And Now For Something Completely Different: The Tuesday Trash Day Roundup Thingie

It’s easy for someone who has written 3,242 blogposts to suspect he might be repeating himself now and then. I suppose the 16,829 comments may be repetitive here and there, too. So instead of re-inventing the wheel, I’m going to let Monty Python comment on the news roundup today. They probably don’t repeat themselves as often as I do, and besides, MY BRAIN HURTS:

Earth has caught a ‘second moon,’ scientists say

The fact that asteroid 2024 PT5 will stick around for just a few weeks, as opposed to billions of years, isn’t the only major difference between this “mini-moon” and the actual moon.

So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth. And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ’cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!

A tiny town just got slammed by Helene. It could massively disrupt the tech industry

To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that both can withstand extraordinarily high heat and be kept absolutely clean. One material fits the bill: quartz. Pure quartz. Quartz that comes, overwhelmingly, from Spruce Pine.

The mill’s closed. There’s no more work. We’re destitute. I’m afraid I have no choice but to sell you all for scientific experiments.

Red team hacker on how she ‘breaks into buildings and pretends to be the bad guy’

Despite the buzz around AI-assisted social engineering and deepfakes, human conversations — over the phone, electronically, or in-person — are still the most commonly used, and most effective, social engineering tactics for crooks looking to make money off of their victims.

It’s nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas go on strike

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Now, it’s quite simple to defend yourself against the banana fiend. First of all, you force him to drop the banana, next, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him helpless

Franklin expedition captain who died in 1848 was cannibalized by survivors

“Concrete evidence of James Fitzjames as the first identified victim of cannibalism lifts the veil of anonymity that for 170 years spared the families of individual members of the 1845 Franklin expedition from the horrific reality of what might have befallen the body of their ancestor,” the authors wrote in their paper. “But it also shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves.”

Look. I tell you what. Those who want to can eat Johnson. And you, sir, can have my leg. And we make some stock from the Captain, and then we’ll have Johnson cold for supper.

FDA Approves Drug with New Mechanism of Action for Treatment of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia can cause psychotic symptoms including hallucinations (such as hearing voices), difficulty controlling one’s thoughts and being suspicious of others. It can also be associated with cognitive problems and difficulty with social interactions and motivation. About 1% of Americans have this illness and globally it is one of the 15 leading causes of disability. Individuals with schizophrenia are at greater risk of dying at a younger age, and nearly 5% die by suicide.

My brain hurts!

Oh, it will have to come out!

Here’s what happened when Ford tried to react to the Volkswagen Beetle.

More accurately, they didn’t like the small cars American automakers offered. They did like the ones being imported from Europe. New foreign car registrations in the US ballooned from 12,000 units in 1949 to 207,000 by 1957 and were projected to reach 625,000 by 1961 before falling to 495,000 in 1963. By 1959, even Studebaker noticed and launched the compact Lark. Its sales proved popular enough to reverse its slow slide to oblivion momentarily.

My hovercraft is full of eels.

AI bots now beat 100% of those traffic-image CAPTCHAs

Anyone who has been surfing the web for a while is probably used to clicking through a CAPTCHA grid of street images, identifying everyday objects to prove that they’re a human and not an automated bot. Now, though, new research claims that locally run bots using specially trained image-recognition models can match human-level performance in this style of CAPTCHA, achieving a 100 percent success rate despite being decidedly not human.

We interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally more irritating.

Study: Cats in little crocheted hats shed light on feline chronic pain

Our feline overlords aren’t particularly known for obeying commands from mere humans, which can make it difficult to study their behaviors in controlled laboratory settings. So a certain degree of ingenuity is required to get usable results—like crocheting adorable little hats for kitties taking part in electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments. That’s what researchers at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada, did to learn more about assessing chronic pain in cats—and they succeeded. According to their recent paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, it’s the first time scientists have recorded the electrical activity in the brains of conscious cats.

I’m afraid I’m not personally qualified to confuse cats, but I can recommend an extremely good service.

Tuesday Data Detritus Detox

Well, it’s Tuesday, the day we clean out our bookmarks. Maybe it should be some sort of holiday. Everybody else gets a holiday, or even a whole month to celebrate their misery. Why not we poor folks with forty-two browser tabs open? So let it be written. So let it be done!

How 12,000 Tonnes of Dumped Orange Peel Grew Into a Landscape Nobody Expected to Find

The plan, which saw a juice company dump 1,000 truckloads of waste orange peel in a barren pasture in Costa Rica back in the mid 1990s, has eventually revitalised the desolate site into a thriving, lush forest.

The article, and everyone mentioned in it, appears mystified by the way mulch works. City people are strange creatures.

Ultra high-resolution image of The Night Watch

To create this huge image, the painting was photographed in a grid with 97 rows and 87 columns with our 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS camera. Each of these 8,439 separate photos was captured using a sophisticated laser-guided five-axis camera positioning system that can sense the precise location of the painting so that every photo is sharp – an error of even 1/8 mm in the placement of the camera would result in a useless image.

And to think some guy painted the picture with some goo on a stick with squirrel hair on the end of it.

Why are the violins the biggest section in the orchestra?

As increasing numbers of performers and instruments became standard in orchestral repertoire, ensembles became louder, and more string players were needed to balance the sound. The violin is a comparatively quiet instrument, and a solo player cannot be heard over the power of the brass.

I’m from Maine, so I’ve always preferred violas over violins. They burn longer, and throw off more heat.

Car software patches are over 20% of recalls, study finds

While many older vehicles from legacy OEMs require a trip to the dealer to be patched, more and more new models can be updated over the air, meaning that owners can have the recall performed from the comfort of their own parking space, provided they have connectivity. Even this isn’t hassle-free, though, as some Rivian owners found out to their dismay late last year when an update broke some infotainment screens.

Hmm. I’m pretty sure some middle-eastern fellahs got over the air software updates on their pagers recently. I’m not sure I want any of that.

5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job

Forty hours a week – or let’s be real, more – is a lot of time to be unhappy. Being unhappy at work bleeds into other areas of our lives, impacting our physical and emotional well-being and personal relationships. I’m not advocating job hopping – there are always things that you can try to improve your situation – but as a hiring manager, I regularly see people who have stayed in one place too long at the expense of their own growth and overall career.

After decades of self-employment, I once took a salaried job. I couldn’t believe how short and easy a 40-hour week was. I was home every night for dinner. Toughen up, ya pansies.

