News Highlights, June 30th

What’s hot? In Texas? What’s not!!! But I wrote a whole post about the excessive heat, now on to other hot stuff from this past week. And since I skipped last week I have plenty to write about.

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Madonna went to ICU on Saturday

And we didn’t know until Thursday…

Apparently she was found unresponsive in her NYC apartment as a result of a bacterial infection. It was so bad her team had an emergency discussion to plan for her death. But the Queen of Pop looks like she’ll fully recover and is now back home. This may have an impact on her new tour that celebrates the 40th anniversary of her hit, Holiday

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Tourists Acting Badly

Back in 2017 I wrote about people being stupid uh i mean reckless around wild animals on Medium.com. Nothing has changed in that regard. And in the last decade or so there has been an increasing amount of news regarding the hazards of volumes of tourists (over tourism) visiting delicate places. And when you have way too many visitors that increases the percentage of them who will act very badly, and that means destructively. Google it…. it’s shocking how out of control, globally, this problem has become. I’m sure places are torn between worrying about their treasured places and animals versus taking in those tourism dollars and, as we know, in the USA the latter will always win out.

This week there were three stories that caught my eye –

1. Idiot vandalizes the Colosseum… I mean, the absolute entitlement of this moron… right? He’s been identified as a British personal trainer and I understand the Italian government want to have a word with the lad.
2. Yellowstone tourists disregards rules to dip toe in geothermal spring. Proving that entitlement isn’t age or nationality restricted.
3. Even more tourists caught harassing huge bison at Yellowstone, despite warnings… and why? SELFIES! smh

I love to plan and have adventures but in reality we don’t even need to go anymore. You can enjoy wild places virtually and not impact precious places by using explore.org for example. Okay, it’s not as great as being there but if you really care about wildlife and wild beautiful places it is worth considering.

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Putin v Prigozhin

I was spellbound as I kept track of the Wagner Group’s march of justice on Moscow. They were only 200km from Moscow! I don’t know what I was hoping for… a coup, the murder of Putin, the end of the war with Ukraine? Only the latter, I think. All I know is when I heard that Prigozhin had stopped I was disappointed.

Lukashenko is credited for saving Prigozhin and the group but an interesting theory is that he was really saving himself.

“”Lukashenko was not saving Putin. He was saving himself. He realised that if Prigozhin reached Moscow he would be the first to crumble,” Franak Viacorka, chief adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told Reuters.

“Lukashenko is so vulnerable right now and so dependent on Putin’s will.”

Putin said the West wants to see Russians killing each other. Nope. Wrong. Just you Vlad, they want to see you stop the assault on Ukraine or die trying.

I had a dear friend who thought the war in Ukraine would not last more than a couple of months and here we are, almost a 1.25 years later. It’s one of those situations that always niggles at the back of the mind until something, like this, thrusts it in our faces again. Of course, it’s not niggling to those living it. We all over estimated Putin’s power and we underestimated Ukraine’s staying power, thanks to a little help from their friends. What will come next? Putin’s been hurt by this, no doubt.

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Musk v Zuck Cage Match?

Bored billionaires? If I absolutely had to bet on one… I still wouldn’t because I greatly dislike them both particularly Zuck. And I don’t think it’s going to happen anyway, do you? (I don’t believe Musk weighs 187 either). That added IQ cracked me up.

Musk tweeted, “I have this great move that I call ‘The Walrus’, where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing.” Yeah, I bet you do. I mean… is this news? No. Moving on.

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Netherlands doctors are euthanizing people with autism, intellectual disabilities: study

The Dutch are front runners when it comes to being progressive in giving their citizens rights … like legalized prostitution, legalized drugs, and in 2002 passing a law allowing doctors to kill suicidal patients as per their request. The first country to do so. But I believe that was for the purpose of people with unbearable physical and or mental anguish due to cancer and other incurable illnesses. But nearly 40 people, five younger than 30, have been legally euthanized between 2012 and 2021 who cited autism as the sole or a major reason for their decision to end their lives. source

I thought this was pretty interesting and I wonder what, if anything, will come of this study. Personally, I think if an adult wants to end their life, FOR ANY REASON, that should be their choice. Is that non-pc of me?

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The Mouth aka Donald Trump

There’s just too much. I can’t. The bit about his lusty talk about Ivanka, his boastful talk about the Iran war plans and how much he hates Milley, and the mind boggling fact that the worse things get for him, the higher he goes in the polls. Here’s what I think… at this point, Trump believes he really needs to be elected to get out of trouble. But can he pardon himself? I guess we’ll see.

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Biden or RFK, Jr?

Lots of people are saying they’d rather vote for RFK, Jr than Biden because… wait for it….. Biden is too old. But RFK, Jr would be 70 when he’s elected. That’s not exactly young, is it?

Not for nothing Biden has implemented quite a bit of very successful policy… even the GOPers who voted against the policies then brag about getting the positive benefits from them. And what has RFK done? Well, he’s been anti-vax until… now he claims he’s not anti-vax. Wait, what? As if what he did to his suicidal prior wife wasn’t enough… just sayin.

Isn’t there anyone we can really be excited about anymore? Fact is, until we get money out of politics (which will never happen) we’ll never have a decent selection of candidates.

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AI UPDATES

I have an Anki Vector robot (which i absolutely love) and did a little checking to see if anyone is using it with OpenAI… and found this. Which led me to this:

I want!

Here are more AI highlights with a little help from my AI guru, Dr. Alan D. Thompson, I can share from his video this week (please follow him, it’s worth it if you’re obsessed with AI like I am) and I highly recommend watching the entire video, soooo informative:

• CS India Decides to Appoint ChatGPT As Its New CEO
• Microsoft NUWA-XL Creates 11 minute The Flintstones cartoon all on its own
• MidJourney 5.2 out this week and it’s gorgeous and nearly impossible to use since everyone is doing it. (I haven’t been able to access it for a couple of days now.)
• ChatGPT 3.5 released on 11/28/2022 has gained more than 100m users in its first two months and is now estimated to produce a volume of text every 14 days that is equivalent to all the printed works of humanity. daaaaamn
• Have you chatted with Pi yet? Go to https://heypi.com/talk

Vernor Vinge is also an author. My son gave me A Fire Upon the Deep ages ago. So good. Scientists writing sci-fi, gotta love it. But how about his thought that we have achieved ‘the singularity’? hmmmm