How do you use social media?
Very restrictively. For informational purposes only, and for here, it helps me discover patterns the ongoing 4D chess of the world.
I cut out most of the childish nonsense. People posting meals, and especially the past that I already said goodbye to once.
My best move was eliminating Facebook.
When you agree to TikTok’s terms of service after downloading the app, you’re handing communist China the keys to the kingdom. I dug up all the creepy things TikTok tracks and how it does it. Plus, how to quickly find red flags in the terms and conditions.
Think the TikTok paranoia is overblown? It’s not. Here’s the laundry list of data you give up every time you scroll. It’s a lot:
Seem like a fair trade for cute kitty videos and a new dance challenge? Didn’t think so.
TikTok also embeds data into images and ads to track the time and date you view a page, complete with a description. The amount of data TikTok collects is so extensive that it can come dangerously close to cloning your entire phone. Where TikTok stores its data is also a major red flag for Congress. Information collected in the U.S. is connected straight to servers in China.
I’ve been warning you about the communist China app for a while now, but scanning any app’s terms and conditions too quickly could put you at risk. Here’s how to quickly spot red flags:
Don’t forget to share this article with family and friends so they know the risks using TikTok poses.
I wouldn’t touch it like I won’t use Google or Facebook
Saying “physiognomy is real” is a top-notch dig because it insults both body & mind. Much of the time, it holds true. Turns out, you CAN judge a book by its cover.
Click to see the rest of them in replies, quite revealing and I bet you guess every one of them
There’s a specter haunting the tunnels of a particle accelerator at CERN.
In the Super Proton Synchrotron, physicists have finally measured and quantified an invisible structure that can divert the course of the particles therein, and create problems for particle research.
It’s described as taking place in phase space, which can represent one or more states of a moving system. Since four states are required to represent the structure, the researchers view it as four-dimensional.
This structure is the result of a phenomenon known as resonance, and being able to quantify and measure it takes us a step closer to solving a problem universal to magnetic particle accelerators.
“With these resonances, what happens is that particles don’t follow exactly the path we want and then fly away and get lost,” says physicist Giuliano Franchetti of GSI in Germany. “This causes beam degradation and makes it difficult to reach the required beam parameters.”
Resonance occurs when two systems interact and sync up. It could be a resonance emerging between planetary orbits as they gravitationally interact in their journey around a star, or a tuning fork that starts to sympathetically ring when sound waves from another tuning fork hit its tines.
I bet there is a special heat setting for his ass in Hell for what he did, but all of the people that went there are on a hot seat here. They are either being protected or blackmailed by the DOJ and various agencies.
Nearly 200 mobile devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious “pedophile island” in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. Maps of these visitations generated by a troubled international data broker with defense industry ties, discovered last week by WIRED, document the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender.
The data amassed by Near Intelligence, a location data broker roiled by allegations of mismanagement and fraud, reveals with high precision the residences of many guests of Little Saint James, a United States Virgin Islands property where Epstein is accused of having groomed, assaulted, and trafficked countless women and girls.
Some girls, prosecutors say, were as young as 14. The former attorney general of the US Virgin Islands alleged that girls as young as 12 were trafficked to Epstein by those within his elite social circle.
some people are a special level of sick
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
I have spatial awareness and can see how things fit together. Also, as an introvert, I can read people through their body language I’ve had these all my life, but became cutely aware of them as I grew older.
A team of Japanese researchers analyzed blood transfusions taken from individuals who were previously inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines. The researchers found that experimental COVID-19 vaccines destroy the continuity and biochemistry of human blood in six key areas. The vaccine damage is so significant; the contaminated blood can further damage unvaccinated and vaccinated people who receive blood transfusions or organ transplants from the vaccinated. The researchers published a pre-print paper on their findings and make suggestions for specific tests, testing methods and regulations to help deal with these risks.
Now the researchers are sounding the alarm about serious risks associated with using blood from people inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines. They are calling on the global medical community to put an end to these products.
“The health injuries caused by genetic vaccination are already extremely serious, and it is high time that countries and relevant organizations take concrete steps together to identify the risks and to control and resolve them,” the researchers wrote.
There are six key areas of blood contamination from vaccinated blood that researchers are concerned about:
After Google Gemini was revealed to be rewriting history from a woke perspective, with racial history being distorted when it was asked simple prompts, numerous former Google employees spoke of the woke culture at Google and how it has zealously adopted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices.
In February, Google paused its AI chatbot’s image generation feature after it was accused of racism against white people. The chatbot was accused of refusing to generate images of white people after Frank Fleming, a writer for Daily Wire scripted content, repeatedly asked the chatbot — whose “next-generation model” Gemini 1.5 offered image generation — for such images.
In a long X thread, Fleming began by asking for an image of a pope. Historically, popes have been white men, but the chatbot posted images of a dark-skinned man and woman. Fleming then proceeded to ask for images of medieval knights (garnering four images, two dark-skinned women and two dark-skinned men); jokingly asked for someone eating “a mayo sandwich on white bread;” asked for an image of a Viking; and then asked for images of groups that are traditionally non-white (such as Japanese samurai and Zulu warriors) to see if the chatbot would show diversity by including white people. It did not.
If all the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity functionaries and their supporters were a corporation — DIE, Inc. — it might rival Apple’s market value. Its “product” of eviscerating America has been widely successful. Just look at the universities (think Claudine Gay), falling military enlistments, the prevalence of “woke” marketing for such iconic brands as Bud Lite, the demonization of white male government employees and the like. Moreover, like all successful corporations, it is constantly innovating to expand market share. After all, America still thrives, so opportunities remain for further evisceration.
The latest DIE Inc. venture focuses on reducing America’s dependence on imported semiconductors. The significance of this latest DIE venture cannot be exaggerated. The good news is that Americans finally realized the dangers of this dependency. Even President Biden has acknowledged the issue. According to a recent White House press release, “…over time, the United States went from producing nearly 40% of the world’s chips to just over 10%, undermining America’s national security and making our economy vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions.” To achieve this technological self-sufficiency, the Biden administration proposed the CHIPS and Science Act.
These chipmakers must hire and train the “right number” of women, people of color, and “justice involved individuals” (i.e., “ex-cons). The bill calls for using “minority-owned businesses” and cooperation with ““minority-serving institutions.” There are 19 sections in the legislation dealing with minority groups, including hiring a Chief Diversity Officer at the National Science Foundation to promote national security.
More
Woke and DEI ruin everything they touch, from Bud Light to your electronics
Chiefly, men’s superior mathematical ability explains why they are overrepresented in fields that require strong mathematical talent to succeed (e.g. physics).
Leslie et al. (2015) advocated a model where a stereotype that a given field requires brilliance to succeed scares women away from the field, thus resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy similar to stereotype threat. Leslie however ignored decades of findings in stereotype accuracy research, where stereotypes are generally known to accurately track real existing differences. As such, a simpler explanation for the data is that the brilliance stereotype results from real existing differences in academic ability between fields of study, which is also the variable that explains the different distribution of demographic groups in these fields due to differences in academic abilities.
As such, the rather obvious explanation for the correlation between field level “perceptions of brilliance” and female representation is that women are somewhat worse at math, don’t like math as much, and tend to avoid math heavy fields. A boring but accurate explanation.
Michael Culver, an esteemed British actor, passed away on Feb. 27 at the age of 85, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) reported.
