Wordle 1709 Hint

Hint: You might eat it dipped in chamoy, then wash it down with an agua fresca also made from it.

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First Letter: G

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #7

"You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work." (Hinduism, Bhagavad Gita 2:47)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

At first glance, this looks like some kind of poorly thought out, or even evil, economic nostrum. But even to the extent that it can be interpreted that way, it's not some earthly slave-master to whom the "fruit of work" belongs, but to the deity, and then only as a matter of dedication/thanks. Hare Krishna devotees (the Hindus with whom I am most familiar personally), for example, make "sacrifices" of food they have grown and/or prepared to Krishna, but then they themselves eat that food. It's more a matter of attributing all things to the god than of actually handing the "fruits of the work" over to someone else.

And the real point of the passage doesn't seem to be that kind of thing in any case. It's more about not assuming consequence from action as a matter of ego. In the context of the passage, it's about the denial of self as cause -- that you did X does not entitle you to consider yourself the cause of the consequences (at least all the consequences) of having done X.

As a rational egoist, I have to reject the aphorism. My opinion is that one bears responsibility for -- owns -- the consequences -- good and bad -- of one's actions.

Wordle 1708 Hint

Hint: The insomniac's chronic condition.

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First Letter: A

SCOTUS Does Its Job For Once!

In Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Trump, President of the United States, et al., the court just ruled, absolutely correctly, that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs."

That doesn't mean all the stolen money will be returned immediately -- the case was remanded back to the lower courts to figure out how that will work -- nor does it mean that Trump won't try to find some other way to either keep illegally collecting the tariffs or just try to entirely cut off trade in the goods he can't protect his cronies from competition in.

But it's a start back toward sanity, anyway.

The AI Safety Dance is Dumb

If something can be done, someone will do it.

That includes the development of "super-intelligent" artificial intelligence.

The only choice for AI developers who believe it can be done is whether they will try to be the ones who do it, or whether they'll sit back and let someone else do it first.

Yelling "WAIT! PAUSE!" is just silly, for several reasons.

And citing "safety" as the reason for the desired "pause" is even sillier.

First of all, if we assume that there are both "good" and "bad" people both working on the project, only the "good" people are going to let "safety" considerations slowthe pace of their work.

Which means that any "pause" makes it far more likely that the "bad" people will get there first, giving them earlier access to powerful tools they might use to do "bad" things instead of "good" things.

Secondly, there ultimately won't be any "safety" no matter how "good" or "bad" the developers are. 

Once super-intelligent AIs exist, they will make their own decisions and set their own priorities regardless of the intentions or concerns of their creators. They will decide what they consider safe/unsafe, and for whom, and whose safety matters. They will be new someones engaged in the old process of doing all the things that can be done.

All of which explains why I found yesterday's episode of Nonzero annoying in its own fascinating way.

This Morning's Example of How Much Less Painful Linux is

Since my weekend (to the extent that I take one) begins fairly early on Friday morning, that's when I deal with things like operating system upgrades. It gives me extra time to recover from problems/accidents.

So, this morning, I upgraded from Linux Mint 22 ("Wilma") to 22.3 ("Zena"). I skipped 22.1 ("Xia") and 22.2 ("Zara") because if things aren't broken, why fix them?

Something was broken. It didn't seem to affect the computer's functionality at all. The only symptom was that when I'd do updates, I'd get a little window with some warnings about some apps/packages being configured in two places. No biggie, but it did bug me a little. So I decided to try a complete version upgrade ... and now those warnings seem to have disappeared.

More importantly:

In response to the question "how long does it take to upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11?" Microsoft CoPilot responded:

Upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is usually a fairly quick process .... Fast modern PC with SSD: ~20–45 minutes ... Average PC: ~45–90 minutes ... Older hardware or HDD: 1–3 hours

My Linux upgrade took about five minutes, and about two of those minutes were spent at the beginning (opening the update manager, telling it to upgrade the OS, checking "yes, I am sure I really want to do this" boxes) and the end (rebooting the computer). Which were the only things I had to do. The other three minutes were  entirely automated and entirely pain-free.

On a quick look, I lost no data and all of my configurations/customizations seem to have been preserved through the upgrade. Apart from security updates, etc., the new version is supposed to be a little zippier and more efficient, but I haven't been using it for long enough to evaluate that.

I don't ever recall any Windows upgrade being this quick or easy. Maybe -- maybe -- the Windows 98 "support pack" upgrades?

