P.S. A Column On Things

Start of March 25 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Yi-Yi-AI

AI engines are, “In too many cases… simply hallucinatory lunacy generators,” says Tom Wark, author of Tom Wark’s Fermentation Substack. He was helped to this conclusion when Google's AI Just Made Up a Supreme Court Decision in lurid detail. The case it cited, New York Wine & Grape Products Association v. Heastie (2019) simply does not exist. And certainly wasn’t decided 7-2 (or 6-3) by the Supreme Court.

I found about this from my friend Clark Smith, a winemaker and musician who reads the blog.

His take: “I don’t share the general excitement about AI. It can certainly improve the writing of people with no writing training or talent. This would not include you and me.

“For example it generally knows how to spell. This is offset by its propensity to hallucinate.”

My nephew Paul is working on a term project. He put all my love song lyrics into an AI engine, and asked it to render them in the style of Cole Porter or Stephen Sondheim. Here are the results. Clearly the AI lost interest after a few lines and only did a few of the 10 songs. Is the AI better than I am? It certainly has less skin in the game...

Clark looked at the AI output and wrote, “I wouldn’t call the AI any sort of improvement. Your lyrics… are at least concise and without pointless blather. You speak from the heart. AI can’t fake that. As you say, you have skin in the game, and it shows.”

Humor Templates 2: Walked Into A Bar

There are a number of humor templates that go in and out of style (mostly out). Most of those from my youth have disappeared. Feel free to rain down your examples, or any genres I may have missed.

One perennial that never seems to go out of style is the “Walked into a Bar” template. Usually three somethings, sometimes two or one.

One of my all-time favorites:

A guy walks into a bar. He sets a tiny piano down at the bar, and the tiny pianist starts playing up a storm. The bartender looks at the man and says, "That's amazing, where did you get that?" The man replies, "There's a genie outside your bar that will grant you one wish."

The bartender runs outside and sure enough there is a genie. Without hesitation the bartender says "Genie, I wish for a million bucks!" The genie snaps his fingers and disappears. Instantly, a million ducks fly overhead.

The bartender walks back inside and says, "Hey man, I think there's something wrong with that genie. I asked for a million bucks, but he gave me a million ducks."

The man says, "You're telling me. You think I asked for a 12-inch pianist?"

Simon Rich wrote a humorous essay about this joke from the perspective of the pianist.

Other good ones:

A hippo, a priest and the number 7 walk into a bar.

The barkeep says, “What is this some kind of joke?”

A reliable sub-genre is the “Minister, Priest and Rabbi” joke.

A priest, a rabbit, and a minister walk into a bar. The rabbit says, "I think I'm a typo."

Next Week: Tom Swifties

Right Column Redux: Wait, Wait

The column to the right on this blog contains permanent content, most of which has appeared at one time or another in the main body. I’ve decided to include a reminder.

I won Karl Kassel's voice for my answering machine because I won the listener limerick challenge on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me .

Meme O’ The Week: A Nest

 

 

 

This and That

 End With Preposition
Word Matters podcaster Emily Brewster says “A preposition is a perfectly appropriate kind of word to end a sentence with.” No prepositions at the end is a Latin rule. English ain’t Latin, Winston  Churchill to the contrary notwithstanding: “There are some things up with which I will not put.”

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SEMI_RAD Links
Semi-rad.com is a great source of links. Here are two:
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Blink 192 Surprise Concert
Blink-182 announced its new tour dates with a clip of them playing inside a Denny’s, and sadly, none of the announced show dates appear to be at a Denny’s.
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Learn To Park On TikTok
“Ah, social media is awful for us, everything about it is terrible, look what we’re doing to ourselves—wait, hold on, there’s some good stuff too”: This lady teaching people how to park via TikTok.

For want of a Hairline…

If you’ve never worked in the newspaper business, you may not know the term hairline. It is that thin black line which separates items from each other. Sometimes, it doesn’t do the job. When you first look at this page, don’t you think the guy with the beard is the athlete joining the WNBA? I did. I don’t think the hairline was enough.

End of March 25 Column (No. 922)

Start of March 18 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Grandkids: My Grandson Reads

He loves knock-knock jokes and loves “reading” his joke books, which he can pretend to do since he has them memorized, just like he has memorized The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, which he “read” in class.