AI progress over the past year has been incredible. Plenty of people are thrilled, but none more so than businesses, which can now save money on workers. On us, in other words.

A huge number of people are about to be put out on the street. These damn AI agents really can replace a large share of office workers. Unfortunately, it turns out that knowledge work is the easiest kind to automate. Robotics isn't yet capable of replacing electricians or plumbers. But the huge number of people whose output is just information, like business reports and analytics, will be the first to go. It's already happening right before our eyes this year.

There's nothing good about this. It's a massive social problem that will hit every country, no matter which continent it's on. We haven't fully grasped it yet, but it's already underway. AI is going to take jobs from real people. People with families.

In the end, this will only save money for businesses while making things worse for the economy as a whole, and for all of humanity. A person who loses their paycheck stops taking part in the economy in any meaningful way. They get poorer, and so does their family. They stop going out to restaurants or taking expensive vacations. The economy suffers. Businesses get richer, and ordinary people get poorer.

Then there's another question: who's going to use what businesses produce if people have no money? Who's going to buy all of it? Who needs a new smartphone or new furniture when unemployment has left people broke?

In my view, the only solution is universal basic income. That's when the government pays every citizen a fixed sum every month. The state pays it always, to absolutely everyone, in exactly the same amount. The payment doesn't depend on the recipient's social or financial status.

UBI should go to everyone, from infants to the elderly. Things will only get worse as robotics becomes more capable. Then absolutely everyone will be affected. We won't even need plumbers and electricians anymore. A humanoid robot will show up and fix everything. But who's going to pay for it? People won't have anything to pay businesses with.

We're already seeing society split apart. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It's awful. The world is becoming more unjust. We need to start thinking about this now.

We should start now, even with a small UBI. It can be modest, but governments need to get used to the idea. That would ease social tension. And as AI and robotics keep advancing, UBI can be raised. Otherwise, we're headed for a social catastrophe straight out of the worst dystopias.

These are just my thoughts for now, but I can already see people being laid off. They're being laid off because these damn AI agents are far more efficient. Society has been through many crises in its history, and this one won't be easy. We need to prepare in advance.

Fans of Quentin Tarantino know that he has a foot fetish. For those unfamiliar with the term: it's when a man has a particular fascination with women's legs, and even more so with their feet. It's safe to say that Quentin Tarantino is the most famous foot fetishist in the world.

Let's start with Quentin Tarantino's first real film - Reservoir Dogs (1992). I'm skipping "My Best Friend's Birthday", as it was never officially released.

There's nothing related to foot fetishism in Reservoir Dogs: the film features only tough men. Women appear only briefly in a few background scenes. I found just one scene where a woman is shown in the foreground - the carjacking moment.

In fall, a ficus can sometimes start dropping leaves one after another. And it took me a long time to realize just how much light has to do with it.

My ficuses handle summer heat just fine, even on a southeast-facing window. They also don't mind it when the soil dries out now and then. I've noticed something interesting, too: plants seem to get used to whatever watering routine they're on. If someone has spent years never letting the soil dry out even a little, a sudden dry spell can really stress the plant. But mine are perfectly fine if the soil stays dry for a while. Of course, I'm not talking about leaving them without water for weeks. I just don't rush to water the moment the top layer dries out.

Wind turbines keep getting bigger every year. There's one main reason for that: the longer the blades, the more powerful the turbine. But couldn't you just install two smaller turbines instead of one large one? To answer this, let's take a look at real-world data.

Goldwind is a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer. Here are photos of their operating turbines from the company website:

Goldwind GW 82 / 1500 - output: 1500 kW (1.5 MW). Rotor length: 82.3 meters, meaning a blade diameter of roughly 41.15 meters.

Goldwind GW 171 / 6000 - output: 6000 kW (6.0 MW). Rotor length: 171 meters, giving a blade diameter of about 85.5 meters.

Even here you can already see that the relationship between blade length and output is nonlinear. The second turbine's blade is 2.07x longer, but the power is 4x higher!

Vestas is a wind turbine manufacturer from Denmark (their turbines are shown in the next photo):

Remember that memorable interrogation scene on Pier 32 from The Naked Gun?

The actor who played the sleazy dock foreman is named Joe Grifasi.

The 2016 film Maudie, which tells the biographical story of the remarkable Canadian artist, naturally takes a number of creative liberties. Films like this are never shot exactly as events unfolded in real life - otherwise the story would be dull to watch.

However, I was intrigued to learn that Richard Nixon actually bought paintings from Maud Lewis. The film highlights this fact twice. First, Maud Lewis (played by Sally Hawkins) says she received a letter from Vice President Nixon:

Next in the film, journalists film a news report near Maud Lewis's house. And the reporter says: