Here’s this month’s “Pen Avenue,” my cartoon for Print, Pittsburgh’s East End newspaper:
Print is not available online; you can only read it in (what else?) print. It’s available at Giant Eagle and other stores in Pittsburgh’s East End, or subscribe on the website.
Rough sketches:
We had enough American idiots already without the help of artificial “intelligence”
As many people have pointed out now, Google’s search engine — the “killer app” that made Google one of the world’s largest, wealthiest companies — has become completely useless.
I was taught how to do boolean searches in high school, by a librarian at what was then known as Penn State McKeesport, in order to use the computerized catalogs there. So when search engines came along, I felt like a wizard. I’ve always prided myself on my Google-fu and being able to dig out weird stuff using Google search.
Not any more. Even when I’m using specific queries and functions to try to force Google to find something on my own websites, the search engine sometimes comes up with “no results.”
Oh, but these days, if Google doesn’t find results, it’s happy to make them up.
I recently wrote about someone and afterwards found out I had their title wrong. I apologized and wrote a correction, but wondered how I had made such a lame-brain mistake.
I entered the person’s name into Google Search, and Google’s “suggested result” was the incorrect title. So I hadn’t simply hallucinated it; Google’s artificial intelligence — more like artificial lack-of-intelligence — had imagined a title for the person whom I was writing about. I had then used that incorrect information when I wrote my story.
(Yes, the ultimate mistake was mine. If I had gone directly to the person’s website, I would have found her correct title there.)
As for web search, I’ve recently started paying for a service called Kagi, an alternative search engine which incorporates results from many other search engines. It doesn’t have as many “suggested links” and “shopping” links as Google Search and it also doesn’t have as much A.I. generated crap. It’s costing me about $10 a month, which is not cheap if you’re on a fixed income, but it’s become a necessity in my work.
Because, to put it bluntly, Google Search is completely broken; I’m astonished how bad the results are now. It’s taken giant steps backwards. Don’t trust it.
Alas, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, owns a big chunk of the web now, including the largest video streaming provider, YouTube.
At the top of this page, Fran Blanche, a musician and electronics technician (she’s the genius behind Frantone effects pedals) in Philadelphia, discusses how YouTube is now forcing creators to accept A.I.-generated summaries of their videos.
A few of the summaries are OK, Fran reports. Others are wildly off-base and contradictory.
YouTube’s A.I., she reports, is also suggesting replies that creators can semi-automatically post as responses when someone comments on one of their videos.
Why? Who asked for this? Who wants this? Certainly not the consumer of Fran’s videos.
I know I don’t want to read a response that was bullshitted by artificial intelligence. What value does it add?
If a creator doesn’t care enough to write a response to me, and instead tasks an A.I. bot with writing the response, why should I care enough to read it?
Over the weekend, for my own amusement, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about myself. The response starts out OK, but then goes horribly, hilariously wrong:
Jason Togyer is a journalist, author, and communications professional known for his work in various media and nonprofit sectors. He is perhaps most recognized for his book, “For the Glory of Their Game: Stories of Life in the Pittsburgh Steelers Football Nation”, which explores the deep connection between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans. The book highlights the cultural and social impact of the team on the Pittsburgh community.
I have never written anything about the Steelers. Ever. (If you listen to me on Saturdays, you know how dim-witted and out-of-touch I am when it comes to sports.) Actually, a book about “the deep connection between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans” sounds like it might be interesting; maybe someone should write one.
But unfortunately, no such book by that title exists, so far as I can tell.
ChatGPT made up a book no one has ever written and attributed it to me, and says it’s my best-known work. All-righty then.
ChatGPT continues:
Togyer is also associated with Carnegie Mellon University as an editor for the university’s alumni magazine, “Carnegie Mellon Today.” He has written extensively on topics such as technology, engineering, arts, and education.
I did attend Carnegie Mellon University (I am obviously on CMU’s radio station, WRCT). I also worked for CMU — past-tense — from 2008 to 2016 as editor of the computer science magazine and assistant director of communications.
