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Monday, October 20, 2025

My back arrow

 https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-lord-forgive-me-its-time-to-go-back-to-the-old-chatgpt-2000672231

Terms: "AMA" ("ask me Anything")

Topics: People get sued for, uh, damn near anything (I'll get back to this one)

People (mentally healthy ones) liked ChatGPT 4 beeeeecause, it was personable and less expensive?
5 is too cold and unfeeling, they feel forlorn bereft and unsatisfied.

My 2c: the only people profiting off of chat-yada would be advertising, they could let machines try to win your heart with catchy phrases, little jingles, and hot AI women, but that's just my 2c.



Lonely people romancing bots is more of a sideline no one would talk about.



Here, a picture.

Oh, listen: The article has nested links that link to more links. ALL the links (in the article) used one single tab.
Thank you, back arrow.


Gizmodo had another article, something about the future of Doctor Who, which I feel that I know even less about.
I wrote (didn't I?) that you pick your show, and the streaming service broadcasting that show,
and the ISP letting you stream,
aaand..I wrote it's too expensive, and gave up. Fiber is tied up with little introductory deals and purported temporary discounts that kick in after three months, but end eventually (they don't say when or how.)
In other words, slowish fiber looks cheap, but there is too much fine print to worry about.
An I'm not eligible anyway (They don't like apartment complexes?)

53+37+tax and fees, let's guess $99
It must've taken an AI computer to come up with the convoluted rate-structure.
Why did they need "Speedtest"? Don't they control their own speed, or does it change on cloudy days or when the president visits?
I'm not convinced.
For $99 (before discounts) 2gig would be attractive...
And I already have a phone. 
There are other companies, just as restrictive and with weird rules.
Who could possibly afford competing streaming services (two or three) on top of the transmission rate (eg, $99) to watch their favorite shows? we're talking maybe the better part of $200 a month.


Speaking of stuff I know less than nothing about,
I've had bluetooth for years, and never use it.
Someone somewhere has a 65" TV that shows up.
That's just creepy, and the reason I don't use a bluetooth keyboard, but that's digressing....
Um, OK it says "connect" and it does, and four seconds later it disconnects, from my pixel phone.
Both devices ask me if I want to connect, and here is my code, do I want to connect?
Yes!
It connects!
Then disconnects.
On a hunch, I sent a file from the PC to the phone.
Do I want the file?
Yes, I want the file!
Transferring...
I'm guessing that a person needs a streaming app.
Right? 
IDK.
I'm always imagining that Bluetooth is the hot girl on the subway with a few friends she wants to share songs with.
With *my* setup, all she could do is transmit files and let the receivers use their players to play it.
Doubtless you've all figured this out since 2004 when you were 8, but I don't know how to "stream" anything.
I can send and receive files, that's it.
So, (as in ages past) I look for a player that uses bluetooth, lose interest and ten years go by.








Sunday, October 19, 2025

"Swing low"


 Black spirituals from the '20s keep popping into my head.

My hovel has been condemned, and I am to be transported somewhere.
Hooterville? Mayberry?
Hooterville was bombastic and nosy.
Mayberry was judgmental (and nosy)

*Mount Pilot*?

I might add to this. 
Links to "Paul Robeson" who you've never heard of, except maybe as a voice in old movies.
"Nobody knows"
"The trouble I've seen"
(it was on "The Lucy show", you knew that one, right?)

clean underwear.
Syringes.
my insulin and some leftover food
(ummm)
a small TV.
All my chargers (three)
Aannnd...My condemned house-keys (I shall return)
And my new wrench, if it ever gets here.
I'll say "goodbye" to my new faucet, and consider buying a bed.
Oh! Pillows.

Will it be windy cold and dark? A blankie!!

I'll have to trust that my neighbors I leave behind are good, hardworking,
Americans, patriotic,salts of the earth (no stealing!)

Ignore the bottles and cans (but don't throw them away, OK?)
My teacup, my spoon, my sugar, (omg)
"Nobody knows..."





I've apparently been making Cobb Salads 3x a day, according to an all seeing neighbor.
I looked it up; it's maybe similar but they prefer a ton-better looking salads, all separate-but-equal, apartheid ingredients.