It’s Now Officially Illegal to Use AI to Impersonate a Human Actor in Hollywood

Together, the bills, which were passed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, make it illegal to use an AI-generated digital replica of an actor’s likeness or voice — or technically, any Californian’s — without their explicit consent.

I guess fraud laws weren’t enough. We needed fraudy-fraudy-super dooper fraud laws to protect poor, put-upon actors. No word on when it will become illegal to use AI to shoplift up to $950 in merchandise.

Where has all the productivity gone?

For example, it’s easier to write a novel using Microsoft Word than using a manual typewriter, but not that much easier. MS Word makes the physical work easier, but most of the effort is mental. (And while moving from Smith Corona 1950 to Word 95 is a big improvement, moving from Word 95 to Word 365 isn’t.)

Writing a novel has always been easy. You just start with a blank sheet of paper and think until drops of blood appear on your forehead.

Porsche’s Idea for a Six-Stroke Internal Combustion Engine Looks Brilliant

The added steps would occur between the traditional power and exhaust stroke. The first sequence, then, would be intake-compression-power, followed by compression-power-exhaust.

Adding additional complexity of any kind to a car is malpractice at this point. Every engine in every car should work like the Briggs & Stratton on my elderly lawnmower. I’ve done nothing by pour gas in it and run it for 25 straight years. Take that, Porsche.

Yet Another Reason Why You Should Sleep on it Before Making an Important Decision

“We found that people are strongly biased by first impressions,” said lead author Dr. Allie Sinclair, Ph.D., who did the research as part of her doctorate in the lab of Dr. Alison Adcock, M.D., Ph.D., a Duke professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

My first impression on reading the deep thoughts of Doctors Allie and Ali is that they must be handing out Ph.Ds like candy on Halloween at this point. And to make a joke about pre-marital sex regarding the title.

How Often Do Men Think About Rome?

There’s a Twitter meme on how men constantly think about the Roman Empire. Some feminist friends objected that women think about Rome a lot too. To settle the matter, I included a question about this on this year’s ACX survey, “Have you thought about the Roman Empire in the past 24 hours?” (the Byzantine Empire also counted).

That depends. Where is Sophia Loren from again?

Tuesday Trash Day Soiree

This is the time of year in Maine when the leaves start to change color and fall out of the trees. In Los Angeles the birds inhale the smog, turn colors, and fall out of the trees. But wherever you are, pumpkin spice season is here. It’s a good time to clean out your basement and tidy up your affairs. I’ll start by cleaning out my browser bookmarks. They’re things I’ve been meaning to read, but have been unable to find time for. So once a week, my website turns into the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. Their motto? We’d rather waste your time, than ours.

California jewelry business sues Indiana over cash seized at FedEx facility

In April, police inspectors at the Indianapolis FedEx distribution center seized a box containing nearly $43,000 in cash. Even though no criminal charges have been filed in connection with the package, it’s been in the government’s possession for about four months.

Now, the box’s intended recipient, Henry Minh Inc., is pursuing a class action lawsuit against the state of Indiana.

I’m sure we’re all enjoying the government’s transition to a Letters of Marque operation. It’s like the IRS with fewer steps.

How to Make Millions as a Professional Whistleblower

Richard Overum is not a member of law enforcement or a government official. He’s something else: a rarefied practitioner in a line of work he’s all but created for himself. He hunts businesspeople he suspects are breaking the law—a job that by virtue of oft-overlooked sections of federal law can end up paying remarkably well. Tucked into the Dodd-Frank Act, which Congress passed in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal and the economic calamity of the late aughts, are provisions meant to encourage people who spot signs of potential financial wrongdoing to come to the government with information. The incentive? If the agencies take enforcement action based on a tip resulting in sanctions in excess of $1 million, the law says, one or more whistleblowers can earn an award equal to 10 to 30 percent of what’s collected.

I’m sure we’re all enjoying the government’s transition to a Letters of Marque operation. It’s like the IRS with fewer steps.

Tesla Locks Baby In Car On 109-Degree Day For Seemingly No Reason

Pineda has since reached out to Tesla to try and figure out what caused the car to lock with her child inside, with little in the way of answers offered by the automaker so far. According to Fox11, the company initially thought the issue stemmed from a software update, but upon inspection of the vehicle they found that “nothing was wrong with the car.”

Software. Is there anything it can’t do? Read that last sentence again, and think about what I really meant.

LLMs Will Always Hallucinate, and We Need to Live With This

This work argues that hallucinations in language models are not just occasional errors but an inevitable feature of these systems. We demonstrate that hallucinations stem from the fundamental mathematical and logical structure of LLMs. It is, therefore, impossible to eliminate them through architectural improvements, dataset enhancements, or fact-checking mechanisms.

Software. Is there anything it can’t do? Read that last sentence again, and think about what I really meant.

The Death of the Magazine

But here’s the strange thing. Readers are hungry for the longer, smarter writing that these periodicals refuse to publish. As a result, readers increasingly bypass the magazine and deal directly with writers.

That’s the new reality in media. Readers are now more loyal to writers than they are to periodicals. They seek them out. They trust them more. The magazine as an aggregating concept is increasingly irrelevant.

Video killed the radio star, and Substack killed Reader’s Digest. Or something.

Why To Not Write A Book

Yet, that’s the problem: I am in love with the idea of having published a book, but not with publishing a specific book. I want to have published a book and have the identity of ‘author’, in the same way one might want to have ‘learned to read Mandarin’ or ‘become a bodybuilder’, but not to actually sweat through memorizing (and then forgetting) endless arbitrary characters or hours in the gym (followed by gluttony as cruel as the starvation).

Video killed the radio star, and Substack killed Reader’s Digest. And the lack of an advance kills books in the womb.

This adapter lets you use cheap eSIM plans on any Android phone

Why bother buying an eSIM adapter just to use eSIM plans in the first place? The reason is cost. The best eSIMs for international travel are often significantly cheaper than buying a local SIM card when you arrive at your destination. Plus, they’re more convenient to set up because you can buy them before you leave home.

I recently traveled out of the country, and my phone service provider charged me five dollars a day extra, on top of their usual exorbitant rate. Yeah, I want an eSIM adapter, and a couple of rolls of toilet paper to put in Verizon’s shrubs.

Your Very Own Personal Taxi Service (via Some It’s Just as Well)

I’m pretty sure that gave me diabetes. But I didn’t mind.