But CMU’s alumni magazine is not called “Carnegie Mellon Today.” I never worked for CMU’s alumni magazine. And “Carnegie Mellon Today” hasn’t been published since 2017. (It was a newsletter.) I never worked there, either.
I then asked ChatGPT, “What can you tell me about Jay Thurber, a DJ at WRCT in Pittsburgh?”
Jay Thurber is the on-air persona of Jason Togyer, a Pittsburgh-based journalist and media personality. He hosts “Radio 9 with Jay Thurber,” a popular oldies show broadcast on WRCT-FM (88.3) in Pittsburgh and simulcast on Tube City Online Radio in McKeesport. The program airs on Saturdays from 12 to 3 p.m. and features a mix of vintage hits from the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, along with comedy segments, public service announcements, and occasional interviews. The show combines humor, nostalgia, and unique commentary, making it a favorite among local listeners.
Thurber’s broadcasting style emphasizes community connection, and he frequently incorporates local history and culture into his programming. The show originates from McKeesport, with a focus on preserving the charm of classic radio while embracing modern platforms to reach a broader audience.
For more details, you can explore his website or listen to his broadcasts through WRCT or Tube City Online Radio.
Somewhat surprisingly, this is probably 90 percent correct, with the caveat that I do not consider my show “popular” (I love you, my listeners, but any given show on KDKA or WDVE has 100 to 1,000 times the audience that I do) and I don’t consider myself a “media personality” (some would say I have to get a personality first).
The maddening thing about A.I. that’s currently being forced on us by big technology companies is that it sometimes gets things right. I’ve been on the radio in Pittsburgh since 2000, and that summary of my show is probably better than anything that’s ever been written about my broadcasting work.
But too often, A.I. gets things horribly, horribly wrong. It tells people to make sandwiches using ant poison as an ingredient. It tells people to put glue on their pizza.
Imagine if your company made toasters, and you developed a new kind of toaster. Fifty percent of the time, it makes toast that is perfect and delicious. Twenty percent of the time, the toast is either a little bit too dark or a little bit too cold.
And 30 percent of the time, the toaster catches fire and injures the person using it.
You probably wouldn’t dare try to sell that toaster. You’d be afraid your company would be sued out of existence.
But big technology companies like Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) do this kind of crap all of the time. They put out products that malfunction in horrifying ways maybe 30 percent of the time, and then they blame the users. They take no responsibility for their own actions or for the horrible consequences. (Tesla is perhaps the poster-child in this category.)
A large percentage of Americans believe complete made-up horseshit about vaccines, elections, immigrants, LGBTQ people, teachers, the Moon landing, the climate, electric cars, cancer cures, and scores of other topics. In some cases — as with people trying out dangerous cancer cures such as “black salve,” or not giving their children life-saving vaccines to protect against polio or measles or COVID — this horseshit is literally killing people.
Yet Google (via YouTube) and Facebook have turned themselves into giant, highly profitable horseshit delivery mechanisms. Do they not care?
In fact, I’ve been told by people who work for Google and Facebook that they do care. It’s just that they believe “the marketplace of ideas” needs to be free. Some of them have even quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
The best ideas, they tell me, will win in the marketplace of ideas.
Well, that’s fine, except that Google and Facebook have sucked up the advertising money that once fueled actual news gathering and journalism.
At the same time they are enabling misinformation and deliberate lies, they are disemboweling truthful information. The errors of opinion run rampant and get wealthy fleecing the gullible. Reason is out in the alley, begging for scraps.
And Thomas Jefferson lived in an era when the printed pamphlet was the fastest way to distribute opinions. You needed a human printer to print those pamphlets. Ben Franklin and other printers exercised editorial control over what came off of their presses. Google and Facebook don’t.
Yes, the Internet has made wonderful things possible. That’s the 50 percent of the time when we’re getting perfect toast.