Plus, they use eggs. I don't, usually,  nor any avocados. But the biggest differences are, the stuff is heavily integrated and coated generously with mayonnaise.

Jennifer Aniston would hate it.
I wouldn't know about Mr. Cobb.

"basic vinaigrette" Hey, I use Vinegar! It makes the mayonnaise more tarty.
I almost forgot, *My* mayonnaise is all hoity-toity-upper-crusty,
And it has oil from avocados.
"pecorino," what's that? I know I can google it, but I'll prefer the vision in my head of 
happy cows sheep in southern france tended by kids hugging chickens.
Sharp cheddar here. "Tillamook," TYVM.
I don't know the dollar-tree brands, the kind they serve in orphan homes.
So a lot of this  next paragraph is guessing.
Like, I know there's imitation cheese that won't melt,
imitation spam (ew)
and et cetera, so I wonder what they came up with for pecorino.
Maybe there is a similarly named cheese?
Yes, of course there is, and it is every bit as expensive as Pecorino.
"Extra old"
do YOU see an old man in a green windbreaker too?
A real mean guy you've been warned to stay away from?


It looks all non-pretentious and natural, until you read the prices.
It's as if they hired Jennifer Aniston to hug the chickens.





DIY Pecorino (I've tasted your DIY pizza, it's not the same! but...

YEW guys love Parmesan, awful stuff, on your asparagus and sardines, so I don't trust you.
Price-times-three, leave it be.
Imagine you got all used to your home-depot DIY cheese and then found out it was nothing like the original?
All those pointless stomach upsets and nausea and lost friends. (Link)
I still say I can live without Parmesan and pecorino.
Stay away from "artisanal" cheeses!!
Mass-produced Cheddar FTW
(Link)
another link (bah humbug)






yeahbutt then the evoo & sea-salt people tarted it up
Anyway, DIY or the "extra old" stuff looks good, if you can grate it down real small and use it sparingly like sea-salt, buy a cheese-grotto for it and put it on display next to the cocotte.

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Ben vs Bar





 


I don't know any fictional "Ben"s 




and I wouldn't want to start anything.
But (apparently) Ben and Bar are the same meaning, but from different Languages.

"Son"

"Famous fictional characters named Ben include Judah Ben-Hur from the novel Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince who becomes a charioteer. Another is Ben Grimm (The Thing) from Marvel's Fantastic Four, a superhero whose Jewish identity is a key part of his character. Additionally, Adonah Ben Benjamin is a Jewish banker from the 19th-century novel The Garies and Their Friends. 

OK so what do jews in modern Israel speak?
Google AI has conflicting answers.



I'm guessing that ONE of the AI's was fed bad info (I should have checked, quora or Reddit?)
No one mentioned "aramaic" anymore.
So, uhm, "Hebrew" or something resembling it.
(But I'm totally guessing and wouldn't want to read/write a book about the subject)


I took a quote from somewhere but instead of pasting a snapshot, I did a "ctrl-V" to post the snapshot.
It posted the HTML text instead, with miles of unreadable code.
I apologize. This entry does not merit a rewrite. So it might look funny.

Plus, an unreadable (by me) train of thought about Ireland came through.
If you're into reading tons of text about why people barely tolerate each other, 

Or, listen to a US republican make a speech.


I wonder sometimes why articles appear on the front page of google, 
after the obligatory political-Trumpian news.
Are they so desperate for filler?
I can't deselect politics, no one can.
so I must've chosen super-esoteric stuff Einstein would scratch his head about.




We could make tiny self assembling robots to (__?__) 
And as every sixth grader knows, "conservation of motion" goes bye-bye.
WHUT?!
(link)

Do people have fun with Flagellas?



yes,
so maybe that's why the front-page rating



Tuesday, October 14, 2025

opinions

This starts out silly and gets all serious; Nothing prize-winning here but it's topical to me
and it's a blog.
I worry about my future wrench. Will the oil-soaked handle eventually slip?
I don't know a whole lot about wrenches, their pedigree etc, and you'd think that it was a silly thing to worry about, but read any five reviews of any wrench out there, and you'd think we were talking fine wine.

