Forums - The Big Questions

Fruit Orchard Questions

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:40:41 +0000

What's up with the new guy running the Cupertino's favorite orchard? I've never heard of him. Granted, I've never heard of most of the people working there.

AI content

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:14:53 +0000

I am cobbling a new thread out of the chatGPT and DALL-E thread because this is the next gen.

(01-28-2026, 03:06 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote:

Well damn

I fell down the rabbit hole of Lolita Cercel. I was digging her music on TikTok, subscribed to her YouTube, discovered thst if you search Lolita on IG, you get a stern warning about child porn and was trying to find out if she’s touring when I realized she’s AI. I was totally fooled.

I got sucked into these Chinese religious statue factory YouTubes. They’re so hypnotic. But im thinking this is ai too now. I mean how may of these giant statues could you sell? Enough to support a factory like this?

(03-06-2026, 03:53 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: I just gotta say...

Jessica Foster was feckn hilarious.

https://www.instagram.com/jessicaa.foster/

(03-11-2026, 08:28 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote: We need an AI video thread. It's slightly OT on this chatGPT and DALL-E thread.

If you haven't heard about Chinese AI-made micro-dramas, here's a taste (you've probably seen them and just not known). This video stitches together several episodes of a popular series that blew up with millions of views.

I do this to keep my notes organized because this is my notes-to-myself cache since my memory is failing...

Tilly Norwood is no match for Lolita Cercel

Amazon Pallet Sales!

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 20:51:48 +0000

My Facebook has been flooded with ads to purchase a pallet of returned Amazon goods for $29 over the last couple of weeks. The come on is that all these new in the box of electronics have been returned to Amazon and rather than go through the hassle of putting them into the system, it would just be cheaper to sell them to you. If you sign up and pay the $29 bucks we'll send this pallet of goods to you. That has to be too good to be true, right? This was the mistake I alluded to earlier.

Guess what? It was totally a mistake. Oh, you knew that already.

Did you know that you can get a bigger pallet for $89? And did you know that if you buy the bigger pallet (Guaranteed to be worth at least $1300) they will double the order and give you two pallets? How could you go wrong? Easily. Very easily.

I took one for the team. I bought the upgraded package and desperately watched the tracking information to see when my pallets would arrive. Oddly, they pallets seemed to be coming from China. But they had shipped. For a long time, they pallets sat in Las Vegas waiting for the USPS to pick them up. But finally I got the notification the pallets were in my mailbox. I'm sure they meant the slip to go to the post office to get my swag was in the mailbox. Rather than walk down to the mailbox, I drove the car full expecting to see the brown note about "An Attempt to deliver" Two pallets would be much too big to bring to the house.

In the box, I found a rather small box. Whomp. Whomp. The box contained three items. Two of the items looked like Apple Products. The third was a multifunction connector to charge electronics. One of the faux apple boxes said Watch 8 and had a picture of the Apple Ultra Watch. The other showed Apple Air Pods Pro. I could use some Apple AirPods Pro.

Yeah. Not so much. They were apple knock-offs. I'm currently trying to charge them but that doesn't seem to be working. The usual lights aren't coming on. The Faux Watch won't even really attach to the MagSafe connector.

Alas. I've been duped. I'm out $90. But I have a cautionary tale.

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 06:03:05 +0000

We don't seem to have a thread devoted to space, but there seems to be more and more stories that are space related, so I'm creating this one...

--tg

Story #1

I kinda missed that this even happened. Katy Perry joined an all-woman crew on Bozo's phallus. So much potential meme material. I wonder if she kissed a girl...

I think Blue Origin was inspired by Flesh Gordon's ship...

--tg

Donald Trump is going to be our next president

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 08:09:00 +0000

In the future, people will ask:

"Did you vote in the LAST election?"

--tg

Cranky Old Man.

