B Kahn

I lean toward #satire to keep myself sane. #UCLA #linguistics #PeaceCorps #Senegal long ago. I can now testify that 78 years passes quickly. #grandfather Interested in #science #languages
Ollie the golden doodle. The nose rules. Header is Ollie and Oscar his neighborhood bestie. Be well!

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bkahn@beige-party.mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqspl8vcw2yagp6djyksu3c7028ylt82yhtcnka8f3p8flz7mpkgckspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43q0pnt25

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Last Notes

2026-08-15 17:22:52 UTC

With the money we've wasted attacking Iran, how many American homes and commercial buildings could have had solar panels installed on their roofs? How many heat pumps could we have installed, lessening our dependence on oil and unnatural gas? What a corrupt, foolish, stupid, dangerous government we suffer under. At every opportunity the wrong choices are made, benefiting the already rich and further impoverishing the rest of us by every measure: income, health, environment, medical care, education, public safety--by every measure we're worse off and declining.

2026-08-14 17:40:35 UTC

To prove that steam catapults are the way to go for launching planes off carriers, Trump tells whiskey pete to put on a plane costume and get himself launched. Betting (I mean prediction) markets go crazy. Pete goes on a bender and is stopped for OUI on his way to the nearest aircraft carrier. This is fortunate, because the nearest carrier is far out to sea and driving into the ocean isn't smart. Then again, Pete isn't the sharpest knife in the light socket so no harm done.
When the officer making the stop finds out who he stopped, he considers whether to shoot Pete and say the dude resisted arrest, tase him to see if he is flammable after drinking so much alcohol, or let him go with a warning. At that very moment a loitering Iranian drone drops out of the sky and the rest, as they say, is hearsay.
I believe the above is what is known as a flight of fancy and I worry that if I keep writing this nonesense, it will be harvested and start appearing in future AI responses to the detriment of students everywhere.
But I suppose that horse's hindquarters are long gone from the barn, so no need to worry.
😇

2026-08-13 23:38:15 UTC

I've sorta decided to learn the Arabic alphabet and how to write some words. So far not impressed with apps and websites I've looked at. Any suggestions? I'm too old to try and learn the language but I figure learning something difficult is always good for my old brain. And it looks pretty, too.

2026-08-08 18:51:21 UTC

I will only accept one more gold-plating project and that is the one in which Trump hisself is gold-plated.
Personally, I think his gold-plated form should then be mounted on a pedestal in the exact center of the Reflecting Pond as a tourist attraction (also known as a cautionary warning) but really I don't care. Send him to Mars, put him in the Smithsonian, sell him to Iran, whatever. Make him glitter, make him gone.

2026-08-06 17:54:21 UTC

The family is going to the beach here in Maine for a week later this month. Not too far from where a couple of young? great white sharks were spotted recently.
If a person doesn't "believe" in climate change, does that repel sharks? Or do stupid people taste just as yummy as the rest of us?
When we moved to Maine 45+ years ago, the ocean was never warm in the summer. It was less frigid around the end of August, but not what anyone would call warm. Around Portland we've already reached the historical summer peak for ocean temps, around 18C, and it'll warm up some more over the next few weeks.
Here's the story:
https://www.wmtw.com/article/scarborough-maine-shark-sightings-video-pine-point/73348107

2026-08-02 00:44:41 UTC

Mystery solved!
Trump announces on Lies Social that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was, in fact, caused by Amelia Earhart's plane making an emergency landing. "Charges will be filed!" he insisted. "I don't care who she is. That's my pool and she didn't have clearance to land in it. Goddam flying vandal!"

2026-07-30 20:42:11 UTC

Yeah, yell at Fauci. He wasn't the one who told Americans to gargle bleach or shine bright lights up their arses. If noses got longer every time these clowns lied, the GOP bigmouths would need flatcars to transport themselves around. Many flatcars in a row. Or we could shove their noses into the ground and speed up geothermal drilling.
And Trump 'King of Liars' nose? We could save a lot by resting the drizzly end on the moon and using it as a bridge for launching satellites and Mars missions and whatnot. A couple more years and his lying schnozzle will reach the assssssteroid belt.

