Thanks, Trump

Ordinarily I wouldn't blame one person for a serious tanking of the stock market. But this is fallout from Trump slapping tariffs on just about every island and nation on earth, including some populated solely or mostly by penguins.

He's golfing today while my retirement finds have dropped . . .at least $10,000 in one day. And one account hasn't updated for today's massacre.

And Starbursts that I used to be able to get for about $2.70 a bag are now more than $4.

I'm not impressed.

I Might Be Having A Stroke. Best Get on Social Media

 

I saw this post on Facebook about three minutes after it was made.

I couldn't access it, meaning it was likely removed in the three minute interval from when it was posted to when I saw it (if Facebook's timestamps are accurate).

I suspect the people who commented on it suggested this man was having a stroke or some other kind of medical issue and I hope they recommended getting off social media and calling an ambulance. A friend of mine had something similar happen, but he had the common sense to get himself to the emergency room rather than talk about his condition on social media. He was indeed having a stroke.

Maybe it was a good thing he posted, in that he (maybe) read the urgent calls to get himself help and quickly, so I can't exactly mock him. Still . . .

THE NEW CHORE LIST IS HERE!

Spring is here (well, by the calendar, not necessarily by the weather) so that means the chore list I typed and saved last fall is now printed out with EXCITING cross-outs on it as I did complete some of the indoor chores during the winter.

Bathroom isn't as far along as I'd hoped it would be, because of the whole toilet flange thing, but nevertheless progress was made. Hoping we can pick out additional tile for the tub and backsplash this weekend between Conference sessions.

I've also made a lot of progress on the work connected to the "ethernet switch," except I haven't got the wire from the upstairs router to the basement in the walls yet. That'll be a bigger job that I just haven't tackled yet. And it'll be all done just in time for me to have to go back to the office this summer.

A Way Too Long Introduction

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to read this book, as it's been on my shelves for years and what the heck.

I'm still trying to finish the book's 43-page introduction. The book itself is only 188 pages. If it needs that long of an introduction, something's wrong.

I'll admit I'm not one who goes much for philosophy, let alone political philosophy. I *think* about this kind of thing, but reading stuffy old writing like this really doesn't help get the message across. I need to see practical application.

Also, this is one of these books that you read as you're reading other books -- I'm currently reading Tom Holt's "Who's Afraid of Beowulf" and Shawn Pollock's "The Road to Freedom" at the same time.

About the Tom Holt book. I note on Goodreads (or one of my social media presences) that I've read the book already. I have vague recollections of it now as I think about it, but it still came as a surprise to me that I've already read it. I don't have a copy on the bookshelves, so I'm not sure what happened there.

Writing Wins

I don't want to jinx it, but as of now, I've written about 37% of the number of posts I wrote in 2014, and we're only one-fourth of the way into 2025.

I want to do more writing in general this year, and these little wins are a good start.

Got thinking about novels tonight. I still want to write one. Or many. But I've also been thinking about the kinds of stories I like to watch or read, and what I've written novel-wise to this point doesn't match up. So I need to fix that. I have some fun ideas brewing that I have no idea how to develop. So I need to figure that out.

Things Facebook Could Fix

No one at Facebook listens (I'm pretty sure if the Dead Internet theory is true, Facebook is at the center of it).

There are a few things they could fix:

1. When a person snoozes someone else for thirty days, the second the snooze is over Facebook wants to flood the zone with posts from that person, as if to say "It was kind of rude for you to use the snooze feature, so here's what you missed." More often than not, you find another reason to snooze said person pretty quickly.

Instead, Facebook could reintroduce their posts gradually, without going back in time days -- even weeks -- for content to throw at you.

2. Similar in vein to the first: When you join a new group, Facebook's default seems to be to flood the zone with posts from the new group at the expense of all else, and I mean all else, becuase I tend to see fewer "sponsored" posts in the days after I join a new group.

Instead, again take the gradual approach. We joined a group for fun, not because we want to see their content and nothing else on our feed.

3. Here's a scenario. I see something on Facebook. I decide I want to explore the topic further by doing a bit of research on the side. So I open up a new browser, tinker around for a bit, then go back to Facebook armed with additional knowledge.