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 04:24:26 +0000

I was going to go to McDonalds to get my mother a milkshake. I didn't have any cash so I stopped at the B of A to get a twenty, maybe forty to have money for pizza night. The ATM informed me the minimum amount I could withdraw was $100. Fine. At least they will give me $20 bills, right. Of course out popped a single $100 bill. Thanks for nothing.

But I am at the bank. There is a greeter at the front asking me what I want. Ugh. People. I say I want change for my $100. She directs me to the lone teller at the back. I give the $100 to the teller and say I want change. She tells me I have to put my ATM card into the reader before she can do that. Then I have to enter my pin on the reader. WTH? She counts out the five $20s and then puts them into the counter to make sure there are five. And then she runs them through the counter to be absolutely sure there are only five.

I'm done so I say why couldn't they just have $20s come out of the machine up front?

"Oh, we put in a request for smaller bills but we don't own those machines" You don't own the B of A ATMs that are attached the brick and mortar B of A?

Why do I even come into town?

如果电话号码列表如此糟糕为什么统计数据不显示它

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 06:12:42 +0000

对于许多马术爱好者来说，四月标志着在经历了漫长的冬天待在家里并调整基础知识后，表演季节的开始。
四月还被国家酒精中毒和药物依赖委员会指定为酒精意识月。今年，恰逢一项新的分析对 40 多年的研究（其中大部分由酒精行业资助）提出质疑，这些研究声称适量饮酒对健康有一定好处。

国家酒精中毒和药物依赖委员会得出的结论是，其中许多研活动电话号码数据库列表究都存在缺陷，事实恰恰相反—— 饮酒对健康没有任何好处，而且酒精实际上会增加你的压力和焦虑程度……这两者都无助于马术表演的成功季节！虽然成年人享用一杯葡萄酒或啤酒可以是结束演出一天的轻松方式，我想谈谈社交媒体和谷仓过道上成年业余爱好者的说法，即饮酒可以舒缓神经，并且在体育运动中发挥作用。

马术世界的独特之处在于，老年人经常与年轻得多的同龄人一起训练和表演。我是一名 59 岁的成年人，和我 18 岁的谷仓伙伴在同一个猎人组。我很荣幸能与跨越五六十岁的谷仓伙伴和竞争对手共度时光。我经常发现自己是马术表演中最年长的参赛者（有时是表演中最年长的人！），并且我开始以更挑剔的耳朵聆听业余爱好者在他们的年轻人的听力范围内开玩笑地谈论酒精和骑马的故事“同行。”

我担心我们在谷仓和马术表演中为儿童和青少年树立的榜样。我不知道青少年和他们的成年谷仓伙伴坐在一起，看着他们喝酒是否会影响他们在饮酒方面的行为，但我不想冒险。世界上有足够多的信息告诉孩子们喝酒是有趣且正常的。讽刺的是，业余爱好者经常开玩笑说酒精可以缓解他们对骑行和表演的焦虑，但事实恰恰相反。虽然许多人证明喝酒是为了放松或帮助应对日常压力，但快速谷歌搜索会将您链接到许多信誉良好的研究，这些研究记录了酒精（一种被归类为镇静剂的药物）与焦虑和抑郁增加之间的因果关系。

I need a new AXE. Suggestions?

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:08:24 +0000

My Surface Pro is getting way too glitchy. I think it will die soon. I need a new laptop. I liked the Surface Pro - I prefer a track pad, plus the touch screen option was nice when the keyboard froze. It served me well and I might just get another one.

What kind of laptops are you all using? Andy recommendations?

Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Eugene

Sword for Hire

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 07:09:42 +0000

D00M has two professional swordsmen. Like for reals. DM & the Yeti (coming soon to a theater near you) make our livings by the sword. I feel that’s worthy of documenting here.

Ok, really this is about the wonderful sword day I had for Halloween and I want to share (really I just want to make the Yeti jelly).