But the rest of the time — when big Internet companies are spreading complete misinformation, and enabling Nazis and white supremacists and fascists and authoritarians to take power around the world — I have to question whether the occasional slice of warm bread is worth the price we’re currently paying.
Edited to Add: Technology journalist Ed Zitron writes extremely lucidly about complicated topics such as A.I., and why these technologies don’t live up to their promise as implemented by giant conglomerates. Check out his latest entry at his blog, Where’s Your Ed At?
Now, all Sallys, Violets, and Lucy Van Pelts get on the floor
I think we all can agree that the Internet is terrible, but occasionally, like finding corn kernels amongst the turds, we find gems of wonderful content amongst the offal.
For me, for the last 18 years, Christmas just hasn’t been Christmas without watching the Peanuts gang dance to Outkast’s 2003 hit “Hey Ya.”
The original of this video by “CommyOstrich” (or at least I think it’s the original) has been viewed more than 3 million times. In 2010, someone calling themselves “TheVideoRelaxant” remastered the video using a clean digital copy of the video and stereo audio.
I am eternally grateful that neither the Charles Schulz estate nor the notoriously litigious BMG corporation, which owns Outkast’s record label, have forced YouTube to pull down this video.
Watch it with your neighbor on your baddest behavior.
Someone sent me a cute Christmas video from a British band, the theme of which was, “it’s too early for Christmas, but what the heck, let’s celebrate anyway.” I thought, OK, this is cute. So I clicked on the link to download the song to play on my show this Saturday.
The link took me to their website, where I put in my email address to get the MP3 … and immediately, I learned the band members are all adherents of a certain religion, whose name I won’t put here, because the religion — practiced by a number of somewhat colorful Hollywood celebrities — is notoriously litigious.
It was my quickest milkshake duck ever.
Look, in general, when it comes to someone’s religion or lack of religion, I’m very much “live and let live.” Frankly, I’d say most of my friends are probably “none of the aboves” or nominal adherents who attend a church or temple on special occasions.
Generally speaking, like Rev. Lovejoy in “The Simpsons,” I tend to think all of them are pretty much the same. Whatever gets you through the night, as John Lennon sang.
But one of the hallmarks of this particular religion is its need to trick people (such as, for example, middle-aged oldies disc jockeys who are just trying to download a Christmas novelty song) into following them, which is one of the main reasons you know it’s a cult.
You shouldn’t have to try to force people into worship. Nothing says “freedom” like demanding that kids pray and read the Ten Commandments against their parents’ will. Indeed, I’ve never heard of anyone converting to a religion because they were forced to pray. Kids who are forced to practice a religion they hate always seem to resent it, and in my experience, it never seems to stick. It always makes me wonder what the point of forced prayer is, other than as a show of control and dominance.
And you certainly shouldn’t have to trick people into joining. Catholics don’t try to hide that they’re Catholic, and the Salvation Army wears uniforms, so you can even spot them in a crowd. I’m an Episcopalian and we don’t lure people into a rock concert and then lock the door behind them and say, “HA HA! Now we’re going to hook you up to this electronic gizmo and then we’re going to brainwash all of you into making Jell-o salads for the annual parish meeting until you ascend to a higher level of consciousness.”
Anyway, you wouldn’t believe how fast I got off of this band’s website. I didn’t know you could burn rubber with an Internet browser but I swear you could hear Firefox’s tires squealing as I left.
Here’s this month’s “Pen Avenue,” my cartoon for Print, Pittsburgh’s East End newspaper:
Print is not available online; you can only read it in (what else?) print. It’s available at Giant Eagle and other stores in Pittsburgh’s East End, or subscribe on the website.
This month’s cartoon is riffing off of this story, and other similar stories, about a plan by Pittsburgh Public Schools to merge or consolidate a number of buildings.
This is also one of the few occasions where an editor has asked me to change the wording slightly; here was the original version:
On Saturday (Nov. 16), WRCT-FM will pre-empt our show for “Anatomy of the Ear,” and I’m using that as an excuse to take a rare week off.