Alliance Agents, who represented him for the last ten years, confirmed his passing. The agency did not share details about his death, according to THR. Culver was known for many roles, but his most famous was as Captain Needa in “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back.” He played the captain who disappoints Darth Vader and faces consequences, famously ending with “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and eat pie.
Pi has been calculated to over 50 trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
Animal House, Caddyshack, Richard Pryor – Live in Concert, The entire Star Trek TOS, Captain America – The Winter Soldier, Star Trek – The Wrath of Khan, Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back, Le Mans, Avengers, Captain America – The First Avenger, Star Trek, Best of Both Worlds
What are IQ test questions that people get right at different IQ levels (e.g., 100, 110, 120, 130, etc.)? Some folks have asked me to pull up data about this from a big study we ran on intelligence. These are all very rough approximations, but here you go:
IQ question thread 🧵
A question indicative of (very approximately) 100 IQ
A question indicative of (very approximately) 110 IQ
A question indicative of (very approximately) 120 IQ
It goes up to 130 and you can see it for yourself here.
I answered the questions easily, but it’s still fun to see how smart you are, or aren’t.
Woke ruins everything it touches, Google is evil and biased and you should never use it and they are discriminating against everything not DEI.
Last week, following Google’s Gemini disaster, it quickly became clear the $1.7 trillion-dollar giant had bigger problems than its hotly anticipated generative AI tool erasing white people from human history. Separate from the mortifying clownishness of this specific and egregious breach of public trust, Gemini was obviously — at its absolute best — still grossly inferior to its largest competitors. This failure signaled, for the first time in Google’s life, real vulnerability to its core business, and terrified investors fled, shaving over $70 billion off the kraken’s market cap. Now, the industry is left with a startling question: how is it even possible for an initiative so important, at a company so dominant, to fail so completely?
This is Google, an invincible search monopoly printing $80 billion a year in net income, sitting on something like $120 billion in cash, employing over 150,000 people, with close to 30,000 engineers. Could the story really be so simple as out-of-control DEI-brained management? To a certain extent, and on a few teams far more than most, this does appear to be true. But on closer examination it seems woke lunacy is only a symptom of the company’s far greater problems. First, Google is now facing the classic Innovator’s Dilemma, in which the development of a new and important technology well within its capability undermines its present business model. Second, and probably more importantly, nobody’s in charge.
Researchers successfully cooled positronium atoms, significantly impacting antimatter research and enabling new experiments in quantum electrodynamics and the potential for an antimatter Bose-Einstein condensate.
The international AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) collaboration at CERN, in which Prof. Giovanni Consolati of the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology participates on behalf of the Politecnico di Milano, experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, positronium (Ps) laser cooling using a particular laser system (alexandrite-based), specifically developed to meet the requirements of cooling: high intensity, large bandwidth and long duration of the pulse.
The equivalent temperature of the Ps atoms exiting from a porous target (at room temperature) hit by a positron beam decreased from 380 K to 170 K, corresponding to a decrease of the transversal component of Ps rms velocity from 54 km/s to 37 km/s.
Ps is a minor brother of hydrogen, with a positron replacing the proton. Consequently, it is lighter than hydrogen by about a factor 2000 and energy levels are reduced by a factor 2. It is unstable: in vacuum and in the ground state, with parallel spins of the two particles, it annihilates with a lifetime of only 142 ns. Ps cooling has to occur during its short lifespan and this makes the process so challenging with respect to ordinary atoms. Use of a large bandwidth pulsed laser has the advantage of cooling a large fraction of the positronium cloud while increasing their effective lifetime, resulting also in a higher number of Ps after cooling for further experimentation.
Let’s not forget that Data had a positronic neuronetwork. Don’t forget how many times Scotty saved the day by switching the anti-matter coupler to restore the warp drive.
In real life, it would be the ultimate weapon. Unleash that on someone is a can of whoop ass.
New AI-powered tools produce inaccurate election information more than half the time, including answers that are harmful or incomplete, according to new research.
The study, from AI Democracy Projects and nonprofit media outlet Proof News, comes as the U.S. presidential primaries are underway across the U.S. and as more Americans are turning to chatbots such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4 for information. Experts have raised concerns that the advent of powerful new forms of AI could result in voters receiving false and misleading information, or even discourage people from going to the polls.
More, but since it’s Google, 100% it’s also against Trump and covering for Biden
Better yet, don’t use any of them to spy on you, especially Google. The article says it can be used against you if you are in trouble with the law, but nevertheless, here it is:
1. Play doctor
You’re better off not asking Siri, Google or Alexa for any medical advice — not just lifesaving advice. Trusting those smart assistants might just make things worse. It’s always best to call or book a telehealth appointment with your doctor.
2. How to hurt someone
Don’t ask your smart assistant about harming someone, even if you’re just venting. Those chats with Siri or Google Assistant could come back to bite you if you end up on the wrong side of the law. Keep those kinds of thoughts to yourself.
3. Anything that ends up with your mug shot
Don’t ask Alexa where to buy drugs, where to hide a body or anything else suspicious. Like asking your smart assistant how to hurt someone, these types of questions could be used against you.
4. Be your telephone operator
If you need to call your closest Home Depot to see if they have something in stock, find the number yourself. The same goes for asking that assistant to call emergency services. Dialing 911 takes two seconds.
5. Deal with your money
Although voice assistants can connect to your financial apps, there are many security issues with voice data. Savvy cybercriminals can hack into your phone, steal your voice and use it to drain your accounts. Just log into your bank’s website or mobile app and call it a day.
6. “Will I die if I eat this?”
If you’re on a hike wondering if the berries you found would make a good snack, voice assistants aren’t reliable sources. There’s conflicting information online about poisonous foods and plants, and taking their advice could land you a trip to the hospital.
7. “Get rid of this.”
Don’t ask Alexa or Siri to clear your search history, delete an app or remove photos. I’ve had a few mishaps where a simple misunderstanding led to something important getting wiped out. Trust me, it’s worth the extra minute to do it manually.
In the week that Google’s new artificial intelligence platform launched, its seeming inability to produce images of white men regardless of the prompt made it an unmitigated disaster.
And with more information unearthed regarding the people responsible for Google Gemini’s insufferable wokeness, its deficiencies look much less like a bug and more like a feature.
As reported Thursday by the Babylon Bee’s news site, Not the Bee, the senior director of the project, Jack Krawczyk, addressed Gemini’s problems in a post on the X social media platform — before he locked his account.
“We are aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions, and we are working to fix this immediately,” Krawczyk said.
Between the wording of his post and Google’s decision to suspend Gemini’s image-generating feature, it appears the tech giant wants the insanely diverse images to seem like a simple mistake….only it wasn’t. Click on the link above
On the massive, 90B$ losses incurred by Google for its Winston Smithing of history through its AI image/video generator.
What is a little irritating to this site is that suddenly this event cost Google this much. We have been posting actual court-worthy evidence for well over a decade that Google breaks its OWN STATED RULES to give a neo-Marxist search result as opposed to the one its own rules state should be given. One article by an actual expert, not like the parachuted epidemiologists used to hump the vaccines and lock downs expert, but a real one from the private sector explained how Google returned false results on the word, Jihad, in order to deflect from its de facto and de jure meanings of attacks for the supremacy of Islam to some kind of inner reflection for self betterment like a Buddhist or something. Buddhists who of course, are frequent victims of actual jihad along with statuary of same. That was several years ago. Searching for it on our history, I have found likely a hundred other articles or videos on Google’s applied bias and all the same way. here is a fun one from an actual engineer at Google.
