So Sue Me

I have heard of Dua Lipa often enough to know that she is a female singer. However, if you begged me over the course of several weeks, I could not pick a picture of her from an array of other young women singing pop songs. 

But she is all worked up because Samsung put her picture on the cardboard boxes that their TVs come in. She is suing Samsung, alleging that the tech company used her image without her permission.

The lawsuit was filed in California federal court on Friday. Lipa uses the magic words "copyright and trademark infringement" and - this is a new one on me - "violating her right of publicity" by sticking her mug on the box that TVs come in.

She says someone took the picture backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival in 2024, and she owns that picture, doggone it!

No way I'm using a picture of Dua Lipa! I don't want to be sued.

But $15 million in damages will help her get over herself.

The hook is that she is claiming that Samsung did this "to improperly capitalize on Ms. Lipa's hard-earned success to promote and sell Samsung's products," the lawsuit alleges. 

And she goes on to claim that the picture deceives customers, so, some guy standing at Best Buy, choosing between the Samsung XLBFD 47" tv and the Visio KMFA 47 incher will say, "Oh look, this Samsung has a picture of Dua Lipa, so that's the one for me!"

OK. I promise you that if Samsung had called Dua Lipa when she was just getting started doing whatever it is she does in show business and offered to put a photo of her on their TV boxes, she would have turned cartwheels for that kind of publicity. Now, she's all, "Pay me!" about it. 

Cheap trick

I got this in the email the other day. Do you notice anything odd about it?

First off, the Social Security Administration spells Social with an o, not a zero, and an i, not a 1.

Second off, they send regular statements by mail.

Third off, I'm certain that "tellusalimentos.com" is not a government email address. 

I share this because many of my fellow SS recipients are not as suspicious of everything as they ought to be, and I want them to know clicking on links like this can lead to all sorts of heartaches and hassles. 

So just don't,  please.

Can you dig this?

Myanmar is the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, so maybe that name change is why people can't find it on a map.

But if you're into precious rocks and what-have-you, you might want to sidle on over to Myanmar, because that's where their state media reported the discovery of an 11,000-carat ruby last week. A lot of gemstones turn up in that country, but this one just has to be one of the biggest ever.

Kinda looks like a strawberry, does it not?

Coup leader-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing was shown on the cover of the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, checking out the 4.8-pound rock at his office. I'm sure he thought, "nice paperweight!"

The government said the ruby is "exceptionally large, rare, and difficult to find," "has a purplish-red color with yellowish undertones and is considered to have a high-quality color grade."

All this took place in the valley of Mogok in the Mandalay region, where there are said to be plenty more of these "unique pigeon-blood" stones hidden in the ground. Many people go to Mogok in search of a fortune, and many others are over there looking for a Mandalay.

Drop me a postcard if you make the trip, won't you?

"Avant-garde" is French for "I demand security at this location"

The is (or was) an Italian punk band known as Skiantos. On April 2, 1979, they were performing in the Bologna Rock punk rock and new wave festival, to wide acclaim. But here is what they did onstage: they dragged out a whole kitchen set - refrigerator, hot plate, table and TV. Then they boiled water in the makeshift kitchen, boiled some pasta and ate it, in front of a bellowing crowd of disappointed festival attendees. One of the band hollered, "You do not understand a *^&%#ing  thing: this is avant-garde, you piece-of-$#!t audience."

I'm a bit surprised that I never heard about this before, but from all indications, it did happen, and it demonstrates a certain level of disdain for the audience that punk performers found appealing.

What they missed in this particular performance is that punk aficionados enjoy these nihilistic stunts when they are set to music. It was OK for the Sex Pistols to set fire to their underwear while performing "God Save The Queen." That made a musical statement.

But having the Pistols onstage eating fish and chips is just not the same level of arrogance, and that's why we never heard of these people.

Sunday Rerun: With six you get a free eggroll

 When I worked on the midnight shift in the Baltimore County Courthouse, I spent many a lunch 1/2 hour roaming the building. Just reading the legal notices that were posted in accordance with law was a fascinating pastime, and the postings of people who paid $110 to change their names legally were the best. 

A lot of these were women who were divorced and wanted their original name back (that should be free, IMHO) and some were people who disliked being called "Poindexter" or "Jor-El" or whatever, and some were the kind who were into spending that kind of money for a joke, such as the newly-christened "Bud" Wiser or "Dixie" Normus.

But would you change your name for sushi? Over in Taiwan, people have been changing their names, but enough is enough, say the local officials.

