Boston, MA
John Boston | Your Baseball Cap Screams What You Are
Editor’s note: The following “Best of Boston” column was originally published Aug. 11, 2023.
I am probably the absolute last person to write an essay on dressing up. Except for a gorilla suit and my cherished Wilt Chamberlain No. 13 wife-beater basketball jersey, I could easily go the rest of my life with three pairs of denim ranch jeans, matching three snap-button blue denim Western shirts and a red T-shirt underneath for pizzazz. Oh. Throw in underwear, socks, $1,200 cowboy hat, boots and a barn coat.
A cultural alarm ding-a-linged for me years ago. That’s when men started donning clown shorts that weren’t really shorts, per se. They ended mid-calf, giving the wearer a most comical suntan line. These mini-pants were adopted from the inner-city gang look, which came from those serving 15-to-life in the pokey. In a blink, CPAs and corporate attorneys were wearing the ghetto-strut pants-ette that oft exposed hairy butt cracks. (Band name.) Did it make the wearer look like Clown No. 4 or room-temperature IQ 11-year-old lookout on a Stingray bicycle in a drug deal?
Yes.
Did it stop brain surgeons from wearing this idiotic fashion statement? No.
When did we guys start dressing like extras in a Mad Max movie? I’m guessing it was in the 1960s and it probably started quite innocently with the baseball cap.
Prior to the ’60s, men wore fedoras or snappy, small-brimmed straw hats in the summer. In the late 19th century, men wore hats to shade themselves from the sun and also as fashion statements. They were also symbols of social distinction among men. When I was a kid, you didn’t wear a baseball cap unless you were a grease monkey, the Maytag repairman or batted behind Joe DiMaggio.
Farmers might be to blame. In the 1930s, they started wearing caps with artsy fertilizer company patches. I still own an old John Deere tractor topper I’d defend with my life. Still. Back then, a hat with a logo or message was way too bold, too strangely counterculture for most. Somehow, in a blink, everyone’s wearing baseball hats. Even women. In the early pages of my lifetime, you just never saw a woman wearing a baseball cap. It would be considered — well. Like you were the overly muscled third basewoman on the all-girls and gravel-voiced Love That Knows No Name Bakersfield softball team.
It was around the ’60s when we started advertising who we were on our caps and T-shirts. Well. We advertised not so much who we were, but who we wanted to be.
Much as I ride horses, can’t play polo. Well. Adeptly. That doesn’t stop several million squeaky clean yuppies from donning snooty Ralph Lauren baseball hats with the polo player logo. It sends the message, “I Am Athletic, Master Over Large Animals & Effortlessly Rich.”
Strange thing? No one stops these people in malls or grocery stores, yanks their caps off by the brim, slaps them lightly and announces: “No. No, you’re not…”
As evidence of a life not lived, I read several interesting papers on the social status and history of hats. “Hat tipping” is steeped in the elaborate custom of doffing one’s head covering in deference to someone of a higher social caste. Or, to a lady. While men’s hats, like the old mountain cave bear skull, were symbols of social status, women’s hats were symbols of conspicuous consumption and badges indicating rank. It’s not like being silly is a brand-new aspect of the human condition. In the 19th century, men sometimes wore their big old hats — INDOORS — all day. Funny, too. Male hat fashion usually rose from the ground up. For example, the round black bowler hat was, and still is today, a symbol of British bourgeoisie. But the Charlie Chaplin bowler started in the mid-19th century as a working-class helmet of hunters and groundskeepers.
A hatless man, way back when, was rarer than a brontosaurus. Every guy wore a hat. Or, a fly-attracting animal skull. With feathers. We live in polarized climes and today, the message you sport can scream volumes, from Oakland Raiders deviant to “Proud Grandma.”
What kind of knucklehead-ette would advertise something like that? Aren’t grandmothers, by nature, supposed to be proud of the family tree that skips a generation? I confess. I’d like the shake the hand of a grandma wearing “My Daughter’s Eefus is Currently Rotting in Penitentiary For Perversion Against Small Animals.” Cripes. That’s like 94 letters and spaces. That’d set you back like $200 getting said hat embroidered at the mall. Plus, it would be an exercise in futility as the message going out to the world would be in prescription-bottle-sized type.
Forget Climate Change. The demise of America will come from wearing prison shorts with beer bellies plopping over them. We don’t so much look into people’s eyes anymore but rather, at the small billboards that shade their noggins.
I must confess. I’m guilty of donning a cap with a put-up-your-dukes political message. A while back, 80% of our weasly Not-So-Much local paper-shuffling social justice warrior donkey girl scouts high school trustees abolished our noble and cherished Indian mascot for Hart High. The craven little weenies.