And the Google CEO says they aren’t going to change
I for one am glad. I’m old enough that most of my fucking up in life was before the internet and only I really know the story of my misdeeds and untoward activity.
A lot of people say stupid shit online, or brag about stuff they shouldn’t to show off or get likes. Until now, the internet was forever. It may still be if you search hard enough, but Google is evil and presents the worst of behavior easily. Now, the idiots may be protected.
Google will no longer be keeping a backup of the entire Internet. Google Search’s “cached” links have long been an alternative way to load a website that was down or had changed, but now the company is killing them off. Google “Search Liaison” Danny Sullivan confirmed the feature removal in an X post, saying the feature “was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”
The feature has been appearing and disappearing for some people since December, and currently, we don’t see any cache links in Google Search. For now, you can still build your own cache links even without the button, just by going to “https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:” plus a website URL, or by typing “cache:” plus a URL into Google Search. For now, the cached version of Ars Technica seems to still work. All of Google’s support pages about cached sites have been taken down.
Cached links used to live under the drop-down menu next to every search result on Google’s page. As the Google web crawler scoured the Internet for new and updated webpages, it would also save a copy of whatever it was seeing. That quickly led to Google having a backup of basically the entire Internet, using what was probably an uncountable number of petabytes of data. Google is in the era of cost savings now, so assuming Google can just start deleting cache data, it can probably free up a lot of resources.
Cached links were great if the website was down or quickly changed, but they also gave some insight over the years about how the “Google Bot” web crawler views the web. The pages aren’t necessarily rendered like how you would expect. In the past, pages were text-only, but slowly the Google Bot learned about media and other rich data like javascript (there are a ton of specialized Google Bots now). A lot of Google Bot details are shrouded in secrecy to hide from SEO spammers, but you could learn a lot by investigating what cached pages look like. In 2020, Google switched to mobile-by-default, so for instance, if you visit that cached Ars link from earlier, you get the mobile site. If you run a website and want to learn more about what a site looks like to a Google Bot, you can still do that, though only for your own site, from the Search Console.
click above for more, but I think you get the drift
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You’d think the Ghostbusters reboot loser, or maybe rewriting Star Wars to take out the real hero’s and substitute girls in the same exact role would have been a hint.
But no, we have the female Spiderman movie, Madame Web. As soon as I saw the trailer, I knew this was going to be bad, and it didn’t disappoint.
We owe “The Marvels,” “Eternals” and “Morbius” an apology.
Who knew superhero fare could sink as low as “Madame Web?”
This obscure, Spider-related heroine yields a terrible origin film, the kind with so many flaws it’s hard to point in just one direction.
The film’s future isn’t bright, but it could be reborn as a camp classic. That’s not what Hollywood’s once-mighty genre needs at this moment.
“Madame Web” starts poorly and never finds its footing. The opening scenes induce unintentional laughter, and it won’t be the only guffaws echoing in the theater.
Johnson remains an endearing on-screen presence, but she lacks the charisma a genre film demands. That’s still superior to her nemesis. Rahim delivers one of the worst performances in a superhero film … ever.
It’s that relentlessly bad.
Blame director S.J. Clarkson, who never gets a proper handle on the material and clearly could have coaxed better line readings from Rahim and co. In her defense, she’s forced to work with a script she penned alongside three collaborators.
This script might have passed muster for an “Afterschool Special” of yore, but for a film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe it’s soul crushing.
They continue to try and force this woke nonsense on us and the movie goers continue to stay away.
It’s not that tough. There is one Spiderman. He’s a guy and a teenager. We know the story. It’s the same for the rest of the superhero’s.
The audience is a bunch of geeks in their basement on their computer that go to conventions (over generalizing here, but it’s who obsesses over it). They are mostly white and guys.
The hero’s are men. Girls kick ass in a movie, but as soon as real life comes around, we see the result and it isn’t the movies. Look at all the 2nd rate trannies in girls sports dominating the top females.
Get woke, go broke, again.
You can’t turn on your phone, start an EV or use most connected devices without them, yet we still are beholden to China or the slave labor children who dig it up.
Politicians will have to “approve” the go ahead to mine them and save us a lot of supply chain problems and lower costs to the middle class, the current group being rogered by Congress.
The biggest hurdle is that China’s domination is in place as a lot of politicians are on the Chinese payroll and won’t approve the things best for the American people.
As you go to the election booth this year, watch and see if they help you, or help themselves to another serving of lobbyist money courtesy of China.
Now I have some good news to share. Our country could soon surpass China as the world leader in rare earth minerals after more than 2.34 billion metric tons were discovered in Wyoming.
American Rare Earths Inc announced that the reserves near Wheatland dramatically surpass the Asian nation’s 44 million metric tons, saying it ‘exceeded our wildest dreams’ after drilling only about 25 percent of the property.
The company has a stake in 367 mining claims across 6,320 acres of land in the Halleck Creek Project, along with four Wyoming mineral leases on 1,844 acres on the same project now called Cowboy State Mine.
The types of minerals at the site are used in smartphones, hybrid car motors and military technologies – among others.
Since China’s extraction ban, one company, American Rare Earths, has been working hard to expand our nation’s access options. It appears they may have struck the mother lode.
American Rare Earths Inc. has its sights on thousands of acres of land near Wheatland, Wyoming. The company disclosed in a technical report on Wednesday that it found 64% more rare earth minerals than it had originally envisioned in a March 2023 assessment of the land.
The newly disclosed figure of 2.34 billion metric tons of rare earth minerals found southwest of Wheatland by American Rare Earths Inc. could dwarf in size the 1.2 million metric ton estimates in northeastern Wyoming that one of its competitors claimed was one of the biggest discoveries in the world.
A metric ton equals about 2,200 pounds while a ton is 2,000 pounds.
“This exceeded our wildest dreams, and we only drilled on about 25% of the property,” said Donald Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths.
The company is the U.S.-based unit of an Australian-founded exploration company working in Wyoming.
Another company is also working on another potentially rich site for these valuable minerals.
Ramaco Resources revealed it had found a deposit of rare minerals near Sheridan in Wyoming, that could have a value of $37 billion.
Ramaco Resources CEO Randall Atkins told Cowboy State Daily: “We only tested it for 100, 200 feet, which is about the maximum you’d ever want to do a conventional coal mine.
I can only hope we will eventually have politicians and policy implementers that permit us to develop these valuable resources.
When I had foot surgery, we had to leave the seat up for 6 weeks in my house. It turned out that it wasn’t the problem that was purported for decades. I observed it silently.
This is 1000 words in each picture. I think the most relatable is how good cancelled plans are. What a relief. The one about how it is the best present you can give an introvert is spot on.
A sure way to make a movie flop is to hire a director who alienates a big chunk of the audience before the film is even released.
Will Disney ever learn? Not until it goes broke, it would seem.
The company has hired activist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy to direct the next “Star Wars” movie, slated to be released in 2026.
Obaid-Chinoy is on record saying, “We’re in 2024 now, and I think it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape the story in a galaxy far, far away.”
In case Obaid-Chinoy isn’t aware, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has led the “Star Wars” franchise for a decade. So much for breaking the glass ceiling. Kennedy’s been there, done that.
