TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 2 Minute Read I really thought I had seen it all, in terms of shameless, greedy behavior, with the Saudis. I've certainly written about it here and it always boils down to this: if you have money, why compromise your ethics and credibility to get crazy money (not that Trump has ever had real money or ethics or credibi...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <3 Minute Read Happy Monday and let's dive right in with something useful for your week and beyond. As promised, here is a list of 15 pretty darned Killer prompts for getting actual value from ChatGPT (or any other AI text engine). I do wish I could claim credit for these, but I cannot: I grabbed it from LinkedIn, whe...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 1 Minute Read As I've mentioned maybe once or twice, I begin most days when we're home with a 5 mile walk in my beloved Presidio. It keeps both me relatively healthy and sane. Right? Right??? But I digress because this is mostly a serious post, as it begins with a tragic death. This past Wednesday, I was on my walk, s...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS Before getting rolling, I hope you'll spend 3 minutes watching this post-Memorial Day tribute video I made; it also has some nice music. Memorial Day Every Day 2 Minute Read It was with quite a jolt when I learned recently that my Internet search engine of choice, the subscription-only Neeva, is closing its doors, at ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 1 Minute Read + Gallery I am not gay. I have never been gay. But wow did we glorify this phallic weapon stuff, and I have to admit it caught my eye. Oh, and Happy Memorial Day. Yes, that's my snarky (with no disrespect intended) intro to a gallery I am putting together celebrating the 50th Anniversary of my beloved Go...

OVERVIEW There have been previous Travel Guides covering trips from one night to 3 weeks in length, in places as near as Carneros and as far as Europe. But none have been quite like this one. First, because it's an itinerary no one will follow: to accommodate the first leg of the journey, you'll either want to or have a reason to visit...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 1 Minute Read Yes, I am back and you can expect a forthcoming Travel Guide full of juicy details of another Textbook getaway. I will say now it began on a fun note at Lauren Ryder's 60th; you'll be able to read about that and a fairly magical camping trip soon. Here's a preview and that's a Fat Head in the popcorn bow...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <1 Minute Read + Exploration Tomorrow, we depart for our aforementioned adventure vacation: a daytime, riverside piss-up tomorrow in celebration of a friend's 60th birthday, followed by 3 nights camping on the glorious northern (actually, central) coast of my beloved California. Yes, there will be a Travel Guide, and ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <3 Minute Read No, this is not one of my hectoring social justice rants. You are welcome in advance. Instead, today is about technology and how our natural avoidance of risk is going to slow the future. I will use two examples, and see if you don't agree that some gee-whiz tech is about to bump against the nuances we ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <4 Minute Read Happy Monday. I bid my farewell to my wonderful hosts in Oceanside yesterday. A great trip, as always. I am now back in San Francisco, however briefly. Julie and I have a sweet combo adventure trip coming up 5/20 - 5/24 that begins with the social event of the summer, at least on the Sacramento Delta: t...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <1 Minute Read + Chart Study Time! Super easy trip to San Diego and on to Oceanside. It is Textbook SoCal May weather - foggy morning followed by perfection. My hosts are their typical gracious selves. In fact, it's so nice I am really not noticing the half-finished job on staining the pergola. And it's easy to ignore...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <2 Minute Read Tomorrow, I break up this glorious lonely week of bachelorhood with a solo jaunt down to Oceanside, the northern-most suburb of San Diego. I'll be staying at the palatial-esque manse of the corporate wellness titans Andy and Libby Baines Jones until Sunday. My/our visit there is always a highlight of th...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS < 3 Minute Read Happy Monday. Since Friday, I've had not one but two unexpected communications. The first is important enough that it constitutes the majority of today's post, and the second is hot news from the world of art and appears below in UNWASHED MASSES. While both evoke the concept of false equivalence to som...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 2 Minute Read + Chart Study Time! If you're a Republican, or lean that way, could you ever vote for a Democrat for President? If not, why not? Because I would happily vote for someone like the former Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan. I just want someone rational, in favor of American democracy, and prefera...

As is probably obvious by now, I love the Stable Diffusion artificial intelligence graphics engine and its front end, DreamStudio. As a lifelong technologist, I will say it is amazing what $10 can buy you. I wanted a place to put my better-than-bad creations, and here it is. Before visiting, please know the heading above each image is ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <5 Minute Read Happy Wednesday. If you don't care about sports and/or the facilities in which they're played, you can probably skip this one. Plus, it's long! I dedicate this blog to Dallas Money, Kevin Monza, and Tracie Coveropolous. Oh, and Popeye, who chose the wrong team for his pick-up technique business cards. A...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 2 Minute Read Today and to complicate your Monday, I am going all nuance-y on you. Like this: • I am overall a YIMBY: yes, in my backyard, when it comes to new housing, infrastructure, etc. • But wow am I glad a development (practically in my backyard) called Marincello got the big-time NIMBY treatment I'll also use t...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS < 3 Minute Read Today's post is heavy for a Friday, but it's an important topic, and an extension of one from a couple of weeks ago. In that post, I mentioned the premise that a 1,000 page book covering humanity's 250,000 year history would have everything that occurred from 1773 forward on its very last page. In othe...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS < 1 Minute Read Wouldn't it be nice for a hump day to just have some information, vs. my opinions, however enlightened? Here is a fun graphic I worked up, documenting and contrasting the sizes of the playing surfaces for most major sports. This is to scale, so it reflects the proportionate sizes of each. The full-size...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 3 Minute Read Happy Monday! Let's talk about death! This is another of my posts influenced by the young genius Derek Thompson. He covered this topic on a recent podcast, and I found it interesting. And disturbing. Because America is a great country - even the greatest in some ways. But if a country is to be judged by ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 1 Minute Read Happy Friday. This is a bike review, my second product review in as many days. But it's a story, too. Let's acknowledge the irony at the outset. Yes, I get angry at people for trashing my beloved SF. I believe the words du jour are dystopic hellscape? I almost wish it were true so we could afford to buy ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 2 Minute Read I dedicate today's post to the phone snobs Miguel Shannon and Andy Jones. If you buy expensive mobile phones - like my two very dear friends - why? Because unless you're a gamer or a 4K movie producer, are you sure you need a (dark, intimidating background music is playing now) Flagship Phone? Here are t...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 4 Minute Read The subject of reparations is not new, it is again at the fore and this time, it's a right-wing talking point. That's because The Psycho Woke here in SF are wasting time and money on a reparations plan that's beyond fantasy. $5 million per black resident of SF and forgiveness of all debt? Unlikely! But t...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 1 Minute Read + Game Time And you thought this thing couldn't get any sillier? But maybe it will give you something to do over the weekend. Here is a new game I created, and it's called 3 On 9. The idea is to match what's called a prompt with its result. A prompt is a bit of text that provides an artificial intelligen...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 3 Minute Read Hooray! Wednesday! How about one of my quasi-deep philosophical posts? Because I recently finished a book and listened to a podcast. Thrilling news, I know, but they both do a Killer job of putting time in perspective. You've Got 4,000 Weeks The book is Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman. The title ...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 3 Minute Read Sorry for a somewhat inflammatory post on a Monday, but I am serious: JFC enough with bad-mouthing my beloved SF. Or Chicago. Or Seattle. Or any other radical far left liberal Democrat city. Or state for that matter. Yes - those of us in Democratic urban areas have problems, in some cases, pretty bad pro...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS <3 Minute Read Return with me now to the halcyon days of the original Family Feud, with the British charmer and French kiss advocate Richard Dawson at the helm. Because it is he that immortalized the words "And the survey says!" and isn't that just perfect for today's big reveal of the results from the first-ever Port...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS < 1 Minute Read After the survey, and then this past Monday's extended mirror gaze, you might want a bit less Portico Darwin for a hump day. And certainly no Trump, as I am ignoring the first and all of his many upcoming shit-show arrests. He and everything around him is a national embarrassment So here's a nice break...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS 4 Minute Read It's a Monday. And now this. After reading today's veritable font of enlightenment, you might be glad the survey is open until this Wednesday. So you can scream. The Portico Darwin Blog Reader Survey There have been endless references to "my leaving TEECOM". There was the whole blog on my music system at...

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS The Attached Article is a Long Read Thanks to those of you that completed the survey; for everyone else, there's still time to take your shots. The Portico Darwin Blog Survey I will keep the survey open for a week, and give my thousands hundreds dozens of subscribers plenty of time to tell me what they really think. T...