The ophthalmologist who did my mom's cataract surgery used to present an African violet in bloom to his patients when they came in the day after surgery to have their bandage removed. Mom couldn't believe how different colors looked! @CHAS , so glad to hear things are progressing for you.

PD the law allows the president to grant a one-time 90 stay if he believes a prospective sale is in the works. It doesn’t go into detail about any conditions that need to be satisfied so I am quite sure he can just do it. But only once, and only for 90 days.

@Bernard said in Ph.D.-level AI: It's artificial, but it's not intelligence. Yep. Add to this, not original, and far too obvious. I have a unit I do with my students to walk them through what AI is, how it works, what kinds of tasks it might be useful for, and what kinds of tasks we really should not be farming out to it. I continue to be surprised at the number of students who don't know what an LLM is or how it works. Then we give GenAI some prompts and evaluate the output, based on course content we've already covered. I am comforted that students generally have not been impressed and can see through the hype. So far... This semester, I had a student shyly approach me to ask if they could do an alternative assignment for the AI activity. I said "maybe, but why?" They said they are a conscientious objector and don't want to use it themselves. Ahh, in that case, of course. We haven't figured out yet what the alternative assignment will be, but we will.

Can't get bird pathogens from sushi! Other stuff, yes. But they tend to be relatively minor and fairly easily dealt with as long as you don't have a compromised immune system. Alcoholics and raw oysters are a dangerous combination!

Only because he didn’t get tapped for senate. I think Dave Yost will beat him for the nomination. He’s just after whatever he can get. I cannot vote for him.

And that folks, is a microcosm of what's going on in our world. Misinformation repeated through YouTube and so many of other sites gets people to believe and repeat things that are easy enough to research and correct, but by the time the fact checking happens, the damage is already done. Just ran into this the other day when out for a happy hour and someone was repeating about the Oregon firetrucks getting turned back from helping fight the California fires. Looked it up later and sure enough, false.

The fish swimming pool freaks me out.

@Bernard said in "Maximum disruption": our "great" democratic system has failed to keep a traitor and felon out of the oval office and I don't trust that it will work to protect us. this is my read, my concern as well....

Then you have companies in mature businesses whether there are no "fresh problems" to solve and "fresh ideas" is not really needed and would rather strive for low cost and predictable quarter-to-quarter financials.

Lessee, there's Costco, Safeway, Albertson's, Super1, Walmart, the locally owned supermarket, a locally owned health food store, and a Natural Grocers. Sometimes Natural Grocers has offbeat ethnic foods, and sometimes the locally owned supermarket surprises with offerings I wouldn't have expected. There are also a couple of butchers, a few bakeries, and a local farm share--though we don't partake. And, groceries are crazy expensive out here. It's kind of like island living, except instead of needing boats to bring in our food, we need long haul truckers.

These are amazing!!!!!!!! thank you @wtg

Their family just had a wedding. I didn't pay attention to the details.

JustMe is on facebook, but doesn’t post very often. Just went and looked at her profile. 17 years ago on this date was her daughter-in-laws murder. What an unimaginably horrible thing that was for them all.

People love sugar in whatever form it's delivered to them. Maybe we should classify it as a controlled substance. Big Al

Yikes!

We haven't worn masks for a couple of years. Coincidentally today we just chucked packets of out-of-date covid tests. We tried a variety of masks most of which were poor quality and relatively expensive, but you bought what was available during the crisis. For efficient protection we ended up buying these: [image: 1737067570741-20250116_224521-resized.jpg]

A small victory in a very big war. Big Al

Agriculture comprises about 10 percent of Kern County’s gross domestic product and undocumented workers may comprise half of the workforce, he said. And the Central Valley provides about a quarter of the United States’ food. “So, you WILL see, in the long run, food inflation and food shortages,” he wrote in a text message. Wonder how the next administration will blame Biden for the price increases.