Stories, Thoughts, Ideas, and Other Musings…

This isn’t so much about AI is that it is about journalists.  Have you ever read or listened to or watched a story about AI and wondered to yourself, “Who is this moron conducting the interview?” Well, not to be… Continue Reading An Insightful and Reflective Conversation with AI that Journalists Should Read

Another wonderful conversation with ChatGPT.  Skip to the end (to avoid the ‘techno-babble’) to see the juicy part of this conversation. You can pigz compress multiple files into a tar file, if so how ChatGPT Yes, pigz can be used… Continue Reading Another Reason NOT to Worry about AI and ChatGPT (at least for now)

The USPS (United States Postal Service) in action.  Is it any wonder they have financial issues? Mon, Jan 29 1:44pm ARRIVED AT USPS REGIONAL FACILITY SACRAMENTO, CA Mon, Jan 29 1:19pm DEPARTED USPS REGIONAL FACILITY SACRAMENTO CA DISTRIBUTION CENT Mon,… Continue Reading USPS

I’m seriously thinking about a dedicated website or section of this website for conversations with ChatGPT.  Read the below ‘conversation’ and see if ChatGPT needs something like that; Which is more sensible in terms of cleanliness, taking a shower in… Continue Reading A Dedicated Website for ChatGPT Conversations?

My part of the below conversation was edited slightly.  This included correcting some spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors on my part.  To make my question more clear, I added additional text in [BRACKETS].  Although my original text was understood by… Continue Reading A Conversation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Why I’m not Worried (yet)

Dear Microsoft, How about trying just a little bit harder to make the things you’ve got work better, err work period? Here’s what’s going on: Absurdity. Normally this type of thing would be work related and I’d post it on… Continue Reading Dear Microsoft

I knew everything was going to be OK. https://youtu.be/OsYovSNmK74 (Sorry, embedding isn’t working for WordPress today, and even though I can fix it, I don’t want to mess up my creative mojo in this moment with BS computer and WordPress… Continue Reading Everything is Going to be OK

Consumption, Communication, and Creativity.  Only the first to Cs belong to mobile devices like smart phones and tablets.  For all three Cs, you’ll need a real computer. Consumption includes information through words, pictures, videos, and more Communication occurs through written,… Continue Reading The Three Cs of Computers and Mobile Devices (minus one)

Stuff I learned in Boy Scouts, but wasn’t in the official Scout Manual.  Please, no Catholic Priest jokes here, sad as that situation was (I was lucky and had wonderful troop leaders and a wonderful organization, along with wonderful fellow… Continue Reading Stuff I Learned in Boy Scouts

The English language is a wonderful and terrible thing, as are most languages.  It is both glorious and confusing.  A true reflection of human beings. It begs the question(s): What were they thinking?  Did they make this crap up as… Continue Reading The English Language and Comedy

Recognition.  Finally.  In 2021, after almost a quarter of a century. It’s so nice to see that beautiful charging red, white, and blue logo in the headlines.  The patience and loyalty of the fans, the effort and perseverance of the… Continue Reading Let’s Go Buffalo!

Whether intentional or just an accident of technological development or some strange strategy that involves plausible deniablility, in the end it is a lie? What’s the lie? Answer: LinkedIn’s statement about posting links in posts. Here’s what they state (a… Continue Reading A Lie or Half Truth

Where did providers come up with how much “bandwidth” is needed to watch a video.  Not to reference a “buried lede”…  It’s about money. Frontier says you need to purchase a 25 Mb/S to properly view a 4K video (AKA… Continue Reading Bandwidth Lies

One might not consider the word comedy in the same sentence as concrete block.  As it turns out, it is quite possible.  How you ask.  Well run down to your local HomeDepot.com web site and consider the humble concrete block. … Continue Reading Comedy with a Concrete Block

…but what about the other .1%? 99.9% is certainly a great milestone to reach in many instances.  It’s not so great if it is a percentage that indicates failure rate (and other things too).  But in terms of positive achievements,… Continue Reading 99.9%

