…so while we all hold our breath & hope for the bit in the movie when the various smoldering fuses & blinking countdown timers all get stopped…maybe with at least one reading 007…WaPo is answering the real questions…like…can ChatGPT get into harvard
But is a chatbot-created essay good enough to fool college admissions counselors?
To find out, The Washington Post asked a prompt engineer — an expert at directing AI chatbots — to create college essays using ChatGPT. The chatbot produced two essays: one responding to a question from the Common Application, which thousands of colleges use for admissions, and one answering a prompt used solely for applicants to Harvard University.
We presented these essays to a former Ivy League college admissions counselor, Adam Nguyen, who previously advised students at Harvard University and read admissions essays at Columbia University. We presented Nguyen with a control: a set of real college admissions essays penned by Jasmine Green, a Post intern who used them to get into Harvard University, where she is currently a senior.
We asked Nguyen to read the essays and spot which ones were produced by AI. The results were illuminating.
…&…maybe they were…I dunno…given two very brief excerpts I managed to correctly pick which was “real” & which AI-generated…but…these kind of personal statements are…pretty artificial in their own right…they’re kids trying to sell themselves by telling universities what they think they want to hear…so on the one hand I’m not at all sure that in a pile of hundreds of the things instead of a straight A/B choice I’d have kept my batting average…& on the other…ChatGPT has easily enough wealthy sponsors that I’d be more surprised if it couldn’t get in to an ivy league school…so…I dunno…but the longer annotated bits of generated text are, in fairness, a better quality of prose than is often found in the online realm…& the superfluous details (like “my odd hobby of collecting vintage postcards”) are arguably the sort of “why would anyone but a person bother to say that” things that I’m pretty sure I know a few folks who already use to try to decide whether or not a person they’re engaging online is in fact a person…so…it might be more interesting to examine whether someone who doesn’t read personal statements for a living could have made turing proud on this one…but…that’s not what we got
Nguyen said that while AI may be sufficient to use for everyday writing, it is particularly unhelpful in creating college admissions essays. To start, he said, admissions offices are using AI screening tools to filter out computer-generated essays. (This technology can be inaccurate and falsely implicate students, a Post analysis found.)
But more importantly, admissions essays are a unique type of writing, he said. They require students to reflect on their life and craft their experiences into a compelling narrative that quickly provides college admissions counselors with a sense of why that person is unique.
“ChatGPT is not there,” he said.
…nice & reassuring…shame it then undermines that reassurance
Nguyen understands why AI might be appealing. College application deadlines often fall around the busiest time of the year, near winter holidays and end-of-semester exams. “Students are overwhelmed,” Nguyen said.
But Nguyen isn’t entirely opposed to using AI in the application process. In his current business, Ivy Link, he helps students craft college applications. For those who are weak in writing, he sometimes suggests they use AI chatbots to start the brainstorming process, he said.
For those who can’t resist the urge to use AI for more than just inspiration, there may be consequences.
“Their essays will be terrible,” he said, “and might not even reflect who they are.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/chatgpt-college-essay-ai-harvard-admission
…I mean…I get it…there is a distinction between the coaching & coaxing & refining & redrafting involved in getting expert pointers on how to write those things from someone who gets to say what’s terrible & what’s not…but where even that guy thinks that its baseline ability to generate text is a better germinating point than some people bring to the table…the same way that some people pop false positives for their writing being machine-derived…that part kinda makes it sound like it’s less a question of the binary question than the relative width of the bands either side to the grey area in between…because in a so-called normal distribution…the lion’s share is where that would put no-man’s land…& that…bothers me?
Companies like Intel and Qualcomm are racing to make mainstream PCs designed to excel at AI features, powered by distinct “neural processing units” in their central processing units (CPUs). Microsoft, whose Windows software will run on those machines, recently mandated that new Windows PCs must include a dedicated AI button on their keyboards, for easier access to the Copilot AI baked into Windows 11.
Smartphones, which have for years used machine learning to improve our photos and make phone calls sound better, continue to lean into AI hype. Samsung, for instance, plans to launch new devices “powered by AI” right after CES. More interesting, though, are the upstarts looking past traditional smartphones to envision how a truly AI-first gadget should work.
…I mean…while we’re blurring lines…you know that copilot is going to be real keen to always be connected…& do a whole bunch of phoning home…so…less of a backseat driver than someone peering over your shoulder the whole time taking notes & rattling away in a chat window talking about you behind your back…which is totally what everybody wants & not at all like the worst stereotypes of the tech bro douchebag approach to making friends & influencing people…& not at all me being bitter that they won’t make me a phone with a screen you can use one handed & a deployable hardware qwerty keyboard because “the market isn’t interested”
We’re not saying 2024 is the year everyone will rush to buy their own fancy headset. But it is the year we’ll start to see Big Tech push a more complete vision of what virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality will make possible for us.
The elephant in the room is Apple. The company last year offered a first glimpse of the $3,499 headset it hopes will change the way we consume media and get work done. As the company prepares a launch expected before spring, two questions have yet to be answered: Can Apple make a mixed-reality headset that people will want to use? And what happens to the entire spatial computing movement if it can’t?
…we’re calling it “spatial computing” now? …did apple do that? …I assume apple did that…it’s the right kind of pretentious blend of marketing spiel & nearly-but-not-really-flattery…but…wouldn’t spatial computing be…I dunno…using traffic like an abacus or something?
Meanwhile, chipmaker Qualcomm keeps churning out updated versions of its XR processors that offer ever-higher resolutions (to put more detailed images in front of your eyes) and support more cameras (to better track eyes, hands and the world around the wearer) for use by the Samsungs, Googles and Metas of the world — not to mention the many smaller companies itching for a bit of attention in Las Vegas.
…I threw out some blithe remark the other day about it not making sense to owe the NYT a micropayment for every time you said something in conversation that was derived from a thing you’d read there…but…to flip that script…how much of people’s day to day needs to get co-opted into stolen labor for beta-testing tech for corporations that actually could probably implement a system of those sorts of payments before “we” decide it’s kind of a rip-off…& maybe a tad on the morally dubious side?
The dire potential of pervasive AI tools in an election year is clear: Misinformation by way of deepfakes, or artificial video and images, and misleading, AI-generated news articles could help deepen political divides, throw campaigns into disarray and poison people’s perception of legitimate reporting.
“Wide-spread circulation of manufactured content may undermine voters’ trust in the broader information environment,” says a white paper produced by researchers at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “If voters come to believe that they cannot trust any digital evidence, it becomes difficult to seriously evaluate those who seek to represent them.”
