A few months ago, nincompoop claimed he had settled another war, this time between Thais and Cambodian forces on their mutual border. This was done in the name of world peace. Well, that peace did not last very long with bombs exploding and guns shooting along that border this week. Finding solutions to these problems requires thought, hard work and finesse and most importantly a long term commitment, all qualities that nincompoop lacks.
Blog
Fog of War???
Wow, if SecWar can’t handle it when we are shooting at a couple of speed boats, what will happen if we engage with an enemy that shoots back. So weak!
Running with Dylan
On Friday, I took Dylan, our Corgi out for a walk. Dylan is now 13 and is showing his age. Stairs are still passable, but tough for him. He still eats voraciously, but he also likes to sleep a lot. On our walk, he did his normal sniffing and snuffling, wandered into the woods to check out particular scents and generally acted like himself.
But then, he started to run. He was a younger Dylan, running with his ears blown back, his little legs bounding along. He took me by surprised, I had to run along with him. If I slowed he’d turn, look and say “Come on, keep up”. It didn’t last long, but it was so good to see. A small Thanksgiving gift.
More AI fun
I asked Gemini to setup a morning briefing for me concerning global geopolitical hotspots and overlooked investment ideas. After reading the latest briefing I asked it to add a humorous story. Here it is:
The Great Escaped Emu of New Hampshire
In a slightly less geopolitical but equally chaotic event, police in New Hampshire spent hours this week chasing an escaped emu through residential backyards. The bird, apparently unphased by New England’s chilly November weather, managed to outrun officers on foot and in cruisers for several miles. It was finally “detained” after being lured into a horse trailer with a bucket of grain. Local residents are calling it the town’s most exciting chase since the great moose incident of 2018.
Have a great day!
I didn’t see a source for this story so I asked for one. I also asked if I could post in my blog.
Gemini responded that it was an hallucination compiled from three stories. It recommended this for a citation in my blog:
How to Cite It
If you post it, I recommend framing it as an example of “AI Hallucinations” or “News from the Future.” Here is a suggested citation format:
Source: Gemini AI (Simulated “Future News” Briefing, Nov 2025)
The “Real” Story (For Context)
If you want to explain to your readers where the AI got the idea, you can add this note:
“The AI likely conflated this ‘2025’ story with the real-life escape of Beatrice the Emu, who led police on a similar chase in Bow, New Hampshire, back in September 2015.”
This way, you get a fun blog post and you keep your journalistic integrity intact!
Gemini is very aware of “fake news” and didn’t want to add to that noise.
Logos
Now that Nano Banana has created a new logo, I thought I should review the older one and explain how I got here.
I forget which AI I used to make the above logo. Androken is a mash up of the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers’ names. They join at Merrymeeting Bay not far from where I live. I thought it would be a good name and I tried to create a logo from it.
As you can see, there are two streams of blue snaking down to the globe that represents Merrymeeting. It took numerous prompts and bad results with the AI engine to get this far. This used 2024 AI technology.
The new logo has a much more modern and crisper feel to it. The two rivers are still represented by the flow into a camera’s eye. This was the result of a single prompt, which produced four different examples. One thing that Gemini was particularly proud of (can AI be proud of something??) is that Nano was able to incorporate “Androken” into the logo without correcting or changing it as a spell correct algorithm might try to do.
In addition, Gemini/Nano Banana also produced a black and white variant:
Plus, with digital technology, I can capture the graphic and do my own typography.
All very cool.
I do understand the concern an artist might have that Nano was stealing work. Since I am not making any money from the imaging work I’m doing I cannot afford to hire an artist to make logos. We are in a very weird time where technology is quickly changing and we humans are hard pressed to keep up. A curse, possibly ancient: May you live in interesting times.
Google’s Gemini
I’ve spent a few days fooling around with Gemini and the Nano Banana image generator. I really like it. I find its reasoning more in depth both in chats about video/photographic equipment, possible investment ideas and geopolitics. I found some of the investment suggestion reasonings to be more in depth than ChatGPT.
I’ve also asked Nano Banana to put together a video of a witch and a dragon:
And a possible new logo for Androken.com:
I thought both came out better than earlier videos and images. I will try my pterodactyl next, although I may have used up all my Nano Banana credits for the day.
All in all, I think Alphabet has an AI winner. Looking forward to see where it leads.
As for investment, I closed all my put positions for the Thanksgiving week. I’m still long gold (ETFs), I have both domestic, developed international and emerging market ETF’s in equities and bonds, but over a third is in cash and money market.
I’m sure nincompoop will shake the investment tree hard over the next week about some slight. We shall see.
No new News, that’s good
This Monday starts off quietly. No noticeable rants from nincompoop, the G20 meeting ended without noticeable fireworks, war hasn’t started in Venezuela yet and the Chinese haven’t invaded Taiwan yet.
So without much to go on, I’m going to close my puts on PLTR, keep them on MSFT and NVDA for a bit. Still too early for me to dive back into US equities, I lightened up on Europe last week, left Asia alone. Mostly bonds and cash now. I’m sure there will be some new crisis soon.
Why the market is acting weird
We are now a socialist country
While many factors affect the stock market, my primary concern is the nincompoop in the White House. He makes pronouncements that are off the wall, he runs the country on fear, he does not allow independent thinking, he is a socialist.
Why do I say this? There are two types of socialists, communal and nationalist. I’m not going to go into the history and derivation of each type, but from my viewpoint they ended up at the same place. A few men, who due to timing, some ability and mostly luck, think they can outperform everyone else. You find these elitists in all authoritarian governments and in some democracies.
They destroy capitalism and democracy by dictating what they want and forcing their will on both individuals, companies and organizations. They think they know best and will destroy anyone and everything that gets in their way.
So what does this lead to? Fear of trying things. Fear of innovation. The mindset is always CYA, Cover Your Ass.
Unfortunately, this situation is effecting a vast majority of countries. The US, China, Russia, India, various countries in Europe and Latin America are all in the same boat. It’s almost like we are entering a new Dark Age. Too much governance by “gut feelings” little governance by science and knowledge.
So where does this leave us. Fluctuating markets moving with little rhyme or reason. Broken alliances, nationalistic pride and most likely destructive wars. Once again, gold makes the most sense as an investment, but remember gold doesn’t make anything, it’s just a place to store wealth.
Muddled World Investments
I purchased NVDA and MSFT puts during the last two weeks expecting a decline in their prices due to an overly strong expectation about AI. I held those puts despite yesterday’s good earnings reports from Nvidia. Today I added PLTR puts just because of the high P/E valuations.
Until this year, most of my positive investments have been long in tech, but these days I’m very wary. The circular financing for massive AI projects, discussed in last week’s financial newspapers, need to be remembered! Creative financing always kill small investors.
I still like gold. As long as nincompoop keeps buying gold toilet fixtures and the Saudis, Indians and others keep buying gold, it will continue to go up. It’s too bad gold doesn’t produce anything, that’s partly why I hate investing in it.
As for crypto, well, now you know. To heaven one quarter to hell the next. If you do indulge, just make sure you know which way the wind is blowing.
Lowe’s vs Home Depot
At least locally, here in the Brunswick Topsham area, I think customer service is far superior at Lowe’s than at Home Depot. Hard to find anyone to help you at HD, while staff come up to you at Lowe’s and ask if you need help.