“The Church Lady”, Specializing in the Sale of Church Real Estate

If you are looking to buy or sell a Church, you have come to the right place! With full time real estate experience since 1987, and selling Church property since 1993, “The Church Lady”, will make your real estate purchase or sale go smoothly. As an expert in the field of Church Sales, Cheryl is well versed in the needs of today’s Churches, and will help you sell your existing property for top dollar, while assisting you in the purchase or construction of your new worship facility.

I’m pretty sure that gave me clinical depression.

The labor market impacts of ridesharing on American Cities

I estimate that Uber’s arrival to a city resulted in decline in the unemployment rate by between a fifth and a half of a percentage point. This suggests that Uber allowed many workers to supplement their earnings during periods of unemployment, framing the ridesharing service as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, traditional employment. I also find some evidence that Uber had a very small positive effect on wages at the lower end of the wage distribution, suggesting that Uber may have altered worker search behavior or affected bargaining power.

Everyone is taking an Uber ride everywhere except to church, I guess.

There’s the roundup for today. Now go out there and make Tuesday pay for the way Monday treated you.

[Thanks for reading and commenting, buying my books, recommending this site to your interfriends, and hitting the tip jar. It is greatly appreciated]

The Usual Tuesday Trash Day Debris Field

If you’re new around here, every Tuesday is trash day. We clean out our bookmarks folder, ridding ourselves once and for all from all the news articles we meant to read, but never got around to. This has a salutary effect. On me, I mean. My readers end up having to read them for me, and I get off scot free.

Cyber Criminals Impersonating Brands Using Search Engine Advertisement Services to Defraud Users

The FBI is warning the public that cyber criminals are using search engine advertisement services to impersonate brands and direct users to malicious sites that host ransomware and steal login credentials and other financial information.

The FBI recommends that people install ad-blocking extensions on their browsers. Well, 2005 called, and they’d like their advice back. Unfortunately, I have no advice on how to install FBI-blocking extensions on your browser

The world’s largest wind-powered cargo ship just made its first delivery across the Atlantic

The company’s first vessel, called Anemos, is very different from a traditional sailing ship. It takes some inspiration from sailboats used in racing. First, the masts are made from carbon fiber. That makes them so lightweight that they can be much taller than the traditional version made from wood. The extra height means that they can hold up sails that are around twice as large, and catch more wind.

The Cutty Sark called, and they’d like their propulsion idea back.

A Word, Please: Coffee-shop prompt stirs ChatGPT to brew up bland copy

Recently I was hired to write a 200-word article based on an 800-word press release about a new coffee shop. I finished and turned it in, then it hit me: It’s just a matter of time before the client who hired me realizes AI programs can write these things for free.

To size up my competition, I pasted the original press release into ChatGPT and asked it to create its own 200-word article, then I compared our work.

The writer is complaining about the quality of the Chat GPT output compared to hers. I’ve read both. I’ve probably written and edited more online text by others than just about anyone. The Chat GPT output is better than hers. And using Chat GPT has another benefit. No whining.

Will humans ever become conscious? Jiddu Krishnamurti’s thought about AI as a fresh perspective on current debates

As a thinker and mystic whose life work entirely centred on the transformation of the human mind, Krishnamurti worried that an insufficiently cultivated mind that had been employed merely for material and mechanical purposes would be perfectly imitable and thus replaceable by computers and other machines. Thus, our main concern should not be machines attaining humanlike minds, but people having machinelike minds.

Chat GPT’s output is just an amalgam of existing online writing, which is almost uniformly bad. Ol’ Jiddu was a wag to point that out, and in advance, too.

Generative AI backlash hits annual writing event, prompting resignations

NaNoWriMo, known for its annual challenge where participants write a 50,000-word manuscript in November, argued in its post that condemning AI would ignore issues of class and ability, suggesting the technology could benefit those who might otherwise need to hire human writing assistants or have differing cognitive abilities.

Got that? If you banned AI from a writing contest, only people who know how to write stuff would be able to write stuff.

North Carolina Musician Accused of $10M Streaming Fraud With AI-Generated Songs

A North Carolina musician has been indicted by federal prosecutors over allegations that he used AI to help create “hundreds of thousands” of songs and then used the AI tracks to earn more than $10 million in fraudulent streaming royalty payments since 2017.

He used bots to compose songs, and then used bots to listen to the songs over and over, and then got paid by the bots that lord over streaming music sites. I’m not sure if he should be prosecuted, or given a medal.

What happens when you touch a Pickle to an AM radio tower?

A few months ago, our AM radio hot dog experiment went mildly viral. That was a result of me asking my Dad ‘what would happen if you ground a hot dog to one of your AM radio towers?’ He didn’t know, so one night on the way to my son’s volleyball practice, we tested it. And it was awesome.

I wasn’t really wondering about what happens. I was too busy wondering why he capitalized “Pickle.”

Welcome to the Battlestar Galactica: Tech-Manual

Scientific inaccuracies plagued many of the science fiction movies/series during the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was not until the mid-80’s that Hollywood began to really tap NASA and other aerospace scientists for assistance in fine tuning the technobable [sic] being used in science fiction films and TV shows.

When EV startups shut down, will their cars still work?

Other WM Motor owners reported that the smartphone app was unusable, and the built-in car stereo, which required an internet connection, had stopped working. Multiple WM Motor owners filed complaints on 12365auto, a Chinese automobile review site. “The car system is paralyzed and I can’t log in. The entire entertainment system is unusable, and the vehicle status cannot be checked,” one owner wrote. “The car has become a huge safety hazard!”

The word “still” in the headline is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Avis alerts nearly 300k car renters that crooks stole their info

Avis Rent A Car System has alerted 299,006 customers across multiple US states that their personal information was stolen in an August data breach.

The digital break-in occurred between August 3 and August 6, according to the car rental giant in filings with the Maine and California attorneys general.

Avis’ slogan used to be “We Try Harder.” Apparently, they should try harderer.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone. If that’s even possible.

Tuesday Trash Day Roundup Deluxe

I’m not sure what makes it deluxe, exactly. It appears to be just like a regular Tuesday Trash Day Roundup. But the intertunnel is all about marketing, n’est ce pas? I can’t just leave it at that. I have to excite the audience, right there in the headline, or they won’t even tune in. You can always disappoint them with everything after the initial come-on. This was also my approach to dating.

On to the roundup! It’s premium.

