I asked the Chat-GPT4 system to write a three-paragraph bio of Lawrence "Larry" Hosken. The system produces plausible-but-wrong text, so if you ask it about stuff you don't know, it might fool you (s...
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When the apartment building repairperson was un-blocking my kitchen sink drain, he asked, "When did your garbage disposal stop working?" And I confidently answered "Wha– It works fine." I knew ...
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That "Moon" movie was "a Liberty Films production in association with Xingu". Trying to remember if I ever worked on a phone OS software project with code names Liberty and Xingu. Or if that was two...
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Book Report: Moonwalking with Einstein
So as I walk in, I'm thinking This is dumb. Who puts an art gallery in a sporting goods store? But as I walk out, I'm paying for $40 bucks of tube socks and ch– What? Book? Oh, right. Moonwalki...
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Book Report: Bottlemania
It's a book about bottled water and tap water in the USA. The summary, you already knew: bottled water isn't just bad for the environment, it's stupidly bad for the environment... if you live in San ...
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Puzzle Hunts are Everywhere, Even Places that are Gone
This is another spoiler-free (I think) post about the 2-Tone Game. Things change. Cities are things. Therefore, cities change. Last weekend, I was in the neighborhood of a puzzle site, a puzzle f...
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Link: Deny you ever read about Crypto Strikes Back in this blog post
In theory, I'm hobbyishly working on a little programming project. In practice, I make almost no progress on it. I'm almost never home and awake and alert enough to code. The bad news is: not much...
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BANG 19 (aka SNAP 4 simulcast): Photos, Scoring Data, Puzzles
On game day, I mostly watched over the Zombie Chess Clue. Most of the time there was nobody there. Some of the time, there were plenty of people there and they kept me pretty busy. But a couple of t...
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Book Report: The Next Catastrophe
I'm going to Jury Duty today. Oh, gee. What if I get picked for a trial that goes on for three years? What if I'm sequestered? Does that mean no internet? What a catastrophe that would be. Oh h...
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Book Report: Malcolm X
Here I sit in a dark train somewhere in the vicinity of Menlo Park. The train is dark and stopped. An alarm bell rings constantly. We have stopped because we hit a car. At first, this was a sad s...
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Book Report: Future Noir
Yes, I read a book about the making of the movie Blade Runner. I make fun of people who read the entertainment news, but I spent more than an hour reading this book. It's mostly the fluff that you e...
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Book Report: Sacrifice (Age of Bronze collection vol 2)
It's another volume of Eric Shanower's great comic adaptation of the Iliad. Learn the strange story of Telephus. Feel even queasier about the fate of Iphigenia as you put a face to the name. See w...
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