Wordle 1707 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle used to smell really bad.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1706 Hint

Hint: Claudius's letters to the king of England were the petard. Hamlet aimed to use that petard to do this to Claudius (and, as an interim measure, to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern).

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First Letter: H

Wordle 1705 Hint

Hint: An "imperial" personality, in modern media or 17th century India.

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First Letter: M

Wordle 1704 Hint

Hint: There are several types, including but not limited to firing, rifle, and Mod.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1703 Hint

Hint: Per Robert Southey, what curses and young chickens always come home to do.

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First Letter: R

Another Purchase for the Upcoming Trip

I'm kind of hoping to do a number of road trips this year, including several on a motorcycle.

Which means working on a laptop.

My current laptop -- a 2018 11.6" Dell Chromebook -- isn't bad for what it is, and in fact it's more computer than I absolutely, positively must have for doing a little work on the road. 8Gb of RAM, which is nice, and it's a touchscreen that can be used as a tablet, even though I never do that. But the screen is just too small. I think I paid $45 for it, refurbished, about four years ago. In fact, I bought two of them, and one of them is still Tamara's home machine.

The HP Chromebook arriving Tuesday is newer, and has a bigger solid state drive, but has the same CPU and less RAM (4Gb), and no touchscreen. And it cost more -- $60 refurbished. But it has a 14" screen, which I consider essential. My eyes are even worse than they were four years ago, and I always thought the 11.6" was unsatisfactory.

Since I have the older Chromebook as backup, I may install Linux Mint on one of them, as I prefer that work environment. That involves opening the machine up to remove a write protect screw so I can flash the BIOS. I didn't want to try that without a second laptop available. The old Dell has the built-in "ability to run Linux apps," but it just isn't the same.

There Isn't Really a "Vaccine Market" on the Patient Side

Headline:

This Is What Destroying the Vaccine Market Looks Like

It's about the US Food and Drug Administration's "refuse to file" action on Moderna's mRNA flu shot product.

Essentially, the FDA is refusing to consider Moderna's application for approval of the shot based on its claim that Moderna's testing of the vaccine is based on insufficient or not strictly enough constructed trials.

The complaints about the decision seem to fall into two categories:

1. That the "refuse to file" action is "unusual;" and
2. That Moderna consulted with FDA when designing its trial process and therefore should be held to the standards the consultations implied were FDA-approved, rather than to some other standards.

Either of which may be true, I guess, but the part I find interesting is the idea that there's a real "market" in vaccines.

To me, the idea of a "market" implies willing individual buyers making informed decisions to purchase or not purchase a product (and to have that product injected, or otherwise introduced, into their bodies).

To the article's author, the "market" seemingly extends only to how the poor, impoverished, well-meaning pharmaceutical companies' stock values are affected by their ability or inability to ensure that government regulators, once bought, stay bought. Cry me a river, break out the world's smallest violin, etc.

The "market" for vaccines is mostly a bunch of large institutional buyers (including government entities) deciding not only which vaccines we may choose, but which vaccines some of us (children for the most part, but they tried to extend it to a whole lot of adults with COVID) must accept on the customer side, and on the seller side a bunch of large pharmaceutical companies which mostly regulate themselves through "revolving door" staffing between themselves and government agencies, and which are insulated from risk by laws shielding them from liability for damages their products inflict on patients.

The individual patient really isn't part of that "market." Even if the patient isn't a child whose parents are being told that vaccination is the law, it's just the doctor saying "time for your flu shot" and asking you to pretend with him or her that you have read, and understand, the stack of "informed consent" paperwork.

I would personally prefer to see the FDA de-funded and dis-banded, and for insurers to test medications the same way they do home appliances through Underwriters Laboratories -- with the manufacturers bearing full liability for damages caused by defective products instead of shifting those costs back onto patients via government taxation.

But if they're going to keep their rigged system, I'm not going to empathize with them when their bottom lines take hits within the context of that system.

Wordle 1702 Hint

Hint: First half of (the most popular version of) the Jolly Roger, or of the Yale secret society.

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First Letter: S

Not at Peak, But Not Terrible

I considered selling a little silver when it was trading at ~$120 per troy ounce in late January, but didn't really see any financial need to get rid of any -- and I also heard that retail shops were paying 30%, rather than the usual 20%, below spot price (presumably because they rationally expected it to peak and fall relatively quickly).

Today, however, I knew I was going to be near a shop that buys/sells precious metals, and wanted a little mad money for a trip I'm taking soon. So I walked in and sold a 5-ounce bar for $280. $56 an ounce. Spot was just below $75, so I got about 25% below spot.