AI-Implanted False Memories

Results show the generative chatbot condition significantly increased false memory formation, inducing over 3 times more immediate false memories than the control and 1.7 times more than the survey method. 36.4% of users’ responses to the generative chatbot were misled through the interaction.

Like Marcus Aurelius once said, “You shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internet.”

America’s Oldest Board Game Teaches 19th-Century Geography

Players start at Washington and race to reach New Orleans first by taking turns spinning a teetotum, an alternative to dice, as that was seen as a symbol of gambling. The educational board game fits its description as an “instructive pastime” as players have to name the city to move forward and, in a harder version of the game, be able to guess the urban population.

After the first article, I’m unsure whether Arkansas is actually a place.

Is College Still Worth It? (via Cultural Offering)

The results show that college is still worth it—sometimes. The median four-year degree program increases students’ lifetime earnings by $160,000, after accounting for college costs and dropout risk. But not every degree performs so well. Nearly a quarter of four-year programs show no return on investment (ROI), meaning that students typically wind up no better off than if they never went to college. But plenty of degrees deliver returns significantly above the median—and some boost students’ net lifetime earnings by more than $1 million.

Where else are you going to learn how to clutch a Solo cup properly?

Business Attire For The Fashion Conscious. (via Execupundit)

Do you struggle with balancing comfort with utility in your daily business attire? You can never go wrong with the classic short sleeved white shirt, and tie. Also, make sure you wear comfortable shoes and socks. Keep cool with shorts, but keep that shirt tucked in. You don’t want to appear too informal for those business meetings.

Do not click through to the link while drinking any beverage, if you value your monitor.

In This Beautiful Library, Bats Guard the Books

In the daytime—as scholars lean over historic works and visitors admire the architecture—the bats roost quietly behind the two-story bookshelves. At night, they swoop around the darkened building, eating the beetles and moths that would otherwise do a number on all that old paper and binding glue.

In our local library, perverts stationed at computers just inside the front door guard the books. I’d prefer bats.

a brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks

In need of a practical way to overcome social isolation; communicate emergencies, weather, and crop prices; and chafing under attempts to curtail free speech, ranchers and farmers began to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of both telephone sets and barbed wire fencing. They would hook up telephones to wire strung from their homes to a nearby fence; at the time, telephones had their own battery which produced a DC current that could carry a voice signal; turning a crank on the phone would generate an AC current to produce a ring at the end of the line. Bob Holmes elaborates on the process: “the barbed wire networks had no central exchange, no operators–and no monthly bill. Instead of ringing through the exchange to a single address, every call made every phone on the system ring. Soon each household had its own personal ringtone…but anyone could pick up…Talk was free, and so people soon began to ‘hang out’ on the phone.” The fence phone lines could also be used to broadcast urgent information to everyone on the line.

Used for barbed remarks, with a sharp followup, no doubt.

Is Our Future a Blue Screen of Death?

Microsoft estimates the CrowdStrike outage affected 8.5 million Windows devices. That’s an unprecedented breakdown. But it is also a reminder that the problem could have been so much worse: The afflicted computers represent less than 1 percent of Windows devices around the world. Still, the CrowdStrike crash—or BSOD24 as I’m calling it—should be a global wake-up call.

I’ve always said the old ways are generally the best ways. So I propose we run the internet through barbed wire fencing from now on. I’m willing to put a hand crank on my old Dell desktop, and I’ll gladly suffer the occasional tingle when I’m out mending fences and my neighbor tries to buy something from Amazon.

This Company Says It Uses Your Phone’s Mic to Serve Ads for Facebook, Google, and More

In a pitch deck that has surfaced since the initial story broke out, Cox Media Group (CMG), a digital marketing outfit based out of Atlanta, Georgia, was spotted touting “the power of voice” in a pitch. In it, they outlined how they can use AI to collect and analyze voice data from users through more than 470 sources. All of which can then be used by advertisers to target “in-market consumers” (users) when combining the voice data with behavioral data to identify an audience who is “ready-to-buy” in a targeted 10-mile radius (can go up to 20-mile).

We’re going to have to go to Dante Alighieri’s Circle Takeout Cafe to find the appropriate place to send these guys.

That’s it for today’s batch of topics. Have a superb, Number One, bespoke, high end, luxurious Tuesday, everyone! *

*Your mileage might vary. No express or implied guarantee. No refunds or exchanges. Caveat emptor. Void where prohibited, and several other places, too.

Tuesday Trash Day Rodeo

Welcome to the Sippican Cottage Trash Day Rodeo. Yippee. Yeehaw. Etc.

I’m really not qualified to host a rodeo. Or participate in one, even. I’m not even capable of rodeo clowning. If I was, I would have gone into politics. So take all this hooey with a grain of salt:

You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites

The gap in comprehension wasn’t due to a lack of ability but rather a gap in prerequisite knowledge. So here’s a gentle reminder: You’re not dumb—you just might not have all the prerequisites yet.

Public school administrators have taken a turn-out on teaching any fundamental information that must be learned by rote to allow you perform any higher level intellectual work. So you go up against the bull on day one, and get freight trained. It’s starting to dawn on the younger generation that there was a reason why students used to memorize multiplication tables.

Dual-screen laptops make more sense with this spiral notebook-like hinge

I often use sleek, small-screened ultralight laptops, so I find dual-screen laptops intriguing. The dual-screen laptops I’ve used up until this point have come with a huge caveat, though: no integrated keyboard. That’s what makes AceMagic’s X1 stand out to me. Not only does its secondary screen swing out from the system horizontally (instead of vertically), but the laptop manages to include two 13-inch screens and a traditional keyboard and touchpad.

A Millenial will go to any lengths to avoid admitting that a desktop computer with huge screens is the only sensible way to get any real work done on a computer. Laptop coding is mutton busting.

Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

Is your boss texting you on the weekend? Work email pinging long after you’ve left for home? Australian employees can now ignore those and other intrusions into home life thanks to a new “right to disconnect” law designed to curb the creep of work emails and calls into personal lives.

Erm, Australian employees always had the right to ignore work emails. What they didn’t have was the gumption. Acting ring sour is now the law of the land, so they’re off the hook.

Nuclear reactors a mile underground promise safe, cheap power

The clever bit is to vastly simplify the design and do without all that ultra-expensive civil engineering by lowering the reactor down a drill shaft a mile deep. A pair of pipes would be attached. One to send down water and another to bring back steam from the reactor’s steam generator.

