Marilyn's Photos - Oct 2 2026 - Most Upvoted on Reddit

 

On June 29, 2026 Reddit noted/celebrated that it was the 4 year anniversary of the most upvoted Reddit post ever.  The title was "Times Square right now", and it got 490,000 upvotes.  Now in October 2026 it has 495,000 upvotes.  While it was celebrating upvotes, the events around the actual post happened in January 2021.  But the real story is not how many upvotes it got - the real story is the mess in the stock market and that Reddit users made a big disruption happen.  Here's the post - a billboard in NY. Do you know what this billboard is saying? I had to ask AI what this means because all the items I retrieved didn't make sense to me. The story goes that retail investors coordinated on Reddit to drive up the stock price of GameStop, known as GME. The "Go brrr" refers to the internet meme mocking the Federal Reserve printing money,  and "means" the stock is climbing rapidly.  So it seems to me it was telling everyone/retail investors that they should buy.  The upvoting is part of a "retail investor movement" - to make an impact on the stock market by disrupting the "big guys" - Wall Street hedge funds.  The upvoting seems to me to be a poke in the eye, which seems to be continuing as time goes on. The Wikipedia entry below counters that by noting that a large part of the market activity  was conducted by hedge funds who made substantial profits on the short squeeze.  The "short squeeze" allowed GameStop to issue new equity and raised cash to keep the company going.  The retail trading app Robinhood closed down trading and became the centre of controversy with retail investors losing the ability to sell the stock. The details are covered in Wikipedia HERE.  It is a long and fascinating story. And what has happened since then?  The supposed summary is that retail traders/individual investors have more clout as they now make up about 20% of average daily equity trading volume.  In the past, they used to be considered "dumb money" by institutional firms.  And institutional hedge funds crawl social media platforms, especially Reddit, to monitor retail sentiment and adjust their short exposures to prevent getting squeezed.   The mayhem in the U.S. market was serious.  Investigations followed - the Treasury Secretary, Congress, various Attorney Generals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and many more got involved. There were lawsuits against Robinhood, some regulations, and everyone weighed in.   Of course, the next phase ensued: entertainment.  A movie was made - Dumb Money. Then a mini-series, and then an investigative docuseries.  And various others.   And so the story of "Most Upvoted on Reddit" is told.   Here's a picture from January 2021 - it seems appropriate.  Fast actions leading to motion blur in the winter landscape.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Oct 1 2026 - Strange Puppy Dog Behaviour and Reddit

 

I like the "puppy acting strange" headline.  There seem to be lots of  scenarios.  There could be a subject section in the library titled "Puppies Acting Strange".  The stories range from cute to stupid, and the sensationalist headlines are typically the most humorous part of the story: "A dog owner is recalling how her canine poked her left breast with his nose, leading her finding a lump..."  (look at that grammar!) The Cane Corso..."starts acting strange, what vet asks owner changes life forever" - (more weird grammar) this one is from Newsweek and the dog's hyper-vigilance and staring at owner was observed by the vet as a possible indication the owner was pregnant, which turns out to be the case.  I can guess that changed her life forever. Forget the other stories, they are similar in terms of content and grammar.  I suggest that as this last one was reported by Newsweek. For Newsweek to report this?  A puppy acting strange story? I think this story landed at Newsweek and other national papers come because of Reddit.  Yes, Reddit.  Reddit has something called upvoting on an article/post. This one would need to get from 20,000 to over 35,000 upvotes. The upvote is meant to measure whether content is helpful or relevant.  Lots of votes, probably Newsweek gets sent the headline.  In fact Newsweek has a dedicated Newsweek reddit Topic Section.  That's the internet version of my library section. Keep going with Reddit. When your posts and comments receive upvotes, you get "Karma", which is a point system for reputation scoring.  Reading through the explanations of Karma on Reddit is itself amusing.  Here's the philosophical post that concluded my reading - "When you've reached a certain amount of Karma, it won't matter anymore."    Millie at about 3 weeks "acting strange" with a leaf.  She has continued this behaviour and is now 6 years old.  She'd get a lot of upvotes. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 30 2026 - The Parable of the Silent E