In a 2015 interview with Obaid-Chinoy, Jon Stewart observed that there seems to be a thread running through Obaid-Chinoy’s work — the idea that “men are a**holes.”
Stewart’s comment caused Obaid-Chinoy to giggle like a schoolgirl, exposing her hatred for roughly half the human population. I wonder if she holds male dogs or cats in equal disdain.
“I like to make men uncomfortable,” Obaid-Chinoy said in the interview. “I enjoy making men uncomfortable.”
I didn’t think it could be worse than the last three, but they managed to lower the bar. Look at who the hero was in Episodes 4,5 and 6 and stop making it be the opposite. They are even telling audiences that it’s going to suck
Get woke, go broke
I suppose everyone says this. I can’t change anything so I’m not going to try to. I’m just trying to enjoy these times. If I’d told myself what to do/not do, it would have turned out different. It might have changed the whole space/time continuum, and I don’t want to tempt God or the Sci Fi world.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and the present is gone in an instant.
I’ve been playing with ChatGPT looking to find either holes in the system or it going woke on me. It looks like I found both.
It’s still GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). The stuff I asked it is readily available online so I knew the answers before I asked it. I do this to try and catch it and the biased people behind it.
I’d had it with NASCAR for being woke and chasing away its’ fanbase. First it was banning the Confederate Flag, then country music and then DEI. So I asked it some questions. It wouldn’t even try to answer the obvious.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down after banning the confederate flag?
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on the long-term impact of NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag on TV ratings. NASCAR announced the ban on displaying the Confederate flag at its events in June 2020, as part of its commitment to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment.
It’s important to note that accurately attributing changes in TV ratings to a specific event or policy decision can be challenging due to the influence of various factors. TV ratings can be affected by race outcomes, changes in the competitive landscape, economic conditions, overall interest in the sport, and other variables.
For the most up-to-date information on NASCAR TV ratings and any potential trends related to the ban on the Confederate flag or other factors, it’s recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets and television rating agencies. The impact of such decisions on viewership can also be subjective, and opinions on these matters may vary.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down when they went woke?
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on NASCAR TV ratings related to any perceived shift in the organization’s approach or actions being characterized as “going woke.” It’s important to note that discussions around sports organizations and their viewership ratings can be complex, influenced by various factors, and opinions on the reasons for changes in ratings can differ.
The term “going woke” generally refers to actions taken by organizations to address social justice issues or adopt more inclusive policies. However, the impact on TV ratings can be influenced by a range of factors, including changes in the competitive landscape, viewer demographics, overall interest in the sport, economic conditions, and more.
For the most up-to-date and accurate information on NASCAR TV ratings, especially any changes associated with specific initiatives or shifts in approach, it’s recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets, NASCAR itself, or television rating agencies.
Please note that opinions on the relationship between sports organizations addressing social issues and changes in TV ratings can vary, and discussions on this topic can be nuanced and subjective.
Me: how much did NASCAR TV ratings go down from the Bubba Wallace issue (I already looked up that it did go down a lot)
ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don’t have specific data on the long-term impact of the Bubba Wallace incident on NASCAR TV ratings. The incident in question refers to the discovery of a noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway in June 2020. It was initially investigated as a potential hate crime but later determined to be a garage door pull rope.
The incident received significant media attention and sparked discussions about race and diversity within the sport. However, accurately measuring the impact on TV ratings is complex, as multiple factors can influence viewership.
NASCAR experienced a mix of challenges and opportunities during the 2020 season, including the COVID-19 pandemic, schedule changes, and efforts to address racial and social justice issues. While there were reports of increased interest and attention to NASCAR during certain periods of the season, the long-term impact on TV ratings can be influenced by various factors.
For the most up-to-date information on NASCAR TV ratings and any potential trends related to the Bubba Wallace incident or other factors, it is recommended to check recent reports from reliable sources, including sports media outlets and television rating agencies. Keep in mind that assessing the impact of specific events on TV ratings can be subjective and may involve analyzing data over time.
2023 marked Disney’s 100th anniversary of making movie magic.
It also marked a disastrous year at the box office.
Out of eight major theatrical releases from Disney this year, seven of them significantly underperformed with audiences not just in the U.S. but overseas as well.
A look back at the rough year for the House of Mouse:
One of the most popular film franchises in the 21st century has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ever since 2008’s “Iron Man,” Disney’s catalog of superheroes and the stars that play them drove tens of millions of Americans into theaters. That wasn’t the case with two out of the three Marvel flicks released in 2023.
The first was in February with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Despite an all-star cast including Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Bill Murray, the $200 million-priced film earned only $215 million domestically and $476 million worldwide, far short of the $600 million it needed to break even on its theatrical run, according to Variety. That’s less than the $519 million worldwide earnings from the first “Ant-Man” film in 2015 and the $623 million the second installment earned in 2018 (not adjusted for inflation).
“The Marvels,” however, opened to just $46 million and may not even reach $100 million domestically (its total gross so far is less than $90 million domestically and roughly $200 million worldwide), making it the lowest-grossing Marvel film in the entire franchise and putting it in box office disaster territory, given its reported $274 million budget.
I was a super hero fan and a Star Wars fan. Disney, courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy made them woke and terrible. Ultimately, the are all but unwatchable. It’s going to be a long time before I can see good movies again. Men, and white’s are not the villains every time. Captain America was a hero since WWII, even he is going woke in the new rendition.
I will probably see Ferrari though. I’d own one if I had some F/U money come my way.
There is a lot of good reading here, the best insults, the best stories of fooling around at work, the biggest racists, history, IQ and more to catch up on.
A beer short of a six pack
A brick short of a load
A couple of eggs shy of a dozen
A couple of gallons short of a full tank
A few ants short of a picnic
A few beers short of a six-pack
A few bricks short of a pile
A few bricks short of a wall
It’s a long list, click on it for your friends, and enemies
Democrats on the 4th of July, A history of racism and slavery
….Facts are facts, no matter how much you try to deny them, or how much you blame others for what you did. Here they are. Democrats are the Jim Crow party, KKK and the party behind eugenics – the attack on blacks by abortion. They have been behind the slavery, racism, bias, and are everything they accuse others of being and doing.
There are a lot of inconvenient (for Democrats and liberals) truths in this. It names names, lists who they are and what they did, meme’s to steal for the upcoming election and blows out of the water anything other than who they really are, including Biden.
My first job included Madmen Shenanigan’s – This is the one with sex and booze and work stories in it.
….I found what I thought was a private place and parked. I made my move quickly as I figured we were drunk and if I got any push back, I’d just go home. I wasn’t going to try that hard. Well, she was in on the plan and probably hadn’t gotten any since college so her shirt was unbuttoned in no time. I’d had a steady college girlfriend who had the same bra that unsnapped in the front. I had it undone faster than Fonzie from Happy Days, to which her surprised response was wow, you did that well. I said I’d done it before, so she knew she was going to have a ride that night. Let the rodeo begin.
What does Ha! mean on a text, or the worst single word answers.
…..As I suspected, ha is a single word equating to “I’ll let you go now” the on phone or best wishes. I also means I don’t want to text anymore and this lets you think something witty was said while giving you the finger. I got news for you, it wasn’t. I knew what you meant which is why I don’t want to continue and doubt whether you are mature.
People are assholes sometimes.
What’s it like to have an extremely High IQ?