But some seemingly benign uses of AI could affect the way you hear from — and learn about — lawmakers and candidates.
Projects like Chat2024, developed by a Miami start-up called Delphi, let you pose questions to chatbots based on presidential candidates, trained on their published statements and transcripts of video appearances. And at least one congressional candidate — Shamaine Daniels, a Pennsylvania Democrat — has begun to use an AI robocaller developed by a company called Civox to engage thousands of potential voters in customized conversations.
…so…that’s fun
Withings, which made waves last year when it exhibited a urine analyzer, has developed a multifunction device that lets people take their temperature, check their blood oxygen levels, and measure and store results from a digital stethoscope. Other companies plan to show off surprisingly sophisticated sensors, like wireless ear buds that are said to track a person’s heart health with clinical accuracy in addition to playing podcasts.
Some projects are meant to help people with more personal health issues. One start-up based in Ireland plans to release a wearable sensor that tracks the frequency and severity of menopause symptoms, while another from South Korea claims to have developed a gadget that will increase a wearer’s sperm motility.
How well products like these actually work is nearly impossible to gauge at a trade show, but one thing seems clear: Tech companies are keen to dig into issues that haven’t always received a fair share of the limelight.
…&…I’m reasonably certain that back when I enjoyed reading about tech R&D & trade-shows more than I seem to these days…I swear it was…less creepy
Jurors in the Epic v. Google trial, for instance, found that the search giant — which maintains the Android operating system used by billions of mobile devices around the world — operated its Google Play app store as a monopoly.
[…]
Apple may face a similar fate thanks to the European Commission, which some observers expect to require the company to let users “sideload,” or manually install, apps downloaded from outside the App Store.
…&…it’s probably fair to say that for a lot…probably most users…that wouldn’t make much difference since they use “get it from the company store” as shorthand for “probably not malware”…but…there’s some gulf-looking gaps between “you may install things you didn’t pay us a cut for” & “you have root & can tell us to do one if you feel like it”…just sayin’…not that root privileges work beyond your device
Other antitrust cases loom large. The Justice Department and several states are suing Google over allegations that it illegally stifles competition in search, and closing arguments are expected to be heard in May. The Federal Trade Commission is waging a legal battle with Amazon over concerns that the commerce giant harms sellers and shoppers by “depriving them of the benefits of open, fair competition.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
…it’s their world…we just work here
Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the first six satellites designed to double as orbiting cell towers, signaling a potential end to the age of the cellular dead zone.
…AKA “haven of tranquility”…vaya con dios, un-connected life
Meanwhile, Amazon — which aims to build its own global, satellite-based broadband internet service to compete with Musk’s Starlink — cleared a crucial hurdle in late December when it successfully forged a stable, high-speed data connection between two test satellites. The company plans to build enough of an orbiting fleet over the next several months to start trials with customers possible later this year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/08/tech-trends-2024/
…so…anyway…I’m sorry…I’m a little…how many of you know what “mardy” means?
Even if you spent the entire week combing through booths, you probably still wouldn’t see every new gadget or hear every promise to deliver a more efficient, productive, fulfilled life. Some companies are close to living up to those claims. Others aren’t even close. And telling them apart can be tricky at best.
…I was gonna get into shit like things kicking off in ecuador
What’s behind the ‘apocalyptic’ violence in Ecuador [NBC]
The Guardian view on Ecuador’s gang violence: a domestic crisis with transnational roots [Guardian]
…or south africa taking israel to the UN’s ICJ on charges of genocide
Israel faces a genocide case, and comments on displacing Gazans could complicate its defense [NBC]
…or…fuck…any number of things
Budget fight threatens poor families with cuts to housing aid, evictions [WaPo]
We’re in danger of falling off a ‘snow loss cliff.’ Here’s what that means. [WaPo]
GOP hard-liners sink procedural vote — again — to protest spending deal [WaPo]
Republican governors in 15 states reject summer food money for kids [WaPo]
Trump often passively encourages violence — and actively rationalizes it [WaPo]
‘Why Would Trump Win This Election When He Lost the Last One?’ [NYT]
A ‘National and Global Maelstrom’ Is Pulling Us Under [NYT]
The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration [NYT]
Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? [NYT]
Trump’s Argument for Immunity in 2024 Is the Opposite of His Stance in 2021 [NYT]
Regulators Approve New Type of Bitcoin Fund, in Boon for Crypto Industry [NYT]
[…fucking really? …could we just fucking once take our foot off the massive-emissions-for-bullshit-we’d-be-better-off-without pedal?]
Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe [Guardian]
US oil lobby launches eight-figure ad blitz amid record fossil fuel extraction [Guardian]
…the hits just keep coming
‘You better be scared’: wave of threats to officials foretell tense election year [Guardian]
Forty-four of 50 US states worsen inequality with ‘upside-down’ taxes [Guardian]
…although, here & there
Trump set to deliver own closing argument at civil fraud trial [Guardian]
…we get a swing & a miss […spoiler alert…they didn’t let the ass grandstand because it was fucking obvious he was going to do his usual attempt to turn petulance into an electoral asset]
‘Totally baseless’: Trump denounced for Nikki Haley ‘birther’ lie [Guardian]
Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ if criminal cases bar him from White House [Guardian]
…&…I dunno…I just don’t got it in me this morning to wrap my head around how some people can look at that kind of thing & think it projects strength & not panic fueled by abject existential terror…which…is not a helpful train of thought in a broader context
Britain warns of severe consequences after Houthi attack in Red Sea repelled [Guardian]
Trump told European leaders that US ‘will never come to help you’ [Guardian]
…uh huh
…some might call it par for this particular course
…la la la…I can’t hear you…nothing to see here
Are smartphones bad for us? Five world experts answer [Guardian]
…ummm…compared to what?
Your brain needs more rest than you’re giving it. These 9 tips can help. [WaPo]
…can they? …could we perhaps define “help”, though
Amazon’s AI-written product reviews aren’t as bad as you think [WaPo]
…or…we may be forced to agree to disagree…&…that’s how this ended up down a bitching-about-tech-at-a-trade-show rabbit hole this morning
You might not need an app to listen to — and interact with — music on your TV anymore. All you have to do is tune in to the right broadcast channel, and you’ll be able to play, pause, skip music videos and even dig into different music categories, no accounts or downloads required.