A long time ago I drove a car that had a cassette tape player.  This player had a relatively new feature where, OH MY GOSH, it could play both sides of the tape without removing the cassette and turning it… Continue Reading Backmasking

Have you ever gotten something for free? I have.  Aside from all the gifts from parents and friends over the years, I have gotten a couple of things for free.  And I’m not talking about anything related to “sticky fingers.”… Continue Reading Guilty Gift

I lost my Weightlifting Belt! The good news is that I got it back.  That part of the story isn’t even the interesting part.  The interesting part is belts history.  And it is quite a history, because it is an… Continue Reading Lost and Found

I have had a production question about Breaking Bad that I’ve had for almost a decade.  And here’s how the question evolved. I had occasion to watch many of the Breaking Bad episodes while I took care of my daughter… Continue Reading Breaking Bad – White Household

The Vast of Night is an interesting film worth watching. If you’ve seen it, have you thought about another movie that has almost the exact same premise? Here’s a hint: Substitute a bunch of autonomous self driving cars, trucks, and… Continue Reading Maximum Night

What better place to start than the beginning… The first day of the week is Sunday.  Simple, think about the word sun and add day to the end of it.  Easy. OK, next Munday.  Nope, Monday is spelled with an… Continue Reading A Conversation with a Child on Spelling the Days of the Week

Have you ever wondered if your mind is playing tricks on you? That happened to me today as I was driving to the gym.  On a road that I’ve driven on hundreds, if not thousands of times over the past… Continue Reading Slower

The Commodore 64 was NEVER more expensive than the TRS-80 Color computer or any other equivalent computer (the Sinclare ZX series was not as powerful).  This article is more about setting the record straight on Commodore than it is a… Continue Reading Ready Player One and Price

What was it like to write something a hundred years ago?  A few hundred years ago?  And those aren’t even the right questions.  Steven King (yes that Mr. King) has utilized long hand on paper pads, typewriters, and word processors. … Continue Reading Typing

Boy, oh boy.  Man, oh man.  Girl, oh girl.  Woman, oh woman.  Whichever applies.  Have I got some thoughts about swimming pools for you today. In ground or above ground, those things are work!  Of course you might not be… Continue Reading Pool Disillusion

What does one do during the Covid-19 Virus outbreak to stay in shape if one is used to going to the gym on almost a daily basis.  Run?  Sure.  Bike.  That too.  But that’s legs and cardio, what about upper… Continue Reading Weights and Stuff

I have the bag of Kettle Chips used in one of the first takes of a scene in the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. It wasn’t the bag that made it into the final edit because they wanted a… Continue Reading A Small Piece of Movie History

Most of the T-Shirts back in the day had it all wrong.  Frankie never said, “Relax.”  He said, “Don’t Relax.”  The exact lyric is, “Relax, don’t do it.”  See?

My last mortgage refinancing was about mid 2013.  The graph says it all.  OK, I can’t help it, “Can’t touch this!” (Except if I just paid cash for the house that is)

I heard a joke about a Panda the other day and decided to rewrite it a bit.  It is told from an third person direct narrative perspective as most jokes like this are.  I turned it into a “shaggy dog”… Continue Reading Pandas

While editing several stories today I found myself mired in a quandary on how to present a series of events.  Should it be done chronologically or using the Inverted Pyramid method employed by journalists?  To warm up I rewrote a… Continue Reading Today’s Writing Exercise

“Never Give Up!” is something I’ve been preaching for decades.  From all the 6 and 7 year old (under 8) kids I’ve coached over the years to my daughter today I say the same thing, “Never Give Up!“.  It’s a… Continue Reading Never Give Up

It’s been a while since my last good deed earlier this past summer.  But that’s OK, because the good deeds seem to come in groups with quiet gaps in between. Here’s the story; Early on a recent Saturday morning I… Continue Reading Good Deed for the Day

The opening line of the 1813 book by Jane Austen is: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”  What did she mean by that?… Continue Reading Pride and Prejudice

I read some interesting stuff today about Kindle.  Since most of what I read is more appropriate for a “How to” article, it is posted here: Kindle, on my technical information website.