And so forth and so on, "Too soft" etc.
This particular kind of wrench is supposed to fit like a sock over the bolt, so...
Maybe they throw it down or otherwise abuse the thing, IDK.
Regardless, if I don't hide it carefully I could lose it in a week (long story I can't go into now)
Pliers are nice.
No, they're not.
(etc)
This video is informative, if slightly tedious.
the picture I snipped shows best on the left vs worst on the right, with my brand somewhere in the middle.
Video
The Torque test was worse, although I don't really know what 105 foot-pounds is.
I'm still watching but wrenches so far seem to fail around 100 foot pounds, if it would even be possible to use an adjustable wrench with that much power applied (that's what sockets are for?)
Size matters
(another link)
Tire-bolt, 130 ft/lb
on a 10-inch crescent-wrench, it would need more force, e=mc^2







Geez
(link)


They prolly don't use torque tests on hand wrenches, especially the 8" one I'm getting,
And if I needed that much torque I'd use a different wrench,  buuuut
My 12" craftsman "USA" rules (if I ever needed 100 ft lbs?)
19mm
But if you had a torque wrench 
and a socket set, 
WHY would you pick a crescent-type-wrench?
"recommended" vs "max before it snaps off" (in the desert, at midnite), uhm, ??







(Link)
The Winners! (RIP)
This fits into an opinion blog barely, beeeecause it basically abuses wrenches, and never really gives an idea of what works, day-to-day. 
Least Jiggle, flattest no load are biggies (I think)
Sometimes a seemingly pointless bombastic video is useful.
The guy's "Klein tools" recommendation can be summed up with this amazon review

no one mentioned "vise grips", hmm

None of this will matter in a week.
(depressing)


 Westerly: "From the west"

Westerly: "Toward the west"

ooh, what the hell Is it?? 



When a weatherman says "West winds" or "westerly", what is he talking about?

Like we're all supposed to know.

winds, blowing hard, come from somewhere, and I wanted to know, so I asked,

And got that answer.

 The weather vane on a preachy kid's show was what started this. 
I can't remember what they said, exactly, so I'll summarize-google.
If  the vane's rooster is facing west, that means, the wind is blowing east.
Or, the complete opposite of what I thought (birds follow the wind direction)



If the arrow is pointing north,

the wind is blowing SOUTH.

In the rooster's face.

So anybody saying "Northerly" might mean the north-wind is blowing SOUTH, right?
I still don't know.

Why not just reverse the arrow so it points south?
That would be too easy.


A lady yelled "..."windsock!!" and I think she's right. The windsock doesn't care where you've been, it points to where you're going.




wut?


Except on Sundays, Ax^2, E=MC

I'm reconsidering the beauty of concrete buildings.
I don't exactly know why, and if I ever did, I forgot.
Much smarter people with better webpages have written about it, to no avail (it's all just talk)





Broadening my horizons slightly, I'm quoting youtube videos.
Why read bombastic stuff when a video can just show you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwu4fJ_eeq8

This might have looked more coherent in another entry....anyway, I liked the video, the first half at least.
(Link)











https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/17/no-kings-republicans-hate-america/

An opinion, or skillful Spin?
Ignore it, smear it, blame some group,
declare war.
















Trump keeps saying that the price of eggs has dropped but mayonnaise is still high.
Soy free mayonnaise is laughably high. Well anyway...

"Buy 'Hummus'!" google says.
I hate cream cheese, lox and asparagus, what makes you think I'll Like "Hummus"?
Plus it has garlic.
And I'll just bet that industrial Hummus has soy oil.

OMG (or something)
f'n steak used to cost less. Yeah I'm old but what the hell do you all eat?
(LINK)
Basically the guy got reamed for asking such a disrespectful question.
He shoulda picked "Reddit"

Hard to explain, easier to read, but the significance is, prices haven't gone up a few percent since he wrote that, they've skyrocketed!!
Here. 
Roast, $4Lb??? nonono....
And boy have you got the excuses loaded up. Eveil neighbors, supply chains, dwindling cows, 
The war.