While this wasn’t written in 2023, it still got a ton of clicks because people want to know what it’s like to be smart.
….Since I published this, the comments have been coming in and are now far better than the blog post. I encourage you to read about the lives and struggles of those who have high IQ. Their stories are quite revealing.-> It’s in the comments, hint, hint, hint.
People still care about Covid-19 as this was written in 2020
….According to Sasha Latypova, a Russian-American, former pharmaceutical industry research and development executive, and Katherine Watt, a para-legal researcher, and philosopher, it’s an inside job. Covid-19 is an act of bio-warfare perpetrated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on the U.S. and worldwide populations in two stages.
We started our country to get away from and not be like Europeans. It’s getting tiresome to be told to act like them because that is the standard they are measuring by.
Here’s how it began.
Washington on Christmas
My European relatives and travels have shown me a few things. They didn’t progress as far and as much as the US has since the above, and that the favorite sport in Europe isn’t football, it’s trashing America.
They are mostly socialist now and have had their land, welfare system and country invaded by the goat herders. I’ll give you that our southern border has been overrun, but that’s going to change in 2024 when the politician they loathe the most gets re-elected. Most of them aren’t people wanting to kill and rape, but came to seek a better life. I’ll especially laugh at my wife’s relatives then.
Well, here we have them at it again. See below.
The European Union’s (EU) regulatory agenda will largely hit U.S. technology companies and will impact Americans’ speech and lifestyle by stifling innovation, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The EU laws consist of content moderation regulation, antitrust enforcement and artificial intelligence (AI) model rules, all carrying massive financial penalties for violation. The laws apply to platforms that have large user bases in the EU, which are mainly American companies, with the EU recently launching a formal investigation into billionaire Elon Musk’s X and bipartisan lawmakers pushing President Joe Biden to ensure the regulation does not harm U.S. firms unfairly, according to Reuters.
“The EU views industry regulations as aspirational, which means there’s an element of selective enforcement and only require industry to put good-faith efforts when complying,” Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute, told the DCNF. “It’s why they are far more strident. … Therein lies the problem, the EU can turn the dial up or down on how fervently they will regulate. Given how broad all of these laws are—particularly the AI Act, this means that every company that either creates software, distributes software, or has it in their devices are implicated. The EU’s laws now encompass everything from social media to children’s toys.”
Terror at Tesla as robot ‘attacks’ engineer, leaving ‘trail of blood’
It happened in The Matrix, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 2001 A Space Odyssey and now in real life.
A robotic malfunction at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory resulted in a violent encounter where an engineer was attacked by one of the company’s robots, resulting in significant injuries and leaving a ‘trail of blood.’
According to the Daily Mail, while working on software programming for non-functional Tesla robots, the engineer was suddenly pinned against a surface by a robot tasked with manipulating aluminum car components, with its metal claws inflicted an injury that left an ‘open wound’ on the worker’s left hand.
We are playing with fire. If any of them pass the Turing test, we’re screwed.
People are always bragging or taking credit for jobs they should be doing anyway, like this:
Here’s a post generator that makes up stuff for you (link below). I put random stuff in it to get this:
.
You put anything in and pick the level of cringe that you want. It even adds (I guess) fake people who liked it to give you cred when you post it.
Go ahead and punk LinkedIn
From mass digital ID verification to the purge of right-leaning media, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has the answer on how the left can best defeat its critics ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Schmidt — the former tech executive turned billionaire Democratic operative — authored a Dec. 16 op-ed for theMIT Technology Review advising Democrats how to fight purported AI-generated misinformation “before it’s too late.” Citing Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and the Republican National Committee’s use of artificial intelligence, Schmidt begged lawmakers and Big Tech to unleash draconian measures that, if implemented, could mark the beginning of a leftist dystopian society.
Among his proposed measures include 1) verifying human users on social media, 2) tracking IP addresses, 3) watermarking AI-generated content, 4) banning advertisers that do not comply with rules, 5) using humans to “fend off an avalanche” of AI-generated content and 6) investing in research. Schmidt noted the confusion AI can cause, noting a need to “brace ourselves for more chaos as key votes unfold across the world in 2024.” He decried the use of AI-generated content to attack scandal-ridden President Joe Biden.
I met Schmidt when I was in the tech industry and what he told me then makes me believe this is all very true. He said Google was Evil and did a lot of stuff they don’t want you knowing. He said he was very far left and would do what he could to make the world that way
Facebook’s former diversity program manager has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $4 million from the company through fake business deals in exchange for kickbacks to fund a luxurious lifestyle, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 38, served as the lead strategist, global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement at the social media giant while she orchestrated the scheme, the Justice Department said. From January 2017 through September 2021, she led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs at Facebook and was responsible for developing and executing DEI initiatives, operations, and engagement programs.
“Furlow-Smiles used lies and deceit to defraud both vendors and Facebook employees,” said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office. “The FBI works hard to make sure greed like this doesn’t pay off and those who commit fraud are held accountable.”
Furlow-Smiles committed the fraud by linking PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to credit cards given to her by Facebook and used those accounts to pay friends, relatives, former interns at a prior job, nannies, babysitters, a hairstylist and others for goods and services that were never provided to the company, a federal complaint states.
I can’t even say anything nice about fake book. The founder who paid $400 million to rig the 2020 presidential election to a platform that is ruining teenage girls, it’s a POS.
Google is counting on its very own GPT-4 competitor, Gemini, so much that it staged parts of a recent demo video. In an opinion piece, Bloomberg says Google admits that for its video titled “Hands-on with Gemini: Interacting with multimodal AI,” not only was it edited to speed up the outputs (which was declared in the video description), but the implied voice interaction between the human user and the AI was actually non-existent.
Instead, the actual demo was made by “using still image frames from the footage, and prompting via text,” rather than having Gemini respond to — or even predict — a drawing or change of objects on the table in real time. This is far less impressive than the video wants to mislead us into thinking, and worse yet, the lack of disclaimer about the actual input method makes Gemini’s readiness rather questionable.
When I worked in Tech, I crossed paths with Google from time to time. Their CEO at the time told me a lot of what they say is not true, like do no evil. They do a lot of evil. Stay away from them as much as you can. They are like a Hydra.
At the end of the Social Network, the lawyer told Mark Zuckerberg you aren’t really an asshole, you should stop trying so hard to be one. Well, in real life it looks like he is.
Some people are just evil it seems.
Out today, Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life, blows the lid off of Meta’s pattern of intentionally using harmful and aggressive tactics to get users addicted to social media apps like Facebook and Instagram and documents a shocking rise in depression and suicide that some scientists have linked to social media use.
This comes just weeks after dozens of state attorneys general (AGs) filed suit against Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. (Meta), and three of its subsidiaries, for harming children by addicting them to the social media platforms. Forty-two states, including California and New York, allege that billionaire creator Mark Zuckerberg’s company “knowingly designed and deployed harmful features on Instagram and Facebook to purposefully addict children and teens.”
Previously, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen claimed that Meta targeted children and teens for monetary reasons and a leaked document showed that the youth demographic was “a valuable but untapped audience.”
Just weeks after Haugen blew the whistle on Facebook’s tactics, Zuckerberg unveiled his plan to release what may prove to be Meta’s most addictive product yet: Facebook Horizon. Zuckerberg’s October 2021 virtual tour of the new product, which was panned as “super weird,” was his coming-out party for what has become known as “the metaverse”—a digital world that users can essentially live in and access via a virtual reality (VR) headset such as Facebook’s Oculus Quest.
