In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

Of course I had to jump ahead and read Jill Lepore's article on the Bicentennial Celebration in 1976 (March 9 issue).

I have two memories of the Bicentennial.

First, one segment of the Bicentennial Wagon Train passed only about two blocks from where my family lived. I saw the wagon train, and I think I still have snapshots of it somewhere.

Second, July 4, 1976, was a Sunday. From somewhere I had picked up the information that church bells were to be rung at 2:00 that afternoon. That afternoon I was working at the part-time job in a drugstore that I had at that time, but at 2:00 I was able to be out on the sidewalk in front of the store, and I heard the church bells ring.

I guess you could say I do have a third memory. As far ahead of the Bicentennial as when I was in Fifth Grade in elementary school, we had a student debate over which city should be the center of a national celebration, Philadelphia, or Boston. Of course Philadelphia won. I don't remember which team I was on.

[Jeff Wrangler]

In light of the pressure on Anthropic by the DoD, I'm thinking it might be prudent to reread that article in the February 9th issue. We're talking about the full 1984-ization of the country, you know. Here it is:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude-anthropic-doesnt-know-either

I don't have the issue in front of me, but I read the article about Claude and Anthropic, and I found it scary. On the other hand, I admit I nodded my head in agreement when I got to the place, I believe it was on page 61, where the author writes that some people working on A.I. are doing these things because they can.

For years on years, I've said that about so many tech things. I've felt that lots of "updates" Microsoft has made over the years were solutions in search of problems, that changes were made not because they were needed but because someone could make them, and. I guess, justify their jobs.

At least, there was a cartoon in the middle of that article that I found quite funny. The drawing was made to look like the illustration on an ancient Greek amphora, except the running figures were fleeing from another figure playing an accordion. 

I wonder if Claude, or some other such device, can be trained to talk dirty, so you could have with it something like old-fashioned phone sex.