And yes, it really works — I spent a few minutes skipping through music videos being broadcast over the air here in Las Vegas. Honestly, it kind of felt like flicking through TikTok.
The feature comes courtesy of the music streaming company Roxi, and the how is a little complicated — it relies on a new broadcast standard many new TVs support, plus a bit of transient software that generates the on-screen controls and tries to figure out what else you would like to listen to.
…sound cool? …what if you didn’t even need to interact because AI could play your part for you?
The easiest way to think about the $199 Rabbit R1 is like an AI-powered walkie-talkie with a screen. Just hold down the button, ask it something — say, a recipe for an omelet, or to play a certain track — and wait for it to respond. Which admittedly doesn’t sound all that interesting at first.
The real draw is the fact that R1’s software is powered by a “large action model,” which means it’s been trained to interact with apps and services we commonly use anyway. Ask it to show you flights to San Diego, for example, and the R1 essentially handles all the clicking and tapping you would normally do in the background before reading the results out loud. Ask it to book the flight, and it interacts with the service to do just that.
In other words, it just does all the “doing” for you. It’s a grandiose promise, but one we may get to test very soon — the company says it plans to ship R1s to customers in the United States before Easter.
…look…I get it…I’m all kinds of biased & I don’t expect anyone else to agree with…hang on…what’s this now?
At first look, Clicks Technology’s $139 iPhone keyboard case comes off as a love letter to old-school BlackBerry fans — and it is. Typing on it feels satisfying in a way I haven’t experienced in years, and I’m surprised to admit that holding a superlong, encased iPhone isn’t as awkward as I expected.
But this accessory isn’t just for people who miss their old phones. The company believes these physical keys could help people who have trouble typing on slick, feedback-free glass screens, be it because of preference or a physical impairment such as blindness.
…aww…c’mon…so near & yet so far…why the hell would you make it portrait not landscape…& you can’t even tuck it away when you’re not using it…&…I’m being trolled, aren’t I?
The Nuance glasses, as they’re called, use six built-in microphones and some software smarts to amplify whatever sound source you’re looking at — whether it’s your TV or your date over dinner.
Even better: Unlike many other OTC options, nothing actually sits in your ear. That’s partly for reasons of style but also because the company believes chatting someone up with devices in your ears can lead to the perception that you’re not fully engaged in the conversation.
I tried on a pair of Nuance glasses in a casino floor coffee shop, which turned out to be a less ideal testing environment than a raucous dinner party. While the effect was subtle, it did work — which means I didn’t have to lean in and ask my conversation partner to repeat what they said, like I often have to now.
…&…that actually does sound like the sort of thing desmond llewelyn would have told sean connery to keep his mitts off while doling out the spy gadgets du jour…which is a much creepier use case than assisting the hard of hearing over dinner
Ballie, a rolling companion that’s a little bigger and heavier than a bowling ball, will go on sale later this year. And when it does, it’ll project movies and video calls onto walls, interact with smart appliances, keep tabs on your pets and more. (How well it’ll do at most of these things is anyone’s guess, but we can confirm its projector works reasonably well.)
It’s very different from other homebound machines Samsung makes, such as the company’s motorized mops and vacuum cleaners. Ballie is, by design, a more general-purpose assistant. And it’s not alone: LG is planning to release an AI home robot that does a little bit of everything in 2025, too.
These companies are clearly convinced these machines have a role to play in our lives; the bigger question is whether normal people actually feel the same way.
…&…curmudgeon I may be…but…some of it does make sense to me
Each Lotus ring has an infrared transmitter and a tiny, click-y button — press that, and it’ll send commands to compatible Lotus smart home products that can flick off light switches and turn on plugged-in appliances. You’ll also be able to turn your TV on and off, says CEO Dhaval Patel, who added that the team is working on a version of the ring with a touch sensor that will let you flick through channels and menus.
When the prototype I tried worked, it felt a bit like having a very specific kind of superpower, one I wouldn’t mind using in my daily life. But Lotus mainly built the ring for people with limited mobility who haven’t already spent lots of time and money making their homes “smart” — an audience that too often goes unnoticed by mainstream tech.
…some shit, though…like the stuff that appeals to the people who mod those monowheel things for shits&giggles…that…not so much
In recent years, cars have expanded their presence at a show that used to be best known for new televisions and PCs. But they’re not the only way to get around — you could, for instance, strap on a pair of French motorized ski shoes and whiz around town at 50 mph.
If that sounds a little terrifying, well, it should: Commuter-grade electric scooters in the United States usually top out at about 25 miles per hour. When cruising around on these four-wheel-drive skis at a more reasonable 12 miles per hour, you can expect its set of batteries to carry you close to 20 miles. And when you’re done, the handheld remote used to control the Skwheels latch onto these speedy shoes and becomes a handle for easy transport.
The luxury of skiing anywhere comes at a cost, though: While the company is running an early-adopter discount, the full retail price of a set of Skwheels is close to $2,700.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/09/ces-2024-best-weirdest-tech/
…so…sorry about that…if it helps at all…the human interest story hasn’t popped its clogs just yet
‘Soul-warming’: the mystery man who chops wood to keep his neighbors from freezing [Guardian]
…&…you know…one little burst of john crace might not make up for my sins…but…well…I might have lucked out there
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/johncrace
…for most of you that’s probably got more than one you’ve not read on the list…so…once I find some tunes…hopefully I’ll have at least one foot out of the dog-house?
This is weird and fitting.
https://news.yahoo.com/gene-roddenberrys-remains-now-drifting-152957194.html
Banning the dictionary is the logical conclusion to this idiotic Florida law.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/school-district-bans-the-dictionary-to-comply-with-ron-desantis-s-book-ban-law/ar-AA1mKZQ6
…I’ve heard of a dictionary attack as a brute force model…but…sigh…I guess we need to update another definition
…if they spoil my enjoyment of that calvin & hobbes strip about verbing potentially letting us make language an impediment to understanding…I will not be responsible for my actions…damn it
P.S.
…how different really is that lady from a bot at this point?
…I mean…aside from what it takes to spin up a bunch of clones, obviously…but…in “intelligence deployed” terms…I’m getting some serious “they’re the same picture” vibes…& I don’t like it
Naaaaah, Rip, that lady isn’t the same as a Bot.
Bots are smarter than her.
They at least *try* to learn, acquire knowledge,** and *expand* available information.
This woman is trying to do the OPPOSITE, remove information from the common realm, gatekeep knowledge, and limit access to the power gained from learning things for oneself.
