An early look at my AI-assisted Great American Novel

Back in the day, writing the great American novel was hard. You had to work for years, perfecting the story and the characters, getting the voices right and likely having your novel address something bubbling under the surface of the cultural landscape (racism, search for meaning, dinosaurs).

Then you had to be tormented and likely have a drinking problem along with a ruptured relationship with your family. You had to be difficult for those in the publishing world, whether it was your publishing company, agent or other writers.

It was hard and I can't write the Great American Novel. But in the age of AI, I can try.

Right? What is artificial intelligence if not a tool to do something we can't do otherwise? And while I can't afford the top-shelf AI tools that work really well, I can use the free versions that come with warnings about hallucinations and concerns about plagiarism. It should work, I think.

Well, I fed some information about the world's greatest novels (not just American!) and here is the first chapter of my new AI-assisted (which means AI-written, but I want my name on the book!) novel, "The Grapes of Rathman." It took lines from the greatest novels (and elsewhere) and tweaked them.

How can this not work?

Here it is:

•••

It was the beast of times, it was the wurst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the Tupac of belief, it was the Tupac of incredulity. 

Call me Ishmael. Although Ish is OK if we're close. That's what my friends call me.

Anyway, the Joads loaded up their car and headed west on Route 66. That road, of course, goes from St Louie to Joplin, Missouri; Oklahoma City; Amarillo; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; Winona; Kingman; Barstow and San Bernardino. Tom got his kicks, for sure.

But Tom knew this: All the world’s a stagecoach and all the men and women merely players (except for Pat Riley, who is a coach. Really, he's an executive who used to be a coach and was a player before that, so ignore this). Anyhoo, they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts. Especially Eddie Murphy in those movies where he is multiple characters.

But back to Tom Joad and his family, led by his father Frog N. Joad.

As Atticus told him, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

That's when Tom started his killing spree, skinning people so his could wear their skin. Atticus defended him in court. It was the summer of his 27th year.

Tom talked to his friend and said he was angry.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can’t help that," said Karl Anthony Towns (KAT), the New York Knicks star who is suddenly a character in this novel: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."

"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said KAT, "or you wouldn’t have come here. Also, you just punched the wall and cursed.”

That's when she knew that love means you never have to say you're sorry.

After this, Tom, Alice and KAT visited Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, who were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were especially proud of their hairy potter, a very shaggy man who grew marijuana for them in a needless side story in this novel.

The hairy potter always said this to Mr. Dursley: “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”

Getting back to Tom Joad's trial for skinning people, Atticus told him: “This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Tom didn't understand what was being said because it was in 1600s English and he was trying to remember the order of cities along Route 66. Was Flagstaff before Winona? He wasn't sure.

That's when Tom stopped worrying about everything and headed to Kansas, because there's no place like home – even though he wasn't from that state, he was from Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

Goodnight, moon.

•••

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Time for a return for 'Dear Dad' to provide important advice

Nobody gives advice like a dad. Disagree? Consider Atticus Finch, Mike Brady, Heathcliff Huxtable, and John Walton. But ignore Homer Simpson, Phil Dunphy, Al Bundy and Peter Griffin.

As we commemorate another Father's Day, it's time for an annual tradition that is as beloved as wishing dad "Happy Father's Day" and then forgetting about it: Allowing a dad to take over this column.

In the spirit of Dear Abby, Dear Prudence, Miss Manners and more, it's time for Dear Dad, a column that features made-up questions from made-up readers for a made-up advice columnist.

The advice, however, is solid. Read on.

Dear Dad:

My husband and I divorced eight years ago. We share custody of our two children and it has been fairly amicable over the years. However, my children have told me things that have me concerned. They say my ex-husband seems very focused on gambling and constantly uses one of those betting apps on his phone. They say he watches more sports than he used to and talks a lot about "parlays" and "prop bets" and "futures." I don't receive alimony or child support from him, so this isn't about me needing his money. But I still care about him and he remains my children's father. Should I do anything?

Uneasy in Fairfield

Dear Uneasy: One of life's most important lessons is that you can't fix someone who doesn't want to be fixed. Unless it's a dog or cat, I guess, but that's a different issue.