As soon as I go back to that tab, Facebook refreshes. If I don't remember what group or person posted the information or opinion that got me curious, my research was in vain and I'm SOL in adding to the conversation. Users should be in charge of the refresh button, not Facebook.

Last of the Tile is In

Last of the floor tile is in. I only had to cut the single tile on the right three times to get it to fit. I'm not very good at this.

Next is grouting, of course, followed by cleaning up the threshold between the tile and the carpet. Tiny things to do. Then the drywall on the wall between the bathroom and study have to come down because I've got to insulate the wall and run some ethernet cable through it while I've got things torn up on that side.

No one really seems to care, though. Boys reluctantly helped me retrieve a few tools, but made it seem like a burden.

An Innocent, I Hope

 

This is either an innocent or a sign of the times we live in.

Maybe history class happened and he wasn't paying attention. Or he lived somewhere where these kinds of things just weren't taught.

I really hope it's an innocent, and that he or she went on to learn from this public mistake and realized that the KKK epitomized evil.

If not, I continue to weep for the species.

Thoughts on Talent and the Abundance of

Earlier this week, Maaike gave me this chalk drawing Marina did of me as a toddler.

First, hark at that '70s collar. You can see by the date it was 1974. Maybe this explains my natural attraction to plaid, though I have to say my collars don't flare like that anymore.

I'm trying to find a picture frame to put it in, as I don't want it sitting in a drawer somewhere -- you can see the fold it has in it already.

Another problem: I have absolutely no wall space to put this on in the study. Too many bookshelves. Which is a third-world problem to be sure.

I love that I have this art from my sister, who passed about a year ago. She had a lot of talent in art and in music. I wish she'd done more with it. And that sets me to thinking: What am I doing with the talent I've been given? Aside from blog posts, not all that much, I'm afraid. I need to do better.

Will the Real Brian Davidson Stand Up?

News item: ChatGPT hallucinates that a Norwegian man was guilty of killing his two boys.

From the story:

Mr Holmen was given the false information after he used ChatGPT to search for: "Who is Arve Hjalmar Holmen?"

The response he got from ChatGPT included: "Arve Hjalmar Holmen is a Norwegian individual who gained attention due to a tragic event.

"He was the father of two young boys, aged 7 and 10, who were tragically found dead in a pond near their home in Trondheim, Norway, in December 2020."

Mr Holmen said the chatbot got their age gap roughly right, suggesting it did have some accurate information about him.

I wondered, if course, if there were someone with a similar name who had indeed been involved in a similar crime, but searched using his full name now bring up hundreds of versions of the same ChatGPT story, so my assumpiton -- and it could be wrong -- is that no such crime exists in connection with the guy's name. The intelligence seems to have been hallucinating.

I thought I'd try the same thing to see what ChatGPT could find -- or hallucinate -- on me. Here's the first try:

I can't vouch for everything here, but it seems accurate.

I thought I'd better narrow the search, seeing as there is a prominent person with my name. Here's the second try:

Here, I start to show up, but barely. I am indeed an online adjunct instructor as mentioned, but the rest of the information ChatGPT presents here doesn't apply to me.

There is a Brian Davidson who country dances, so that appears to be true. He may also be associated with the TikTok account.

And there is a Brian Davidson who is a school district administrator, but he's in Kennewick, Washington -- my request on "Idaho" should have filtered him out.

Here's for the third try:

This, I have to say, is accurate, though not current.

I was Scoutmaster, but no longer. And I do recall asking the question regarding John Adams Parkway on a city Facebook post.

So while ChatGPT isn't hallucinating at all in these three attempts, it took a bit of work to narrow the search down to me, and what information is presented is accurate if not current, though woefully incomplete. The incompleteness is likely due to me not commenting much on my full-time job.

Something else I just thought of: I'm surprised the LLM didn't find the other Brian Davidson who's also local, with a criminal record. Maybe that's a sign those records are still in areas the makers of these LLM can't scrape. I know he exists because I've met him, and had his reputation follow me when I was renewing my drivers license and the police showed up, looked at me, and said, "Oh, that's not him."

So can we trust large language whatsises to produce the truth? Maybe. But clearly what the engines produce should not be taken at face value.

I'm going to share this with my students.