Petunias and Birds

 

On to better things.

1. The petunias have really taken off. Michelle's not necessarily smitten with petunias, but they certainly do like the places we've planted them. I think they look great, and she agrees.

2. The baby birds have moved on. We hope under circumstances of being able to fly off and find lives beyond the hanging basket on the front porch, but we don't really know.

The internet tells me robin fledglings are fairly competent filers 10-15 days after hatching, which puts the time about right. It was amazing how quickly they grew. I don't know why I suspected I'd see adolescent birds flopping around the nest waiting for mom and dad to come home with a meal. . .

The birds' presence in the hanging basket didn't really do our petunias there much good, in part because I had to wire the irrigation dripper away from the center of the basket because the parent robins didn't like where it was hanging. I've taken that wire down and maybe the petunias will do better after that.

Huh?

The fence project I mentioned in my last post is finished, but not as I'd like. Some neighborly complications have arisen. More on that later, hopefully resolved.

Fence Replacement 2025

All I know is this:

1. This section is the more sturdy part of the fence I still have to replace.

2. She's a hot one today, Mommy. [Wipes brow with toupee.]

Strangely, I was able to yoink the old post that was in this position out of its concrete base and pound the new one into the same hole. The old post was slanty, but I was able to get this one straight. I also added a new cap of concrete about four inches thick on top of the old cap to help stabilize the new pole and prevent it from adopting the slant of the old one.

The next post will be fastened to the existing gate post. Beyond that, I have at least three other tall posts and four short posts that'll have to be yanked out and replaced because they're all leaning to the north.

And yes, I'm using the old bones of the existing fence to brace the new post, giving them one last hurrah before they're cut up for firewood.

So far, I have not had to buy any new materials. I've had two posts sitting by the side of the house for the past year or so, and I used up some Quickrete I had left over from fixing a hole in the basement bathroom floor. I will have to go buy some cedar slats and two-by-fours to fill in the gap, plus some lag bolts so I can attach the second post to the gate post, but that's it. I also want to fix the gate so it swings better as I do this part of the fence. Next I'll move to the front and work on things there, including cleaning up where the camper winters.

You Were Supposed to Be this Colossus

So I thought I'd give ChatGPT a shot at the whole miracle pill thing.

This is what I got:

The phrase "miracle pill with the chocolate coating" is typically used metaphorically and isn’t tied to a specific, real-world product. It usually refers to:

1. A Difficult Truth or Hard Solution Made Easier to Accept

Much like how medicine is sometimes coated in chocolate or sugar to make it more palatable, the “miracle pill with the chocolate coating” represents a tough but necessary remedy or truth that’s been made easier to swallow—often in the form of a persuasive message, attractive packaging, or emotional appeal.

2. Marketing Gimmick

In marketing or self-help contexts, this phrase can point to a too-good-to-be-true solution—a product or idea that promises miraculous results, dressed up in appealing language or visuals to get people to buy in without question. It’s the kind of pitch that sounds irresistible, but the “miracle” often doesn’t live up to the hype.

3. Pop Culture or Satirical Usage

It has also been used in pop culture (e.g., in movies, books, or songs) to satirize consumer culture, quick-fix mentalities, or the way society seeks instant gratification.

If you’re referring to a specific product, book, ad, or quote, feel free to give more context, and I’ll pinpoint it more precisely.

(Emphasis mine.)

I have to give *you* context, ChatGPT? That's cheating. You know it's been used in pop culture, so explore a little bit more. You were supposed to be this colossus; this great legendary thing, and yet he gains.

Sure, I understand the LLM concept that the more I put in, the more I get. But it's interesting that ChatGPT just comes up with these generalities. OK, so it's been used in pop cultre. You can't give me any examples? I don't understand why.

A 'Cloak that Will Best Cover the Occasion'

"Actual war coming, blood grows hot, and blood is spilled. Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and thrives. Confidence dies, and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he first be killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among honest men only. But this is not all. Every foul bird comes abroad, and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures, deemed indispensabe but harsh at best, such men make worse by maladministration. Murders for old grudges, and murders for self, proceed under any cloak that will best cover the occasion."

~Abraham Lincoln, "Speeches and Writings," 2.523

Lincoln wanted to avoid war, for many reasons.

So do I.

Markedly, when we see riots and protests outside of war, what Lincoln says of war here holds true. Thos foul birds and dirty reptiles rise up. We see those outside the protest wanting to equate the honest protestors with those foul birds and dirty reptiles, thus sullying the noble and just reasons people protest.

We need to stop that, the equating and the sullying, and regard the foul birds and dirty reptiles for what they are: Opportunists, taking advantage of a situation to do ill because the see a "cloak that will best cover the occasion."

We need to recognize bad guys will use good protests to do their dirty deeds.

We Put our Faith in Llama4

I know there are a lot of people out there putting a lot of faith in not only Blast Hardcheese but also the large language models of artificial intelligence. But the more I look at what these LLMs produce, the more I want to pat them on the back and say:

Miracle Max: "Have fun stormin' the castle!"

Valerie: "Do you think it'll woik?"

Miracle Max: "It'll take a miracle."

[Both] "Byeeeee!"

To a certain audience of humans, what I've written here has two obvious references, first to The Princess Bride, and next to the MST3K version of Space Mutiny.

But to any LLM, the context of these references is absolutely alien. An LLM could comment on what I've written, but without the context I and some readers have in this situation, the response will be more nonsensical than anything else.