Instead of a new show, I’m dipping into my archive of old “Radio 9” broadcasts going back 20 years to bring you a rerun from November 2004. I haven’t heard this show myself since it originally aired, so it will be interesting to find out just how bad I was — and to compare it to more recent shows to see if I’ve ever gotten any better.
I think the show’s gotten a lot better; in 2004, I hadn’t yet worked in commercial radio and gotten a lot of additional training from the late Clarke Ingram. So this could be a painful thing to listen to.
Anyway, tune into Tube City Online Radio from 12 to 3 p.m. (Eastern U.S. time) Saturday and hear for yourself. Again: Don’t look for us on WRCT.
Next Saturday (Nov. 23), we’ll be live in Downtown McKeesport at a pop-up holiday market at the corner of Fifth and Walnut streets. McKeesport’s annual Salute to Santa parade will be from 11 a.m. to 12 noon, and we’ll be going live from the pop-up market right after that. That show, good Lord willing, will air both on Tube City Online Radio and WRCT.
(This is a political rant. If that’s not your cup of tea, best to skip it.)
I’ve been saying for a long time that the United States has late-stage Soviet Union energy right now. The system is broken and isn’t working for the average person.
Continue reading “Throw the bums out! Get a different set of bums!”On Election Day, a middle-aged disc jockey’s mind sometimes wanders. But will it ever come back?
Today, Pennsylvania voters emerge from their boroughs to decide if the U.S. will have early fascism or four more years of democracy.
I sure am tired of every election being “the most important election of our lifetimes.” I want some boring elections. I want a couple of nerds up there, Republican and Democratic, arguing over whether the capital gains tax rate should be 30 percent or 30.5 percent.
Bring back the halcyon days when the vice president couldn’t spell “potatoe” and when people voted against Jimmy Carter because he wore a sweater, not because they thought he literally was a demon.
Bring back the days when a literal joke candidate, such as Pogo Possum or Snoopy or Gracie Allen or Pat Paulsen could run for office, and we knew it was meant to be a joke; as opposed to having a real candidate who pretends to perform oral sex on a microphone and talks about Arnold Palmer’s genitals, and we all have to ask, “is this a joke?”
No matter what happens with this election, I think we’re still a long, long way from getting back to those days.
Robbie Fulks had a song called “America is a Hard Religion.” He was damned right.
Eight years later, a lot of Republicans are still pissed off that Hillary Clinton referred to some of Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables.”
It was a ham-handed remark that reinforced the idea that Clinton was condescending and out of touch, but to bend over backwards to be fair (and I usually don’t), she did specify that she was referring to people who were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
That part of what she said was rarely if ever quoted in the media.
The “deplorables” comment haunted her campaign and continues to haunt Democrats. Not a week goes by that I don’t hear or read some Trump supporter bringing up that comment.
Which begs the question: If you think Hillary Clinton was referring to you, does that mean you think you’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic? Because that’s something you have the power to fix.
I guess if I did deplorable things to other people, I would be offended if someone called me “deplorable,” but I try not to do deplorable things to other people.
Which, to be honest, is actually a lot easier than some people make it out to be.
Earlier this week, I re-posted a message from the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev. Ketlen Solak, on my LinkedIn feed. Bishop Solak wrote:
“At a time when the constant use of smoke and mirrors is wielded in an effort to confound many, the boundary between truth and untruth looks quite blurry on the surface. The denigration of immigrants serves as a prime example. When the boundary between truth and untruth becomes blurred, the principles of Scripture, particularly the eternal principles of love and justice, which call people of faith to act with love and fairness, recalibrate our vision and understanding.”
Someone responded: “Tell me you’ve endorsed Kamala without telling me you’ve endorsed Kamala.”
Well, the Lutheran Conference of Bishops issued a similar statement, which says, in part: “We, the members of the Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, speak with one voice to condemn the hateful, deceptive, violent speech that has too readily found a place in our national discourse. We lament the ways this language has led to hate-fueled action. We refuse to accept the ongoing normalization of lies and deceit.”
