclusively from our members, teachers, fire fighters, railroad workers, train drivers, social workers, civil servants, nurses etc.

These contributions, subs as we call them, are spent supporting striking workers, supporting workers fighting rent increases, and producing material to raise the consciousness of the working class both here in UK and around the world including in the US (https://independentsocialistgroup.org/).

Although this allows us to maintain our political independence and internal democracy it also means we cannot pay a great deal for rights to footage etc.

We will of course credit yourself and any film company who was involved in recording and/or editing.

Thanks in advance,

Yours respectfully, Jack Huggins.

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Dude / Dudette

You have to start at the bottom like everyone else,

Dress up like ... I dunno ... "Sniffy" "The Crime Fighting Hedgehog" ,

Get yourself a giant JVC - VHS camera with extension bars but don't tell anybody you mounted a Go-Pro under the curiously smudgy / dusty lens.

Then start getting in the face of all those CEO "Types" and start asking contextless and perplexing questions that no human could readily answer in a month of Sundays.

Meanwhile if you happen to be a bit rusty in your algorithms, combinatorics and more advanced calculus you can go to your local libraries and start on an autodidactic path to teach yourself the requisite "Math" behind Second order equations and credit default swaps and how Mr. Dalio saw the cumulative patterns that helped precipitate the 2008 crash.

B'cause - when you make docos the phone ain't (sp) ringing off the hook - or whatever it is phones dooooo these days.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

* Personally I think EVERY presidential candidate should be forced to demonstrate the actual mathematics (for sub-prime credit default swap "Mechanics" ) - CONVINCINGLY (sp) from first principals to show clearly that they actually understand the mathematics behind that.

Just so we know we are "Safe" again from having the tax payers bail out the banks - YET again !

OTOH some of the most mind glowingly gifted mathematicians with very high IQs notoriously were also con-men that ultimately died in penury. - I think Joe Scott has some mini docos on that "Theme".

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I started watching it. It's great! Thanks for telling us about it.

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Hi, I haven't watched yet, but plan to. Instead of Apple, he said something about Hulu- that might work better if you don't want to apply for an apple acct.

We need to drastically change our way of living. I said before that migration will be a big impact, but not just at our bordets, but state to state prople are moving.

And quit building houses made of pressboard wood which goes up like a straw house in a fire. . The power Co shuts off our power during high winds to prevent wildfires. So then power off- - it shuts off our access to our solar pannels. I was too cheap to buy the back up battery for $10,000 more.

I looked into small spinning wind generating option, still need battery back up. ( perfect for smoky-windy days and nights) but you can only buy them as a company. Have the governments get the small spinners! ( they are big, ~4' dia.) instead of those giant windmills. They can be installed on building roofs. Why? because windmill farms breakdown after time and you have this giant thing just sitting there broken and ugly. The companies won't pay to remove them. And it kills birds!

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I thought he said Roku

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My bad, it was Roku.

Yes, I went back and listened.

Anyway, I was too busy to look up my Apple ID, ergo, I couldn't sign into Apple +, so I missed it!

Thank you for keeping me accurate.❤️

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APPLE WANTS MY CEREDIT CARD INFORMATION TO VIEW THIS SERIES. THAT'S A NO GO. TOO BAD.

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Thank you

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In my case Apple was going to require that I sign up for a free week. Then I would have to cancel after they start to charge me. This was a marketing ploy to get more subscribers. No special deal and it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth about Apple. I decided not to fall to their shenanigans.

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If one is "in front" of a wall rather than "Behind it" sort of suggests a siege mentality.

Historically those that are besieged have the advantage as it takes 30x to 50 x the resources to transact a successful siege. Whether the City of Troy (which I have visited in Turkey) - the walls of Jerico - or even an Apple "Paywall".

Or is Extrapolations a sort of "Trojan Horse" sent out from Troy ?

Which makes absolutely no sense whatso ever.

Beware of Turks bearing "Gifts" ? (even young ones ?)

What are the disgruntled and weary (Athenian) ish Greeks to make of that ?

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Yup who were the C peoples again ? or the Sea Peoples from the Bronze age...

Anyone ?

Bueler ?

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What ??? !!! No !

Its called the BRONZE AGE not the "Bronzer Age" ... And NO there is and was no such thing as the "ORANGE AGE"...

What ?

No,

WALLS came first then wheels.

Ask Joe he was there ???

No !

Çatalhöyük - very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia.. , about 7000 BC - UNESCO world Heritage site, they were very into cows but did not have front doors.

What ?

No not "Chappaquiddick" ,

Çatalhöyük ! Pronounced Chattle-hoyu-ooook. or tʃaˈtaɫhœjyc

"Anna told yah" - what ??? - no Anatolia ! It's in Turkey.

YES I KNOW Cowes is a boat / yacht race that goes round the Isle of Wight... They have a power boat version that sets out from Torquay.

https://cowestorquaycowes.co.uk/

NO !!!! The "Caucasians" did NOT come from the Isle of Wight ... They came from the Caucuses ... you know like TURKEY !

What do you mean Turkish people don't look that "White" ?

Wha ...

Ohhhh "Cancel " UNESCO WTF ???

Oh really "Cancel Culture"

No just because you pulled the US/ USA out of UNESCO and funding of World Heritage sites does not mean you can NOW bomb them ...

YES even the ones in Iran

NO It's still a WAR CRIME !!!!

Yes that's right they didn't have any front doors and you would have to enter through a square aperture in the roof, YES - all the houses adjoined each other so you'd walk from roof to roof rather than having a lot of streets. And YES their ancestors were indeed plastered into the walls and yes they had lots of bull horns mounted on the wall like the "High Chaparral" or a "Texas styled Cadillac"...

What - ??? WHO WERE THE GOOD GUYS ?

Ohhh seriously GTFOH.

________________________________________________________________________________________

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk

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Cave Canem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beware_of_the_dog#/media/File:Casa_del_poeta_tragico,_mosaico_del_cave_canem.jpg

^^^Casa Del Poeta Tragico Mosaico del Cave-Canem

Pompeii 2nd Century AD/CE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SILhVPuYOgM

Nimbo Cumulus / Bimbo Cume-a-loss ----? What ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIbDoAvtuuc&t=1s

^^^ "SCORCHIO ! "

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Medieval Chroniclers and medieval artisans and experts of war detailed all the metrics for siege warfare very accurately.

Seemingly the actual metrics for "Green Policy" seem elusive.

Those that profess to engineer "Green Solutions" would in fact do well / better to consult practical measures as known to logistics experts in for example the Army and army core of engineers and beyond.

Seems an unnecessary wedge has been driven between two narratives for fake political theatre.

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One would do well if not better to heed the practical considerations as outlined by "Planet of the Humans". Freely available to watch (courtesy of Michael Moore.

Seemingly political will - really - is NOT enough.

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