Geeze, you mean the pictures it comes up with for me may not be real? Uh-oh.

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Multiple newspapers publish “summer reading list" without realizing that 10 of the 15 books are fake and generated by AI

[T]he article was "partially" written by AI, according to the author.

I'm guessing the 2/3 of it that were just completely made up out of whole cloth were AI.

But do we actually think whatever bozo compiled a summer reading list using AI has actually even read any of these books?

Or any books?

The list has no byline. But writer Marco Buscaglia has claimed responsibility for it and says it was partly generated by Artificial Intelligence, as first reported by the website 404 Media. In an email to NPR, Buscaglia writes, 'Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It's on me 100 percent.'

I mean, yeah, it's on you 100%. Sure.

But also, did these newspapers not even give a quick glance at the list to make sure that the books were real?


But can it ride a Segway?

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OPTIMUS: Musk's 'Biggest Product of All Time' Will Do Your Dishes

A new humanoid robot demo just dropped — and the most impressive part is how boring it is. Following verbal, natural-language instructions, Tesla's battery-powered Optimus can take out the trash, sweep up a mess, and even tear a single paper towel off the roll with eerily human precision.

Tesla engineer Milan Kovac said Tuesday, "One of our goals is to have Optimus learn straight from internet videos of humans doing tasks," and that the company had recently had a "breakthrough" along those lines. He said that Optimus "can now transfer a big chunk of the learning directly from human videos to the bots."

Impressive, sure — but Tesla still lags Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics in sheer physical capability. That hasn’t stopped Tesla chief Elon Musk from declaring that Optimus will be "the biggest product of all time by far."

At the expected retail price of “$20,000 — $30,000” I’ll do my own dishes, thank you.

And of course, there are still some kinks to be worked out, just like the last “revolutionary”gadget, the now defunct Segway scooter.

The company was bought by the British self-made millionaire Jimi Heselden in 2009.

Ten months later, the 62-year-old died after the Segway he was riding careered off a 9m (30ft) cliff near his country estate in West Yorkshire.

Here’s a competitor’s experimental robot experiencing a few growing pains:

Oh, stay put, would you?

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98 Hunting Ridge Road has increased its price again and is now back to its original January ask of $2.9 million. I expressed doubt about that number when the house first hit the market (“29% gain in ten months? We'll see”) and at first that skepticism seemed to be borne out, because it dropped to $2.8 a month later. A deal was reported April 15th, then unreported April 17th. The price was then hiked to $2.865 on May 9th, and now it’s been bumped again. I assume that all this is because the owners are receiving multiple expressions of interest, and good for them, but it’s an unusual price progression.

The house was owned for many years by children’s author Mary Ann Hoberman and her architect husband Norman. Reading her obituary just now, I was dismayed to realize how old their daughter Diane is. She and I were classmates at GHS, and she invited me to the Sadie Hawkins dance senior year. Diane was a beautiful girl, so I assume her first date had to bail for some unexpected reason, but we had a great time anyway, although no sparks were lit. What I now find alarming is that, if Diane is as old as her own biography says she is, then so am I.
That went quickly.

Send them to Britain, then, where they'll be safe

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(Or if not safe permanently, for a long time. It took from 1980 -2015 before Mr. Abu Hamza al-Masri was finally sent from Britain to ADX Prison at the request of the US government, where he has taken up residency for life.)

DHS exposes crimes by migrants deported to South Sudan as judge threatens to order their return

A Biden-appointed federal judge could decide Wednesday that a plane carrying illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes to South Sudan has to return. 

The plane carried eight men — all of whom are convicted of crimes ranging from homicide to robbery, according to details exclusively provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS unveiled details of the crimes after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that their transfer violated a prior court order, though it is unclear whether he will order them back to the U.S.

"No country on earth wanted to accept [the migrants] because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric," Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said at a press conference Wednesday. "These heinous individuals have terrorized American streets for too long."

"While we are fully compliant with the law and court orders, it is absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America," McLaughlin said.

Thongxay Nilakout, a Laos citizen who was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery and was sentenced to life behind bars, is also on the flight. He was arrested in January by ICE. Mexican citizen Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez is convicted of second-degree murder, and was taken into ICE custody earlier this month.

Dian Peter Domach of South Sudan is convicted of a DUI, "possession of burglar’s tools and possession of defaced firearm; sentenced to 18 months confinement" and "robbery and possession of a firearm; sentenced to 8 years confinement." He was arrested by ICE earlier this month.

Two Burmese citizens, Kyaw Mya and Nyo Myint, are also headed to the African nation on the flight. Mya is convicted of "Lascivious Acts with a Child-Victim less than 12 years of age." He was sentenced to 10 years behind bars, but he was paroled after four years. Myint is convicted of "first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting" and faced 12 years behind bars. He was also charged with "aggravated assault-nonfamily strongarm." Both were arrested by ICE in February.