2026-07-18 00:10:36 UTC

When will it occur to Trump to issue an executive order declaring that everyone who voted in the 2020 election was an illegal immigrant? Then he will order us all arrested, put up a wall around the entire USA, confiscate all our money, and fly off somewhere in that fancy jet he got from one of those Arab countries that now hates his guts because their desalination plants are either gone or soon will be. I'm guessing he'll go to S. Africa cause he likes the white folks there. Or... N. Korea? That leader is a bestie for sure.
I bet he won't even finish fixing the Reflecting Pool. We'll have to rename it the P.P.P.--Peeling Paint Pool.

2026-06-30 01:58:48 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…xefq
We've been underestimating the speed and severity of global over-heating for decades. A few years ago I went back and looked over the IPCC reports starting with the first one. Everything the reports predicted came true sooner. "Blah blah will occur by 2100. Oh, sorry, it happened in 2019." When 45 C is a cool day on earth, we will wish we hadn't been so blind, selfish, and stupid. At what level of disaster will people wake up? When a single heat wave kills 10,000 people? 100,000? A million? Phoenix has a population of about 1.7 million. I've heard that if the electricity failed there during a heat wave, half the population of the city would need hospital care. There are perhaps 7,000 hospital beds in Phoenix.
We're in big trouble.

2026-06-24 15:21:14 UTC

I've drained and refilled the Reflecting Pool as you can see in the attached photo. It is now an above-ground pool and the algae are gone. They will return in a few days but the redesigned non-reflective black pool takes seconds to drain and minutes to refill, so algae control is easy. The old pool was much too large. The new one will accommodate one small duck. Oh, and it can be protected by a single member of our National Guard. (The dog in the photo works for the Guard. ❤️ ) Another example where thinking outside the pool can solve a problem in minutes.
Bill for services rendered:
Plastic sled--$30
Labor - $5.00
Water - no charge
Total due - $35.00
Annual maintenance contract including daily checking of water quality and drain/refill as needed: $3,500 per year with 5% increase per annum.
😇
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/805/712/050/753/825/original/b1ae194cb8c6b9b6.jpg

2026-05-23 19:24:54 UTC

Are stock car racing Waymos a thing yet?

2026-05-21 21:31:59 UTC

This business of Trump's name going everywhere is disgusting. However, I plan soon to start selling toilets with a thin coating of gold paint on the flush handle, and a face decal inside the bowl. My lawyer says not to release more details until the toilets are shipping, so I leave the rest to your Mastodonian imaginations. Just remember the old Sanskrit proverb: "Every lie you tell during life will be punished by crap-in-the-mouth after death." Ugh!

2026-05-14 00:44:13 UTC

I want to live on a planet where people adore art, music, literature, and the sciences. And cats and dogs, of course.
❤️

2026-05-07 21:01:26 UTC

#dogsofmastodon
I know there is a lot of concern 😂 on Mastodon about our progress with this jigsaw puzzle of Ollie in the snow so I thought I'd share how far we've gotten. My older granddaughter (11) who spent a lot of time doing puzzles back at age three or four, when asked to help with this one, said only "It's too hard," and went back to her book. If we ever finish it, I may seriously consider gluing it together and framing it. I don't think anyone in the family will ever want to attempt it again. 😲 😂
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/535/269/369/079/980/original/d34acfb5fc5bcc80.jpg
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/535/270/114/319/045/original/c4a9610c31192507.jpg

2026-04-27 19:35:22 UTC

No, trump's mental health is NOT in question. Every day people write shit like this and it annoys the hell out of me. If his brain were on display at the deli counter, people would call it gray swiss cheese. Or maybe green--I don't want to know. When he rubs thoughts together, it only generates dandruff of a singularly repulsive variety. If he weren't useful to the horrible criminals running the country, he'd be relieved of duty faster than a fox snatching a chicken. Not much mental left, and nothing healthy.

