When a reader clicked the “Ask Gemini” button in Google Chrome and asked a question, it froze before giving him an answer. “Was it because I was using the free version?” he wondered. Nope.

When Gemini freezes, it’s a bug, not a paywall. It could happen when you ask unusually long or multi-part questions. To get around it, ask again and this time, keep your question short. But if you want, you can upload up to 3000 pages to go with it. Just don’t go beyond 24,000 words if you want Gemini to remember the whole chat before it responds. 

Google Calendar Trick

When I asked a podiatrist’s office to send me my X-rays, I got an authorization form that asked me the date of the diagnosis. Gosh, who remembers that kind of thing? So with my Google calendar open on my screen in the Google Chrome web browser, I clicked the “Ask Gemini” button. It instantly found my October 2025 date. This trick might be useful for finding anything you’ve added to your Google calendar, such as the last time you had your neighbors over for dinner.

Ad Blockers

In the past, when a website asked me to disable my ad blocker, I couldn’t find one. But Google Chrome has one built in. To unblock the ad blocker in Chrome, type the following at the top of your screen, without the quotes: “chrome://settings/content/ads”. When it comes up, check the first bulleted item, which reads “Any site you visit can show any ad to you.” 

At Forbes.com, I was able to read some of their articles for free because I was no longer blocking their ads. That’s how I learned that the US has a record 144 immigrant billionaires worth a collective $2.2 trillion.

Signing Up for Stuff

If you’re creating a new account at a sketchy site, a spammer can copy both your username and password. But they will only get your email address if you sign up with your Google or Facebook credentials. To avoid either problem, it’s best to create junk email addresses. I created some at AOL, Yahoo and elsewhere. But I wish I’d remembered to use them when registering on trivia sites. Now I’m bombarded with trivial email.

What Movies and Series to Watch

“Letterboxd” is both an app and a website. To start, open the app or site and click on the posters of movies you like from a list of what they call the top 500. This leads to more tailored lists. That’s how I found “Comfort Movies.” Clicking on one, I looked to the left to see whether it was available on Netflix, Amazon Prime or elsewhere. 

Man in airplane cargo

Podcast on Crime

My nephew’s wife recommended the “Criminal” podcast from ThisIsCriminal.com. I just listened to episode #375, “Mr. Apology.” 

In 1980, posters appeared in subway stations and on telephone poles in New York City with a phone number to call. When you called it, you would hear a message from an answering machine, a novelty at the time. The voice would announce: “This is Apology. Apology is not associated with the police or any other organization but rather is a way for you to tell people what you have done wrong and how you feel about it.” One guy admitted to peeing in a trashcan inside a bank, he was so desperate. Another admitted feeling badly that he’d embezzled $400,000 from a bank, but said he planned to do it again because he liked living like a king. A mailman apologized for tossing out the mail he was too tired to deliver. A little girl apologized for throwing sticks at a dog that was menacing her. A guy admitted to stealing toilet paper at work. I’m looking forward to the episode on a crime involving a volcano.

Online Notary

Everything, it seems, is now online. Recently, for example, when using an online notary service called “Proof,” a notary popped up on my screen in literally one second and a second witness arrived the instant she was called. Of course, I had to answer some security questions beforehand, and upload my ID, but after that, my document was instantly notarized. 

Proof, OneNotary and Notary Live charge $25 per seal for pay-as-you-go notarization, and OnlineNotary.net charges $20. All four services operate 24/7. 

Targeting Cancer

What if you’d been throwing darts at a tiny dartboard, unaware that the real dartboard was next door, and enormous? That’s what happened in cancer research. A quarter of all cancer drugs in development go after just 38 targets, according to a 2025 industry analysis. But scientists at RyboDyn, a San Diego-based biotech, just found thousands more to aim at, and discovered a new drug that killed cancer cells in a lab dish. They seem to have invented a whole new biology. 

Internuts

–Darioamodei.com has essays by the CEO of Anthropic. He says that we are closer to real danger with AI than we were a few years ago, but  we should avoid believing that doom is inevitable. It’s both false and self-fulfilling.

–“Solar Trees Could Save Forests From Deforestation While Generating the Same Power as Solar Farms.” Search on that phrase to discover that solar trees preserve 99 percent of the forest, compared to just 2% otherwise with traditional methods.

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