Bill Karwin
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Bill Karwin
@billkarwin.geek.org
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billkarwin.geek.org
The Tech stock market loves AI. It was in free fall in 2022 until OpenAI released ChatGPT in November. AI doesn't offer much value for real people, but after crypto imploded, Tech needed another hot bandwagon to hitch itself to. AI was in the right place at the right time.
Screenshot of stock market price of the Vanguard Tech Stock index fund, showing a decline in 2022 until November. That's when OpenAI first released ChatGPT. It's been on a strong growth curve since then.
November 9, 2025 at 2:34 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I'm still amused our 2002 Halloween costumes were copied by celebrities Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner. Even the wood paneling in the background!
Photo of Bill and Jan dressed for Halloween as Gomez and Morticia Addams in 2002, compared with photo of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner in similar costumes in 2018.
October 31, 2025 at 5:30 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I think of a brief scene in the movie "Brazil" (1985). Lime boasts that he's good at computers, and takes over the keyboard. He presses one keystroke, but when it doesn't do what he wants, he gives up, and announces that the computer must be broken.
Screen shot from the movie "Brazil" (1985) with characters Sam Lowry and Lime, trying to fix a computer.
October 31, 2025 at 5:03 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Image from "Batman" (1966) showing a frustrated Batman holding a large round bomb over his head, failing to throw it away from innocent victims. The caption is a line from the film, "some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!"
October 29, 2025 at 5:31 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
A furry sex demon is called a catbus.
Image from the Japanese anime movie "My Neighbor Totoro" with Totoro, Satsuki, and Catbus, standing on top of a tree.
October 29, 2025 at 12:35 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I don't know why no one has thought of this before.
A line drawing of the classic ethical dilemma where a trolley is about to run over five people tied to the track. The trolley can be directed off that track before it kills the five people, onto a second track where there is only one person tied to the track. You are in control of the switch. But in this version, the trolley has the SawStop logo on it. SawStop is a brand of electric table saw that senses if the blade comes in contact with flesh, and causes the blade to stop quickly enough to avoid injury.
October 27, 2025 at 2:52 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
The logo graphic for the Governors' Public Health Alliance reminds me of the movie logo for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. This suggests the Public Health Alliance sees themselves as the rebellion, which I think is apt.
Home page for the Governors' Public Health Alliance, with a thick border containing the words "Governors'" and "Alliance" above and below the words "Public Health". Movie logo for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), including a thick border around the title and the words "Star Wars" in the border above and below the title. Image from a Star Wars film, with Darth Vader pointing accusingly at Princess Leia. The caption is Vader saying, "You are a member of the public health alliance."
October 26, 2025 at 7:05 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Models M-1 through M-4 were... not entirely successful.
Scene from the Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer" with Captain Kirk, computer scientist Dr. Richard Daystrom, and Lt. Uhura expressing shock when a computer-controlled starship runs amok.
October 17, 2025 at 11:47 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Rudimentary Microsoft Word to Markdown converter. Developed by me in about an hour using no LLM.
unzip -p test.docx | yq -p xml --output-format json | jq -r '.document.body.p[] | ( if .pPr.pStyle."+@w:val"=="Heading1" then "# " + .r.t + "\n" elif .pPr.pStyle."+@w:val"=="Heading2" then "## " + .r.t + "\n" elif .pPr.pStyle."+@w:val"=="Heading3" then "### " + .r.t + "\n" elif .pPr.pStyle."+@w:val"=="ListParagraph" then "- " + .r.t + "\n" elif .pPr.pStyle."+@w:val"=="Code" then "```" + .r.t + "```" else .r.t + "\n" end )'
September 27, 2025 at 4:39 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Sunset at Ragged Point, California, 2025-09-18.
Photo of the California coast at sunset at Ragged Point.
September 19, 2025 at 3:21 AM
billkarwin.geek.org
Robert Redford, 24 years old, guest stars in a Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Treacherous Toupee" (1960).
A very young Robert Redford in a scene with Raymond Burr and William Hopper.
September 16, 2025 at 12:56 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I mean, supervillians keep finding henchmen.
Scene from the 1960's "Batman" TV show showing the villain Penguin with three henchmen.
September 4, 2025 at 6:35 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Clip from the comedy show "Laugh-In" featuring Ruth Buzzi as Gladys Ormphby, swatting Arte Johnson as Tyrone with her purse.
September 3, 2025 at 5:35 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I mean you might think if you freeze yourself for 500 years like Buck Rogers, you'd wake up past all the stressful stuff. But the way things are going, things are just going to get more stressful.
Image from "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (1979) in which the title character is in his spacecraft after accidentally being frozen and put in suspended animation.
August 25, 2025 at 9:46 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Just step through this door!
Photo of a house with an exterior door on the second floor, with no deck or stairs. The door is inaccessible unless the person is on tall stilts.
August 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
But they weren't working on much of anything before AI. The tech industry was in a slump until the AI craze happened. See this screenshot of the Vanguard tech index fund, I've marked the date of the first public release of ChatGPT.
Screenshot of 5-year history of VITAX, a technology index fund. It was declining until November 2022, when ChatGPT started the AI craze. Since then it has doubled in value.
August 9, 2025 at 6:19 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I guess this is how Deckard's photo inspector worked in "Blade Runner"? The one that allows him to see around corners in the photo?
A scene from "Blade Runner" (1982) in which the main character examines a photograph he found in a suspect's apartment. He has a device that can zoom in on the photo and somehow see around corners to see details not shown in the photo.
August 9, 2025 at 3:41 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
You can do this kind of word search in Google Books Ngram Viewer (at least for content in books). It looks like use of the word "accountable" has increased since ~1985, but it's still much lower than "responsible."
August 8, 2025 at 2:28 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
A panel from a Tintin comic, in which Captain Haddock substitutes a variety of non-sequitur phrases instead of cursing. He says, "Duck-billed platypus! Jellied-eel! Bashi-bazouk! Anthropophagus! Cercopithecus! Psychopath! Er..." Tintin tries to calm him down.
July 16, 2025 at 4:45 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
Doctor Who in his laboratory, recommending, "It's simple, reverse the polarity of the neutron flow," which is a phrase of technobabble used frequently on that TV show.
July 2, 2025 at 3:23 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
TIL the genus for poison oak is "toxicodendron."

That's what I'm going to call that plant from now on.
Western Poison Oak around a tree trunk. Photo licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0 by Elf at Wikipedia.
June 30, 2025 at 8:41 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I was also impressed by the Catkind in Doctor Who. Must be the muzzle.
British Actress Adjoa Andoh in Catkind makeup from Doctor Who episode "New Earth." Irish actor Ardal O'Hanlon in Catkind makeup in Doctor Who episode "Gridlock."
May 29, 2025 at 4:16 AM
billkarwin.geek.org
Did you have this book?
Cover of the book "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" (1938) by Dr. Seuss, which features many red hats.
May 22, 2025 at 6:19 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
OMG they got all of them!!
Screenshot from USPS.com ZIP code lookup form, showing that 75309 is not currently a valid ZIP code.
May 17, 2025 at 3:42 PM
billkarwin.geek.org
I read all AI responses in the voice of Cliff Clavin from "Cheers".
Cliff Clavin, a character from the TV show "Cheers," was known for making counterfactual statements confidently.
April 24, 2025 at 3:43 PM