It's like when my 1990 Honda Accord was running rough and I didn't want to pay a mechanic to fix it. This was before YouTube – before the Internet, really – so I relied on my friend Troy to help. He said it was probably the carburetor, so we checked the vacuum lines to see if they were dry-rotted or disconnected and pinched them off to see if that affected how the engine idled. There was nothing wrong, so we sprayed some carburetor cleaner into the jets. Again, nothing. So we looked at the fuel pump. That was the problem – a bad fuel pump relay was starving the carburetor of fuel. I went down to Pep Boys and bought a replacement. It worked great and taught me a good lesson – sometimes when the carburetor is running badly, the problem might be somewhere else.

Glad I could help.

Dear Dad:

I work at a large local company and sometimes at social events I'll see co-workers. Recently, I was at a graduation barbecue in Suisun City for a friend's son and one of the guests was a supervisor from work. He didn't see me, but he ended up drinking too much and started talking about how "layoffs are coming" at work and how he's part of the group who will determine who gets let go. Should I warn my co-workers? I don't think the supervisor would have said anything if he knew I was there. I welcome your advice.

Concerned in Cordelia

Dear Concerned:

Sorry to hear about that situation. I can't help but notice you mentioned a barbecue. One thing you should always keep in mind when barbecuing meat is to not take the meat out of the fridge and put it directly on the grill. When I barbecue steak, I usually let it sit at room temperature for at least a half-hour. I just put it on a plate on the kitchen counter, so I won't forget it.

A lot of people put too much seasoning the meat. I'm a fan of using just salt and pepper – both generously. And remember to cook the meat over the hottest part of the grill and only for two or three minutes per side. After that, you can tent it loosely with aluminum foil for five or 10 minutes.

I hope that they cooked the meat well at your friend's barbecue.

Dear Dad: I'm concerned about my daughter. She's just finished her sophomore year at Vanden High School and said she's talking with a boy. I thought that meant they were talking, but a friend told me that when teenagers say that now, it means they're actually dating. Could that be true? I don't know whether to ask her about it or if it really means she's literally just talking. What should I do?

Confused at Travis

Dear Confused: Boy times have changed, haven't they? Back when I was in high school, we just said we had a girlfriend or that we were dating someone. We didn't have all these terms that are confusing.

It reminds me of how baseball has changed. It used to be that the best hitters were determined by easy-to-understand numbers. If you hit .300, you were a good hitter. If you hit 30 homers, you were a power hitter. If you drove in 100 runs, you were clutch. Same with pitchers. Guys who won 20 games and had an ERA of 3.00 or below were the best pitchers. Now we have OPS and WAR and FIP and BABIP. People talk about launch angle and bat speed and exit velocity. The statistics guys took something that worked well for more than 100 years and changed it so it requires a slide rule and special handbook to know what works. You know what really works? A three-run homer and seven good innings out of your starting pitcher. Give me Greg Maddux and Tony Gwynn any day over these guys who hit .220 and are considered valuable.

I hope I've helped.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Past, present or future? When we want to live reveals what we believe

If I lived in 1926 or 1826 or earlier, I would be a visionary lunatic, talking about electric cars and smartphones and the Internet and food delivery services and daily showers.

I'd also be dead quickly since I'm a Type 1 diabetic and insulin wasn't invented until 1921.

But it's not just the obvious shortcoming. In a time-travel scenario, I would be absolutely useless in describing how the internet works or what satellites are or how to make a refrigerator. I couldn't tell anyone how microwave ovens work or how we can be vaccinated against smallpox or how televisions somehow capture pictures being "transmitted" from somewhere distant and show up on a box in our houses.

Meanwhile, I'd be totally unprepared to be a farmer or work in a factory. My college education would be no help in working a wood-burning oven or washing clothes without a Maytag.

Yeah, I'd be terrible in the past. Maybe you would be, too (although I suspect you know more about how things work than I do. Other than "unplug it, count to 10 and plug it back in," I don't know how to fix things).

Would you want to live in the past? To exist in what's perceived as a simpler, less busy, more friendly time, when neighbors knew each other and we didn't have a million things competing for our attention. By that, I mean we were less "busy" because it took 10 hours a day to maintain a house and most jobs required six days a week, 10 hours a day (unless you were a farmer, when it was seven days a week, 12 hours a day). When we didn't have a million things competing for our attention because we were trying to survive simple infections.