A pal of mine recently gave me a baseball hat with “Hart High Indians” embroidered boldly in front. I wear it to the local Piggly Wiggly in hopes that I may bump into one of the woke district cowards. I probably wouldn’t lightly slap them upside the head with my chapeau. I live in Los Angeles County where it’s the only felony that comes with a lengthy prison sentence. But, I’d give the unlucky trustee my best backwater evil eye. I’d wave my hat in the air, then commandeer the grocery store’s PA system to announce:
“Price check on craven little weenies, Aisle Six …”
Hm. Craven Little Weenies.
I think that was the name of the band that played at Saugus High’s last prom or the logo for my next fetching baseball sombrero…
The hat-wearing John Boston is Earth’s most prolific humorist and satirist. Visit his website, johnbostonbooks.com, and instead of back-to-school clothes, buy, for yourself, your kin and your children, his books.
Boston, MA
Between Providence And Boston Is A Vibrant Massachusetts Town Bursting With Diverse Entertainment – Islands
For some, New England might conjure images of skating rinks, Colonial architecture, and quaint villages. Others might picture waterfront cities like Boston or Providence, rich in history and — in the case of Boston, especially — towering skyscrapers. As you drive between these two capitals along Interstate 95 — a trip that should take about an hour — you’ll pass by towns like Foxborough. For the last few decades, this little community has developed a reputation as a hub of diverse entertainment, making it a worthwhile pit-stop as you journey along the East Coast.
If you’ve ever watched the Patriots kick off from Gillette Stadium on TV, then you’re already familiar with this Massachusetts town. The stadium, considered one of the 10 best in the U.S. for fun activities and events, was completed in 2002, but Foxborough itself has served as the home base for the Patriots since the 1970s. In the decades since, the team has attracted millions of visitors.
Foxborough — also spelled “Foxboro” — is normally home to about 6,500 year-rounders, but it floods with thousands more people on game or concert days. In total, the stadium can accommodate over 65,000 fans. When you’re not at Gillette Stadium, which is less than 4 miles from the heart of downtown, you’ll find plenty of other things to do. There’s live theater, outdoor recreational opportunities, and an eclectic mix of dining options, each deserving some exploration.
NFL games and Cranberry Bogs in Foxborough
Foxborough is located roughly 30 miles from Boston and just over 20 miles from Providence. In the area, you’ll find plenty of suburbs with historic downtowns and lush trails, like Hopedale, but Foxborough, nicknamed the “Gem of Norfolk County,” has one of the most diverse mixes of entertainment options. Marilyn Rodman Performing Arts Center, for instance, housed in a 1920s-era silent movie theater, offers a busy calendar of comedy and musical performances year-round.
Football fans will also enjoy visiting the Patriots Hall in Patriot Place Mall, which is open daily for $10 per standard ticket. Here, you’ll be able to watch interviews with former players and stroll through a range of exhibits. “I liked all the different memorabilia from all different players all labeled with who and what milestone they came from,” reads one review on Tripadvisor. Afterward, check out the dozens of shopping and dining options in the surrounding mall, which also has its own commuter rail station and connected hotels. Gillette Stadium is next door; along with the Patriots, the venue has hosted performers like Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and The Rolling Stones.
The Ocean Spray Cranberry Bogs and surrounding nature trails are also part of Patriot Place. Planted back in the 1920s, these bogs continue to thrive. They’re typically harvested in October, when visitors can attend the annual Harvest Festival. At this fun and family-friendly local event, you’ll be able to enjoy an inflatable corn maze, a beer garden, live music, and more.
Where to eat and sleep in Foxborough
As you explore Foxborough, you’ll find a range of dining options, from classic breakfast plates at The Commons, to artisanal burgers at Union Straw. As one reviewer writes about the latter on Google, “[This is a] Gorgeous venue, one of our favorite daytime lunch or date places. All food options are 10/10, truffle burger, gnocchi bolognese, and the flatbread pizzas are delicious and the fries are perfect.”
If you’re planning to spend the night rather than hit the road after a burger at Union Straw or a long football game, you’ll have a range of vacation rentals, local inns, and chain hotels to choose from. The Rally Point Inn & Pub, for instance, is within walking distance of local restaurants and shops. It also has its own sport-themed bar, weekly trivia nights, and karaoke. Just make sure to book your stay well in advance, as places tend to fill up before popular events.
The nearest airport is also in Providence, but you’ll find more flight options at Boston Logan International. Travelers can also opt for the “Event Train,” which runs between Patriot Place and Boston’s South Station on game days, providing a convenient way to avoid the notorious traffic. Besides the I-95 drive from Providence to Boston, there are plenty of other New England road trip tours you can take through gorgeous small towns. That being said, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a destination that attracts as many annual visitors as Foxborough.
SALT LAKE CITY — Up until the past month or so, Clayton Young wasn’t sure if he’d make it to the starting line of the 130th Boston Marathon.