The word “promise” in the headline is doing a lot of heavy lifting, n’est ce pas? I can think of a few things that might go wrong, right out of the gate. But honestly, why not just keep drilling? It gets pretty hot down there with or without the nuclear reactor. 

What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn’t Last

What was more surprising than the fact we couldn’t match names to (once) famous books was that many of the authors themselves were completely obscure, especially to the younger people present. We were writers and professors. If we didn’t remember these authors, who did? The conversation moved on but I think everyone came away with a reminder: literary fame is fickle and fleeting.

Most books rank a no-score in their own time, never mind the long run. And tastes change. But I went to a good used book store yesterday, and asked for some Dostoevsky and Tom Wolfe. They didn’t have either. They had a whole wall of Stephen King, the literary rodeo clown, however. This proves one of two things. No one will part with good books, and if they do, they’re re-purchased right away. Either that, or they really, really like Stephen King. But if the latter, wouldn’t the King shelves be empty?

The Vital Necessity of Very Old Books

Hanania argues that most books are a waste of time. “One would like to think that if someone has written a 300-page book, it means that they have 300 pages worth of things to say,” says Hanania. “My experience is that is rarely the case.”

Sorry, I already argued that. The author also attempts to bulldog the idea that Boomers were the truly self-absorbed generation. Apparently he’s never seen a tween girl between the shafts of her iPhone.

Employees as Risks

In recent years, organizations have begun using software that analyzes large amounts of activity log records and communications data for purposes that go well beyond cybersecurity. A variety of software systems promise to help them prevent employee misconduct, whether it be criminal, negligent, inappropriate or otherwise undesirable.

Don’t forget to put a cover sheet on your TPS reports, and don’t leave a copy of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism on your hard drive at work, people. You’ll be branded a hat bender.

The Real Problem With the Job Market
My big, depressing, and optimistic theory for why it’s so hard to find and keep a job that makes you happy

The entire concept of work that we have had for thousands of years was a temporary model that was required to solve a temporary problem. Namely, people who are trying to build or sell something that required work they were unable to do by themselves.

Please notice the category error in the subtitle, right out of the chute. A job that makes you happy? There’s a reason they call it work, you know. If this guy isn’t careful, his employer will think he’s nothing but a risk. The author points out some interesting things, however. But he doesn’t even understand that the majority of the world does real things out in the landscape to make their bread, not just shuffle some javascript around on a virtual desktop. AI isn’t going to pick any lettuce, or pop any rivets.

Calif. tech companies see laid-off workers as ‘table scraps,’ recruiters say

Creely remembers one conversation with a senior director at an automotive tech company with locations in California, for instance, who didn’t want to hire any laid-off workers because he saw them as “damaged goods.” No matter how hard he tried, Creely couldn’t change his client’s mind, he said.

I’m trying to keep up on my HR bingo card. When do “damaged goods” become “table scraps,” and what does it take to get them hired so that they can burst their chrysalis and morph into plain old “risks”? And how long do they need to be unemployed until they’re sent to the glue factory?

Enhance customer experiences and unlock new revenue with our eco-friendly, ad-display faucets.

In today’s competitive market, every square inch of your venue needs to work harder—restrooms included. Traditional faucets rack up water bills and offer nothing back. Isn’t it time your restrooms became more than just a maintenance checkpoint?​

Enter VODXs—our cutting-edge LCD screen faucets not only save up to 70% on water usage but turn your restrooms into dynamic advertising platforms. Imagine every handwash generating revenue and enhancing guest experience with captivating, customizable content.

I’m imagining other things, like meeting the people who think this is a good idea in a dark alley. I checked all over to see if this was satire. It isn’t. I wonder if they’ll eventually make a version of the hand dryer that screams the advertising over the jet engine noise. Man, I wish we could rein in the advertising monster.

Well, that’s the roundup for this Tuesday. Hi ho Silver, and away…!

Tuesday Trash Day Roundup

Well, Tuesday has rolled around again. Trash Day. The single black plastic bag is out on the curb already. Oh, yes; we have a curb now. When we moved here, the road just sort of trailed off into the lawn. They repaved the street last year, and installed a sidewalk. Everyone still walks in the street. There are many mysteries in Maine.

Anyway, let’s clean out the browser bookmarks, with an eye toward additional mysteries:

Mechanical computers are cool. It’s a mystery why we’d ever rely on software to do this. If you had a watchmaker on board, you could fix this under fire. And he’d only take up one extra bunk. If the software went on the blink, you’d have to sail to India to pick up forty guys to patch the code. Wrong.

How Bad Design Killed 10 Sailors and Wrecked a Destroyer

In older ships, speed is basically controlled by a forward/backward joystick. Push it forward and the ship accelerates. Pull it back and the boat slows or goes in reverse. Less than a year before the accident, the McCain’s controls were replaced by a digital system that swapped out manual controls with touchscreens.

It’s a mystery why they didn’t have 40 coders from the Punjab onboard.

NASA acknowledges it cannot quantify risk of Starliner propulsion issues

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched inside Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5. Their mission is the first crew test flight on Boeing’s capsule before NASA clears Starliner for regular crew rotation flights to the space station. But after software setbacks, parachute concerns, and previous problems with its propulsion system, Boeing’s Starliner program is running more than four years behind SpaceX’s Dragon crew spacecraft, which flew astronauts to the station for the first time in 2020.

Hmm. Software setbacks. It’s a mystery why Boeing doesn’t just install 40 extra seats on the next rocket to sort all that out. Er, 39. Someone named Suni is already up there.

The Feds Are Skirting the Fourth Amendment by Buying Data

The Supreme Court ruled in 2018’s Carpenter v. United States that the government must have a warrant to track people’s movements through their cellphone data.

But governments are increasingly circumventing these protections by using taxpayer dollars to pay private companies to spy on citizens. Government agencies have found many creative and enterprising ways to skirt the Fourth Amendment.

It’s a mystery why anyone is surprised by this. I’m sure people will put this article on their Facefriends page, to complain about privacy some more.

‘Rare species’ not seen in the area for 50 years spotted on Arizona trail camera

While many associate the ocelot with “rain forests and maybe South America or Central America,” the felines do roam all the way north into Arizona and Texas, Ragan said.

It’s a mystery why I didn’t know that ocelots used to live in Arizona, then they didn’t, and now they do again, apparently.