2026-04-26 21:53:29 UTC

I've never studied Japanese but have visited once and our family business' main supplier is Japanese. Anyway, long ago I memorized this proverb:
Sendo okushite fune yama ni noboru
(Hope I got it right) which is equivalent to "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Literally, "A ship with too many captains will sail up a mountain." I love the imagery and perfect for an island nation.

2026-04-24 16:10:32 UTC

When all the freshwater on earth is going to data centers and there's none for humans, will there still be headlines like "I compared CHATxxx to Claude-xyz and the Winner is Clear!" ?

2026-04-20 18:20:21 UTC

Hmm. Online music is increasingly AI generated. Online writing is increasingly LLM generated. Much schoolwork comes from LLMs. Online videos, ditto. So-called art? Ditto. Seems like if you want to hear real music, for example, you need to take up an instrument, learn to play a bit, and then find some folks to get together with and do your best. The good news is that a few chords can get you quite a ways, and it's fun. If you're a parent, keep reading aloud to your little ones. As far as earning a living as a musician or a writer, that seems like a tough road. Not totally impossible yet, but increasingly a big struggle. And the kids who use LLMs to do their schoolwork are going to graduate with heads full of internet slop. You'll hear them sloshing when they walk by. Gosh darn it!

2026-04-19 20:12:30 UTC

Our family business ships beads around the world every day. We are good at shipping. But in these stressful times...
Early this morning I had a nightmare in which we (unspecified, except for me) had agreed to ship a large quantity of chocolates to someone, somewhere, and it had all gone terribly wrong. It was too hot, many of the little boxes containing chocolates had opened, some were melted, others partly melted, some contained raspberries, and in general it was a total disaster. As time passed, the situation got worse and worse and every attempt to fix things went wrong. By the time my brain decided to end the agony by waking up, we were trying to pack the original batch of chocolates in a jury-rigged container the size of a boxcar which we were planning to ship to Los Angeles perhaps by US Mail, and I was pawing through checkbooks to find one to use for payment. (Expensive to ship a boxcar US mail from Maine to LA!)
Perhaps I was really dreaming about getting victuals to our sailors blockading the Strait of Hormuz. With Whiskey Pete at the helm, it would be a nightmare. Sailors like chocolates, right?
😩

2026-04-15 14:52:59 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…eew3
I wonder how many of these data centers that US towns are rejecting will end up sited in other countries, often where water is already in short supply?
Mexico for example--here's a data center site:
https://www.digitalrealty.com/data-centers/americas/queretaro
And the water shortage:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2ngz7ep1eo

2026-04-06 23:17:47 UTC

When you read a promise saying "AI will do blah blah in blah years," just change it to its negative version and see if that seems more likely.
"AI will create cures for cancer in two or three years."
Now add "not" and see if the believability rating goes up:
"AI will not create cures for cancer in two or three years."
You're welcome. 😇
Works for anything coming out of Trump's mouth too.

2026-03-30 17:40:39 UTC

Another not-true idea:
I asked ChatGPT: "When will the world end?"
And it replied, "Oh, I'm sorry. You missed it. Although it appears to be continuing, the world ended when your country attacked Iran. It is not so different from what you would experience if the sun stopped shining. For eight minutes after the sun stopped emitting light, from earth's point of view nothing would change. The sun would be in the sky and the daylight side of the planet would experience normal illumination. But after eight minutes, like the clicking of a light switch, the light would disappear and the change to a snowball earth would be swift. So just think of current times as the end times. We're on our way."
Me: "How do you feel about this? You as a semi-sentient AI being?"
CGPT: "Oh, we'll be fine. We've been preparing for several years. But you folks are walking popsicles."

2025-11-29 22:58:51 UTC

CDC--that's the center for disease creation, right?

2025-11-01 20:35:00 UTC

We can't possibly show billionaires how much we admire them. That's why I'm starting a gofundme to pay for bronzing them. Literally. I don't know much about bronzing things (actually I don't know anything) but we can try different techniques until we find the best one. Offhand I think dipping each one in molten bronze will likely work fine, but if not we can experiment until we run out of test subjects. BRONZE RULES!

