My Dad Used to Have All the Answers. Now He Asks ChatGPT.
Like many twentysomethings, I ask my dad a lot of questions. What’s an easy weeknight recipe? How do I fix the leak under my sink? What does “federal withholding” mean? Lately, his answer is simple: Ask ChatGPT.
My dad, 57, got hooked on ChatGPT last year and hasn’t looked back. He uses it for everything, including home repair, precision online shopping, weather reports, and, oddest of all, planning hiking trips. My dad used to own a travel-guide bookstore. For the duration of my childhood, he planned every trip with a map in one hand and Lonely Planet in the other. When I asked him if he missed the old way, he shrugged. “The books were always getting outdated and they never had all the information,” he said. “It’s like being nostalgic for a rotary telephone.”
Fake article. Imagine someone writing for Slate that listens to their father’s advice. If they did that they wouldn’t be writing for Slate.
The Night-Pooper has a new accomplice!
Nude burglar who terrorized Virginia community arrested after month-long search
A bare-bottomed burglar accused of terrorizing a swanky Virginia neighborhood in a month-long crime spree was arrested Monday morning.
Sedrick Walker, 21, was cuffed in Centreville, Virginia, early Monday in connection with a string of attempted break-ins committed by a nude vagrant between March and early April.
A shirtless person in a beanie and neck warmer, possibly holding a cigarette.
The purported thief was caught on several home surveillance cameras stalking around properties in nothing but a pair of shoes and a mask fashioned out of a piece of blue cloth. Fed-up residents begged police to intervene, and a stakeout was set up on April 1, officials told NBC Washington.
Officers with the Fairfax Police Department staked out a home in Centreville near the neighborhood frequented by the naked raider, according to the outlet.
Familiar, yes? But in case you need a refresher…
I find this German fella that shows you how to recreate songs on a drum machine fascinating. He is just a set of diembodied hands and I find his voice very soothing. There is also occasionally female hands, for the perverts among you.
I have great news for everyone – I have been accepted back into antifa after offering to First any vag-carrying females.
It’s messy and degrading work, but it’s for the cause. Fascism will never be defeated without the power of the First.
You are doing the Lord’s work.
Great firster knows that the liberal men aren’t doing it.
Do they have to carry the one they were born with, or is a borrowed/stolen one ok?
Only vags that The Great Firester gave them and it’ll be subject to chromosome testing. Not because you can’t tell the trannies aren’t real women but because you can’t tell if the women aren’t trannies.
I always told the Glibertariat that I First for their sins.
Will the carpet match the blue drapes?
Borrow Warty’s DOOMCOCK, and First them with that.
Congrats?
You’ll fit right in.
That Captain Pikant video is constantly being recommended to me. I disregarded it because “New Order is brutal? Really? “
YouTube algo stuff. I mostly just ignore it. The “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” video is also really good. He attempts to track down the exact type of milk bottle Dave Stewart is playing on the track. I love obsessive hobbists, being one myself.
That had my interest.
:: adds fancy drum machine to shopping list for lottery winnings ::
The purported thief was caught on several home surveillance cameras stalking around properties in nothing but a pair of shoes and a mask fashioned out of a piece of blue cloth.
I have no idea why my mind immediately went here.
Not me!
A bare-bottomed burglar accused of terrorizing a swanky Virginia neighborhood in a month-long crime spree was arrested Monday morning.
Bare-bottomed burglars, you make the rockin’ world go round.
“Quit bothering me. I spent a quarter century trying to teach you what you goddamn kids call ‘adulting,’ and you can’t even cook pasta or change a tire. Ask that phone you’re always staring at.”
— Fixed it for Slate kid
I learned to cook over a campfire when I was 11.
Foil dinners?
And they shouldn’t consider Lonely Planet a good travel guide.
I’m sure this may apply in some cases. I’m also sure that the opposite is true in many as well. The parents sucked and never tried to teach them anything. That’s how the enstupidifaction of society works. Each generation of parents has sucked slightly more on average and the children spread it amongst each other.
I have no problem looking at the people around me who are of child bearing age or who have kids, or the people I grew up with and determining that they really aren’t capable of producing a fully capable adult because they aren’t that themselves.
Talk to any teacher and they’ll pretty much all tell you a lot of their students have parents who think parenting is the job of the school system.
