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28 MAY 2026 - Rufus?
What happened to Rufus? I'd sort of gotten used to him when checking out things on Amazon. It was pretty nice, if there was a certain spec I needed for something, I'd just pop open Rufus, tell it what I needed and get a list of items to consider.
Disappointing. I also should add that Alexa has sort of a black mark - it has that "big brother listening" feel because if you have the Alexa device (we do) it's always on listening to everything. Not that we ever discuss plans for overthrowing the government when it's around (sorry Alexa, those conversations are saved for out in the garage, where whiskey, cigars, and dangerous conversations are safe from recoding devices).
But that feeling of being spied upon makes me a little sad that Rufus has been replaced. We miss you Rufus!
24 MAY 2026 - Music Madness
I love music. When having to choose between music I'm streaming (most often Jazz masters) and a YouTube video I might come across while browsing, I will nearly always choose the music and watch the video without sound.
So with my love for music comes the situation where a flea market close to home has live music entertainment, and though the flea market is a half mile away, I can clearly hear the music in my backyard.
It's always Spanish music sung in Spanish, think mariachi band, and when the wind is blowing right, the performers seem to be as close as the other side of my back fence. It can be very frustrating - this happens regularly every weekend, both Sat & Sun (it's happening as I write this) from noon to 4pm.
I despise the flea market for this reason. But I still love music, and so I'll catch myself absentmindedly bouncing along to the music even though I hate the idea it's being forced on me.
Internal voice: "Stop nodding and tapping your foot to the music!!"
24 MAY 2026 - Is the AI bubble contracting a little?
News report yesterday about Starbucks shutting down an inventory AI because it was making too many mistakes. Now today a report of Microsoft deciding AI is too expensive to give to all it's engineers. Maybe the AI bubble is slowing down?
AI has been great for me, I use it both at work and at home. At work, the Copilot subscription level is available to everyone.
Went thru AI training, which highlighted the difference in cost between a traditional Google search (pennies) vs. Copilot AI computation (dollars). The point being, while AI isn't going to break the bank, it is more costly than the usual web search.
At home, I signed up for the $4/month X.com account, which includes an upgraded version of xAI Grok. I use it quite a bit. Recently it's been helpful with learning about my Fujifilm and Nikon cameras, and also learning the software Publii which is used to create this website. Extremely valuable!
Last note on this topic - I suspect AI is at it's peak right now. Relatively cheap and unknown. Many people I talk with do not use AI at all, which is a surprise, it is so useful. Eventually the number of people using it will increase. Right now a simple Google search is actually running Gemini AI in the background, and it offers to do deeper dive on the search results for users that are interested. Eventually everyone will expect a simple web search to be AI driven with deeper dive AI options. And when that happens, expect the cost to rise.
23 MAY 2026 - Family picnic
Just got back from the abbreviated McFall picnic at Lake Almaden Park. It was great - everyone was there except for Kevin's bunch, and Nick S. was indisposed. Little Nora was the hit of the day, everybody got a chance to hold her and see if they could keep her quiet - Nora can be a bit touchy, and Mike and Em were on top of things with every trick in the book to keep her happy.
Weather was great, good catching up with everyone - we had a very nice time. Photos here.