Open Thread - Thurs - 01 Jan 2026 - A New Year!
A New Year!
2026 - Who'da thunk? It's a New Year! When I was much, much younger, I never thought I'd see 2000 nevermind 2026. I mean, in 2000 I'd be almost 40... who lives that long (thought 18 year old me)? Dang, was I young-stupid, or what?! 
So since it's a holiday, here's an interesting article and some fun stuff!
A recent article on the BBC about spotting AI videos was pretty good. I like the conclusion about treating videos like one treats text.
You'd never look at a piece of text and assume it's true just because someone wrote it down. If there's any question, you go investigate the source of the information. Videos and images used to be different, because they were harder to fake and manipulate. That's over now. The only thing that matters now is where a piece of content came from, who posted it, what the context is and whether it's been verified by a trustworthy source. The question is when (or if) we're all going to wrap our heads around that fact.
Ok, this ain't AI, so it ain't modern and I'm glad of that. This video sure does show that most everything was possible, at least cartoon and movie creation-wise, before AI! Look at the shadows and reflections Jerry has, man! Gotta admit, I'm not old enough to 'love' Gene Kelly but I sure did/do 'love' Gene Kelly :). Wish I could dance like that!
More Gene Kelly. I gotta remember, one can still Sing in the Rain, even in 2026!!
And, here's the open thread! What's up, whatcha doing? Reading? Thinking? Listening to? Remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!
Comments
Thursday! The first day of 2026!
It's been really foggy here, last night was full of fog horns sounding from the ships rounding the little tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. The fire works were muted and kind of gentle, if that is possible. And it's cold like winter should be!
Hope your New Year's Ever rocked and have a great day and hopefully we'll all have a great year, singing and dancing and playing and enjoying life! I think I might start looking into how to safely dance as an old person...
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
To dance safely, I hear you need some Canadians without hats
… weighing in a little late here, but what the heck, I’m, shy one more quick tour around the sun, almost eighty.
Good morning
.
the pages on the calendar flip by so fast
it becomes a blur.
We were blessed with a blanketing of snow
overnight so it is all white this AM.
Hope y'all get a good start to the new year.
Zionism is a social disease
White New Year!
That sounds pretty good. We have had some cold nights, but no snow. The fog yesterday was awesome. It's usually too windy here for fog.
Have a great start to a great year!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy New Year...
We're planning to hang out at the campfire this afternoon. Headed to the 50's. We had to cover the broccoli, cabbage and greens bed the last couple of nights, but the cover comes off this morning.
Plenty of left over peas, greens, ham, pork shoulder, and chuck roast for today. I plan to cook some apples too. Also have a bottle of champagne for later. So hope you all bring in the new year with good food and fellowship!
Thanks for the OT! Gene Kelly is one of our faves. So is Donald O'Connor...
Make 'Em Laugh (1952): Full Song & Dance - Donald O'Connor
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The leftovers sound good!
We've only got garlic growing right now, it's a bit too cold for everything else, although I'm going to be starting seeds in the greenhouse soon.
OMG, thanks for the Donald O'Connor clip! It rocks!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning Sima et. al. HNY. So here we are, another
day older, but, as a nation, probably not any wiser. The question of the day is whether or not to begin to put away xmas. That's a weirdly symbolic query with a great many possible perspectives to ponder, so I'll probably just skip thinking about it for now.
It's raining, but I ain't singing. First task is to put on extra layers, slip into the garage and paw through the freezer for the ham bone previously set aside for today's beans. Then I guess I'll log in to my bank and see what my paycheck is/was, because I'll be getting some sort of COLA but have no clue how much. After that, the deluge, tons of in process tasks to move ahead one more step each and back-burner stuff to start getting sorted out.
Doing all that requires, first and foremost, NO NEWS UNTIL LATE EVENING! Is that a commitment? Does it rise to the level of a resolution? Should it become a habit? Actually, I've already broken it, out of force of habit I've skimmed 2 news sources, but there was really nothing there, so no harm-no foul, as they used to say.
Any way, new day, new year, new challenges and possibly, in theory at least, new opportunities and such
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
NO News Until Late Evening...
I try to do that, I do indeed. It's a good goal!
I've decided that when I have to work in the rain I'll just pretend it's fun. Not sure I can stomp through the puddles like Gene does, but maybe I can kick a bit of water here and there. And then, like you, there's all the stuff that has to be done. Little, big, inbetween. I'm making lists of lists, to get myself back into doing things. Last year was hard, this year will be better!! Right?
Have a great New Year!!
PS Editted to add thank you for the great video! Dang
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good afternoon and Happy New year. sima!
The debate raged among tap dancers of yore as to which was the better dancer: Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.
I am cooking greens and Hoppin' John to go with the cornbread I baked last night. Also, a pot of pinto beans for beef tacos. Something in there is for good luck. I am happy I won't be washing dishes or cooking for a couple of days.
I did see a headline that Russia and China have entered a mutual security pact. So, an attack on China by US back Taiwan will officially be a declaration of war on Russia. Interesting times ahead, friends!
Thanks for the OT, chica!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Wonder when Elon will move to..
China? After all, he has to stand at the side of whoever/whatever is winning, right?
I dunno who to pick between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. I like watching Gene more, maybe that's the important thing for me. I dunno
Having said that, I like watching Fred a lot too!
Your food sounds good! We are having homemade chili tonight, with homemade bread. Happy New Year! right?
I hope 2026 is great for you and Jtc!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
We just ate chili
that lasted 2 evening dinners. Just a thought: Instead of bread, I warm up a couple of tortillas, butter them, roll them up, and have them with the chili. Try it sometime.
JtC and I are very much looking forward to 2026!
Stay warm!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good idea!
Hubby always wants bread, I think that's his Pennsylvania background kicking in. Me, I often have tortillas and cheese! Gonna haveta try the tortillas with butter, yum!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy New Year Sima.
I enjoy your peeks at life in the PNW. I do miss it now and again.
We are having an extended cold snap which looks like it will last into February. Not the kind of weather I am used to.
Let me add my Christmas 2025 photo album link, which I have posted so late it's not been seen much. In spite of (malgré) being in the countryside we have had a warm Christmas tide.
Christmas 2025
Three of the photos are videos from an Advent concert we went to. We sang with this choir and it was a joy.
The very best to everyone.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Happy New Year!
Your photo album is awesome! Your place looks lovely, and the area of France you are in looks lovely too. Hubby and I are still talking about moving overseas at some time, hopefully and you are an inspiration!
I guess an extended cold snap is better than a very long rain session, but I don't know. What is best is mild, sunny, with a nice breeze and ... yea, I'm dreaming
Have a great Year!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy** New Years Everyone
**(Terms and Conditions Apply)
I hope we can somehow achieve a just peace.
I have noticed a massive upswell lately on youtube of 100% AI videos. The imagery and narration being 100% AI, leads me to believe they are 100% AI written as well. The only "human" component possibly being the prompt and maybe a little editing.
With the exception of Chris Hedges' videos (which I know are narrated by real person), if I can't see the narrator actually speaking at some point, I feel that I can safely assume it is AI.
I don't fault people using translators to overcome language barriers. Buy I do fault entities that only regurgitate content.
A weird andvaguely unsettling variation is certain sporting
events, no doubt to avoid copyright issues that follow the actual historic play but with ai players on ai fields - there are a lot of them out there in the soccer arena. Not sure how much of the audio is real and how much semi-parroted by voice actors. It looks like a cross between reality and old time (60's era electronic) and modern video game (Madden) play and is very strange to stumble onto.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Dang, those would be strange...
to find. I have not seen one of those sports videos yet. Crazy!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Happy New Year!
I too, want to see the narrators narrating on Videos, or I don't 'trust' it.
As you said, translation is ok, but everything fake? No.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Some content created with AI is extremely popular
and the fake personalities also. Can't see much harm. If people spend so much time online reading what someone is doing or thinking, why not a fake person.
Warm here since before it became official calendar winter, supposed to be more typical at the end of next week. Warmer for longer I don't care.
Still working doing hard labor but it hardly seems worth it when the market is doing so well. I upped my prices 50% and it's still not as profitable as the market.
What I came here for is to post a link to a long detailed evaluation of the Russian economy. I like money, investing, and figuring out how things work.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/01012026-the-russian-economy-under-wartime...
Need to cut back on my substack and various media subscriptions. $10 a month here or there adds up.
Dunno 'bout you, but I find it potentially instructive and
even actionable to know what ceertain real goverrnment and business officials are doing, but fake ones, not so much.
sounds like a good time to short the ruble and maybe the Caspian Pipeline Consortium>
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Exactly
I don't mind AI, as long as it's labeled as such. I'll watch, if labeled, maybe. I don't want to talk to AI pretending to be a person when I call my phone company for help with a broken line, for example. I don't want to 'talk' to AI to get help with any matter. And I don't want AI telling me about politics, or being political... Ohh and I don't want it driving my car, or flying my airplane either...
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Now I start to see why the Amish may’ve been right all along
&nsbp;
Dang if letting technology get its camel nose inta the tent ain’t a slippery slope — mixin’ my metaphors there —
Butlerian Jihad, here we come …
Conundrum
That AI/deepfake video situation.
Note that quite a few generally credible people's identities seem to have been appropriated in creating these - Doug MacGregor, John Mearscheimer, Yanis V., Robert Reich, Richard Wolff - I'm sure there are others.
Have to wonder to what end these are being produced and by who/what. Thing is, content-wise quite a few of them seem to credible factually and something that the person they purport to be *would* say. I've seen several iterations of 'Richard Wollf's' giving the same presentation about silver - content is solid, factual and well presented - essentially the same in the various vids (linked to one in the 12/31 EB). But what I haven't been able to determine is whether this is something the real Richard Wolff (very smart leftie professor at Amherst) did that was copied, or whether it was generated by someone/something different altogether...
Comments may offer a clue? Many take the identity of the person appearing and content at face value. But many others point out that it's AI and that people are stupid to give it any credibility.
But what if the content is actually important - but something the overlords don't want the serfs paying attention to? Could flooding the system with fakes - some credible and others outlandish BS be a way of getting people to just tune it all out? Rather than overtly silencing people expressing off-narrative views, flood the system, associate them with fake content and make their legitimate content difficult to find and verify...?
What to make of this, for example - a fake Robert Reich giving a factual and timely presentation on Trump's trade war backfiring and how Canada ends up seizing the opportunity to benefit? It's factual, well presented and something that Reich *might* do - but how do we know he had any actual involvement in creating it?
This from Caitlin
a list of resolutions in the new year theme
(I don't agree with several items)
Do some landscape paintings
Start a podcast with Tim
Enrage the Israeli government
Finish writing that novel
Grow some luffa and make my own kitchen sponge
Fall more deeply in love with everything
See beauty everywhere
Open more eyes to the fact that the western news media are propaganda services for the US empire
Publish another art book
Laugh more
Cry more
Learn more
Unlearn more
Write more poetry
Cast more spells
Play more music
Take more baths
Ask more curious questions
Play more board games
Read a dumb book
Dance in the kitchen
Sing in the car
Suffer no fools
Make a daisy chain
Become more inconvenient for the empire
Invite more love in, give more back
Become more offensive to Zionists and empire loyalists
Do more Good Works
Say the exact opposite of what my rulers want me to say
Be the exact opposite of what my rulers want me to be
Help anyone who wants to learn how to heal
Facilitate the awakening of human consciousness at every opportunity
Expel anything in me that is not aligned with the highest interest
Watch for openings to let in the light
Make Tim laugh so hard he falls on the floor
Cry for those who won’t
Speak for those who can’t
Shake out the fear
Spend more time with the really old and the really young
Have an art day with my kids and their friends
Make up a song, sing it to Tim
Hug my Mum
Force money to value a happy child, a healthy adult, an intact forest, a plastic-free ocean
End poverty
House the homeless
Fight the bastards
Free Palestine
Zionism is a social disease
The list is pretty good.
my list is more prosaic, I think. Things like, fix the roof spots, get new beds; ours are like 30 years old and have 'holes' where we sleep, prepare greenhouse for 2026 growing, walk the dog, and so on
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
My list is really short.
It consists of one item:
Have nothing whatsoever to do with AI, whether slop or otherwise.
Zero, nil, zip, nada, bupkis.
I will not buy what is being sold. And now that it is impossible to tell what "news" has been deepfaked, that means disengaging from that as well.
What an utter waste of resources that might otherwise have been employed for the benefit of humanity. My disgust with it has no bounds. It is a blunt instrument, one that will be used for the undoing of us all by socipathic churls- just because they can. And when that bubble bursts, and it most assuredly will, it will take us all down.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Simpler better
.
AI sucks the intelligence out of our
thinking processes IMO.
Like a brain drain.
Wash, flush and repeat.
It only hurts on the first
cycle. Then benumbed.
Zionism is a social disease
Your disgust with AI
is spot on. Think I'm gonna haveta add your 'list' to mine...
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Just spent 2 hours of valuable time
re-sending a form to the local
power system provider on a claim
against said 'provider' to recover funds
we had to pay to replace a stove damaged
by a power surge on their line.
What a process! Scan, locate, re-boot to clear
resident memory, attache the file to an email reply
Oh my god, why are things so difficult?
Driving me nuts, like I need help with that process
Zionism is a social disease
These things are so difficult..
to make you discouraged so you won't actually file for, or get, the funds for your stove. That's what the cynic in me says...
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
1980s movie “Xanadu” featured Gene Kelly, disco, & roller skates
https://clickamericana.com/media/movies-motion-pictures/xanadu-a-place-w...