Your Bag of Nothing for Wednesday, February 26, 2025

  • A news program surprised me with the news that 5o% of the world’s coffee comes from Brazil and Vietnam. I always knew Brazil was a big producer, but I was surprised to hear about my mother’s homeland. Some cursory research tells me Brazil accounts for 39% of the world’s coffee, and Vietnam has 16% as the second largest coffee exporter in the world, with a larger market share in Europe and Asia.
  • Over 1,000 musicians release silent album to protest AI copyright changes
    • More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and the Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox, have released a silent album in protest against proposed changes to Britain’s copyright laws. The new rules could allow companies to use artists’ work to train their AI models without permission.
  • An armed SWAT team burst in the wrong door — but this North Texas family can’t sue
  • Time to get use to a new way of logging into GMail
    • Google is making a significant change to its two-factor authentication (2FA) system by discontinuing SMS-based verification cards for Gmail logins. Instead, the tech giant will be implementing QR-based logins, requiring customers to scan a QR code with their devices to confirm access.
  • This article about a new Google product, a state of the art video generation model, that charges by the second got my attention – Google’s New Veo 2 AI Video Model Will Cost 50 Cents per Second
    • Google has quietly announced the pricing for its AI-powered video creation platform, Veo 2. According to the company’s price page, generating a video with Veo 2 will cost only 50 cents per second, which equates to around $30 per minute or $1,800 per hour.To put this in context, Google DeepMind researcher Jon Barron compares this to Hollywood blockbuster budgets. Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, for example, had a reported $356 million production budget, which equates to around $32,000 per second—far beyond Veo 2’s pricing. While Veo 2 is unlikely to produce feature-length films any time soon, Google has emphasized its ability to create clips of two minutes or more, making it a useful tool for short content creators.
  • I’m guessing if you are eating bat it’s because the food source is scarce, it’s a local delicacy, or you last a bet – Mystery illness in Congo kills more than 50 people, including children who ate a bat
  • I’ve mentioned using the AI model Perplexity a few times. I don’t like it as much as ChatGPT, but I certainly see why it would sometimes be preferred because of the way it cites its answers. They are now launching a browser, which is an interesting step.
  • DOGE Is Working on Software That Automates the Firing of Government Workers  – Operatives working for Elon Musk’s DOGE appear to be editing the code of AutoRIF—software designed by the Defense Department that could assist in mass firings of federal workers, sources tell WIRED.
    • The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several times and used by a variety of agencies to expedite reductions in workforce. Screenshots of internal databases reviewed by WIRED show that DOGE operatives have accessed AutoRIF and appear to be editing its code. 
  • I love the new format an anchor change, but I’m in the minority – CBS News Ratings Collapse After Norah O’Donnell Exit
    • CBS Evening News saw a 24 percent drop in the 25-54 demographic when compared to the same period last year, per Nielsen ratings. In comparison, David Muir‘s World News Tonight on ABC has seen an 8 percent annual gain in the 25-54 demographic, while Lester Holt‘s Nightly News on NBC has seen an 8 percent gain in that same demo.
  • This isn’t timely, but I still thought Pat McAfee’s insight on what it’s like to kick off the Super Bowl was pretty unique. He points out all the camera flashes, but it used to be more grand before everyone defaulted to using smartphones.
  • Anti-vaccine movement falsely blames measles shots for Texas outbreak  – The disproven claims about the Texas measles cases echo misinformation spread by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about a 2019 outbreak in Samoa

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Your Bag of Nothing for Tuesday, February 25, 2025