 

What popped up yesterday, but another sort of parable.  The Mighty Silent E by Kimberlee Gard Little "e" is a quiet letter who feels unnoticed at school because he doesn't make any sound when he speaks. The other letters ignore him because they don't think he contributes anything.  One day, Little "e" misses class. The letters C, A, and K try to line up to form a delicious dessert, but no matter how hard they try, they can only make the short-vowel sound "cak". They realize they cannot complete the word "cake" without him. The same thing happens to K-I-T (stuck as "kit" instead of "kite") and R-O-S (stuck as "ros" instead of "rose"). Little "e" returns and takes his position at the very end of the words. Even though he stays completely silent, his presence gives a "superpower" to the first vowel, forcing it to "say its name" (changing from a short vowel to a long vowel sound). Tom Lehrer wrote the classic song Silent E in the 1970s for the children's television show The Electric Company - here it is.  While it is fun the parable of the silent E has a better ending.  This letter E does not look silent at all.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 29 2026 - Parables

 

Short didactic narratives with human characters to illustrate ethical or philosophical points.  The rule of Parables:  must use human characters.  Otherwise,  talking animals, plants or forces of nature are the stuff of fables. That's Aesop's specialty. I went off to find the parables in the bible and there are lots. There are so many I wondered if we really considered them seriously.  The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. I expect those are well known, maybe the one about The Talents?  The Lost Sheep?  But the Plumb Line - what could that be about?  We could start to look them up and find a world of life lessons. That would be a useful thing so I went off in search of a list of parables and their associated lessons, but mostly got interpretations pointing to "worship God". So I thought about non-religious parables and the advice they give. I expect everyone knows The Blind Men and the Elephant.  Here are my other top contenders: The Two Wolves - (Native American / Cherokee Tradition): An old chief tells his grandson about a fierce battle inside every person between two wolves: one representing malice and fear, the other peace and love. The grandson asks which wolf wins, and the chief replies, "The one you feed." Plato's Allegory of the Cave (Greek Philosophy): Prisoners chained facing a blank wall mistake shadows for reality. When one escapes into the sunlight, he sees the true nature of reality, representing the painful journey of attaining philosophical truth and enlightenment. The Muddy Road (Zen Buddhism): Two monks, Tanzan and Ekido, meet a girl unable to cross a deep mud puddle. Tanzan immediately carries her across. Hours later, Ekido scolds him for touching a woman, to which Tanzan replies, "I left the girl miles back. Are you still carrying her?"—teaching the burden of mental attachment. The Broken Window Fallacy (Economics): Introduced by Frédéric Bastiat, this Parable of the Broken Window shows a vandalized shop window. While onlookers claim the repair benefits the economy, it ignores the unseen loss—the money the shopkeeper could have spent elsewhere.  Can you imagine how different we would be if we an allegory/parable/fable for every day of the year rather than today's national days?  I guess Marshall McLuhan's words are still with me as I look at this list:  National Coffee Day National Starbucks Day National Biscotti Day World Heart Day Maybe there's hope - it is National Silent E Day - there must be a fable lurking in there. I've got us covered for the parable of the elephant - these bronze ones are out front of the Antiques place along the QEW.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Sep 28 2026 - The Most Famous Thing in the World

 

We live in a time where we know our world.  The whole world.  What's the most famous thing?  Supposedly it is the Eiffel Tower.  Or it could be Mount Everest, or The Mona Lisa, or even a can of Coca-Cola.    Marshall McLuhan called it the "global village" - that electronic media shrinks the world into an interconnected community.  We share information instantly.  He was pessimistic about it - it would lead to increasing war and other forms of conflict.  There were risks of mass terror and sudden panic.  His expression was "tribal man".  I think of "tribal man" as a worrisome thing - not someone we want to be in the new electronic media.  I liked what we were before this age - in the age of the book - the "literary man".  Here's a CBC image of him from 1965. It is part of a CBC article which has a program clip from Explorations in 1960.  It is HERE.  This dead tree is gone now.  There's a new house going up where it used to be.  Doesn't it have the sense of tribal to it?   Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com