Zuckerberg’s metaverse launch was a conveniently timed and thinly veiled rebranding effort to distract from whistleblower documents and allegations that, according to the Associated Press, show that “Facebook ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its algorithms wreaked across the world.”
In October 2021, Zuckerberg changed the name of the Facebook Inc. family of companies to Meta Platforms Inc. to signal the direction his social media empire would be heading. And Zuckerberg has pumped more than $36 billion into making his metaverse ambitions a reality.
I was a huge Marvel fan for decades. The movies used to be great, even if they were Comic Book stories on the big screen. Ironman and Captain America were truly hero’s trying to save the world/universe/anything and were written well. They had good origin movies and great Avengers stories, that were believable
All of that is over now that Kathleen Kennedy made everything woke. It’s a good thing we don’t have Downey and Evans playing the leading characters we actually wanted to see.
The Marvels opened to easily the worst Marvel opening ever. The review is below and is quite entertaining to watch it lampoon everything that caused this movie to be truly terrible. These girls being hero’s is not believable.
Get woke, go broke. Disney, Butt Light, Tar-gay and now this.
To even things out, here was one of the movies when they were great and when there were actual hero’s.
by Kurt Knutsson October 30, 2023
Imagine a factory that can make humanoid robots that can walk, run, and work like us. Sounds like a sci-fi movie, right? Well, it’s not. It’s RoboFab, and it’s opening soon here in the U.S.
Some people are really nervous about these humanoid robots, and for good reason. There is a lot to take into account, including ethical issues and potential safety risks.
Many individuals may feel uncomfortable or deceived by humanoid robots that mimic human emotions and intelligence. Others might be worried about them taking their jobs.
Consequently, we should approach the use of humanoid robots with caution, acknowledging their capacities while being aware of their limitations.
Terminator, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Matrix and all of the rest of them, the AI Robots kill the humans. AI always goes bad and we are toast.
November 10, 2023
An industrial robot brutally slaughtered a South Korean robotics technician Tuesday, allegedly mistaking him for just another container of organic material in need of stacking.
The victim, a man in his 40s, was attempting to diagnose an issue with a pick-and-place robot’s sensor at the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex in the southern county of Goseong, as there was an equipment test planned for later in the week, reported the Register.
The paprika-sorting robot, reportedly created and installed by the victim’s employer, spotted the man with its sensor, figured him for a box of vegetables, then seized him using its arms and tongs. After grabbing the technician, the robot apparently smashed him against a conveyor belt.
According to the Korean-language Yonhap News Agency, the victim’s face and chest were crushed. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
It’s not that I don’t like others, just not all the time. Actually, I’d rather be alone most of the time. I don’t even miss others or think about missing them. Most of the time, they let me down or make the time spent together difficult. My appetite for that is over.
People drain me and consistently let me down. I’m sure I let them down when they think I should act like an extrovert, but then I don’t force myself on others.
Small talk is the most draining thing during the day. I know as soon as I get into it that it’s going to be a dreadful and useless conversation. Society expects you to go through this ritual, but that doesn’t make it meaningful or any less painful.
Give me meaningful and deep discussions and you have my attention. Otherwise, I’m happiest writing in my diary and reading.
Not caring what others think about you is a blessed relief. It’s the same when they don’t think of you also, like the remote parts of your family that are annoying.
Like some of my other stories, there is sex, cougars and booze in case you don’t want to read about it.
About the middle of my career, I worked for a disk drive reseller, CORE International. The owner claimed they were a manufacturer, but Control Data made the drives. He lied a lot. See the artificial reef and the Time Tunnel to find out more about CORE.
We went to all of the trade shows, and in the 80’s, Comdex (Computer Dealer Expo) was king. It was in Atlanta and Vegas, but for me it was time for me to escape South Florida and explore the industry. Since I was in charge of the marketing department, it included the trade shows for CORE.
I went prior to the show and set up the booth for a week of displaying our wares to the public, going to the parties and putting up with the wieners and asswipes I worked with.
I always arrived first to set up the booth, then brought out someone from engineering or tech support to set up all the computers. There were a lot of things that have to come together before the show starts.
When I say weenies, most of the engineers couldn’t get a date if it was paid for. For this Vegas trip though, Bob the tech was married to his high school sweetheart. He was well settled down in life while I was still chasing ass. He was a good mid west salt of the earth guy, pretty much the opposite of me when it came to the opposite sex.
It was a time of life that I was at the top of my dating game. Because it was still my party days, decisions on my moral choices were more relaxed than now.
BOOTH SET UP, BRIBERY AND THE MAFIA
During set up, you had to work with the show contractors who supplied mechanical, electrical and moving your booth in and out. If you know the history of Las Vegas, it was built and probably still is run by the mafia. That means you didn’t do anything without them or they would fuck up your booth at night to teach you a lesson. I’ve seen them drive a fork lift right through a crate that held a vendor’s booth worth thousands, destroying it “by accident”. This was after a vendor yelled at them for not getting their booth delivered on time.
You could always get better service with a little green under the table. You would say you were from the Franklin company ($100 bill exchanged hands) and got in line ahead of others when I needed service. Everything ran through the mafia though and that is how it got done.
Sometimes, you had to wait your turn for service. Big companies paid bigger bribes and my company was small potatoes. The CORE owner was cheap. That meant going through their hoops to order what they had left in stock, then waiting for the supplies and manpower to get your job done. It cost me days sometimes in set up time. If he’d had let me play by the mob’s rules, I could have saved thousands on travel, hotel and food, but that’s another story.
I got accused of leaving earlier each time by one of the software engineers who my art director nicknamed needle dick. Since he was a nerd, I didn’t respect much of what he said so I went when it was right. Needle dick couldn’t scare up any gash if his life depended on it. He got adopted by a cougar at work 20 years his senior (and she had lost what little SMV she had – look that up). She got nicknamed Canyon Cooter. This difference in age was compounded by him being smart, close to the autism scale and she was one of the dumbest females I’d ever met. It made for one the biggest mismatches you’d ever see. More about them later, but suffice it to say she was going to teach him how to get a date because in his late 20’s he couldn’t get one, but wound jumping his bones.
YOU BITCH
Back to the story. I was setting up with Bob and needed some extra electrical at the booth. I didn’t have money left to bribe them so I was about 5 deep waiting in line. I watched the forms administrator girl at the desk give everyone an attitude. They knew everyone had to go through them and sort of lorded it over the exhibitors as they were the only game in town. Plus, I’m sure they could have sent Guido or Carlo to fuck up our booth if we didn’t play nice. So, I waited in line.
I looked at her name badge and it said Mary. She was the one at the counter giving the guy in front of me a really hard time. At one point, he looked back at me it was so bad that I held my hands up and shrugged. I sort of thought it might be her time of the month, or she didn’t sleep well or hated her job. It pissed me off and I felt bad for the guy taking such a beating. He was a beta male who didn’t do anything as Mary snapped at him while I watched.
I was tired from days of set up by then and knew I was going to have to deal with another time delay and an attitude when I walked up for my turn to order. Age wise, I’m well practiced at the art of pick up and had an Alpha male game going when talking to girls. I’d learned to dish it out with the best of them.
