I have a $20/month subscription to ChatGPT. I’ve used it for a year or so. Here are some of my thoughts on its usefulness to me, also some thoughts on AI in general. I use it mostly as an aid in technical troubleshooting. I run a bunch of self-hosted WordPress websites and a couple of ... Read more

Here’s another Uncle Lubert story, actually two related stories indicating Lubert’s practicality. Uncle Lubert gave his nephews some lumber and told them to build an outhouse. They worked away at it but came up short – not enough lumber to build the last piece, the door. They said “Uncle Lubert! We don’t have enough wood ... Read more

Not all my Dad’s jokes were about his Uncle Lubert. One of his favorites: A man in a small town strange to him is looking in vain for the Post Office. He encounters a small boy and asks him “Son, how do you get to the Post Office?” The boy says “I dunno.” The man ... Read more

Well now, it’s been five weeks since the last post. If you’re looking for volubility or frequent posting, this is not it. Anyway, I’ve been reading and thinking about AI, and as I have been for a while, using my subscription to ChatGPT mostly to help with technical questions, which it can be useful for. ... Read more

I can’t find the book, to give it a cite, but I’ll paraphrase a story told by LBJ. The book is a history of the the Pentagon, in the meaning of the US Defense Department. Anyway, LBJ related a dream he had after he’d been President for a while. “I was on the phone to ... Read more

My father, ER Hayes, was a great teller of jokes. He had his favorites, of course, repeated as needed to entertain his close associates. Here’s one, first of a series on this website. A farmer was driving his hogs to market. There were two ways to cross the local river, a ford, quite close to ... Read more

I’ve been doing graphic design for, oh, maybe fifty years. For pay for more than forty. Always as part of another job. Never had any formal training, just on the job, including lots of help from more experienced people. I’ve described my personal graphic style as BILLBOARD. Or, should I say, BILLBOARD! (WordPress isn’t allowing ... Read more

. . . and what I don’t want to see. No: The cursor disappearing on me. Yes: Nothing to slow me down when I get rolling. Just type, enter, type, enter . . . Yes: An understanding that there are many different ways people want or need to write. Yes: Easy, flawless pasting into the ... Read more

Tim Snyder: Orwell said that it is a constant struggle to see what is right in front of your nose. Culture can blind us to the obvious. Non-Blacks tend to project onto Blacks political irrationality and “identity politics.” But who in America votes consistently with their economic interests? African Americans, in general. And is this ... Read more

At the end of my Free Press post, I said “More later”, so here’s some more. Fred Clark talks about using an RSS reader, and links to a journalism site in North Carolina, The Assembly, where the writers tell us they want to to create “new models for state level news”. A wonderful idea, and ... <a title="" class="read-more" href="" aria-label="Read more about ">Read more</a>