To be fair, the Bible is pretty clear in stating Jesus’ positions on lying (He’s against it) and welcoming strangers and foreigners (He’s for it).
Again, if you dislike being called “deplorable,” then don’t do deplorable things, like lying and demonizing people who look different from you, or who were born in a different country. Again: It’s much simpler than it’s made out to be.
While we’re on the subject, out in my corner of Pennsyltucky, a bunch of new Trump signs and flags went up over the weekend, after the Madison Square Garden rally. Which suggests that a lot of people saw the rally and really liked what they saw; if only we had a word to describe that behavior.
On the other hand, I read somewhere that Leon Mush was spending part of his fortune to provide supporters with free Trump signs. So who knows? If you’re going to get a sign for free, why not?
Which begs another question, why was Trump giving away free signs while the Dems were charging for them? A Kamala Harris sign, from the official Kamala Harris campaign website, was $20, plus $17.06 shipping.
This fits a pattern. Republicans and conservatives give away stuff — including access to their websites. Fox News’ website is free; CNN now has a paywall. The Washington Times (owned by the Rev. Moon’s Unification Church) is free; the Washington Post (owned by Jeff Bezos) has a paywall.
Is it any wonder that right-wing propaganda spreads so quickly?
To paraphrase Mark Twain, a lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is still figuring out the shipping and handling costs.
Finally, I rarely if ever watch “Saturday Night Live” these days, and this season has been no exception.
However, if this Saturday, we have to see Maya Rudolph sing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen on an empty stage, I’m going to go all Elvis on my TV.
I told my wife the “give a frog a loan” joke this morning and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to go to couples counseling now
Me: Did you know that years ago, Keith Richards had a pet frog?
Denise (laughs): No, really?
Me: Oh, yeah, and of course, Keith was known for using a lot of substances.
Denise: Sure.
Me: So Keith Richards began to treat the frog like it was a little kid. He bought it little outfits and taught it tricks and talked to it all the time. The frog eventually started to think it was human.
One day, when the frog got older, he went into a bank and asked for a mortgage to buy a house. The loan manager played along and said, “OK, but do you have a down-payment?”
At that, the frog reached into a little canvas bag and pulled out a small ceramic duck.
The loan manager said, “Look, we don’t give mortgages to frogs, and even if we did, we don’t accept ceramic ducks as down-payments.”
Well, the frog got very angry, croaking and hopping around, and the loan manager decided to humor him. She took the mortgage application and the ceramic duck into the bank manager’s office and said, “Get a load of this. There’s a frog out there who wants a mortgage on a house, and as a down-payment, he wants to use whatever this ceramic duck is.”
The bank manager took the application, and the ceramic duck, looked at them, and said, “It’s a knick-knack, Patti Wack, give the frog a loan — his old man’s a Rolling Stone.”
Denise: (stares in tolerant spouse)
(silence)
Denise: “Is this why we don’t drive into work together more often?”
Kamala Harris: Women’s reproductive health is on the ballot, we need incentives for small businesses to grow, and consumer prices are too damned high
Donald Trump: Arnold Palmer had an amazing schlong, we need to deport legal immigrants, I love ogling women
Undecided Voters: I don’t know enough about the candidates
The New York Times: Kamala Harris isn’t talking enough about issues that matter to the American public
Also, can we agree that this headline from the Tribune-Review (proprietor, the estate of the late Richard Mellon Scaife) brings spin to a whole new level?
“Trump reminisces about Arnold Palmer.” In other news, Richard Speck reminisces about dating student nurses; Hannibal Lecter reminisces about fava beans and Chianti.
Sportswriter Rick Reilly contends that in real-life, Arnold Palmer hated Donald Trump:
On a happier note, Alert Listener Mark S. reminds me that today is the birthday of my fellow Magyar Bela Lugosi, born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó this day in 1882.
Pull the string! Pull the string!
Finally, I am reminded of all of those commercials that Arnold Palmer did for Pennzoil. He recommended it for all of your lubrication needs. And no wonder.
