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Another Silly Bill in the Iowa Legislature
I saw a story in the Iowa Capital Dispatch by Robin Opsahl today that there’s a bill in the Iowa legislature which seeks to make the drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine over-the-counter (OTC) in Iowa. It doesn’t actually specify the reason why but it’s probably because some Iowans want the drugs available to treat Covid-19. I…
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We Just Got MLK Jr Biographies Delivered Today
We just got both of the Martin Luther King Jr. biographies delivered today! They both have great photographs and we’ll get started reading them. We’ll keep you posted on what our impressions are. We also saw a YouTube video of a 1963 TV program of civil rights leaders including MLK Jr posted a few years…
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Thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Today being Martin Luther King Day, I’m reminiscing a little about my short time as a student at Huston-Tillotson College (one of this country’s HBCUs, Huston-Tillotson University since 2005) in Austin, Texas. It’s always a good idea to thank your teachers. I never took a degree there, choosing to transfer credit to Iowa State University…
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What Questions Should We Ask on MLK Day?
I ran across this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in my notes: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. This week we’ll be getting the two biographies of…
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A Squall’s a’Comin’!
There’s a 30 percent chance of snow squalls this afternoon.
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Replace Sycophantic AI with Marvin the Paranoid Android?
I found the perfect JAMA article explaining that sycophancy is programmed into Artificial Intelligence (AI) therapy chatbots. This reminded me of Marvin the paranoid android (“Life! Don’t talk to me about life!”) in the book series “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Marvin is an incredibly depressed robot who would never make…
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Confabulation in Artificial Intelligence
I saw an excellent post on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Dr. George Dawson’s post today, “The Problems With AI Are More Readily Apparent.” He mentions AI producing confabulations which are sometimes called hallucinations in AI. I distinguish hallucinations from confabulations because the former are sensory or perceptual problems while confabulations are making things up. In…
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day Events 2026
Here’s a list of events I know of so far regarding the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day: The city of Iowa City has day of service and other events you can find at this link. The city of Coralville has events starting on January 16th and more, which you can learn about…
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Exercise to Relieve Depression?
I’m sure you’ve seen the recently published articles on the web encouraging people to try exercising to treat depression. The articles rely on a new systematic review by the Cochrane Database, which you need to carefully interpret—not necessarily the whole paper; you could just skip to the bottom line in the Authors’ Conclusions: “Authors’ conclusions: Exercise…
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Glue Myself to My Biography
There’s a reason for why I so often tell Dad jokes. In keeping with my post from yesterday about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s biographies: I glued myself to my autobiography. You may not believe it, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We’ve ordered a couple of biographies about Dr. King. One…
