Personal Musings category archive
Stray Thought 0
Plastic toothpaste tubes are a plot by Big Toothpaste to prevent you from completely emptying a tube of toothpaste, thereby necessitating that you buy another tube of toothpaste before you otherwise must needs do so.
Stray Thought 0
My ISP has outsourced its email to Yahoo! (I gather that a number of ISPs are outsourcing their email services because they are lazy cheap sons of b–oh, never mind). Until I figure out how to import my emails into a mail client such as Thunderbird–my personal favorite–I am stuck with using Yahoo!’s webmail interface, which is not only clunky, but which also includes advertisements disguised as emails in my inbox.
Which leads me to remark that . . . .
Despite what Yahoo! would have me believe when I delete an email exchange from my inbox, an exchange of emails is not a “conversation.”
It is, at worst, an annoying but necessary task. At best, it is a correspondence.
But it’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “conversation,” for Pete’s sake.
Furrfu.
Stray Question 0
I wonder whether, if I owed a court money, I could talk the judge into cutting it by two-thirds just because I said it was too high?
Stray Thought 0
I suspect that, if I looked up “truth” in my trusty Roget’s Thesaurus, which I’ve had for forty years, I would not find “divisive concepts” listed as a synonym thereof.
But, if I had an updated version, I think I just might.
Keeping Up with the Times 0
Thanks to climate change, the saying is now
March showers bring April flowers.
(Or maybe it’s “February showers,” as the daffodils by our back steps started to bloom well over a week ago and now their blossoms are fully deployed.)
“Hollywood Power Couples” 0
That’s a phrase I noticed on IMDB, and, it occurs to me, that this honor is accorded to persons noted for pretending to be something they aren’t.
Stray Thought 0
Watching videos by randos on Youtube is in no way “research.”
Stray Question 0
I noticed tonight as I was driving to DL that the speedometer on my new(ish–I bought it used two years ago) car bares the label, “Ground Speed.” (I just noticed that, because I usually just look at the needle to make sure my speed is reasonable.)
Does the manufacturer seriously expect that I shall attain “air speed” (or, for that matter, “sea apeed” or “space speed”)?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Dis Coarse Discouse 0
It’s amazing the lengths the press will go to try to turn every vote into a horse race,
If they can make it a horse race, they can avoid tackling stuff like, oh, you know, just for a couple of examples, who’s telling the truth and who’s telling lies or who cares about fulfilling the duties of office and who cares about filling his pockets.
Favoring Faction over Action 0
If this isn’t putting party over country, I know not what could be.
Today’s Republican Party is a vile and loathsome thing.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. (Updated) 0
I find it ironic that what used to be called “data scraping” somehow morphs into being “training” when the scraper is labeled “AI.”
Aside:
Can this be? Is “AI” the new blow-up doll?
Addendum:
Bruce Schneier offers a hint as to how to out “AI” bots on “social” media.
A Glaring Problem 0
The Portland Press Herald’s Victoria Hugo-Vidal has a complaint about some modern car headlamps. Follow the link for her evidence.
Car headlights are too damn bright, and the government needs to do something about it.
I agree with her.
I’ve noticed that many of the headlights on newer cars seem more intense than traditional incandescent bulbs and, frankly, a lot them seem to be aimed too high. I remember back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, the annual car inspection included adjusting the aim of the headlights. Next inspection, I’ll have to remember to ask if they still do that . . . .
Designs of the Times 0
As I was running errands today, it occurred to me that improvements in automobile technology have led a competition among automakers:
Who can design the stupidest looking turn signals?
“AI’ Is the New Spellcheck 0
Last night, I saw a commercial for “Shutterstock AI” which, when stripped of the hockypuck, rebranded computer-assisted image editing as “AI.”
(As an aside, everything they showed in the ad is stuff I can do in the GIMP, because I bought, read, and practiced the techniques in the book. It would just take me a little longer.)
If that’s the standard, spellcheck is “AI” and “AI” is as old as spellcheck.
“Artificial Intelligence” is assuredly artificial and it is certainly fast and dressed in Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, but fast and well-dressed does not equal intelligent.
Don’t fall for the con Be skeptical of the hype.
Furrfu.
Afterthought:
It occurs to me that I may be maligning spellcheck. According to news reports, “AI” gets stiff wrong a lot more often than spellcheck.
Another Sign of Decline 0
I discovered, thanks to this cartoon, that there are multiple websites devoted to explaining emojis.
We are devolving.
Click Here To Get Scammed 0
Thom warns us not to get taken in by “smishing” (he explains the term in the video). His advice is well worth a listen.
Aside:
I ignore emails and texts from (those purporting to be) political activists. And, believe me, I get a lot of emails and an annoying number of texts. (In Thunderbird, my preferred mail client, I filter the emails into a special folder and delete them unread.)
I also get texts from persons who think I am Jeremy from North Carolina, even though I’m not Jeremy and I have never lived in North Carolina (and given what’s happening in North Carolina these days*, I wouldn’t move there on a bet) and I’ve had my cell phone number for years.
Even when said emails and texts are legitimate, they are almost always overwrought and often obnoxious. They are designed to appeal to emotions, not to brains.
My advice, for what it’s worth: Use your brains.
I do my contributing, political and otherwise, the old-fashioned way.
I use the United States Postal Service.
As I told someone who called me on the telly phone yesterday claiming to represent a cauxe that I support, “I do my contributing by mail.” Then I hung up the phone.
_______________
*I’m so old, I can remember when North Carolina was considered a “progressive” Southern state.
The Rule of Lawless 0
The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump’s role in fomenting insurrection disqualifies him from appearing on the 2024 ballot in Colorado under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, an amendment which was passed after–er–an insurrection. This was properly a state matter because, in the United States, individual states are responsible for administering elections.
From the Denver Post:
“We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three (of the 14th Amendment), it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the court’s majority opinion says. “Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”
Trump is expected to appeal to the Supreme Supremacist Court. (It may be the only time in his long history of litigation that he does not try to draw things our as long as possible.)
I do not think it a foregone conclusion that the Court will accept his appeal or rule in his favor,* but that’s just me.
But if they do accept his appeal, we might finally have an answer to this question:
How many laws must a lawbreaker break before breaking the rule of law?
____________________
*A majority of the Justices might be happy never to hear his name again . . . ..
Stray Question 0
As I was watching a television commercial, a question occurred to me:
Can I get a Bachelors of Transgressing from Strayer University
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
People of Walmart proceed to park with politeness.
Stray Thought 0
Right-wing evangelical they-call-themselves Christians are today’s scribes and pharisees.