The bare bottomed burglar makes me think of Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys, a band that I saw at the Exotic Erotic Halloween Ball. Buck was known for wearing only a plunger to cover up his junk on stage. He was murdered while walking his dog in Golden Gate Park by a guy who was feeding the pigeons. One of those wholesome San Francisco stories.
Huh. A steak named Chad.
For those who do not know The Tale of The Night Pooper:
Years ago, something was shitting in my back yard. Huge turds. I had a fence, but the gate was low, but I lived in middle of a city, and no one around me had a big dog. Cleaned up, whatever.
But then the repulsive neighbor buttonholed me in the yard one day, pissed that something was shitting huge turds in her yard, and implying that she thought I was doing it.
She kept going on and on and I finally said, “Lady, if I was shitting in your yard, you’d know it.” She stalked off squawking.
But two shitting incidents was suspicious. Who was shitting in the yards, and why? Where more yards targeted?
Thus, The Legend of The Night Pooper was born.
Did you dust for prints?
I think that was a Hardy Boys title wasn’t it?
Do you have Haitians?
There was a second pooper behind the grassy knoll.
I’ve been asking ChatGPT retirement scenarios all afternoon. Trying to minimize taxes, move assets to a Roth and minimize IRMAA.
It’s done ok, but sometimes it’s just wrong. It’s been very useful to help me think and structure the problem, but I understand the components it is working with.
It’s basically like a kid who is book smart, but only a few years of work experience. For example, it always fucks up when my wife takes social security despite explicitly telling it. I always need to correct it.
You’d be an utter fool to just dump the information in and follow it blindly.
we have added copilot to the tools available at megacorp.
so, I asked copilot if it hallucinates.
It said it doesn’t have human characteristics like “hallucinations” but that it does answer wrong sometimes.
Copilot is no longer just available, it’s required here.
I have found it useful so far.
Of course, I have only asked it to summarize publicly available data. It has saved me some time.
I don’t trust it to do my actual work.
I like Grok. But I find that after the first answer, I can ask “are you sure?” then it corrects itself.
*shrug*
There was a study out recently stating the best AI (Grok) was wrong 15% of the time.
Meanwhile….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/georgia-rep-david-scott-dies-80-rcna341463
We run similar scenarios to set-up Roth conversion, minimize tax, IMRAA, withdrawal sequences. Tested with ChatGPT, Grok, Copilot, Gemini – so far Gemini is preferred. Very fast and accurate.
Thanks! I’ll try it.
AI is more like a jumping off point for research to me. You can ask it about things you know in-depth (for some people that’s hard to do) and you’ll see it’s not 100% or anything close. I have noticed it getting a bit better.
The one thing I haven’t heard anyone bitch explicitly about is the fact that it’s usually just kind of poaching its answers from websites. I mean, that’s obvious or implicit in all of this. But for all the talk about artists and their content being used to train it, I have noticed that the Google AI box in searches basically pilfers info that’s just on the top search results. Like you can click it and see sentences basically cribbed.
Everyone who creates content online could lose traffic at some point as a result of that.
oddest of all, planning hiking trips.
Has this girl ever used the internet? Her dad is into the most wholesome activities.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/new-york-wants-to-make-bb-guns-non-functioning-and-lame-44827870
Gay.
Whoops. Ded thread about local Congress critters:
*raises hand of semi-shame* I’m embarrassed about my ignorance of most Indiana politics. Living abroad, it made sense to only focus on nat’l stuff, and I’ve never caught up and don’t regularly read current stuff.
This is one reason I don’t vote locally, but I don’t vote at all nationally. (Or haven’t since Paul in ’08. Oh, and Libertarian (Jorgenson?) in ’16 just to do my part to keep the LP on the ballot. I proudly voted for Johnson in ’12, so. Oh. There’s that shaker of salt.)
I do know: Indiana’s one of the best, financially – “Indiana has consistently maintained a balanced budget and, contrary to experiencing a structural yearly deficit, closed FY 2025 with a $676 million surplus and $2.5 billion in total reserves. While facing a potential $2 billion revenue shortfall, the state enacted a 7% spending reduction through cuts, avoiding a deficit.”
