I first heard of Pavlov from the game incredible machines, where if you dangle a banana in front of a mandrill (looks like a baboon to 6 year old me) he would run on the treadmill giving you power for your machines. So I always think of a baboon when I hear pavlov.

I work AV and have worked many of these events on both sides of the aisle. Presidents, VP’s, presidential hopefuls, the whole gamut. The democrats tend to be less organized but way more friendly and accommodating, the republicans are very their way or the highway, but tend to have all their ducks in a row. As far as attending you hear someone parrot ideas that you’ve already heard before, and either already agree with or don’t. They won’t take any hard stances and are unlikely to answer any questions, if they do they will answer the softball questions and sidestep the hard questions. All in all, largely a waste of time and resources.

The only two that I’ve worked that didn’t fall into that category was beto o’rourke and chris christy. Both of them were very engaging with the audience, were willing to answer hard questions, they actually seemed like they cared, and were doing this for country, not career.

They are majestic but they don’t strike fear into the heart of Australians quite like an Emu does.

Am I allowed to talk about Russia and Ukraine? Israel and Palestine? Great Britain and Ireland? Australia and some birds?

If something is happening it’s fair game to talk about. We may not be able to fix / change anything, but we can express our opinions on the subject.

I do, I’m freelance, I make more money.

Eh, most of the marketing around ai is complete bullshit, but I do use it on a regular basis for my work. Several years ago it would have just been called machine learning, but it saves me hours every day. Is it a magic bullet that fixes everything? No. But is it a powerful tool that helps speed up the process? Yes.

Merica

I was big into crypto at the very beginning. Lost a hard drive that now has about $8 million on it somewhere.

Mine is an odd one, she let the breakup be amicable. It’s never easy to breakup, but our relationship turned into a LDR with a 5 hour time difference. Long distance relationships are never easy but we were giving it an honest shot. Eventually we both knew it was time, but neither of us wanted it to end. When the idea was floated that this could be coming to an end she insisted that we don’t blame ourselves but rather the circumstances. Our last date was both of us updating each other’s dating profiles.

We’re still friends, we still talk, I was at her wedding a few years ago, and the man she’s with is an amazing man, I wish them the best. It was an issue of circumstance, not compatibility, and of all the relationships I’ve been in that is the only one that I do not blame either myself, or my partner for the breakup.

Pause long enough to go “that’s different”, then hand you the hot dog, because only one of those items is a taco, even if it’s not commonly called a taco.

But hot dogs aren’t sandwiches they’re tacos. It perfectly logical to describe a hot dog as an American taco. If there were no taco items on the table and you asked for a taco I’d think you were being funny, but I’d pass you the hot dog.