Tom Richards

Simul Justus et Peccator. Posting random things I love - ✝️, family, 🇺🇸, LotR, ⛳️, & the outdoors. Happily married. No DMs.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

It's always easier to choose unbelief

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@itsrosesm Not once.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@laralogan This really is not hard to understand.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@MallBangers 😂

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@IamBirdMomma Poached is my favorite, but it’s a pain to make. So fried is more regular.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@BrianRoemmele Excellent summary of this. I started gaming in 1996 and following all of this (including the purchasing of many 3dfx cards) through its run to Nvidia basically taking over. Strange that this kind of thing creates such a strong sentimental urge.

[American Warrior for Christ @johnrackham82]

On July 1, 2015, Kate Steinle went for a walk with her father along the San Francisco waterfront.

It was the last thing she ever did.

She died crying "Please help me, Daddy!" after being shot by an illegal alien and serial felon who had been previously deported five times.

Kate Steinle is why I 100% support ICE, and why I will NEVER vote democrat.

[Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 @TulsiGabbard]

Fauci’s 'performance' today made me sick. Smug arrogance. Zero remorse. Zero accountability. He refused to answer a single question.
Sharing this again as a reminder: He used your tax dollars to fund the coronavirus lab research in Wuhan—and worked with the IC to cover it up. We deserve the truth and accountability.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@DavidFischer Yes, He is!

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@EricaArndts That’s fantastic! Well done.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@BrianRoemmele Love these guys!

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@creepydotorg The Petrified Forest is cool. Neat place to visit.

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@MallBangers That really is a great soundtrack. Takes me back to middle school. 😂

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."

My Take
This got to me. A bookseller told 404 Media that rare books with almost no surviving copies are being fed into this pipeline. Books that survived wars, fires, and centuries of handling are being shredded so an AI can learn to write a better marketing email.
ISBNdb's website literally says "'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy," and they still built an entire business around making it happen quietly. They offer NDAs as a feature. They coach clients to call it "digital preservation."

I've covered AI companies scraping the internet, torrenting libraries, and stealing music. This is worse because it's irreversible. You can re-upload a website. You can reprint a bestseller. You can't replace the last three copies of an 18th-century botanical text once someone shreds them for training data. And the judge said it's legal. So it's going to accelerate.
"We shred rare books and offer NDAs so nobody finds out" is a legitimate business model in 2026. What a timeline.

Hedgie🤗

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@TONYxTWO This is the way 🇺🇸

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

I love Rob Zombie
I love the muppets.
This mashup I just love.

[Punt Road @punt_rd]

The Internet was crated for this…!

Rob Zombie’s ‘Dragula’ v Jim Henson’s ‘Muppets’!!!

🤣🤣🤣

[Tom Richards @tomrichards]

@punt_rd This combo is one I could continue to enjoy!

[Lara Logan @laralogan]

Pray - and speak up.

[Rock'n Roll of All @rocknrollofall]

If I had a time machine, this stage would be the first place I'd visit.

[𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐧𝐓𝐲𝐦𝐞 @JustynTyme_]

[📢 Sound up] When you're getting AARP mail but can still nail Neil Peart's drumming in Tom Sawyer:

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

Boris Yeltsin paying an unplanned visit to a grocery store in Houston in 1989, after a visit to the Johnson Flight Center.

He mentioned to his interpreter “Socialism will never bring this much abundance”.

We never listen.