Category: News

I’ve often said, including on this blog in 2016, that Disney would buy Nintendo.

Ted Gioia says today on Substack that Disney itself might be a buyout candidate by a big tech firm:

A few weeks ago, Disney announced another miserable quarter—with profits from its entertainment business dropping 35%. Its margins are ugly, and there’s no clear plan for a turnaround in sight.

The company is so creatively drained that CEO Bob Iger actually wants users to generate their own Disney content. What’s next? Does he want us to build our own theme parks? Should I start my own troupe of Mouseketeers in the basement?

The company is looking for a new CEO—and the sooner, the better, if you ask me. But none of the likely candidates inspire much trust. So the company’s Matterhorn-sloped downward slide is likely to continue with accelerating speed.

I’m convinced that the House of Mouse will soon get swallowed up by a tech titan. I see Apple as a likely buyer, but Disney might also get acquired by Google, and bundled with its YouTube business.

He’s probably more right than I was.

My, the world has changed in those eight years since I posted that.

A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 12 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.

Another 13 people were wounded and being treated in the hospital. Police didn’t give details of the ages of those who were injured or their conditions.

Note that this took place in South Africa.

Why is this tabbed as “national,” AP?

Because guns-r-bad and we need to get the message out?

Dad dies after dropping barbell on chest in freak accident at the gym

I generally don’t have a spotter, either, unless my youngest and I are working on the same body parts during one of our infrequent trips to the rec center over in Republic. It’s funny: We signed up for 3 months to try it out, and we went all the time; we signed up for another 3 months, and we went all the time; we signed up for the full year, and…. Well, it’s a long way (about twelve minutes away, a handful shorter than the YMCA, but less expensive).

Which is why I don’t ever push it and max out on barbell bench presses. I know the risks. And I’ve only had to be helped one time where I worked to the point of failure and the bar would go no further.

I also wear gloves, so the bar doesn’t “slip” out of my hands.

But, geez. Makes me feel better about skipping this weekend.

City of Springfield launches survey regarding convention and events center

One would think defeating a tax proposal to fund it might have given an indicator, but there’s tax money to slop on a multi-year effort to try again.

Willard considers building an underpass at Highways 160 and AB to ease traffic woes:

According to city engineers, at least 8000 vehicles pass through the intersection every day. It’s why the city is partnering with the Missouri Department of Transportation on an estimated $1.5 million project. Proposed plans include creating an underpass to funnel vehicle traffic on Highway 160 beneath Highway AB.

They’ve already gone nuts and added two roundabouts to Highway 160 leading into Willard.

What would make them decide to go with underpass instead of roundabout? The amount of space available? The fact that there’s a school right there?

I dunno. I guess if I really wanted to know, I could be arsed to go to the informational meeting on December 11. But I’m a blogger. I’ll just sit here in my basement and speculate. Or just raise questions.

The “Top Story” at the shared Web site of a couple of Springfield stations: Southwest Missouri and the epidemic that no one saw coming

It’s the beginning of a three-part series on AIDS.

Why? Why now? Gen Z discovers?

Missouri bill bans AI from human privileges like marriage:

Would you ever marry artificial intelligence? Would you consider AI a person?

A bill gaining support at the Missouri Capitol would ban AI from any of the privileges of being human, including marriage. St. Louis State Rep. Phil Amato is crafting a bill that would define what AI is by defining what it is not. The bill was pre-filed on Monday and has already gained support from several key players in the Missouri legislature.

Interesting word, privilege. From the bill:

22 3. For all purposes under state law, AI systems are declared to be non-sentient
23 entities.
24 4. No AI system shall be granted the status of a person or any form of legal
25 personhood, nor be considered to possess consciousness, self-awareness, or similar traits
26 of living beings.
27 5. No AI system shall be recognized as a spouse, domestic partner, or hold any
28 personal legal status analogous to marriage or union with a human or another AI
29 system. Any purported attempt to marry or create a personal union with an AI system
30 is void and shall have no legal effect.
31 6. AI systems shall not be designated, appointed, or serve as any officer, director,
32 manager, or similar role within any corporation, partnership, or other legal entity. Any
33 purported appointment of an AI system to such a role is void and has no legal effect.
34 7. AI systems shall not be recognized as legal entities capable of owning,
35 controlling, or holding title to any form of property including, but not limited to, real
36 estate, intellectual property, financial accounts, and digital assets. All assets and
37 proprietary interests generated, managed, or otherwise associated with AI shall be
38 attributed to the human individuals or legally recognized organizations responsible for
39 their development, deployment, or operation.

Basically, it’s saying that LLMs and their like are not human and do not have human rights.

Which journalists think are privileges. Which can be taken away if we humans are bad.

Warner Bros Discovery gets mostly cash offer from Netflix, source says

Man, remember when AOL bought Time Warner? No? Because history started when we woke up this morning.

Stephen Green on beef prices:

I try not to look at the price when I pick up ribeyes at Sam’s Club — but it’s less often than it used to be.

Friday night used to be steak night at Nogglestead. First, ribeyes, and then when the ribeyes went to $17 a pound, strip steaks. Which are now more expensive than ribeyes were.

What he does not mention is that Sam’s used to package ribeyes three to a pack and strip steaks four to a pack, and both are now sold in packs of two. Whether it’s to keep the sticker price down or to keep people from buying too many at a throw, neither is good.

Students explore vintage computers in UW-Milwaukee’s specialized Retrolab

A specialized lab at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is giving students the chance to experience computing history firsthand, from late 1970s machines to early 2000s technology.

The Retrolab, housed in UWM’s History department, serves as a space where people can explore and interact with vintage computing technologies that shaped the digital age.

“It used to be that (technology) historians were able to assume that people would know what an Apple 2 or Apple Macintosh or IBC PC was and that they could write about the differences between those and how the computer technologies evolved since the first personal computers in the 70s. And that is just not the case anymore with today’s undergraduate students,” Professor Thomas Haigh, a history professor and chair of the history department, said.

Apple II, you damn kids. Apple II.

I was just asserting this the other day to someone in my family–that it’s like the Libertarians won, and it looks a lot like the Mafia won: Maybe Totally Legalizing Vice Was Not Such a Great Idea After All

Of course, vice invites corruption, and it’s now publicly infecting sports themselves (it has no doubt infected them for a while, with point shaving, thrown games, and the like). It is also resurrecting the mob – I guess when the FBI was busy hassling moms for being mad about sex offenders in their kids’ locker rooms, the Mafia took advantage of the opportunity. The recent busts will be just the tip of the iceberg. Mark my words and move over, Black Sox – this will be a disaster for professional sports.

Schlichter also mentions state lotteries, casinos, and dope-smoking, but I here at Nogglestead went a step further.

I think sports betting will really damage professional sports. And, like Teddy Roosevelt stepping in over a century ago to intervene and save football, it might trigger federal action, such as prohibiting sports betting at a federal level.

Which means betters would have to go back to casinos. And who benefits? Casino owners.

And who owns casinos? Donald Trump!

(Well, not any more.)

And who benefits from people to returning to casinos and blaming Trump?

The Native Americans! (Jeez, I’ve clung to Indians for so long, but there are now so many natives of the Asian subcontinent here that I have updated my lexicon to be specific). And/or the Mafia!

It might not be turtles all the way down, but there sure are a lot of turtles.

What was my point? Oh, yeah, what Schlichter said.

(Link via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

Hotel tax increase ‘still on the table’ as city reconsiders how to fund convention center

Year after voters rejected one casino, another moves forward

Actually, the latter is different; it is an Indian casino which can go ahead. Last year, voters voted down an amendment that would allow a non-Indian casino.

But it’s of the same thing: There are people whose jobs and entire livelihood depend upon moving these things through the system, and any failure just means they go back to work on Wednesday morning with the next attempt.

Springfield voters say no to increase in the city’s lodging tax to help fund a convention center

Ah, but like a movie villain, it will rise and shamble on, and voters will have to reject it again and again until they vote the right way and add to the marketing slush fund.

Standing 9.5 feet across, NYC’s skinniest townhouse just listed for $4.19M: ‘There’s nothing claustrophobic about it’.

Not because I need a pied-à-terre on Manhattan, but…..

It is known as The Millay House because St. Edna St. Vincent Millay lived there for a while.

I mean, I used to watch Small Space, Big Style. I could make do. And write in the same place as my favorite poet did.

Two stories on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site today:

• By denying Eucharist to detained Catholics, we fail ourselves, wherein I guess we’re supposed to feel guilty that federal officials are not allowing protestors and priests who march to detention facilities access to give illegal immigrants communion. Because if you were a Christian, you would want illegal immigrants to have all the rights and benefits befitting their status. It’s in the Bible! Look it up!
• Federal shutdown means less Missouri land for hunting and fishing this year, because you like guns and killing Bambi, don’t ya? Isn’t it worth it to give the aforementioned illegals health care and to restore various other slush funds? Apparently, this program is also part of a federal slush fund paid to states to pay to private landowners, but, c’mon, you guys with camo hats? CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!

These are things the journalists themselves probably do not value, but they’re writing about them because they hope you will more than you like the thought of a shrinking federal government.

Gazans join Israelis in chanting Trump’s name over cease-fire: ‘Nobel Prize to Trump!’

Which I saw in the documentary Don’t Mess with the Zohan:

Good luck with all that all the same.

In Facebook posts, I’ve often made quips about Jay Cutler and air raid sirens going off when he played for the Chicago Bears, but I never disrespected him like this: Former NFL quarterback and Kristin Cavallari’s ex-husband Jay Cutler jailed in Tennessee

To be identified as the former significant other of another insignificant reality television star? Man, that’s harsh.

Of course, I’m personally moving from my sons’ dad to my beautiful wife’s husband since I’m no longer doing as many school events and am doing more tech community events which are circles in which my wife has moved for several years. But she’s really a star, not just someone willing to pretend to be one on television.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Web site ran this atop its home page this weekend:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, former Milwaukee archbishop, calls slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk a ‘modern-day St. Paul’

As any fule kno, or as anyone who is either Catholic or reads First Things and New Oxford Review can tell you, the title goes before the last name in the Catholic church offices. Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

I mean, the chryon on the tweet embedded in the article itself has it correctly:

But the appearance on television with a Milwaukee connection gave the “journalist” the opportunity not only to slag on Charlie Kirk but also Bob Dolan’s brother as well. Some accounts on social media want the pope to reconsider his [Dolan’s] position! Maybe even excommunicate him or burn him at stake. Or maybe that’s Blue Sky accounts instead.

Jeez, Louise. This very weekend, my mother-in-law, who admits she only can tolerate an hour of television news these days, tut-tutted her daughter’s suggestion that she get her news from print sources. Certainly not from eight-page Daily Dammit, Gannetts like the Springfield News-Leader or the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. She could just as easily go to the primary sources for modern journalism, which are not the people or events themselves but from social media reactions to people and events.