Your love is like Brussels sprouts for breakfast
Here's why Europe is abandoning plans to fly aboard China's space station
It's a weather balloon
Today I identify as a search engine for adult words
- I'm not saying you're brainless... let's just agree that your brain is on indefinite hiatus.
There is something wrong with my typing. Not that there hasn't been something wrong with my typing since I started typing, but I'm starting to notice stuff. Wife says I type very fast. I have to be honest, so I told her I do, but every other letter is a mistake. But I'm really talented with my mistakes. I can type 'really' but the two Ls wind up with different keys. Imagine, all I had to do was hit the same key twice. But not me - it comes out 'readyfg' or something similar. When it gets really bad I try slowing down, but I'm not good with slow. It has been proven on the guitar that I can play a complex passage quickly, but if I attempt to slow it down, I can't play it. Same with typing. As bad as the mistakes are, I discovered I can type pretty accurately if I'm looking at what I need to type on the screen. I have no idea what this means, other than I can't type. There's another one where I make a mistake, backspace, then make the same mistake again. And again. Then there's dyslexic typing: the is always teh. And then there are the many keyboards I use, none the same, including the large ergo keyboards. I tried voice dictation once, but discovered that the part of my brain that does creativity is the same part that does speaking, so I have a choice (not a good one). I wonder if this would help... I could type by jumping around, like Tom Hanks did in "Big".
Ok, so I read the same paragraph over and over again too. Eventually I realize I'm reading and after a few more times, I pay attention.
Twitter suspended 400K for child abuse content but only reported 8K to police
During Trump's tenure, I noted that he could negotiate peace in the Middle East, but people would still complain. Then he partially did. Musk suffers from a similar fate. I think it's because people hate the rich. Or something. He will do no right.
Didja hear? Musk caught 400,000 instances of child abuse!
Yeah, but he has a stupid accent.
Since December 14, a Twitch channel called Nothing, Forever has been streaming a live, endless AI-generated Seinfeld episode that features pixelated cartoon versions of characters from the TV show. On Monday, Twitch gave the channel a 14-day ban after language model tools from OpenAI went haywire and generated transphobic content that violated community guidelines.
I need to deal with this in order:
- Seinfeld is already an endless cartoon. "What is it with all the trans people?"
- Every AI generated instance exposed to social media has become a nasty xphobic caricature
- After everything that happened before, they didn't limit what it could say? (not that I support this)
- Just for Science, here is the offending verbiage: the ban was issued due to the main character, Larry Feinberg, making
offensive comments saying transgender people are "ruining the fabric of
society", being transgender is a mental illness, and that "all liberals
are secretly gay".
- You could watch the offending sketch, but it apparently violated YouTube terms of service too, and was yanked. Irony.
Don't buy an Android phone in China, boffins have warned, as they come crammed with preinstalled apps transmitting privacy-sensitive data to third-party domains without consent or notice. You mean unlike the American version? Google owns you, unless you firewall it, and that's a practice best left to people with too much time on their hands and nasty control issues. Then we get to software you install... unless you get your apps from F-Droid, they will Phone Home.
To be safe, avoid anything electronic from China. Even the government is divesting itself of Chinese networking equipment.
Conversations with my dog
Me: How come you'll sleep all day with Mommy, even when I'm awake and available?
Her: Who would you rather sleep with?
Me: Point to Dog.
Boeing: Plane maker plans to cut 2,000 office jobs this year
Actually, they suspended 2,000 jobs, after the FAA found their office chairs were missing a bolt
US school apologises for 'inexcusably insensitive' Black History Month lunch
Students at Nyack Middle School were served fried chicken, waffles and watermelon on 1 February. What, no grape soda to wash it down?
Who could have predicted that this would be a problem? Even after making the same mistake on MLK day in 2011 and 2018 Black History Month. It's not that Aramark doesn't learn - they don't care.
To prove that Aramark has learned from its mistakes, it will serve
- pizza on Italian Day
- matzoh on Jewish Day
- kielbasa on Polish Day
- corned beef and cabbage on Irish day
Crap - it's only 'offensive' when used on Black History Month.