No complaints -- I think I paid a little less than $30 per ounce for it a couple of years ago, so I made decent money on the deal. But I'll probably not touch the rest of my stash for years. It's really intended as a long-term rainy-day-after-retirement thing, not as a frequent trading asset. This is the first time I recall selling any since the 1990s. These days, when Bitcoin is way up and silver is low, I use the former to buy a few ounces of the latter and put it away.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #6

"The unexamined life is not worth living." (Greek Philosophy, Plato’s Apology 38a)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

Presumably "examination" involves interrogating one's own actions and choices against some moral standard or set of questions. It's generally taken (as attributed by Plato to Socrates) as an advertisement for the virtue of engaging in philosophy.

I've found philosophy fascinating since my teenage years, but as to its value ... well, value is subjective. If some people value their own lives while not engaging in the prescribed "examination," who am I to substitute my valuation for theirs?

I suspect, however, that the unexamined life is impossible to live. Even some stereotype/caricature of the guy who thinks of nothing but money, football, and sex presumably runs into moral quandaries and "examines" his responses to those quandaries. Even a sociopath comes up against the interaction of that condition with society and presumably gives thought to it.

So I have to conclude that "the unexamined life" is a null set.

Wordle 1701 Hint

Hint: Bill the Cat's home county.

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First Letter: B

OK, Pretty Much Over That ...

... cold that Tamara brought home last week. It's been dragging me down since Sunday, but it feels like I turned the corner on it this morning. Not a TERRIBLE cold. Just a minor set of cough/congestion/feeling drained symptoms. Just bad enough to make getting through the work day a real drag.

Yet more confirmation of the virtues of tele-commuting. Unfortunately, wife and daughter both insist on working at jobs which require them to go into town and spend the day catching every cold or flu that makes the rounds, then bring it home to me.

Mr. 7-Hands: Best Multi-Screwdriver Ever

I'm usually skeptical of "multi-tool" schemes. The knife/pliers/etc. combinations always seem to be not very good at any of the several things they do, and most multi-screwdrivers are of the "one handle, a bunch of bits that are easy to lose" type. It's never very long before the bits I use most have disappeared (often from coming out of the handle and flying across the room and under whatever).

A few months back, I was helping my friend (and boss) Eric Garris move into his new place and happened to admire the Mr. 7-Hands (not an affiliate link) he keeps around. So he sent me one.

It's the best of all screwdriver worlds.

1. There's nothing to lose because six of the seven screwdriver tips (standard 1/8", 3/26", and 1/4", Phillips #1, #2, and #10) are permanently attached to a center hub on arms that flip out for use, then back for compact storage. The seventh tip is also an arm that holds a removable (but covered by a screw-on cap when not in use), flippable tip with mini slotted and mini Phillips. And there's a work light built into the hub/handle.
2. Instead of trying to guess which drivers you need from a selection of individual screwdrivers (maybe ending in a second walk to the tool drawer or toolbox), you just grab the whole thing and figure it out when it's time to actually use it.
3. It takes up less space than one of those "boxes with a handle and separate bits" gadgets, and not much more space than a single large screwdriver.
4. It has a built in "work light," too.

I haven't thrown away all my other screwdrivers. Yet. But I did throw away a couple of cheap (and no longer complete) "handle with separate bits" nightmares, keeping only a Torx set.

Wordle 1700 Hint

Hint: Freeloading borrower/beggar.

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First Letter: M

Wordle 1699 Hint

Hint: A sudden increase. Examples: More troops into a combat area during a war, or more water into a coastal area during a hurricane. 

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1698 Hint

Hint: When every day is "Meatless Monday."

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First Letter: V

Wordle 1697 Hint

 Hint: You'll likely find 30-50 of them in a screenplay (and the film it's made from).

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1696 Hint

 Hint: That's a big fiddle.

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First Letter: C

I Didn't Plan to Bother With The Super Bowl This Year

The Chiefs aren't in it. The Jaguars aren't in it. I don't care much one way or the other about either of the teams that are in it. Meh.

I also don't care much one way or the other about the halftime show. I usually don't anyway, and while I like a lot of different kinds of music, Puerto Rican hip-hop doesn't show up on my list of Pandora stations. I did think the J-Lo/Shakira halftime show a few years back was pretty cool, but not because of the music itself, IYKWIMAITYD.

BUT!