Good on us, I s’pose. I’d happily give Southeast Chicago some counties. But keep Michigan City in IN. Love that place. Mom’s dad bought a small place there in the 50s, 100 foot walk to the sand. Easily, a $1M property alone. Uncle sold it, IIRC?
Our libertarian president…
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/spirit-airlines-trump-administration-bailout-rcna341430
Christ.
First of all, Spirit Airlines dying off would be among the best things that could happen to commercial aviation.
Isn’t the real question, what political mileage will a bail-out bring?
I’m shopping for replacement “woofers” for formerly awesome Paradigm bookshelf speakers which came from my parents’ house. They are old, and the rubber suspension ring for the cone is disintegrating. I suspect I’ll end up replacing them with some 5″ slightly-better-than-generic Amazon units. I am not an audio engineer.
Dude, you can just buy new foam surrounds.
Usually sold as a kit on eBay as well.
Why not build your own? https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-components/speaker-subwoofer-kits
DC Dating Drama
A high-ranking counterterrorism official is insisting she “did nothing wrong” after her ex-boyfriend reportedly triggered a watchdog probe over accusations she used him as a “sugar daddy” and demanded he spend thousands to fund her lavish lifestyle.
The Daily Mail reported that in December, a divorced business executive identified only as Robert B. matched with 29-year-old Deputy Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Counterterrorism Julia Varvaro on Hinge, beginning a months-long dalliance that ended with him filing an official complaint with DHS.
“This is just a mad ex-boyfriend putting crap together. And it’s just really weird,” Varvaro insisted to the outlet.
I’m thinking caveat lessee in this case. Not Emptor because he wasn’t buying just renting.
Sugar baby, or bratty entitled political appointee? Really, how can you even tell them apart?
So that’s the trick, huh? Get going on this, Post!!!
It almost reads like English, but it does read as bold.
I mean, it’s nice to see a man attempt to weaponize the sexual proclivities of a female against her, but the deck is stacked against him. Women are totally allowed to have whatever shallow “preferences” they want. Their impulses are to be indulged at all times no matter how vile or slimy. Women are adult children, and that’s especially true for the upper classes. All the privileges and rights of adulthood and citizenship with (almost) none of the accountability.
Guy here isn’t any better as he obviously knew what was up and after it ended just wanted revenge.
And does anyone really think this dopey little white girl has any fucking expertise on terrorism?
you can just buy new foam surrounds.
Well, huh. Today I learned.
I assumed it was an integral part of the cone.
*Off to youtube*
Lots of videos. I actually bought a kit that included the adhesive.
Key thing is to center the cone so the coil doesn’t rub on the magnet. It’s not a difficult job.
TOO LOCAL NEWS: Barry Laughton sentencing scheduled
It’s been months since former state representative Stacie Laughton (D-Nashua) pleaded guilty in a horrific child sex abuse image case involving a Massachusetts daycare. Now his much-delayed sentencing date is approaching.
Laughton and romantic partner and co-defendant Lindsay Groves are scheduled to be sentenced together on June 2 in the United States District Court in Boston. The pair were scheduled for sentencing in February and March, but those hearings were delayed.
Laughton, New Hampshire’s first openly transgender elected representative, and girlfriend Groves were arrested in 2023 on charges of possessing child sex abuse images. According to court records, Groves used her position at a Tyngsborough, Mass., daycare to exploit the children in her care for sexually explicit photos that were shared with Laughton.
Laughton, 42, born Barry Laughton, took a plea deal in November that could get him as much as 30 years in prison. Groves pleaded guilty in October after a lengthy competency evaluation process in August found her fit to stand trial.
You deadnamed her! *faints*
Love the pic with totally-a-woman standing next to Swalwell.
Him. I deadnamed him.
And I’ll do it again.
Trucking school was fun today. I drove it around the lot and did some backing maneuvers. The clutch is a little tricky, but I’m getting the hang of it.
Today I learned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basters
***
The name Baster is derived from “bastaard”, the Dutch word for “bastard” or “mongrel”. While some people consider this term demeaning, the Basters reappropriated it as an ethnonym, in spite of the negative connotation.
***
It turns out there are a few mixed-race tribes in modern day Africa.
Sorry for the late comment, but that snake video is wonderful.
I was about to say the same thing. I love that video.