Well, will you look at this? Miami is 0-5, but I can’t believe they are really that bad.
Someone had to win the Tennessee-Houston game, and it turned out to be Houston.
And the worthless Chargers are now 0-5 as well.
This is actually making me kind of happy.
It looks like Miami has a bye next week, and the worthless Chargers play Kansas City. KC is a heavy favorite in that game, of course. Tennessee plays Indianapolis: Indy is also a heavy favorite in that game.
I have finally crossed enough off of my to-do list, and also resolved some things that other people wanted me to do, so I feel comfortable doing some gun book blogging.
I’m going to start out easy. Two duplicates of books I’ve already blogged (from the Springfield purchase) and two books that I didn’t previously have, but I’ve written about the authors previously.
I know about Mike Ditka, but in keeping with this blog’s policy, I want to wait until tomorrow to do a round-up.
In the meantime:
Margaret Hamilton. No, not that one (though I did say to my mother when she asked me if I’d heard of her, “Wasn’t she the Wicked Witch of the West?”). This one led the team that developed the software for Apollo.
Still early, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to have at least one horrible team this year. And I don’t think it will be one of the Florida teams, which I hope will make McThag happy.
I can’t find it now, but I recall the Titans wearing Oilers throwback uniforms during a fairly recent game. I also recall advocating for the public flogging of everyone involved in this decision.
Other credits include “Grand Prix”, “The Last Days of Patton”, “When Hell Was in Session”, and “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming”.
Burning in Hell watch: Bill Harris. You may remember him from hits like the Symbionese Liberation Army, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and the murder of Myrna Opsahl.
Two things snuck up on me while I was on the road and/or down with the crud.
The first thing was the end of the MLB season. As I stated in a previous update, there were no historically bad teams this year. The Colorado Rockies were not good, but they finished 58-104, with a .358 winning percentage, the lowest this season. The White Sox were 84-78, for a .519 winning percentage, and are in the playoffs. The City Unknown Athletics finished 64-98, with a .395 winning percentage.
And the Astros went 81-81.
The other thing that sort of snuck up on me was the start of the NHL season. I knew it was coming, but I wanted to wait until today before posting a loser update.
NHL teams that still have a chance of going 0-84:
Detroit
Ottawa
Buffalo
Tampa Bay
Carolina
Philadelphia
Washington
New York Islanders
Dallas
St. Louis
Winnipeg
Nashville
Chicago
Anaheim
Los Angeles Kings
Calgary
Mark Smith’s presentation was the one I wanted to follow up on, but I can’t find any contact information for him. But the link above goes to YouTube video of his talk, which has a transcript, which gives me what I was looking for: his list of the best and worst appellate courts. “The Supreme Court is very good.” After that:
The next two best: the Fifth Circuit which covers Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. And the Third Circuit that covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
“reasonably okay. They’re not great, but they’re not terrible”: The Eighth Circuit out of Missouri, the Sixth Circuit, which is “Kentucky-ish” and Michigan, and the 11th Circuit out of Florida.
“the bad stuff”: “The 10th Circuit is generally bad, but occasionally you will get a good panel.” After that, the Fourth Circuit out of Virginia (“terrible”), the Ninth Circuit out of California (“terrible”), and the Second Circuit out of New York City (“generally terrible”).
“And the worst court in America by far is the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit out of Boston. There is no combination of three judges that you can get that will uphold the constitution in any respect.”
I can’t find video of Mr. Yumul’s talk on AI, but I did take notes, and may try to post those tomorrow. One thing he did provide us was a very interesting prompt that will take a piece of writing (such as a blog post) and analyze it as if the AI was a hostile fact checker. I intend to ask him if he would mind me sharing that here.
I also want to make note of his four principles, which I think are a good general approach to AI:
Is it TRUE?
Is it MINE?
Is it HONEST?
If it’s wrong, did I FIX it?
I may want to write more about GRPC tomorrow and over the weekend, though I do think the window is closing. Two things I do want to squeeze in:
The director of BATFE spoke at GRPC. Let me repeat that: the freaking DIRECTOR of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, an organization that most firearms owners consider a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”, spoke to a room full of gun people. Along with the agency’s chief council. That link will take you to video.
The freshly pardoned Patrick “Tate” Adamiak also spoke at GRPC and at AMM-CON, along with Lee Williams (who did much to draw attention to his case). If you’re not familiar with Mr. Adamiak: he was a US Navy sailor, who’d been selected to try out for the SEALs. Then BATFE raided his house over his collection of firearms. He was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison for allegedly selling “machine guns” in an egregious example of BATFE conduct under the Biden administration. (One of the “machine guns” was a toy STEN that you can buy off the Internet today. The BATFE also took a de-milled RPG, completely rebuilt it in their lab so it could fire a single round of 7.62 ammo, and then claimed it was a destructive device.)
(One of my compatriots noted that a lot of Secret Service types were nervously fingering their sidearms during the BATFE talk. There were also more than a few people in the room who were open carrying, and who knows how many that were carrying concealed.)
(Seriously, the “Tate” Adamiak case should outrage anyone who gives a flying flip at a rolling doughnut about justice. I had vaguely heard about it, but wasn’t following it very closely. MtM gave me a briefing in the car on the way up.)