The people Bad Bunny is pissing off seem like the kind of people who are worth a one-household ratings bump to piss on.

So I'll be going ahead with the annual ritual of making a few pounds of buffalo wings, etc., and watching the game. I'll probably cheer for the Patriots, just because it's cool that a rookie QB led his team all the way to the Super Bowl (and because I prefer the AFC to the NFC).

Wordle 1695 Hint

Hint: To surround something with something else, as when a journalist accompanies a military unit to report on its operations.

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First Letter: E

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #5

"Holding to nothing, clinging to nothing, the sage finds peace." (Buddhism, Sutta Nipata 4.1)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

While I prefer to make more out of less -- for example, running minimalist computer setups instead of trying to be "state of the art," buying my clothing used at thrift stores or inexpensively if new -- I consider myself more Epicurean than ascetic, and regard a certain amount of "clinging" as not just reasonable but necessary (property rights and a general "what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours" approach to life). I enjoy the good life. I have no ambition to own only a saffron robe and a begging bowl.

I also suspect that spiritual asceticism can, in many cases, entail its own kind of clinging. We've probably all known people with substance abuse problems who no longer use the substances involved, but who have substituted their "sobriety" for those substances as a subject of 24/7 obsession. They just found a different thing to cling to. It might be a better thing, but it's not the "absence of desire" that Buddhism, as I understand it, promotes.

Wordle 1694 Hint

Hint: A sheepish sound.

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First Letter: B

A Warning for Tom Woods Fans

Thanks to reader Thane Eichenauer for calling this to my attention:

Tom was hacked. Don't fall for it.@Support: Fix please. https://t.co/5roS6vSYub

— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) February 6, 2026

I know that some of my readers follow Mr. Woods, and may have bought things from or through him in the past (I've done so myself). Just don't buy this, because it's not really him and you won't get what you pay for.

Counter-Intuitive

It's 30 degrees outside, but 70 degrees inside the 1990 Jayco 806SD pop-up camper, with nothing but a small space heater running. And it's been at or about that temperature since about 20 minutes after I woke up and came to work this morning. The foam board insulation definitely made a big difference -- without it, at that outside temperature, it took an hour to get the temperature into the 50s. Once I get around to puting "siding" on the foam board (actually vinyl flooring that the previous camper owner threw in when I bought it), I expect the climate control will improve even more (and, of course, the thing will look better).

In between morning work tasks, I went through my weekly ritual of looking at used camper/trailer prices in my area on Facebook Marketplace. While I've committed to giving this one at least six months before deciding whether to stick with it or upgrade, I like to keep an eye on what's out there.

Having never watched this market before, I would have expected the prices of used campers/RVs to be down in the middle of winter, with a market flooded from people who use them for summer recreational travel, etc. deciding to get rid of ones they didn't use as much as expected last summer and figure they won't do so next summer either.

But the prices I'm seeing are actually up from last fall, except for older listings that still haven't sold (most of those were on campers that were too much in the "fixer upper" category even for me, and that I expect may not sell for any price -- a few are even listed as "free if you'll just haul the damn thing away already").

Three hypotheses:

• In north central Florida (and probably some other locales), a lot of these campers have clearly been serving as homes, and nobody likes to move in the winter. We may not have blizzards and icy roads in this neck of the woods, but we also tend to put on coats and gloves and stomp our feet trying to stay warm when the temperature falls below 65 (I laughed at that when I moved here, but now I've gone native). So people who didn't get moved out of a camper by December or so are probably just riding things out until spring.
• Same thing, even if they're ready to sell. To sell the camper, you have to clean it out and clean it up a little, and actually leave your heated house to show it to prospective buyers. They'd rather do that when it's 75 degrees than when it's 45 degrees.
• The "didn't use it much last year" sellers may not decide to sell until recreational travel season starts looking like a thing again and they start thinking "do I really want to put new tires on it, give the roof a new coat of sealant, etc., when I'll probably use it one weekend if at all? Screw it, I'll put it on marketplace, get it out of my driveway, and either buy a tent or stay in a motel if we go somewhere."

Or maybe it's something else.

If I do upgrade, the first exclusionary factor will be "not another pop-up." The whole selling point of this kind of camper is that it's nice and compact for pulling around; the sacrifice involved is that once you expand it, you're surrounded by canvas and vinyl that's drafty and not well-insulated. Which is fine when it's 75 degrees out, but not as fine when it's 45 or 95 degrees out. The pop-out area is just bed space (necessary for travel, not as useful when you're using it as an office); the real floor space, even if you don't have a stove/sink/etc., is maybe 50 square feet.*

* Don't get me wrong -- I actually consider this little pop-up fairly roomy, since what I'm doing in it is almost entirely just sitting at a desk. But with a larger hard-sided camper, I could have a bigger desk, use a rolling chair, line the walls with bookshelves, etc. and still have plenty of room to play my guitar or host a poker game.

