It's that time of year when I receive 20 AI slop emails every day from prospective students. In kindness, some friendly advice: be yourself. I understand English may not be your first language. That's ok. I'm much more interested in how *you* (an imperfect but interesting, unique human) think, communicate, and care about the research you're proposing to do with me for the next 5 years. After all, we're going to be talking about it in person an awful lot, without AI aids, if you work with me. I'm looking for curiosity and effort and thirst and critical thinking. Generic AI emails suggest none of these, and are indistinguishable from the other 20 such emails I'll receive today. Just be yourself. Write your own ideas in your own words. They'll be flawed but much better than these warmed-over microwaved slop emails that make my brain go numb.

Rideshare users in certain parts of Chicago will have to pay more under a surcharge that took effect on Tuesday.

Draw as if by hand: model by pushing faces, compose scaled PDF drawings and render with Blender. 3D satellite terrain. Open source (GPL-3.0). Linux, Windows and macOS.