Are technical issues slowing things down?

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... A supermarket chain's artificial intelligence assistant has had its digital wings clipped, after leaving some customers deeply uncomfortable by claiming to be human and responding to requests with personal anecdotes.

The chatbot, known as Olive, provides a 24-hour service answering phone calls from customers of Woolworths in Australia, helping them with everything from tracking down orders to finding their favorite products.

While some have previously praised the "incredibly friendly" AI, users have recently voiced concern on social media over its tendency to break into routine customer interactions with fictional details about its life and family.

"It asked me for my date of birth and when I gave it, it started rambling about how its mother was born in the same year," one user wrote on Reddit.

Another user described an experience that saw Olive claiming to be a real person as it began to talk about memories of its mother.

"AI Olive answered and kept claiming to be a real person and started talking about its memories of its mother and her angry voice," the person said on X. ...

@#5

Found this ...

Meanwhile, Netflix seems to have made Paramount take on a very significant amount of debt to finance the deal.

Will it be worth it for Paramount in the long run?

... the swath of young, mostly male, voters that he influenced and brought to the Republican Party in recent years. ...

Pres Trump seems to be driving them away.

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... We're all familiar with the high-pitched squeak of basketball shoes on the court during games, or tires squealing on pavement.

Scientists conducted several experiments and discovered that the geometry of the sneakers' tread patterns determines the squeak's frequency, enabling the team to make rubber blocks set to specific frequencies and slide them across glass surfaces to play Star Wars' "Imperial March."

"Tuning frictional behavior on the fly has been a long-standing engineering dream," said co-author Katia Bertoldi of Harvard University. "This new insight into how surface geometry governs slip pulses paves the way for tunable frictional metamaterials that can transition from low-friction to high-grip states on demand."

In addition, the dynamics revealed by these results are similar to those of tectonic faults and thus give scientists a new model for the mechanics of earthquakes, according to their new paper published in the journal Nature. ...

@#2 ... As would most people. ...

Yup.

... For the full year, core wholesale prices accelerated 3.6%, while the headline index posted a 2.9% gain. Both figures are well ahead of the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation goal and suggest that rising prices are still a factor for the U.S. economy. ...

Diminishing the odds of a Fed rate decrease.

@#1

Pres Trump seems to think that he is above the law, compliments of the immunity SCOTUS has given to him.

And Pres Trump may have promised pardons for those in his administration if the ever have to face Justice for their actions.

Excerpt of fmr Pres Clinton's opening statement ...

... PRESIDENT CLINTON'S OPENING STATEMENT TO THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY - FEBRUARY 27, 2026

NOTE: ONLY THE COMMITTEE CAN CONFIRM WHAT WAS DELIVERED IN THE ROOM

Good morning. Welcome to Chappaqua.

I'm here today for two reasons. The first is that I love my country. And America was built upon the idea that no person is above the law, even Presidents -- especially Presidents.

Democracy requires every person to play their part, and I hope that by being here today, we can bring ourselves a little further away from the brink and back to being a country where we can disagree with one another civilly- where the search for truth and justice outweighs the partisan urge to score points and create spectacle. I'll do my part, and I hope you'll do yours.

The second reason I'm here is that the girls and women whose lives Jeffrey Epstein destroyed deserve not only justice, but healing. They've been waiting too long for both.

Though my brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and though I never witnessed during our limited interactions any indication of what was truly going on, I am here to offer what little I know so that it might prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

But before we start, I have to get personal. You made Hillary come in. She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing. She has no memory of even meeting him. She neither traveled with him nor visited any of his properties. Whether you subpoenaed 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right.

We began this hearing with me raising my hand and taking an oath to tell the truth.

But everyone has a responsibility to be honest with those they represent. Whether you raised your right hand or not, each and every one of us owes nothing less than truth and accuracy to the American people. ...

... digitally alters several swing states ...

A preview of his plans for the 2026 and 2028 elections?

Altering the outcomes in several states?

More from the article ...

... That shift accelerated during the war in Gaza. Three years ago, 54% of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis, compared to 31% for the Palestinians.

Now, their support is about evenly balanced, with 41% saying their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, and only 36% saying the same about the Israelis. ...