My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 9, 2025

Since someone commented to me online, knowing that I’ve been tinkering with AI chatbots, “How much should everyday non-business users be paying for artificial intelligence?”

I thought to myself and then decided to test the new ChatGPT4o … better known as ChatGPT5 … what “it” thought we should be paying (BTW, ChatGPT5 “really likes designing with the color purple). 😉 

You raise an important point — while AI tools are powerful, their cost-to-value ratio can vary significantly for non-business, personal users. Here’s a breakdown to help assess what’s worth paying for:

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Category: Advice, AI, Education, Financial, Human Interest, Technology, Tools, Video | No Comments »
Tags: artificial intelligence, chatgpt5, openai, sam altman, youtube

Posted By RichC on August 8, 2025

For years, Google-served ads have appeared in the headers and footers of My Desultory Blog. Each time removing them seems appealing, the realization hits that they generate enough income – though far less than in the early days — to cover server costs, so they remained.

Early this summer, tweaks were made to lessen their intrusiveness, but little changed. As August arrived, a near-decision to remove them rose to my thoughts again. However, recent changes at AdSense prompted a delay – a final decision is pending. 😉 

Dear Publisher,

As previously announced, Google will begin using machine learning to estimate the age of signed-in users in the United States. Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to roll out this update to a small set of users in the U.S. to help us further protect young people as they use Google products. We’ll closely monitor this before we roll it out more widely.

For our publisher ad products, when our machine learning model flags a Google signed-in user as likely under 18, they will be provided additional ad safeguards. This includes:

• Disabling ads personalization

• Disallowing sensitive creative categories from serving

These changes will be applied to demand served through Google publisher products (Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob) when Google account information is used. There is no action needed at this time.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team 

Category: Blogs, Financial, Marketing, Privacy, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: adsense, advertising, blog, google, monetize, tech friday, techfriday

Posted By RichC on August 7, 2025

It is crazy to realize we are now in August already and soon kids across America will be going back to school (some actually start in July)! Anyway, for a #TBT triggering post, I spotted this video on social media that reminded me of the Ironing Board reenactment post of Brian Regan‘s comedy. Whoa … that was in 2008 … and is worth a click! 😊

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Category: Education, Humor, Nature, TBT, Video | No Comments »
Tags: #TBT Throwback Thursday, back to school, backporch, backyard, brian regan, comedy, edit add, hummingbird, ironing board

Posted By RichC on August 6, 2025

My favorite vehicle: 1994 Toyota 4Runner and first solo-drive: VW Karmann Ghia

A couple of automotive triggering discussions regarding “working on cars” came about over the weekend that triggered my thinking, “I should be working on cars in the garage again.” Maybe was the pleasant low-humidity weather or just seeing the Wyze cam videos of classic cars out for drives, or driving the Mercedes Benz 300d Turbodiesel on Saturday and Taylor chatting about working on the MGB (video from 2005) … but it did get me thinking about cars again. What’s next, getting fired up about  sailing again – but only if Brenda’s bones can take it? 

Mild weather weekends always bring out the classic cars rumbling slowly by. They give me the itch to get working on cars in my garage. #automotive pic.twitter.com/zzSyXT0ZTX

— Rich Corbett 🇺🇸 (@RichC)

August 4, 2025

Category: Automotive, Mercedes, MGB, Packard, Social Media, Volkswagen, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: 4runner, classic cars, garage, hawk, karmann ghia, mgb, packard, volkswagen, x.com

Posted By RichC on August 5, 2025

Since the previous post was  a recap of Monday’s market rebound after Friday’s stock market selloff, I’m using this post as an excuse to get a couple of saved items out of the folder where I collect ideas for MDB.

The first photo one is a bit nutty if you ask me, but because it is used behind the scenes by someone regularly interviewed on television, it is generally never seen. I suspect those who need conference setups are always look for ring-lights and tripods to hold their camera/screen devices, but I’ve never quite seen one like this: A wooden stand that holds a notebook computer’s camera at a height acceptable for video chats and TV interviews. Perhaps it beats cords dangling everywhere, but there must be a better solution?

This second “saved image” is a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics FRED graphic that illustrates the employment of Foreign Born employment vs Native Born U.S. employment from about 2011 to 2025. Notice that the index numbers were closer back in 2011 (actually equal in 2007) and that significantly more Foreign Born workers were being employed in the U.S. vs Native Born citizens. Both suffered in 2020 (Covid-19) BUT when business recovered and  employment resumed after the pandemic (during the Biden administration), one group expanded much more rapidly that the other — can you guess when the border was opened and mass illegal immigration occurred? 

It will be interesting to see if things change after 2025; will Native Born U.S. citizens continue to gain employment and will the deportation of illegal aliens boost wages and employment for Native Born U.S. workers? Time will tell if the Trump administration’s policies can continue to grow the domestic economy and job prospects for those “legally” working in the U.S. 

