I was at a political fundraiser Friday. Never mind who– Oh, let’s not be coy. It was for Jocelyn Benson, who’s running for governor as a Democrat. I wasn’t there because I am a huge fan, although I think she’ll be the nominee and as usual, the people on the other side are ghastly. I was there because the event was being held at a friend’s former house, and she wanted to see it, three years later. I donated to justify having a glass of wine and some little phyllo-wrapped cheese things.
The wild card in the 2026 Michigan gubernatorial race is Mike Duggan, outgoing mayor of Detroit, who’s running as an independent. He’s not just any third-party flake, and has a chance to spoil either party’s chances, depending on the nominees. Given that Duggan has been a lifelong Democrat, it could easily be the Dems. Given that he has coddled the Detroit billionaire class (en route, to be fair, to transforming at least part of the city), it could also be the Republicans.
I mentioned this to someone during the chitchat portion of the evening, and she confidently asserted that Benson has little to fear from Duggan. And she knows this how? “AI says so.”
Which is the long way around to saying that in a very short time, a shocking number of people I know have integrated ChatGPT into their lives. They ask it the current value of a particular classic car, the chances of rain a week from Tuesday, to tell them a joke. Condense this document I don’t want to read. Give me some questions to ask this person when I talk to them. And so on.
I know I, too, use AI; I’m not naïve. I use Google, which now gives you an AI summary of your results whether you ask for one or not. If they sound fishy, I double-check them. I should always double-check them, because I’ve gotten straight-up hogwash more than once.
The other day, while lifeguarding, I couldn’t get the pace clocks — the natatorium wall clock that counts seconds in big digits, so swimmers can time their 50s and 100s — working correctly. So I turned them off with a shrug, figuring every minute spent fiddling over it is time I wouldn’t have eyes on the water, and that’s more important. Someone piped up, “Ask AI! It’ll tell you!”
The ones that really floor me are those who use AI to essentially do their jobs for them. The product is obvious — bland, anodyne, with the weird absence-of-humanity feel to it, which are then sold to clients. Sooner or later, the client will figure out what they’re being served and think, logically, what do I need this clown for? Way to put yourself out of business.
Do any of you do this? Is it worth it?
I finally figured out the pace clock via the time-honored tradition of asking someone who had the job before me. It turns out you have to set one to Lead and the other to Follow, and they sync themselves and work just fine.
It was a good weekend. Not much bloggage, but here’s a gift link: How a bad man got a good paramedic fired because he didn’t like what she said about Charlie Kirk.
Have a good week, all.
alex said on October 12, 2025 at 5:48 pm
Glad I’m retired. I have no compunction anymore when talking about irredeemable scumbags like Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump and I probably would have gotten my own ass fired by now. It’s a shame it has come to that. Here’s hoping that masked secret police won’t be at my door one day to drag me off to prison.
I find google’s AI summaries useful sometimes but I haven’t been tempted to use ChatGPT or Grok or any of that stuff. I’ve seen people producing some rather bad amateur art with AI programs; now that’s something I might consider.
540 chars
susan said on October 12, 2025 at 5:58 pm
In the search box, enter your query and put -ai or -AI at the end of it. That usually eliminates AI crap.
105 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 12, 2025 at 7:03 pm
I’m always a late adapter, so it will be awhile before I dip a toe into this stuff. There’s a scary story in today’s NYT Opinion section about what AI might evolve into and if you’re thinking HAL9000, Colossus: The Forbin Project or Skynet, you’re on the right track.
Yesterday, ICE thugs were active in my neighborhood of Lincoln Square, arresting landscapers and abusing a WGN-TV employee who happened upon the scene. They also smashed into a car when leaving, but if course, didn’t stop. Many of our neighbors–scores if not hundreds– lined the streets around schools to protect students walking home. A group of Catholic priests and laypeople walked to the ICE processing center carrying communion to give to prisoners, who are overwhelming Hispanic Catholics. ICE told them no. Our two U.S. senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, have been denied access to the building at least twice. Earlier this week, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chigago was pelted by pepper balls while his hands were raised in prayer. These assholes are the Biffs of the world, loud, strong, arrogant and dumb.
Next Saturday is No Kings Day. There are protests planned locations near you in all 50 states. A massive turnout will do a great deal to quell this idea of paid professional protesters.
1297 chars
Sherri said on October 12, 2025 at 8:03 pm
I dislike that AI has become synonymous with Large Language Models like ChatGPT. Of course, I use AI. The camera in my iPhone uses sophisticated AI techniques to take amazing pictures. For that matter, antilock braking systems could be considered AI; my husband and I joke that things are only considered AI as long as they don’t work, and once they work reliably, they aren’t AI anymore.
No, I don’t use ChatGPT. I ignore the Google AI summary. If I’m going to have to check it anyway, it’s not saving me any time, and I don’t trust it enough yet not to check it. But I do know lots of people who do use it. A friend uses it to get the tone right on emails. I don’t have problems doing that, but then I’ve been writing emails longer than she’s been alive. I also know how much each query to ChatGPT actually costs, and don’t want to become reliant on it for routine things, since OpenAI is losing money in the billions and billions of dollars and they’re running out of places to raise more money from. It’s a huge bubble, something like 40% of GDP, and it’s going to collapse.
1107 chars
Deborah said on October 12, 2025 at 8:33 pm
Paul Krugman has been writing about the AI bubble for awhile and predicts it will collapse and it will be bad because it’s such a huge percentage of our GDP as Sherri said.
I’ve mentioned before that our book club selection last month was Empire AI, I forget the author’s name. I couldn’t get through it. The parts I remember are the parts about how much of an asshole Sam Altman is.
I tried chat GPT once, something about gardens, I never think about it, so I’m not tempted to use it again.
We’re hosting our next book club get together this Wednesday, it will be the first time we’ve had 10 people in our place actually all sitting down. We’ve had numbers of students up here but they were only here for about 15 mins, all standing. The book this time is Middlemarch by George Eliot and I’ve still got a third of it to go before Weds.
865 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 12, 2025 at 8:34 pm
40% of our GDP is from Open AI, is that what you’re saying, Sherri? Huh. And in possibly related news, book distributor Baker & Taylor is closing down. Time was they ruled the roost for libraries buying books; my mom said 90% of her library’s books came from them. Every box I received at college and for many years to come was a Baker and Taylor box. Sturdy enough for books and to be used several times again.
415 chars
Sherri said on October 12, 2025 at 8:48 pm
40% of our GDP is not directly OpenAI, but is tied to all the capital being expended on the data centers (or more properly, compute centers) being built or promised to support all the LLM training and queries. There’s a lot of funny money and downright lies in what’s being reported, but there’s still shovels in the ground and chips being bought and electricity and water being consumed to cool all those chips.
OpenAI is at the center of all of it, having signed deals that promise $1 trillion (trillion with a T), from a company that doesn’t make money, will probably lose $10 billion this year, and has no path to profitability yet. There are all sorts of weird circular deals where chip company Nvidia will loan money to other companies to allow them to buy Nvidia chips, or the deal with OpenAI and Oracle, where OpenAI is promising $300 billion it doesn’t have to Oracle for data centers that Oracle doesn’t have, full of chips that Oracle hasn’t bought.
And even though the tech seems ubiquitous, no one has demonstrated any use cases for it that people would be willing to pay for. It’s a very expensive toy.
1140 chars
Sherri said on October 12, 2025 at 8:59 pm
Since I enjoy bad things happening to Penn State football, I am happy to report that after making it to the semifinals of last year’s championship and beginning this season ranked number 2, after losing three games in a row, Penn State has fired their football coach. The final straw was losing to Northwestern yesterday in Happy Valley. The school will owe ex-coach James Franklin $45 million dollars, because they gave him a huge guaranteed contract extension in 2021.
472 chars
Deborah said on October 13, 2025 at 4:24 am
They are building one of those centers or trying to, south of Albuquerque, I think it’s for Meta, I could be wrong. And people are pissed because of all the water it will use. It also won’t provide many jobs. I’m not sure where it stands now.
248 chars
ROGirl said on October 13, 2025 at 4:34 am
If you want an AI-free Google search, try this.
https://udm14.com/
69 chars
Dorothy said on October 13, 2025 at 8:55 am
I have not had very many conversations with anyone about AI but this past summer our daughter told us that her partner used ChatGPT to plot a trip from D.C. to various Major League ball parks, flying into Chicago, renting a car and allowing enough time to drive between parks. He had a great itinerary planned that included Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland and maybe one or two others. He eventually adjusted his trip to cut out the Cincinnati stop. It took into consideration the time needed to drive from place to place, time to stop to eat or pee, etc. I was fascinated by this and it seemed, to me, to be a brilliant way to use that technology. Would I do it for myself? Maybe but I tend to doubt it.
Sherri our daughter is a Penn State alum (class of 2005) and I understand where you’re coming from. Our son has his Master’s from Penn State. But we tend to be supportive of our kids’ schools to some extent. We are glad they fired the coach, though. I like seeing them win – except when they play Pitt. Hubby went to Pitt and that’s our favorite in our house!
1066 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 13, 2025 at 9:01 am
Penn State’s now ex-coach will earn a quarter a second for the next six years for not working. Well done, everyone.
115 chars
JodiP said on October 13, 2025 at 10:07 am
One aspect of AI/LLM that I am sure all are aware s the incredible energy and water costs, as Deborah noted. My employer is somewhat encouraging us to use Microsoft copilot. However, one of our big priorities is mitigating climate change, so the use undermines our goals. I was in a meeting in which someone demonstrated how to use it. I put that concern in the chat but nobody else seemed too worried about it. A co-worker and I were having a private chat, and he knew about all these data centers that are opening up all over Minnesota, which I was unaware of.
562 chars
Jenine said on October 13, 2025 at 10:29 am
I work in Ed Tech and live in ABQ. LLMs can’t fail fast enough in my opinion. The energy and water use cost needs to be made explicit.
134 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 13, 2025 at 12:28 pm
DC Comics has just announced they will never use AI, good for them.
I swear my doctor’s office is using it to respond to MyChart requests. They seem canned and often don’t answer my question. Express Scripts won’t fill single month prescriptions anymore so I asked for a three month scrip. Simple, no?
They sent a scrip for another inhaler instead, and I’m a little miffed I’ve had to pay for something I’ll likely not use. The new medicine is working so great for my post-Covid breathing issues that I don’t need inhalers anymore. I like having a good relationship with medical providers so I didn’t write how I really feel about it.
642 chars
Jakash said on October 13, 2025 at 1:30 pm
Piling on to Sherri and Jeff G.’s observations about Penn State.
Not that college football has ever featured a hearty match-up of student-athletes competing for the love of the game and old-fashioned school spirit in my lifetime. But, man, the current completely overwhelming influence of $$$ is outrageous. Add in legalized gambling, and what could go wrong?
Even so, a nearly $50 million buyout for a coach whose record against top-ten teams was 4 – 21? “Franklin’s .160 winning percentage against AP top-10 teams is tied for the third-worst record by a coach (minimum 25 games) at a single school since the poll era began in 1936, according to ESPN Research.”
Just absurd.
On the other hand, how ’bout those #3 Hoosiers?!
740 chars
Jason T. said on October 13, 2025 at 1:44 pm
Julie @ No. 6:
Baker & Taylor is one of those companies that’s been passed from one private equity investor to another for the last 20 years. I guess they finally drained it dry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_%26_Taylor
235 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 13, 2025 at 2:22 pm
It’s JoAnn Fabrics all over again. I wish Connie was still in the world so we could get her take. Baker & Taylor provided books that were library ready, even the cataloging with cards in the old days. This was a boon for small libraries without a technical services department.
