Random Thought of the Day

Quote: missedhervee

By report the progressives are gaining traction and may co-opt the Democratic party.

Alas, America will reject them, leading to yet more inept, venal, corrupt leadership by MAGA douches.

What's interesting is the disaffection many Americans have for the two mainstream parties: 45 percent consider themselves as Independent.

And 90% of that 45% consists of people who only vote exclusively for the Red Team or exclusively for the Blue Team.

Of course, for POTUS races, the Electoral College was almost inevitably going to lead to such an outcome. It hasn't been relevant, or even potentially relevant too often, but with how murky things get if nobody takes an Electoral Majority, it only makes sense that a consolidation into two major parties would avoid such outcomes and give a given candidate a better chance to win. Naturally, that only applies to POTUS elections, but for structural reasons, you're going to just continue to have two major parties and not really parse those down into sub-parties...even if sub-parties would give a better impression of where various percentages of the electorate are at.

I think I saw something like 40% of registered Democrats now see themselves as Socialists, or something along those lines.

Alas, the era of moderate democrats may be coming to an end, leading to a battle between two extreme and polarizing positions: MAGA and democratic socialists.

Yes, it is said that "Life is change."

Quote: missedhervee

Alas, the era of moderate democrats may be coming to an end, leading to a battle between two extreme and polarizing positions: MAGA and democratic socialists.

Yes, it is said that "Life is change."

That's what it seems to be coming to; that said, I don't know that we'll see a zeitgeist like Trump's MAGA again. If anything will hurt the Democrats, it'll be self-inflicted wounds and their own in-fighting. Probably the biggest mistake they made was the complete alienation of the Blue Dog Democrats (who were always a bit socially conservative, anyway) with their hardline kowtowing to the Far Left on social issues. There's a reason Ohio is no longer a swing state (in my estimation) despite them voting for Obama twice.

2028 should be a tough year for the Red Team, but if the Blue Team does something totally off the rails, like nominate AOC, then Vance (if he's the guy) arguably becomes the candidate with more potential appeal to the center. Could be a wild ride.

Of course, I said that everything that they tried to put on Trump after Biden won would be the only thing that would give Trump a chance to make a 2024 comeback, and it would seem that the chickens have come home to roost on that take. In terms of popular vote, when you consider that no first-term Republican has won POTUS since 1988, a 1.5% win by the Red Team is pretty much an @$$-whipping.

How Claude does watermarking.

Quote:

Instead of injecting hidden Unicode characters, zero-width spaces, or background metadata into the text, Anthropic uses a version of Google DeepMind's open-source SynthID-Text approach.

Tokenization Bias: When Claude generates language, it continuously predicts a list of plausible next words (e.g., choosing between synonyms like "significant," "substantial," or "important").

The Secret Key: Using a hidden cryptographic key, the algorithm subtly influences the model's randomness, causing it to select specific words over others.

The AI Fingerprint: While the final output reads completely naturally to humans, this consistent bias leaves a statistical, mathematical pattern. When a block of text is run through a detection API, the tool can recognize this mathematical signature to verify that Claude processed it.

just learned that virtually all gold that humans have mined came from the bombardment of objects after the Earth had cooled, from meteorites large and small

Quote: gbot

When Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, molten iron sank to the center and dragged almost all original precious metals down into the planetary core.

it occurs to me that these precious metals, including gold, must be at the very core, being heavier elements than iron

remember how you hated it when you got water up into your sinuses by accident when swimming?

Instinct was serving you well, if there are amoeba in the water it is highly advisable to not have this happen

https://nypost.com/2026/08/24/us-news/louisiana-girl-lillian-smart-dies-after-contracting-suspected-brain-eating-amoeba-linked-to-lake-swim/ .

when I was a kid I worked in a restaurant featuring Southern food, and I noticed Japanese tourists ordering fried chicken and making sure they had corn on the cob. It struck me that they felt like this was real deal for Southern food

Maybe it was unusual then, but perhaps that changed,

Quote: gbot

Yes, Japanese people do eat corn on the cob, most famously as a popular summer street food called yaki tomorokoshi (grilled corn).How It Is PreparedBoiled and Grilled: The ear of corn is first briefly boiled, then placed over a charcoal grill.Flavor Glaze: While grilling, it is brushed with soy sauce, miso, mirin, or sugar. The sauce caramelizes on the kernels, creating a smoky, savory, and sweet flavor.Butter: It is often served with a pat of butter or a miso-butter

the idea of grilling the corn on the cob on the grill here came from Japan maybe?

I suspect corn on the cob is rarer in Europe ,

Quote:

Older generations in some European countries historically viewed field corn primarily as livestock feed ("pig food"), which kept corn on the cob from becoming a traditional staple.

Lobster became popular in the mid-19th to early 20th century through railroads and canned food. In early Colonial America, lobsters washed ashore in massive piles and were seen as trash. People fed them to servants, prisoners, and pigs because they were cheap and plentiful.

R.I.P. Dolly, a true class act.