As of now, I don't think they are replacing humor columnists, and the current crop are dying! A great opportunity!
Prompt: write a humor column about graduation in the style of Dave Barry:
## The Big Walk to Nowhere##
The time has come once again for graduation, a sacred tradition where we gather in a sweltering gymnasium to watch several hundred young people, dressed in polyester bathrobes, receive an expensive piece of paper that officially certifies them as being "unemployed."
I remember my own graduation well. The keynote speaker was a very important local dignitary whose name I forget, but who possessed the oratorical range of a leaf blower. He told us that we were the "leaders of tomorrow," which was a terrifying thought considering most of us still hadn't figured out how to operate a washing machine without turning our underwear pink.
### The Graduation Processional
The ceremony begins with the **Processional**, which is Latin for "The part where the faculty walks very slowly so they can get paid for an extra forty-five minutes." They wear elaborate hoods and velvet stripes to indicate that they have spent more time in school than most of the graduating class has been alive.
Then come the students. They are wearing "mortarboards," which are flat, square hats designed by a committee specifically to look ridiculous on every human head shape ever created. The goal is to keep the hat level while walking, which is difficult because your brain is currently occupied by the fact that you are about to enter a "job market" that currently consists of three openings for a "Vibe Consultant" in Sheboygan.
### The Speech
Every graduation speech is legally required to contain at least four of the following:
* **The Horizon:** You are looking at it.
* **The Future:** You are currently entering it.
* **The Road Less Traveled:** You should take it, even if your GPS is screaming at you to make a U-turn.
* **The Wings:** You have them; now you must fly, despite the fact that humans are biologically flightless mammals.
The speaker will inevitably tell you that "the world is your oyster." This is a terrible analogy. Oysters are slimy, difficult to open, and occasionally contain grit that breaks your teeth. If the world were actually an oyster, we’d all be standing around with specialized knives, smelling like a wharf.
### The Diploma
Finally, your name is called. You walk across the stage, shake a dean’s hand, and receive a leather folder. Inside is a note saying your actual diploma will be mailed to you once you pay your outstanding $14.50 fine for a library book you lost in 2022 titled *How to Succeed in Life*.
Then comes the **Turning of the Tassel**. This is the moment where you move a piece of string from the right side of your face to the left. This symbolizes that you are now a Graduated Person. It is a profound, life-altering shift, roughly equivalent to moving your car keys from your left pocket to your right.
**In conclusion:** Congratulations, Class of 2026! You’ve done it. You have the knowledge. You have the degree. Now go out there and show the world what you're made of. And by "the world," I mean your parents' basement. They’ve been expecting you.
OK, I've officially voted for "It's terrifying" on poll question 3.
I'm mostly serious. Yesterday I saw an old TV show [kudos to anybody who can name it] that involved a possibly forged Cellini snuffbox, and I asked Gemini if Cellini made snuffboxes. It replied that he did not; he was famous for small intricate things like jewelry boxes and salt cellars, but he lived in the sixteenth century and snuffboxes weren't in use until the seventeenth century. I have a hard time not believing that Gemini "understood" my question. And this is the free Gemini that puts in its two-cents-worth for a Google query; I can only believe that Claude Mythos is way smarter.
The ideal trajectory is that eventually every human is like a modern CEO with a fleet of AIs to carry out his plans, but it's going to be a crazy time getting there.
Applebee's has a special place in my heart. I was in my 40s and went to lunch with a co-worker in his 60s, and I got carded. He laughed so hard he almost choked and told everyone at work who couldn't believe it. Yeah thanks, pal.
Unlike in my 20s and my sister in her 30s going to a club (10 years difference), she was carded and I wasn't.
I’m 78 and I get carded almost every time I go to a restaurant. Early on, I notify the wait staff that I always tip 15% unless I’m carded. If carded; 20%.
Some company in I think Japan is already testing robot waitresses. It's just a matter of time before they try it here. I've never dined and dashed in my life, but I might if the restaurant "staff" is robots. If you're not giving me real service, I'm not giving you really money.