Remember: stereotypes do not appear from a vacuum.
Let. It. Go.
Chinese balloon: What investigators might learn from the debris
Experts believe contents from the wreckage are the key to uncovering its purpose and capabilities.
Where do I get a job as an Expert? I'll bet they're well-paid, with a statement like this.
The witnesses who put the Turkey earthquake on social media
These people would film the destruction of their own house and put it on Faceyspaces
Then there's guys like me, who would stand next to them with a stopwatch, counting the time until they realize their house fell down.
Robert Plant once referred to David Coverdale as David Coverversion.
Not related at all is Greta van Zeppelin .. err... van Fleet. Let's be honest... they're a good, talented group, but there's no mistaking who they grew up listening to. Some of the parts, if not the tones, are straight from the Zep records, with enough originality to be theirs.. like The Rutles doing the Beatles., Whether or not this was calculated, there's a reason for their popularity: music sucks lately. Think about it. (aboot in Canada)
Also unrelated: I'm forming a band called Great van ZZ Top.
Today's Good Phrases
- He tasted of wine and bad decisions.
- I felt my stomach drop, as if someone had taken me to a cliff and
dropped me from the top, telling me to go fsck myself on the way down
Twitter recently experienced an international outage. There is no Public Relations group to ask, so it was just wait and see.
I wonder if Twitter spontaneously exploded, like a Tesla.
Speaking of Teslas, did you know Hertz is in bankruptcy? As a result, their goal of purchasing 100,000 Teslas was revised down somewhat, to 30,000. This makes EVs 9% of their fleet. Good thing they provided this figure, because I didn't pay enough attention to math in school, so I can never remember which number goes on which side of the duck.
As I'm sure you know, Twitter is cut off in Turkey. Days after the terrible earthquake, it was unblocked. In Turkey, censorship is overt. In the US, it's covert.
Roger Waters, former Pink Floyd bassist and smartest person in any room, is 79. He's getting to that age when he's too old to rock and roll, but not to be president. But what do I know - Bono was invited to President Giveaway's State of the Union address.
old joke:
Q. How many Bonos does it take to change a light bulb?
A. One. He stands there with the bulb and the world revolves around him.
But seriously... Biden's running again? He's already shown signs of cognizant decline, so I guess there's no choice but to re-assume political office. I sympathize with dementia-sufferers, but not with people who vote for them.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Roger Waters. Get this: Roger was invited to address the UN Security Council, on behalf of Russia. While condemning the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, he said that the invasion was 'provoked'.
Rather than representing the view of Russia, the musician said he was
speaking on behalf of "four billion or so brothers and sisters" - the
majority of Earth's population.
"In our opinion, the only sensible course of action today is to call for
an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Not one more Ukrainian or Russian
life is to be spent, not one, they are all precious in our eyes."
I don't normally agree with Mr. Waters, but he makes an excellent point, only with the above .
The best reaction was from Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, who called Waters' speech "another brick in the wall" of Russian disinformation.
Waters goes on to savage his old bandmates, one of which cannot respond, due to a sudden case of death.
Hey, I have another one of my million dollar ideas: release albums of bands fighting among themselves. The liner notes will be a reproduction of the social media potshots. THIS is entertainment. Then the next release will be the band saying bad things about other bands.
"Three unreleased recordings of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, fighting in the dressing room at the Fillmore East" - Frank Zappa and the Mothers, Live at the Fillmore East '71
Music Tip
Discover Storyville. Really great soulful, bluesy tunes. Of special note is Malford Milligan's vocals. Listen once and you're hooked - the man is an old school soul crooner. The interplay between the guitars is spectacular - you don't hear this often. David Grissom really shines on guitar. You're going to like this. If not, much like this blog, I'll refund your money.
Hey, Kids, malware and ransomware has gotten worse, and will only continue to. These malcontents are going after hospitals (1 dead so far); do you think they care about you? Back up your friggin' data, however you want. Just back it up. You don't even have to back up the operating system (they can always be reinstalled) but your data is invaluable. Don't write me later saying "You were right, lefty.. all my files got encrypted and I didn't back them up." Depending on the size of your data, you can use a flash drive or an external drive. You can even automate it with backup software. Back up your friggin' data.