Apparently, many Americans would prefer to live in the past: According to a YouGov poll from last year, 45% of Americans would prefer to live in the past, with 25% preferring sometime in the past 50 years (perhaps the 1980s, when cocaine fueled America and Joey Buttafuoco was a celebrity? Perhaps the 1990s, when we all were watching the O.J. Simpson trial?). Another 20% would prefer anytime before 1976 (maybe 1919, when nearly 1% of Americans died of the Spanish flu and the Ku Klux Klan was running large parts of the country? Maybe 1776, when the American Revolution began and the average life span was 38 years? Maybe 1224, when most people took a couple of baths a year?).

When asked, people have misty, water-colored memories (from "The Way We Were," a song from more than 50 years ago) of the past. 

The key point highlighted by the authors of an article on the survey is that far more people would chose to live in the past than the future, with just 14% of people saying they'd like to live in the future. Another 40% said they like the present.

When broken down by demographics, far more Republicans and white people prefer the past – particularly the more distant past. Surprisingly to me, as many women wish to live in the past as do men, suggesting they're more familiar with the "Little House on the Prairie" books than the fact that women couldn't get a house mortgage without a male co-signer until 1974.

My suspicion is that popular media dramatically influences how we view the past and future. Many movies about the past romanticize life – when honor was above all, when families were close, when romance was real, when people were patriotic and passionate and willing to sacrifice. Hollywood doesn't make many movies about dreary lives of people who lived their entire 35-year existent on a remote farm, working to survive with a spouse who was their only option and then dying of consumption.

Meanwhile, futuristic movies, books and TV shows involve all-controlling entities forcing people to wear monochromatic uniforms and being oppressed with very little chance to break from the enforced conformity. We want to live in the times of "Outlander," not in the times of "Soylent Green" (Wait. I just checked and "Soylent Green" is set in 2022. What? But I stand by my point).

I'm risk-averse. Given the choice, I definitely don't want to go to the past (where I would be the inept, confused, pathetic dying diabetic) and I fear the future (with AI programs dictating what we do, while "Everything you think, do and say is in the pill you took today," as it says in the song "In the Year 2525").

I'll take the present, where other people can worry about how smartphones and microwaves work and I can benefit from refrigeration. And I can Google when "Soylent Green" took place.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

FWIW, most-searched acronyms brings confusion to an aging boomer

There was a time when acronyms were primarily reserved for organizations. There was the FBI and CIA. There was the NAACP and the ACLU. There was the NFL and the NBA.

There were a few people who went by initials – JFK, LBJ (the president, not the basketball player), FDR and MLK – but most "acronyms" of names were just the person's first two initials: O.J. Simpson. P.T. Barnum. H.G. Wells. C.S. Lewis.

It was a simpler time. Or a more complicated time? I'm not sure. I just know that in the texting era, we've had an explosion of acronyms (or initialisms. Acronyms are words you can say, like SCUBA or RADAR; initialisms are just initials, like . . . virtually everything I've described as an "acronym" so far. But in popular culture, we call initialisms "acronyms." And in popular culture, we use them occasionally. JK. We actually use them all a lot. LOL. ROTFL).

As an old person, I'm the guy shaking his fist at a cloud as younger co-workers consistently use FWIW and IIRC and IMO, requiring me to Google the phrases or ask them to further explain. Why not just use words?

This is not quite as bad as using only emojis to communicate (another old-man rant), but close. ICYMI, the most recent acronym/initialism that I used means "in case you missed it." In my opinion, IMO is a silly way to say, "I think." But if I remember correctly, people use IIRC to avoid doing research and for what it's worth, FWIW is a way to express an opinion without accountability.

Unscramblerer.com, a website that ... unscrambles things? ... recently released a list of the most-searched acronyms, both by state and for the nation. I got the California list, but I presume that if I lived in Mississippi, I'd get that state's list. FWIW, I'd never live there. LOL. ROTFL.

When looking at the list, the first thing that jumps out at you is the number of obscene phrases that have acronyms. I knew some of them (I know that WTF doesn't stand for Wednesday-Thursday-Friday), but many obscene acronyms were new to me. And frankly, I wouldn't really be able to guess many of them.

Others seem silly, acronyms/initialisms for phrases that I'd never say in real life. For instance, the most-searched acronym in California is OTP, which means . . . one true pairing.

What?

Who says that? Is that about finding a soul mate? Is it about matching wine with the meal? Is it about Steph Curry and Draymond Green? IDK . . . which is either I don't know or John F. Kennedy's secret brother Issac Donald Kennedy.

