Last week I saw my first Fiat 500e, charging in a parking garage. We had a Fiat 500 for years (which my sister still drives) and liked it. Thought we might get a 500e to replace it, but they were only available in California and were a bit pricey. Was wondering about other EVs around the world and ran across the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV. A very small car with about 100 miles or range that sells for about $5k. Seems almost a half a million have sold in China, mostly to younger buyers. Its ugly, but I think I want one!

From Terrible Maps:

Every now and then I hear about something that truly astounds me. Today I read that most people only breathe out of a single nostril at a time, and that nostrils take turns being the dominant, breathing nostrils, switching every 90 minutes to four hours. At first I thought this sounded like nonsense, another bit of internet misinformation. But I checked and, sure enough, I was only using one nostril. I googled and it seems to be a medical fact.

Do Most Humans Really Breathe out of Only One Nostril at a Time? Here’s the Skinny

A short and umsuccessful house hunting trip.

We are in Phoenix, AZ today. This morning my pad starts playing little songs in the other room. Apps have a bad habit of turning notifications back on even after I turn them off. It kept up, so I went and had a look. The refrigerator door, back in Austin, was open. We called my daughter back at home and sure enough, it wasn’t closed all the way. I also need to replace the water filter.

This week we lost Pucci. He was with us for almost 17 years and a part of the family. It is difficult to find the words to describe him. He was as clever as any animal I have ever seen. He had a big heart and a big personality and seemed to make an impression on everyone. We will miss him.

My old friend and office mate has written a book about his adventures in tech, professional gambling and Wall Street. I believe I may have taken him to his first casino in Las Vegas on a drive from the Midwest to the Bay Area. I’m told that part isnt in the book, but that I may have a small mention. On preorder.

Play It Right: The Remarkable Story of a Gambler Who Beat the Odds on Wall Street

I had the good fortune to meet Rodney Brooks in the late 1980s, before Roomba. He had some little toy cars he had fitted with programmable logic to do fairly sophisticated behaviors. It was actually an early inspiration for my own work in programmable logic. I kept up with AI over the years and my opinions tend to track Brooks. Some would say it is pessimistic, but I would call it realistic. In a nutshell, these systems will fail (perhaps a sign of intelligence itself) so you need to be ready for failures. A short, readable one from IEEE.

An Inconvenient Truth About AI

Some photos of Austin, mostly the new Google building near the library.

There hasn’t been a Jazz Fest for a couple of years now because of COVID-19, but I haven’t been myself for many years. Ran across this 2019 collection from the Smithsonian. Over five hours of the best of New Orleans Music.

Jazz Fest: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival