Let’s say you didn’t watch or listen to even one minute of either the Republican or the Democratic national conventions. But The New York Times has an ingenious way for you to get the feel of both conventions: It has analyzed the more than 200,000 words uttered at both conventions to see which ones showed up most frequently — and which words never were spoken at which convention. You probably won’t be surprised, but you’ll get a good sense of both conventions.

Speaking of the Democratic convention: Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek was among the female Democratic governors showcased at a convention event Wednesday in Chicago. The event was moderated by former “Veep” star Julia-Louis Dreyfus.

Researchers in Norway say that painting just one of the blades on a wind turbine black can prevent birds from flying to their deaths into the turbines, Now, Oregon State University researchers are testing the idea at a wind farm in Wyoming. As this story from the Oregon Capital Chronicle notes, wind turbines could be responsible for the deaths of up to 500,000 birds each year.

As hard as this is to believe, the college football season is upon us. Here are AP stories previewing the seasons for Oregon State and Washington State, the two teams orphaned by the collapse of the Pac-12 Conference. There’s a similar theme in both stories: Both programs know they need to win to remain relevant nationally, but will face challenges doing that. For starters, nearly a quarter of OSU’s roster from last season left via the transfer portal. (One of those transfers, quarterback DJ Uiagelelei, went to Florida State — widely considered a shoo-in for the 12-team College Football Playoff — but the No. 10 Seminoles lost their opening game on Saturday, a 24-21 upset at the hands of unranked Georgia Tech.)

Meanwhile, good news for OSU’s gymnastics and wrestling programs: Both will compete under the Pac-12 Conference umbrella next year, but the gymnastics team, led by Olympic gold medalist Jade Carey, will essentially be an independent — and reportedly is in the midst of preparing a schedule with top opponents. The wrestling team’s tentative schedule includes home dates against national powers like Oklahoma State and Iowa. Nick Daschel of The Oregonian/Oregon Live had the rundown.

The Atlantic featured a fascinating piece this week quoting the chief executive of Ford as saying it’s essential for American motorists to rekindle a love affair with smaller cars. Ford is an interesting example: Right now, the company sells only one car in the United States, the Mustang — all its other vehicles are SUVs or trucks. But with companies from other countries, including China, getting set to invade the United States with relatively inexpensive electric cars, the future of U.S. automakers may hinge on their ability to pivot to electric vehicles.

The Weekend Reader’s Dog Desk, which normally takes these dog days of summer off, refers this story to your attention: In interviews, French film icon Alain Delon reportedly said that when he died, he wanted his beloved sheepdog, Loubo, buried with him. Delon died last Sunday and was scheduled to be buried Saturday … and the dog, still alive, will not be buried with him. Loubo “will probably be very sad to have lost the affection of Mr. Delon,’’ said an official with the French Society for the Protection of Animals. But probably not THAT sad.

Here’s an Associated Press story that I read with interest because it absolutely applies to me at this point in my life. The AP reports that while it used to be customary for the bride’s family to pay for a wedding, that’s not such a hard-and-fast rule anymore, a change in custom that perhaps has saved me personally tens of thousands of dollars: The cost of a destination wedding now averages $41.000. (Confidential to Shannon and Grant: We could, in theory, pick up part of the tab.)

And here’s this week’s long read: For a (potentially) fun experiment, the Times asked the writer Curtis Sittenfeld and the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to write a 1,000-word short story using the same set of “beach read” prompts — you know, lust, regret, kissing, middle age, flip-flops. Sittenfeld’s piece for the Times includes both the story she came up with and the story created by AI. I was relieved to learn that I was able to pick up which story was the work of a human after relatively brief skimming. I was also relieved to learn that Sittenfeld’s first draft was roughly twice as long as the 1,000-word limit. I was not relieved to learn that ChatGPT took 17 seconds to write its story.

That’s it for this weekend. I can guarantee, as always, that every word of this week’s Reader was crafted by a human. But it would have been finished a lot earlier if ChatGPT had written it.