The gigantic and unregulated power plants in the cloud

These cloud-based management platforms could, by accident, after a hack, or intentionally, simultaneously shut down all their millions of solar panels (permanently). And then the entire European electricity grid would collapse. Given the recent findings of fine ethical hackers (DivD) and the confirmation from Dutch electricity network manager (TSO) TenneT, this is not a theoretical scenario.

It’s a mystery why people don’t understand that when you hook up solar panels to the grid, the grid owns you, not the other way around.

Genghis Khan, Trade Warrior

Genghis Khan, born under the name Timüjin, was an unlikely candidate to unify the warring Mongol tribes of his homeland, much less found a vast empire. The future emperor was the son of an outcast family — a family abandoned by its clan to die on the steppes. Yet it appears that he came to believe that he was divinely destined to unify the world — all the land under Tengri, the sky god of his shamanistic religious tradition. In an ascent marked by incredible political and military savvy, he proceeded to defeat a long string of ever more powerful enemies.

It’s a mystery why more people get their info on Timujin by watching John Wayne and Susan Hayward movies, and don’t watch Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol movie instead. Especially since the whole thing’s on YouTub:

Your TV set has become a digital billboard. And it’s only getting worse.

Another niche upcoming TV set is the Telly. The company’s TVs are free but allow the startup to track their owners, and they have a secondary screen for showing ads, including when the TV is off (the secondary screen can also display information like the weather or sports scores). Telly’s prospective owners must answer a long series of questions, like if they’re registered to vote and who their cell phone provider is, with the data used for ad targeting. Telly has discussed further potential ways to commercialize TV watching, such as letting people earn gift cards by filling out surveys (also to help targeted advertising) on the TV.

It’s a mystery why anyone would allow this into their home. But plenty of people will. By the way, this is part of a real Sony patent:

It’s a mystery why you don’t just stream It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World from an mp4 file from a desktop hard drive, and ponder why the title of the movie was too optimistic.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Don’t forget to put out the trash.

The Industrial Revolution in Reverse, and Other Discontents. Tuesday Trash Day

Well, it’s Tuesday again. Trash day. It’s usually a joyous occasion at our house. You put your bag of trash on the curb, and wait for the magic trash fairies to come and whisk it away later in the morning.

By the way, I can’t recommend calling the two fellows hanging off the back of the trash truck “magic trash fairies.” I think their electronic anklets make them cranky.

On to the Tuesday Trash Day roundup! You can call me the internet trash fairy if you want.

Hackers Exploited a PC Driving Sim to Pull Off Massive Disney Data Breach

The hackers behind the event are self-described furry hacktivist collective Nullbulge, which is apparently some kind of pornographic term. According to PCGamer, Nullbulge published a mod for BeamNG that contained a Trojan, or a kind of malware that allowed Nullbulge to remotely access computers it was activated on. One of the people to unwittingly install it was a Disney software development manager, who also had the company’s Slack channels active on the same computer.

This is what happens when you run a company with mickey mouse security.

Running One-man SaaS, 9 Years In

At least for the time being I’m not looking to expand the team. A large part of why I’m a “solopreneur” is because I do not want to manage or be managed. A cofounder or employee would mean regular meetings to discuss what’s done, and what’s to be done. It would be awesome to find someone who just magically does great work without needing any attention. Just brief monthly summaries of high-quality contributions, better than I could have done. But I don’t think I can find someone like that, and I also don’t think I could afford them.

His business grosses $14,000 a month, and it’s run on his own servers. It’s kinda funny how internet kiddies invent words for things that already exist, and think they discovered them. In my day, we’d wear an onion on our belt and a “solopreneur” was just “self-employed,” and that’s the way we liked it.

What could a future sovereign Mars economy look like?

These five conditions outlined in Sovereign Mars include all permanent settlers on Mars completely acquiescing Earth citizenship and interests; Earthlings being unable to interfere with the Mars affairs, including financial, political, and social aspects; Earthlings requiring permission from Mars to conduct scientific investigations on the Red Planet; only Mars citizens can own land; and all resources brought from Earth, including technological or other items, will remain on Mars permanently.

Sounds great. Now substitute “United States” for Mars, and “foreigners” for earthlings, and rewrite the paragraph.

Over 900 Artifacts Recovered From Ming Dynasty Shipwreck

They lie under nearly 5,000 feet of water. In 2023, a group of researchers from different institutions set about surveying and collecting artifacts from the wrecks, work which has been ongoing over the months. Submersibles were lowered to explore the wrecks and retrieve items, while cameras and laser technology were used to photograph and 3D-map the wrecks.

They spent millions to loot an underwater Crate & Barrel.

Cocaine found in muscle and liver of sharpnose sharks off coast of Rio de Janeiro

The researchers purchased 13 of the sharks from local fishermen. Each was dissected in the lab, where the team also collected muscle and liver samples and assessed them with tandem mass spectrometry. They found cocaine in all the samples at concentrations approximately 100 times higher than observed in any other marine animal.

The sharks were also partially deaf from listening to electronic music at high volumes.

Brain-Invading Parasite Could Be Hacked to Deliver Meds in Your Head

A parasite that is able to cross the blood-brain barrier to infect the brains of its hosts could one day be a means of delivering important therapeutics.

Toxoplasma gondii – a parasite that thrives in nearly all warm-blooded life on Earth – could be engineered to deliver therapeutic proteins to cells in the brain, providing treatment options for conditions that are difficult to access.

Hmm. I’m no doctor, but I can think of about four hundred reasons that this is a bad idea. Oh well. I believe toxoplasma gondii causes toxoplasmosis, a disease you get from cat feces. The article doesn’t mention it, but they could save a lot of research money by simply giving box wine to Covid Karens and measuring how many CNN news notes spill out of their brains.

Was early modern writing paper expensive?

To put this in perspective, the average laborer making 6-12 pence a day could purchase up to 75 sheets of paper with a day’s wages. Put another way, if we accept D.C. Coleman’s estimate that the average annual consumption of white paper per head in England in 1600 was 6 sheets (p. 15), that’s a penny per year spent on paper. These numbers are all slightly wobbly, of course, but they suggest that regular writing paper was not an expensive consumable for laborers or aristocrats.

Modern office workers still  spend about a penny a year on paper. They steal the rest from their office.

Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?

The failure of both American media and the American government to anticipate the battery revolution is actually a huge historical outlier. When it comes to any other major technological revolution I can think of, the U.S. was very early to the party — driving the key research and development, hyping up the technology well before it was commercially viable, and making a major effort at early commercialization.