As I mentioned today was another research day developing my dream Chinese weapons exhibit for CHSA so another day spent with that marvelous collection. I got to handle a piece that’s estimated at 6 figures - that blade was early steel refurbished and polished - national treasure quality. Also got to play with some other exquisite pieces - beautiful pattern-welded blades, jade & bronze blades, so many blades that I lost count. We’re beginning to organize an exhibit - selecting pieces and imagining how they might be arranged to best tell their stories. We don’t have final approval from the board yet, but one of the board members joined us and was blown away by what he saw. If all goes as planned, we’ll open this around Chinese New Year (late January)

But that’s not all. A few weeks ago, a Seattle tai chi master asked me about a Japanese sword one of her ex-bfs gave her. She had tossed it in storage but was now cleaning that out and looking for a home for it. From the photos she sent, it looked like a gunto (military issue wwii blade). I told her as much, qualifying that it’s hard to tell from the photos she sent. She asked me if I wanted it and I said I don’t have the budget for yet another sword right now, to which she replied ‘I’ll just give it to you. I want it to have a good home.’ Somd people foster kittens; she fosters a samurai sword. That’s an offer I could refuse so I sent her a check to cover shipping plus a penny to buy it, explaining the tradition of not gifting blades because it means severing the relationship - she said it was given to her just before they broke up.

The sword arrived today. Not a gunto. It’s a wakazashi in good condition - some minor chips in the scabbard and blade but the fittings are superb and the handle wrap looks original - my guess is 18-17th century but I’d have to crack it open to read the tang inscription and that’s something I’ll leave to someone more skilled. But clearly, this is a serious antique borderline museum quality. What a treasure.

I’m going to attribute this windfall to good sword karma.

Happy Wonder Woman Day

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 17:52:07 +0000

Mola Mola

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 22:48:48 +0000

Maybe some of you know this already but I've been obsessed with ocean sunfish since childhood. It's such a dumb fish design, like a child's drawing. I love them. I love weird sea creatures. Mola mola are super weird.

Quote:Record-breaking bony fish weighing 3 tons found in Portugal
Updated: 2:36 AM PDT Oct 19, 2022

Infinite Scroll Enabled
Hafsa Khalil, CNN

[b]Azores archipelago, PORTUGAL —[/b]
A giant sunfish believed to be the world's heaviest bony fish has been discovered in the Azores archipelago, Portugal, weighing a whopping 3 tons (6,000 pounds).
Researchers said the animal was found dead, floating near Faial Island in the central North Atlantic in December.
Although found last year, details of the discovery have only recently been published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
Studied by researchers from the Atlantic Naturalist Association and the Azores University for biometrical and morphological data, both in Portugal, the fish was pulled to shore where the animal was weighed, measured and tissue sampled for DNA testing.
There are around 29,000 species of bony fish, which have a skeletal bone structure, making them the majority of the world's fish species.
The carcass is more than 882 pounds heavier than the previous world record holder for heaviest bony fish — a 5,070-pound female giant sunfish caught off Kamogawa in Japan in 1996.
The sunfish was weighed with a crane scale dynamometer — a device designed to weigh loads typically hoisted by a crane — after being raised above ground using a forklift truck.

Atlantic Naturalist.ORG
The giant sunfish was carefully lifted by a forklift so that it could be weighed and measured.
The animal was 10.67 feet long and had a height of 11.78 feet. Measured around its center (mid-body), it had a maximum width of 2.82 feet, researchers said. The sex has not been determined.
José Nuno Gomes-Pereira, lead author of the paper and postdoctoral researcher from the Atlantic Naturalist Association, told CNN Tuesday that it was saddening "to see the animal in this situation as it must have been a king of open ocean."
The "tremendously big" sunfish has been buried in the Natural Park of Faial Island, he added.

