New tab pages: I want my home page to be a "bookmark" HTML file I've made containing links for everything I use, including multiple search boxes (Google, Wikipedia, IMDB etc.), arranged as I choose. But -- Firefox doesn't allow local files to be used as the new tab page, no matter what. So Firefox is a nonstarter for me. I use Vivaldi. Long ago, Galeon automatically turned bookmarks into a home page of links. Wish the idea would make a comeback.

I looked at the page for some chopsticks I bought last year. Part of the AI summary of reviews says customers "mention that the triangular-like shape helps with comfortable grip." The handles are four-sided, and see no reviews saying anything about shape at all. Of the summary's 32 words, 10 are hallucination.

The Fortean Times recently had a cover story on Nessie at 90, nicely tracing how the myth developed. You should be able to read it here: https://www.yumpu.com/news/en/issue/159112-fortean-times-issue-052023/read?page=25/. The magazine is strictly paper only; I've subscribed from overseas for decades to get articles like this. Subscription site is https://subscribe.forteantimes.com/. Uneven and U.K.-centric but they cover the "world of the weird" well.

Very useful to me. I've tried every video editor that can run on Linux. For my specific needs -- combining videos from multiple cameras into one synchronized clip -- Blender is best, once you get used to the nightmare interface and figure out the workflow. The 3+ versions have a considerably saner interface, and prominent bugs have been fixed. DaVinci was fine, but Blender is precise and easy to use. I used to use Kdenlive but it started crashing (all versions, even appimages). I learned Blender because I had to, and now like it very much.

For combining multiple clips, just add movie, add effect strip transform, set to alpha over or under. Repeat for the next strip. Synchronize audio strips, match video strips to that, possibly adjust by a couple of frames. Resize, rotate, crop and position as needed. Keyframe transitions. And away you go.

I live in Tokyo, I think that erosion of privacy is a major issue, and I have no problem with this. My experience with it so far is simply convenience. It eliminates headaches, as intended. The ward office suggested it, and didn't force it. They only know what they need to. When my wife and I needed proof of vaccination in order to travel, we downloaded an app and it was like three steps, starting with laying the phone on the card, whereupon it says hi, you've gotten, are you traveling domestically or internationally? I also had to scan my passport (four steps). It's really merely like a passport, an identifier for interacting with the government.

I was using Firefox on my phone and tablet until it auto-upgraded to change all my settings and remove everything I wanted. So I removed Firefox. I tried Vivaldi but it lacked add-ons. Then I found the Kiwi browser, the sole Android browser with full extension capability (Google Play). And highly customizable. No one on Slashdot has apparently ever mentioned the Kiwi browser before, and it is not yet well known, but it puts Firefox and Vivaldi and Chrome to shame on Android. Apparently a one-man project outdoing all the big boys.

Is this a new low? One germane comment. The second uses the subject as an excuse for politics, then massive explosion, with shards of illogic and ill will scattered across the screen. I was hoping for something informative on privacy vs. privacy risks, and tips on VPNs (I may need one for future work). Slashdot these days clearly posts topics designed to encourage rants, not discussions; unfortunately, that bleeds over into technical stories as well. Nothing to read here today.

For AI to write poetry, it needs to free-associate. A lower-level approach can already achieve that illusion. I've kept this from a 2003 machine-generated translation of a Japanese surf conditions report: t is fine and the present weather is. A wind is almost calm. The surge from the low pressure which escaped from near a park yesterday remains, 1 comes 4 in the morning, and tide the breast of feeling, and now Influence was begun and has been collected.

(Trying to fix formatting)

The New Yorker recently had a good article on the subject of carbon capture: https://www.newyorker.com/maga... [newyorker.com].

Any discussion of climate change suffers from a confusion by some people between the various levels of cause and effect:

1. The greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide (and some other gases) absorb infrared light -- that is, they have a color we can't see. The Earth's warmth emits more infrared than comes in, therefore the gases trap energy here.

2. Global warming: the cumulative effect of the greenhouse effect. To doubt this is to deny basic physics.

3. Climate change: at this level, yes, there is uncertainty -- not over whether it will change, but how. This is as complex as the planet: all the clouds, the winds, plants and oceans. Modeling it is difficult. Yet climate must change somehow in response to global warming from the greenhouse effect. Do we really want to test our ability to cope with whatever those changes may be?

If we could see infrared, we would be able to see that the color of the sky has changed, and there would be no doubt or argument about global warming, and we would have done much more to avert climate change.

The New Yorker recently had a good article on the subject of carbon capture: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/can-carbon-dioxide-removal-save-the-world. Any discussion of climate change suffers from a confusion by some people between the various levels of cause and effect: 1. The greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide (and some other gases) absorb infrared light -- that is, they have a color we can't see. The Earth's warmth emits more infrared than comes in, therefore the gases trap energy here. 2. Global warming: the cumulative effect of the greenhouse effect. To doubt this is to deny basic physics. 3. Climate change: at this level, yes, there is uncertainty -- not over whether it will change, but how. This is as complex as the planet: all the clouds, the winds, plants and oceans. Modeling it is difficult. Yet climate must change somehow in response to global warming from the greenhouse effect. Do we really want to test our ability to cope with whatever those changes may be? If we could see infrared, we would be able to see that the color of the sky has changed, and there would be no doubt or argument about global warming, and we would have done much more to avert climate change.

The Japan Times ran it as foreign news, part of a package on the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident (with 30th anniversary and "chemical Chernobyl"). Kyodo did the reporting, as the subject is relevant to Japan and because of the possibility of Japan having a role in dismantling the plant.

No one seems to have addressed labeling yet. My parents and I have been digitizing and organizing family photos, and finding a good way to add captions was my biggest problem. If you want your photos to outlive you, you need them to have captions that tell other people who, when, what and where.

The best introduction to storing and labeling photos that I can find is at http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/.

format and quality: Keep the original. Any common format will be convertible, if necessary, for decades. For this reason, I don't see prints as necessary.

storage type: Redundant. I'm using multiple backup external hard disks, plus multiple DVDs, plus Google Drive when all culling, naming and captioning are done. (Google Drive is easier to organize than Google Photos, and you can put videos, photos and notes in one place. Don't be fooled by the apparent ability to make or change captions -- that all gets lost if you download the photo.)

For backups, I use Grsync on Windows and rsync scripts on Linux (Grsync also available).

organizing: Name by date (2015.08.23-name). I've organized by decade, with subfolders for major events and culled photos.

labeling: XnView (http://www.xnview.com/) is best and easiest, plus free, plus runs on Windows, Linux and Macs. XnView can do almost anything. Breezebrowser (paid) and Irfanview (free) are also good and have specific strong points.

In XnView's settings, choose to write to XMP; that way, you'll get captions in both IPTC-IIM and XMP formats, the two major systems now in use (AP and some other wire services also use both). Windows and Mac file browsers can also show these (and possibly something in Linux that I don't use.) You can also make batch captions for photos from one event, then fill in photo-specific details individually. You can make keywords too, though I haven't bothered.

I wanted images of photos with the captions underneath for family viewing on a TV. Nothing can do this. I ended up using Breezebrowser with slideshows set to display captions under the photos in white text on a black background, in the custom form @IPTC_caption@\n[@file@]\n . . . This shows the caption, the file name on a separate line, and a meaningless last line of dots because my TV kept cutting off the bottom line. For each slideshow image, I took a screenshot, pasted that into another program and saved it to another folder, naming each originalname-scr. Now we have a set of the originals and a duplicate screenshot set with the captions visible.

Breezebrowser can also export all captions to a text file. I use the custom format @file@\n @IPTC_caption@\n