She’s *actively* being evil, while bots *passively* do evil things–because of the biases of their creators.
(**aaaaadddmittedly by theft… but the bots *are* trying to learn!)
I’m with the Navajo Nation on this. It’s immensely arrogant to send our junk to the moon.
…no idea if any of you lot will find this as perfect as I did when someone sent it to me…but…I’d like to think that’s the gift I come bearing?
[ETA: …since I forgot about needing to adjust the URL to say twitter instead of X for the embed to function…& I’m still feeling guilty about the mardy bit…& I know at least one of you does like this stuff…I’d have preferred a stackexchange type of a link about the meaning of mardy over urban dictionary’s effort…but I didn’t find one in the alloted time-span…I did, however…find this one…you’re welcome]
Oh, I jumped right over to find what those things meant . . .
That “University Challenge” video was priceless. And she wears like a…I forget what those are called. Halter top? Imagine wearing that in Aberdeen, even in July and August. A little chilly.
Drum & Bass? Jungle? What’s the diff. They weren’t old enough to have experienced it so it never existed.
…for my money if they’d mixed it into the tune that sampled the line from predator which goes “it was the jungle, it just came alive & took him” it might have achieved perfection
…& never underestimate the blue-lipped hardiness of a northern lass when it comes to not needing to spend time in the queue for the cloakroom at the club…in the land of the mardy mare even a wee slip of a thing will give you a right kicking if you’re out of line
…either way you cut me to the quick…at one point rolling stone had the spice girls on the cover & I remember being in various bits of the states after that when trying to explain the UK was also producing jungle & drum’n’bass & what the difference was between…say…goldie’s inner city pressure & prizna & the demolition man’s fire…or the helicopter song…seemed like vital cultural intelligence that required ambassadors
…such being the care-free days of my debatable youth?
This reminds me, actually, of the photos that the “Daily Mail” likes to publish of “city centres” during a national festive night out. I haven’t read the DM in a long time, but there used to be so many photos of scantily clad young women in obviously very cold conditions fallen over onto the ground or being helped along by friends, one of either side, both being being equally scantily clad women. Newcastle was good for this. I’ve never been so I don’t know what you’d do in Newcastle except drink yourself into unconsciousness?
Reminds me:
…newcastle is…something of an archetype that way…although cardiff or glasgow or liverpool or manchester or…quite a lot of places could give it a run for its money one way or another
…but…the animals came out of newcastle (iirc?)…&…at least one member of dire straits…I think…&…prefab sprout?
…so…there’s a good bit of nature vs. nuture up for debate before you got to…what would be era-appropriate-ish…umm…dubstar “representing” as “less manic now”
…very much not acoustically the way I remember, though?
Did I ever tell you (OH NO, GOD NO, IT’S TOO EARLY) that I have met a surprisingly large number of Mancunians who weren’t natives? They were/are all university educated and they could have lived anywhere in the UK, I think, but they moved there for the job opportunities. And not to work for the Beeb in Salford (which sounds like an absolute horror show.)
As London becomes more and more a parody of itself and insanely expensive, I’m sure Manchester must be a growth market. I’ve never been (to Manchester; I’ve spent far too much time in London) but it sounds fun. And, even I know they have football powerhouse ManU.
…manchester is a lot things wrapped up in a surprisingly small package…including nearly a half-dozen undergraduate institutions…so…it’s a good bit easier to tell the natives & the resident imports from the temporary tenants when it isn’t term time
…& so long as you have a decent set of waterproofs & some access to insulated clothing…it does a decent job of providing many of the attractions of a place like london while scaling everything down to make a lot of it walkable…& doing several things between leaving the office & going to bed is plausible…plus…not london prices…so I could see the appeal to the folks you mentioned
@Matthew Crawley, it’s *NOT* “Please NO!!!”, it’s VERY much, “YAY, YES, Please MORE!!!” regarding the little asides, sweet stories, tales of adventures past, and the people who’ve crossed your path!
THESE, my friend–*as well as* your delightful bon mots, were the things we SO missed having around, during your convalescence at that far-away sanitarium!
Cousin Matty, you’re our “Delightfully Urbane, well-traveled Uncle, ’round here!
Deadsplinter’s *GOOD* version of the doofus David Brooks. Frankly, you’re the guy Brooks *wants* to be, and THINKS he is–even though *he’s* actually out of touch. Unlike the doofus Brooks, you ADMIT when you’re making shit up on the fly, and don’t have a clue… Brooks? Wellllll, hd talks to “A Common Man!”(TM) and then pens a whole damn Book & goes on *tour* showcasing his lack of knowledge *and* lack of wisdom!😉
YOU, on the other hand, are *delightfully HONEST,* and then you ask QUESTIONS, educate yourself, you DON’T act like you’re better than your educator, and then the stories YOU tell, are the sort which show EVERYONE how you *APPRECIATED* learning things from that person (or those people), and your educator becomes the hero of that particular story in your life.
Where, when Brooks tells of his “education” it typically seems to be from a place of, “Look! Let me show you the nugget of *WISDOM*(TM)!, Which only *I* the Estimable David Brooks, could refine, from the tales told to me, by this Bleak, Poor, Working-class Human, *toiling* away for a mere pittance, as he talked with ME (The Estimable David Brooks!), as he stumbled across MyGrandPath, on my way to MyImportantJobs, and I tarried for a bit, to grace him with My(The Estimable David Brooks!), mighty Presence!”
You aren’t an ass, @Matthew Crawley, your tales are a BELOVED thing around here, and while our beloved Deadsplinter was definitely functional when you were away?
It DID truly lack that conversational *sparkle,* that makes the discussions SO much more fun, during those weeks you were gone.
Your anecdotes are *beloved,* for the wit, humor, sparkle, and just *joy* they bring us, every day, Cousin Matty.
Don’t sell yourself short–you’re a goddamn TREASURE!😉💖
That is incredibly flattering, and I can’t be more thankful for the response. During a half dozen episodes the first half of this year (at least) I really overstepped my bounds, for which I’m still regretful. But the Deadsplinter family are better people than I am, and forgiving, and I’m trying to put on a happy face:
Gosh. Now that totally viable Presidential candidate Chris Christie has dropped out of the race, I should run in the Republican primaries. Although I think it’s too late to get on the ballots. Imagine the (Donald Trump-free) debates.
“What you’re forgetting, Nikki, is that Donald trump, for unhinged reasons of his own, chose you to be the US representative at the UN. I mean, I know it’s a ceremonial position, whenever anything comes up you’d vote basically the way the US has voted since the UN was founded after WWII. So i don’t know what your hang-up is, as the say on “Hawaii 5-0.”