My first job, more than 50 years ago, was working in a bakery. It had a bread slicing machine that was easy to use except you had to know how to slowly move the handle that guided a bunch of long knife-like pieces through a loaf of bread. If you went fast and the bread was still warm, it would scrunch the center into a gooey ball of dough. I tell this story because my local Publix bakery section has the VERY SAME MACHINE… it hasn’t advanced one bit in 50 years, which suggests that a Bakery career might be the answer for many of today’s graduates. An added bonus is that at the end of the workday, you can take home unsold bakery goods to help pay your parents for letting you live in their basement.
The bakery department at our local Wegman's used to be run by a group of extremely heavy people. I had to stop eating this one bread they made. It was so good I couldn't lose weight at all.
People always think that; it's not true. My mom was a professional baker who always shoved the scraps at us because she didn't believe in wasting anything- it gets to be like "eat your vegetables ". Decades later I still don't eat cake.
Follow-up… I just discovered a company called Air-Scent International, which apparently makes it possible for grocery stores, bakeries, etc., to “smell good” all throughout the day, thereby increasing their sales. (They’re at airscent DOT com.)
Some samples:
“Almond Biscotti: A scent welcoming a flavorful respite from the cold and dreary days of winter, the irresistible aroma of buttery, sweet and crispy cookies tinged with subtle, soft traces of almond, lush vanilla and dark roasted chocolate warm the spirit and feed the soul. This fragrance also features elements of fresh, cool peppermint and bitter, salty anise seed.”
“Passion Fruit And Melon: Exotic and memorable, this fragrance opens with a top note marked by sweet and tropical passion fruit, fresh, dewy watermelon, buttery honeydew, sugary cantaloupe and soft, honeyed kiwi. A white flower bouquet soon follows, featuring creamy gardenia, haunting jasmine, light, bitter neroli and spicy bright and waxy lily. A base note of rich nectar and white musk finish the fragrance.”
Polishing jelly beans in a machine involves a process called panning, where dried, sugar-coated, and hardened candy centers are rotated in a drum while being coated with a thin layer of edible wax or glaze. The machine spins the beans, causing them to rub against each other and distribute the wax evenly, resulting in a glossy finish.
It's fine - you eat it more often than you know. I use it every Xmas when I'm making cookies. If you're eating something shiny, there's a good chance it's waxed.
Actually, they put them in a rotating cement mixer type machine. I had to stick my head in and pick out the jelly beans that were stuck together. It was like LSD without the drug!
My Dad graduated when God was a sperm and an egg. These were HIS jobs:
1. Janitor (this enabled him to put himself through college)
2. Kosher Hot Dog Making Plant (I am not making this up, and apparently You do NOT want to know the details if You're a sports fan, because We hear that Sports Fans actually EAT Hot Dogs, as does My Boyfriend although He does not like Sports)
3. Bouncer (briefly; this was after He met my Mum, and She was not comfortable with the amount of flirting that bouncers are supposed to do to get paid).
Apparently he then went straight from that to being an astrophysicist, or something. (Not literally. Actual career path masked to protect the innocent. We -- again, I am not making this up-- dropped like a three-sentence hint to Grok the other day and it was able to correctly identify him down to his middle initial. Creepy!)
Okay I'm off to work ... At my six-figure job ... Which somehow still fails to get us out of a 1400 sq ft starter home. SO GLAD I INCARNATED in the 1980s! :P
Do what I do--I married a lovely Greek lady who works four jobs, so I can be Mr. Mom for our wonderful 12-year-old daughter! That's been the best job in my long life!
I worked my first two years of college as a janitor, or as it was called in the mid 60s, as a janitress. It was a great job--I went in, cleaned and then I went back to my dorm and rarely had to work the number of hours I was credited with. Summers, I was a maid in a nursing home. I am a fantastic cleaner, especially public restrooms. I can get through a six stall women's restroom in no time. I am a fantastic cleaner of urinals. For many years, I did Tai Chi and when I did workshops at one of the national or international centers, I always asked to be a cleaner as my chores. This was really self protection. I could clean quickly and well and most of the others were slow and not very good at mass restroom cleaning. I prefer a clean bathroom. In summer, I was a maid in a nursing home. A side benefit to that--when I have been hospitalized or in rehab, I mention to the cleaners that I did the work in a nursing home when I was young and the cleaners love me as a fellow housekeeping club member. I always have the cleanest room on the floor.