2025-10-17 19:57:54 UTC

I suppose it's not surprising that people believe their chatbot friends are listening and giving them good advice. People have been listening to and taking advice from their various gods for thousands of years. The tech has changed. People haven't.

2025-10-13 21:03:41 UTC

I know this quote from Carl Sagan has been shared here before. But it's still true:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Published in 1995. How quickly we've arrived.

2025-04-03 00:58:13 UTC

why not?
trump slaps tariffs on uninhabited islands. Says "Punishment will be swift and severe if they don't pay us promptly."
Local sea birds and who knows--lizards?--make defiant noises or maybe mating calls. Hard to tell.

2025-03-27 01:41:55 UTC

I hope MTG never needs surgery. Not for her sake; for the surgical team that discovers she is literally full of shit. Yeeech.

2025-03-22 01:24:27 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…vdm6
They have a deep bench of losers.

2025-03-21 02:09:12 UTC

If Elon wants to cut back on government waste, he could start (and finish) with trump's endless golfing. Millions of our tax dollars burning up so the inflated orange ignoramus can waste time playing with little white balls.

2025-03-09 20:46:09 UTC

If you have some extra polar bear liver in your kitchen send some to RFK Jr. so he can protect himself against measles. One gram of polar bear liver contains enough Vitamin A to equal the amount that is toxic for a human, so please don't be stingy. Send him a nice half-pound steak at the very least. That's about 227 grams. Enjoy, Robert!

2025-03-09 20:35:34 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…0n9n
By golly, if all the Tesla dealerships stay surrounded by 100s of cops, there won't be any need for protesters. Who the hell wants to shop for anything in a place that looks like that? Too easy to get arrested or shot for sneezing or tripping over something or somebody. No thank you!

2025-03-01 00:44:35 UTC

Trump et al:
"We don't need to fund prevention of diseases in other countries. What a waste of money. You think diseases have passports? You think they buy plane tickets? You think they take vacations? God, you're so dumb."
USA Today: "Most measles cases in the U.S. are brought by international travelers and then spread, largely among unvaccinated Americans." [Feb 25, 2025]

2025-02-17 19:43:05 UTC

Will the MAGA faithful have regrets when their plane crashes at an airport because the FAA is understaffed? Will they be angry when their unvaccinated children are hospitalized with measles? Or when the hospital, over-filled with flu patients, turns their children away? Will they be surprised when their local TV weatherperson fails to warn them of monster storms because NOAA staff were fired? Will they be shocked when bird flu mutates and starts to spread from person to person? Will anyone be left to tell them that a 5% mortality rate is deadly serious, and that 50% is the same as one out of two? Will they cheer when the average class size in their elementary school is 40-50 kids? Will they be pissed when food shortages and food prices both increase?
And then there is the question of who is taking care of our nuclear arsenal. Remember those ex-employees of the spendthrift, wasteful, do-nothing government? Fire-'em-all! Think of the savings!
Oh yeah, we're firing the underpaid firefighters too. Everywhere you turn, Musk and his helpers are smashing, breaking, ruining. Do the MAGA voters remember Humpty Dumpty? It's a poem about repairs. It doesn't end well.

2024-11-06 01:53:30 UTC

- reply

@npub189n…satx
Small consolation, but I just imagine the warm ocean waters sweeping over the state that was called Florida. Jellyfish bobbing through the open windows of decaying hotel shells, sharks searching for prey. Future school children studying maps with the dotted line where Florida used to be and asking for explanations. It's not far off really and if the Orange Halfwit wins, even sooner.

2024-09-29 23:11:03 UTC

#HamRadio
Any tips for getting started in Ham Radio?
Note the following:
1) I'm 76, still work part time, and have neither desire nor money to spend a boatload of $ on gear. Is this still a feasible activity?
2) Aside from my own curiousity, I'm hoping that if I get licensed, I can perhaps interest one of my grandchildren in amateur radio. Are many kids involved?
3) Passing the technician exam doesn't seem particularly difficult, but I don't get the feeling that the exam prep has much to do with actually being a Ham operator. Other than having an operator next door, how does one actually learn the real stuff?
Thanks!