“Ron, you know, I love Florida. We used to own a small condo there. But it was in super-gay South Beach, and my husband’s Black, he’s in the audience, stand up and say hello, Better Half. Ron, we sold that condo a while ago. Do you think there’s room for us in Florida now? I mean, half of New York it seems has fled to New York, so congrats, but…”
“Vivek, hon, good for you for making so much money in tech, biotech, who can really remember and who really cares. But you’re really sliding into Howard Hughes territory. You’re probably too young to know who he was, but your Svengali, Donald J. Trump would—what am I saying? He hasn’t read anything but subpoenas in the last 45 years.”
ETA: brain fog. I would say to Ron, half of New York has fled to Florida, not New York, because that makes no sense.
…wondered if you’d meant miami specifically or some particular enclave of ex-pat NY natives…but I feel you on the irritation of a late-spotted typo
Regarding the “Blue lipped” girls, though?
*THAT ONE* i *do* get, having to do that, myself, occasionally!😉
1. Women’s clothes are *literally* made of thinner, cheaper (shittier, it’s SHITTIER!) materials than men’s, as a cost-cutting measure.
2. You don’t *always* have a “Cute” coat when you live in cold, Northern climates. Under a *certain* (EXPENSIVE!) price point there? there is “Warm & Functional in the cold” *OR* there is “Stylish & Fashionable”.
Under a copole *hundred* dollars? *Both Things* typically CAN’T exist in a woman’s jacket that actually *fits* a human body!
So you get a WARM jacket, and it gets left in the car for the way home.
3. You leave the heavy, warm jacket in the *car*, rather than coat-checking it, because A. It *might* be dirty from having had to clear the street-snot off your windows earlier that day/week, B. You don’t wanna carry it to the destination then WORRY about it all night (if there isn’t a coat check, it could be stolen if it’s NICE and also warm!
And 3.C. BECAUSE those “Stylish” Women’s clothes *are* made of the cheaper, shittier materials?
Even just the *weight* of a decent, warm coat, can CRUSH and horribly wrinkle/mangle those lightweight fabrics, leaving you looking like the full-sized version of the favorite doll of a 3-year old, after spending the day being dragged all across an outdoor playground by the doll’s one foot…. sad, wrinkled, suffering torn-bits hanging off hems, crushed/flat ruffles, missing sequins, and just *general* bedraggledness!
Safer for your look & outfit, to suffer a bit, as you wait *outside,* then be warm & look good *inside* the place, than be warm, but spend the WHOLE evening, looking like a discarded, sad, dolly!
I’m shocked. Are you shocked?
Moms for Liberty school board member busted for shoplifting from Target
[obligatory]
This woman has some serious mental issues that need to be addressed, but goes to show that those who want control over what other people because they can’t control the issues within themselves like the Threesome Ziegler woman or her rapey husband.
I still struggle with AI being any more of a difference maker than all the other things that were supposed to revolutionize things and have flopped: virtual reality (yeah, it’s a flop), Google glasses, 3D TV, and so on.
AI is going to be bad because it’ll be like the “pivot to video” craze in digital media and lots of people will lose jobs because executives are obsessed with the idea of cutting costs via bots. But that’s still an executive problem, and it’s what they already want to do anyway. AI has shown no signs of thinking and IMO nobody outside of the hype circle thinks it will any time soon. And it’s built on stolen intellectual property AND it has tell after tell that even a half-discerning reader can immediately see.
…so…what with being in a certain sort of mood this morning…&…sort of following on from the mention of google’s glasses…& the directional mic + bone conduction ones up there somewhere…I dunno…I buy that there are possible futures in which some of this stuff becomes commonplace or even ubiquitous…they’re making tvs that are transparent now…we have things that were previously short-hand visual cues for “set in the future”…& a future of see-through screens already runs the gamut from star trek to the expanse…if it were up to me I’d do my best to steer clear of the one that includes spider jerusalem & the asymmetric specs he uses to ply his trade as an attack journalist with vim, vigor & heaping quantities of misanthropic ire…& those are just AV recording devices
…the bond version with the sort of laser mic that can turn a window into a speaker with lenses designed to make the targeting dot only visible to the wearer…real-time machine translation on a scrolling HUD, optional
…I’d just as soon that didn’t become an affordable fashion necessity for any of us?
Yeah, my point is less that I don’t think they can build it, I’m just not sure what the market is ever going to be for any of it. Most of the big tech hits of the 21st century were somebody building a thing that was small at first but kinda cool or interesting and then it grew, if not organically, at least through actual user interest before becoming something saleable. All of these products now are tech companies being like “This thing changes everything! You must have this!” and that’s a completely different sell. The fact that they have to call language learning technology “AI” suggests that they’re well aware of the flimsiness of what they’re actually trying to push out.
There’s also a big difference between add-on tech and totally new ideas. Transparent TVs are still TVs; bone conduction headphones are still headphones. You don’t need to sell those as hard because lots of people own both already.
…not disagreeing with any of that…but I think I said somewhere hereabouts the other day (or shockingly it might have been in an actual face to face conversation with somebody elsewhere) that I’d be inclined to buy a not-smart TV given the option but that they didn’t seem much inclined to make that worth the effort of tracking one down…so I’m sort of assuming that given a decade or so it might very well be that the panoply of personal devices considered to be a requisite of modern life might well include a number I’d be instinctively resistant to the way things appear to be trending
…I don’t need a see-through tv any more than I need the tv itself to connect to the internet or run the sort of operating system than requires updates & patches…but I wound up buying one of the latter last time I went shopping…so I guess I’m not looking forward to the thing I get my mail on keeping an eye on my blood-pressure & micro-expressions for me
…but…maybe by then I’ll have a pair of those nifty lenses zaphod beeblebrox has that get more opaque the more dangerous the things you’d be looking at are & I’ll be beyond caring?
I think that’s certainly true, and in by-the-book capitalism, there would be a company lagging two decades behind with dumber TVs and Walkman-style headphones to snare that market share. I know some of that stuff is available but it’s increasingly hard to find. And you likely need Amazon or something similar to get it, which at least in part defeats the purpose.
Meanwhile, the local cable concern is axing cable boxes for its homemade streaming-only system that is no doubt cheaper to produce and of lower quality (and just as unsurprisingly, is its raising rates at the same time). PROGRESS!