And this is what inspired this post:

Maybe I'm being unfair to LLMs. This could just be Meta cluelessness. But I suspect all LLMs are built on the same technology and are probably just as clueless as Llama4.

I'm sure there are a *lot* of references to "miracle pills" and "chocolate coatings" on the internet for these LLMs to scrape and study. Some of them might even be from The Princess Bride. But since the LLMs only know how to put words together based on the models it has in its database, it has no idea which of the references are pertinent in context. Maybe they'll get better at that over time, but it's going to be through human tweaking, not through anything the LLMs do themselves.

I suspect, however, there's enough context here to at least help Llama4 narrow the possibilities down.

The message was posted by the Cinema Shorthand Society. So the LLM could at least consdier the context of cinema. That certainly would narrow down the possibilities.

That and the fact miracles pills AND a chocolate coating are mentioned. Even with that context, someone unfamiliar with the film could do a good boolean search on Google (miracle pill AND chocolate coating), find The Princess Bride, and deduce it's the correct context, based on the poster.

Until then, it's back to the fo'cas'le of the Pequod. Which brings in possible references from Moby Dick and The Simpsons to name only two. Only my audience knows which is the most pertinent context.

Way too Late at the Movies: Going Postal

So I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett.

I'm also mildly aware that some of his books have been turned into movies, whether "movie" movies, mini-series, or animations. I've seen a few of them, and generally felt the ones I've seen have missed the mark.

"Going Postal" is among my top five Pratchett books. I got to watch the TV mini-series today. And, alas, it also misses the mark.

There is much good to be said about the film. Richard Coyle as Moist von Lipwig is about perfect. David Suchet as Reacher Gilt *is* perfect. If they haven't cast Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari in other movies, that's a crime against humanity.

Many of the supporting players are also fine, including those who play Stanley and Mr. Groat.

I absolutely loved how they handled Lipwig's guilt bubbling up through the "new" technology of the clicks, right down to the word cards and melodramatic poses and that odd, quick early-movie pacing.

But they messed with the plot. Or one of the plots.

Mr. Gryle, the banshee. Sorry, the "words" killed him? Maybe my recollection from the book is fuzzy, but I know it didn't happen that way. Maybe the words helped. But Stanley and Mr. Groat were certainly involved. Maybe they had to trim that part of the story for length. But it was done poorly.

And wow, they gave the Golden Suit short shrift. Maybe I glanced away and missed it, but in the book Mr. Lipwig getting the Golden Suit was a moment. In the film, he was just suddenly wearing it. Again, maybe I missed something.

Some of the other tinkering made less sense. Why send the contest message to Uberwald, rather than, where was it, Genua? And to the sunburned/allergic tit of a wizard there, who was cut from the movie entirely. A lot of the showmanship that made Lipwig a charming, oily character was missing. And they really did Adora Belle Dearheart and Sacharissa Crisplock wrong. There's a lot more to their characters than what appear in this mini-series.

Crispin Horsefry, I imagined as much younger, and I think he was depicted so in the book.

I know it's like shouting into an empty room, comparing books to their film/TV adaptations, but there was enough tinkering with this story it's not one I need to watch again. I'll just stick to the book.

But it is good evidence to have in hand when the Brits complain about "American meddling" in British stories in American adaptations. They do it too, and needlessly so.

"Cute" Musk

I saw the following posted on a propaganda satire page on Facebook:

A lot of the commenters are tittering at the idea of Musk being controlled in this way, but I see something really, really toxic here.

Sure, it's cute to imagine him getting patted on the head like this. We love the idea of the hated "genius" being revealed as a controlled moron.

But as this kind of behavior continues, the controllers are eventually replaced by fellow travelers who accommodate the genius not so they can avoid damage to the company but because they believe the golden boy improves everything he touches. The insulation erodes and becomes replaced with something worse than Yes-men.

DOGE is an excellent example of this. A lot of people are cherring that Musk and Trump had a falling out and that Musk has left DOGE behind. But he left DOGE behind, churning away at the guts of the government, run by those people who believe their man can do no wrong. But since Musk is gone, the hysteria around DOGE has crumbled markedly, even though it's still there doing it's "job."

A few see it:

HORSES

I didn't expect to see four wandering horses while at the Griffin Family Reunion in Farr West yesterday, but that's what we saw.

In and of itself, watching the loose horses was only mildly interesting. More interesting was watching the growing crowd of people who gathered to help corral them (I didn't help because, clearly, as the crowd grew, they had enough people, and the only thing I knew about horses at the time was that there were four loose and running on the road nearby).

First, they wandered up to a house where someone popped out with a little dog and shooed them away. Then, one by one, three men arrived, ostensibly to corral the horses, or they could have been just wandering by.

Then an older couple arrived in a truck and pulled into the driveway of the house where the horses has scurried into the back yard. I had no idea if they were there to help, or were just going to find a surprise.

Then -- no kidding - four motorcyclists, three with riders, pulled up. They parked at the same house and all began a merry chase, first capturing one horse, then two in rapid succession, but then fighting mightily to corral the last horse, who I pegged as the ringleader.

Read as it all unfolded here.

Closing In

It's hard to see, but I'm closing in on having my the camper bathroom finished. I didn't really want to re-hang the shower curtain, but Michelle talked me into it.

The rail is up, but not yet the curtain. It was filthy, from disuse and the leak, but I ended up hand-washing it in a tub in the back yard. Once I get that up, I'm declaring victory.

As Charles Emerson Winchester III sang when he was forced to choose between scrubbing sheets or bedpans by a belligerent Major Houlihan, "This is the way we wash our sheets. . ."