Turing test passed, space station sex, bodega cats
It's National Don’t Go To Work Unless It’s Fun Day!
Observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted; information, essential and otherwise, for the day ahead.
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
The Trump/Musk firehose of folly continues, and it’s impossible to review all but the most egregious outrages here. The Associated Press, NBC, Aljazeera, and The Guardian are my picks for keeping up to date. Check out one or two, take a look, and come back here when you’ve had enough.
Appeals court blocks DOGE effort to access Social Security data. Judge: “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.”
Trump's 'biggest tax increase in history' makes Republicans admit 'tariffs are taxes'. (Video)
An AI model has officially passed the Turing Test. Its answers were judged “more human than human.” Yep, we’re doomed.
“I study measles. I’m terrified we’re headed for an epidemic.” Measles can wipe out up to 70 percent of an individual’s protective immune memory. People who get measles now may be at increased risk of infection by essentially all other pathogens that they would otherwise be well protected against.
‘People will die’—RFK Jr. guts America’s health bureaucracy.
Earth's crust is dripping under midwest US, scientists discover.
Space station sex? “Yes, sex happens. Yes, NASA can hear them. And no, they’ll never admit it.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes meta. And stupid. (Video)
Shirt of the day (click on image
KGB Quote of the Day:
"I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there."
--Herb Caen (Wikipedia link)
(More Herb Caen quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Among other things, today is- in no particular order of importance-
National Film Score Day (Video: John Williams Conducts :50 Years A Salute to Film Composers)
KGB REPORT STUFF! (Click on link) On This Day:
1860 – The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California began.
1882 – American Old West: Robert Ford killed Jesse James.
1885 – Gottlieb Daimler was granted a German patent for a light, high-speed, four-stroke engine, which he used seven months later to create the world's first motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen.
1888 – Jack the Ripper: The first of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London occurred.
1895 – The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde began, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.
1936 – Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.
1948 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
1953 – The first national issue of TV Guide was published.
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech; he was assassinated the next day. (Video)
1968 – The science fiction film “Planet of the Apes” opened nationally in the United States. (Video)
1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs. (Video)
1974 – The 1974 Super Outbreak, the second largest tornado outbreak in recorded history (after the 2011 Super Outbreak) occurred. The death toll was 315, with nearly 5,500 injured. (Video)
1981 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, was unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. It weighed 24.5 lb (11.1 kg), and cost US $1,795 ($6,428.20 in 2025, adjusted for inflation).
1996 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski was captured at his Montana cabin in the United States. (Video)
2000 – United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft was ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
2010 – Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer.
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Check out the KGB Quotation Database: over 52,000 searchable quotations!
Quotes by or about persons born on this date (Click on link after name for quotes):
1593 – George Herbert, English poet (d. 1633)
1783 – Washington Irving, American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian (d. 1859)
1822 – Edward Everett Hale, American minister, historian, and author (d. 1909)
1837 – John Burroughs, American botanist and author (d. 1921)
1898 – Henry R. Luce, American publisher, co-founded Time magazine (d. 1967)
1912 – Richard Asher, eminent British endocrinologist and hematologist (d. 1969)
1922 – Doris Day, American singer and actress (d. 2019) (Video)
1930 – Lawton Chiles, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 41st Governor of Florida (d. 1998)
1934 – Jane Goodall, English primatologist and anthropologist
1959 – David Hyde Pierce, American actor and activist (Video from “Spamalot”)
Other birthdays:
1886 – Dooley Wilson, American actor and singer (d. 1953) (Video)
1893 – Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943) (Video)
1904 – Iron Eyes Cody, (born Espera Oscar de Corti) American actor and stuntman (d. 1999) (Video)
1904 – Sally Rand, American dancer (d. 1979) (Video)
1926 – Gus Grissom, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1967) (Video)
1942 – Marsha Mason, American actress (Video)
1942 – Wayne Newton, American singer (Video)
1944 – Tony Orlando, American singer (Video)
1958 – Alec Baldwin, American actor, comedian, producer and television host (Video)
1961 – Eddie Murphy, American actor and comedian (Video)
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