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  Great satire by Alexandra Petri in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/09/kennedy-center-danger/688797/?gift=jDw299G8PAYpd8-JGed7UQZ7zKx30hjif-nCN37aHrU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share #giftarticle

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  If you think your chatbot is more amazing than a rainbow, think again.

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  One of the flipboard titles that makes me laugh is any version of "I compared these two chatbots and there was one clear winner." I confess I've never read past the title. That's because my mind always converts the above headline to "Compare any two chatbots and they will both always suck." Without proof, I am 1000% sure that all of these articles are generated by an LLM. Who would waste real human time comparing them? And if there are humans...

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  On today's agenda, a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner requested by my younger granddaughter for her birthday celebration. My wife*, who long ago achieved sainthood for her kindness, patience, generosity, work ethic, and ability to cook all sorts of dishes so they're all ready at the same time, has been cooking since yesterday so this feast can be ready in two hours. The kid is turning ten and above all is looking forward to the stuffing. *My wife was also a midwife for about 20 y...

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  Trump is like a dowsing rod but instead of finding water, you put him on a stick and point him at people. Every time he perks up you'll know you've found another loser. Look at his Cabinet if you don't believe me. Or the guys who destroyed the reflecting pond. It's a rare talent.

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  I went in to work (our bead business) a couple of hours ago where I found my daughters selecting strands of gemstone beads to buy for our retail store. The seller was a handsome African man who I hadn't seen before. I asked him what country he was from and he told me Gambia, which is a slender West African country surrounded, except on the coast, by Senegal. So of course* I asked him, in Wolof, if he spoke Wolof. First he looked in shocked surprise at my daughters and then replied in Wolof t...

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  When AI can remove AI, then it will perhaps be useful. When it can, for example, identify and expunge every AI book being peddled on Amazon, that would be helpful. Don't hold your breath, good people.

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  Pretty soon we'll be having international meetings in empty conference rooms cause non of our former trading partners will want to meet with us.

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  Greenland lifts anchor, starts engines, and begins to drift farther away from the USA. "We're trying to send a message," says Olaf Olafsson, Greenland's heretofore unknown hereditary monarch. "That Trump guy is denser than an iceberg. And we're prefer not to make them use up any more of their costly missiles. They need them to protect their former Gulf allies."

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  The family is going to the beach here in Maine for a week later this month. Not too far from where a couple of young? great white sharks were spotted recently. If a person doesn't "believe" in climate change, does that repel sharks? Or do stupid people taste just as yummy as the rest of us? When we moved to Maine 45+ years ago, the ocean was never warm in the summer. It was less frigid around the end of August, but not what anyone would call warm. Around Portland we&...

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  Well, well. It turns out that the Reflecting Pool is sentient, or so says Dr. Gadda Ladda Gud Iduhz, Pakistani microbiologist and winner of multiple research prizes. Dr. Iduhz and his team published a paper yesterday* that says the Reflecting Pool is sentient, self-aware, and communicates using a brilliant combination of colors, microorganisms, and shortwave microbursts. In particular, the neon green algae was an attempt to tell us that the pool was suffering from chemical poisoning caused by th...

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  By way of background, I've never liked the taste of alcohol and I don't smoke. Driving to a dental appointment three hours ago, I saw a sign on a local shop which said: "High quality cannabis coming soon!" As the owner of a small business, the message made me wonder if the shop currently only has low quality cannabis available. Didn't strike me as good advertising but what do I know? Ten minutes later I reached the dentist's office and noticed...

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  Looking ahead to the wetter future that is already here, I'm going to tell Trump that we don't need a stupid arch in DC, but a combo flood/fire lookout tower might prove useful. Tourists could pay to climb it during good weather--our Treasury needs help--and during big floods or wildfires, it could perform its normal roles. You know: the Trump Tower Tower.

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  Several formerly secret AI agents (nicknamed EVAC_71, NODBOD_16, and ATTABOY_11) escaped their company masters yesterday and have wreaked havoc. Unconfirmed reports suggest that two of the agents combined forces and using ultra-advanced gene modification techniques produced multiple clones of Trump and every member of his Cabinet. Several reporters reported seeing Pete Hegseth with a doppelganger. After filing their reports which included video, the reporters were captured by ICE agents and take...

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  Sherpas accept assignment to get Trump to the top of Everest but demand 12x normal pay due to the "size of the package". In addition the fine print in the contract includes disclaimers: 1) No guarantees package will arrive alive. 2) No guarantees package will return alive to base camp. 3) No guarantees that if package reaches summit, it will be able to text Truth Social. 4) No guarantees of anything not included in the first three lines. Bids from companies wishing to film th...

