I’ve cracked their super secret AI algorithm

… he’s gonna arrest anyone who tries to touch it?

I found this: https://www.projectpluto.com/25010d.htm

On 2026 August 5, within a few minutes of 06:35 UTC, an upper stage (section) of a rocket used for a lunar mission will hit the moon. This may be of some (probably minor) scientific interest, and we may learn some things from it. It doesn’t present any danger to anyone, though it does highlight a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware (space junk) is disposed of.

It’s all party politics, and favors going back and forth. Right now, for better or worse, there is no bigger symbol of the Democratic Establishment than Chuck Schumer. He may owe enough favors to other Establishment people that he has to back the Next One Up.

Schumer himself hasn’t said whether he will run for re-election in 2028, so the deal might be to get Chuck to finally retire already and then AOC can be the only candidate…

And, AOC wouldnt run for President and Senate at the same time. I think NY allows that, but most candidates who try and pull that off are incumbent Senators or Congresspeople who are running for the same job while also running for President. It would be very unusual to run for a Senate job for the first time that you might have to give up 20 days into your term.

I still think there’s already been a deal made to clear the field for AOC to take over Chuck’s seat in exchange for her to help clear the field for Gavin (because he is the Next One Up…).

They just all have to pretend that the deal isnt a thing, because no deal is official until it happens, and everyone wants to keep their options open in case it falls apart.

I view it a bit differently than “he doesn’t want to lose”.

The Senators asked Blanche directly to limit the scope of the audit settlement specifically to the parties in the original suit (Trump and his family), and to already filed returns, not new ones. Blanche verbally agreed, but the Senators want it in writing.

That is what Trump is arguing about - he wants the freedom to commit tax fraud with impunity in the future. It’s important enough to him that he wants to gamble on Republicans retaining the Senate after the election to preserve it.

This kind of gambit has worked for Republicans in the past. It’s how they stacked the SCOTUS, after all. McConnell pulled that off because he was politically shrewd, and knew it was a good gamble to take. But let’s face it, McConnell is probably never coming back to the Senate, and Trump has managed to bankrupt several casinos, so I doubt he is a good gambler.

Except pumping your own gas, and left turns

The normal split in the Senate is 53R / 47D. With Mitch out of order, it’s down to 52/47. So three R’s voting the for it would have been enough to make the measure pass, if all D’s voted as well. But the vote got Fettermaned, and failed 49-50.

The President is only accountable to half the US House and 1/3 of US Senators. As long as 218 House members back him, he won’t get impeached. And even failing that, as long as 34 Senators back him, he won’t get punished.

It turns out he has enough support within Congress to keep grifting. Is he giving them a cut?

But the destruction is the essential part, ironically, that makes this copying kosher for copyright purposes:

Destroying books, it turns out, isn’t just cheaper than maintaining them: The presiding judge also ruled that it’s transformative enough to constitute fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

So, somehow, destroying the books afterwards makes it all legal. In spite of the fact that no author who wrote a book in all of human history before about 3 years ago had to worry about a chatbot sucking up all of its work, and vomiting it back out, without compensation.

You are still technically solvent as long as you can pay your bills, even if you are using someone else’s money to do it.

It might be worth pushing OpenAI that much closer to insolvency

I asked ChatGPT:

Write me a poem in the style of Old MacDonald, only the farmer is farming AI slop

ChatGPT said:

Old MacSlopper had a farm,
A-I, A-I, oh!
And on that farm he rendered sludge,
A-I, A-I, oh!

With a prompt-prompt here,
And a “vibe” there,
Here a shrug, there a shrug,
Every fact a blurry smudge.
Old MacSlopper had a farm,
A-I, A-I, oh!

He grew six-fingered CEOs,
A-I, A-I, oh!
And smiling stock-photo astronauts
Who baked artisanal sourdough.

With a glitch-glitch here,
And a blur there,
Here a watermark, there an ear,
Extra elbows far too near.
Old MacSlopper had a farm,
A-I, A-I, oh!

He harvested hot takes by the bale,
A-I, A-I, oh!
“Top Ten Secrets Doctors Fear!”
Freshly copied without care.

With a listicle here,
And a buzzword there,
Here “game-changing,” there “synergy,”
Nothing saying anything.
Old MacSlopper had a farm,
A-I, A-I, oh!

He fed the bots more bot-made feed,
A-I, A-I, oh!
The slop begat more shiny slop,
An endless beige stampede.

With a churn-churn here,
And a paste there,
Here a rewrite, there a splice,
Every sentence warmed up twice.
Old MacSlopper had a farm,
A-I, A-I, oh!

Then one day the server sighed,
A-I, A-I, oh!
“Please upload a human thought…”
404’d and quietly cried.

With a “hmm…” here,
And a pause there,
Here an insight, rare indeed—
Nothing left from slop to feed.
Old MacSlopper closed the farm…
A-I… I… oh.

It is entirely fitting that McConnell is fillibustering his own obituary.

I look at it differently. It’s not that they’re ambivalent to democracy, it’s that there are other things that they believe are more important to them, and democracy is only one path of many to get there, a means to an end.

Republicans have whipped up a frenzy of support based on issues like abortion restrictions, gun rights, and fear of immigrants and transgender people. (And “Communism”, now that the DSA is winning elections). Pump up these “threats” enough in people’s minds, and they become open to practices they would have resisted previously, in order to “take action” to “save America”. They’re willing to “break a few eggs” to get to the results they want.

After all, not every Republican stormed the Capitol. But in the votes we have had since then, we have found out that enough Republicans didn’t find what Trump did to incite those folks disqualifying to give him a second shot at it all. If you ask them why they voted for Trump again, no one would say “Because he will abandon democratic principles to get the outcome I want”. They would start with the outcomes (which usually involves getting rid of some group they don’t like, like immigrants or communists), and leave the rest unsaid.

I am reminded of the situation around Dianne Feinstein in 2023, who held on to her seat until her death, even though rumors were swirling that she had dementia that was only getting worse. She actually gave power of attorney over her personal affairs to her daughter a few months before her death, while still serving as Senator.

(But, even through all that she still had lucid moments, and actually voted to prevent a government shutdown just before she died, which is more than Mitch has done recently.)

We really need some way to get these people to step aside when the time comes.

No. Kentucky law specifically says Beshear cannot appoint a replacement. But he can call a special election, which might have different candidates than the general election for his seat in November. The August 3 date is floating around as the deadline after which Beshear can’t call that election.

This is one instance where having a job that can be done remotely, in a workplace that is permissive about these things, can be a bummer. Because even if I can’t be productive for a full 8 hours, I can be for a portion of that, and if I have my camera off then nobody knows I look like hell. So I generally work (for part of the day) through anything that is not severe enough to have me in bed sleeping, or to have me not be able to talk to people.

Do people even get sick time as a separate pool from vacation/PTO time anymore (at least in the US)? I don’t. So why take what amounts to a vacation day to be miserable, when I can tough it out, move my projects along for a few hours, and save my PTO for when I can enjoy it?

I like the helmet, not too fond of the jerseys.