OpenAI needs to be treated just as any other hacker. Jail time.

Unintentional benefit of the war: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/09/24/how-trump-is-unintentionally-helping-worlds-climate/ ... the war with Iran has triggered an unforeseen benefit in the fight against global warming. [The] war on Iran, now in its seventh month, has led to a plunge in the consumption of oil and gas around the world as fighting disrupts production and transportation.

Quattro

What did you study for fun at The New School, Jon? My son is getting a second master's degree. I don't think it's strictly necessary for his job, but it's in computer science, so I am also not sure it's strictly fun, either. Maybe it is for him. lol As for me, BS from Murray State, MS from Ole Miss, MFA from Rutgers Camden, PhD from U Exeter. The last two were fun, but the MFA also made the academic career possible. The PhD was good for the academic career and it's currently getting me the opportunity to write academic books for not very much money and to do teaching gigs that are fun and reasonably well-paid.

One more. I promise. Link to video This generation gap (specifically) is a cultural phenomenon at this. What made some of the younger ones so clueless, ignorant, self-righteous, arrogant and entitled? I don't know.

Bump Edited. BTW- This is a great example of the destruction of US education. New College was a public school by the time I went there. It's defacto privatized by now. The money generating potential of New College made it stand out like a lighthouse. The US public education system is generally wing starved of resources. There are charter schools (de facto private) being aggressively supported by policy makers. Then there is home schooling. I only know about home schooling in Florida. The toddler stage of home schooled kids in Florida seems to end between 5 and 6. "Is our children learning?"- George W Bush

As well you should.

@Steve-Miller There’s apparently a lot of variety in pepper. (That’s not counting things like Szechuan peppercorns, which aren’t in the pepper family.) I’d love to try the type you found. In my Indian cooking explorations, I bought some Long Pepper (a true pepper, Piper longum). Tastes similar to what you describe. Not as sharp as regular pepper, and has spicy flavors that recall cloves and nutmeg. It’s different enough from regular pepper that it may not quite work the same way in Western dishes. Our standard pepper has more of a hot bite or sting without the overtones of sweet spice.

We need rain.

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@jon-nyc I've started taking Jane Friedman's newsletter, because I trust her reporting. Today's newsletter spoke to your question about whether other big AI companies trained on pirated work: OpenAI’s piracy looks to be worse than Anthropic’s piracy One of the key AI lawsuits I’ve been following is this one in the Southern District of New York—a different district from the one where the Anthropic case was settled, and the home of New York publishers and landmark copyright cases. It involves both the Authors Guild and the New York Times, since the court consolidated the cases. Over the last couple of weeks, a lot of information has come to light from unsealed documents. The New York Times is probably taking great pleasure in publishing articles about what’s in these documents, revealing things like: A Microsoft director calling AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history” OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT writing that AI posed an “existential threat” to publishers OpenAI developing a hack to get around the New York Times paywall The disclosures related to books are equally bad. OpenAI, like Anthropic, created an internal library of books from the pirate website LibGen and even shared those works with outsiders. One of OpenAI’s employees testified, “The better we do on GPT-X, the more worried genre fiction authors will become about us substituting for them on Amazon.” And an OpenAI researcher described his mission as creating a machine to supplant human authors."

Well, I'm on 5G with a major carrier in my bedroom in the urban core of the 23rd largest US Metro and I have 1 bar now, and my phone at this time not connected to WiFi (or should we be expected to pay for WiFi to have reliable phone service?) is working and not. I could turn the WiFi on but then what's the point of mobile service? I'm on the flattest land mass on earth. There is no inclement weather. Good luck to everyone in the US about to be screwed by the FCC for the nth time.

Is it a 'safe space'? (Sort of kidding) I don't think so myself unless you're traveling in a pack. @jodi I remember your posts about Costco. Yikes. Btw, speaking of warehouse stores, I have an acquaintance who got crushed and mangled by a loading door at Publix. He couldn't work after this. I just want a 'human scale'. My house is a huge, heavy, structure with a cathedral ceiling. This means my bedroom ceiling is 12'. This is 4' higher than my bedroom in my old place. I feel very comfortable with it, but it's talking to get used to... My favorite Martha Stewart quote (during one of her K Mart adds)- "Think of your back your backyard as a living room with a very high ceiling".

Yes, the bittern. And the sage grouse. And the frogmouth!

Here's how to fix it. How would you clean the windshield after an improper application Park in the shade and let the glass cool. Rinse the outside of the windshield with clean water to remove dust and grit. Wash it with warm water and a small amount of dish soap or automotive glass cleaner. Use a clean microfiber towel or a dedicated glass-cleaning towel. Rinse thoroughly, then dry with a separate, dry microfiber towel. Wipe in straight, overlapping passes rather than circular motions. If the haze remains, use a stronger glass-cleaning step: Apply a small amount of automotive glass polish or a mild 50/50 mixture of white vinegar and water to the exterior glass. Work it over the windshield with a clean microfiber cloth. Rinse completely and dry. Clean the wiper blades with glass cleaner or diluted rubbing alcohol on a cloth. If they still smear, replace them—the residue may have transferred onto the rubber. Test the windshield with water. If water beads unevenly or the haze persists, repeat the cleaning once. Don’t apply more Rain-X until the glass is completely clear. Avoid abrasive household powders, razor blades, ammonia-based cleaners around tinted film, and mixing cleaning chemicals. If visibility is still impaired—especially at night—don’t drive until the windshield is clear. Rain-X’s application guidance emphasizes wiping the product off thoroughly; its product line also includes dedicated automotive glass cleaners. rainx.com

If you haven't bought it yet, it's too late! https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/its-500-toothbrush-disappeared-from-stores-dyson-wont-fully-explain-why/

That's ok. The Florida choices have been non-existent since before DeSantis. This was a Democrat state when I was born in '67 until the election in 2000.