Other acronyms for phrases that aren't said (which brings their prominence into question) are WYLL ("what you look like?" which irritates me because it sounds like a caveman), FS ("for sure") and ATP ("at this point," although it's also the "Association of Tennis Professionals." )

Ultimately, I've probably contributed to the list circulated by unscramblerer (important note: It's unscramblerer, with the extra "er" on the end. I don't know why, or simply IDK why), since the list is the most popular Google search terms. In other words (IOW?), the most common acronyms–LOL, FTW, OMG, TBH–are widely known and people don't need to do searches. So people like me (those ranting that the world was better when we used full words, watched 13-inch TVs, ate canned vegetables and believed that menthol cigarettes were good for our throats) are consistently looking up acronyms to understand what our co-workers, children or grandchildren mean.

FWIW, I often refuse to look them up, too. At work, I will simple instant message back, "I don't know what that means," to my colleagues, requiring them to reply with the correct words and then to complain to whomever is near them that the old man at the office doesn't know what TFW means (joke's on them! I know it means the airport near Tallas, Texas: TFW because it's for both Tallas and Fort Worth!).

IDK what to do with this info, but FWIW, it doesn't really matter.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Who is Solano County's greatest pro athlete? Here are the top 10

Solano County has been a hotbed for outstanding athletes for decades, serving as a cradle of incredible women's softball pitchers (Alicia Hollowell and Anjelica Selden were the state players of the year in 2002 and 2004, respectively) and being the home of nearly uncountable number of elite high school athletes.

But who are the county's best professional athletes? Who went on to have the greatest pay-for-play careers in Solano County history? With some help from Daily Republic sports editor Matt Miller (I ran my list by him and got feedback. Any choices you don't like are Matt's fault), here's the top 10 in reverse order.

Again, it's based on their professional careers and athletes get extra credit for living in the county longer.

10. Jeff Gordon. The NASCAR legend lived in Vallejo until his early teen years, when his family moved to Indiana. Had he stayed here longer, he'd be higher. Gordon is third on the all-time NASCAR victory list (No. 1 in the modern era) and he won four Winston Cup Series championships. Equally important is that he was one of the biggest reasons for the sport's boom in the 1990s. He's now the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. 

9. Tug McGraw. He played 19 seasons in the major leagues as a charismatic reliever, most famously as the sparkplug of the 1973 New York Mets ("You Gotta Believe") and the 1980 World Series-winning Philadelphia Phillies. He's a graduate of St. Patrick's High School and attended Vallejo Junior College (now Solano Community College). He was also the father of country music legend Tim McGraw.

8.  Dick Bass. Another Vallejo resident, Bass is one of the county's greatest-ever high school football players,  scoring a state-record 37 touchdowns in leading the 1954 Vallejo High team to an undefeated record. He starred at the University of the Pacific and was the nation's leading rusher before being taken second in the NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams. Bass was a three-time Pro Bowler.

7. Dennis Alexio. When I came to Solano County as a sports writer in 1986, Alexio was the county's biggest sports star, a six-time heavyweight kickboxing world champion who won 16 championships. He  attended Vacaville High School (under his given name, Dennis Dick), where he was a star in all sports. He gets bonus points for co-starring in the movie "Kickboxer" with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Unfortunately, he was convicted in 2017 of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He's eligible for parole next year.

6. George Martin. The longtime NFL star is an Armijo High graduate (along with his brother Doug, who also played in the NFL) who was part of the legendary 1986 New York Giants Super Bowl champs, where he named NFL Man of the Year, was a co-captain and recorded a safety in the Super Bowl with his sack of John Elway. A defensive lineman, he scored seven touchdowns and had 90 quarterback sacks over 14 seasons. After retirement, continued his successful life, including a 3,000-mile walk across the country to raise money for medical care for first responders after 9-11. 

5. Jermaine Dye. A graduate of Wood High School in Vacaville, Dye played 14 seasons in the major leagues, was a two-time All-Star and was the most valuable player of the 2005 World Series for the Chicago White Sox. He hit 325 home runs (44 in 2006)  and drove in more than 1,000 runs in his career, playing for four teams. 

4.  Joey Chestnut. The greatest competitive eater of all time, with 55 world records and 17 titles in the famed Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest in New York City. He grew up in Vallejo but now lives in Indiana (are he and Jeff Gordon neighbors? It's possible!). A Wikipedia page listing his eating contest victories will either amaze you or disgust you.