I hate cleaning my own home. I've had a cleaner for years. I believe that I am fortunate enough to have forgotten how to vacuum and how to clean toilets. Yay! I still have to keep up on kitchen floor moping. I can be a messy cook and I hate sticking to the kitchen floor afterward.
Janitor may be another job that can't be done by AI. Of course, to make it a valuable career path, it might be good to make sure it pays a livable wage. People assume that cleaning can be done by not very bright and untrained people. That is wrong.
My first job was in the candy and popcorn and nuts department at Sears. I made $1.90 per hour. My friend who landed a job at Sanger Harris made $2.10. Well La-te-dah!
Madame feels the true commencement lesson here is that eventually every generation becomes the old person yelling, “You kids have it rough,” while simultaneously admitting they once had unrestricted access to industrial-grade flames in middle school.
Godspeed to the Class of 2026. And to their parents, who were THIS close to having sex in the living room again. 🍷
I've still got my copy of History of Programming Languages! (Although, true, I haven't opened it in a good number of years.) (Or dusted it off, for that matter.) (I'm glad I'm old, too.)
" To this day I am at a loss to explain why the authorities allowed eighth-grade boys to get anywhere near that that thing, or how we avoided turning the entire school into a smoking crater. "
In high school chemistry the teacher made the mistake of turning his back on us whereupon one student started mixing nitric acid into sulfuric. Which is apparently step one in making TNT. Anyway the teacher put the mixture on ice and avoided having to pull the fire alarm. Later he took a bunch of boys out to his farm where he taught them a recipe for plastic explosive and Tom Sawyered them in to digging around a bunch of tree stumps and let them use the homemade plastique to remove the stumps. Man, the things that happened in high school that would be on the evening news today...
I (a computer programmer) learned how to weld plastic on my first job. That's probably been automated, too.
As a computer programmer I'm in one of the few fields where "AI" is highly useful and getting better, fast. Glad I'm retiring soon, unless the stock market goes belly up again. Then I may have to find a job welding plastic.
In Chemistry Class in HS, occasionally our instructor would let us spend a class period playing around with glass tubing and bunsen burners. One enterprising classmate realized we could make serviceable pot pipes and hash-oil vaporizers.
The chemistry lab was also across the hall from my French classroom, and one day an acrid smell wafted in from the hallway. I looked outside from my seat next to the door and the linoleum was smoking and bubbling where some wag had poured concentrated acid of some sort.
Lastly, a door to a small balcony overlooking the pool was unlocked, and some idiot thought it would be a good idea to throw an uncapped container of sodium metal chunks in oil into the water, with predictable results once the oil dispersed. 💥
Edited to add:
The sodium reacted with the water and exploded, sending chunks up out of the pool and into the roof above. It took months to clean.
What’s up with that picture of the family dressed up, eating dinner at the tiny table? The one where the females have tiny plates with little to - (in the case of the daughter) - no food, but the men in the family have big plates with lots of food — and the missing person gets a drink, a poorly arranged place setting, a tiny plate, no chair and no food (must be the setting for the other daughter)? And the mother has no drink at the table but judging by her idiot grin and the way she’s holding her fork, appears to have been dipping into the cooking sherry all day?
It’s a fabulous picture of the ideal ‘50s family and it is VERY creepy. ((Shiver))
We've been binge-watching "I Love Lucy." It's kind of interesting the way the Ricardos and the Mertzes often did things around a table in Lucy & Ricky's living room -- ate meals, played cards -- in such a way that one person always seemed to be standing, lounging on an arm of the sofa, whatever... all so the camera didn't have to film the back of somebody's head. I immediately thought of that when I saw the family-meal picture here.
With the increase of driver-less vehicles, my dream childhood profession of being a garbage collector has gone completely kaput!
As a kid in NYC, my dream was to be the one dangling off the back of a humongous garbage truck careening helter-skelter through the streets of Manhattan hanging on for dear life as the driver swerved and turned (on two wheels) trying to dislodge me. Yeah, sure, occasionally we had to pick up a garbage can or two but: Oh What Fun!