In fact, for awhile they tried to take over a lot of library services, including what books to buy and what books to cull. There was a kerfuffle two directors back at the Allen County Public Library about this. They tried to say it was only books that hadn’t circulated, but patrons presented evidence that they had returned books and only a month later they were missing from the system. The director had pulled a lot of questionable tactics and I think this was got her fired.
B&T also had a lawsuit with the worldwide cataloging institution, OCLC, and they weren’t likely to win. They were using the OCLC catolog to enrich themselves without payment to OCLC.
I kinda did go down the rabbit hole, but both my mom and best friend were librarians so over the years I’ve heard a lot of chatter.
1089 chars
Sherri said on October 13, 2025 at 2:45 pm
The Big Ten, of which Penn State is a member, and which has 18 members, is closing in on a $2+billion private equity infusion of cash.
https://www.sportspro.com/news/big-ten-conference-uc-investments-private-capital-vote-dazn-october-2025/
For now, they’ve managed to set some limits on how much they’ll have to pay players, but coaching salaries seem to have no limits. James Franklin was only 16th on the list of highest paid CFB coaches.
https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/football/coach
514 chars
Suzanne said on October 13, 2025 at 4:20 pm
I just want to know where to apply for jobs that pay you enormous sums of money to go away after you screw up royally? My employers never did that. They just fired or laid people off.
183 chars
Dexter Friend said on October 13, 2025 at 5:50 pm
I was sent to the new medical facility in Findlay
today for a consult for arthritic pain; the doctor, who kept me in a little exam room waiting for 50 minutes, asked if it was OK to use AI , however they use it…I said fine, I use it many times day, because I like it.
Earlier, Trump spoke for over an hour, mostly bragging of HIS peace agreement. But…there ain’t no peace agreement at all. I watched a few pundits explain this before I had to drive down the road this morning. You can ask AI, I bet they have it right.
Baseball. For Toronto and Seattle fans, I know you are ecstatic, same for Milwaukee’s best fans, and for LA fans, same shit, different year…hell, there were thousands of empty seats for NLDS games at Chavez Ravine.
Last night I did something I have never done: I flipped and clicked channels back and forth because I had to see my Lions shit the bed with all their replacement players, and I always watched baseball over football, and recording one to watch later wasn’t appealing.
1016 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 13, 2025 at 8:31 pm
This seemed of interest to some here: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did several interviews with the Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit from 1995-2014. She stipulated that the transcripts would be available 5 years after her death. Those transcripts are now public. Enjoy!
https://dcchs.org/judges/ginsburg-ruth-bader-2/?portfolioCats=11
341 chars
Mark P said on October 13, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I have mentioned before that Microsoft plans to build a billion dollar data center at the bottom of the mountain where I live. They announced on October ‘23 and claim they will break ground this year. So far there is no sign of any activity. Some of my neighbors are concerned about water usage because we are all on wells on the mountain, and availability of ground water was apparently one reason they chose the site. Personally, I hope they break ground soon, bring in some West Coaster to manage things, he wants a house nearby, and he pays twice what my house is worth.
576 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 14, 2025 at 12:35 pm
Speaking of JoAnn Fabrics, their bankrupty also pulled down the so-called Big 4 pattern companies that were sold there. Now they’ve been bought for a bargain price, and the one printing plant capable of printing on tissue paper will also remain open. I haven’t sewn any clothes for years so I’m part of the problem, I guess.
Broadway musicians have authorized a strike, because they’re paid crap and don’t always get insurance. I support them. I’m also leaving Sunday on a trip to see Broadway shows. Not everything is refundable. Eek.