There is a sushi chain called  Akindo Sushiro. They offered free chow on Wednesdays and Thursdays to "whole tables of customers named Gui Yu, or  'Salmon'." All you had to do was to make "Salmon" part of your name. Local media called the resultant commotion "salmon chaos."

By the end of the first day, dozens of people had gotten their free suppers, and more than a thousand had eaten at half off just for changing their names to a name with aquatic associations. 

And the government offices reported that about 150 "mostly young" people had come in to change their names. 

"Salmon Prince," "Meteor Salmon King" and "Salmon Fried Rice" got their meals for free, and one freeloader changed his name to something that set the Taiwanese name for all-time longest name: "Chen Loves Taiwan, Abalone, Tuna, Salmon, Snow Crab, Sea Urchin, Scallop, Lobster and Beef, Mayfull, Palais de Chine, Regent, Hilton, Caesar Park, Hotel Royal."

One college student went with "Explosive Good Looking Salmon," and he and his squad gobbled $235 worth of sushi.

Another student who changed their name and their friends ate about $460 worth of sushi.

"I do not think we will want to eat salmon again for a while," they wrote online, per the local news.

Predictably, Taiwan officials didn't find all this very amusing as they coped with all the red tape. Deputy Interior minister Chen Tsung-yen said that the changes for free food were wasting time and causing unnecessary paperwork, according to AFP.

"I hope everyone can be more rational about it," Tsung-yen told reporters.

Diners with new names were telling reporters that were going to change their names back to their original non-sushi names after the free meal. The process fee for a name change and new ID card is less than $3.

And Taiwanese official Ann Chovy took to the airwaves to urge residents to "be careful to take good care of your name." 

The Saturday Picture Show, May 9, 2026

You can't say that Germany is not prepared for the next time it snows. This mountain is 400,000 tons of salt. Bring on the ice!

This week's free wallpaper is a beautiful spring scene just for you.

Yes it's May and yes, it snowed in Denver the other day. Live it up!

You don't see homemade vehicles like we used to. This one is a humdinger, boy!

I find it amazing that there were people alive in 1903 and 1969, people whose lifespans included the first airplane flight and men landing on the moon. Just 66 years apart!

I love munching on a raw carrot, and I recently found out they weren't always orange! Dutch farmers in the 16th and 17th century practiced selective breeding. They had white ones and red ones and yellow ones and even purplish carrots, and those farmers cultivated yellow and red ones to create orange carrots, which were considered sweeter, less bitter in taste, and also saluted William of Orange in his fight for Dutch independence.

Look closely - you'll see little red marks on this Egyptian tablet from 4,000 years ago. This is a school tablet and some scholar made lots of Egyptian errors. The red marks were made by the teacher, making corrections.

The warriors among us have always been resourceful...well, mostly. This attempt at making a fake tree to hide a soldier in France in 1918 was not all that great.

Someone somewhere ran one of those contests, an election to see which US state has the best flag. I have said this since I was a barefoot boy with cheek of tan: It's Maryland!

 And here's the reason why: Our flag works as a tie, a tote bag, a belt, a tee shirt...not just a flag!

Bag it up

People who think that only males have the brains or talent or initiative to invent things should learn about Margaret Eloise Knight, who had a mind for invention and used it!

Ms Knight was born on Valentine's Day, 1838 in York, Maine. Her dad died when she was but a child, and her mom moved the family to New Hampshire, where young Margaret went to work at a cotton mill at the age of 12 to help the family get by. That was the end of her formal education.

Cotton mills involved dangerous machinery, and - still a pre-teen - Margaret, having seen other workers injured, came up with her first invention to prevent machine injuries.

Of course, someone stole the idea. There was no way she could have accessed the patenting process, so she saw mills across the country using her idea without compensating her.

She moved on to Springfield, Massachusetts and found another factory job, this time at the Columbia Paper Bag Company. And again, she saw dangerous and inefficient conditions, and she put her mind to work. In 1868, she invented a machine that could fold and glue paper bags. It was she who developed the technology of making paper bags with the flat bottom that we came to see over the years when bagging up our grapefruits, ginger ale, and Vienna sausages at the ShopSumMor.

Ms Knight was not about to get burned again with the patent. She saw a man (I shouldn't mention his name) (Charles Annan) trying to rip off her idea, but she had her original blueprints and won a patent lawsuit in 1871.

This model of her bag machine is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

And from this, she co-founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in Hartford, Connecticut, and went on to patent some 25 more inventions, including a shoe-making machine and a clasp for robes. The woman who once said, “I’m only sorry I couldn’t have had as good a chance as a boy” was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.