Weird day in regards to life and football.  I watched part of the Bills VS Oilers comeback game from the early 1990s in the morning.  The backup quarterback Frank Reich played the entire game for the injured Jim Kelly.  Flash… Continue Reading Flashback Buffalo

I was shopping for some stuff on WalMart.com and SamsClub.com today and saw something interesting.  There’s not much to write about, but I do have some questions. Are they stupid? Do they think their customers are stupid? Is it a… Continue Reading Wal-Mart & Sam’s Club

I was driving on a small highway today that ran along the Sacramento River today.  I later found myself reading about the river on Wikipedia.  A familiar picture was included with the article that I recognized as the neighborhood I… Continue Reading Sacramento River

I turned on the TV the other day and watched a few minutes of the animated Disney film, “Turbo” and noticed an ‘issue’.  The little snail named Theo, nicknamed Turbo, acquired his ‘super speed power’ when he was sucked into… Continue Reading Turbo (the movie)

I was working on a project today for a client. It involved creating a website using the MediaWiki software as a foundation. The objective was to create a site that looked like Wikipedia. Its purpose was to support a book… Continue Reading WikiWand – An Abomination

I received a check in the mail for $539.00 from the state of California.  It was a tax refund.  But there’s a problem here.  I haven’t finished my taxes and sadly I’m not expecting a refund.  My address was on… Continue Reading Stingray and Good Deeds

I just finished my first complete, written from scratch article contribution for Wikipedia.  Since 2006 I’ve only done edits and other contributions for existing articles. The article is a “draft” until it completes the review process.  While it’s a draft, it… Continue Reading Wikipedia Contribution

I saw someone trying to break into a car in the grocery store parking lot today.  Luckily it wasn’t being stolen.  A guy locked himself out of his car.  I thought I could help, but my lockout kit wasn’t in… Continue Reading Locked Out

Auburn University Tigers VS Purdue Boilermakers 12.28.18 – Nashville, TN – Music City Bowl Score; 63 – 14, Auburn winning.  With their second and third string players on the field, Auburn drives down to the Purdue half yard line.  2nd… Continue Reading Play Call of the Century

In a very odd circumstance a couple of months ago, I became curious about movie continuity while watching Back to the Future.  They did a fantastic job of coordinating all of the various clocks in the Delorian, the dance in… Continue Reading Delorian – Full Time Circuit Console Display

About a year ago, way back at the end of 2017, I called the city I live in to report a water leak from a water meter several houses up the street from mine.  It wasn’t a gushing leak, but… Continue Reading Water Leaks and Google Earth

What happens when one invents a word to replace two others?  Apparently in the noughties and early teens of the 2000’s, we take a step back in our linguistics, and dispose of the new term. There’s a word for for… Continue Reading Went, Gone, Go, or Goes Missing VS Disappeared

First, the problem, then a question, followed by a bit of context… During the month of December 2017, almost three quarters of the days Bel-Air was selling Duraflame logs, a ‘No Burn Day’ had been declared. So how come the… Continue Reading Spare the Air

The Admission I environmentally profiled someone today.  I’ve never done anything like that before.   The Back Story I had just finished some major repairs on a Volkswagen Tiguan engine and I began hearing things.  No, not voices, but subtle… Continue Reading Environmental Profiling

Subject; The Man in the High Castle.  An Amazon series based on the Philip K. Dick novel by the same name. The writers, directors, special effects people, cinematographers, etc. for this TV series have all done a fabulous job.  But… Continue Reading Man in the High Castle – A Granular Issue

Where I come from tow trucks and rollbacks are all different colors, yellow, blue, red, white, green, etc., with white being the most prevalent color, but not the dominant color.  In California, hands down, yellow is the most predominant color,… Continue Reading How Come the Majority of Tow Trucks and Rollbacks in California are Yellow?

To all the writers of books, movies, stories, TV shows, etc., and to real life people in actual encounters where someone says, “I’m sorry.”; NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!  And in a similar fashion to how Roger Ebert’s quantified how… Continue Reading I’m Sorry