Gnaws

Source: Jimmy Emerson, DVM, on Flickr

And, not to be outdone, Bloomington. Here in Indiana, not far west of Columbus, is a stretch of highway 46 called Gnaw Bone. Says at that link that the origin of the name is “obscure.” By the way, Columbus isn’t the only Indiana location sharing its name with a bigger place elsewhere.

• U.S. Cities: Albany, Atlanta, Austin, Buffalo, Cincinnat, Columbus, Denver, Elizabeth, Nashville, Portland, Topeka.
• Cities outside the U.S.: Berne, Rome, Versailes, Warsaw.
• Countries: Brazil, Morocco, Mexico, Ireland, Panama, Peru, Chile, Chine, Crete, Cuba, Egypt.

So marketing still gets to screw the customer. Tom Fishburne’s latest cartoon shows marketing and customer AI agents trying to outsmart each other. He sources this Bain report, which describes how “the traditional customer discovery funnel” has been upended by customers using AI for “zero click” product discovery methods along their buying “journey.” This means fewer ways for marketers to influence customers along that journey. The solution: “Marketers must adapt by optimizing content for large language models, investing in new performance metrics, and rethinking their digital strategy around a future where the AI agent—not the buyer—is in control.”

The result will more parity across the league. Two predictions. First, while I want the Knicks to win the NBA championship, the Thunder are obviously the best team. Best offense, best defense, deepest bench.  But ya never know. Should be good games ahead. Second, NBA salaries for the best players have now maxed out, and we’ll see teams dumping high-salary players outright, or trading expensive good players for affordable mediocre ones. The Boston Celtics will be Exhibit A for all this. They pushed all their chips to the middle of the table this season, going over the “second apron” and paying penalties for it, while five of their chips turned out to be damaged goods. Brown, Porziņģis, Holiday, and Hauser were all injured or slowed by health problems, and Tatum’s achilles injury leaves him out for most or all of next year (while he’s still getting paid). The Suns, Bucks, and Lakers are also in trouble.