jasonpettus

jasonpettus, 2 days ago to random

Thinking today about how, over the years when coming across strangely spelled words I have a hard time remembering, I memorize the phonetic pronunciation instead. So even though "medieval" is pronounced "mid-evil," I remember it in my head as "med-ee-eh-val;" "oeuvre" as "ooh-ee-uh-vre;" and "chihuahua" as "chee-hooah-hooah."

RobertDuke, 3 days ago to random

You guys reckon crop circles are just the alien equivalent of QR codes for UFOs to scan when they come visit?

jasonpettus, 6 days ago to random

Technically today is the 40th anniversary of #BronskiBeat's #SmalltownBoy, but I would prefer to link you to the band Jimmy Somerville started afterwards, #TheCommunards, and their 1986 cover of Harold Melvin's "Don't Leave Me This Way." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RHBAd5YUR8

jasonpettus, 13 days ago to random

I've started up my pre-pandemic hobby of attending estate sales to find rare books, and went to a doozy of a one today in a Victorian-age mansion in Chicago's Hyde Park. Most of the 12 books I bought are unremarkable, purchased for $1 and that I'll try to flip for $20 at eBay; but I did find three first printings I'll list for $100 (including HG Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come"!) and one for $150 (James Michener's 1965 "The Source"), which would make for $446 profit if I sold all four.

jasonpettus, 15 days ago to random

To be clear, I hate that Google has decided to start baking AI into their main search engine, which I think is fated to result in disaster; but I do admire that they're introducing a new "Web" tab to their main menu this week, which is another way of saying, "Hide all the AI nonsense and your attempts to pull out the information I'm looking for from web pages before I visit, and just give me a set of links to my query." Here, what the AI and Web versions looked like on a search today.

Two views today of a Google search on "cyclic breathing" I did while fact-checking a book I'm editing this week -- first the results with "full AI" in place, then the results in the "Web" tab, which is another way of saying, "Hide all the AI nonsense, as well as your attempts to guess in advance what information on a web page I'm looking for, and just show me the links to websites relevant to my search."

jasonpettus, 16 days ago to random

Your occasional reminder that in a tech industry full of failed promises and customer exploitation, the only people TRULY benefiting are the sociopath employees hopping from one company to the next, destroying everything they touch before failing upwards to the next doomed project. https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/15/anthropic-hires-instagram-co-founder-as-head-of-product/

jasonpettus, 16 days ago to random

The first official portrait of King Charles III is primarily colored red, and British citizens ARE LOSING THEIR FUCKING SHIT BECAUSE OF IT https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/style/king-charles-iii-portrait-jonathan-yeo-red.html

jasonpettus, 19 days ago to random

#RIP #RogerCorman, who in his obsessive attempt to make quick genre flicks as cheaply and cleverly as possible ended up accidentally giving the start to the entire New Hollywood generation, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Ron Howard and many more. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/12/movies/roger-corman-dead.html