The insidious demise of the profession started slowly: First, residents had to wheel the garbage cans to the curb, thereby eliminating my dream position of C&D (Collector & Dangler) and soon, even the driver will be eliminated. I suspect they'll soon eliminate the trucks altogether and drones will pick up and carry your refuse directly to the landfill.
When that day comes, my commencement speaker advice would be: "Don't look up!"
10 years ago, my nephew , who lives in a rural area, was a trash collector. It was non-automated trucks where they actually did have to ride on the back, jump down, pick up the cans. He got to go in on all kinds of private roads and see properties in the backcountry. People left him presents like six packs of beers. He loved it! Unfortunately it gave him back problems.
My HS shop class had t-shirts made that said “Weld & Destroy”. I welded a grappling hook and tool box. Climbing a tree with the grappling hook, I broke my wrist. The 1980s were amazing really.
In our middle school, we had Shop and Home Economics classes. Male students were enrolled in the Shop classes and made ashtrays and wooden table lamps while females were compelled to learn the art of making macaroni and cheese, learn how to set a table, etc. The boys had hammers and saws, but we had electric stove burners and sharp needles and pins. Girls also had to sew a skirt, which resulted in one young lady sewing right through her index finger. The entire class then had to learn how to clean up after losing their lunches. The school nurse's office was crowded to overflowing.
Dave, last night I literally had nightmares that France was bombing London when I’d finally gotten around to visiting.
This kind of post negativity doesn’t help with my doomed view of our world. (Apparently,I harbour deep fears about the relationship between two wealthy European countries.)
But your post sure made me laugh 😀 (I can do that. I’m retired).
As of now, I don't think they are replacing humor columnists, and the current crop are dying! A great opportunity!
Prompt: write a humor column about graduation in the style of Dave Barry:
## The Big Walk to Nowhere##
The time has come once again for graduation, a sacred tradition where we gather in a sweltering gymnasium to watch several hundred young people, dressed in polyester bathrobes, receive an expensive piece of paper that officially certifies them as being "unemployed."
I remember my own graduation well. The keynote speaker was a very important local dignitary whose name I forget, but who possessed the oratorical range of a leaf blower. He told us that we were the "leaders of tomorrow," which was a terrifying thought considering most of us still hadn't figured out how to operate a washing machine without turning our underwear pink.
### The Graduation Processional
The ceremony begins with the **Processional**, which is Latin for "The part where the faculty walks very slowly so they can get paid for an extra forty-five minutes." They wear elaborate hoods and velvet stripes to indicate that they have spent more time in school than most of the graduating class has been alive.
Then come the students. They are wearing "mortarboards," which are flat, square hats designed by a committee specifically to look ridiculous on every human head shape ever created. The goal is to keep the hat level while walking, which is difficult because your brain is currently occupied by the fact that you are about to enter a "job market" that currently consists of three openings for a "Vibe Consultant" in Sheboygan.
### The Speech
Every graduation speech is legally required to contain at least four of the following:
* **The Horizon:** You are looking at it.
* **The Future:** You are currently entering it.
* **The Road Less Traveled:** You should take it, even if your GPS is screaming at you to make a U-turn.
* **The Wings:** You have them; now you must fly, despite the fact that humans are biologically flightless mammals.
The speaker will inevitably tell you that "the world is your oyster." This is a terrible analogy. Oysters are slimy, difficult to open, and occasionally contain grit that breaks your teeth. If the world were actually an oyster, we’d all be standing around with specialized knives, smelling like a wharf.
### The Diploma
Finally, your name is called. You walk across the stage, shake a dean’s hand, and receive a leather folder. Inside is a note saying your actual diploma will be mailed to you once you pay your outstanding $14.50 fine for a library book you lost in 2022 titled *How to Succeed in Life*.
Then comes the **Turning of the Tassel**. This is the moment where you move a piece of string from the right side of your face to the left. This symbolizes that you are now a Graduated Person. It is a profound, life-altering shift, roughly equivalent to moving your car keys from your left pocket to your right.