Atlantic Naturalist.ORG
The heaviest bony fish in the world is a giant sunfish of 2,744 kilograms discovered in the Azores archipelago.
Gomes-Pereira said that the finding was a "sign that the oceans are still healthy enough to sustain the heaviest species existing, but a warning for more conservation in terms of pollution and boat traffic near oceanic islands."
Giant sunfish (Mola alexandrini) were first recognized as their own species in 2018 and are known to weigh twice as much as the second heaviest fish species, the ocean sunfish (Mola mola), according to a news release from the Atlantic Naturalist Association last Thursday.
Gomes-Pereira said the dead sunfish had a "contusion" — a bruise — on its front, which may have caused the animal's death. However, it is unknown if the impact was pre- or post-mortem. The wound was embedded with a red paint normally used to coat the keels of boats, the journal article added.
With little data available on large specimens such as the sunfish, the researchers believe further study is required to understand their physiology and marine ecosystems in general.
The world's heaviest fish species is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), according to Guinness World Records, with the heaviest found in Pakistan in 1949, weighing 21.5 metric tons.

Ayahuasca: Is it a drug?

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 15:14:12 +0000

Aaron Rodgers, Anti-Vaxxer and stupidest Cal graduate ever, weighs in on the subject.

Biggest Pet Peeve

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:19:44 +0000

The other day in getting dinner ready I pulled a Pyrex bowl from the fridge, set it on the stovetop, and pulled off the lid to set it on the counter while heading for the sink.

You see the mistake? I tried doing two things at once. That's not a thing for me these days. I realized in putting the lid on the counter that I hadn't done so far enough. No problem. I would push it further back. But I was stepping towards the sink at the time. And wouldn't you just know it, as happens often these days, I was off-balance--which required me to take a bigger and faster step towards sink to regain it. This rendered ineffective my sideward push of the lid further onto the counter.

The lid fell to the floor and shattered.

I'm currently refurbishing our kitchenware in this way. The next step (after floor clean-up) is going onto Amazon to order a new lid. I've tried mightily to boycott Amazon because they're exceptionally evil, but have failed. They're just too convenient.

So I search for "round glass Pyrex lid" and other variants, and I get a nice selection of candidates.

Which brings me to my pet peeve. The lid sizes are not specified.

There is a place just before reviews for questions and answers. Usually both are handled by customers, though on rare occasions the vendor will weigh in. Here's an example of how these typically unfold:

Q: How big is this lid?

A: Blue.

A: It fits.

Sometimes someone gives a vague answer that is almost useful. Occasionally someone hits a homerun with an an answer like: "The lid is ribbed for fit. The inside and outside diameters for this rib is 8 and 3/4" and 9 and 1/8". But this is rare. Exceedingly rare.

It takes an ungodly amount of time to track this size stuff down. Sometimes lids are ID'd by part number, which can help. But my Pyrex lid is ancient; it predates part numbers.

It's not just lids; I've run into the problem for much of what I buy from Amazon. Recently I shopped for a sit-down/stand-up desk. It was almost impossible to find the height range. And I was shocked to learn that the most popular brand didn't have a model that went low enough to meet ergonomic recommendations for sitting height for anyone under six feet! They're selling something that doesn't meet the needs of 75% of customers?

I finally bought a wood desktop and a motorized leg mechanism separately and assembled them myself to get the ergonomic heights suitable for me.

Why do vendors not list the info most pertinent to their product? I'm sure it would help with sales.

D∞M Br∞D

Sun, 15 May 2022 18:34:37 +0000

My daughter's going thru a divorce and is back out here after living in Montana for 10+ years. She's bouncing between staying with us and her mom. Right now, she's dog sitting in Santa Rosa and reconnecting with friends up that way. The other day I mentioned that Bay to Breakers was going on in SF on Sunday, and while it might be fun to watch, if she wasn't interested, it might be smart to avoid the area....

She decided to run it. Got her packet yesterday (and joined the ladies march while she was at it). Texted me this morning from the finish line.

Pretty neat!

--tg

Portents of D∞M

Sun, 15 May 2022 05:21:03 +0000

I was out on a bike ride in Ft. Ord today barreling down a hill. I saw two hawks doing the nasty up in a dead tree. I know in Native American culture, owls are viewed as bad omens for bad luck, death, and illness. What do f*cking hawks mean?

--tg