Author: Michael

JD Vance Refuses to Answer the Jan 20 Question. Here’s Why That’s Damning

Posted on by Michael

During the 2024 VP debate against Governor Tim Walz, JD Vance was asked whether he believes Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election (as Trump has consistently lied about since 2020).

Instead of answering this simple and direct question, Vance attempted to deflect to some issue of censorship. Tim Walz, to his credit, pointed out that Vance’s reply was a, “damning non-answer“. But the debate continued without additional push back.

That matter absolutely needs to be pushed back upon. Here’s why that’s important: Trust.

I don’t trust people that lie to me. In fact, most people do not trust liars. We certainly don’t entrust great power to liars. Or at least, most people are distrustful of known inveterate liars. Donald Trump, Vance’s running mate, has been lying about winning the 2020 election for four solid years. In the face of the evidence, and court rulings, and the video record on an event thay we all witnessed, Trump continues to spread what used to be called the “Big Lie”.

If you wish to do so,JD, by all means, support your guy. But don’t pretend he’s telling the truth. And don’t pretend that we don’t see the mental gymnastics you’re doing to try to support the deceptive lies he demands you tell for him while trying to appear like something other than a Trump zealot.

If you cannot simply state the fact that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020, then we must assume you support Trump’s lies, and maybe his criminality. That makes you unworthy of trust. It’s not about the word we use to describe Jan 6. It’s about demonstrating that we live in a shared reality where facts and the law matter. If you cannot acknowledge that, you are not to be trusted.

I Asked ChatGPT About Childcare

Posted on by Michael

Trump piles it on

Mr Trump was asked a pretty tough question at the Economic Club of New York, on 9/5/24, and people are in disagreement as to the sufficiency of Trump’s answer to this question. I’m not going to address that (since I asked the AI to do that for me later). Instead, out of curiosity, I posed the same question to ChatGPT. I wanted to hear what an AI, essentially a robot mind, absent of concious thought and without emotion, might consider an acceptable response.

And I was serious about this being a tough question. It’s probably not an unexpected topic during a presidential campaign, and I would assume your legislative plan concerning childcare would be a normal thing a normal candidate would be able to knock out of the park. If, that is, they have a cohesive and well thought legislative agenda, which is something Trump lacks.

Despite this, I was impressed at how appealing the AI seemed as a candidate, which I expect we should all find problematic. I’m also impressed that, even after consuming a jolt of 100% raw Donald J. Trump rhetorical weave, ChatGPT did not burst into flames as did the out of control android Norman in the famous “I Mudd” episode of Star Trek TOS. Beyond that, I was intrigued by ChatGPT’s analysis of Trump’s own reply.

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Asking ChatGPT about how to ChatGPT

Posted on by Michael

I wanted to find out how to use ChatGPT more effectively, and after exploring many different resources, I realized that ChatGPT itself might just be the best source of information about ChatGPT. So I asked ChatGPT about how to ChatGPT.

To get started, I wrote a fairly straightforward prompt that I hoped would provide a good starting point for this exploration:

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Yes, Employment is Definitely Better Than the Alternative

Posted on by Michael

handshakeIt took almost nine months, roughly the length of a full-term pregnancy, for me to find a new position. I’m not going to draw parallels between being born and being employed. Still, I found I was as impatient as any expectant parent to finally be done with the seemingly endless lead-up to the big event. Now that it’s over, I’m amazed at how much better I feel.

For anyone still looking, I don’t know that I can offer any words of encouragement other than the usual, trite nothings that everyone told me. It’ll get better. Something good is bound to happen. That sort of thing.

Even so, if you’re looking to make the shift from unemployed to employed, I can at least relate my own experience. It seemed like an unrelenting storm of worry and uncertainty. And at times it seemed like it might never end.

But it does.

It may not seem like it, but I think if you keep plugging away, keep sending out those resumes and taking calls, and reading the job boards, and forums, that eventually you catch a break. You eventually nail a good interview with a good employer, and they invite you to join their team.

And then you get to look back and watch that unemployed patch recede into the past, like a bad dream from which you’ve finally awoken.

Unemployment Sucks

Posted on by Michael

This is my first real post on my newest blog.  I used to write on michael-peacock.com and on a few other blogs, but work became pretty demanding and I didn’t feel quite like making the time to sit in front of a computer and write in my spare time. That’s probably because I spent much of my workdays in front of the very same computers that I would blog on. You can do that when you telecommute, FYI.

All that ended last October when, after more than 15 years with the same employer, they decided that my services were no longer required, so I was “separated” from my position.  That’s the word they use now. Not fired, nor let go, nor laid off. If your position costs too much, your employer may decide that a separation is in order. One might not often see comparisons to a shaky marriage in a relationship between an employer and employee, but when that relationship ends, some of the parallels come into stark relief.

So what’s an unemployed IT geek to do? Find a new job is still number 1 on the to-do list, though I am not going to hold my breath on that score. Yesterday marked my 4 month anniversary of not working, and while it was nice for the first couple weeks, it stopped feeling like a vacation months ago. I know I’m not alone, and there are folks out there who have had it much worse than I have. I salute you all.

I found this list of reasons why unemployment sucks, and I have experienced many of them already. While I don’t want to experience all of those items, I think one thing I can do as an unemployed geek is go back to writing. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads this. This is my blog, and it’s going to be part of my strategy for coping with being unemployed.