**In conclusion:** Congratulations, Class of 2026! You’ve done it. You have the knowledge. You have the degree. Now go out there and show the world what you're made of. And by "the world," I mean your parents' basement. They’ve been expecting you.
Actually it's not that bad. Dave, watch out!
Not bad! Now I need to figure out how to use AI to write humorous comments. Because all I could come up with was "not bad".
Please do not. The nothingness from a real human brain is 1000x better than ChatGPT Humor Slop (TM).
Prompt was literally as written using paid Gemini
I think you are talented!
Gemini wrote this whole thing.
Thanks, as I wondered which AI was involved.
I might be prejudiced, but I found the AI humor column very boring.
Yes, I don't think Dave Barry has a thing to worry about.
Yikes! AI has been studying you too closely Dave!
The last time I tried this, on Dave's defunct blog, it was terrible. This is actually incredible.
Well, Sheboygan is actually a nice place...
Ha ha!
OK, I've officially voted for "It's terrifying" on poll question 3.
I'm mostly serious. Yesterday I saw an old TV show [kudos to anybody who can name it] that involved a possibly forged Cellini snuffbox, and I asked Gemini if Cellini made snuffboxes. It replied that he did not; he was famous for small intricate things like jewelry boxes and salt cellars, but he lived in the sixteenth century and snuffboxes weren't in use until the seventeenth century. I have a hard time not believing that Gemini "understood" my question. And this is the free Gemini that puts in its two-cents-worth for a Google query; I can only believe that Claude Mythos is way smarter.
The ideal trajectory is that eventually every human is like a modern CEO with a fleet of AIs to carry out his plans, but it's going to be a crazy time getting there.
OK, sorry to intrude on your humor column. :-)
Bad news... after time of publishing, those aforementioned three positons at Applebee's were just replaced by AI waitresses
Applebee's has a special place in my heart. I was in my 40s and went to lunch with a co-worker in his 60s, and I got carded. He laughed so hard he almost choked and told everyone at work who couldn't believe it. Yeah thanks, pal.
Unlike in my 20s and my sister in her 30s going to a club (10 years difference), she was carded and I wasn't.
I’m 78 and I get carded almost every time I go to a restaurant. Early on, I notify the wait staff that I always tip 15% unless I’m carded. If carded; 20%.
They were just trying to get her name.
Honest to god, the last time we ate at a local Mexican restaurant, the food was delivered to the table by a robot.
Did it spit chips into your chips?
Did it speak English or Spanish?
Some company in I think Japan is already testing robot waitresses. It's just a matter of time before they try it here. I've never dined and dashed in my life, but I might if the restaurant "staff" is robots. If you're not giving me real service, I'm not giving you really money.
I’d be careful skipping out on a robot server. They now have lasers.
I think "Full Tuition Refund" would be a great name for a rock band.
MerryCatholic.substack.com
Truly evocative of the choices made and the choices yet to come………
My first job, more than 50 years ago, was working in a bakery. It had a bread slicing machine that was easy to use except you had to know how to slowly move the handle that guided a bunch of long knife-like pieces through a loaf of bread. If you went fast and the bread was still warm, it would scrunch the center into a gooey ball of dough. I tell this story because my local Publix bakery section has the VERY SAME MACHINE… it hasn’t advanced one bit in 50 years, which suggests that a Bakery career might be the answer for many of today’s graduates. An added bonus is that at the end of the workday, you can take home unsold bakery goods to help pay your parents for letting you live in their basement.
I was 99% certain your bread-slicing story was going to end in bloodshed... Whew! Some horror stories remain untold!
But sheesh. If I'd ever worked in a bakery, I'd weigh about 300 pounds more than I do.
The bakery department at our local Wegman's used to be run by a group of extremely heavy people. I had to stop eating this one bread they made. It was so good I couldn't lose weight at all.
Wegman's. Um, asking for a friend of course, but do you remember what bread it was?
Spinach/olive oil.
[Aside: "Honey, we're planning to visit Wegman's this weekend, right?"]
People always think that; it's not true. My mom was a professional baker who always shoved the scraps at us because she didn't believe in wasting anything- it gets to be like "eat your vegetables ". Decades later I still don't eat cake.