According to scientists, behaviorists, and People Who Generally Say These Sorts of Things, goldfish might be self-aware. They can recognize themselves in a mirror. The obvious question is how the professionals know. Did the fish tell them, "Hey - that's ME!" It's almost sad, because my dog, upon seeing her reflection, will bark like mad and try to attack the interloper. But until goldfish can get people to pet them, they're always going to be an ornament in a glass container.
- Microsoft has finally gotten woke. An update allows you to set your working hours in Outlook. But more importantly, it will let you input people's pronouns!!!
In honor of Fauci and his great service (to somebody or other), we give you this headline:
Goodbye flu, RSV, and COVID waves; hello, norovirus!
The government, including Big Pharma, was concerned about the next thing to PANIC about. Here it is!
Outbreak data is lagging, but test positivity has exceeded last year's peak.
Well, if there's little to no data, we better get a vaccine ready!
If you're like most people, you rely on Google for your searches. You can set the default search engine on most browsers - I use Duckduckgo. If you're tired of the tracking, there are other ways than even Duckduckgo. Here's an article on 10 best private search engines. It's a decent article, and slightly more opinion than 100% fact. They don't talk a lot about keeping logs for a certain period of time. Also note that the Swisscows search engine is 'family friendly,' so you can't look up anything of an adult nature. While this is a great feature for some people, it's blatant censorship for me. Ymmv. Also note that Yandex is Russian (and the Opera browser is Chinese). If you're tempted to use Startpage, know that it's owned by a data gathering company. Happy private searching!
Consider these privacy implications before joining Microsoft's Bing Waitlist
Anybody paying attention to the Alex Murdaugh trial? He's accused of shooting his wife and son. While I can understand shooting his wife, I don't get shooting his son. The trial's not over, so I wont comment on his guilt or innocence, but the things that are coming out are enough to make even the pope say "GUILTY." He stole from his law partners, set up a situation to look like he got shot, and stole from the family of his housekeeper of 25 years, by suing for her death and keeping the money. He claimed he was addicted to opioids. Then he allegedly committed murder, to take minds off his work fraud.
Let's think about this for a second. I think you have to be mentally insane to kill somebody, except defensively. That aside, who has work fraud discovered and to cover it up, shoots his wife and son? I don't understand the logical path here, perhaps because I am not a violent narcissist. Without putting too fine a point on it, his son was murdered in a way that left less up than John F Kennedy. When Murdaugh made the 911 call, the operator asked if the person was still breathing. His answer could have been, "Probably not, as the part that traditionally does that is currently missing."
Looking on the bright side for once, his son had come up with a 100% foolproof way to thwart facial recognition. I don't recommend it. If nothing else, Murdaugh should be jailed for naming his other son "Buster".
Ok, there's one more thing I don't understand. The murders took place by the kennels. Kennels? How many of us have kennels? What I don't get is these 'people' keep their dogs away from the house, in small cages. This is cruel. The dogs don't even sleep in the family's beds. What kind of cretins are these people?
Stay tuned for more Legal Backseat Driving.
Does your wife speak in paragraphs? Mine does.
Good morning
She finally called. She said...
Who's SHE?
My mom. I told you that.
No you didn't but please continue.
She called and said because of her dying, they're not having a funeral. just a gathering of family and I guess friends but you know how that goes, I don't know if they're having it where she lived or closer to civilization, where the rest of us are, I can't imagine what a gathering looks like unless we're gathering at the mall, specifically the shoe store, but I guess we'll see, did you pay those bills?
What bills?
The ones that I gave you this morning.
It's morning now and you didn't give me any bills.
Oh great, it looks like I'm going to have to mount an expedition to find them, the only problem is that I never find them til long after they're due, if ever, and this is why I pay extra every month, because I just can't find stuff, I think the house eats it, I mean it's just mail, but so much of it disappears I figure the house is hungry, all it had to do was ask, it's impolite for your domicile to chomp mail without asking first, notice it doesn't eat the junk mail, but we eat junk food, so why shouldn't it? maybe the house is watching its figure or cholesterol level, what does high cholesterol look like in a house? I wonder if there is a good cholesterol and a bad cholesterol for the house, like they tell us there is for us, anyway, put the date of the gathering on your calendar, I want to...