The headline is a textbook example of petitio principii. That’s “begging the question” in its correct, original meaning. The author assumes the question is already answered and goes from there. Who says the US missed the battery revolution? The US is too busy missing the Industrial Revolution in reverse to worry about missing anything else.

Well, that’s it for internet trash day. I hope the trash fairies visit you today, and brighten your curb.

Tuesday Internet Floor Sweepings

When in doubt, sweep the floor.

It’s a great piece of advice. I’m not sure where I first heard it. Upon reflection, I’m not sure I ever heard it. I tried searching on Gargle, and the only reference to the quote is me, written way back when. At any rate, it’s sound advice.

It doesn’t refer to keeping busy. I understand English pretty well, and it doesn’t say, “When idle, find some busy work.” It’s a physical operation that clears the mind somewhat, and allows your mind to work in the background. Doubt comes from choices, and the part of your brain that sorts such things works way in the back, quietly, without being asked. You know, like a mother or a burglar.

I am in doubt about what to write about, so I’m sweeping the internet floor.

Copying Is the Way Design Works

In a 2005 forum post, John Carmack explained his thoughts on patents. While patents are framed as protecting inventors, he wrote, that’s seldom how they’re used. Smart programmers working on hard problems tend to come up with the same solutions. If any one of those programmers patents their solution, the rest are screwed.

It’s a rambling discourse on design work. The author loves Eames chairs (sorry, they’re butt busters), Steve Jobs (a colossal a-hole), and assorted other things I don’t care for. His premise is correct, however, and his title is right on the money.

Wiz walks away from $23 billion deal with Google, will pursue IPO

The deal would have nearly doubled the $12 billion valuation of the startup from its most recent round of funding. Wiz was founded in 2020 and has grown rapidly under Rappaport, who had been targeting an IPO as recently as May. The company hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months, and reached $350 million last year.

I’d never heard of this company. It’s basically an antivirus software maker. You know, like Crowdstroke. The CEO is being interviewed on CNBC wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Good luck with all that.

No More Blue Fridays

In the future, computers will not crash due to bad software updates, even those updates that involve kernel code. In the future, these updates will push eBPF code.

Friday July 19th provided an unprecedented example of the inherent dangers of kernel programming, and has been called the largest outage in the history of information technology. Windows computers around the world encountered blue-screens-of-death and boot loops, causing outages for hospitals, airlines, banks, grocery stores, media broadcasters, and more. This was caused by a config update by a security company for their widely used product that included a kernel driver on Windows systems. The update caused the kernel driver to try to read invalid memory, an error type that will crash the kernel.

To simplify, Crowdstroke crashed the internet because it alters the kernel, the part of your computer that runs the CPU, Memory, and whatever devices you have hooked up. Crash the kernel with software written by people who think hoodies are business suits and can’t spell “lose” to save their souls, and the boxes won’t run. Using eBPF avoids altering the kernel.

Scientists Discover a New Hormone that Can Build Strong Bones

When strategies to increase circulating CCN3 were implemented in young adult and older female or male mice, their bone mass and strength increased dramatically over the course of weeks. In some female mice who lacked all estrogen or were very old, CCN3 was able to more than double bone mass.

It’s an interesting finding, but I’m not personally interested. Doubling my bone mass would just make my head even thicker.

United States Discloses Nuclear Warhead Numbers; Restores Nuclear Transparency

FAS has previously requested that the United States release the size of the US nuclear arsenal for FY2021, FY2022, and FY2023, but those requests were denied. FAS believes the information was wrongly withheld and that today’s declassification decision vindicates our belief that stockpile disclosures do not negatively affect U.S. security but should be provided to the public.

Ah, brinksmanship. Sucker punch people, and then say, “Never mind, let’s be nice!” I wonder what might have changed in the last three years to make them change their minds. Actually, no I don’t.

How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?

An:

ideal start (0.10 seconds),
constant acceleration to top speed (2.56 s),
and sustaining a 17.9 m/s speed for the race’s remainder (4.31 s),

would yield a time of 6.97 seconds.

Hmm. Usain Bolt ran it in 9.58 seconds, and no one has been able to touch it since. But the article says there’s nearly three seconds of work left to do, fellows, before your legs break from the strain. Me? I haven’t given a fig since they got rid of the hundred yard dash.

Repeated caffeine intake suppresses cerebral grey matter responses to chronic sleep restriction in an A1 adenosine receptor-dependent manner: a double-blind randomized controlled study with PET-MRI

Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance1. Given its efficacy in improving alertness2 and alleviating cognitive impairments caused by sleep deprivation3 or sleep restriction, it is often consumed to combat drowsiness. On the cerebral level, both acute sleep loss and daily caffeine intake can lead to a decrease in human grey matter (GM) volumes as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Well, if that’s the case, my brain must be walnut sized by now. Maybe increasing my bone density can fill in the voids.

Boeing-owned Wisk expects to begin carrying passengers ‘later in the decade’

But the industry faces technological hurdles such as making batteries powerful enough for companies to make more trips on a single charge. They also need to convince regulators and the public that the aircraft are safe, a barrier that is higher when the aircraft is autonomous.

In my lifetime, commercial pilots have mostly been ex-military. Guys that could fly a B-17 through flak probably thought delivering passengers to Poughkeepsie was a dawdle. They were replaced by guys who flew in Korea, then Vietnam, and then all the various desert dustups we favored recently. Now your pilot is going to be some software written by guys who think a hoodie is a business suit, and can’t spell. Good luck with all that. And remember to look both ways before crossing a Manhattan street, and up, too.

Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest for those highest in smartphone dependence.

I’ve been to the Walmart recently. It’s not possible to reduce everyone’s cognitive capacity any further, so I wouldn’t worry about this study.

Can Engineers Stage a Coup and Take Over Their Company?

Why does our boss hold so much power over us when we are the ones who make everything possible? It seems absurd. We’re the ones who turned their dreams into reality, making them billionaires. If the product brings in billions, why are only a handful of people rolling in wealth? Why don’t we get a similar reward?

What if we decided to take matters into our own hands? What if we overthrow the boss and take control of the product ourselves? If we have the brains to create these groundbreaking products, we certainly can manage them too.

A man, no doubt writing while wearing a hoodie in the summer, thinks he has discovered trade unionism. He must have a smartphone nearby.

Well, there you go, folks. Feel free to make fun of me or the internet’s floor sweepings in the comments.