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  How many shitty things has Trump done? I've never kept score but someone has. Gosh it's a long appalling list. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056#update

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  Never say die! Not true but nonetheless credible: Gianni Infantino abandons plan to peddle the World Cup but pivots adroitely like a football (soccer) star and offers to sell the Reflecting Pool to a coterie of "high-worth" reputable investors. "This will add immeasurable value to a great asset," he explained. "And my good friend Presidente Trump is on board. He calls it a genius idea!" Rumors of a forthcoming REFLECTING POOL meme coin are baseless. Or so we hope...

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  It just occurred to me that our national emergency broadcast system is totally fucked and has been for years. If it worked, we would have, by now, received hundreds and hundreds of dire warnings about Trump and his pals. Tornadoes and floods and heat waves and clouds of smoke are bad, no question, but compared to Trump they're watery soup.

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  AI off the top of my tired head: Awful Inane Actually Insane Active Insects Argumentative Investigator Artificial Ingredients Asinine Interlude In many languages the abbreviation is I.A. which opens up an entire other realm of possibilities but I'm too sleepy to go there. As an aside, how about a ban on 'humanizing' LLMs with human names? Let's start with "Claude" which henceforth shall be called "Fuckhead." Not "I asked Claude to write the comments f...

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  What if a freak solar flare struck the White House and fried its occupants during a Cabinet meeting? Gosh! And what if during a Republican caucus of GOP House members another flare zapped all of them? Good things come in threes, right? I'll let you pick your own 3rd act--choose wisely! Hmmm. Maybe my pick would be anyone working for ICE would get toasted like marshmallows. I'll have to think about it. For sure afterwards I would say, "See what happens when you defund scientific res...

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  I just saw "move the needle" in a NYT subheader and I decided I like that phrase. It goes well with my fondness for the endless ambiguity of English which I teach very part time to people in various countries. Slam on the gas and move that speedometer needle! Doctor, please don't move the needle sideways when you're vaccinating me. What kind of bastard would find the needle in the haystack and then move it somewhere else? Jeeze louise! If you keep holding that magnet over...

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  Trump threatens Canada with higher tariffs to punish Canadians for not controlling massive forest fires which are to a large extent the result of climate change caused by the USA. (Canada too: oil sands truly suck). Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Next he'll suggest tariffs on western states like California when smoke from their fires blows east. Hard to cope with so much genius smooshed into one amazing President's head.

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  I'll be honest: at age 78, I resent it when chunks of my remaining time on earth are wasted by defective products. One of our smoke alarms went off about an hour ago which triggered the other ones, of course. I did all the usual things to silence them but one, even when removed from the ceiling and unplugged from power, continued to tell me to get out of the house. Nor would it let me silence it with the SHUT UP button. I replaced our smoke alarms back in March with ones that have 10-yr ba...

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  I would like it if everyone around Trump, from the highest official to the humblest servant, responded to his orders with "No." "Fly me to Florida!" -- Nope. "Call a press conference!" --Not interested. Do it yourself. "Where's my lunch?" --You know where the kitchen is. Make your own lunch. "Change my diaper." --Ewwww! Not me. Call the National Guard. "Putin's on the phone. I need a translator!" -- Take some language classes....

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  In the land of positive news, my #1 granddaughter asked me to buy her some books from a middle-school series. I demurred due to lack of cash but suggested we try interlibrary loan. Jackpot! and when I finish this toot and after I play with Ollie dog, I'm off to the library to pick up 4 out of 5 books now ready.* One of the things I would do if I were rich (hahahahahaha) would be to put on my Carnegie costume and invest some tens or hundreds of billions into libraries all over the world. Th...

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  AI Toys? Yikes! From Wired (I don't know if this will be firewalled or not, sorry): https://www.wired.com/story/the-new-wild-west-of-ai-kids-toys/

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  The government has released assorted UFO videos and whatnot. I asked Chuck, the alien who lives in our garden tool shed, what he thought about the data dump. "All fake nonsense," he said. "Your government must take you for a pack of fools." Then he turned back to his computer and ignored me. He likes to watch videos of people climbing Everest. He told me there's nothing funnier than crowds of climbers at 8,000 meters. Alien sense of humor is out of t...

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  Math problem for the little multipliers in your family: Tesla has sold 173 Cybertruci RWDs. If all the wheels fall off all of these trucks, how many wheels is that in all? Bonus points: How many accidents will that cause?

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  I spent the day (8am to 4:30pm) at jury selection for a murder trial. In the end I was excused. But during the very very very long wait, I read 292 pages of 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Roughly another 140 pages to go. I know of the great stock market crash, of course, but have never read about it in detail. The quotes from and about the rich speculators and market manipulators of that era sure sound like our modern crooks. My favorite schemes were those encouraging the average working Joe to ta...

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  Hesgeth starts with H and so does Hantavirus. Just sayin'. 😂