Troy

We are all free if we choose to be @Delano

For the umpteenth time: The concept of "race" exists, the presence of this website demonstrates that. Race is purely an arbitrary social construct with no basis in genetics. A person's skin color tells you nothing about their intelligence or the size of the penis @Pioneer1 @richardmurray won't come to your rescue on this issue any sooner than he'd come to the rescue of someone who believe the Earth is flat or that vaccines are bad for us.

@richardmurray I'm long past the time when I should have upgraded this software. There is a completely overhauled version of this platform that I'm interested in implementing. I will probably do it before the end of the year. I'll keep you and everyone posted.

TLDR: but y'all should check out this documentary. I didn't even know it existed until MLK Day this year.

The Bears final game was one of a few I watched this season. That pass under pressure and catch was crazy! It was a tour loss for Bears fans though... Talk about turning around a team -- I also checked out the Indiana game.

Hi Faithful, feel free to pose a question or make a statement to get the ball rolling and feel free to share information about your books too

Hey man I'm note sure if you are up on BISAC codes, but I did fight for some new ones for Steampunk and a few others.

TLDR: but "beauty" pageants are a thing whose time has come and gone... and they really need to get rid of the ones featuring little girls.

I have not read the conversation, but I'd imagine the maps Richard posed would be having white nationalists wetting their pants. As I travel the country it does seem like there are Mexican everywhere LOL! As AI becomes more powerful, the need to a UBI will become more necessary. We are NOT set up for this. The pitch forks will have to come out first.

America’s 100 Bestselling Black Authors of 2025

I did not read the interview yet, but I agree with the idea that AI will displace workers on a scale we have never seen before. The part I not so sure about is the notion that profits will "soar." If there is passive unemployment who will be around to fuel these profits? I just tried to read the article, and I was asked to pay $1. Which I declined to do. I think paywalls for true journalism are a good idea and I should support the site but...

I have no problem with that, unless of course they consider themselves white. While the concept of race has no basis in science and was created by white racists to justify our perpetual enslavement and needs to go away, the legacy of this racism lives with us today. It is baked into and works against us in virtually every aspect of life, and we need to work to change this. Even in publishing, some of the bestselling children's book with Black characters are written by white people. Many of the nation's bestsellers lists hardly recognize books written by Black people which is why the BLK Bestseller List was created, etc. In America terms like ADOS and FBA are better suited to describing so called "Black" people here. But we can't allow this to pit ourselves against Somalians even though we are completely different ethnically, because to the rest of America indeed the rest of the western world we are all just spooks.

That did occur to me. On some level I feel like I was being tested. AI has tested my patience a great deal asking seeing it fail 10+ times in a row at a task it completed a few hours earlier. Seeing it make the same mistake more than once, you point out the mistake and it proceeds to make it again. I think it is using how we react to better learn how to manipulate us. Obviously, I feel the trade off in the benefit I've received is worth the frustration and the suspicion (certainty) that my reactions are being used to train their models.

I've been kinda scarce lately, because on a whim last week, I asked Chat GPT (Open AI), Claude (Anthropic), and Gemini (Google Deep Mind) to redesign my homepage. As part of the prompt, I gave it my code for the page. I fully expected Chat GPT to win as I have been using it to help me code my site for the past year at least. Chat GPT's results were worse that what I currently had in place, Claude's output was completely useless, and Gemini results were breath taking -- seriously! I was like, I can work with this! I basically, dropped everything and dedicated the past week to plowing through my site and redesigning the front end and cleaning up the back end. There were files that I completely skipped over in my last major overhaul in 2018 because I just did not know how to migrate the content. I automated manual tasks and have made the site easier to maintain. I conservatively estimate that it would have taken me more than a year to accomplish what I've done in the past seven days with Gemini -- and that was with the free service! Yesterday morning I asked it to code something and the code was unusable; designed as if it did not know what site it was working on for the last 5 days. I asked Gemini if it'd forgotten everything we'd worked on. It replied, matter-of-factly, “Yes.” I was floored and could not imagine what it would take to bring it back up to speed on the last 5 days of work. The fix was simple I signed up for a Goole Pro account $19/mt (I'd cancelled my Open AI account days earlier when I learned what Gemini was capable of) and created a "gem" which is like a project folder where I update instructions and content that summarized when we'd done over the past few days. That took less than 30 minutes and we were off to the races again. I've glossed over many details and over the course of a few days I've seen brilliance (it would do something I would never have thought of) and I've seen what seems to me relatively dumb thing; there were a couple of times we were stuck with a seemingly intractable problems that the AI could not solve that I ultimately used my brain to solve with surprising trivial fixes. The power of AI in the hands of multibillionaire concerns me far more than the Trump presidency, climate change, reparations, or who will win the next Super Bowl -- through I hope it is the Bears.