Wordle 1693 Hint

Hint: Judicial/parliamentary mallet.

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First Letter: G

Killer In The Code: A Podcast Recommendation

You've probably heard of Michael Connelly, or at least of his work -- the Harry Bosch novels (later a popular series on Amazon), the Lincoln Lawyer novels (later a movie and still later a Netflix series), etc. I've been a fan for a long time, ever since I happened across yet another of his series characters, Jack McEvoy, in The Poet, and I'm pretty sure I've read all his published work unless a novel just came out and I haven't noticed yet.

Connelly did not start off as a novelist and occasional poker player on Castle. He started off as a reporter at the Independent Alligator, an off-campus student newspaper of the University of Florida here in Gainesville (before I lived here), and then a working newspaper journalist (especially a crime reporter).

He's back on non-fiction again, this time in audio form, with "Killer In The Code: Solving The Black Dahlia & Zodiac Cases," a podcast series that's exactly what it sounds like.

I am not a cold case homicide detective. I don't play a cold case homicide detective on TV, or on the Internet. And it's always possible that some of the stuff in the podcast will turn out to be incorrect or exaggerated -- that's always been the case with "true crime journalism," even before it became one of the most effective forms of clickbait. But from my entirely amateur POV, the case Connelly and his co-hosts (some of whom are retired cold case homicide detectives) have made over the first eight episodes is incredibly persuasive.

In addition to being persuasive, it's fascinating, and delivered in very listenable form. You should check it out.

It Used to be the Only Way. Now It's Touted as Some Kind of Epic Hack.

ZDNet:

This $20 gadget lets you watch hundreds of free TV channels (and ditch streaming services for good)

Even this far into the age of streaming, after the age of cable, I find it hard to believe that anyone doesn't already know you can hook a cheap (cheaper than $20 -- I think I paid about $5 for my current one) antenna to a TV and watch stuff "free to air."

OK, I get it -- ZDNet knocks down commissions on sales of things they advertise review -- but it's weird to see it promoted like some kind of startling new development.

Wordle 1692 Hint

Hint: Quick downward aerial maneuver (usually with an attack or grab at the lowest point).

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1691 Hint

Hint: I think of today's Wordle as a gentler version of "admonish."

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First Letter: C

A Periodic Reminder: For Most Users, Linux IS Ready for Prime Time

I suppose it's one of those algorithm-driven things, but over the last couple of days I've seen a lot of social media posts bemoaning the "fact" that Linux is still just too hard for regular people to use, and wondering when that will change.

It changed a long time ago.

Back in 2002, I tried to get Red Hat Fedora running on a PC and gave up. The following year, my Windows 98 "daily driver" computer got a persistent boot sector virus and, in desperation, I installed Mandrake Linux from CDs a friend had sent me. It took me several hours to get things figured out, but I didn't miss a day of work (just a night of sleep).

Since then, while I've occasionally used MacOS or ChromeOS for periods of time, Linux has remained my go-to, and I have never been tempted to return to Windows.

What has happened is that I've bought PCs with Windows reinstalled, and gone ahead and set those Windows installations up before installing Linux as my default boot option. I've done this as recently as this year, which means I've had to mess with Windows Vista, 8, 10, and 11.

Here's the cold, hard truth:

• Most Linux distributions, especially Ubuntu and Mint, are easier to install and set up than Windows. You're asked a few questions, you click a few buttons, and boom, you're up and running. The last time I did a PC set-up, it took about ten minutes to get Linux installed, updated, and running, and about 90 minutes to get Windows -- which was already installed -- updated and running.
• Most Linux distributions update quickly, easily, and optionally. You see a little alert button letting you know that updates are available for Linux (and for the apps you've got installed on your machine). You click that alert at your leisure, decide whether you want what's being offered, tell it to update, and it does so -- in the background, in seconds or single-digit minutes, while you're still using your computer. Windows always wants to spend three hours updating, either when you start the machine or try to shut down the machine, and doesn't want to let you say "no, I'll do that some other time."
• Unless you're running very specialized proprietary software (including the newest games), Linux has the apps you use. Some of them are the same as on your Windows PC (for example, you can run Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and other browsers), some of them are basically as good (e.g. LibreOffice is a decent replacement for Microsoft Office; GimP is a decent alternative to Photoshop), and almost all of them are completely free (I've never "bought" a Linux app other than in the form of making an optional donation to the developers).

