vxbush 9/17/2026 6:42:08 AM

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Another Democrat, another milion in federal money stolen? Sure looks like it: 

[Federal officials] gathered in L.A. to announce the names of the latest three people who've been caught stealing other people's money. One dude had the gonads to use more than $1 million of homeless funds to open a nightclub ... and a bingo hall.

Yes, well, we know there's no accounting going on over at the L.A. homeless industrial complex, and there's no accounting for taste, either.

However, what you should know is that the three people indicted on Wednesday stole more than $118 million between them, and LAHSA laundered $75 million of it.

I swear, every Democrat has decided that federal money should be their money, to do with as they want. What are the other Democrat-controlled cities hiding? 

vxbush 9/17/2026 6:51:02 AM

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Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 6:53:22 AM

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In #1 vxbush said: use more than $1 million of homeless funds to open a nightclub ... and a bingo hall.

I suggest homeless get moved in. Make use of the money as intended,

JCM 9/17/2026 7:41:33 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

He opened those businesses to employe the homeless!

JCM 9/17/2026 8:08:57 AM

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How China is driving the emerging partisan divide on AI safety

That split is already playing out on Capitol Hill as AI safety zooms to the center of congressional conversations. With legislation only slowly taking shape, fear of international competition stands to be a major point of tension during any bipartisan negotiations — with most lawmakers’ views divided closely along party lines.

I think goes way beyond party lines, the ChiComs are deep into the propaganda for doom and gloom AI trying to scare everyone. Also deep into lobbying Dem lawmakers.

The other observation I have is how the divide is between Open and Closed Source. Closed source AI companies are the ones saying "danger, danger" please regulate us. IMAO they are trying to close out competition with regulations.

JCM 9/17/2026 8:22:08 AM

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Kash Patel to tout 'largest' year-to-year violent crime drop in US history

FBI Director Kash Patel is set to tell lawmakers Tuesday that the FBI and its law enforcement partners have achieved what he calls the "most prolific run of crime reduction in United States history," according to his prepared opening remarks for the Senate Judiciary Committee's annual FBI oversight hearing.

Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 8:45:13 AM

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Reply to JCM in 5:

Sometimes I hope China does stop AI in the US, and then it destroys China.

But I am not sure that would happen. 

Of course, if the CCP trains their AI on their propaganda, it will.

JCM 9/17/2026 8:58:07 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 7:

It is such a circus right now, very little common sense is available.

Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 9:09:57 AM

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Spent much of the morning with Network Solutions support because my wife's work email isn't working. Known outage, it turns out.

I was able to get a message through that shows in webmail it was received an hour before I sent it. I hope the support agent can and does forward that information on, because incorrect times can easily cause problems with communication between servers.

vxbush 9/17/2026 9:23:34 AM

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In #9 Kosh's Shadow said: I was able to get a message through that shows in webmail it was received an hour before I sent it. I hope the support agent can and does forward that information on, because incorrect times can easily cause problems with communication between servers.

Yup. I see that from time to time dealing with email and MDM servers. 

vxbush 9/17/2026 9:26:41 AM

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In #5 JCM said: The other observation I have is how the divide is between Open and Closed Source. Closed source AI companies are the ones saying "danger, danger" please regulate us. IMAO they are trying to close out competition with regulations.

On one level, the closed-source models can't compete with the open-source models currently available on Hugging Faces. I've got a model downloaded that I use to rewrite stuff, and thus I don't have to pay to use it. Closed-source companies are trying to make sure that they can maybe recoup all the money they dropped into this endeavor, but I'm not sure they can ever do that except in specialty fields, areas where they can set up custom RAG libraries. Law, for example. 

For my purposes, an open-source model works just fine with the proper prompting. Add in an OpenCode harness, and you can run as many agents as your computer can support with your own configurations. 

JCM 9/17/2026 9:32:07 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 11:

I am currently using the Google Gemini AI to troubleshoot issues with Siemens eCAD tools. It works much better than the Siemens own support pages.

We were deploying a closed AI internally with access to our myriads of database to streamline product data searches. However one of the AI company employees access our DBs directly and it was shut down... that's not a AI issue that a people problem.

Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 10:28:28 AM

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Reply to JCM in 12:

Most support AI's are maybe about the same as 1st level support - they work off a script, basically.

I did have a problem with an HP laptop and tried HP's support AI. I was quite impressed. I had forgotten to remove the offending device in Device Manager and it told me to do so, which solved the problem.

And it also told me I was right about the error from the UEFI diagnostics giving warnings about the main drive. However, they won't fix it until it fails. It told me to back the system up and if I wanted, it would explain how. I already have backups, so I was OK.

I did, however, get the extended warranty; cheaper than a 1TB SSD. Original warranty ends this month.

vxbush 9/17/2026 11:36:22 AM

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In #12 JCM said: It works much better than the Siemens own support pages.

I have pretty much decided that using the Comet web browser with the free Perplexity tool built in is better than using Google AI or even most support websites designed by the manufacturers. I get better information because it includes real-world solutions that have been listed on Reddit (which can sometimes be a useful source). 

Right now, I'm taking the video of a training session, exporting out the audio, and getting a transcript generated using a proprietary tool we have access to. And I'm debating about coding a web solution to a problem that might be useful to have on campus, but it might not. I need to talk to one of the web guys about how we can do this so the data stays on the user's endpoint, rather than uploading it to a server. Doable with javascript, but that needs a lot of guardrails to make sure it doesn't get hacked. 

JCM 9/17/2026 1:31:57 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 14:

So far the Gemini AI solutions for Siemens often come from Reddit.

The Siemens stuff is notorious for being awful. When I was with Kuiper we were such a large customer we had regular meetings with senior Siemens folks. It was always, we're working no that, but look at the new eye candy!

Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 1:39:54 PM

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Reply to JCM in 15:

Look, I know the suspension is rusted, and half the cylinders in the engine don't fire, but isn't the paint job nice!

Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 1:40:36 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 9/17/2026 3:43:18 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 17:

And another Jewish source