Category: Archive, Ideas, Misc, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: fred, illegal alien, immigration, interview, jobs, laptop, video, workers

Posted By RichC on August 5, 2025

U.S. stocks surged on Monday, August 4, 2025, with major indexes like the Dow industrials climbing over 500 points, a gain of 1% or more. From utilities to meme stocks, the rally was broad-based, catching some investors off guard after last week’s volatility.

Markets faced turbulence late last week due to President Trump’s tariff announcements, a disappointing jobs report, and his decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These events spurred investors to increase bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in September.

“The speed of this market rebound was unexpected,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “I thought we’d see a deeper dip before buyers stepped in, but people aren’t waiting around.”

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Category: Financial, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: graphic, investing, stock market, wsj

Posted By RichC on August 4, 2025

Who growing up in the 1970s or 1980s didn’t enjoy watching Saturday Night Live, or the program that just goes by SNL these days, once in a while? It is hard not run out of space to list the many talented comedians and actors that rose to fame while appearing on NBC’s unique weekly late night program. Did I get old … or are the show’s better days behind it?  

I for one remember watching Jake and Elwood (John Bellucci and Dan Aykroyd) sing, dance and eventually perform in their band and act in The Blues Brothers movie. So for this week on Music Monday, here’s a segment from X.com (ignore the TikTok banner) from SNL in 1978. Great memories and a talented duo.

Category: Entertainment, Humor, Music, Social Media, Video | No Comments »
Tags: blues brothers, comedy, Dan Aykroyd, John Bellucci, music monday, musicmonday, nbc, snl, tiktok, x.com

Posted By RichC on August 3, 2025

Look at the feelers on this moth (link). God’s creation in nature is amazing!

It has been so much more pleasant this weekend compared to last — weather wise – and besides mowing, decided to remove a couple overgrown low-spreading bushes in our half-moon. We didn’t plant flowers as usual this year knowing it was something we’ve been wanted to tackle. One thing I hate about aging landscaping is that the root systems generally take hold and make them nearly impossible to dig out. The John Deere 330 wasn’t able to put enough pressure on the plants so seeing that chaining it to the BMW X5 35d worked so well last weekend, decided to do the same again. I worked.

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Category: Archive, Faith, Nature, Personal, Photos, Weather, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: BMW, bushes, derust, feelers, fireplace, flowers, half-moon, john deere, landscaping, lawn bench, moth, paint, poker, project, taylor, x5 35d, yardwork

Posted By RichC on August 2, 2025

It is interesting how certain things trigger long ago memories so clearly. I could see this can of Awake Orange Juice (with the orange lid) from the 1960s clearly in my mind. Likely I remember these cans from a container to store spare bolts and nuts or parts, but I also recall something else my Grandpa Bluhm would do with them — use them flattened out to store currency in … then stored in an old paint can down in his basement workshop (depression era thinking).

The topic came up when Taylor and I had a text chat last week about the Figma Inc. IPO — Ticker $FIG. Having been through a few questionable cycles of IPO excitement before, I mention that artificial intelligence IPOs reminded me a little bit of investing in Dotcom IPOs and e-commerce startups in the late 1990s. Every company wanted to marketed a connection to the investors wanting in on the growth potenital of the Internet … often there wasn’t much behind them beside the Dotcom name (and no Brenda, I’m not suggesting you didn’t build a fine Rx fulfillment facility … it was impressive. Too bad the buyer CVS didn’t see it that way)! 😉 

I’m not discounting today’s “artificial intelligence” related IPOs or suggesting the excitement isn’t real … but often it is difficult to know whether companies are raising capital and have something real … or if they are raising money because investors are willing to give it to them? First day interest has often faded in years past, but “because of a 3-year bottleneck, tech IPO investors have been starved for new deals” as one analyst put it. Who knows … 🤷

Category: AI, Financial, Memories, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: awake, brave leo ai, gpa bluhm, grandfather, grandpa bluhm, investing, ipo, money, orange juice, paint can

Posted By RichC on August 1, 2025

It has been too long between truly “desultory” posts, so I’ll add one on the topic of iOS photo editing and iOS apps.

Ever since I updated my iPhone from the long-lasting iPhone 7 Plus almost a year ago, I’ve been missing the magnifier highlighting tool that was part of Apple’s previous iOS. Now that I’m up-to-date and using the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the extra tool that I occasionally used is missing. Hopefully Apple will decide to include it in future releases and although it has been missed, I’ve been reluctant to shell out the money for a questionable app called Annotable.

First, it wants access to my full photo archive (don’t like that) and second if I want to use the magnifier tool, it requires a purchase. So for now, it will be no magnifier highlighting for me.

As for the desultory question: “Would you eat this black dot on your salami?”

Category: Apple, Misc, Photos, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: annotable, apple, apps, desultory, ios, iphone16promax, iphone7plus, lunch, salami, tech friday, techfriday