What date?
The date of the gathering, you know, for her.
Her who?
You know.... the lady.
What lady?
You know the lady I'm talking about.
Sorry, you'll have to give me more to work with.
Oh c'mon, the lady. The lady with the thing.
The thing? What thing?
The thingie thing.
The thingie thing?
See- you DO know what I'm talking about.
I still have no idea what you're talking about. In fact, I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.
You know.... the lady. The lady.
I see.
Anyway, we'll go to the gathering and while we're close, we'll go to the shoe store.
You do realize that the shoe store is over 50 miles away from the lady's house
That's close enough.
Did I tell you the shoe store called the other day? If they don't see you in a week, they call to make sure you're alright. I'd say they're pretty concerned; the pile of 20% off coupons is taller than the dog.
I have 20% off coupons?
Yes, you opened them and piled them up.
No I didn't.
I watched you.
Maybe you didn't know what you were seeing, it's ok, cousin gigi called, that's not her real name but you know that, anyway she's doing fine and asked about you, I told her you're an irascible old fsck and she said she knew that but how are you doing, have you seen my shoes, I can't find the right ones.
You can't find shoes?
No.
[whining] Ooooh, I have 2400 pairs of shoes and nothing to wear
But I don't want to get my sneakers dirty.
[head revolving] What is the point of this exercise? How about not letting your socks get dirty and using your sneakers for that?
Well, I guess I'll get my sneakers...
Great idea. I wish *I* thought of it.
I think of all the smart stuff, you're very book smart but very stupid sometimes, I'm not saying it to be mean, it's just a fact, maybe we should run up and get a milkshake-I want marshmallow, the last time I had chocolate marshmallow but I like the vanilla better, they have really good burgers too, why don't we have dinner and dessert there, come to think of it, I've been up for 8 hours and haven't eaten anything, maybe that's why I feel a little light-headed, do you know how to remember how to spell desert from dessert, you just remember that you always want more dessert, so that't more S-es, I'm really smart, I got good grades in school, even if I seldom showed up, the good thing about not showing up often is that people are so much happier to see you when you DO show up, they even forget you didn't do your assignments, quite frankly it's a small miracle I graduated at all, especially after the whole Zoological Society thing in the janitor's closet, or so I'm told, Cousin Gigi called me for a short conversation so it only lasted 3 hours and I figured we could go out afterwards, what do you want for dinner, yes I'm asking about dinner tonight, I know we haven't had breakfast but I like to be prepared, what if I need to get something from the freezer and defrost it...
We have a microwave, you know. It has a defrost setting,
Yeah, but I don't like that, it's not the same thing, and didn't your mother teach you that food tastes different on a plate than from a paper plate, same thing with water - you have to boil it for over 10 minutes or it doesn't taste right, I can taste the difference with or without a blindfold, speaking of blindfolds, I washed ours so we can use them tonight, wink wink, nudge nudge...
Lemme aks you somefin: did you take your lithium or whatever that stuff is for mania?
No, did I tell you I'm off lithium?
God help us, why are you off lithium?
Well I felt so good that I figured I don't need drugs to help me feel good so I stopped taking all of them...
ALL OF THEM?
Yes, I feel fine and I will continue to feel fine, not like last time I crashed like a rocket-propelled Chevrolet into a mountain, like I was Wile E Coyote or whatever, are you ever going to get the vacuum fixed up, why is the cheapest, smallest vacuum better than the ridiculously expensive line of them we bought, we could make extra guitar money selling the old vacuums, all of them, do you think we should keep a few as spares, I was thinking only 5 or 10, actually I'm just kidding, I'm not even bipolar anymore, I just like to give you a hard time, it really does run in the family, my cousins and sisters all do this and sometimes their pets do too, we really need to go shopping, I'm totally out of glue, you know, the kind that's like the kind that you sniff, only you don't sniff it, you use it for other stuff, I'm sure there are a few things we need, do you have anything for the list, I know we need chocolate pudding, surely you know how much pudding it takes to fill the bathtub, but I think the results are worth it, even if we have to spend another houstandactuallyr in the shower to get it all cleaned off of us, I asked my sister and she looked at me like I had grown a few additional heads, what does she mean she and her husband or boyfriend don't get in a tub full of chocolate pudding, even if it's vanilla, it's not like it's fattening or bad for you, you can use high fat milk and add extra sugar and you will not gain so much as a pound, unless you start eating it, of course...
