Some of these briefs are about to expire. I intend to breathe new life into them. Not by standing in front of a high voltage Jacob’s ladder, inbetween a Van de Graaff generator and a wall of blinking lights, with my hand on a two-foot tall knife switch, next to 200 Erlenmeyer flasks of bubbling colored liquids over Bunsen burners. I’ll do it just by publishing 650 words of them.

This and That

A little something I popped up between columns: What We Really Need. And my new anti-AI song, John Henry and the AI.

Microsoft CEO warns AI needs to spread beyond Big Tech to avoid bubble
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Remember those old Mad Magazine parodies, Sung To The Tune Of? This is the first ever Internet compilation of most of those lyrics.
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Tom Rush Humor
As amazing at it seems, I had the chance to engage Tom Rush in an extremely brief exchange about AI in music. I sent him a followup email. The response: “You haven’t figured out yet that I’m a bot? You earthlings are such FOOLS!!” A folk singer, with a great sense of humor… despite being a Harvard man.
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American Decline
I unlocked this just for you: There Is a Sickness Eating Away at American Democracy. Jamelle Bouie, ina New York Times op-ed,  hits the nail on the head: a direct line from Jefferson “Lost Cause” Davis through “Tricky Dick” Nixon to King Donald I.
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Halloween
Thank you Clark Smith for noting Dave Barry’s Halloween musings. Barry  is one of our most amazing living writers. And while we’re at it, a Barry movie script was rewritten so often it ended up being about rival gangs of transgender Amish flamingo ranchers.
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My TikTok Fame
Forgive me if I am repeating myself, but someone posted a story containing my Computer Chronicles review of the HP Omnibook 300. Is it amusing in retrospect? You bet. But it has 2500 likes.
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Amazing but true.
It’s been going on for a long time: Is Microsoft Trampling On First Amendment Rights? 12/21/1998
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She Thought She Was Venting. The AI Thought She Was Giving Orders.
A post by Giselle Fuertec
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Not Mentioned At The Jobs Fair
I just heard from a Podcast Guest Strategist who specializes in getting people booked onto the best shows.
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Likspittle Ahoy
FCC Chairman and Trump Lickspittle Brendan Carr  says the FCC is not an independent agency¹. Why? Because he says so. So he removed the word “independent” from the FCC web site and stuffed it down the memory hole.²
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Petty Stuff
Don’t pet the sweaty stuff and don’t sweat the petty stuff—and its almost all petty stuff
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Paragraph Length
I had a recent discussion about the correct length of a paragraph. Paraphrasing a Winston Churchill remark about dresses and speeches, it should be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
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Color of the Year
They laughed when Pantone, which has picked a color of the year every year of this century, picked Cloud Dancer for 2026. Which is to say white. I don’t know how long they have had competition, but this year Etsy picked a color of the year: Patina Blue….
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If Only He were This Self-Aware
George W. “Gentleman’s C” Bush Celebrates No Longer Having Launched Dumbest War in U.S. History
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First to Eat
Who’s the first person who said, “I think I’ll try eating that.” In particular, I’m looking at you artichokes.
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Oh, That’s Why I Was Last in My Class.
This is amazing: Beatles WTBS ID. Here’s some radio work³ I did and/or admired at MIT. Which was so enticing I rarely went to class, preferring to hang out at the radio station. The same thing happened to me in high school, but I still graduated third in my class.
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Prosecutors Caught With Their AI down
Will lawyers never learn?

FOOTNOTES

1. 1. As it has been since 1934 ↩︎
2. 2. (Credit to George Orwell) Where all dictators throw their historical nonsense (e.g. Stalin). ↩︎
3. 3. You have to scroll down a little to find mine ↩︎