Late Tuesday Trash Day

Well, it’s not late, because it’s still Tuesday. It’s later on Tuesday. Wednesday would make it late. English is damned fussy, sometimes. Anyway, let’s clean out our browser bookmarks together. Here’s a roundup of stuff I meant to read, but didn’t, but had to to make this list, so I guess I did after all. Man, procrastination is damned fussy sometimes.

Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town

While kids in most parts of Japan are obsessed with Pokémon cards — or perhaps the franchise’s latest smartphone game, Pokémon TCG Pocket — the children of Kawara are clutching to something a little closer to home. They are playing a trading card game (TCG) where the stars aren’t fantasy creatures, anime heroes or even famous baseball players, but ojisan (middle-aged or older men) from the local community of Saidosho.

Article is strangely reticent about whether you get a stick of that awful dusty gum in the package. Loved that stuff.

The narrowest escalator in New York

Have you ever wondered where the skinniest escalator is in NYC? An escalator that literally has no room to pass on either side? An escalator that is only able to accommodate a single-file line of passengers? Wouldn’t you love to see and ride one just like this?

No.

The Greatest Motorcycle Photo Ever

The key to setting the record for Free was cutting down on wind resistance. So when the 47-year-old accelerated his Vincent HRD Black Shadow, he positioned his body to be as horizontal as it could. Also, he wore only swim trunks as he whipped across the hard pack of the Bonneville Salt Flats. His plan worked to perfection, setting a record of 150.313 miles per hour.

It’s a swell picture and all, but I have to respectfully disagree. As long as this snapshot is out there, there can be only one, and the motorcycle is barely in it:

“Final Usonian home” by Frank Lloyd Wright completed in Ohio

“The quest was to build Frank Lloyd Wright’s final design true to his plan, its intent and spirit, while also ensuring that the home would meet current building regulations.”

It’s one or the other, honey. Frank never played nice with the building inspector.

Mass Grave of 150 Roman Soldiers Found Under Vienna Sports Field

“Since cremations were common in the European parts of the Roman Empire around 100 AD [CE], inhumations are an absolute exception. Finds of Roman skeletons from this period are therefore extremely rare,” said Kristina Adler-Wölfl, head of the Vienna City Archaeology Department.

Inhumations is a cool word. Other than that, I got nothing.

Data centers contain 90% crap data

We need to talk about the data. Crap data. We’re destroying our environment to create and store trillions of blurred images, half-baked videos, rip-off AI ‘songs’, rip-off AI animations, videos and images, emails with mega attachments, never-to-be-watched-again presentations, never-to-be-read-again reports, files and drawings from cancelled projects, drafts of drafts of drafts, out of date, inaccurate and plain wrong information, and gigabytes and gigabytes of poorly written, meandering content.

I see this fellow has been reading my blog.

Hyundai to buy ‘tens of thousands’ of Boston Dynamics robots

“Boston Dynamics and robotics AI will play a crucial role in achieving the group’s goal,” stated Jaehoon Chang, vice chair of Hyundai Motor Group. “Physical AI and humanoid robots will transform our business landscape to the next level. Through our collaboration, we will expedite the process to achieve leadership in the robotics industry.”

I’m pretty sure Hyundai bought Boston Dynamics a few years ago. So they’re buying robots from themselves. Now if they use AI algorithms to buy robots from themselves, their Tech Buzzword Bingo Card will be complete.

The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery

The machine-tool industry is a small but vital sector of U.S. manufacturing. Machine tools—which cut and form metal—are essential for reproducing the technologies required in an industrial economy. Because machine-tool makers worldwide typically sell their newest products close to home, a weak domestic machine-tool industry means that U.S. manufacturers risk losing access to the latest manufacturing technologies. In addition, the industry helps foster innovation in manufacturing processes and plays a key role in defense production.

Uh, that article is a Rand think tank report from 1994. And they were worried that the US had fallen behind Japan, Germany, and Italy. You know, they say you can see the Great Wall from space. But apparently Rand can’t see China from 1994.

Why I Maintain a 17 Year Old Thinkpad

One of the main reasons that old Thinkpads stand out is their design philosophy. They are made with swappable components with the intention of user upgradeability. The battery, RAM, storage drive, keyboard, and even the CPU can be easily replaced. I can open the bottom of my T400 with a regular screwdriver and clean the fan. A battery swap is trivial thanks to a removable pack. No single failure is catastrophic because there’s a straightforward path to replacement or repair.