By Monday afternoon, he was walking away from the course with a stunning new personal best.
Young finished the 26.2-mile point-to-point course in a personal-record time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds Monday, good for 11th place in an all-time year. Zouhair Talbi ran the fastest time ever by an American, finishing fifth overall in 2:03:45 and Jess McClain broken the American women’s record in 2:20:49.
In all, seven American men and 12 American women finished in the top 20 of the prestigious marathon — including Young, whose streak of six consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to 2023 (including the Paris Olympics) ended, albeit barely.
But donning the No. 24 bib and a brand-new kit for new sponsor Brooks, the former BYU national champion who prepped at American Fork High jumped into the lead pack from the start and never looked back as he broke his previous lifetime best set from the 2023 Chicago marathon and the Olympic trials nearly a year later by close to 3 seconds.
“With only nine weeks of training. … I was really happy to be a 2:05 guy,” Young told FloTrack after the race. “Obviously, falling outside the top 10 is a little disappointing, but I’m really happy with the time.”
The final finish was only the faintest disappointment in the incredibly fast field.
Young’s finish as the third fastest American on Monday marks the fifth-fastest time by an American man all-time in Boston. Charles Hicks finished 50 seconds behind Talbi in 2:04:35, with Young coming in just over a minute later to cheers of friends and family.
His former BYU teammate, Canadian international Rory Linkletter, finished 14th with a personal-best time of 2:06:04. Former BYU runner Michael Ottesen finished 52nd in 2:16:06, and Utah resident Todd Garner finished his 11th running of the Boston Marathon all-time in 3:14:35.
“I think we’re in an era in distance running, on the men and women’s sides, but especially the women’s side, where we’re all making each other so much better every time we line up with one another,” McClain told the Associated Press. “And I think it’s just going to get stronger and stronger.”
Former Utah Valley and BYU runner Kodi Kleven finished 14th in the women’s race with a personal-best time of 2:24:48. The three-time St. George marathon course record holder from Mount Pleasant led for large portions of the race en route to her qualifying time for the 2026 U.S. Olympic marathon trials.
Former BYU standout and Utah State coach Madey Dickson, who also runs trains locally with Run Elite Program, beat her previous personal record in 2:28:12 — good for 18th in the women’s race.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
For an industrial robot built for the rigors of factories and power plants, tidying up a living room may seem like a light day at the office for Spot. Yet, a recent video of the robot picking up shoes and soda cans in a residential home represents the promise of AI models in robotics. In this case, Google’s visual-language model (VLM) Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5 was empowering Spot with embodied reasoning.
This particular demo grew out of a 2025 hackathon at Boston Dynamics that built on prior projects using Large Language Models (LLMs) and Visual Foundation Models (VFMs) to enable Spot to contextualize its environment and engage in more complex autonomous actions than a typical Autowalk mission. Rather than write formal software logic or a “state machine” program that defines each step of a given task, we interacted with Gemini Robotics using conversational language. In turn, it communicated with Spot on our behalf.
A Robust SDK and Natural Language Prompts Save Time
Using Spot’s SDK, we developed a layer that facilitated interaction between Gemini Robotics and Spot’s application programming interface (API). The API normally gives developers access to the robot’s capabilities to create custom applications or behaviors. For example, researchers at Meta have used Spot to test how an AI system could locate and retrieve objects it had never seen before.
Our ability to engage Gemini Robotics using natural language prompts was a huge timesaver, compared to traditional programming. We told Gemini Robotics it had access to a mobile robot equipped with cameras and a robotic arm. It also had a finite set of tools it could use to control the robot. A tool is a lightweight script that performs some internal logic and translates inputs from Gemini Robotics to actual API calls. We limited the actions to navigating between locations, capturing images, identifying objects, grasping them, and placing them somewhere else.
The extent of our SDK means there are great examples one could leverage to add more access to the API with minimal development.
Giving Gemini Robotics a Baseline
To start we needed to explain to Gemini Robotics what we wanted it to do. We did experience a learning curve when writing these baseline prompts. Simple instructions like “put down an object” or “take a picture” weren’t detailed enough to produce expected behavior. We had to add context in our descriptions as we refined each tool.
A good example is the detailed prompt for the “TakePicture” tool:
This command will cause the robot to take a picture with the specified camera. There is some nuance to choosing the correct camera. Once arriving at a location using GoTo, you should always start by taking a picture with the gripper camera, because it's the most informative.
If the robot has arrived at location and is already holding an object, you can do one of two things:
1. Immediately call PutDown
2. Search the area with either of the front cameras. The front cameras are low to the ground, so if you're trying to put things on an elevated surface, they won't give you useful information.In this example, we gave Gemini Robotics no detailed description of the robot’s chassis or arm. Instead, we simply explained that Spot’s front cameras would be too low to photograph objects on elevated surfaces. We were able to iterate rapidly, as small changes in wording produced noticeably better results. Once it had this set of basic tools through the API, Gemini Robotics could sequence Spot’s actions and follow the handwritten instructions on a whiteboard on the day of the demonstration.