Your mother called.
What did she say?
She said hello Mrs. lefty how are you doing, I called yesterday and left a message so I guess you weren't feeling so great, so I figured I'd call you today, despite the fact that you told me if you weren't feeling well, you'd call me when you could, so I guess I'll just try you again tomorrow, did you hear from Cousin Gigi, her sister Babs called and they're having a funeral, well not a funeral, more of a gathering for her cousin, we're still not sure whether it will be up there or down in civilization, did I tell you that Mrs. Robinson stopped by to give me some of those nice preserves she gets down at that store, you know, that store, the one next to the other store, up by the stores, I have to tell you I love the preserves but I cannot stand the jams and the jellies are just ok, Sally the Silly Sailor is back out at Sea but came by to say goodbye, it was more of a gathering ...
There's more, you know. There always is.
Sometimes they get on the phone.
The other night, a 'short call to Mom' took two and a half hours. "I just say 'yes' and 'uh-huh' a lot. I tell her I have to run about 45 minutes before I have to run, because she doesn't hear me when I say it; I usually have to tell her at least four times before she lets me go. As bad as Mom is, Cousin Gigi requires an entire afternoon, sometimes leading into evening, for a brief chat. I try to schedule it overnight, so there's still time to interact with Husband. Last time he fixed two laptops and installed a fresh operating system on each, while I was on with Gigi. He said something about War and Peace.
You sleep through one (or 2) days and you find out we've been shooting things down...
Mystery surrounds objects shot down by US military
Flying objects over North America - the unanswered questions
US fighter jet shoots down airborne object over Lake Huron Sunday
We know we shot down the Chinese "We're absolutely not a spy" balloon. Apparently this wasn't all. I have no beef with shooting spy balloons. I'm not so sure about things that aren't balloons. Should our first response be BLOW IT OUT OF THE SKY? I don't drive a pickup with a gun rack, so I don't always understand that response.
Hey Bubba - lookie there. A blue frog.
Whatcha think we oughtta do with it?
It looks pretty rare.
We better shoot it then.
Yeah, definitely. Shoot it.
But seriously, defense is damn important. I'm just wondering what it did to show ill intent. Perhaps it had the nerve to fly in someone's airspace. We know the Chinese balloon had all sorts of high velocity weapons disguised as listening antennas.
Do not swallow the bit about 'locating the debris to go over it and see what it was.' We have teams for this stuff. Debris doesn't stay in place long. The only thing that surprises me is that the story of the other objects made it to the press.
I'm not pretending I know what any of it is. I just hope for honest answers (he says, biting his tongue so he doesn't laugh). The response on one object made me wonder...... "..fighter jets scrambled from Oregon were unable to maintain detection of it as the sun set." Did the batteries go out in their flashlights? Does radar stop working at sundown, to save money? How do airports land passenger aircraft after 5pm? Is this the 2023 equivalent of swamp gas?
Oh, wait... I've got it... the rest were decoy Chinese balloons. Unfortunately for China, we got all of them. Interesting that Canada asked for help.
- Special Knowledge: the high-tech missile used to shoot down the objects costs $400,000 each and the Lake Huron shootdown required two missiles. These must be highly capable new weapons to require two. The military said this expedition cost $1 million. Wanna know why we have so many wars?
Audio from the planes, which was released very quickly for some reason, had the pilot confused as to what the object was [octagonal, not a balloon]. It was either the size of an SUV or wasn't. If it were to be aliens, I hope it's a large SUV, because you want to be comfortable while you're whizzing through space. Of course if the aliens are 2' tall, all bets are off.