Well, young feller, I’m wearing clothes that are older than that.

Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.

Ebook projects like Project Gutenberg transcribe ebooks and make them available for the widest number of reading devices. Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.

Neato, but I must protest. The “true book lover” doesn’t read ebooks. He asks you to help him move four thousand pounds of hardcovers every two years. BTW, does anyone have any extra boxes?

[Update: Many thanks to Bob D, and somebody named Somebody, for their generous contributions to our tip jar. It helps keep this place going]

Tuesday Trash Day Fever Dreams

I’ve been ill. Nothing serious. I’m out of practice. I gather that the whole world is ill pretty much continuously. They wander around sneezing on each other at every opportunity. My former, isolated, solitary life precluded being sneezed on whether people wanted to do it or not.

So I parked my sorry flanks on the couch and sneezed and coughed and had minor visions for a few days. I watched old movies with the sound off. Most movies are improved somewhat by turning the sound off. It is a visual medium, after all, unless you’re into those televised stage plays masquerading as movies. In regular movies, you can imagine much more witty things for people to say than what actually got said before the director yelled cut because he’d run out of film and fortieth take wasn’t any better than the second. In more recent movies, actors just mumble and whisper, trying to sound serious, so you don’t have much of an idea what’s being said anyway. So no great loss. Why not turn the sound off? The multitudes of people who die funny still die funny, whether AHHnold makes a decidedly un-pithy pithy remark over their corpse or not.

So Tuesday Trash Day has kind of sneaked up on me. There’s no reason to let standards slip, though. Let’s clear out a little congestion in the lungs of our browsers, shall we?

Why Are We So Mediocre at What We Do?

When I shelved my phone and laptop, I was convinced I’d unleash my supposedly caged potential. But there was nothing there. Just silence. The endless scrolling hadn’t been suppressing some hidden genius; it had been filling a void I couldn’t face. It was easier to blame inanimate objects than admit the painful truth: I thoroughly sucked at everything I tried—which explained my constant escape to the screen.

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The secret Poker Game You Can Play on the Subway!

Subway Poker is a two-player game that transforms your everyday subway ride into a dynamic poker experience. The game utilizes the seating arrangement of passengers to create poker hands, adding a layer of excitement and unpredictability to your journey.

I’m not sure about how putting a chokehold on a joker in the pack fits in with the rules.

Iberian miracle amazes Europe: Spain and Portugal become engine of eurozone economy

Much has been said about the reasons for this remarkable growth in Spain and Portugal. Both economies are service-orientated, and therefore less exposed to the current weakness of manufacturing in the rest of the eurozone. Both have large tourism sectors and have been important beneficiaries of the post-pandemic recovery in international travel, while net migration flows have increased, fuelling strong demographic growth.

Neither seems to have built a natural gas pipeline to their main supplier and then sat on their hands and whistled after one of their friends blew it up. That might have had something to do with it.

Removing Federal Judges Without Impeachment

But what about the cherished independence of federal judges? Too much emphasis has been laid on the independence of judges and not enough on the Constitution’s provisions that promote judicial accountability, which include the grant of life tenure subject to termination for misbehavior. Judges do enjoy a certain type of independence—they cannot be punished for the judgments they issue. But the Constitution makes clear that federal judges do not have an absolute or a boundless independence. If an Inspector General would further judicial accountability, that fact counts in favor of the Inspector General proposal.

Hmm. Do Hawaiian judges read the Yale Law Review? Maybe they should.

Japan Perfected 7-Eleven. Why Can’t the US Get It Right?

The shop is well lit; the floor, pristine. The welcoming aroma of freshly fried chicken and steamed pork buns wafts through the air. Customers pop in to snag on-the-go comfort foods such as savory onigiri and creamy egg salad on squishy white bread. It’s a scene that plays out hundreds of times a day at more than 21,000 7-Eleven locations across Japan, where the convenience stores inspire almost cultlike loyalty.

Yes, it’s a dark and bloody mystery why the same stores in Japan, filled with Japanese shoppers and Japanese clerks, are nicer than the American stores. A riddle wrapped in an enigma buried in a sweatsock.

