A few weeks ago, I saw a movie called Normal. It was a violent shoot-em-up set in a small Minnesota town named Normal, starring Bob Odenkirk as the new sheriff. I guess his new standard role is as a more humorous, laid-back John Wick. Anyway, the premise of the movie, which was rather unbelievable, is that this town was a quiet, secret storage place for vast sums of yakuza money. Ha ha, very likely. The new sheriff discovers the hoard of cash and gold, and hijinks ensue, hijinks that involve the citizens of the town shooting and blowing things up to protect their lucrative local industry.

It was entertaining, but not great, and nothing like the small town Minnesota I see. Except…

Today I went downtown to pay my home insurance bill at a local bank. This bank has always felt weird to me — there are never any clients inside, it’s got these gigantic high ceilings and very classy decor, and I only ever see one or two tellers at “work,” that is, doing nothing but sitting at their desks looking bored. Suddenly, the idea that this bank could be a front for yakuza treasure seemed a little more probable.

Then I discovered that the bill I was paying was not for 6 months coverage, but for one month. Eeep. This was way too high for me, or for most people in this little town, so now I’m thinking that the idea that we’re under the yakuza seems much more plausible.

Bob Odenkirk, come save us!

Found on Bluesky:

Likewise, my first thought was to press the blue button. But then I thought that that would just give all the red button people what they wanted, and I’d end up dead while they could take all my stuff. But then I thought again, would I want to live in a world full of murderous bastards? And I was back to pushing the blue button.

You could cycle around and around this dilemma all day long. Entertaining, but I have better things to do.

This does have evolutionary implications. We don’t have buttons with global effects, but throughout our history we’ve had people meeting and having to choose between cooperating and expediently executing those who oppose us. I think in the long run, cooperation wins, but the problem with this thought experiment is that it compresses a billion incremental decisions into one final, immediate commitment, and that isn’t at all realistic.

My wife, who works at an assisted living facility in town, just got home and told me a sad story of a resident whose grown kids did not bother to call her today.

So I’m here to remind you to get off your goddamn butt and call your mom. Now.

I spent many years debating stupid creationists, and I never ever got paid a nickel.* Nothing. For all that effort. I was in the wrong business, because apparently you can get paid $10,000 for debating AI-Doomer nonsense, and you can even show up for the online debate looking like this:

He was called to debate by this anonymous fellow, 47fucb4r8curb4fc8f8r4bfic8r, who coughed up the $10K for the privilege of telling Eliezer Yudkowski to stop making extravagant claims and stop threatening AI researchers with doom.

It is an utterly ridiculous debate between two clowns. Yudkowski wants to claim that research on AI is an existential threat to humanity (I think that’s silly, except in the sense that it is a waste of resources), while 47fucb4r8curb4fc8f8r4bfic8r is an LLM researcher who wants to grandstand and claim that Yudkowski is an existential threat to him, personally. I can’t take either of them seriously.

What I have learned is that if I want to profit from future debates, I need to invest in goofy hats.

*OK, Ray Comfort once sent me a fruit basket, but that was it. It was memorable because it was such an exception.

Fortunately, a cartoon dog is providing suggestions.

My underwear is kind of boring, maybe I can do something about that.

More suggestions are welcome.

It really must be the end of the school year — today was a day of ceremonies, and the official commencement event is tomorrow midday. I just got back from our Native American honor ceremony.

I’m envious. They get a beautiful blanket in addition to a diploma.

I’ve said before that I’ve got a tear in the lateral meniscus of my right knee, and that I’m supposed to get that patched up with arthroscopic surgery in less than two weeks. But my right knee is the good one, that until last summer never gave me any problems! It’s my left knee that has been a lifelong troublemaker: I dislocated it while shoveling rocks when I was 13 (child labor is bad, trust me on this) and again when I was in high school playing basketball against the Kent-Meridian High School varsity football team (they didn’t understand that tackling wasn’t part of the official rules.) Both were treated by wrenching my kneecap back into place, and putting me in a hip-to-ankle cast for 3 months. Kids, don’t injure yourself while living in the middle ages.

