cheerfulmonk.com

Argh! I’m writing this on my iPad in the hospital and accidentally deleted what I just wrote. Note to self: keep saving as I write! So this will be shorter, not that I have anything else to do. 🙂

First, sorry about the glitch in yesterday’s comic. I have now corrected the post and here is the picture again:

Bliss

I’m writing this about 10:30 PM September 2, and here is a picture of the ER cubicle where I spent most of the day. (Click on the picture for higher resolution.)

Nothing serious, my left arm felt funny in the morning. It worked fine, but I checked with Perplexity and it said I should have it checked at the ER. So Andy drove me and they checked that everything seemed to be working, did an MRI, and connected me to a neurologist via video. He said it was a stroke, and apparently told the doctor here to monitor me overnight just in case.

I brought my iPad with me, of course, and Andy brought me my charger. More later!

September 3, 2026

Bliss

September 2, 2026

Or first day of September if you don’t go by meteorological seasons.

AccuWeather predictions aren’t always correct, but it is still satisfying that the highs are no longer in the 90s.

AccuWeather

Fingers crossed for us all!

Septemr 1, 2026

Ziggy

I wouldn’t be so sure, Ziggy. It’s the boring, routine things that AI is already starting to do. Notice how often we have to go through an AI bot when we phone for service. The bot takes care of the easiest problems, then sends us to a person when the problem is more complicated. I’m guessing the bots will gradually get more proficient, and the humans involved will be the ones with more expertise.

A lot of research is going on to develop robots that can do physical work:

But presumably the robots will be used when the work can be automated, which means repeatable procedures, or when they are being directed by humans.

Big changes are coming — we’re just seeing the start of it.

August 31, 2026

B.C.

It’s not just millennials and social media. A lot of people ignore the news for their mental health. Things are really getting wild.

August 29, 2026

Country legend Dolly Parton received a Buckingham Palace tribute after her death aged 80, with military guards performing a version of her hit single 9 To 5.

Household Division officers performed the song on Wednesday morning, hours after the loss of the much-loved singer who had been suffering from cancer.
—Daily Mail

How neat is that?

August 28, 2026

I would never hire him to do work for me.

Betty

Betty

Betty

Betty

Betty

Do you watch YouTube videos much? I have been lately, often enough to actually pay to see them without ads. I hadn’t expected that to happen.

August 27, 2026

From Angus yesterday:

Sunrise. Two of the villages rather polite ( and usually apolitical ) seventy year olds are heading off in their little red Volvo. He a retired professor of economics, she a designer of fabrics for Harrods. They’ve prepared a packed lunch and will be joining a protest against the building of a data centre in a village on the road to Edinburgh. Scotland is an ideal location for these things. It has lots of wind power and no shortage of water to fuel and cool the servers. This combination has attracted droves of resource hungry AI companies. What is only now becoming apparent ( and generating unhappiness ) is the size of these things. The one they’re protesting against will cover 60 hectares and be 12 metres high. That will dwarf the wee place.

12 meters is about 40 feet, and 60 hectares is 148 acres. So presumably it would be an approximately four-story building covering about 6-10 square city blocks, about 84 soccer fields. Why would anyone object?

Angus also mentions the cruise liners he and his wife can see from their garden in the evening:

We stand by the garden wall looking out over the sea as the Orkney bound cruise liners twinkle like gin palaces in the gloaming.

The whole world is changing fast

August 26, 2026

In 1975, a movie filmed in Martha’s Vineyard made people afraid to go into the water. Today, a real animal in Martha’s Vineyard is making people afraid to go outside. “It’s gotten to the point now that grandparents are not allowing their grandchildren to come visit them,” said Sam Telford.

Kaitlin and Torben told me about this yesterday, and I read this article last night.

Scary stuff!

August 25, 2026