[Many thanks go out to Gerry for his generous praise and hit on our Ko-Fi tip jar. It’s is much appreciated. Although, he might have been damning me with faint praise. He thanked me for my “brilliant writing.” He didn’t offer an opinion on the other 98% of my output.]

[Update: Additional thanks goes out to Ralph for his generous contribution to our tip jar. It’s greatly appreciated.]

Tuesday Trash Day Unaccountable Roundup

OK, buoys and gulls. It’s Tuesday. Time to clean out those browser bookmarks. You can just erase yours, but I have much more fun inflicting mine on the general public through these roundups. And then erasing them, with extreme prejudice, natch.

A computer can never be held accountable.

It was found by someone going through their father’s work documents, and subsequently destroyed in a flood. I spent some time corresponding with the IBM archives but they can’t locate it. Apparently it was common for branch offices to produce things that were not archived.

Whoever produced that document adumbrated the big question in today’s computing. Who’s responsible for what a computer tells you when you ask it a question? Also, whoever produced that document never worked in an office with women: My computer totally hates me!

The Nation Needs a Shipbuilding Revolution

Four public shipyards that perform maintenance on nuclear-powered submarines are understaffed, and only a third of maintenance across the fleet is completed on time. Growing the fleet will place added strains on overworked shipyards and exacerbate the past-due modernization of its 17 existing dry docks, that—unless more are built—will not be able to sustain even the current too-small fleet. New shipyards and workers are needed, but only a revitalized industry will attract the necessary investment and people.

I’m sure preparing to fight World War II again will work out in the end.

Costa Rican Supermarket Wins Trademark Battle Against Nintendo

A small Costa Rican supermarket has emerged victorious from a legal battle against the renowned video game giant, Nintendo. José Mario Alfaro González, owner of “Super Mario” in San Ramón de Alajuela, found himself in an unexpected legal showdown when he attempted to formally register his store’s name. In Costa Rica, the term “super” is often used as shorthand for “supermarket.”

Do they have Super Mario Karts with one hinky wheel?

Near-complete ban on agricultural burning finally takes effect in California’s San Joaquin Valley

The near-complete prohibition on mass burns of agricultural prunings and field crops, as well as orchards and vineyards removed from production, marks a major shift for the San Joaquin Valley, an agricultural powerhouse that is home to some of the worst ozone and particulate pollution in the nation. The state has pushed for years to curtail open burns, citing the region’s high rates of respiratory illness and other health concerns associated with poor air quality.

When enough Modern Farmhouses get built in your town, actual, icky farming always gets banned.

US military C-17 aircraft used to deport 205 Indian migrants under Trump’s immigration crackdown; destination unclear

Speaking to ANI, the spokesperson said, “I have received a number of inquiries on reporting of a deportation flight to India. I can’t share any details on those inquiries, but I can share, on the record, that the United States is vigorously enforcing its border, tightening immigration laws, and removing illegal migrants. These actions send a clear message: illegal migration is not worth the risk.”

Two entire Motel 6’s will have to close down.

I bought a container full of Chinese electric excavators. Here’s what showed up

First of all, any one of these containers takes months to set up. It starts with working with the factory designers and engineers, then negotiating pricing, fronting the production, dealing with inevitable production delays, quality inspections before shipping, booking sea freight, working through customs and handling tariffs, setting up incoming freight, and finally landing the container at your doorstep.

They’re kinda cute. There are places you don’t want to use a diesel machine for moderate work, like demo inside a building. But forklifts have run on bottled gas for interior work like that for ages, and don’t stink up the air. Unions and teenaged sons will like the four-hour battery life of these electric models, though.

When Doctors With A.I. Are Outperformed by A.I. Alone

Our op-ed in today’s NY Times explores an unexpected finding. A series of recent studies compared the performance of doctors with A.I. versus A.I. alone, spanning medical scans, diagnostic accuracy, and management reasoning. Surprisingly, in many cases, A.I. systems working independently performed better than when combined with physician input. This pattern emerged consistently across different medical tasks, from chest X-ray and mammography interpretation to clinical decision-making. In some of the studies, summarized in the Table below, the gap for performance favoring A.I. alone was large.