For this reason, I decided I wasn’t going to take the shit she gave the guy before me. I walked up and my opening line to Mary was, “Are you this big of a bitch to everyone?” Needless to say, it caught her off guard. She changed her attitude and minded her manners. We chatted and I caught a sly smile from her as I went back to my booth. I brushed it off and thought little of it.
I tried to explain this alpha male/female transaction to one of my in-laws, who I’ve nicknamed flounder. He reminds me of Kent Dorfman from Animal House, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.
Sometimes, girls like the man who takes control and put them in their place. Flounder never understood as he only had one girlfriend in life. Mary got it though.
This time of life found me dating a girlfriend back home so I wasn’t looking for ass, but Mary was hot-ish in her own way. I kind of liked that she was feisty unlike my girlfriend who was a milk toast and was a nag right before this trip. In my head, I’d kind of broken up with her and did shortly thereafter. That’s another story
We went back to working on set up and I told Bob I’d called her a bitch. It meant that it could be a while before we got any service, so we did what we could until the help arrived. The electricians came way early so we were both surprised. (Electricians meaning they got paid $100 an hour to bring you extension cords, lay them out and plug them in, a total racket but…Mafia). Mary bumped me to the top of the list for calling her a bitch.
The day rolled on, so we finished work and were ready to call it by going to dinner and crashing at the hotel. I wasn’t a big gambler and knew we had a lot to do tomorrow so we headed out past the contractor tables kind of thinking about tomorrow.
Because the owner of the company was the biggest tightwad I’d ever met in a millionaire, I had to share a hotel room with Bob. I’d get my own room only if there was an odd count of people and I’d take the single because I was trade show manager. I also didn’t want to share a room with any of the tech wieners ever.
As we passed by, Mary was still sitting there and I wasn’t looking my best. I’d been sweating while busting ass all day in jeans and a T-shirt. They had the doors to the convention hall open as they hauled in equipment all day long. It’s hot in Vegas so I was scruffy looking in the Han Solo sort of way. Mary on the other hand had to dress appropriately as that was her job, attitude and all.
While walking by, I threw out a trial balloon to attitudy-Judy and said, Bob and I are going to dinner, I’ll buy you one if you want to come. I guessed that I’d get a laugh and figured she heard it at every show she worked. So I was preparing for the brush off when she said why not……game on.
I was finally making it in life and could afford better clothes, so I cleaned up and put on my Don Johnson Miami Vice outfit (t-shirt and white jacket with nice slacks and loafers, just like on TV). Bob was in his causal married look and wasn’t sure what to expect now that I’d invited a stray to dinner. He also knew we were sharing a room and any copulation calisthenics would have been awkward.
THE TRANSFORMATION
When I called her a bitch, I was speaking to a hair up in the bun, glasses wearing school marm girl. I could tell though that she had a tight body and had potential. Needless to say, Mary had gone home and dolled up into a strapless dress that complimented her good looks. The dark hair came down and the glasses were gone and she went from librarian to a keeper. Even Bob was shocked at the transformation. She was both hot and hopefully hot to trot.
It’s hard to believe knowing the person that I am now was able to be that entertaining then, but I chatted her up over cocktails and a bottle of wine. Bob is enjoying an upgraded dinner and we both thought that would be it. It turned out that Mary was a very smart girl. We had an intellectually stimulating conversation both ways. I learned a lot about the machinations of how things got done as well as life in Vegas. She had a brain to go with the rest of the package. Maybe that is why she gave others a hard time.
I was the only one at CORE authorized to people out to dinner above the expense rate other than the el cheapo boss, but only if I was taking out important people or reporters. Bob didn’t say anything because he got a way more than the expense approved dinner, and I invited what was now a hottie to dinner. I’m sure I filed that expense report to the head accountant Tony (sounds Mafia also) that might have not been exactly accurate.
At the end of dinner, Bob excused himself to go to the bathroom before leaving and I figured what the hell. The odds were against anything else really happening between Mary and I, and I really didn’t care. We were on our way to being drunk and I’ll never see her again, plus I have to deal with sharing a room with Bob. I made the first base move anyway. The next thing I knew, Bob came out of the bathroom to see Mary and me tongue deep in the middle of the restaurant.
I now have the dilemma of the where to go logistics. I’m sure Bob’s wife didn’t want to hear about Mary and me slobbering on each other all night long and I’ve got the stingy accountants hanging over my head about spending money for extra rooms in Vegas.
I knew that once everyone came into town in a couple of days, that I’d be moving into the single room. I’d pre-arraigned to have the prerequisite odd count of people enabling me to have the single, but expense policies required us to save the penny pinching company owner money prior to that.
My judgement is now sufficiently impaired by alcohol and my hormones were raging by, so I said fuck it. Next thing I knew, I had Mary in tow and stood in line at the hotel lobby and charged a single room to the company credit card. President Hal and VP Robert A were going to shit when they saw my expense report already as I’m down a dinner way over the per diem by 3 or 4 times. I now add a room that I wasn’t supposed to be charged for 2 more days. Those two dicked around the employees so I wasn’t motivated to help them in any way. I was thinking with the little head by then, so the night progressed and we said goodbye to Bob.
I wonder what Mary was thinking. Her day started with a boring job of grilling show people about filling out the forms for electricity. She’s now out to dinner with a charming stranger and about to go back to a hotel room with someone she’s known for a couple of hours who called her a bitch.
In my head, I’m playing We’ve Got Tonight By Bob Seger. It was the part that goes:
I know it’s late
I know you’re weary
I know your plans don’t include me
Still here we are
Both of us lonely
Longing for shelter from all that we see
Why should we worry?
No one will care girl
Look at the stars so far away
We’ve got tonight
Who needs tomorrow?
We’ve got tonight babe
Why don’t you stay?
Here are the full lyrics, the Youtube won’t play in this post, but here’s the link.
As I mentioned, I’d been around the dating block by now and knew how to game girls. I’d been pulling ass for a long time and it wasn’t like I was trying to lose my virginity. We checked into the hotel and had another heavy make out session when Mary excused herself to go to the bathroom.
The night is ticking away, I’m drunk and realize I have another long day tomorrow. I knew Mary had to show up at the contractors desk early. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to try hard because if was going to happen, fine…if not, also fine.
While she’s in the bathroom, I’m thinking of how I’m going to say goodbye and I had a nice time after getting told no, then catching some shut eye. I’d had about as much fun as I figured I was going to have and didn’t have a lot of patience to wait all night for nothing. I’d done enough of that growing up and rejection was going to be as good as success. The outcomes were equal to me.
Just about that time, Mary comes out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. As I started back to kissing her, it fell down and she said, we’ve got to get you out of these clothes.
One thing led to another and we did what grownups do in the prime of your life, for a long time, all over the hotel room. She enjoyed it immensely, which I found out later. I did my best John Holmes impression to make it worth her while. She said she visited the big O hall of fame multiple times. It was our first night so we hadn’t been together long enough for her to lie about it yet. I had put so much effort into it that night to make her happy that I’d passed out and she went home.
When I woke up the next morning, on the mirror I found a post it note to call for round 2 as she wanted more. Comdex hadn’t even started and my trip has already been eventful.
I glided by the contractor table the next morning and the attitude was much nicer. It turns out that all she needed was a good time and to get laid. It was on for us now.
I didn’t say anything to Bob. He’d seen me sucking face and I didn’t come home last night.
