AI image generation, still a ways to go.

In early 2024, AI image generation has reached a fascinating paradox. At first glance, the technology seems almost magical – capable of creating stunning, photorealistic scenes that blend reality with imagination. Take, for instance, the task of generating a hybrid classic car design: when prompted to combine a ’67 Mustang with a ’57 MGA Roadster, AI can produce images with remarkable attention to automotive detail, set against perfectly rendered mountainous backgrounds with dramatic lighting. The chrome gleams, the curves flow, and the setting sun casts just the right shadows on the cliffs.

February 23, 2025February 23, 2025

The Case for Smaller Bills: Restoring Transparency in American Legislation

Introduction

The American legislative process has undergone a troubling transformation over the past century. What began as a system producing focused, comprehensible laws has evolved into one that regularly generates massive, incomprehensible omnibus bills thousands of pages long. This shift threatens the very foundations of democratic governance by making it impossible for legislators, let alone the public, to understand what they’re voting on or what has become law.

February 22, 2025February 22, 2025

Spectator cuts the aces

This is one of the classic card magic plots. There are a lot of variations to it, the Conjuring Archive lists over 100 entries when searching for the title. The basic plot is the spectator is invited to cut the deck, and—through a cleverly designed plot—the aces end up being revealed at the cut. One of the earliest versions was published in The Royal Road to Card Magic, titled “Poker Player’s Picnic.” This version sets the template for many of the ones that followed, namely having the deck cut into four piles on the table.

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025

Executive Power, Legal Precedent, and Political Hypocrisy

Every time there is a new President it seems we have the same arguments over what authorities the President has. Often these debates become hysterical shouting matches and usually they demonstrate both a lack of knowledge about our system of government and history.

February 15, 2025February 15, 2025

Two WordPress plugins that I had A.I. write for me.

Enhance Your WordPress Editor with Two Powerful Plugins

WordPress continues to evolve as a content management platform, and today had AI write two plugins that can significantly improve your content creation workflow: Post Search Replace and AI Content Assistant.

February 14, 2025February 15, 2025

Games they play – how governments and media shape narratives.

It is an interesting time we live in. While people have always tried to shape narratives it has become more important to be able to spot that activity. I listened to the congressional testimonies of Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, and realize just how bad things have gotten. And then the recent news about USAID and how it has been used to influence jorunalism.

February 13, 2025February 15, 2025

OMG, the size of the Federal Government. Elon Musk has no idea.

I recently saw a video clip of Elon Musk describing how hard it was to get a list of government agencies. Here is the clip: https://www.youtube.com /shorts/GXJvxPMY_H0

In the clip he says the Google and different AI’s say the number is around 400. Well I went to the government site https://www.opm.gov/about-us/open-government/Data/Apps/Agencies/index.aspx which lets you see the agencies. But of course the site makes it difficult to see them all. You have to use drop-down lists to filter. So for fun I used an AI to write a JavaScript program to scrape and list just the entries in the first category of “Cabinet Level Agencies”. The final result was a table with 63120 rows.

February 11, 2025February 12, 2025

New York Times game “Letterbox” bookmarklet cheat

I wrote a bookmarklet that finds a two word solution to the New York Times game “Letterbox”. It worked, but for fun I decided to let an AI rewrite it to be faster. Here is the code it came up with, but it did take several tries before it could open a new tab. It runs significantly faster than what I wrote.

February 10, 2025February 10, 2025

A Guide to Spotting & Avoiding Scams

Scams are everywhere, and they’re getting more sophisticated. But don’t worry—you’re not alone! This guide will help you recognize scams, protect yourself, and take action if you ever become a target.

February 10, 2025February 23, 2025

Executive Orders: Tool of Governance or Authoritarianism?

I was at a Superbowl party and someone claimed that President Trump is an authoritarian. I suspect an argument for that might be that presidents issue executive orders, especially if you happen to disagree with the policies of the President . Here is a brief history of executive orders and how they have been used historically, compared to recent times.