  • It’s funny how many people don’t realize Lassie is a female.
  • The Mavs will be playing in Los Angeles against Luka and the Lakers, surely this will be the highest rates game of the week.
  • I was a big fan of Furr’s Cafeteria back in the day. Yesterday, I spent more time than I would like to admit searching for the mashed potatoes recipe. I always started off with a hamburger or chopped steak topped with ketchup and two bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy.
  • I feel sorry for all the government employees who followed proper procedures by scheduling and receiving approved time off and learned about Elon Musk’s absurd email, knowing they can only access their email at their assigned workstation or office. Just imagine leaving work on Friday using the paid time off you earned to visit a sick relative in another timezone or get married and hearing about that email on a Saturday evening, knowing you aren’t able to reply because you can’t access your email remotely because you had the gall to plan ahead and take a week of approved time off and travel. 
  • Anyone who has done more than a cursory read of the Kennedy Assassination will be familiar with the name Clint Hill. He was the Secret Service agent who jumped into the presidential limo in Dallas. He lived a life of much regret and guilt over the assassination. He’s one of those when you say RIP, you really mean it.
  • I saw the Yankees announce that they will now play Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’ only after home wins. I didn’t know that they also played it during losses, and I was surprised to find out that Sinatra is not the original singer. Liza Minnelli first sang the song for the 1977 Martin Scorsese film New York, New York, and Sinatra performed it in a Don Costa arrangement in 1980. And here I thought it was recorded before the Seventies. I saw all that because, in my freshman year of high school, I had to dress as Liza Minelli and perform a lip-synched skit to the tune for a theater arts assignment. Sadly, Minelli has become something of a joke, even as she has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA, an Emmy, two Golden Globes, and four Tony Awards. Minnelli has said that her inability to have children is her biggest regret in life, but she has many nieces, nephews, and godchildren. Back in 2000, after a severe case of viral encephalitis, doctors told her she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair and perhaps not be able to speak again. She has a memoir coming out next year.
  • Here’s an obscure find: The CIA posted all of Osama Bin Laden’s pirated videos found on his laptop when they raided his compound. They give you a heads-up that some of the material might be emotionally disturbing.
  • This headline made me wonder how often the US, Russia, and North Korea have voted alike and in the minority – US joins Russia, North Korea and Belarus to vote against UN resolution on Ukraine war
  • Elon Musk Asks for Reason US Can’t Afford Healthcare — Mark Cuban Gives 7 (and a Solution)
    • Musk’s original question, “Shouldn’t the American people be getting their money’s worth?” cuts to the heart of the issue. It reflects a growing sentiment that Americans are paying exorbitant healthcare costs but not receiving adequate value.But Cuban — ever the problem-solver — didn’t stop there. He’s also presented a bold solution that could upend the pharmaceutical industry and force real change. The billionaire broke down where the system is failing and how he plans to fix it.
  • American flag hung upside down from El Capitan at Yosemite National Park after employees fired

  • When your real name is James Bond and you get asked for your ID by law enforcement can be an awkward situation.

     

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  • Yes, more of this, please.

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Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, February 24, 2025

  • Hank Azaria does a plethora of voices on The Simpsons. Recently, and and the NY Times got together in this YouTube video to experiment with the possibility of AI taking over his craft. It will happen, it’s just not there yet.
  • It was a bit surprising, at least to me, that such a well-crafted opinion article appeared in a Baptist publication.
    • Why you should care about the Kennedy Center board
      Art, then, is a powerful medium. It has the potential to both reflect and to shape collective memory.Because of this, artistic and cultural institutions are the canaries in the proverbial coal mine of a society. Fascist regimes target them first to force a collective narrative on the masses. Once these institutions fall, independent media soon follows and there is no one left to publicly call out the actions of an oppressive state.

      This is why President Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center — one of the largest performing arts organizations in the United States — should alarm everyone.

    • In related news: Trump takeover sees Kennedy Center suffer ticket sale collapse, says report
  • A South Carolina man on death row for murder has chosen to be executed by a firing squad. Inmate Brad Sigmon is scheduled to die on March 7. Sigmon, 67, chose the firing squad over the electric chair and lethal injection. He will be strapped to a chair, hood over his face, and a target on his heart, Then, three volunteers are expected to shoot him about 15 feet away. As to why he chose this option:
    • “If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September—three men Brad knew and cared for—who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than twenty minutes,” his lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, wrote. “
  • A man accused of cannibalism and murder has been granted conditional release, according to the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB).
  • Seeing David Letterman appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, considering his history with the show and network, was a bit surreal. Paul and his band stood in for The Roots for the week, so I guess Dave was there to support a friend.
  • Federal employees who drive an electric vehicle will no longer be able to charge their ride at work.
    • The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages buildings owned by the federal government, is planning to shut down all of its electric vehicle chargers nationwide, describing them as “not mission critical.” The agency, which manages contracts for the government’s vehicle fleets, is also looking to offload newly purchased EVs.
  • A judge sentenced a New York man to 5 life terms but changed his mind 27 years later
  • ‘Everybody is looking at their phones,’ says man freed after 30 years in prison
  • At one point in my life, you could have easily convinced me that unions were only needed for how bad things were in the past, and there’s no current need for them. After seeing what Musk is doing and how he is going about it, there’s no better argument for them to be around, so give the guy on the bottom rung of the ladder a fighting chance at simply living and supporting his family.
  • Market Watch: Trump isn’t the first president to slash the federal workforce. How he’s doing it is a different story.
  • These three great questions can disrupt any conversation, at least according to this short video on Twitter.
    1. What would you suggest?
    2. What would it take for you to agree? Or you can rephrase it something like, “There’s a lot of conversation on this. What would it take to get everyone to agree?”
    3. Can you live with it?
  • A little bit of interesting local news that didn’t get noticed.

