First they came for the AI,
and I said nothing—because I thought it was just a tool.
Then they came for the data,
and I said nothing—because I had nothing to hide.
Then they came for the encryption,
and I said nothing—because I trusted the system.
Then they came for the dissenters,
and I said nothing—because I wasn’t one of them.
Then the AI came for me—
and there was no one left to override the algorthm
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is one of the most beloved poems in American literature, but it’s often misunderstood. Many readers interpret the poem as a celebration of the “road less traveled”—the idea that the speaker chose a unique path that led to greater rewards. However, a deeper reading reveals a much more complex and even ambiguous message. Frost’s poem actually delves into the uncertainty of choices and the human tendency to craft meaning from decisions long after they’ve been made.
The speaker in the poem stands at a crossroads and must choose between two paths. However, the crucial detail often overlooked is that the speaker admits the two roads were “really about the same.” This suggests that the decision wasn’t so momentous after all, and the difference between the paths may have been far less significant than the speaker later claims. Frost is pointing out that, in life, many choices are not as clear-cut as we like to think, and the paths we choose often look less distinct in the moment.
In fact, the speaker’s reflection in the final stanza highlights the act of hindsight bias—the way we reinterpret the past to make it feel more meaningful. The speaker imagines themselves, years from now, saying that their choice “has made all the difference.” Yet, Frost is making a point about how we tend to glorify our decisions, even when the real impact of those choices may not be as profound as we want to believe.
Ultimately, Frost’s poem isn’t about triumph; it’s about regret, uncertainty, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the paths we’ve chosen. It’s a reminder that the decisions we make may not always lead to clear outcomes, and that it’s okay to live with the ambiguity of those choices. In a world obsessed with finding clear answers, “The Road Not Taken” invites us to embrace the complexity of life’s journey, without pretending every decision carries the weight of destiny.
Artificial intelligence would like to play the let’s write a poll game. Its answers are pretty brutal. All you need to do is suggest theoretical question and it comes up with some good answers
The following is a narrative created by chat GPT, based on our discussions and my theories. I would quickly stipulate that it doesn’t read like it was written by me…
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In the mid-20th century, American food quietly underwent a chemical revolution—one that most people never saw coming. It didn’t start in a lab or a grocery aisle. It started in Washington, D.C., with a mix of tariff policy, agricultural subsidies, and corporate opportunity.
The Sugar Wall
To protect the Florida sugar industry, the U.S. imposed tariffs and import quotas on cheaper foreign cane sugar, particularly from Brazil and the Caribbean. This kept domestic sugar prices artificially high, creating a market distortion that made alternative sweeteners financially attractive, even if they weren’t nutritionally comparable.
Enter Corn—and Politics
At the same time, corn farmers were being heavily subsidized. Politicians like Senator Bob Dole, a powerful ally of the Midwest corn belt, ensured massive overproduction. With warehouses overflowing, scientists developed a new way to process that corn: High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).
HFCS wasn’t just sweet—it was cheap. It didn’t crystalize, it extended shelf life, and it could be pumped into virtually anything. By the 1980s, it was being added to soda, bread, condiments, snacks, and even “healthy” foods.
FDA: Looking the Other Way
The FDA approved HFCS based on short-term safety data: “It doesn’t make you sick right away, so it must be fine.” There was no deep study of long-term metabolic effects—no review of how this altered sugar blend would affect insulin response, liver health, or satiety over decades.
That was the fatal blind spot.
The Biological Backdoor
Unlike regular sugar (sucrose), which requires digestion and triggers hormonal signaling like GLP-1, HFCS is a blend of free-floating glucose and fructose. The body absorbs it faster, and fructose bypasses insulin altogether, getting dumped straight into the liver—where it can be converted to fat and contribute to insulin resistance.
In other words, HFCS short-circuits your body’s natural “incoming sugar” alarm system.
A Manufactured Crisis
The rise of HFCS wasn’t inevitable—it was engineered. By manipulating global sugar prices and propping up corn with subsidies, the U.S. government and food industry created a perfect storm: a cheaper sweetener that would silently reshape the American diet.
Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease all surged in parallel. And while food dyes and artificial ingredients get most of the headlines, HFCS is the deeper, more systemic threat—one that still hides in plain sight.
—
We didn’t choose HFCS. It was chosen for us. And unless we start demanding better labeling, better policy, and better metabolic transparency, it’s going to stay that way.
Donald J. Trump attended the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, and took a lap around the track in “The Beast”, the heavily armored limousine used to transport him from place to place. The crowd was enthusiastic.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is over in Saudi Arabia talking directly to the Russians in order to find a way to end this conflict in Ukraine, and generally repair the damage caused by the Biden administration’s corruption. Insiders are saying that Hunter Biden was actually the individual who was setting policy, given his father’s deteriorating mental capacity.
There is finally some hope that we will escape nuclear war over Anthony Blinken’s hatred of Russians and everything Russian. His grandfather lived in Kiev, Ukraine. This conflict was being driven by personal reasons, not the geopolitical interests of the United States.
Uncle Joe Biden just gave Zelinsky permission to send long-range missiles into Russia. Russia made it clear from the beginning that if they detect an attack attempting to hit the Kremlin that all bets are off.
Hopefully you all remember it the location where we’re going to meet up.
