AND FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT:  Mr. Diggle’s Happy Halloween. A tale from Wyrd Row.

YES MY POSTING HAS BEEN SPOTTY AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE TILL PROBABLY WEDNESDAY BUT:  The Sound Track grows, it grows!

CURB YOUR ALL HALLOWS’ EVE ENTHUSIASM:

“Not everybody knows your rules.” pic.twitter.com/yKkggjljkC

— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) October 31, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Sometimes the clothes don’t make the man.

ALIENS: You won’t see interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS zoom closest to the sun on Oct. 30 — but these spacecraft will. I hope they get good pictures of the plasma cannon.

A REVIEW OF K-POP DEMON HUNTERS WITH ADDED CARL JUNG [VIP]: Hear Our Voice Unwavering: Why KPop Demon Hunters Deserves Every Oscar (and Then Some)

FIND MORE OF THESE, PLEASE: Powerful New Antibiotic Was ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ For Decades.

PREDICTION IS OKAY BUT WHAT ABOUT TREATMENT? This Hidden Brain Pulse Could Predict Dementia. My mother, who is beginning to experience dementia, listened to her neurologist telling her diagnostic results and said “well, now that you have a diagnosis, is there anything you can do to fix me?” To which the neurologist replied, with slight embarrassment, “uh, no, not really.”

WELL, GOOD. BUT THIS KEEPS HAPPENING.

As predicted by moi — from the Seventh Circuit just moments ago:

"While this litigation presents very challenging circumstances, the district court’s order has two principal failings. First, it puts the court in the position of an inquisitor rather than that of aneutral… https://t.co/Lsbkadehl2 pic.twitter.com/GFVsEcnPkj

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) October 31, 2025

READER FAVORITE: Toniiq Ultra High Purity Quercetin Capsules. #CommissionEarned

A DELICIOUS TREATMENT: Cocoa, berries found to protect heart health during long sits.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Spain ‘regrets pain and injustice’ caused by colonization of Mexico.

Spain’s foreign minister has expressed “regret” over the “pain and suffering” caused by its colonisation of Mexico.

Jose Manuel Albares made the comments on Friday at the opening of the exhibition of Indigenous Mexican art in Madrid, just days after Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, renewed calls for a Spanish apology.

Mr Albares said relations between Spain and Mexico were “a very human story, and like every human story, full of light and shadow.

“There has also been pain – pain and injustice toward Indigenous peoples, to whom this exhibition is dedicated,” he added.

“There was injustice – it is only fair to recognise it today, and fair to regret it. Because that is also part of our shared history, and we cannot deny or forget it.”

I guess Aztec Batman didn’t have enough gadgets in his utility belt to fight them back: Trailer: Warner Brothers reveals Aztec Batman, where evil white Europeans come to destroy the peaceful natives.

A new legend rises. AZTEC BATMAN: CLASH OF THE EMPIRES is coming to Digital 9/19. pic.twitter.com/YXn8VTzIng

— Warner Bros. Entertainment (@WBHomeEnt) July 25, 2025

UPDATE: “Some of earliest thinkers, such as the Aztec:”

Here’s an example of that deep thinking in action:

Meanwhile, back in Europe: The University of Oxford Is Older Than the Aztec Empire and Other Facts That Will Change Your Perspective on History.

ALSO JET AIRPLANES: Honda Builds Cars, Motorcycles, Lawnmowers … and Now Space Rockets.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Mass. Governor Cracked Down on Gun Owners While an Aide Illegally Carried a Pistol and Dealt Coke Right Under Her Nose.

THE NEXT STEP IN ENDING HIGHER ED RACIAL PREFERENCES: Grants for [name your favored ethnicity] serving institutions?

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Psychos, American Psychos, and Seattle Mayoral Candidates.

READER FAVORITE: 4500 Sq.Ft Most Efficient Energy Star. #CommissionEarned

GREAT MOMENTS IN PHRASING: Sydney Sweeney is the only woman who could pull off Bond.

DON’T DOUBT HER — SHE CAN BEAT THIS SCORE: Kamala Just Made the Dumbest Case Yet for Lowering the Voting Age.

LOL, EVERYTOWN. Printer Panic: Everytown 3D Gun Summit Targets Technological Advancement.

ERICK ERICKSON: Did You Not See What I Saw? “Bill Kristol, yesterday, endorsed Zohran Mamdani for Mayor in New York — a man who claimed the boots of the NYPD were laced up by the IDF. There are no enemies to Bill Kristol’s left anymore. None of us should be like him.”

THERE’S BAD, AND THEN THERE’S CRAMER-LEVEL BAD:

He's so bad his inverse beats actual insider trading. https://t.co/v8GFtJJaji

— think like a real estate appraiser (@ThinkAppraiser) October 30, 2025

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Stupidest. Credit Card Thief. EVER. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn who the police can depend upon to ID a suspect, how not to thank a lady for a ride, and when Michigan Man committed one of my favorite crimes.”

WATCH WILDLIFE: 4K 48MP Trail Camera WiFi Game Camera with Low Glow Night Vision. #CommissionEarned

I’M SORRY, DAVE. I’M AFRAID I CAN’T DO THAT: Shopify merchants left angry and confused as company goes big on AI support.

One merchant who spoke to The Logic described an “endless back and forth” with Shopify’s AI support chatbot as they struggled to get through to a human, despite paying for a service that promises round-the-clock help and a dedicated customer support representative. On Shopify’s support pages and on social media, scores of Shopify merchants have been venting about how difficult it has become to speak to a human as AI takes over.

Speaking to The Logic on condition of anonymity, former Shopify staffers said that the quality of merchant support had been deteriorating for years, adding that an over-reliance on AI was partly to blame. According to one former staffer, an early version of Shopify’s AI support chatbot seemingly made merchants so angry that developers created a feature that connected them to human help faster if they started swearing.

Shopify declined to answer specific questions about the changes to merchant support, though Ben McConaghy, the company’s director of communications, said its human support staff were “using AI to get merchants unstuck faster” and claimed “satisfaction and service levels” were “steadily climbing” as a result.

“The AI is just not there when it comes to customer support,” said Olivia Sawyer, CEO of Kush Queen, a CBD boutique. Kush Queen pays Shopify tens of thousands of dollars a year for access to 24/7 help and its own Shopify support person. She said that the level of support from Shopify had fallen sharply in recent months.

AI is cheaper and can’t actually do anything. I suspect Shopify relies on it to frustrate merchants into giving up and just accepting shoddy service. That’s basically what FedEx’s India-based call center does, albeit with human beings. How much longer they’ll have humans remains to be seen.