Same. On both counts.
Follow-up… I just discovered a company called Air-Scent International, which apparently makes it possible for grocery stores, bakeries, etc., to “smell good” all throughout the day, thereby increasing their sales. (They’re at airscent DOT com.)
Some samples:
“Almond Biscotti: A scent welcoming a flavorful respite from the cold and dreary days of winter, the irresistible aroma of buttery, sweet and crispy cookies tinged with subtle, soft traces of almond, lush vanilla and dark roasted chocolate warm the spirit and feed the soul. This fragrance also features elements of fresh, cool peppermint and bitter, salty anise seed.”
“Passion Fruit And Melon: Exotic and memorable, this fragrance opens with a top note marked by sweet and tropical passion fruit, fresh, dewy watermelon, buttery honeydew, sugary cantaloupe and soft, honeyed kiwi. A white flower bouquet soon follows, featuring creamy gardenia, haunting jasmine, light, bitter neroli and spicy bright and waxy lily. A base note of rich nectar and white musk finish the fragrance.”
I note the continued decline of civilization.
Better that than the gawdawful 'music' assaulting our ears in every store everywhere
I spent two summers in Fairlawn, NJ, cleaning the Oreo cookie machines at NABISCO.
I can almost see the thought bubbles from the Class of 2026: "What's a magazine? What's acetylene? What's a job?"
Yeah, I thought about explaining "magazines."
A magazine is what holds the cartridges for your rifle.
Or large amounts of munitions with huge NO SMOKING signs.
Hey, I graduated back when God was a baby, and these were my first jobs:
1. Polishing jelly beans in a candy factory.
2. Heat treating metal parts at Flame Industries.
3. Carrying golf bags as a caddy.
4. Pumping gas.
5. Delivering newspapers.
I do miss the jelly beans!
Polishing jelly beans?
Polishing jelly beans in a machine involves a process called panning, where dried, sugar-coated, and hardened candy centers are rotated in a drum while being coated with a thin layer of edible wax or glaze. The machine spins the beans, causing them to rub against each other and distribute the wax evenly, resulting in a glossy finish.
William, that machine had better have an X rating.
Edible wax? I’m not sure I want to know this….but…educational!
It's fine - you eat it more often than you know. I use it every Xmas when I'm making cookies. If you're eating something shiny, there's a good chance it's waxed.
This is fascinating! Thanks for spilling the beans, candy-trivia-wise! 😉
Thanks, William, I learn something every day :-)
Did you polish the jelly beans one at a time? THAT’S REAL WORK.
Actually, they put them in a rotating cement mixer type machine. I had to stick my head in and pick out the jelly beans that were stuck together. It was like LSD without the drug!
LMFAO
Dude
My Dad graduated when God was a sperm and an egg. These were HIS jobs:
1. Janitor (this enabled him to put himself through college)
2. Kosher Hot Dog Making Plant (I am not making this up, and apparently You do NOT want to know the details if You're a sports fan, because We hear that Sports Fans actually EAT Hot Dogs, as does My Boyfriend although He does not like Sports)
3. Bouncer (briefly; this was after He met my Mum, and She was not comfortable with the amount of flirting that bouncers are supposed to do to get paid).
Apparently he then went straight from that to being an astrophysicist, or something. (Not literally. Actual career path masked to protect the innocent. We -- again, I am not making this up-- dropped like a three-sentence hint to Grok the other day and it was able to correctly identify him down to his middle initial. Creepy!)
Okay I'm off to work ... At my six-figure job ... Which somehow still fails to get us out of a 1400 sq ft starter home. SO GLAD I INCARNATED in the 1980s! :P
Do what I do--I married a lovely Greek lady who works four jobs, so I can be Mr. Mom for our wonderful 12-year-old daughter! That's been the best job in my long life!
Yes, marry rich is always plan A, but plan B—marry someone who is gainfully employed is pretty good too.
Try both!
I worked my first two years of college as a janitor, or as it was called in the mid 60s, as a janitress. It was a great job--I went in, cleaned and then I went back to my dorm and rarely had to work the number of hours I was credited with. Summers, I was a maid in a nursing home. I am a fantastic cleaner, especially public restrooms. I can get through a six stall women's restroom in no time. I am a fantastic cleaner of urinals. For many years, I did Tai Chi and when I did workshops at one of the national or international centers, I always asked to be a cleaner as my chores. This was really self protection. I could clean quickly and well and most of the others were slow and not very good at mass restroom cleaning. I prefer a clean bathroom. In summer, I was a maid in a nursing home. A side benefit to that--when I have been hospitalized or in rehab, I mention to the cleaners that I did the work in a nursing home when I was young and the cleaners love me as a fellow housekeeping club member. I always have the cleanest room on the floor.
I hate cleaning my own home. I've had a cleaner for years. I believe that I am fortunate enough to have forgotten how to vacuum and how to clean toilets. Yay! I still have to keep up on kitchen floor moping. I can be a messy cook and I hate sticking to the kitchen floor afterward.
Janitor may be another job that can't be done by AI. Of course, to make it a valuable career path, it might be good to make sure it pays a livable wage. People assume that cleaning can be done by not very bright and untrained people. That is wrong.
My first job was in the candy and popcorn and nuts department at Sears. I made $1.90 per hour. My friend who landed a job at Sanger Harris made $2.10. Well La-te-dah!
Madame feels the true commencement lesson here is that eventually every generation becomes the old person yelling, “You kids have it rough,” while simultaneously admitting they once had unrestricted access to industrial-grade flames in middle school.
Godspeed to the Class of 2026. And to their parents, who were THIS close to having sex in the living room again. 🍷
What is Substack but a glorified magazine rack anyway?
Nice. Well pointed out.
When I was involved in AI research in the 70s and 80s, we described AI research as trying to make computers work the way they do in the movies
And yes, I am glad I am old
I've still got my copy of History of Programming Languages! (Although, true, I haven't opened it in a good number of years.) (Or dusted it off, for that matter.) (I'm glad I'm old, too.)
That was like Fortran and seven years ago!
Fortran IV was my first love. I had SO MUCH FUN making that language do things it wasn't supposed to do!
P.S. Especially because I cut my teeth on COBOL.
The automakers automated welding years ago...
" To this day I am at a loss to explain why the authorities allowed eighth-grade boys to get anywhere near that that thing, or how we avoided turning the entire school into a smoking crater. "
In high school chemistry the teacher made the mistake of turning his back on us whereupon one student started mixing nitric acid into sulfuric. Which is apparently step one in making TNT. Anyway the teacher put the mixture on ice and avoided having to pull the fire alarm. Later he took a bunch of boys out to his farm where he taught them a recipe for plastic explosive and Tom Sawyered them in to digging around a bunch of tree stumps and let them use the homemade plastique to remove the stumps. Man, the things that happened in high school that would be on the evening news today...
I (a computer programmer) learned how to weld plastic on my first job. That's probably been automated, too.
As a computer programmer I'm in one of the few fields where "AI" is highly useful and getting better, fast. Glad I'm retiring soon, unless the stock market goes belly up again. Then I may have to find a job welding plastic.
In Chemistry Class in HS, occasionally our instructor would let us spend a class period playing around with glass tubing and bunsen burners. One enterprising classmate realized we could make serviceable pot pipes and hash-oil vaporizers.
The chemistry lab was also across the hall from my French classroom, and one day an acrid smell wafted in from the hallway. I looked outside from my seat next to the door and the linoleum was smoking and bubbling where some wag had poured concentrated acid of some sort.
Lastly, a door to a small balcony overlooking the pool was unlocked, and some idiot thought it would be a good idea to throw an uncapped container of sodium metal chunks in oil into the water, with predictable results once the oil dispersed. 💥
Edited to add:
The sodium reacted with the water and exploded, sending chunks up out of the pool and into the roof above. It took months to clean.
I didn’t have to take chemistry so I didn’t. (I was busy singing in the choir.). What happened to the pool?
I want to know what happened, too. Ah, those were the days!!
I'm surprised DuPont didn't recruit you.
... or cleaning restrooms, based on Annie RH's comments above.