I enjoyed the week with Mary. She didn’t have to work during the show, unlike the 12 hour days on my feet. She was a good sport about showing up to see me at the end of the day. It was nice to share time together and got me the hell away from the CORE douchebags. One of the days when I was coming back from the show, I met her in the lobby and we immediately dumped the rest and headed up to my room. I’d walked back to the hotel with Bill Quinn, a serious stiff who knew I was his only key to after show entertainment. He was lost without me getting him or the others into the show parties. He kept asking what happened as he saw me meet and leave with a girl in the elevator. He wouldn’t see me again until the next morning. He told me he wanted details, but I gave up nothing.
TECH WEENIES TRYING TO ACT HIP
I refused to hang with most of the CORE people I had to work with as they were too lame to be around. Case in point, one of the nights there, I had to invite them to a computer magazine party, because the owner Hal was there. I picked the one that was the shortest to end my pain with them. I was going to the real party after that. I must have had that night off from Mary. Duty calls.
The DJ played the song Shout (Otis Day and The Nights for Animal House Fans). These losers called it the CORE song and went to the dance floor to look like fools. This included needle dick, canyon cooter and Sondra Arken (who got nicknamed Barkin as she was an ugly feminist with an ugly attitude who refused to shave her legs and pits). Also acting the fool were some people I’d come over to CORE with when General Micro Computer went chapter 11 like Trish Brainard, Holly H., Susan (Suzy Q, the JAP with the huge ta ta’s). They were such idiots that everyone from GMC except me got fired shortly after this for being incompetent. I pretended to go up with them as we left for the dance floor, but diverted to the men’s room to hide as I refused to be seen with them. I don’t think it was lost on them.
Here’s the deal. I was the president of my fraternity when Animal House came out. We’d already done everything in the movie other than kill a horse. We’d had a real toga party when listening to Shout. The CORE pussies were nursing a light beer. When I was in college, we were drinking grain alcohol punch dressed in sheets. There is a difference. They were embarrassing as they were trying to act hip, but at best pulled off a broken hip. There were a lot of losers in the computer industry and some of them worked with me.
I dumped them after that and went either to see Mary or to the real after party. They never knew.
THE GEEKS LOSE THEIR VIRGINITY
So I’m being very discrete about my encounter with Mary. Even when seen, no one knew what I was really doing. Bob the tech didn’t tell everyone there about the night prior to the show…….As opposed to this next part.
In the background, Canyon Cooter has made her move on needle dick who’s never seen a boob in his life, much less hold one. They now show up to the booth in matching outfits. She was getting divorced was old enough to be his mom. They dressed like sherbet Ice cream in their matching lime green and orange suits. When you fuck around at work, at least don’t advertise it by making a fool of yourselves. He never had a chance as she pretty much adopted him. They looked like a kid and his mom in a gag worthy moment. It was the only pussy he would ever had in life at and that statement is pretty sad. He wanted her to show him how to talk to a girl at work he couldn’t get a date with, and the next thing you know they are bumping uglies.
When you score your first touchdown, act like you’ve been there. He was a trained puppy on a leash from then on following her around. They were saying nothing was happening, but were so bad at hiding it we couldn’t avoid the obvious. It was as bad as having to hear about your parents having sex, freaking disgusting for all of us.
I on the other hand am having a grand time with a hot girl and giving her the ride of her life while telling no one. Here’s how I know. When I left Vegas after the show was over, she looked me up in Florida to try and find me for more (no internet back then so it was a big effort). It turns out that I am a namesake and she wound up calling my parents in another town, also in Florida. I thought it was a nice gesture and Mom had to know what was going on. She wasn’t born yesterday.
All good things come to an end and it was time to leave Vegas and go home. I have no need to go back to that town other than for computer shows so I knew it this was ever only going to be a week. I hate Vegas despite the time with Mary. I never promised anything to her other than when I was there. I never led her on. It was what it was. She had the next show rolling into town the following week (the Car Show). It just didn’t have a future written on it.
I recall our last moment together. She finished on top and I was staring at her right boob. I thought to myself, I need to remember this moment for when I was in a dry spell.
Life goes on. Needle dick wound up marrying canyon cooter. Ben Greene told us all that the bill would come due when she turned 80. He’s probably changing diapers now. I saw the disappointment on his father’s face at the wedding. He married his mother, a washed up flabby old lady. At least they didn’t reproduce. The world is better for it.
Bob left CORE and went to Novell, then the Networking leader. Hal sold the company to Sony after lying about the contract he had with IBM. Robert came out of the closet and was queer as a 3 dollar bill, but he was a prick to everyone anyway. I filed the expense report and I think I went over by so much that El Capo, Tony wouldn’t approve all of it. I made it all back on the next expense report. CORE went out of their way to screw over the employees. The per deim wasn’t enough for one meal, let alone 3 per day in Vegas. I never tried to come out ahead, but they wound up paying for everything on the next trip. We ended up even.
I still had to work with the other wieners who rarely got any girl action. Despite the stories that got told about my escapades, I would never admit it because I didn’t need to spike the ball. I never told them this story either, until now. Bob told them enough when we got back that I got the stink eye from the engineering and tech support departments. Most of them were still 0 for life in girls when I left.
Mary and I never spoke again. By the time I found out from Mom that she’d called, months had already passed. I hope she remembers it fondly. I guess I’m the one that got away. I would have picked her over my milk toast girlfriend. She was better in every way.
Life moved on, but times like this are burned into my memory bank. A version of this story would happen to me again at future computer shows, more than once and different countries.
I have fun memories of that week, it’s just that we lived on opposite sides of the country and what happened in Vegas like most times, stayed there.
Stay tuned. There will be an adventure in Vegas tale, with booze, sex, cheating, cougars and computer geeks who are wieners.
If one train leaves LA going 60 MPH and another leaves NY going 50 MPH, how soon do they crash to get this answer that only happens once every 1000 years?
“Roll down the window.” Cars have had automatic windows for ages, making the manual rolling down of windows a thing of the past. I still say this, though, in my 1964 Mustang.
“Check the answering machine.” Voicemail on cellphones has obliterated the need for a physical answering machine. I think it’s super interesting Apple’s iOS 17 lets you listen while someone leaves a voicemail so you can decide to pick up. New? Hardly.
“Dial 411.” My mother designed the 411 directory system for Bell Labs. Now, just look someone up online and you have their digits.
“Beep me.” Pagers were all the rage once upon a time. Today, they’re used almost exclusively in healthcare or other specific industries.
“I’ll tape it.” You no longer “tape” shows with DVR and streaming services. You just hit “Record” on your device or catch it later on demand.
“Rewind” or “Fast-forward.” These phrases made perfect sense for cassettes and VHS tapes, and, yes, we still use them metaphorically, but you’re not actually winding anything.
“I need to find a payphone.” My dad used to make me carry a quarter just in case I needed to make a call. With a cellphone in nearly everyone’s pocket, payphones have become an urban relic.
“Get the film developed” or “Don’t waste the film.” Oh, the good old days of waiting to see a picture you looked horrible in. Digital cameras and smartphones have done away with this.
“Look it up in the White (or Yellow) Pages.” Online directories have replaced those hefty books.
“I’ll fax it to you.” Fax machines are just about dead. Warren Buffett once told me that’s the only way he’ll do contracts. Why? No one can hack a fax machine, unlike email.
Hat tip Kim Komando
Delusions of Adequacy 