3.  Craig Breedlove. He didn't grow up in Solano County, but spent his final decades in relative seclusion in Rio Vista. Breedlove is a unique figure in American sports, an iconic figure whose pursuit of land speed records made him a regular on Wide World of Sports in the 1960s and inspired the Beach Boys to write a song about him. In Rio Vista, Breedlove continued to pursue land speed records until his death in 2023. His length of time in the county qualifies him here.

2.  Natalie Coughlin. The 12-time Olympic medalist was named the nation's best swimmer three times and the world's best swimmer once. Born in Vallejo, she began swimming for the Vallejo Aquatics Club  before attending Carondelet High School in Concord and starring at the University of California. In 2008, Coughlin was the first American woman to win six medals in one Olympics. She has appeared on "Dancing with the Stars" and "Chopped" and was in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue in 2012.

1. CC Sabathia. A first-ballot inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Vallejo High School graduate (whose mother worked at Travis Air Force Base) is the county's greatest-ever pro athlete. A six-time All-Star, Sabathia won the 2007 American League Cy Young Award, was on the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees and won 251 games – the 47th most in major league history and second among pitchers who debuted this century. At Vallejo High, Sabathia was the Monticello Empire League's best baseball and football player and was a first-round selection of the Cleveland Indians in 1998. The Yankees – his third team – announced this year that they have retired his No. 52 jersey and he will have a plaque in famed Monument Park.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Could I win a fight with Trump? Could you? Could an 8-year-old boy?

I think–put in the unlikely position where it was necessary–I could win a fight against Donald Trump.

He's bigger than me, but also older. And I suspect I could keep moving and make it tough for him to hit me. Of course, he could probably tell a Secret Service member to attack me and I would crumble, but a one-on-one battle with the president?

I think I would win. As someone who has never been in a legit fight, that's saying something.

This view doesn't come out of thin air. It's not a threat against a sitting president. It's an actual topic of an opinion poll: Not whether I could win a fight with Trump, but whether the survey-takers could. And whether an average American could. And an 8-year-old boy.

Yes. Really.

American politics is complicated. Even seemingly simple issues turn out to be more complex than we assume. Should we have universal health care? Should we spend more on the military? Should there be preschool for all children? Does it really matter if there is prayer in school? Do higher taxes raise more money or discourage investment in business?

I have opinions on all of those, but I'm not informed enough to make a solid decision. I wouldn't want to be required to decide and then defend my decision.

But could I win a fight against the president? Once in a while, there's a political issue where I feel like I have as good an opinion as anyone. Could an 8-year-old boy beat up Donald Trump? I also have as good an opinion as anyone.

The folks at YouGov asked 2,609 Americans exactly that question, along with whether they thought they could beat up Trump and whether they thought an average American could do the same.

This was inspired by Trump's early May question at the White House of an 8-year-old boy at an event about physical fitness. Trump literally asked the boy, "Do you think you could take me in a fight?"

Ladies and gentlemen, the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! He asked a third-grader who would win in a fight between them.

Anyway, YouGov then surveyed a cross-section of Americans.

The answer: Most Americans aren't exactly intimidated by the president. Most Americans are confident that should it come down to it (I don't know in what scenario this would happen. Maybe both you and Trump are really hungry at a buffet and there's just one piece of pizza left. Both of you think you should get it, shoving ensues and the next thing you know, you're fighting the president?), they would win the fight. In fact, 55% of Americans say they'd win the fight, 19% say Trump would.

Yes. Most Americans are confident they can beat up an overweight 78-year-old billionaire.

An even higher percentage (66%) think an "average American" would win the fight (which suggests most of us figure we're worse fighters than the average American, right? We have a 55% chance, but the "average American" has a 66% chance).

And could an 8-year-old boy beat Trump in a fight? Shockingly, 31% of Americans do, perhaps thinking of the toughest kid in their third-grade class.

In a further breakdown that is no surprise, Democrats were much more confident that anyone could win a fight with Trump, while Republicans backed the president (although more Republicans thought they'd win than thought Trump would beat them up).

This whole discussion has resulted in me thinking of how I would fight Trump (I'd move around a lot. Using jabs to keep him off me. Circling. I would avoid going to the ground with him, because he's so much bigger than me and he could use a MAGA hat to hit me further). I've also thought about what other famous people I could win a fight against.