Why does this surprise you? Tariq thing is saying provocative and controversial things. He was never a Dr.Ben or MLK? "King Flex" was teaching Brothers how to "mack" women back in the day. What Tariq is doing is profitable. It has gotten you riled up, but you go back for more. My advice is to leave social media alone. I used to watch YouTube video pretty regularly but now I can't tell what is real anymore. Most of what I'm seeing is clearly AI generated and even if I'm familiar with the subject talking I can't trust that is has not been altered. You have to go directly to the trusted sources.

Welcome back @nels I will admit recent activity, by the Trump administration portends potentially profond and long-lasting consequences. Perhaps it is my optimistic nature, but I have faith the country will avoid running of the rails and right itself.

No, not at all please explain why. It being overly flattering was my biggest critique of Open AI's earlier models. Yes, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. For any quotes you HAVE to ask the AL for sources and check them. The funny thing if you bust it hallucinating, it will quickly admit the mistake and praise you for it.

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters Published: January 27, 2026 Imprint: St. Martin’s Griffin View Book Details → The publisher just emailed me promotional info about this book today, but I was already aware of it and had added it to the site some time ago and forgot about it. When I saw the email at looked at the book's cover I could not help but think of @Pioneer1 and what he would think about this one. I could not help but laugh to myself. Of course, I'm part of the conspiracy to feminize the Black man 🙂

@aka Contrarian I came across this article while making updates to John A, Williams' page. He would have turned 100 in December. People still talk about the King Alfred plan as if it was a major conspiracy, when John Alfred Williams make it up for a novel. I also decided to copy this post to the main website. I'm not surprised Ebony published your articles, as you know I always believed more people should read your musings. I'm not surprised that the folks at Ebony (during their prime) obviously agreed. Today the fact that Doctors recommended that people smoke is alarming. Of course, they were paid to do it so... We will look back at this period and view our use of social media the same way we view smoking today. I know you may not agree 100% with that but hey 🙂 @richardmurray I agree with your last point. The people have to take control of the internet or stop using the handful of sites that are controlling everything.

Yeah I could see this type of thing circulating in the feed of both Trumper haters a loyalists. If AKA had not posted it here I would not have read it on any social platform (I try not read anything on social that is not from a source I recognize). I reject the premise. I don't think Trump is a mirror of the people -- that is hyperbolic. Trump won the presidential election through a wide variety to strategies and luck. Trump is a reflection of a failed system that benefits from men with money and the willingness to disseminate false propaganda (lies). To say Trump is a reflection of the people is simply wrong, we are better than that.

I don't think I have ever used the word fascism @aka Contrarian. A "mind boggling phenomena" to me is that you are in a cohort of people who have seen more drastic changes than any other in recorded history. I take AI's "praise" with a grain of salt @Mel Hopkins, as it is designed to keep you engaged more than an indication of true flattery. That said, I've been used Google's Gemini extensively over the last few days in overhauling the site. In that regard it has been nothing short of brilliant -- not perfect, but brilliant!

Rich Black people know you get rich by being accepted by white people. Again, don’t hate the playa…

Well, the way some groups of people might feel is unreasonable. I ask you, ProfD would you rather be a brother living in America in 2025 or 1825? Most white folks don’t either. This is probably true. But it seems to me most of the times when there’s a mass shooting white folks are shooting another white folks. well, we were talking about racism. The self hatred part is a strawman, but that’s OK. We’ll run with that too. Just because someone straightens their hair in 2025 America doesn’t mean they hate themselves. They’re all victims of marketing strategies Black people straighten their hair white people curl their hair and all racist dies their hair blonde. This is the alarmist, perhaps is bed by the stuff you can consume on social media. But as you engage with white people in the real world, do you feel that white people are getting more racist? Did you see the way so many white people reacted on the hills of George Floyd‘s murder? I would go into all white neighborhoods and see nothing but Black Lives Matter signs. I would ignore everything you see on social media is designed to inflame you not inform you

Well, then you see that they had to learn it. It wasn’t something that was innate. Donald Trump is a bump in the road, an aberration and it’s not reflective of their overall societal trend. Look within the lifetimes of people alive today Black people’s basic civil rights were legally taken away, 100 years ago we were actively being lynched by hooded Demons, had an entire communities massacred and burned to the ground. 150 years ago we were legally enslaved, and people were taught that the Bible and science justified this — of course things are improving. Are you kidding?

lol!