What’s up with that picture of the family dressed up, eating dinner at the tiny table? The one where the females have tiny plates with little to - (in the case of the daughter) - no food, but the men in the family have big plates with lots of food — and the missing person gets a drink, a poorly arranged place setting, a tiny plate, no chair and no food (must be the setting for the other daughter)? And the mother has no drink at the table but judging by her idiot grin and the way she’s holding her fork, appears to have been dipping into the cooking sherry all day?
It’s a fabulous picture of the ideal ‘50s family and it is VERY creepy. ((Shiver))
I know! The more you look at it, the weirder it gets.
We've been binge-watching "I Love Lucy." It's kind of interesting the way the Ricardos and the Mertzes often did things around a table in Lucy & Ricky's living room -- ate meals, played cards -- in such a way that one person always seemed to be standing, lounging on an arm of the sofa, whatever... all so the camera didn't have to film the back of somebody's head. I immediately thought of that when I saw the family-meal picture here.
Oh yes, the sitcom table, living room, den: the most awkward home arrangements ever!
The table here must have been cleared like that for the painter, not the camera? Har
Haha! The painter probably had to use one of the missing chairs.
Uh, thanks for nothin’, Wis! Now I can’t unsee the Stepfordian-ness of the picture! Ick. 😬
😅 Sorry! (But it’s a very weird picture all around!)
Indeed. Creepy was the exact right word. 😬
MAGA's goal for the "nuclear family." That's why so many families blow up in large mushroom clouds.
The picture is explained in chapter 16 of Project 2025.
😂😂
Is it the new rightwing American vision of a nuclear family? An even more warped version of the ‘50s ideal? Oh, my, God forbid!
(Seriously: God forbid…)
The AI was obviously trained on observing tech bro families.
With the increase of driver-less vehicles, my dream childhood profession of being a garbage collector has gone completely kaput!
As a kid in NYC, my dream was to be the one dangling off the back of a humongous garbage truck careening helter-skelter through the streets of Manhattan hanging on for dear life as the driver swerved and turned (on two wheels) trying to dislodge me. Yeah, sure, occasionally we had to pick up a garbage can or two but: Oh What Fun!
The insidious demise of the profession started slowly: First, residents had to wheel the garbage cans to the curb, thereby eliminating my dream position of C&D (Collector & Dangler) and soon, even the driver will be eliminated. I suspect they'll soon eliminate the trucks altogether and drones will pick up and carry your refuse directly to the landfill.
When that day comes, my commencement speaker advice would be: "Don't look up!"
When that day comes, the fad of hitching a free neighborhood ride to the landfill will reach its peak of popularity.
10 years ago, my nephew , who lives in a rural area, was a trash collector. It was non-automated trucks where they actually did have to ride on the back, jump down, pick up the cans. He got to go in on all kinds of private roads and see properties in the backcountry. People left him presents like six packs of beers. He loved it! Unfortunately it gave him back problems.
My HS shop class had t-shirts made that said “Weld & Destroy”. I welded a grappling hook and tool box. Climbing a tree with the grappling hook, I broke my wrist. The 1980s were amazing really.
In our middle school, we had Shop and Home Economics classes. Male students were enrolled in the Shop classes and made ashtrays and wooden table lamps while females were compelled to learn the art of making macaroni and cheese, learn how to set a table, etc. The boys had hammers and saws, but we had electric stove burners and sharp needles and pins. Girls also had to sew a skirt, which resulted in one young lady sewing right through her index finger. The entire class then had to learn how to clean up after losing their lunches. The school nurse's office was crowded to overflowing.
Sounds like it would've helped if home ec had included a lesson in making bandages. 😉
Dave, last night I literally had nightmares that France was bombing London when I’d finally gotten around to visiting.
This kind of post negativity doesn’t help with my doomed view of our world. (Apparently,I harbour deep fears about the relationship between two wealthy European countries.)
But your post sure made me laugh 😀 (I can do that. I’m retired).
Despite my advanced age, I would rather be where I am now. Hopefully, one day this country will get back on track for future generations.
From your mouth to God's (or the Universe's) ear, friend!