My short list of five people I think I would beat in a fight, other than the POTUS:

• Joe Biden. It would be sad, but I'd win.
• Woody Allen. His anxiety would probably make him hyperventilate at the start.
• Stevie Wonder. I better win that one.
• Dick Van Dyke. He's 100.
• Barney the dinosaur. He has short arms.

 That might be it. Along with Donald Trump. Only if required, of course.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

America's favorite planets poll misses an opportunity for a Uranus joke

Do I have a favorite planet? You bet Uranus!

Hah hah hah. That is a variation of what is undoubtedly my most-used gag in these columns over the 25-plus years I've been writing about things other than sports. Uranus jokes – funny when you're 12, funny when you're 112. Always funny.

Surprisingly, despite Uranus having the funniest planet name, it's not America's favorite planet. Not even close. In fact, of the eight planets other than Earth (the survey-takers included Pluto, which was demoted from planet status when scientists discovered that Pluto never filed the correct paperwork and was, in fact, orbiting the sun under an assumed identity), Uranus is tied with Neptune for sixth place, ahead of only Mercury.

America's favorite non-Earth planet? It's Mars, of course, which benefits from proximity and from the glow of being the home planet of friendly (and unfriendly) visitors in science fiction books and movies for more than a century.

Also, Mars is the name of a famed candy bar, which doesn't hurt. (Note: I would not eat a Uranus chocolate bar for obvious reasons. Hah hah hah. Another Uranus joke!)

Anyway, the rankings of planets among Americans surveyed by the good folks at YouGov provide insight into what planets we like and presumably why we like them.

Here is the breakdown and expert insight (I live on the most popular planet, I know what makes planets popular!) for the rankings.

Mars. No surprise that this leads the way, with 19% of people picking it as their favorite planet (unsurprisingly, 38% of people had no opinion on their favorite planet and 55% had no opinion on their least favorite planet. Earthlings are known for being neutral and we have very little history of arguing over random issues. Am I right?). Mars is the least favorite of only 3% of responders. What do we often call extraterrestrial visitors? Martians. Who is the greatest Super Bowl halftime performer? Bruno Mars. Case closed.

Saturn. Presumably because of its rings, this is the favorite planet of 14% of Americans. Make no mistake, the rings make Saturn cool, as does the fact that it was the name of an American car company from which Mrs. Brad and I purchased a sedan in the early 1990s. 

Jupiter. While some might attribute this planet's popularity to the Train song, "Drops of Jupiter," I suspect there's another, more clever reason. It's the only planet with "er" at the end, making it even more Jupit than Jupit. It's Jupiter, get it? To move past Saturn and perhaps even Mars, it could change its name to Jupitest. What could be more Jupit? Nothing. That would be the Jupitest planet ever.

Pluto. The highest ranking planet with a negative ranking (liked most by 7%, disliked most by 11%), Pluto (again, not a planet according to scientists) is the name of a beloved Disney character, but also an impersonator (implanetator?). It feels mean to dislike Pluto, but that wouldn't be the Jupitest thing you could believe.

Venus. People are surprisingly neutral (favorite of 6%, least favorite of 3%) about a planet that has been the title of two iconic songs (although I suspect the songs are about the god Venus, not the planet): The Frankie Avalon version that reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1959 and the entirely different Shocking Blue song that reached No. 1 in 1970 and was remade by Bananarama in 1986 and again reached No. 1. But Venus languishes low in the rankings of favorites. Yeah, baby, she's got it.

Uranus. Guaranteed to get giggles in every middle-school science class forever, it's also the planet that takes 84 years to complete a rotation of the sun. Favorite of only 3% of people and least-favorite by 9% (likely the teachers who had to deal with the chuckles in class). Does it deserve to rank higher? You bet your . . . well, you know.

Neptune. It's the planet most likely to be forgotten when we're asked to name all the planets. What do you think of Neptune? Right . . . nothing. It's blue and really cold (colder than Green Bay, Wisconsin, if you can believe it). There are few movies, songs or even jokes about Neptune. It's the planet that is most overlooked, with only 3% of people naming it as their favorite and 3% having it as their least favorite. The other 94% forget it existed, like Pauly Shore or Sinbad.

Mercury. The planet closest to the sun is the least-favorite of 12% of those who have an opinion, the most of any planet. Only 2% of people like it most, despite the influence of singer Freddy Mercury and former NFL running back Mercury Morris. It's also the only planet with an element named after it (although Uranium, Neptunium and Plutonium are all inspired by planets). That this is the least favorite planet is the Jupitest thing ever. You can bet Uranus on it.