Wuesday Trash Day Roundup

Well, it’s Wuesday everyone. I just invented it. It’s when you have so much to do on Tuesday that you end up doing it on Wednesday.

Now at first, I’ll grant, that inventing a new day might seem extreme, but I’ve been busier than an adult diaper kiosk in a nursing home for the last few days. Besides, if Homer Simpson can discover a meal between breakfast and brunch, I can write eight days a week, can’t I?

Upon reflection, that last sentence might be unwise, and could bring about a big lawsuit from Yoko Ono. Forget it, and proceed to our usual, unusual Wuesday Trash Day roundup. A day late and a dollar short is better’n nothing.

The Album Art of Phil Hartmann

You might remember him from such roles as Troy McClure or Lionel Hutz, but in the years before legendary comic Phil Hartman shaved the second ‘n’ from his name, he was designing album art for some West Coast rock bands.

Funny dude. Died less humorously, IIRC. Lots of actors were waiters before they found a Weinstein soft spot and became household names. Looks like Phil skipped restaurant work altogether, and had additional talents besides getting laughs, although his album design work is pretty funny, too, if you ask me. Take a look at this one:

Every girl in America had one of these on the shelf in her apartment next to her Janis Ian LP and Cat Stevens disc. That makes it instantly familiar to guys who were desperately trying to make time with said girls, while assiduously avoiding mentioning how much you hated America, Janis Ian, and Cat Stevens. You know, lest you find yourself out on the welcome mat with the door against your nose. So you’ll forgive me if I never noticed this before:

America did a cover of “Muskrat Love”? That Muskrat Love? You know, the Capstan and Toenail Muskrat Love? I shudder to think of it. Or maybe it was just a joke by Phil, and nobody noticed. Because I definitely would have noticed, and ended up out in the hallway, holding my clothes, if a girl had put that record on the turntable on side two.

Google dropping continuous scroll in search results

Google Search will stop its continuous scroll user experience where Google loads more results as you scroll past the first page of the search results. Instead, you will see see the classic and old pagination bar at the footer of the Google Search results.

I do believe Google used to call that Mobile Results, because pagination on a cell phone was considered too tough for your fat thumbs to handle. The article struggles to explain the reasoning behind the change, so I will. On searches for important keywords, Google puts four ads at the top of the page, and three more at the bottom. They ram in Maps results, and “people also asked” stuff, too, and other Google litter. So Google has dropped the mask, and the entire front page of Google results will be GOOGLE RESULTS, and that’s that.

There’s an old joke in the search engine optimization industry:

Q: Where’s the best place to hide a dead body?

A: On the second page of Google results.

Google is just making it official.

Stalin, Eisenstein, Walt Disney and Ivan the Terrible

For decades most Western intellectuals with an interest in cinema (generally regarded by academics as an inferior art-form) praised the movies of Eisenstein as daring and innovative , while rejecting the animated work of his near-contemporary Walt Disney as puerile, commercial and superficial. But the Russian director idolised the movies of Disney, whose style and technique can be seen especially clearly in Part Two of Ivan the Terrible, for which Snow White and the Seven Dwarves served as inspiration for some of its imagery.
In the early 1930s when Eisenstein visited Hollywood he became friends with Disney, whose work he continued to admire until his death. Disney, the Russian believed, “achieves absolute perfrection [sic]in what he does.”

I agree with historian Paul Johnson. Walt Disney was the only true genius that Hollywood ever produced. It’s easy to forget that, because the house of mouse is such a shabby wreck these days.

Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

We’ve been operating in San Francisco for years now, deliberately scaling our service over time. With tens of thousands of weekly trips, our Waymo One service provides safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation to locals and visitors to the city alike.

You can imagine the sort of hijinks that the denizens of San Francisco will get up to in the back seat of a car with no driver present to tell them to knock it off, but if I were you, I wouldn’t. Nightmare fuel. Perhaps Waymo can go into a partnership deal with some chemical company that makes those disinfectant wipes. Because you’re going to need them.

Besides, Seinfeld solved the problem of interacting with a driver years ago:

Well, almost.

Jack Dorsey says we won’t know what is real anymore in the next 5-10 years with the prevalence of AI-generated content and deep fakes: “It will feel like you’re in a simulation.”

“It will be almost impossible to tell. It will feel like you’re in a simulation. Because everything will look manufactured, everything will look produced. It’s very important that you shift your mindset or attempt to shift your mindset to verify the things that you feel you need through your experience and your intuition.”

Well, since we’re of a traditional frame of mind here at the Cottage, I’ll point out to “Smith Brother” Jack that we’ve felt that way about everything already, even before the first time we saw a pickup truck explode on the news. So we’re good, thanks. Do try to keep up.

Vintage Wooden Homes on Wheels: Photos of Mobile Living From the Early 20th Century

In the early 20th century, a unique and mobile form of housing emerged —the so-called wooden homes on wheels.

These structures, colloquially known as mobile homes, offer a captivating glimpse into a bygone era, when flexibility, craftsmanship, and the open road beckoned to a generation yearning for adventure.

Great photos at the link. Make sure you scroll down far enough to see the “Jungle Yachts.” Man, I want a Jungle Yacht!

To the Bored All Things Are Boring

Half of the sins of humankind, Bertrand Russell wryly quipped, are because of our “fear of boredom.” Russell’s observation holds true: boredom avoidance is causally correlated with things like addiction, overeating, gambling, student misconduct, poor academic performance, and dropping out of school. Boredom avoidance also prompts subtler moral infractions, including half-listening—often as we check our phones—and frittering away time on trivial pursuits.

I can’t work up the enthusiasm to say anything pithy about the article. But I will point out that you can just drink booze to make other people more interesting, and forestall boredom. It works for me.

Paramount Erases Archives of MTV Website, Wipes Music, Culture History After 30 Plus Years

Parent company Paramount, formerly Viacom, has tossed twenty plus years of news archives. All that’s left is a placeholder site for reality shows. The M in MTV – music — is gone, and so is all the reporting and all the journalism performed by music and political writers ever written. It’s as if MTV never existed.

Well, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it “journalism,” but still, it does seem a shame. Where will future generations go to find out about asymmetrical hairdos?

Well, that’s the Wuesday Trash Day links for today. Er, yesterday. Bah, whatever. Feel free to make fun of them in the comments. I have to paint the porch railing. Ed in Texas told me to.