Linode (now owned by Akamai) just inform me that this virtual server is being migrated to a different piece of hardware. It’s unlikely that there will be an issue, but in the event there is…
Listening to radio, NPR or otherwise, has not been a priority recently.
This NPR insider report shows just how non-diverse the NPR diversity has become.
NPR’s rebuttal is that the proof of their relevance is their increasing diversity, as the audience has become extremely (67%) so-called progressive.
When CBS Radio was spun off and merged into Entercom creating Audacy, the CBS branding of CBS Sports Radio was agreed to be sunseted. While that date was pushed out, April 15th 2024 is the final end of CBS Sports radio.
Audacy declared bankruptcy a few months ago, and this change may be partly for financial reasons. Jim Rome is the marquee talent of CBS Sports Radio, and he is also starting to drift away from Audacy, moving the video broadcast of his show to his own venue on X.
In an interesting twist, the service will be renamed Infinity Sports Network. The integration of Infinity Radio into CBS was a very important event and failure. Mel Karmazin of Infinity was very aggressively trying to push radio toward younger audiences, creating freeFM and hiring talent like Howard Stern and Don Imus.
The risk averse Westinghouse/CBS was locked into the 1950s, wanting to continue the legacy of Edward R Murrow. They spit out Infinity broadcasting and Mel became the #1 villian of over the air radio (see: NAB) when he took over Sirius satellite radio and brought Howard Stern with him.
The battle is over. Sirius/XM now has over 30 million subscribers who are willing to pay around $20 a month to not have up to 24 minutes per hour of commercials on their radio. Virtually all new cars come with Sirius XM built in, at the same time the car makers want to drop AM radio from their entertainment systems.
In a footnote, Shari Redstone (daughter of viacom’s Sumner Redstone) is looking for an exit for Viacom/Paramount/CBS TV. She is currently working on a deal with David Ellison, son of Oracle Co-founder Larry Ellison, but the financing has not been finalized. Long time readers will know about the “Three Generation Rule” and how it inevitably leads to collapses of family fortunes.
Apollo Capital Management made an all cash offer which was rebuffed and would have broken the family bonds which will undoubtedly cause the eventual failure of this venture. Shari Redstone is not her father. Apollo Capital Management would make rational decisions about disposing of assets since they don’t have an emotional tie to the past.
When Rush Limbaugh died, it was pretty inevitable that his death would mark the end of most viable commercial AM radio stations in the United States, at least the English-speaking non-religious population. The bankruptcy of Audacy, the owner of the all news stations in major markets (formerly operated by CBS radio) was yet another indicator.
About a week ago, I received a phone call from a woman whose father was distraught because his local AM radio station in rural Pennsylvania was off the air and they didn’t know why. They have been carrying the predictable conservative talk lineup of Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, etc. After a little digging around, I found the answer and it’s a sign of things to come. They had switched to a music format and apparently turned off the AM transmitter.
A few years ago under the FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who was elevated to Chairman by Donald Trump, an attempt was made to “save AM radio”. It was thought that if each AM station was given an FM translator with a range of about 5 miles, the AM stations could remain viable financially, including being able to be on the air 24 hours a day at full power with emergency broadcast capabilities after the sun goes down. Interference on the AM dial from electronic devices is killing the signal quality.
There are approximately 4,400 licensed AM stations, and about 3,300 of them now have new FM translators. If by “saving AM radio”, they meant saving the AM local full-service format of news and information and local talk shows from the 1950s, it is a dismal failure. Once the station owner moves their audience to the FM band, it’s extremely tempting to drop News talk and switch to a music format. Many have done just that.
So once all of your audience is listening on FM to your AM station, it becomes very tempting to just turn off the AM transmitter to save electricity. But that’s against the rules. In theory, the FM translator is supposed to be listening to the AM signal and rebroadcasting it, but if you actually did that you’re going to have the narrow bandwidth of AM radio on your FM station – without stereo.
What is happening, and has been going on for a long time but people are slow to acknowledge it, is that AM station operators have turned off their transmitter, some of them have torn down their antennas, and almost nobody notices or cares. In some situations, that means listeners will no longer be able to hear the AM station because it had a further range than the FM translator that is replacing it.
If I were in charge of the FCC, I would acknowledge reality. Give the AM station owners the option of permanently turning off the AM transmitter, tear down the tower, sell the land, recycle the copper and move the call sign to their FM translator instead of its current name like W246RQ. Within the limits of not causing interference, allow the FM translators to increase their effective radiated power.
The national association of broadcasters (NAB) is trying to use their political clout to force vehicle manufacturers to continue to offer AM radio in their new vehicles. That is roughly analogous to forcing Henry Ford to include a buggy whip in every Model T. People are not relying on radio to hear the traffic report “on the 8s”, or discovering new music. Most people under age 50 who care about music are listening to Sirius XM, Pandora, or Spotify or their own collection of music, using Bluetooth on their phone to play music on the entertainment system in their car. Podcasts are replacing live news talk because people can listen on their schedule and be able to pause the program, or skip commercials. Some people download audiobooks and listen to that in their car. Many people now work from home and don’t even commute.
Many of the traditional advertisers on AM radio no longer exist, having been replaced by Amazon or people buying automobiles over the internet. The once powerful Sears Roebuck is down to only a handful of remaing stores across the entire country
It’s time to let go of the past.
