Month: May 2025

ASFO 2025–05–17

Weather determined what I was doing in the time slot this week — ironically enough, considering that a key advantage of atomic power over other zero–emissions energy sources is that it is not much influenced by the weather. The skies are clear, and I was in Haltom City, as I said last week. And I missed my chance to pre–record a show.

Supplementary Show

  • 2025–05–20 PWRSD 1976 : A Snapshot in Time is a kind of yearbook from the nuclear power operation at Westinghouse. There is some fascinating material in it, including a description of an absolutely hair–raising bit of messing around with uranium in a metallurgical laboratory (not the Metallurgical Laboratory). Unfortunately, although the printing job is professional–looking, something awful seems to have happened in the galley stage, as more than once entire lines of text have disappeared.
  • 2025–05–23 Something of a mess, as I continue to read from A Snapshot in Time, but much of what I’m trying to read is tabular material.

Objects In Mirrors Episode 55: “The Adlai Stephenson Expressway” (2025-05-13)

  • Laura Marling – Devil’s Spoke
  • Angel Olsen – Shut Up Kiss Me
  • Neko Case – I Wish I Was the Moon
  • Mac DeMarco – Chamber of Reflection
  • Courtney Barnett – Avant Gardener
  • Cat Power – Metal Heart
  • Waxahatchee – Fire
  • Snail Mail – Pristine
  • Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You a Picture
  • Spellling – Turning Wheel
  • Hurray for the Riff Raff – Nothing’s Gonna Change That Girl
  • Joanna Newsom – Does Not Suffice
  • Bill Callahan – Pigeons

Intergalactic Wasabi Mix – Episode 1137 – 2025/05/11

Video + Audio:

Audio Only:

Tracklist:

00:29 The Emperor Machine – Bloody Hell
05:13 Kebekelektrik – Magic Fly (Tom Moulton Mix)
09:43 Lime – Agent 406
13:24 Patrick Cowley – Mind Warp
19:09 Kano – It’s A War
22:30 Black Devil Disco Club – The Devil In Us
26:34 Cerrone – Supernature (Edit)
30:32 Techniques Berlin – Love Via Computer
34:48 Anything Box – Living In Oblivion (Digital Visions Re-edit)
39:23 Cause and Effect – You Think You Know Her
44:18 Camouflage – The Great Commandment
47:48 Information Society – Walking Away
52:18 Freeez – I.O.U. (12” Version)
56:17 Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F

ASFO 2025–05–10

More public outreach — the Friends of the Haltom City Public Library annual Book Sale and Flea–for–All may seem an odd place to talk to people about atomic power, but you have to go where the people are. Also a quick calculation that Comanche Peak 1&2 have generated as much power since they came into service as 3700 large wind turbines in their whole working lives ; the new Pope and his priorities, with a quote from the famous encyclical letter of Leo XIII, On the Condition of the Working Classes ; and a scathing editorial from a Spanish grid executive and renewables proponent, explaining that the big blackout should not have come to a surprise, because integrating wind and solar into the grid is more expensive and difficult than the Spanish Government has been willing to face, and also pointing out that shutting down nuclear power is not compatible with reducing CO₂ emissions.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2025–05–13 “So ignorantly, myopically, and statically conceived and so obsolete is the whole housing art that its death led the Crash of 1929, since when its ghost script has been kept in rehearsal by US government subsidy at a total underwriting cost to date of $200 billion.” Finishing up Design Strategy, and moving on to the epilogue of Utopia or Oblivion. (Minor glitch at the beginning.)
  • 2025–05–16 “In this way we discover that the buildings, which controlled energy conditions of heat, cold, dry, and wet, were in effect machines because machines process and control energy. Because we are conditioned to think of the house as static, we fail to realize that the automobile is as much a part of the house as is the addition of a woodshed.” And with that, we complete our reading of Utopia or Oblivion : The Prospects for Humanity (1969) by R Buckminster Fuller.

ASFO 2025–05–03

Power outrage! in Iberia, and the Spanish Prime Minister runs his mouth off in a fashion which shows a disturbing degree of ignorance — and another in Pittsburgh, where the cause is a great deal more obvious. Also, more work on blast, and my advice for Mark Carney.

Supplementary Show

  • 2025–05–06 “Minmaxfamfax” is a clue that we are continuing with Design Strategy from Utopia or Oblivion. Also there is a thunderstorm going on in the background.
  • 2025–05–09 “California is the center of the outermost jumpoff pad of humanity’s springboard.” Concept 14, World Community and Subcommunities of World Man, means we have almost reached the end of Design Strategy, and with it, of Utopia or Oblivion. We will probably finish the book Tuesday.