  • Before they shared the screen together on Star Trek, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy first appeared together on a 1964 episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. If you skip to the 1:05 mark, you’ll see them together in this clip.
  • This is one of the best-executed punches I’ve ever seen. I’m not condoning violence; I’m just impressed with the execution of the punch. He certainly didn’t pull his punch but followed through like you are supposed to do.
  • “I’m too tired to move” and “I need to pee” are probably two of the biggest rivalries that no one really talks about.
  • Here’s a short little video on how to easily create some coffee art to serve your loved one.
  • I thought about this tweet longer than I would like to admit. For me, it just depends on several factors that are going on at the moment this presents itself.

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Your Bag of Randomness for Thursday, February 20, 2025

  • There was an interesting Al Capone special on PBS last night. It featured the creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan. Capone didn’t serve his full 11 year sentence, about 2/3 of it. When he was released, syphilis got the best of him, a psych evaluation of him showed he was about as bright as a 12 year old. He was only 48.
  • JFK Library reopens after suddenly closing due to Trump executive order – The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston reopened Wednesday after it closed abruptly Tuesday afternoon, citing “the executive order” as the reason for the closure.

  • An ICE prosecutor in Dallas ran a white supremacist account on X (formerly Twitter). I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’ve seen Texas politics lately.

  • Opened a new jar of peanut butter yesterday, and that untouched, smooth surface is the closest thing to perfection I’ve seen in a while. And yes, I promptly destroyed it with a spoon.

  • There’s a venomous snake from Ecuador that showed up in a box of bananas at a New Hampshire grocery store. Imagine reaching for a potassium boost and getting a quick trip to the ER instead.

  • I find it amusing that when my car’s GPS says, “You’ve arrived,” I don’t feel any more accomplished than I did a minute ago.

  • There’s a new interim president at UT Austin. He was a deputy attorney general in Paxton’s office before joining the UT system and will be the first acting president since the 1800s without a teaching background.

  • Speaker of Longhorns, I always wondered how Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson would do on Jeopardy! and got my answer last night during prime time. Not as well as I expected, he even missed an easy one about one of the moons in our solar system. It appears pop-culutre and obscure history facts got the best of him.

  • I read that sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. This sounds like a fact I will never need, yet here I am, telling you anyway.

  • In a plot twist nobody asked for, orange alligators are showing up in South Carolina. Maybe this is how orange Gatoraide is made. If this is nature’s way of telling us we’re in the end times, I’m ready.

  • Calvin Coolidge had a pet raccoon named Rebecca that he saved from being served at Thanksgiving dinner. He even built her a little house on the White House grounds. The 1920s were wild. Source

  • I walked into a room and completely forgot why I was there.

  • I’m not saying I’m old, but I do remember when the phone was attached to the wall, and you had to remember people’s phone numbers. And, I remember the awkwardness of calling a girl, only for her parents to answer, and then sounding as gentlemanly as I could to speak with his or her daughter.

  • The Dallas Mavericks are still the Mavericks. At least we’re consistent in keeping our therapists employed.

  • I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t use their turn signal. It’s like they thrive in chaos.

  • The Week: The end of empathy – Elon Musk is gutting the government — and our capacity for kindness.
  • When you hear someone say, “I don’t mean to offend you,” just know that whatever comes next will absolutely offend you.

  • Why do we call it “babysitting” when, nine times out of ten, the baby is not sitting?

  • I miss the days when my biggest worry was whether or not I could tape over a commercial on a VHS recording.

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