Hah hah hah. There we go again!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Am I the superhero Veinman? You can weigh the evidence

Am I a superhero? Probably not. Do I have superpowers? Maybe.

According to the surgical nurse, I have superpowers. According to my cardiologist, maybe not.

My origin story: Several months ago, my doctor recommended an ultrasound of my heart to see if my persistent high cholesterol has caused problems. (Background, at a risk of violating HIPPA: I'm a Type 1 diabetic and have maxed my cholesterol medications without significantly lowering my bad cholesterol. I do all the things you're supposed to, I swear. But it remained high until I recently started biweekly injections that have done the trick. So better now, but it's been a while).

Anyway, the test showed that I have a high calcium score, which isn't great. So they suggested a stress test, which I presumed was someone yelling at me that I was late for a crucial appointment and that I was missing deadlines at work. Alas, it was a treadmill test and I . . . failed it. Inexplicably. I thought I aced it.

So it was time for the next procedure, an angiogram, where (this is my dumbed-down understanding) they stick a wire in my veins at the wrist and go all the way to my heart in search of problems that they can fix then (are there little workers inside the wire? Perhaps).

I had the angiogram and woke up in the recovery room. The nurse told me they found a blockage, but didn't have to do anything because I GREW NEW ARTERIES TO REPLACE IT.

What? I can grow my own arteries and veins? I'm a superhero! I'm Veinman!

Could I become a vein donor? Could I also grow a new ear or toe if needed? Is anything possible?

I communicated the good news to my family, close friends and co-workers. They were all amazed and (to my face, at least) agreed that it was likely a superpower. I recovered well, as you would expect for Veinman.

A week later, I had my follow-up appointment, where I was told this isn't that unusual. We have backup veins (again, this is my dumbed-down version) that come off the bench when needed to replace blocked veins and arteries around our heart and brain. I apparently had Brock Purdy or Steve Young waiting to replace the starter (another allegory: Those veins are like side streets. When the body's equivalent of Highway 12 or Interstate 80 gets blocked, my blood pours off the freeway/highway like cars going to side streets, then coming back on before the destination, losing no time and delivering the same amount of cars).

So maybe I'm not a superhero and maybe I don't have a superpower. Maybe it's more about the remarkable, miraculous bodies that God gave us and how they can sometimes create their own workarounds when something goes wrong. It's already amazing that our bodies work perfectly about 99.9% of the time (our heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidney, legs, etc. almost always work. Our eyes work. Our ears work. When you take a step, you just do it because your body works. You get the point).

Now I'm even more amazed that when they don't work perfectly – when an artery or vein gets totally blocked, as in my case, there are other veins and arteries ready to come in and finish the job.

I'm grateful for the good news. I don't have any restrictions, other than continuing to monitor my cholesterol and checking in with the cardiologist.

But apparently, I'm not Veinman.

However, I still am so good at veins that I probably think that Carly Simon song is about me.

Reach Brad Sranhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Artificial intelligence, the dumbing down of the world and bixonimania

Artificial intelligence is changing the world in the same way that the printing press, vaccines and democracy changed the world. Also in the same way, the black plague, smallpox and state-sponsored terrorism changed the world.

It's either going to be great or horrendous. Or maybe – if we're lucky – somewhere between.

For most of us, artificial intelligence is a clever tool to create a cartoon of ourselves or to make fake videos of our dog talking to another dog. Or maybe it's an easy way to write an email that doesn't include misspellings and has the tone we want.

All pretty good stuff. But it also has the capability of disrupting the world's economic system, to eliminate millions of jobs and to potentially enslave humanity. Unless we are already enslaved and don't realize it.

My biggest concern about AI, is of course, existential. AI can write. If it can write better than me, what am I supposed to do? Get a regular job? Ha ha ha. Ridiculous, right?

Another issue, though, is that large language models of AI (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others) aren't very discerning and, like people throughout history, don't fact-check before spouting something as truth. Even if it's not true. Even if it says it's not true multiple times.

Take bixonimania.

It's a made-up disease, created by a team of medical researchers in Sweden two years ago to see how AI handled such a situation. According to an article in the journal Nature, researchers uploaded two fake studies on bixonimania to a preprint server and within weeks, people who asked large language model AI tools (like the ones that come with your web browser) about rubbing their eyes and getting slightly pinkish eyelids got an answer. Within weeks, bixonimania was a possible cause. Peer-reviewed literature even cited the studies (revealing that researchers didn't check their sources).