I do think a lot of this is built on the fact that of the big tech ventures this century, there’s really only one that’s been a legitimate financial success, and it’s the iPhone. For all the big stock numbers and hullabaloo over the social media companies and the Ubers and the Teslas of the world, they’re all having a hard (maybe even impossible?) time thriving when interest rates don’t make free money easy to come by. So there’s a lot of “Let’s market our thing like an iPhone!” but that doesn’t fly when the product is nowhere near as innovative or effective or even cool.
…yeah…the pocket-size touchscreen pandora’s box is arguably the OG rabbit to come out of that hat…but I’d almost be inclined to say it was the UI & getting people used to it that was the real trick…much the way point & click “revolutionised” what most people could do with a PC?
Yup, those are both very parallel things: Took a piece of tech with huge potential but that was either complicated to use (DOS prompts) or had poor UX (BlackBerry) and made it user-friendly and kicked open the door to a totally new universe of functionality.
Those breakthroughs don’t come along that often, either.
There’s a definite “fad” vibe for me surrounding AI. AI has become a huge selling point for startups seeking funding, but it’s not really clear how many are actually using any form of AI or they’re just putting the letters in their pitch decks to bamboozle venture capitalists. Some have admitted if you don’t mention AI you won’t get money. Period.
I will say there is a huge surge in our client base of companies subscribing to ChatGPT but we don’t know exactly what they use it for. I suspect mostly it’s a marketing/PR replacement that lets them write press releases or blog posts quickly. It’s … okay for that. Not great. Just okay. I find myself editing it a lot every time I use it. But it often gives me a running start on something.
…I know at least one person who runs an app on their phone solely because it provides on demand access to an LLM without having to queue or subscribe pretty much just to satisfy their curiosity about where they’ve got to
…along with various others who’ve used it with text &/or code to do things faster so as to let them use the time saved to improve upon…with a pretty significant overlap into the stuff they get paid to do
…but the fad thing rings true…it was machine learning & big data a few iterations back the way spatial computing was virtual reality…& the linguistic change is arguably bigger than the functional differences from the last thing we mostly didn’t understand the workings of but couldn’t deploy fast enough to keep up with the buzzword soundbites?
Update on mom.
It seems that her dementia imploded what I call her narcissistic bubble.*
*the bubble is the unreality/fantasy world that keeps narcissists from dealing with reality (I’m so great, I don’t make mistakes, I am perfect, etc ad nauseum)
My sisters (more so than myself but I find I am coming around on this) believe mom is a low grade narcissist. It means she wasn’t a totally toxic one, but she did do some damage (hello low self esteem!)
Yesterday I attended a round table discussion (as the mom SME) with psychiatric and healthcare professionals trying to figure out the best course of treatment for mom’s issues and behavioral problems at the seniors home. I found out more about those issues which didn’t surprise me.
The psychiatrist figured mom had a psychotic break complete with depression. Not much different than one’s bubble bursting. So instead of mood stabilizers, they’re going to anti-depressants.
This has actually given me some closure with the narcissists who helped fuck up my life. Knowing that despite all their efforts in pretending to be someone they’re not, the bubble will collapse. I’m just sad that my mom found out way too late before we could help her.
It might be the first time I actually pity Former Housemate and Cokehead Narcissist knowing what old age will do to them (assuming either makes it there.)
…I can only sympathize…well…maybe empathize a little but these situations are pretty much unique in more ways than they aren’t
…so in lieu of anything that might attempt on my part to say something useful or relevant…you’ve reminded me I meant to mention this might be of interest to you
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/08/i-wouldnt-have-missed-it-for-the-world-10-things-i-learned-when-my-father-had-dementia
Thank you.
I’m going through most of the same things.
Including the part about self worth. Despite mom’s best efforts, my self worth wasn’t totally wiped out. I know I can handle a lot and still help others.
Also, my relationship with my parents can be best described as rocky, but in the end I didn’t run (or act giddy at the prospect) I did my duty for them. My sisters feel guilty leaving them to me, but I also understand mom’s cruelty to them was something they had to escape so I don’t feel any anger towards them. They helped so they did what they had to (besides, they endure my parents way more than I did so it evens out.)
Personal Support Workers and others don’t get paid enough for what they have to go thru.
Manchu, I’m SO sorry you & your sisters are going through all of it–Dementia fucking SUUUUUUUCKS–but I’m GLAD you have each other to talk to, AND that your parents are under really good, knowledgeable care!
Between Rip’s article, YOUR mention of the Narcissism blowing up, and a little nugget my therapist said in our virtual meeting just a bit ago.
I’d mentioned being SO grateful for that last 6 weeks with Dad in Hospice, because it helped *me* set down all the possible guilt *I* might’ve carried, had he died another way–Annnnnd she misheard me, thinking i still *had* guilt! (That’s what I get for being a chronic mumbler!😉😆💖)
Anyway, the relevant part to remind your *sisters*, is that Your Mom *is* still HERE!💖💓💗
Old-Mom IS 100% GONE, and they *AREN’T* going to be able to call THAT woman out, for being the Horrible, AWFUL, cruel, narcissistic evil to them, that she *deserved*.
But? Becsuse THAT woman IS dead & gone, *yet your mom IS still physically here?*, they can CELEBRATE the death of their tormemter if they want, WITHOUT any feelings of guilt, that it could hurt your mom!😃😁🤗💖 it’s a WEIRD juxtaposition & place to be, but if they WANT to do it? It harms no one, as long as it helps them process the feelings and get RID of them, if that’s what they need or choose to do.
I’m pretty sure that *I* did *some* of that, subconsciously, with my own dad, tbqh!!! Back in 1982, when he lost the milk trucks, and lost his business? He became SO clinically depressed, that we went on welfare, he took to sleeping on the living room couch, smoking his damn cigarettes, & reading his westerns, annnnd he didn’t LEAVE the couch other than trips to the store, or for family events most of the years from 1982-1994, when I graduated from high school.
The only times during those years when he *wasn’t* on that couch, rotting in bed (to use an unofficial ADHD term😉), was when the state of Minnesota FORCED him to be looking for a job, going to college to get job skills, or the few rare jobs he held for a couple years at a time, until he got fired for his “attitude” (surliness)…
Before he died, I had a TON of really complicated feelings, about my 2nd-12th grade years, and growing up “poor” and “trailer trash” in a town where the *only* reason it wasn’t thrown in my face, was because EVERYONE saw how hard Mom carried the load, and because insulting *me* would call out the calvary (Oldest cousin is two years older, he was popular & a star athlete, his sister–also popular–is a year older than me, next boy is my age, also well-liked, as is *his* sister– the year after us, snd our other cousin that age… there are 13 cousins–including me–from that oldest boy, to our youngest, who’s 12 years younger than him…
I *couldn’t* be bullied, because there was *ALWAYS* someone who was *family* who would’ve been within earshot of the bully, and able to call them out for it.
