There are all sorts of important political issues to address, but there are also a lot of leftover Thanksgiving political cartoons, and it’s too late to keep arguing over the election because that die has been cast.
So here’s a Jimmy Craig cartoon which is also about Thanksgiving but made me smile.
I didn’t use my masher. I used my handheld blender thingie, as a result of which I ended up with whipped potato mush instead of mashed potatoes, which serves me right.
If you choose that tool, you deserve a potato smoothie.
Barney & Clyde (Counterpoint) explore another tool, not one that spends much of the year taking up space but one that spends its entire existence taking up space.
I’ll defend landlines for families, since there are times when you want to reach the house and don’t care who picks up. Like if you wanted someone to take something out of the freezer or come get you because your car broke down.
Which is to say you might use it once or twice a year, making it much more useful than a set of Yellow Pages.
Though the Yellow Pages are free, which makes them worth what you pay for them, and a land line not so much.
I’ll be conducting an experiment this year, because I gave up my PO Box when the rate went up to $400 a year. I could pay $400 to go get my mail myself, or I could have it delivered to my house for free. What to do? What to do?
Anyway, they didn’t put the Yellow Pages in our PO boxes, because they wouldn’t fit, nor did they give us each a yellow card so they could go get the book and hand it over the counter. They just put a bin full of Yellow Pages out in the lobby so people could take one.
I don’t think anyone ever did, but I guess I’ll probably get one on my doorstep this year.
For free, and worth 10 times that!
Another technological change is saluted in today’s Speed Bump (Creators), because nobody needs to know how to make change anymore.
First of all, cash registers have, for decades, told you how much change to make, and second of all, you don’t see a lot of cash anymore anyway.
Knowing how to make change is little more than a parlor trick these days.
The real measure of intelligence is knowing that stores cannot get a charitable deduction when you round up for charity, though the Intertubes are full of screeds from tightwads who don’t know that.
Rounding up is like tipping: Joe Dokes spends $14.28 at the grocery store and rounds up to 15, while Lady Bigbucks spends $104.97 and declines to pitch in another three cents.
Ask any cashier.
The Barn (Creators) reminds me that I learned long ago that, if you see someone in one of these toques, you shouldn’t say, “You look like a fool in that hat.”
They won’t get it, and they’ll probably be offended.
Proving a point you hadn’t intended to make.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Brewster Rockit, Space Guy — Tribune
Cat people seem to take a substantial dose of pride in their pets’ unwillingness to communicate and generally fussy behavior. I’ve only had one cat but, perhaps because he was a refugee from the alley, he was grateful for whatever food we offered and as much affection as he could get.
My dog, meanwhile, alerts when I put on shoes, knows that she gets a cookie when we come back from a walk and stays in the car until I invite her out the open door, but other than housebreaking, I’ve trained her to do nothing: She learns by paying attention.
And so do I. If she comes up and fusses, she wants to go out. This ain’t complex.
I should probably drop my ex an email alerting her to the new story arc in Sherman’s Lagoon (AMS).
In 1979, when Skylab had completed its mission and was about to fall out of the heavens, she worked with a woman who was terrified that the thing was going to land on her and so didn’t want to go outside.
Assuring her that, if it fell on the building she was in, she’d still be squashed like a spider, didn’t seem to ease her fears.
Meanwhile, here in the present day, Joy of Tech suggests that potentially helpful AI technology has great potential to fall into the wrong hands.
At one paper where I worked, there was a proposal to put videocameras throughout both buildings. I don’t know whether they were put off by the cost of equipment or the cost of paying someone to watch us, or — and this is the least likely — persuaded in a Department Head meeting that they were courting rebellion.
It never happened, but Joy of Tech is right: It sure could now.
Arctic Circle (KFS) reminds us that no cost is too great, no burden too heavy, if it’s something that’s really important, like cat memes and AI girlfriends.
Just ask your AI girlfriend.
And while you’re at it, ask the barber if he thinks you need a haircut.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Today is Cyber Monday, an extension of Black Friday, which had already extended itself over the past two weeks, and an antidote to shopping locally or even leaving the building, though I would point out that, if you don’t leave the building, nobody is going to see your “Save the Earth” T-shirt.
However, needing something is not the reason for buying it. Shopping generates its own endorphins, thanks to expert, multi-generational programming.
Wouldn’t you agree, Mildred Montag?
Rabbits Against Magic is being more political than I want to be today, but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree.
F’rinstance, here’s a campaign photo of Derrick Anderson, Republican candidate for the House. Virginia voters nearly handed him the victory despite the fact that he’s not married, has no kids and that’s not his family.
He lost to Eugene Vindman, whose brother Alexander testified in Trump’s impeachment trial and is now being smeared as a spy by the people who want you to believe 2+2=5.
Don’t believe them.
Anne Derenne’s comic was especially poignant this morning. Woke up at 6:10 and see a car in our driveway about 6:15. Huh? Go down to check, and it’s the wife’s Amazon delivery. I’d heard that working for Bezos was close to legal slavery, but I never realized it was this bad. Flashlight to find their way to the front porch, as the light was definitely not on.
Re: Joy of Tech
Walmart Corporate employees have had their movements around the office tracked by their badges for over 20 years at this point.