old man emu

No news of the recently dead. Has Death taken a holiday?

The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has just ordered the Mexican Army to deploy along the Mexico/USA border to repel the invasion of US citizens of the Republican persuasion who are fleeing persecution by people of the Democrat persuasion. On a serious note, Trump claims he has a mandate (the authority to carry out a policy, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election) to do what he is doing. However, obtaining a mandate through an election implies an overwhelming level of electoral support. Trump didn't even get 50% of the total votes cast. It was the stupid Electoral College system of determining the Presidency that put him there.

You notice that Trump never identified which public servants would get the chop.I couldn't see the customer service people going. I was thinking that it would be the upper levels of the service to go. Those are the ones who actually have the authority to institute regulations. Wouldn't it be ironic if he removed the restrictions on fully automatic weapons, and some nutter filled him full of lead with one of these

The bastard has just destroyed a 70-year-old sign of respect towards deceased Presidents by signing an Order directing that National Flags not be flown at half-mast on Inauguration Day. They weren't today, because Trump has no respect for anyone but himself, including former President Jimmy Carter. The flag should fly at half-staff for 30 days at all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels throughout the United States and its territories and possessions after the death of the president or a former president. Joe Biden ordered the flags to be lowered for a period of 30 days, in accordance with Proclamation 3044, signed by President DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER on 1st March, 1954. This would not have been the first time that flags had flown at half-staff during a presidential inauguration. In 1973, flags were at half-staff during Richard Nixon’s inauguration because of the death of former president Harry Truman, who passed away less than a month earlier

It is usual to report on the First One Hundred Days of a new political leader. Trump has turbo-charged that and brought it down to the First One Hundred Hours.

What he has done now is take the Oath of Office. The rollercoaster ride has begun!

You have forgotten what it is like to be driving more than two hours. Even the driver starts asking, 'are we there yet?'. Why do you thing that the road safety people tell us to take a break every two hours? People looking for a a couple of days away from the turmoil of the city want to get to their destination to enjoy it. They don't enjoy driving to it. The only people I know of who will go the extra hour or so are 4WD people who have to go that far to get to a good location for that activity. But they also carry camping gear and their tucker, so they don't need what you envisage to establish.

Points for that bit of wit.

I'd be looking for a country pub within two hours' drive of Melbourne in a town that had some form of attraction or access to an outdoors activity. What you should cater for is the short-stay, get away from it all experience.

China won't pill a drop of blood in destroying the USA, China owns more than $859.4 billion in U.S. debt, representing about 2.6% of the total U.S. debt. China's navy cannot move its army anywhere near the USA, so it cannot invade. IMHO China is only sabre rattling about Taiwan to annoy the Yanks. They are like a kid running a stick along beside a picket fence to tease the dog in the yard. What I wonder is if Trump orders a military action where there is not threat to the USA, would his military commanders go, 'yeah, nah'?

It is that reduction in cerebral activity that I fear. I agree that AI is a useful tool for processing information in its many forms, but the information it sources is stuff that already exists - yesterday's news. That information is the foundation of what we have in the present, but AI cannot produce innovation of itself. It needs prompts from humans. In fact the word that is used to describe the requests a human makes to AI is "prompt", indicating that AI needs help to proceed in a desired direction. I suppose I am being very restrictive in what I am talking about in relation to creativity. I'm just looking at it use in "literature". Could AI create the emotions in the writing that take a story from not much more than a news report to a timeless piece of prose? I doubt it because a great author of literature, or even music and art, puts heart and soul into the work, and AI has neither heart nor soul.

The town is on a road to Nowhere. Passing traffic would be minimal.

I agree with PMC's reason for the closer of businesses in the hospitality industry in rural areas - you can't get staff. Well, you can get get staff to start, but within a few days they are calling to tell you that they can't come today for some reason that many of us would see as trivial. Otherwise they only last for a week or so. I've seen this happen at a pub in my town. The advertisement for the pub mentions access to the Murray River, that's if you want to drive 40 kms. I'd say that Mathoura is another dying small town. Look elsewhere.

You still have to service consumables such as brakes and tyres, wheel alignment and so on. But those things are not covered by warranty, which is fair enough. I think it shows the manufacturer's faith in the product, and indicates the quality standard that has been reached in mass produced motor vehicles.

You can lay the doll, too.

