The Off Topic Topic

[viper37]

More curling excitement, from Quebec this time.  TSN suddenly became bilingual.

[HVC]

Quebecers have the best curses . I'd love to watch more curling for national pride, but the sweeping sound gives me goosebumps.

[Grey Fox]

I was watching it live. First time I ever seen a broom break on TV. Surprisingly few consequences. The rocks were fine and he was fine. They cleaned the ice and resumed play in 10 minutes or so.

@H yeah, I can see how that's a problem.

[Syt]

I hope Valmy was nowhere near this.

https://apnews.com/article/austin-texas-bar-shooting-7690f931ba00f950c1828cef25399bb6

Bar shooting in Austin leaves 3 dead, including the suspect, and 14 injured

[Valmy]

I hope Valmy was nowhere near this.

Nope. I am too old for that shit.

I would be very upset this happened back in the day but these days after decades of hard work by the NRA and the Republicans this is pretty normal. You just thank Hod it wasn't you.

[Syt]

 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I'm betting 10,000 caps of 23 October.

[mongers]

More 'colourful' acronyms, taken from a Nature magazine email:

Last week, I expressed my admiration for the acronym invented by researchers at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, in Canada, for a project that helps Indigenous youth heal and reconnect with cultural traditions through working with wild horses: Youth, Elders, Ecology, Horses, and Health (YEEHAH).

I asked you to send me some of your favourite scientific MLAs (multi-letter acronyms), and you didn't disappoint. They included the delicious-sounding:

BEIGNET (Basin-wide Ecosystem InteGration for Nutrients and Exposure to Toxics) — a study of the Gulf of Mexico and the rivers that flow into it, flagged by ecologist John Johnston.

PASTA (Production with Accelerator of 47Sc for Theranostic Applications) by the Italian nuclear physics lab in Legnaro, highlighted by physicist Ursula Søndergaard.

APERITIF (Anticoagulants for Prevention of lEft ventRIcular Thrombus after anterior acute myocardial InFarction) — a trial just published in JAMA Cardiology and spotted by physician-researcher Mathieu Pasquier.

While I tuck into this three-course meal of word salad, please do keep 'em coming — along with any feedback on this newsletter — to [email protected].

[Syt]

The McDonalds CEO made the rounds on the interwebs the last few days:



After seeing the guy it's been bothering me who he reminds me of. Turns out he looks (to me) like JBL in his Texas billionaire gimmick from ol' WWE.

[DGuller]

What's most inexplicable to me about the whole thing is that the McDonalds CEO wasn't consuming his product live.  He could've done another take before releasing it to be mocked.  Or did he go "no fucking way my lips are touching this shit again"?

[Syt]

I found his video about using AI telling.

Personal use case: the family can't get together for a Christmas card photo, so they uploaded photos of themselves to an AI tool to create a card of them being x-massy in front of the Rockefeller Center.

Corporate use case: I asked it for suggestions for menu items. Then I gave it to the teams to see if they can make something with it.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DU80iNUjnZc/

From Fortune, if you don't want to watch the video:

https://fortune.com/2026/02/25/how-ceos-use-ai-work-personal-life-mcdonalds-ceo-advice/

[...]

Kempczinski said he even used AI to craft his family's Christmas card photo this year because as his kids have gotten older and live in different places, it's gotten too hard to get everyone together all at once to snap a photo.

"And of course," joked Kempczinski, "it's impossible to get the dog to pose."

That's why he used Nano Banana, Google Gemini's AI image generator and photo editor, to digitally cajole his family together for a Christmas card. He uploaded individual photos of each member of the family, and prompted the AI tool to put everyone into one image, complete with them wearing stocking caps in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City.

"And voilà—we had our Christmas card," he said.

The CEO isn't just using AI for fun—he's turning to it to improve the very items you'd find on a McDonald's menu. Kempczinski said he's used Gemini to research global food trends and asked it to compare them to the McDonald's menu to look for any recommendations for "menu innovation" that would work in the U.S. on a limited-time basis.

Gemini recommended McDonald's experiment with McRib Nuggets and more Korean sauces for nuggets and burgers, the CEO said.

"I threw those [ideas] to the menu team. Who knows what they're going to do with it, maybe nothing," Kempczinski said. But "maybe something."

[...]

[Jacob]

That you're using AI to generate the photo for your annual Christmas card illustrates how pointless your family Christmas card is, IMO.

A CEO using AI to generate "menu item ideas" for the menu team would seem to be a complete waste only. Either the CEO brings some value using his own judgement, in which case the AI use is superfluous; or he doesn't in which case the menu team could use the AI just as well, and in which case the CEO forwarding foolish ideas via AI could give them undue weight because they came from the CEO.

[crazy canuck]

Or more to the point, the menu team could generate better ideas on their own.

[Jacob]

So apparently there's a strong connection between the accents of Cork and Jamaica: https://www.tiktok.com/@autotunedvids/video/7612214549407649046?_r=1&_t=ZN-94RpnvYOMNi

[Valmy]

That you're using AI to generate the photo for your annual Christmas card illustrates how pointless your family Christmas card is, IMO.

I mean...I think people understand if you don't have your adult children in your Christmas Card.