As long as I was going in for surgery on the right knee, the doctor figured we should check out the left. I had an MRI this week, and just got the text summary, which looks like it’s mostly normal, but with some minor funny business that I can’t tell if it’s in the normal range, or if I ought to get it repaired now, before I retire. I understand all the words, but lack the context to know what to do about it.

EXAM:
MRI KNEE LT WITHOUT CONTRAST

INDICATION:
Meniscal injury, knee,r/o meniscus injury,Internal derangement of left knee

TECHNIQUE:
Multiplanar multisequence knee MRI without contrast

COMPARISON:
Prior radiographs

FINDINGS:
Bones:Patella and trochlear subchondral reactive edema with small cysts.
Normal marrow. Minor patellofemoral osteophytes.

Ligaments, tendons:

ACL, PCL: Normal

Extensor mechanism: Proximal patellar tendinosis. Distal quadriceps normal.
Attenuated anterior fibers of MPFL suspicious for old proximal tear. Also
medial retinaculum. Minor thickening lateral retinaculum.

MCL and post/med corner: Distended bursa versus ganglion cyst along the
posterior/medial corner between pes anserinus and semimembranosus.

Lateral and post/lateral: Normal

Gastrocnemius tendons: Normal

Joint spaces:Small effusion. Minor reactive synovitis suprapatellar recess.
Diffuse patellar and trochlear cartilage loss mostly grade 2 and grade 3 with
small surface area grade 4 both sides. Small subchondral cysts.

Low-grade chondrosis medial, lateral compartments

Soft tissues:

No Baker’s cyst. Diffuse grade 1 muscle fatty infiltration

Tibial, common peroneal nerves: Normal

Menisci:

Lateral:Free edge surface fraying midbody. No definite tear

Medial: Normal morphology, signal

Comment: Abnormal MRI findings very common in asymptomatic volunteers,
frequently not a source of symptoms. Many studies demonstrate meniscal tears
in up to greater than 50% asymptomatic volunteers, cartilage defects >24%, bone
marrow lesions up to 50%, 21% tendon abnormalities, prevalence increasing w
age. Nearly all pain-free adult knees have at least 1 MRI abnormal finding, so
MRI findings must be interpreted under supervision of expert clinical
assessment.

Culvenor et al, Br J Sports Med 2019

Parkar & Adriaensen, Eur Radiol 2024

IMPRESSION:
1. Small effusion, reactive synovitis, patellofemoral cartilage loss
2. Mild patellar tendinosis
3. Suspected old partial tear MPFL retinaculum complex
4. Posterior/medial corner bursal distension versus ganglion or synovial cysts

That’s entertaining, and I appreciated that comment that “Nearly all pain-free adult knees have at least 1 MRI abnormal finding,” so I don’t feel any need to freak out. But I would raise my hand and say that I’m not pain-free, it’s been a chronic source of low-level pain for 50 years, and I don’t know what part of that is relevant to my situation.

I’ll talk to my doctor in the next few days to find out.

I’m done with classes! Last final given yesterday and grading complete, and grades submitted to the registrar. This does not mean celebration and relaxation, but instead that it’s time to catch up with all the work I’ve put off until now. My goal for today is to clean up the genetics lab — I have a bunch of fly bottles to scrub and autoclave, and all the microscopes have to be reshelved, and I’m going to scrub benchtops. This is why I got a PhD.

I might take time off tomorrow, though. And then commencement is on Saturday. And then my summer is going to be spent tidying up my lab and office and dispersing my huge collection of books. Anyone want some?

Rittenhouse has been hospitalized with a spider bite, and I’m getting all this email asking if I was responsible. No, don’t be silly. If I had the power to sic spiders on people I don’t like, Mar-A-Lago and the White House would be so thickly infested with Black Widows and Brown Recluses that the entire Republican ruling class would be dead or hospitalized. I would not start with blubberin’ Kyle, much as he deserves it.

So now his paranoia is imagining invisible communists and spiders under his bed. He’s a weird sad sick individual.

Keep crying, killer.