“Unexpected”? Have you talked to a doctor lately? If you go in there with a limb hanging off by its last tendon, you’ll get nothing but 30 minutes of questions about whether you’re depressed, abused, unsure of your gender, and would you like a fifth booster while they shove a GoPro up your bottom. Of course I’m depressed, doctor. I’m talking to you.

An ex-deep-sea treasure hunter jailed for nearly 10 years scores a legal win but won’t be freed

Thompson’s case dates to his discovery of the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic. Despite an investor lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won’t cooperate with authorities trying to find 500 coins minted from some of the gold, according to court records. He has previously said, without providing details, that the coins — valued at about $2.5 million — were turned over to a trust in Belize.

Ten years in prison for civil contempt of court. Now he gets to serve two years for criminal contempt of court. I suspect that his contempt for the court hasn’t diminished much. Mine didn’t after reading that.

Women speak 3,000 more words daily than men during midlife, study shows

Researchers found that women between the ages of 25 and 65—the life stages of early and middle adulthood—spoke on average about 3,000 more words per day than their male counterparts. Significant gender differences did not appear in the study’s other age groups: adolescence (ages 10 to 17), emerging adulthood (ages 18 to 24) and older adulthood (65 and up).

Well, in our household, the extra 3,000 words a day are spent arguing with the imaginary woman in the GPS device.

For just $763, you can make a lot sit empty for 5 years!

In a sane world, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors would do everything in its power to approve new grocery stores. The legislators would put up a huge fight against the closure of the Fillmore’s Safeway, which is expected this Friday and is the topic of a public hearing this afternoon. And they wouldn’t allow a new Whole Foods to be delayed and obstructed through the hijacking of an environmental appeal process.

“In a sane world” is the lede in a story about San Francisco. Sometimes, the jokes write themselves.

Tuesday No Heavy Lifting Roundup

I went to they gym today. I haven’t been inside a gym in many, many moons. Hard work was always my gym. I don’t have a house to bang on anymore, so I decided to lift someone else’s weights for a change. Apparently, a gym has morphed into a place where about fifty percent of the people sit stock-still on very expensive-looking equipment and diddle with their phone. The other half are girls who are the same dimension in every direction watching teevee while lumbering up stairmasters. Both the equipment and the patrons are mostly spangled with purple and yellow for reasons that escape me. My wife and I go together. Apparently, this just isn’t done. The women on the stairmasters look daggers at my wife when she wipes off the seat on my machine while she’s doing hers, too.

So nothing looked like the Nautilus machine in our high school weightroom, which was considered state-of-the-art back then. I don’t recognize about half of the exercises. I haven’t seen CNN since the 1980s, but it’s on half the teevees of the forty screens. The other half were tuned to ex-football players in loud suits two sizes too small incensed that there are only fourteen cameras available to decide if a player made a first down.

Then I walked in the Men’s locker room. Finally, something familiar. That sweatsock smell.

Let’s get on with our Tuesday link pruning:

Nvidia’s $589 Billion DeepSeek Rout Is Largest in Market History

Nvidia shares tumbled 17% Monday, the biggest drop since March 2020, erasing $589 billion from the company’s market capitalization. That eclipsed the previous record — a 9% drop in September that wiped out about $279 billion in value — and was the biggest in US stock-market history.

I am reminded of the 1980s version of this phenomenon. A Japanese man on the subway turned to the fellow next to him and said he owned a dog worth a million dollars. The guy next to him didn’t believe him. He explained that the dog must be worth a million dollars, because he had traded two $500,000 cats for it.

No, Wall Street, DeepSeek is not “far superior”

The results vary across benchmarks, but on average, GPT-4o and Gemini-2 are better. You can see this on ChatBot Arena, for example. Even in the results published by DeepSeek’s authors themselves, you can see that in several tests, the model lags behind GPT-4o from May 2024—which, mind you, is currently ranked 16th on ChatBot Arena.

I tried DeepSeek. It was comparable to the Open AI chatbot from about a year ago. It’s nowhere near the latest version. I asked it for investment advice and it suggested a conservative, sandwich heavy portfolio.

FTC Takes Action Against GoDaddy for Alleged Lax Data Security for Its Website Hosting Services

GoDaddy’s unreasonable security practices include failing to: inventory and manage assets and software updates; assess risks to its shared hosting services; adequately log and monitor security-related events in the hosting environment; and segment its shared hosting from less-secure environments, according to the FTC’s complaint.

Maybe they should also investigate them for being the Hotel California of web service providers. You can check out any time you want, but your credit card can never leave.

Crampons have been used in Norway for over 1,000 years. Espen Kutschera has tested Viking-era crampons.

In the Icelandic Eyrbyggja saga, written in the mid-1200s, we hear about Frøystein, who was a bit smarter than Steintor. The latter latter seemingly forgot to wear the proper footwear: ‘Steintor struggled to stand as the ice floes were both slippery and slanted, while Frøystein stood firm on shoe crampons and struck hard and often.’

Stupid Steintor. I’ll bet he didn’t even rape and pillage correctly. No, Steintor, Froystein would say, you kill the dogs and rape the women, not the other way around.

Suspects in killings of Vallejo witness, Vermont Border Patrol agent connected by marriage license, extreme ideology

Maximilian Snyder, a 22-year-old data scientist arrested in Northern California on Friday on suspicion of murder, and Teresa Youngblut, the 21-year-old computer science student charged last week in connection with the shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, appear to follow a fringe, self-described “vegan Sith” ideology that started in the Bay Area and has connections to violence, according to police records, an interview with a person familiar with the group, and years of social media and blog posts reviewed by Open Vallejo.

A vegan sith. Okey dokey. Man, people who believe in nothing will believe in anything.

Google Maps to rename ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’ for US users

“As directed by the President, the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America’s highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley,” the Interior Department said in a statement last week.

I’m a strict traditionalist in these matters. I suggested that the Gulf of Mexico be named “Here Be Monsters,” like it was originally.

US Balance of Trade In Goods By Country

The data is for the 11 months up to Nov 2024 and comes from the US census FT900 report. However, it should be noted that the data is for good only. The US actually has a slight trade surplus in services, but a very large trade deficit in goods.

Interesting map. For a country we’re supposedly sanctioning the bejeezuz out of, we’re running quite a trade deficit with Russia. And apparently, South America really likes Pepsi or shoulder fired missiles or something.

Big Brother Becomes Little Brother

Called Intelligence Community Directive 406, the order was signed on January 16 by then-President Biden’s Director of National Intelligence in the final days of the administration. It lays out new ways for spy agencies to capitalize on the information and expertise of these corporate superpowers, which could be anything from social media platforms to AI firms. It is not yet clear how the Trump administration plans to exercise these authorities.

In case the NSA is listening, I’d like to aver that I’m not currently doing anything wrong. But mostly because I’m kinda tired.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone.

The How Did It Get To Be Thursday Already Trash Day

Well, we went down the happiness rathole on Tuesday, and fell into a reverie. Languor like that is hard to achieve, so I let it ride. But we must clean out our bookmarks toolbar, or it gets backed up like Javier Milei’s shower drain. Let’s get to it!

How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

I work from home everyday, I am susceptible to eye strain, eye pain, and dizziness. Having a working environment that’s as easy on my eyes as possible is of critical importance. I hope that by sharing what I’ve learned, it can be helpful to you if you work from home, and like many, have experienced WFH eye strain.

Sometimes the eyestrain from my working from home setup is so bad I spill my tumbler of whiskey on my pajamas.

Florida man eats diet of butter, cheese, beef; cholesterol oozes from his body

What could go wrong with eating an extremely high-fat diet of beef, cheese, and sticks of butter? Well, for one thing, your cholesterol levels could reach such stratospheric levels that lipids start oozing from your blood vessels, forming yellowish nodules on your skin.

See, this is what happens if you skimp on bacon.

AI Mistakes Are Very Different from Human Mistakes

Humans may occasionally make seemingly random, incomprehensible, and inconsistent mistakes, but such occurrences are rare and often indicative of more serious problems. We also tend not to put people exhibiting these behaviors in decision-making positions. Likewise, we should confine AI decision-making systems to applications that suit their actual abilities—while keeping the potential ramifications of their mistakes firmly in mind.

I bolded that section to remind myself to ask this guy how long he’s been asleep. Van Winkle naps always leave you out of the loop.

‘Once-in-a-century’ discovery reveals spectacular luxury of Pompeii

Next door to this beautiful space, in a cramped room with barely any decoration, a stark discovery was made – the remains of two Pompeiians who failed to escape from the eruption. The skeleton of a woman was found lying on top of a bed, curled up in a foetal position. The body of a man was in the corner of this small room.

I’m put in mind of Twain’s visit to Pompeii in The Innocents Abroad:

But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer.

We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier — not a policeman — and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid, — because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also — because he would have been asleep.

Nevada Court Shuts Down Police Use of Federal Loophole for Civil Forfeiture

The case arose from the 2021 seizure of retired Marine Stephen Lara’s life savings during a traffic stop. Without any evidence that Lara committed a crime and without even charging him with a crime, NHP handed his money to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), bypassing Nevada’s stricter forfeiture protections. Lara had to fight for months to get his money back, exposing how police used the federal program to sidestep state laws that require higher proof to seize property and give property owners the right to much more quickly present their case to a neutral judge.

I’ve had my life savings seized during a traffic stop, too. At a toll booth.

Miracle Cures and Murder For Hire: How A Spoon-Bending Turkish Magician Built A $600 Million Nasdaq-Listed Scam Based On A Lifetime Of Lies

Invoking his close friendship and mentee relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci and his relationship with Bill Gates, Dybul called Gumrukcu a “rare genius” who had come up with platforms to cure HIV, hepatitis B, all strains of influenza, Zika, dengue fever, and COVID. Dybul also wrote that the now-accused murderer was “deeply compassionate, empathetic, and approachable”, providing his “strongest recommendation”. In February 2017, Gumrukcu was arrested by authorities after the State of California accused him of a slew of white-collar crimes, including fraud, identity theft, and check kiting – a total of 14 felonies.

I once received a resume from a job applicant that said he had worked for Bin Laden. I thought it might have been better for him if he left that off. But I think I’d rather put that on my resume than mention those two guys.

How shutdown Bay Area tech companies ditch their fancy gear fast

“Most companies, to be honest with you, don’t have any plan,” Carroll said. “When you get your VC funding, you go out and you spend like mad, and next thing you know, ‘We’re running out of money.’ But had you gone and bought $200,000 worth of furniture from an auction, you could have saved $150,000.”

Well, on second thought, let’s not go to Camelot San Francisco. It is a silly place.

1995-2025: The Decline of Germany & Japan vs US & China. Can All-Purpose Robots Fuel a Comeback?

In 1995, in terms of nominal gross domestic product (GDP), a combined Germany and Japan were almost 1:1 economically with a combined USA and China, according to IMF (see chart above). Only 3 decades later, this ratio is now down to 1:5! Self-replicating AI-driven all-purpose robots may be the answer. Around 2000, Japan still was the country with the most robots; Germany was 2nd. Today, China is number 1. However, most existing robots are dumb. They are not adaptive like the coming smart robots that will learn to do all the jobs humans don’t like, including making more such robots.

No.

Well, he asked, so I told him. This is not going to save Germany:

People Are The New Brands

One might argue that Abby Phillip is a person. But this neglects the intimate nature of podcasting as a medium. Abby Phillip reads off a teleprompter, wears makeup and a suit, and sits in a multimillion-dollar production studio. Rogan wears a T-shirt and talks with his buddies in a room that looks like a converted garage. For millions of Americans, Rogan isn’t a newscaster or even a celebrity, he’s a friend. And you will find this dynamic at all the top podcasts in America. (Side note: I surveyed 10 friends on their preference between Abby Phillip vs. Joe Rogan; none of them knew who Abby Phillip was.)

Neither did I. Then again, I only know Joe Rogan as the electrician on NewsRadio.

MasterCard DNS Error Went Unnoticed for Years

The payment card giant MasterCard just fixed a glaring error in its domain name server settings that could have allowed anyone to intercept or divert Internet traffic for the company by registering an unused domain name. The misconfiguration persisted for nearly five years until a security researcher spent $300 to register the domain and prevent it from being grabbed by cybercriminals.

I think it’s amusing that web developers are Exhibit A. for people who say proper spelling is unimportant. By the way, MasterCard didn’t even thank the guy who alerted them to this.

Have a good Tuesday, everyone. It should be easier now that you have two days experience at dealing with it.