Vietnamese citizen Tuan Thanh Phan, a citizen of Vietnam, is convicted of "first-degree murder and second-degree assault."

DHS officials noted at Wednesday's briefing that the home countries of each of the illegal immigrants refused to take them back to their home soil. The migrants remain in DHS custody, the officials added.

Murphy, appointed by former President Joe Biden, ruled on Tuesday night that the Trump administration must maintain custody of the migrants in case he rules their removal unlawful, and they must be transferred back to the U.S.

Lawyers for illegal immigrants from Myanmar, also called Burma, and Vietnam accused the Trump administration of illegally deporting their clients to third-party countries. They argue the deportations violated Murphy's previous court order mandating that migrants be granted "meaningful opportunity" to establish that sending them to a third country would make them unsafe.

Murphy found on Wednesday that the deportees were not given "credible fear interviews" prior to their departure, in violation of his order. Murphy said he is investigating whether the deportees can conduct their interviews in South Sudan rather than returning to the U.S. immediately.

Murphy previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would "clearly" violate his ruling regarding third-party deportations, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.

England’s courts and the EU Human Rights commission have long lead the way for barring deportation of illegal aliens who have committed truly awful crimes, from child rape to terrorist acts if the criminal will find rough sledding back home. Here:

Search Labs | AI Overview

A British court can bar deportation if the person faces a real risk of serious harm, such as torture or degrading treatment, in their home country. This is often based on human rights laws like Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits such treatment. Deportation may also be blocked if it would cause serious harm to family members or breach their human rights. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

  • Article 3 of the ECHR:

    This article prohibits torture or degrading treatment, and it's a key basis for court rulings that block deportations. 

  • "Real risk" of harm:

    The court must find a real risk that the individual will be subjected to such harm if returned to their home country. 

  • European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR):

    The ECtHR can step in and block deportations if it finds that Article 3 of the ECHR is being violated. 

  • Family ties and human rights:

    Even if the individual themselves don't face a direct risk of harm, deportation could be blocked if it would cause serious harm to their family members or breach their human rights. 

  • Specific examples:

    • A deportation may be blocked if there's a credible risk that the individual will be persecuted in their home country, according to the UN Refugee Convention. 

    • A deportation may also be blocked if there's a risk of violence, torture, or cruel treatment. 

You can read a summary of British case and statutory law barring deportations here. These invented rules are similar, often identical to what our own rogue judges have adopted here. So far as I’m aware, no U.S. judge has yet gone as far as England and barred the deportation of illegals who have established a “long lasting” — two years will suffice, even less — with an unmarried partner, but “yet” is the key word here.

By golly, a genuine Riverside Murphy House is being resold again

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175 Riverside Avenue, which is right across from the entrance to Gilliam Lane, has come back on the market at $2.9 million, a substantial increase from its April 2021 selling price of $1.885, and and an even bigger jump from the sale 10 months before that on June 30, 2020 for $1,675,000.

Murphy Houses were so named by us neighbors at the time not for the convenient Murphy beds tucked away in their garage walls, but after their builder, Bill Murphy, who specialized in cheap (this one cost $27,900, as I recall, in 1965), on-slab homes, built on marginal land — in the case of the trio here, the swampland portion of the Meeker property.

But I’m glad to see a few of them are still standing in various locations around Riverside; when they went up, we had our doubts whether they’d see the turn of the century. Those few that didn’t fall down, either inadvertently or under the pressure of a dozer blade, have all been extensively remodeled and, as is obvious here, now command quite the price.

A small dose of sanity returns

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well, at least the masks were only useless, and not dangerous; the vaccines were both

FDA plans to restrict annual COVID-19 shots to over-65s, officials say

Under the plan, the FDA will allow seniors and other high-risk populations to receive annual COVID shots, but will hold off on approving them for anyone else until more robust testing is done. 

“For all healthy persons — those with no risk factors for severe Covid-19 — between the ages of 6 months and 64 years, the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data evaluating clinical outcomes before Biologics License Applications can be granted,” read the new framework, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary and vaccine division chief

Here's an actual meadow that's pending, and one you can walk to town from*

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328 Round hill Road, 4-acres with wetland and other necessary approvals in place, asking $3.5 million, now pending. It’s part of an 8-acre lot split, the other parcel being 332 Round Hill, also four acres, also priced at $3.5 and which remains unsold. Not as much demand for “excess” land these days than before, possibly because there are fewer equestrians trotting up to live in Greenwich now that the backcountry trail network has been chopped up and blocked off? Beats me.

*6.6 miles — hell, you can walk to California from here, too.