I’m well aware that the music I grew up qualifies as oldies now, and that rock is basically old people music. But I didn’t realize how bad it was until Collective Soul became part of a “look at how old and gross this feller is” commercial.
All of my life I’ve defined success in one and only one way. Live so that there’s no chance I’ll ever be called to testify before Congress. So far, so good.
A lot has been written about how the AI slop taking over the internet can make people believe things that just aren’t true. But what about the opposite case? There’s so much AI generated garbage floating around that when I saw news of the Rush reunion I didn’t believe it. Not one little bit.
I’m usually proud to be an attorney, but when I see something like this product having a warning that it contains nuts, I’m pretty sure one of my professional colleagues was involved.
For all the talk about how AI may take our jobs in the not too distant future, there’s one group of people who are being affected severely now. What of the folks who pose for stock photography? So many of the pictures you see on the internet even now are generated by AI. What of the beautiful people who pose for pictures eating sandwiches or having a meeting? Their future looks bleak.
I just tested and installed our new wifi-enabled, talking smoke / carbon monoxide detector. As with many things, I think I prefer the older version that was neither wifi-enabled nor capable of talking. I’m pretty sure the smoke detector and the coffee pot will now be conspiring against me behind my back.
I recently committed to leave every social network that consisted mainly of people being mean to each other. And now all I have left is this place. I have no thoughts worth sharing on whether there was ever a benign intent behind social media, but in the words of Cal Newport, these platforms tell you that “all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.” But in reality “you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory.” And for free no less.
I’ve noticed that shopping cart etiquette varies a good bit in the different places I’ve lived. In New Jersey, people just leave the carts wherever. Next to their cars, in empty parking spaces, inside the shop next door, wherever’s most convenient and doesn’t require an ounce of extra effort. In Maryland and New Hampshire, people generally bring the cart back to the stall where you are supposed to return them. The jumble of carts can be a little chaotic but it works.
Pittsburgh is the only place I’ve lived where people not only return the carts to the stall, but properly organize them as necessary. People who don’t even work there will collect carts from the parking lot, and then re-pack the different types of carts in the stall as necessary to make things a little easier for whoever has to return them to the store. I’ll always love Pittsburgh.