Science Fiction has used Artificial Intelligence as a modern day bogeyman, but what that fiction predicts in the way of machines taking over personkind is hardly correct. I had to do some research to allow me to come up with that opinion, and what I found makes me think that the Pros well and truly outweigh the Cons. I can't see myself using it, but I'm not a Luddite who wishes to tear it down out of unproven fears. Before we start, let's determine what Artificial Intelligence is. For one thing, it is not "intelligence" as we understand it in fish, birds and mammals. Basically the software that we use is a hunter/gatherer whose hunting ground is all the information present on the Internet. Added to its hunting skills is its ability to process what it has captured and serve it up to us in any number of formats that we desire. While AI can be used to produce intricate plan for tasks ranging from the simple to the complex there is one thing it cannot do. It cannot produce and original idea. It is incapable of abstract thought. Within the overall package that we call AI there are four separate AI domains. The term domain can refer to how resources are organized. In general, a domain is an area of control or a sphere of knowledge. Think of an AI domain as a area of activity such as Administration, Finance, Manufacturing or Sales within a business. Each domain has its own goals which may or may not overlap with other domains, but in general is independent of the others. The domains of Artificial Intelligence are: Generative AI, often referred to as Gen AI, is a domain within AI for the creation of new content, such as text, images, voice, video, and code, by learning from data patterns. Think Chat GPT. Machine learning is a domain of AI in which computers autonomously learn and improve without being explicitly programmed. Natural language processing is a domain of AI that deals with the ability of computer systems to understand and generate human language. Computer Vision is the domain of AI which allows computers to 'see' and comprehend the visual world. Of the four domains, 1 and 3 are the ones with which the average person would have the greatest contact, unless operating a driverless vehicle, or conducting surveillance to spot undesirables in a crowd when 4 is the most useful. So what are the Pros and Cons of domains 1 and 3? Domain 1 is the hunter/gatherer. It is used to trawl the Internet for information that provides an answer to a question posed by a human. The questions could be a simple request for a single piece of information, such as 'who was Peter Lalor?', to complex questions such as "produce a 200 word summary of peer reviewed papers relating to anti-cancer vaccines'. Domain 1 is capable of providing an answer in text which can reflect the style of a celebrity, or to suit the reading age of a target audience. Domain 3 can manipulate the text created by Domain 1 into formal or vernacular styles and/or into other languages. Apart from the possibility of nefarious use of Domains 1 and 3, I see Domain 1 as a destroyer of originality. If a user becomes reliant on the output of AI then, while the output might be faultless, it is without personality. If you have read this far, and have read other examples of my serious writings, you will know that I have a particular style of constructing what I write. You will know that I often use uncommonly used words where perhaps I should have used more common ones. Domain 1 cannot reproduce my style, mainly because it has not been able to connect material I have posted with me. I'm told that all I have to do is direct the AI program to produce it response in the style of Old Man Emu, but I wonder if it could identify OME and OME's writings.

The doll's or the MG's?

Just goes to show how far manufacturers have come in the design, metallurgy and tolerances since the years of our youth. The problem in the future might be the robustness of the computer systems that operate our vehicles nowadays. When was the last time you heard of anyone needing a valve grind and decoke? But the demise of those processes is probably due to fuel quality and computer controlled air/fuel mixture.

No. Three services at most. They would be at 15K, 30K and 45K. After 50K no more freebies. Also you are not likely to service within the 5K between 45K and 50K. Warning: I've heard that if you buy a new car and don't get it serviced BEFORE the specified mileages (kilometrages?????), the manufacturer is not inclined to accept warranty claims. I could well be corrected on this point.

That's an opinion shared by many world leaders, political commentators, and any village idiot with more than one brain cell.

I recently heard that research is progressing into the development of anti-cancer vaccines. Also known as therapeutic cancer vaccines, are a type of immunotherapy that trains the immune system to attack cancer cells. They are already being given to pubescent girls to protect them from cervical cancer. I don't know if the type of cancer is one organ is the same as that in another, so I don't know if there is a one-size-fits-all vaccine. If not, then we can expect that success creating a vaccine to stop one type will enthuse researchers to find the vaccine for the next one, and so on.

I'm replying to that as my last act before I pop off for a nap. I did do some laundry earlier today; and sorted out my linen cupboard.

I get the feeling that the constructs that led to Trump's election are beginning to disintegrate. He recently had a telephone meeting with China's leader and Trump indicated that the meeting was positive. To me that hints at backpedaling from his previous comments about how he will deal with China. His co-head of the Dept of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy was not selected to take the Senate seat for Ohio that JD Vance vacated upon his election as Vice President, despite Trump's urging of the Ohio Governor to give Vivek the job. Trump has backpedalled on his claim to have consumer prices fall, saying that controlling the prices was not within his power. Wow he spoke the truth about that. I feel sure of one thing that he will do. He'll brag about the TV ratings the inauguration ceremony will get. A bigger viewing audience than the Super Bowl????? If you could get your security clearance through by Sunday, Washington DC time, you could possibly score a seat at the post-inauguration dinner. Most of the living former Presidents and wives aren't going.

Washington is now surrounded by wire fences that cannot be climbed, the total length of the fences is in the tens on miles. Also about 25,000 military personnel are being brought in to bolster local and Federal security operatives. All this was done in anticipation that the ceremony would be in the open air. I wonder of the head of security is breathing a sigh of relief now that Mother Nature has decreed that the ceremony will be held behind closed doors.