• Dolly Redux! I have spent a lot of time thinking about the legacy that Dolly Parton left behind. What's most amazing is that she seems to have somehow transcended politics, despite the fact that she was fairly apolitical. Of all the interviews and videos I've watched over the past several days, I think this one is where Dolly's legacy should lay...

And you know what? I don't think Dolly would mind one bit.

   
• Slop! Something I think Dolly would mind very much? The death of shitty fucking AI songs eulogizing her. It started when I happened across a song by Enya on YouTube which was a tribute to Dolly Parton. I started listening to it and realized it didn't sound like Enya. Then I saw a shit-ton of other AI-generated shit and realized that everybody and their dog were "creating" AI slop tributes by real people who never made them. It's so fucking disgusting. And it pisses me the fuck off that YouTube isn't cracking down on this crap. Because I don't want to hear it. Ever.

   
• Skylines! This looks like it's a glorious LEGO mashup of SimCity and Animal Crossing...

Yeah, can't wait for that. Any time I can spend in a fake world is bound to be better than what we've got going on in this world we've got for reality.

   
• Lanterns! Nothing has me laughing my ass off harder than people claiming that HBO's Lanterns has ruined the character by going "woke." Race was a huge... massively huge... part of the comic book series. This small exchange is but a drop in the bucket...

The introduction of John Stewart was specifically made to add perspective to Black persons in the situations which were normally occupied by white people...

I wasn't reading comics in 1971, as I was five years old, but I very much remember reading the stories as back issues later in life. I was a massive fan of Green Lantern (his comic, along with The Flash, were the first I had ever bought) and I read through many back-issues where these foundations were made. The fact that the characters are being dusted off and revised for modern audiences is not an accident. It's what the foundation of the book has always been. I think Lanterns is honoring the source material very well. I just wish there was more action going on. I'm trying to be patient, but we're running through the series quickly without it.

   
• Dantzig! I never tire of hearing this story, which popped up today. I've copied it from his Wikipedia article...

During his study in 1939, Dantzig solved two unsolved problems in statistics due to a misunderstanding. Near the beginning of a class, Professor Neyman wrote two problems on the blackboard. Dantzig arrived late and assumed that they were a homework assignment. According to Dantzig, they "seemed to be a little harder than usual", but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for both problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue. Six weeks later, an excited Neyman eagerly told him that the problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved problems in statistics. He had prepared one of Dantzig's solutions for publication in a mathematical journal. This story spread and was used as a motivational lesson demonstrating the power of positive thinking. Over time, some facts were altered, but the basic story persisted in the form of an urban legend and as an introductory scene in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting.

   
• Recall! Recall! Recall! Can anybody keep up with all the foods being recalled? I sure can't. Which means I'm probably going to die any day now. Which is strange given that everybody said I was going to die from all the COVID vaccines I've had (11 and counting!). If only there was some kind of government agency responsible for keeping our food safe. That wasn't dismantled. By assholes who keep cutting necessary government agencies so their billionaire owners can get even more tax cuts.

   
And now back to my post-vacation nonsense, already in progress.