Correction

The fearsome Scarface becomes American clickbait

The life and times of notorious gangster Al Capone

And our award for Understatement of the Year…

…goes to the Associated Press for…

Regard for the facts is not a hallmark of Trump’s campaign for the Nov. 3 election or of his presidency.

Looks like a whole new market for the diet industry

 Coronavirus: 'Fat finger error' gives contact-tracing app users wrong alert levels

Users of the contact-tracing app for England and Wales have reported receiving updates incorrectly telling them the risk level in their area had changed, after what Sky News understands was a mistake by the app's developers.

Which pretty much says it all. The story is from Sky News, which is awfully fussy about cookies (this is probably a good thing but it's still a nuisance). It's possible to just say no.

Of course, in England and Wales they're likely called biscuits. 

We appreciate a good cliche as much as the next guy…

SAN FRANCISCO — It is the 11th hour before the presidential election. But Facebook and Twitter are still changing their minds.

With just a few weeks to go before the Nov. 3 vote…

…but really, if you go with one you ought to stay with it for a little while at least.

The story, from the New York Times, is about a New York Post article about Hunter Biden that Twitter tried to suppress, and in doing so made the story so famous that now everybody wants to read it, and Twitter is obligingly unblocking it. This phenomenon is known in some circles as the Streisand effect.

We'll all be happy when this is over.

Rob

 it-s-time-to-marry-rob-1825124394

But what if…

Scientists say there’s a 50/50 chance we’re living in a computer simulation

…what if it's a simulation of a simulation, did they think of that? What if these "scientists" are a simulation?

Hey, if you have enough bandwidth to worry about this too, enjoy. Me, I'm still trying to figure out what's for dinner.

On believing what you read

Nearly half of Twitter accounts pushing to reopen America may be bots

Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to this problem. Banning or removing accounts won’t work, as more can be spun up for every one that is deleted. Banning accounts that spread inaccurate facts also won’t solve anything. “A lot of disinformation is done through innuendo or done through illogical statements, and those are hard to discover,” she says.

[Note: The term, "bot," here is used in a pejorative sense, as it almost always is. This has a wee tinge of disinformation in itself, as bots can do "good" things too. Nonetheless, we judge the information in this article to be eminently trustworthy.] 

This looks like a pretty entertaining month to me

An afternoon

You first

Dunkin’ Donuts releases Spicy Ghost Pepper donut, DIY kits for Halloween

The new offering from the multinational coffee and donut retailer features strawberry-flavored icing with a mix of cayenne, ghost pepper and red sanding sugar “for a sizzling look,” the chain hypes in a press release.

So no aircraft carrier?

 The Federal Surplus Personal Property Donation Programenables certain nonfederal organizations to obtain personal property that the federal government no longer needs. Surplus personal property includes all types and categories of personal property except:

• Land or other real property;
• Certain naval vessels; and
• Records of the federal government.

Not all walls are alike

Decompression, whew

 I mailed in my ballot. Nothing in the news interests me any more (there is nothing but the election, and it's over for me). It celebrated by raining all day.

There is practically no political advertising in my state either. Silence is golden.

For a while, anyway.

Shadow