Plus, as I’ve said before–we *couldn’t* HAVE bullies, because there would be no team sports–each *grade* had less than 25 kids, in K-12!
*Anyway*… growing up with the Dad I had–ruminating like a mother fucker on ANY perceived slight, unable/ unwilling to DO anything to help himself OR his wife & kid, literally as the trailer house crumbled *around* us, over the years, and just okay with being Stagnant & trying to keep mom & *me* there WITH him in that stagnation, was something that’s hurt since I was a KID, snd which I’d tried SO hard to understand over the years…
And THEN the Dementia hit, annnnnd then, he started living in the Jeremy-Bearimy, *somewhere* between the mid-1960’s and the “present” (“Present” being anything between 1994, and *now*, with me as an adult, not *that actual day*!)
And THAT was when I began to see that the parts which had HURT me–the parts of him, which madd him UNABLE to be a responsible adult, pull his head out of his ass, and move forward?
Those were blocked by HIS feelings of inadequacy, his undiagnosed Autism, and the traumas inflicted on HIM, by *his* Narcissistic-ish Mom who was a “Baby of the family-who moved to *Treasured & Adored Wife* weeks after her high school graduation.
Grandma was a Boat-Rocker, she *adored* having “her Boys!” at her beck & call, AND she ADORED playing favorites and *trying* to pit people AGAINST one another… she literally & VISIBLY had “favorite” and “disliked” children & grandchildren, *And* she made SURE you KNEW where you stood… honestly, as her granddaughter? The woman was a BITCH sometimes–and her cruel ways of playing favorites was one of the BIGGEST ways!
Because I could SEE as he was in Hospice, that Dad’s inability back during my childhood *WAS* so DEEPLY wrapped up in *both* his autism, *and* the cruelty of Grandma, and *him* feeling like he’d let her down–and then her death in 1989, meaning HE couldn’t ever get closure for FEELING like he let her down?
I could process *MY* frustration & anger that I’d HAD with “Old Dad”–who was honestly ALSO dead & gone, while “New, Dementia-Dad” was now the guy I had and was dealing with… and I guess what I’d say gradually happened, was that all the hurt, anger, & frustration I was feeling, on any given day?
I could FEEL those feelings, and then mentally go visit the “non-grave” of “Old Dad,” *LEAVE* those feelings there, with that lazy, kinda pathetic SOB, and then be DONE with them–and HIM, and yet STILL go back & hang out with, talk to, love on, and *BE* loved by (as much as he was capable of it, anyway!), the dude who was still walking around and at least *sometimes* happy to see me (when I wasn’t “Ruining his life!!!!” of course!😉😆😂🤣💖).
Having that year to mourn *old Dad,* the shitty guy who couldn’t/wouldn’t DO a damn thing unless he was forced, while STILL *HAVING* the grace of having that *other* guy *here*?
It meant that–especially during those last six weeks, as I could FEEL the clock running down, toward it’s eventual stop, allllllll that guilt, and alllllllll that resentment, could be laid to rest with the OLD dad, and I could simply *EXIST* with the new one, in whatever short time we had together, and CHERISH those minutes & hours we could spend *just sitting* comfortable with each other, not always even *saying* anything–just *being* together for THAT moment in the universe.
It was the biggest damn gift I could’ve received…
And *as* your Mom’s Dementia progresses–*especially* if they have someone to talk to, and HELP them to process the hard parts… and maybe who can help ’em with the mental shovel-work(?😉😈😆💖), it *might* help your SISTERS, if *they* can bury the “bitchy Narcissist” parts of *your Mom,* before SHE’S physically gone, too💖
I don’t KNOW if it would, of course!!! But if *you* think it could? Why not suggest it as a possibility, so they don’t have that guilt hanging off them, like chains, later on.
Dementia SUCKS ASS, sooooooo much!!! But there *are* occasional nuggets of pure GOLD in there opportunities-wise, sometimes, too!💖
That’s tough. My sisters are trying to process that mom isn’t the mom they knew anymore.
My dad and I didn’t have the best relationship, but as he aged we got better. I like my easy going simple father of today than the over anxious short tempered impatient man I grew up with.
That’s a GREAT link, Rip, thanks for sharing it (bookmarking it & sending it to my Bestie, who does Chaplaincy work, with a multi-county group of Law Enforcement folks she knows/ has worked with over her years as a Jailer & now a Baliff, too.
it’s *exactly* the sort of resource SHE can use, for her role helping run some of their Griefshare sessions–so THANK you!!!💖)
Never knew that a narcissist’s bubble could burst. My MIL has certainly resisted that. I hope that treatment helps your mom and your family.
Thanks.
Maybe not all of them, but it seems it happened to my mom. My mom’s version of the Glass Menagerie.
This goes a long way to explain her shitty behaviors to the staff and to dad especially.
My MIL has resisted it too. I think it has to do a lot with the fact that she’s still being enabled, primarily by my wife. Since my wife took over pretty much every aspect of her finances, my MIL can continue to ignore reality. At this point I think the only way the bubble breaks is through a health crisis, like Manchu’s mom. If something happens that requires her to go into a care facility, I think reality is going to crash down on her pretty hard. Because she won’t be in a first-class, top-of-the-line facility. It’s going to be lower-end.
However, if the health crisis is both terminal and abrupt, I don’t think she’s ever going to have any degree of self-awareness.
FFS This is getting even more insane…
https://www.rawstory.com/saying-youre-homophobic-could-cost-you-35000-under-sweeping-florida-gop-bill/
They’re stabbing themselves in the face (more wingnuts throwing accusations around) without realizing it.
The guy sponsoring this bill, Brodeur, is a known associate of criminal Joel Greenberg, who testified that Brodeur engaged in election fraud. He allegedly participated in a “ghost candidate” scheme where you put an unknown on the ballot, frequently with a name that suggests specific ethnicity, to siphon off votes from Democratic candidates. But he keeps getting elected because Florida = stupid.
“We need ‘Jungle’, I’m afraid.” Delightful.
…speaking of which…in the spirit of “sharing is caring”…the delightful bunch who were responsible for that coming to my attention also deployed this one
…which one described as their favorite jungle link of all time…& that is why that lot are among my favorite people…well, about equal parts that & the fact that while managing to remember the term asymptotic for me after it had been bugging me for a while they also threw up the point that it’s a poorly phrased question that betrays an author who failed to master their brief
…to wit…a dancehall influence is mentioned…which is absolutely a throughline to jungle…but it’s also said to be closely associated with goldie…who is very much more or less definitionally associated with drum’n’bass
…what can I say…at some point I think I found my people
…tend to think if ever the twain were to meet we could have a fine old time of it now my acquaintance includes you lot…but I fear the contest over who had control of the playlist might require some diplomatic interventions?
WTF? NO NO NO!
https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/george-carlin-ai-generated-comedy-special-1235868315/
This is upsetting but not surprising…
https://www.levernews.com/how-boeing-bought-washington/
I love this lady soooooo much!
“…what happens to your…little leader […] all them people gonna be flipping in a hot minute are republicans, I wanna point out…lot of ’em hand picked by donald trump himself […] don’t tell me you care about the constitution ‘cuz ya don’t…you only care about getting him re-elected…I yield the rest of my time to my leader”
…my transcription skills might not do the lady justice…but she’d certainly get my vote?
Now I know why all my prayers were never answered…
…help, help…I’m turning evel
…next thing you know I’ll make the jump to kenievel…& we all know how that ends?
(Clicks QuizMasters buzzer thingy): It ends in Butte, Montana, USA!
(Hi-fives teammates, is ejected from studio.)
It usually ended with me demanding mom take me to the toy store and get one of these.
The answer was/is No.
I had one of those and the amount of times my stunt session ended with me climbing into a storm drain (or getting the neighbors little brother to climb down) was much greater than my successful jump rate.
/scratches head/
The asshole who stabbed me in the back several times and abused his “power” as supervisor at work wants me to connect with him on Linkedin.
The only thing I want to connect is my fist to his face.
I’m just going to ignore him.
/jeez, some people/
My old VP from the company that fired me wanted to connect on LinkedIn. This is a woman who, when I told her that her handpicked stooge was sabotaging my work, said I was making things up. She was also fired after I was.
I did not accept the connection. I never want to see that idiot again.
I’m assuming it’s a straight address book pull and not a pick and choose thing.
That’s certainly possible, but oddly I don’t actually think so. This woman had a compulsive need to be liked (she worked for years at “the happiest place on Earth”), coupled with very limited marketing skills. Like a lot of upper management, she had no idea how anything she oversaw actually worked.
Her modus operandi was to get a position, then find a stooge that was significantly smarter than she is and who understood marketing to do her bidding. Then she would “protect” that stooge. Before our big blowup she told me several times how impressed she was with my experience (at this point I’ve done everything) and that I’d be a good replacement for her main stooge. Which she told to the main stooge, who then started sabotaging my work.
The main stooge also stabbed her in the back, which contributed to her dismissal (I never thought the leopards would eat MY face). That stooge now runs the department. She had another backup stooge but he went elsewhere when things started to crumble.
I think she might have been looking for a new marketing stooge (sort of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”), and may have been genuinely puzzled that I still hold a serious fucking grudge.
That’s the most times I’ve typed the word “stooge” in my life, but no other word adequately describes that role.
This is completely O/T but Better Half, in his herding cats way, is—well, it doesn’t really matter what he does, but he sets up and leads a lot of meetings—and he’s talking to a particularly exuberant rep from a client/partner and that person said, “So, I can’t do it [whenever WEEK] because we’re going to [wherever] for our annual team-building exercise.
Oh God. A week-long “team-building exercise.” And it’s not like they’re traveling on a fun junket. This bunch works in a dreary suburb and the “exercise” is to take place in an equally grim exurb not that far away. But apparently, like something out of 1984, they’ll be locked away and instructed in RightThink.
Horrifying. But the guy seems to be looking forward to it. I suspect he doesn’t have a particularly happy home life.
He’s looking forward to it because the last time he had one, I imagine they did a quick lobotomy snip on the way out so he only has pleasant memories.
I think, from eavesdropping on these speakerphone/Zoom calls (so useless and offensive, to me) that the guy is really jonesing for the soma, like in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
And what a great name Aldous is. I also like Auberon. And, to be a smidge Völkisch, Gerd-Peter. And Hartmut. My real name is more boring than you could imagine. I should legally change my name to Hartmut. That (sort of) translates from German to “courageous hero.” You can imagine during which era of German history that became popular. It’s actually a very old Teutonic name and there was a movement to make children’s names as German as possible, so there was a whole generation of women with names like Waltraud and Irmgard.
My two German grandmothers’ names fall into that category (the first one died when my dad was little). They are so unique now, that it could dox me if I reveal them (ETA: one ends in -gard and the other begins with Sieg-). My grandmother used a shortened version of her name in Canada and eventually decided “this is bullshit” and requested that everyone use her full length given name.
My German boyfriend’s grandmother had a name like that. Gudrun, I think it was. Her story was very sad. She met a guy. Doubtless she was in the Bund Deutscher Mädel and he was being groomed to enter the army. Every man of his age was. So they had a civil marriage ceremony, because the Third Reich frowned on religious ceremonies: Thou shalt not have false gods before you. Adolf Hitler is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
They get married, and the “marriage certificate” was a copy of Mein Kampf signed by the—I doubt their region was big enough to have a Gauleiter, but the book was signed by the Mayor, let’s say. The grandmother had this in her living room.
Now, mind you, as part of my studies I had to read Mein Kampf twice, once in English and then again in German. Fun stuff.
So the guy is sent into advanced basic training (those boys/young men were essentially in basic training for years) with a few brief home leaves, during which he manages to produce two daughters through his young wife. In 1941 Hitler turned his gaze to the USSR to get even more Lebensraum and to defeat Communism once and for all, because the other western European countries, most of which he had already conquered or beat into neutrality, were too feeble to do it themselves. The guy was sent to the Russian front, like millions of others, I think. He lasted three days.
It’s a horrible, horrible thing, war. And so needless.
…famous last words?
…for the full effect
the thread via nitter.net
My god, at what point do people realize that he needs to be institutionalized?
FIFY
…might have gone with “put out of our misery” myself…but…to-may-to, to-may-to?
…someone should have a word with whoever rid that one dude of a troublesome priest…for truly there is nothing new under the sun