Pond Scum
You folks know I love a good dive down the Google rabbit hole. With the advent of their AI tool (Gemini), you do not need to spend multiple cycles trying to frame your questions in a way that Google will understand. As I said a couple of weeks ago, it is a conversation. Let's see if you get the same feeling that I do when "conversing" with this agent of Google?
Mitch: How do places get their names?
Google: There are four ways ...
Natural Surroundings or Physical Geography for example: Oxford (a shallow river crossing for oxen) or Sheffield (a field next to the River Sheaf).
People and Founders for example Jamestown.
Indigenous and Historical Words - eg. Chicago comes from the native word shikaakwa, which means wild garlic. (Leeks grew along those riverbanks in Illinois and anyone who reads that sentence and doesn't use a Jim Carrey voice from Ace Ventura is off my Christmas card list)
Strategic Fortifications - Old English names ending in "-bury," "-burgh," or "-boro" indicate historical sites that were fortified.
Mitch: Ok so which slimy bootlicking executive at Google decided to appease the Orange Blob? Lake Ontario was the indigenous name for that body of water and used everywhere for the last 400 years?
Google: We did not initiate the name change. President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order directing all federal agencies to rename that body of water to Lake America.
Mitch: Oh, I didn't know Google was a federal agency?
Google: No, Google is a publicly traded, independant American corporation.
Mitch: Well not that independant, you frenched kissed the brown ring of a guy with 34 felony convictions for fraud and one felony conviction for sexual assault. What if he decides that Australia should be called Bouncy Kangaroo Land?
Google: The president does not have the power to rename other countries. He can only direct federal agencies based on land ownership. Lake Ontario is jointed owned by the U.S. and Canada.
Mitch: So if a future democratic president decides to rename Mount Rushmore to Trump Was A Dickless Wonder, Google will comply same day?
Google: No, Google would not comply same day. Google mirrors the information contained in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) and would not update a location name until the the GNIS is updated.
Mitch: How many days it take for Trump to have the GNIS updated for Lake Ontario?
Google: The same day.
Do you see where I am going here? Did you get a sense of that? The AI is being "slippery" He is trying to frame things to match what sounds to me like the corporate party line. No less a personage that the CEO of Anthropic (Dario Amodei) just came out and said: "it might be time to pump the brakes on AI.", He is afraid that the most advanced "thinkers" (now online) could create their own successors who would be able to "escape" the sandboxes that are used for development. Of course the moron in the White House says "nothing to see here", but some fairly bright people disagree. Musk (GROK), Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind) have come out publicly and said they are also worried. The only way this gets solved is if they play nice with each other. How they hope to convince the Chinese to do the same, is beyond me. I suppose we could give them Taiwan? Or Sidney Sweeney? If you think an AI could not force humans to go against their own kind ... using coercion, imprisonment, torture and murder, go back and watch The Forbin Project made in 1970? It starred that guy from The Rat Patrol. Not him? The other one who did that crappy soap opera later? Tick tick tick.
Turf Wars
I found one of those little cardboard door hangers from Grass Lab on my front door the other day. Apparently they took one look at my lawn (which is much much improved dammit!) and figured I could use their services. I routinely get them from Weed Man and those other assholes who run around in those yellow and green spray trucks. It's sort of a big red "FAILED" stamp on your man card. I have a couple of neighbours who are lawn fanatics. I mean they must be in competition with each other, using illicit lawn care chemicals sold only to golf courses. They are out there with pinking shears and toe nail clippers making the rest of us look bad. So when I get one, I fantasize about sneaking down there in the wee hours and hanging it on one (and only one) of those front doors. I need a camera so I can swatch to see if when one is discovered, he sneaks a peek next door to see if the competition got one? A home run, would be catching one of them moving the sign next door. Small things amuse small minds.
Our Optimum Week
I took it easy again this past week and we are under budget (for a change). I did tackle Pate Chinois just to prove to SWMBO that just because she speaks fluent french, she doesn't have a lock on putting mashed potatoes on ground beef. Of course I used two separate casserole dishes. Hers, was straight seasoned ground beef, creamed corn and mashed (with whatever I thought I could sneak in without getting yelled at). Mine had cauliflower, button mushrooms and thai chilis in the ground beef, green onion, some dijon mustard and caraway seeds in the mashed potatoes with a crispy pangrattato topping! She pronounced the version I made for her as "OK, I can make better" I am skeptical. The only thing she makes better than me is gravy. I have no idea why. The "eye of newt" perhaps?
Shoppers has had me hooked for about three weeks now. You can see my points total way up as they keep sending me those offers that I just can't refuse. I am not going to be tempted this week so we can cash in on those big points offerings at Zehr's before they expire on the 23rd. T&T products, fresh or frozen seafood and veggies are all pretty easy to hit at a $100 spend. That's an easy 17K back in points. I see they are bringing back that virtual sticker promotion again, this time for knives! Lions and tigers and bears oh my! Here is your list:
We Are Watching
Season Three of Lioness - It's great. There is no doubt ... but Taylor Sheridans' propensity for right wing conspiracy theories is now out in the open and folks are pissed off. Reddit is blowing up, people are cancelling their Paramount subscriptions and I suspect the actors themselves swallow their bile as they recite MAGA doctrine ... then cash their paycheques. I doubt anyone will stop watching. Of course the bad guys are ... The New York Times, progressive college professors, Democratic senators and the "fake" news. Nowhere do they mention the one network that happily paid three quarters of a billion dollars for lying about Dominion voting machines. FOX was happy to pay that insane amount because they were being sued for 1.7 billion and it was a slam dunk case. Dominion might have ended up owning the network.
Season Four of Seal Team - I don't know how they got seven seasons out of this? It started great but they are out of gas, scriptwise. Join the team, leave the team. Start screwing, then stop screwing, then start again. Rah rah, we are manly men, then reflective teenage angst for twenty minutes, then warriors again. It's actually written like a soap opera at this point. (Victor Newman, that was his name?). SWMBO is going to marshall on. I will listen in when I'm in the kitchen, or the basement, or Nairobi.
Blue Jays - Ok, I am going to say this out loud. Stick a fork in them. They are done.
... and finally
City Planning 101
Being the son of a long time road construction worker, I have an affinity for planning and planners, especially those who design our cities. They do some amazing work ... in other towns. Guelph, not so much. You sometimes wonder if they are just punking us. (Perhaps in another column, I will outline some of my favourites over the years.) This latest debacle was brought to me by a buddy (DD) who also helped me with my little rebranding effort last year. I would be the last person on earth to support some privileged NIMBY effort by million dollar homeowners resisting the build of more reasonably priced homes near their little enclave. Screw them. Having said that, this group is making (what would seem to me) a fairly reasonable request of those amazing city planners. I will give you the link so you can share it with your council member or the mayor, or both? You might ask their opinion on this issue before casting your vote next time?
OK, so go down Gordon (that's south for people from northern Ontario) and hang a right on Kortright. It bends around to left and you climb a little hill. Right at the top of that hill on the left, they have started to build two medium sized condo developments. 249 units, parking for 350 cars, it backs right onto Kortright. City planners have decided that access to the whole shebang is going to be through the little subdivision streets to the southwest. Huh? Did I mention it backs right onto Kortright! Guelph is a mob town and I suspect someone had enough pull to avoid the development costs of adding that access? I bought my house on a busy street. I know what I signed up for. These folks knew that six or seven more homes might be built on those vacant lots at the back of their subdivision. Of course, they might have preferred a park, everyone wants a park as long as you don't let it fill up with tent cities full of homeless people (another time). Nobody expected two condo developments with the streets where their children play ... being designated as the driveway!! Instead of the usual homeowner response (pitchforks and burning torches), they have taken a more considered approach. They are not trying to block the development? They just want an entrance off Kortright? They might be too late to the party? Money has already changed hands. Having said that, it is election season and it sure seems like a reasonable request. Here is their link: @plantherightaccess. If get a chance to push a second look from our city planners, please help out. But keep your torches dry.
Mitch and Maddie