538 chars
Jakash said on October 14, 2025 at 1:12 pm
NN, 10/5/25: “Just go see ‘One Battle After Another’ and thank me later.”
Thank you!
Not that yours was the only recommendation, but it was surely a trusted one. Among others, a local guy who’s active on Bluesky has been promoting it, too. I think he’s seen it twice, if not more, and reminded people that the Music Box Theatre in Chicago (a gem from 1929 that’s treasured by many), was the only place in Illinois presenting it in the 70 mm. format. Ending today (in that format, it will continue in a smaller theater there). So that goaded us into going last night. (I figured going during the freaking Bears game might be good timing. There was still a pretty nice crowd.) And they were the most expensive movie tickets we’ve ever bought, but worth it!
As Nancy noted: “one of the best experiences one can have with art is to find a great piece of it before you know too much about it.” With that in mind, I’ll just quote the Bluesky guy’s succinct review after seeing it the day it opened: “Now that’s a fucking movie.” He’s a mild-mannered gent, who seldom curses in a post, just to be clear.
1113 chars
nancy said on October 14, 2025 at 2:49 pm
So glad you liked it! It really was great, the kind of movie that makes you happy and excited about the whole art form.
119 chars
Sherri said on October 14, 2025 at 1:23 pm
We’re in NYC the week of Nov 10 to see Broadway shows as well. Obviously, I support the musicians (and the actors and stage managers also negotiating contracts), but it will be disappointing if we don’t get to see the shows.
228 chars
Sherri said on October 14, 2025 at 2:37 pm
Republicans think it’s terrible that they keep being called Nazis. I think it’s terrible that they keep acting like Nazis.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146
221 chars
Sherri said on October 14, 2025 at 4:28 pm
I guess someone who has his teenage son monitor his porn intake would feel threatened by Portland’s nude bicycle ride protest, but at least you can be sure they weren’t carrying any concealed weapons.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2025/10/us-house-speaker-calls-portland-naked-bike-ride-most-threatening-thing-ive-seen-yet.html
340 chars
Sherri said on October 14, 2025 at 7:18 pm
Young members of the left take a lot of flak for being too woke, because they do such controversial things as use Latinx, respect pronouns, and think Palestinians are people, too, while young members of the right are busy praising Hitler.
But yeah, left wing extremism is the real problem in the country.
307 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 15, 2025 at 8:50 am
I think this short film (aka TV ad from 1969) will strike a bell for many here: happy Wednesday, one and all . . .
https://youtu.be/P8ti1hnLiLw
https://newengland.com/food/wednesday-is-prince-spaghetti-day/
208 chars
alex said on October 15, 2025 at 10:02 am
Fun nostalgia trip, but since becoming diabetic I’ve gotten onto the imported pasta bandwagon and sworn off brands like Prince. Italian-made pasta doesn’t spike my blood sugar like the “enriched” and ultra-processed American product. I also make my own sauce from scratch, and anyone who tells you that you can’t make a better sauce than what comes in a jar has never tried. Sure it’s more work, but so worth it.
412 chars
David C said on October 15, 2025 at 10:33 am
I didn’t know Italian pasta didn’t spike blood sugar as much. I looked it up and sure enough. I was a dedicated carb hound and I really miss pasta, so this is great news for me.
177 chars
alex said on October 15, 2025 at 11:17 am
David C, another trick I’ve learned is that cooked rice or potatoes that have been refrigerated overnight have a much lower glycemic index than when they were freshly cooked because the molecular structure changes. Reheating them doesn’t negate it. It’s possible to enjoy your favorite carbs if you’re willing to do some planning and take extra steps.
351 chars
Dexter Friend said on October 15, 2025 at 11:26 am
Last night, finally, some Kansas Republican leaders denounced the ‘I Love Hitler’ social media platforms that all these Young Republicans are into.
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/-i-love-hitler-leaked-texts-expose-young-republicans-racist-chat-politico-reports-249903173822
278 chars