This despite the fact that the reports had a made-up author who worked at a nonexistent university in the equally nonexistent Nova City, California. The report thanked people on the USS Enterprise and mentioned Sideshow Bob, from "The Simpsons." It included the phrase "this paper is entirely made up" and described the people in the study as "made-up."

Yet the AI tools cited it as a possible cause of the problem. Other researchers cited it. An obvious trick (as the author points out, "mania" is used only for psychological issues, not eye issues) became accepted medicine.

Bixonimania is now in the ether for good. There's no getting that genie back in the bottle.

Of course, there have always been lies that have been believed despite all the evidence. Some people insist Elvis is still alive. That the moon landing was faked. That the 2020 election was stolen. That the Dodgers aren't the evil empire. They didn't need AI to believe those things.

But we're now living in a world where we increasingly depend on AI. When you Google something, the first response is AI-generated and many of us never go past that.

I guess it's not that much different than when we relied on our family, friends and neighbors to communicate what was true. We believed that razor blades in apples were a real risk at Halloween. That the Procter & Gamble logo reflected Satanism. That eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke would make your stomach explode.

Now, however, we trust our phones and laptops. We trust artificial intelligence applications that steal other people's work, summarize it and are willing to make things up.

AI is a great tool. It will make the world a fundamentally different place. It will (at least initially) make things easier and more accessible. The big concern is the same one that has existed since the dawn of the industrial revolution: Will chasing money (and there are trillions of dollars to be made on AI) include ignoring red flags that lead to unanticipated consequences? Will the cure for our need for knowledge and information be worse than the disease?

I don't know. My bixonimania is affecting my eyes right now, so I don't want to think about it.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

That 'boring' conversation may end up being better than expected

It turns out that subjects aren't boring, people are.

Or maybe that's not the point. I'm not sure because I stopped paying attention while reading an article describing an experiment about what makes things interesting (since I presumed it would be boring). Which, I guess, is the point.

OK. I'll read the report. Hold on . . . 

OK, I'm back. (Time passes differently in print. I could have created a bunch of white space with no words, but that seems dumb. And I don't know how to do it.)

It turns out that a study published by the American Psychological Association (if my understanding of sports leagues is correct, the APA is the upstart league to challenge the National Psychological Association with hopes of forcing a merger) shows that people consistently overestimate how boring topics will be. What we think will be boring often ends up being interesting and enjoyable.

This does not, I presume, include someone giving details of the most recent golf round or talking about their fantasy sports leagues – the two most boring topics to discuss, according to the Stanhope Psychological Association.

Anyway, for the study, people were asked to predict how much they would enjoy a discussion about a topic they identified as boring – things such as World War I and World War II, nonfiction books, the stock market, cats and vegan diets. They then had real-world conversations with people (some friends, some strangers, some in person, some online) and reported how much they enjoyed the conversation.

Across the board, people said the conversations were more enjoyable than expected (unless, presumably, the topic was someone's golf round or fantasy sports team). 

The study's authors concluded that engagement is what matters, not necessarily the topic. People in conversations where they felt heard and where each person responded to the other enjoyed the conversation. They learned something, but more importantly, they learned about the other person and felt like that person learned about them.

The study has serious applications: In a world where it's easier and easier to withdraw and reduce communication with other humans (why talk to someone when you can scroll on your phone, watch Netflix and have food delivered?), we often avoid conversation because we think they will be boring.

“If we skip talking to a coworker at the coffee machine, a neighbor in the elevator or a stranger at an event, we may be missing small moments of connection,” said the study's author. “Even a brief conversation about everyday life may be more rewarding than we expect.”

It turns out that when we engage with others, asking questions and trying to learn, we find connection. Key side note: That's easy for an extrovert to say. Most people are introverts – even extroverts are usually more introverted than they present –so it's not easy to talk with others. Yet it's worthwhile. So, some suggestions from someone who has spent his life asking questions and interviewing people professionally while using those tools to learn about people away from work.

No. 1: Ask questions. Then ask follow-up questions. Take conversations as an opportunity to learn about the person with whom you're talking. If they're bad at communicating, it may end there, but if you keep trying to engage, you'll find more connections. You'll find that people are interested in you, too.

No. 2: Don't ask about golf or fantasy sports.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.