I am, perhaps, remiss in having a regular post around the 17th of May, because the second oldest constitution in use deserves some democratic love, but if you haven’t seen this one, it’s a humdinger. There are many places around the United States that celebrate Norway’s Constitution Day, but no one should be surprised that towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota celebrate it. Enter Stoughton, Wisconsin, founded by Norwegian immigrants and don’t you forget it! In…
Discussions at the dayjob have included the both the risks of AI and the risks of not implementing AI. I mean, the problems of AI as an accelerator for cybercrime were already apparent and are now becoming iridescent (metaphorically). But my guess is that most of you are dealing with workplaces where there’s a cohort of people wanting to implement AI to do everything. They want a silver bullet. They really need to understand some…
Yes, given the posts earlier this week, I couldn’t resist… but let’s face it: AI, in the form of our current crop of large language models, has been touted as the technology that will change everything. Well, for humans, anyway. And for humans, AI has proven problematic. Because, when it comes to Chosen Ones, you generally want them to do good. That’s one of the reasons they get the moniker of “Chosen One” versus “Eternal…
After May the Fourth became the official unofficial Star Wars holiday (much to the consternation of Orthodox Star Wars fans, who only celebrate May 25th and maybe Life Day) the people who can start singing “Yub Nub” at the drop of a Stormtrooper helmet tried to extend the revelry into the rest of the week. Hence Revenge of the Fifth. Hence this video. I have to say, it works for me, not that I’d tell…
The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, a time long before today’s norms where you can wait a few months for any film in theaters to make it to streaming. So it was not uncommon to go back and see a film in the theater again. Alas, unbeknownst to us young Star Wars fans, Empire had an additional enticement for cinema-goers in the UK, Australia, and Scandinavia. George Lucas liked the idea of playing…
As I mentioned back in February, I’ve been musing about a longer piece about AI, the catch-all if imprecise term lobbed at the current crop of large language models (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Co-Pilot, Grok, Gemini, etc.). I get more examples of videos and articles motivating me to write that longer piece on AI every week. The current hucksterism selling AI strikes me as the same overconfident idiocy that led some to believe microwaves would replace…
Okay, so it’s a couple months since the Super Bowl, so I’m arguably late to the post-SB-party, but I haven’t stopped thinking about one of the commercials that aired as it was cheerfully pro-dystopia: Yeah, even people who think “Orwell” might be a brand of microwave popcorn found their spidey-sense tingling. Well, it turns out the lawyer folks at LegalEagle really took notice and they have a very informative video validating your fears and explaining…
I’m in the midst of some other writing, so to feed the Internet algorithm, I give you Screen Junkies’ now-annual tradition of explaining all the best picture nominees in their irreverent manner. You can check out all the nominees on the academy’s web page and if you’re wondering which films to cram in before Sunday’s ceremony, Joe Reid over at Vulture gives you his ranking of all 50 films nominated. It’s been years since I’ve…
Some folks may first think of Jim Cummings as the “new” voice of Winnie-the-Pooh (Hal Smith had a couple outings in the 80s, but most people probably remember the distinctive voice of Sterling Holloway as the silly old bear). Cummings has voiced a lot of characters in the past 40 years or so, not just Pooh, and he offers some very specific acting tips that are very welcome.
One of the kids is currently studying World War II, so I reminded them that dads (not just Baby Boomers) are required to know all sorts of military history. It’s like a Dad Merit Badge. In fact, I think World War II is only the first one. Anyway, to help dads everywhere earn or maintain their Military History trivia bona fides, check out George Dvorsky‘s article on 8 low-tech weapons and tactics used during the…