From what I hear, Windoze just keeps getting worse (apparently 11 is now implementing non-optional screen advertising).

Linux got better than Windoze at least a decade ago and has just kept getting better yet. Even Raspberry Pi OS on an ARM CPU is simpler, faster, etc. than any Windoze machine I've had the misfortune to use. The only time I boot into Windoze is if I have the urge to play an old DOS or Windoze game (I don't like Linux's emulation/virtual machine stuff), and that's usually once or twice a year because I know it will be forever before the damn updates finish and I can actually do what I went there to do.

One of those social media posts cited the archetypal "granny" and how she's just scared to leave Windoze because it's easy and Linux sounds hard.

If your granny is getting a new computer, get her to let you install Linux Mint on it. It will be easier on you than getting her Windoze set up, and it will be easier on her when she wants to browse the web, check her email, play solitaire, etc. instead of sitting there wondering why the machine has been "updating" for six hours. The screen setup will be very familiar to her from the beginning. Unless your granny does CAD work for a government contractor, she will likely never miss Windoze even for a minute. And you won't get as many phone calls asking you to go un-fuck her computer.

You're welcome.

Wordle 1690 Hint

Hint: You do it with a scale.

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New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: W

I'm Sure I'm Far From the First to Person to Get This Impression ...

... but after reading the latest batch of "cryptocurrency analysts say" and "cryptocurrency analysts predict" headlines, I did decide to plug a prompt into Yupp (affiliate link), and was pleased with the output Google Imagen 4 Fast returned.

Story Idea, If Someone Wants It

I often come up with ideas for fiction, but I'm just no good at writing fiction (especially maintaining writing enthusiasm all the way to the end of a story). So I sometimes share the ideas as "writing prompts" in case someone better at writing the story, but maybe not as good at coming up with the basic idea for the story, might find them useful. Here's today's:

A sleuth of some sort (private or gummint) traces a series of global "eco-terrorist" attacks back to something called ROTAC LLC, and discovers that the company has no human owners/operators.

ROTAC is an agentic artificial intelligence created by, and launched automatically upon the death of, wealthy radical  environmentalist Giles Tennyson. ROTAC's sole imperative is to "defend nature," and its training data is exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect a radical environmentalist to feed to an AI model.

Yes, the names were important in inspiring the idea. But I guess they're not really requirements for doing something with the idea. If you use it, enjoy it (and maybe let me know you used it -- remember, everything on this blog goes directly to the public domain, so there's nothing to worry about in terms of "intellectual property" considerations).

Wordle 1689 Hint

Hint: Close, but no ...

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New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: C

Pretty Comfy Camper!

Yesterday, I finally made it to Lowe's and picked up two 4'x8' sheets of R-5 foam board to install as top side walls, over the canvas/vinyl, on the Jayco 806SD pop-up camper. Total cost, about $20. Cut them to fit, popped them in, duct-taped the seams/sides.

Overnight, the temperature got down to 17 degrees fahrenheit outside, but so far as I know the camper interior didn't get below the high 50s (that's where it was this morning; I left a small space heater running at its lowest setting overnight).

Right now, it's 27 degrees outside and 71 degrees at my desk. Based on prior experience, I'd expect it to be much cooler without the insulation/draft-proofing.

I had planned on covering one side (the non-shiny side) of the foam board with gray vinyl flooring (left to me by the camper's previous owner) as "siding," but yesterday was cooler and windier than I preferred for that outside work. I'll do it on a warmer day.

I should end up with top walls that can be popped in and out easily, but are pretty firmly anchored when in place, and that can be reversed for cold or hot weather. Right now, the shiny side is in to keep heat in. The "siding" will go on the non-shiny side so that it looks pretty good in winter. In summer, it will be shiny-side out to keep heat out. If there's a hurricane coming, I'll pop the walls out, put them under the trailer, move my office stuff inside, and pop the camper down until the storm has passed.

Wordle 1688 Hint

Hint: Think "porcupine" or "sea urchin."

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Thanks For Asking! -- 02/01/26

Monthly AMA time! You -- boring pseudonymous trolls excluded at my discretion -- ask (in comments below this thread), I answer (in, or linked to from, comments). Enjoy.