Routine Revelations

Google has released a Linux terminal (CLI) agent for Gemini, Gemini CLI, that I have installed on my remote desktop container. One of the things I can with it is create thumbnail versions of image files like the one to the right. Gemini used imagemagick to create the file using convert. First I listed the contents of the folder containing the original JPG then told it to create a thumbnail version of the Phoenix Palm Trees image, which is the same picture as the banner picture above. Another thing I tried is I asked Gemini to summarize the PDFs that are in my Downloads folder. Here is a link to the Gemini CLI documentation.

The wheels have fallen off the Chicago Cubs pitching. Since last Thursday, June 19 Cubs pitchers have given up seven or more runs per game, six of which (not surprisingly) were losses. At this rate the Cubs will be out of first place in the NL Central by the end of next week. The big problem is too many walks and too many home runs.

I found this article, The Fundamentalist Fallacy, yesterday and there is so much I am in agreement with that I almost highlighted the entire piece. I immediately purchased The War of Art.

Six years ago Iran was an issue for the then President Trump and President Carter noted the irony that the most warlike country on Earth claims itself to be a Christian nation. Some see the current Israel and United States as siblings and that may be actually appropriate as I suspect the Jewish prophets would have the same criticisms of the United States as they had of Israel.

Seems to me the U.S. involvement in the Middle East is a consequence of not treating lobbying as the emolument it is and which the Constitution prohibits.

Just read Martin Fowler’s article on “expert generalists” and feel it describes me well, or at least how I aspire myself to be known. In the IT services industry in which I work I don’t think the contrast is specialists versus generalists but rather low cost labor versus high cost labor. My company has a focus on low cost labor, the consequence of which I think is a decrease in curiosity and with it ownership or personal accountability. I mean people are conditioned to stay within their box because that is all they are being paid to do. I am convinced that what I see, and what I am describing, is a deliverable of a managerial culture within a company as opposed to a leadership culture.

This outcome was something the Constitution was designed to prevent. “The Framers of the Constitution were clear that only Congress is empowered to commence offensive military hostilities,” former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) wrote on X. “But there are people on the left and right who reject divided powers and fundamentally hate America. They’re working deliberately and methodically to destroy it.”

Reason.com, “Trump Shreds the Constitution By Bombing Iran”

Retirement practice at Contrast Coffee in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

I think the essay that I wrote last year about AI, A People’s AI, still holds. Apple hasn’t really released Apple Intelligence yet and has taken some arrows because of it, but I still think in the end AI is going to do more for Apple than either Google or Microsoft.

Last year on this date the Chicago Cubs had a 32-35 record and would go on to a 83-79 record and finished 10 games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central. Right now they have a 41-27 record, are in first place in the NL Central and lead St. Louis by 5 games. The Cubs currently have the second best record in the National League and fourth best in the the MLB.

People complain about the TSA at the airports all the time, and some of those people might remember a time when there was no TSA and one could even walk to an airport gate without a ticket. Do you want the TSA on every street in America? That is what is coming, although in a more armored form. Every democrat ought to be warning us that this thing most people do not like, the TSA, is going to be much worse in the coming months.

Do those people who call themselves Second Amendment “believers” not realize that one of the reasons why southern states wanted the second amendment is because they feared the federal takeover of state militias, which we now call the national guard? In other words, they demanded the right to bear arms because they feared a president would do the exact thing Donald Trump has done in California. If you truly believe in the Second Amendment, or for that matter the Constitution and Bill of Rights, you should be opposed to what Trump has done.

Hey, it’s Windows 95 all over again. What’s old is new.

I don’t understand the definition of a sell out at a Major League Baseball game. My definition would that every seat is occupied, but that can’t be true because the Tigers say the weekend series against the Cubs sold out every game and yet on Friday night I saw entire blocks of empty seats in the upper deck, left field corner. Sure, there are going to be empty seats as people don’t show up, but entire rows? Not to mention the many empty seats right behind home plate. Something doesn’t compute. I know they are talking ticket sales, but with the paperless tickets and scanning it should be able for stadiums to have actual attendance