[Or at the very least, a silver lining to bad decisions.]

While writing about the 9-9-9 challenge, I learned of the existence of license plates specifically assigned to DUI offenders. These plates are a tool to assist law enforcement in monitoring high-risk drivers and to deter repeat violations. However, they’ve gained the nicknames “party plates” in Ohio and “whiskey plates” in Minnesota. Those names convey an insouciance, rather than intended shame.

There’s also a problem with the visuals. Though the yellow is a bit garish, Ohio’s DUI plate looks markedly better than their mess of a standard plate:

[Photos via Wikipedia]

That’s a bad incentive.

[Note also that the period in question was during the summer.]

Speaking of license plates, friend-of-the-site Gus M. pointed me to a school district using plate recognition in an attempt to verify residency.

According to the school district, her daughter’s new student enrollment form was denied due to “license plate recognition software showing only Chicago addresses overnight” in July and August. In an email sent to Sánchez in August, the school district told her, “Although you are the owner on record of a house in our district boundaries, your license plate recognition shows that is not the place where you reside.”

It’s understandable for school districts to not want to be burdened with non-residents. This method to avoid it, however, seems well beyond the pale.

Link: https://www.nbcchicago.com/consumer/suburban-school-district-uses-license-plate-readers-to-verify-student-residency/3906703/

[Just how evil can you be?]

The Giving Pledge is a campaign started by Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffet, intended to establish a norm of charitable giving by the ultra wealthy. Though the pledge has no enforcement, it still seems a wise way for billionaires to attempt avoiding being at the wrong end of pitchforks.

Supervillain Peter Thiel is trying a different route, and is apparently attempting to convince signers to renege on their commitments.

Link: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/15/the-billionaires-made-a-promise-now-some-want-out/

[Three liters is really quite a lot of vodka.]

Reader Micah C. pointed me to a story from Down Under, where a woman was recently convicted for the addition of googly eyes to sculpture.

While I do think the addition enhances the work, the use of Gorilla Glue is too much. Tsk! Also, recording your own crime and posting it online? Tsk again!

Link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/mount-gambier-blue-blob-sculpture-googly-eyes-graffiti-convicted/106405276?_bhlid=cec9fa6d4b3778e6759258e469ddad860eee0d4e

[That’s different from detecting frustration with trying to use regex.]

This week, Anthropic accidentally leaked a whole bunch of information about Claude Code. In addition to revealing many of their future plans, the leak showed that the tool uses some rudimentary pattern-matching to detect user frustration.

Claude Code is actively watching our chat messages for words and phrases—including f-bombs and other curses—that serve as signs of user frustration.

The exact regex pattern is a delight to read:

/\b(wtf|wth|ffs|omfg|shit(ty|tiest)?|dumbass|horrible|awful| piss(ed|ing)? off|piece of (shit|crap|junk)|what the (fuck|hell)| fucking? (broken|useless|terrible|awful|horrible)|fuck you| screw (this|you)|so frustrating|this sucks|damn it)\b/

It’s very simple and surely very effective.

Link: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3104748/claude-code-is-scanning-your-messages-for-curse-words.html