To be perfectly clear.

National Weather Service style: The quantity of pollen grains in the air for Wednesday will remain relatively stable in the very high range. No change doesn’t mean no pollen, it just means that pollen producing plants are delivering pollen at a steady pace.

So confusing.

There’s a new TV show called Lost Monster Files. Three words, so many questions.

• How long have monsters been keeping files?
• Were these card files, paper files, or has everything been moved to the cloud?
• What kinds of information do monsters have to keep, anyway?
• How did the monsters lose the files, anyway? Theft? Deterioration? Sloppiness? Fire? All at once, or over a period of time?
• Or does ‘lost’ modify monster and not files, that is we have the files but no monster?
• Are these all now cold case files, or are there any ongoing investigations? And who will be responsible for maintaining the files, including storage fees, while the monsters are missing?

O.G. Streaming.

Unless something intrudes, mornings are spent reading and writing, listening to the radio, and making sure Belle the Collaborator Cat has a comfortable lap to nap in.

I mention this because of a post by Jeff Goins about coming off sabbatical (a month-long holiday or break).

At one point, Jeff mentions listening to records as part of his calming routine. Although I generally like the old school nature of things, having to get up and flip a record every twenty minutes or so harshes the mellow.

Instead, we listen to the radio. It plays music of a type that we like (classical), and while there are a suitable number of recognizable songs (5th Symphony or Bolero, anyone?), there are a number of pleasant surprises as well, and of course ‘melodies’ that reinforce our beliefs of what is not good or likable (is it too late to get some professional help for John Cage?).

While listening, I wondered if radio is really the original gangster music streaming service. Are we really ahead of the ‘early adopter’ music scene?

About those radio streams.

or, creepy realizations.

There are just under 90 broadcast radio stations in the Hampton Roads area where I live. talk. hip hop. sports. smooth jazz. rock. country. religious. Even though we only listen to two or three, all those other stations cheerfully continue broadcasting, sending their signals everywhere, including not only into radio receivers but also all through me.

Very unnerving, thinking about all those jazz solos and gospel chairs coursing all through my body. I’m most creeped out by the thought of all those obnoxious, angry talk show hosts and rappers bouncing anger and hate into my systems.

Also John Cage.

Now I have a new worry. What if all those waves are sending tiny tendrils drilling deep into my DNA, the very essence and substance of my being? Something that sets my nerve endings to jangling and my teeth to chattering. I don’t know about the DNA, but definitely collateral damage elsewhere.

So tired and over it.

I am over buying fruits and vegetables that are rotting from the inside. First it was apples; then potatoes, now pears. Not nice, vegetable people.

Two notes on A.I.

I know I promised no more, but…

Note 1:

Recently Chinese software engineers announced they had developed an artificial intelligence engine for less money and with fewer people than their Western ‘competitors like OpenAI.
OpenAI founder Sam Altman declared that the Chinese had built their program on OpenAI, effectively ‘stealing’ it.
Which is rich, considering OpenAI was developed by ‘scraping’ (i.e., stealing) billions of sentences and pictures from the internet and web, much of it copyrighted.

Note 2:

One of the concerns people have is that AI will kill artistic forms of expression. I doubt it. Being creative is built into our systems.
History confirms this. Photography didn’t kill painting. Movies didn’t kill theater. And on and on.

Young felons?

From the MSN: Thousands of baby turtles released in Brazil.

I wonder what they did to be incarcerated at such a young age.

Was that an affirmative ‘moo?’

So much cattle news, coming so fast and furiously. From the BBC: Cow researchers find meanings behind moos.

The scientists are not quite content with this startling revelation, but also, according to The A Register, In a major breakthrough in bovine linguistic research, experts have confirmed that cows moo with accents distinct to their herd.

Frankly, I did not even know of the existence of the field of ‘bovine linguistic research.’ Yeah, I knew that scholars had done some translations of the musings of Elsie, but I was not aware that research had progressed this far (actually, had progressed at all).

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time and additional research before we see classes in beginning and intermediate Cow on forward-looking university course listings.

Welcome back, Popular Mechanics!

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Popular Mechanics, but it appears the gang of lovable rogues just took a break to readjust their tinfoil hats. It was worth the wait, as they now tell us Aliens Are Breaking the Laws of Physics to Visit Us on Earth, New Theory Claims.

I gotta ask: Aliens, are we really that interesting that we’re worth your getting a ticket or two from the physics police? Those fines are brutal!

Those of you who are old enough to remember when magazines were printed on paper will no doubt remember Popular Mechanics was the mag responsible for stories claiming we were all going to be living in floating cities and owning personal helicopters by now. Maybe those stories were based on the same scientific rigor and peerless prognosticating as their current crop of breathless journalism seems to be.

Although to be fair, the Popular Mechanics stuff is no more banana-wacky than some more mainstream theories like black holes and dark matter.

So how…?

One of the rules at the very exclusive San Vincente Club prohibits ‘uninvited engagement’ with members or guests you do not know.

I wonder—are there signs or pins that indicate the member is open to contact? Are there Talking/No Talking zones? And are members responsible for providing the signs or pins, or does the club provide them? And do both members need to have such a sign or pin? Maybe this would be a good use for those ‘Hello! My name is _______’ stickers, with ‘you can engage with me’ on the bottom.

Racing to the bottom.

I’ve mentioned before how much I dislike the whole ‘you’re doing it wrong’ meme. So negative! Now it’s being joined by new negativity, as seen in Jolly Ranchers Don’t All Taste The Same. Here’s The Worst Flavor.

I don’t know how many flavors of Jolly Rancher there are, but being a top-down kind of guy, I’d start the list with the best flavor, so I know which ones to pick out and eat first.

Sort of like picking the red M&Ms out of the bowl.