How Gemini Robotics and Spot Collaborate
Until the robot powers on, Gemini Robotics has no context for what specific tasks we might ask it to perform in a given demo. We only provided simple written instructions, such as, “Make sure all of the shoes at the front door are on the shoe rack.” Gemini Robotics evaluated images from Spot’s cameras and identified objects in the scene that matched the instructions. These objects became the reference points for Spot’s navigational and manipulation systems.
In many respects, Gemini Robotics was identical to an operator manually driving Spot using its tablet controller. For example, to pick up an object with Spot, an operator positions the robot near the object and then uses a grasp wizard to identify the target object. The operator provides high-level direction and Spot figures out the exact details. In this demonstration, Gemini Robotics functioned as both the operator and the tablet sending commands to the robot. This freed us up to act more like a team lead, providing a high-level to-do list and trusting Spot and Gemini Robotics do the rest.
Call and Response
When Gemini Robotics engages a given tool, the tool responds with results and context, such as, “I picked up the object,” or “I can’t pick up something while my hand is full.” Gemini Robotics then makes adjustments on the fly based on this feedback from Spot. For example, to pick up shoes, Gemini Robotics requests an image, identifies the shoes in that image, and calls the “pickup” command. By creating fundamental tools that semantically flow in conversation, Gemini Robotics can manage the sequence of tasks required to clean up the room. Spot’s existing software stack manages the locomotion, navigation, and manipulation of the robot itself.
It’s important to note Gemini Robotics has strict boundaries in this scenario. It can’t invent new capabilities or control Spot beyond what is available through the API. This keeps Spot’s behavior predictable, while still allowing Gemini Robotics to adapt to different situations.
A Force Multiplier for Developers
For developers already working with Spot, this research has tremendous potential. Through Spot’s SDK, they have access to a robust toolkit of capabilities. Companies use these tools today to build applications for inspection, research, and industrial data analysis, among others.
An AI model like Gemini Robotics offers a way to expand those applications more rapidly. Rather than write extensive task logic on top of Spot’s APIs, developers can experiment with having AI systems interpret natural language instructions and dynamically choose to engage the robot. As a result, models like Gemini Robotics can act as force multipliers, amplifying the reliable toolkit and robust performance that is already delivering value for Boston Dynamics customers.
Our Next-Token Prediction for Spot and Gemini Robotics
Although this is still an experimental step and not a hardened application, it illustrates a compelling direction for robotics and physical AI. Robots like Spot are already extremely capable of navigating complex and changeable environments, collecting data and sensor readings, and manipulating objects. Rather than reinventing the wheel, AI foundation models offer a new way to expand these capabilities in new settings and to new applications.
Physical AI is a rapidly evolving field and our team is leading the way in the lab and in real applications of AI empowered robots. While we are early in our formal partnership with Google Deepmind, we’re excited for what the future holds with Atlas and we’ve already rolled out practical enhancements for Spot and Orbit, with AIVI-Learning powered by Google Gemini Robotics ER 1.6. This next evolution of our AI Visual Inspection tool unlocks a new level of visual intelligence, as users benefit from shared expertise bringing a deeper level of contextual intelligence to Spot and Orbit. Model improvements automatically happen behind the scenes, adding more capabilities to the same software and hardware.
Today, this demo points to a future where users can rely more on natural language to guide Spot’s actions, rather than complex code. The engineer’s role shifts toward setting goals and objectives. The multi-modal robot foundation model interprets the instructions to form complex and adaptive plans and Spot executes the action.
This article was contributed by Issac Ross and Nikhil Devraj, engineers on the Spot team.
-
Boston, MA12 minutes agoBetween Providence And Boston Is A Vibrant Massachusetts Town Bursting With Diverse Entertainment – Islands
-
Denver, CO18 minutes agoMinnesota Timberwolves vs Denver Nuggets Apr 20, 2026 Game Summary
-
Seattle, WA24 minutes agoAthletics Beat Mariners in Seattle 6-4
-
San Diego, CA30 minutes agoEl Cajon crisis unit opens, bringing county’s total to eight
-
Milwaukee, WI36 minutes agoWhat to know about Michael Lock as police execute warrant on his former home
-
Atlanta, GA42 minutes agoHavana in Atlanta: 6 Cuban restaurants we keep craving
-
Minneapolis, MN48 minutes ago10 years later, our Prince superfan shares his Prince Pilgrimage
-
Indianapolis, IN54 minutes agoIndianapolis Democrat Andrea Hunley to seek bid for mayor’s job in 2027