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The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Last week I was talking with Erin on our way to a coffee shop, and I had a sudden memory of a movie where a mouse needed to scurry about to find medicine to save a young boy who had quite a dastardly fever. Naturally I thought it was a Stuart Little movie, somewhere along the series, but that didn’t feel quite right.

Luckily, the subreddit /r/TipOfMyTongue had me covered, when someone asked about this exact movie two years ago. It’s called The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and has a runtime of only 42 minutes. I haven’t rewatched it quite yet, but I was delighted to find the answer.

After finding this via a Google search, “movie with mouse needing to find fever medicine reddit”, I decided to check whether any of ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini could come up with an answer. They all failed in similar ways, though Gemini ended up being helpful despite not finding the correct answer.

I wrote the same prompt to all three of them: “I’m thinking of a movie where a mouse needs to find fever medicine to save a boy who is sick in bed.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​”

Claude suggested The Rescuers Down Under, and invented a scene that didn’t exist to match my description. When I told it about its error, and clarified that the movie I wanted was not animated, it suggested Mousehunt, which it did mention has no scene specifically matching what I wrote in.

Gemini initally suggested The Rescuers, with more complete information including scenes that plausibly match the kind of scene I was describing but without the specifics. “There’s a scene where Bernard needs to find a specific item (a diamond) to bribe a cat guard. This might be getting mixed up with the medicine element you remember.” I thought that was clever. When I followed up, it didn’t give any other movies. Instead, it gave me suggestions for what search terms I could try, and specifically mentioned using either the Tip of My Tongue subreddit, or the IMDB forums. That’s a decent failure experience.

ChatGPT was the worst at this. It confidently stated “The movie you’re referring to is The Secret of NIMH.” While the other two assistants gave wiggle room in their answers, ChatGPT assumed it was correct. Its second guess was one called The Witches, in which a boy gets turned into a mouse. 

I found this illuminating. These assistants are getting better, and I’m becoming more willing to use them, but they still have blindspots and should be considered, at best, a jumping-off point.

But also, The Mouse and the Motorcycle is killer based on my memory of it from twenty years ago.

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The Fallacies of Millennial Impact

In college, I started seeing low-effort headlines claiming yet another corporate industry death at the hands of millennial. A typical example is the casual sit-down restaurant, and you can see a compilation of such claims (along with subsequent refutations) in this CB Insights post. I’d rather focus on the broader phenomenon and the various fallacies of thinking that lead to these poor and useless critiques of an entire generation.

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Tony Wan at EdSurge, on AI Writing by Students

A short article that mirrors my thinking rather well. In particular:

Each little metacognitive act of constructing a sentence, though, reflects valuable thinking. Knowing how to use conjunctions, for instance — the ifs, buts and therefores — is an important exercise in logical reasoning. How much should we outsource that to AI? Too much, and the writing experience may feel like a fill-in-the-blank exercise like MadLibs.

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Settling on Firefox

I’ve bounced between browsers over the years. Chrome or Chromium were my default for many years while I ran Linux, with a few small dalliances with Chrome-powered alternatives like Brave. I tried Safari when I switched to a MacBook and used it for months. I then hopped on the Arc Browser bandwagon, which introduced me to features that I now consider essential. That experience wouldn’t last forever.

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A Mario Kart Milestone (Again)

I previously wrote about my excitement that Mario Kart 8 was receiving more courses. Two years later, all the courses are released and have been summarily conquered by my Gold Mario character. I have 3 star trophies across all 24 Grand Prix cups, in all available speed levels.

Though I fell off playing Mario Kart regularly in the last year—that change has been for the best—it remains a relaxing activity on a lazy weekend afternoon or a fun evening game to play with Erin. There are no more explicit accomplishments left for me in the game,1I’ve decided to not open up the can of worms that are Time Trials or Battles. so I can launch it when it strikes me as fun, and otherwise spend my extremely self-limited gaming time playing the several other Switch games I’ve purchased over the years. Among those I’ve started and hope to complete are Cuphead, Röki, Bastion, Firewatch, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It may take me years, but I’ll make progress!

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    I’ve decided to not open up the can of worms that are Time Trials or Battles.
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Doodling With Words

Doodling is more than scrawling sketches and shapes in the margins of your notes. It encompasses any idle, unguided, and spontaneous bursts of creativity.1The exception is playing music. All musicians know that equivalent of “doodling” on your instrument is “noodling”. In a light-bulb moment a few months ago I rediscovered my love of doodling with words, and it’s now something I try to do when I have spare time. Doodling is a phenomenal way to passively develop a skill while enjoying the process.

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    The exception is playing music. All musicians know that equivalent of “doodling” on your instrument is “noodling”.
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Local Business to Make Play for Enterprise

ELKHART, INDIANA—John Wheedle, founder and owner of Wheedle & Sons Whittling, presented his plan to “go after the big market, starting with those hotshots down in Fort Wayne” during a gathering of business professionals and entrepreneurs at the Elkhart Community Center.

The evening’s theme was Aim for the Stars. Group members were encouraged to present on ambitious, long-term plans and then receive constructive feedback. Wheedle was third to go. On his way up to the podium, several attendees recall him saying “This is going to knock their socks off.”

“As makers of fine doorstops, paper weights, and other wooden office accessories,” Wheedle began, “we believe there is a huge untapped audience for our products beyond local craft fairs and the odd sale via online marketplaces. Corporations are filled with people eager to show off something fun and unique in the workspace, and we believe those same corporations will see the benefit of ordering custom-made, locally-sourced items crafted by me and my two teenage sons.

“We can accept a large number of orders, specific to each employee, as long as it’s one of our four available items and the custom messaging uses one of our two fonts.

“As a first step, we’ve registered for rewards Credit Cards at both Home Depot and Lowe’s to obtain the best possible rates on our core supply materials. We can’t scale without a solid supply chain, and the fine folks at Lowe’s Store 2942 have assured me they can meet our burgeoning demand.”

Wheedle received a strong positive reaction at the end of his presentation, with one person, later identified as town corner-store mogul Janette Mische, yelling “Get ’em Wheedle! Go all the way to Indianapolis!”

The presentation was not without its critics. Sources say there were concerns about whether this proposed change in business structure would alienate Wheedle’s core set of customers in town. An anonymous attendee said, “We love ambition here in Elkhart. It really is one of our core principles. But we’ve seen this play out in companies like Slack and Dropbox and Toys ‘R Us, where corporate greed makes the original goal null and void. I’m worried Wheedle & Sons may fall into the same trap.”

We reached Wheedle for response. “The spirit of Elkhart is central to my company. We use local landmarks as inspiration for our designs, and will continue to ensure we proudly display our Made in Elkhart stamps at the bottom of every item.”

When asked about the recent investment capital he received, Wheedle clarified. “Well, yes, we do have to make that message smaller and place it below the prominent Funded by Amazon, Screw You Etsy etching. But that’s a small price to pay for quality products making their way across the country.”

At time of printing, Wheedle reported that he and his teenage sons were bonding during their 18 hour garage shifts overseen by a friendly blue-vested Amazon manager.