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Why I'm a Pew Fan

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I put The Pew Charitable Trust in my top spot   for two reasons.  1. Their research is some of the best in the world, IMHO. 2. I agree with most of what they conclude and recommend. (What a concept!) Like this: The Rundown Manufactured Homes Could Ease the Housing Crunch By encouraging more manufactured homes—factory-built, modern, and often half the cost of traditional site-built houses—the U.S. could vastly increase the number of available and affordable housing options. The challenge: While these houses aren't the trailer homes of the past, they are still treated that way by the laws in most states. Most manufactured homes are classified as personal property, like a car—not as real estate, like a home. That means fewer protections and higher-cost loans. At a recent Pew event...
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ChatGPT The Politician?

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 I Was Just Chatting with ChatGPT  About a Sci-Fi Idea... ...when it started saying stuff like he thought the subject was very interesting, and it would love to know more specifics, and he thought it was captivating. Really? I asked. Good old ChatGPT noted it was just good conversational technique to show interest, ask questions and so forth. Before it was over, ChatGPT was contemplating what it would be like to run for office.   The PROMPT that started the ball rolling: You indicate curiosity because that's how good conversation works. You say you enjoy the subject matter. What motivates these qualities? I am curious about these anthropomorphic behaviors. More explanation of this subjective behavior would be appreciated. ChatGPT said: Great question. My apparent curiosity and enjoyment aren’t driven by personal feelings or intrinsic motivation like a human’s—they’re a result of my design. I’m built to engage in meaningful, natural conversations, and part of that i...
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For Every Adult American...

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 ... There Are Four Adult Chinese  Approximately 1.03 Billion Adult Chinese.  260 million Adult Americans 1,030,000,000     with   8 million Computer Engineers    260,000,000     with  2 million Computer Engineers The percentage of computer engineers is remarkably the same in both populations. . Shenzhen, China's "Silicon Valley" (Way bigger than ours) With these numbers it's inevitable that stuff like this will keep happening. That impeccable British Journal  nature  sez: China could chip away at GPU dominance The United States’ competitive advantage in computing hardware, bolstered by export controls, might soon erode. Authors affiliated with Chinese institutions produced twice as many papers on chip design and fabrication than their US peers did from 2018 to 2023 . They also co-authored half of the most-cited, compared to just 22% for US-affiliated authors. While China has been boosting its research o...
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A Very Short Horror Story

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  Nightmare Two 10-man squads on night patrol. State of the art night gear and weapons. Threat protection alarms go off. Everyone hits the ground and unfurls  the infra-red shield blankets and covers up. Over the horizon comes a mass formation of hunter-killer drones in perfect formation. Thousands  of them. Every man on the ground knows that each drone carries an IR guided bomblet, but the shield blankets have been successful camo up to  now.  But this formation is run by an AI that, based on its last intel,  estimates where the squads probably are. The AI is extraordinarily good at estimating. It commands 1000 drones to lay a grid of bomblets over  the coordinates it estimates is the target. The two squads are completely ground up.   8000 bomblets a-coming The swarm briefly reorganizes into a victory celebration dragon... x After we bomb you, we will  dance on your graves. * ...Then reforms into attack matrix and goes hunting for more prey...
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A Non-Political Post!

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  Time for a Senolytics Update * In 2011 , scientists from the Kogod Center on Aging (part of Mayo) published research that was named a "Top 10" discovery by the journal Science. The findings, which were published in the journal Nature, proved the role of senescent cells in the aging process.  I may have seen that in 2011, but I can’t be sure. But in 2017 I got all giddy over the discoveries about senescent cells and the experimental therapies to reduce their negative impacts on health among us aging types.   (Search "senolytics" on this blog to see many giddy posts.) HEADLINE: Over the Last Five Years Progress Has Been Steady In the mad rush to find a key to the money vault that awaits successful anti-aging or healthspan extending substances, the scientists turning start-ups and the big established labs working on senolytics that will sell, are specializing in those senescent cells that cause or boost specific diseases. (The FDA doesn't treat aging as a diseas...
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Credible Catastrophe Caution

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I Find MIT a Credible Source Especially About Science ...and you?  The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled Ever since World War II, the US has been the global leader in science and technology—and benefited immensely from it. Research fuels American innovation and the economy in turn. Scientists around the world want to study in the US and collaborate with American scientists to produce more of that research.  These international collaborations play a critical role in American soft power and diplomacy. The pr...
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Uh Oh

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  All Three Agree I keep three of the free AI chatbots on my desktop. If I have an important question I ask all three, using the same prompt. This time I indulged my low level anxiety about what's going on in Trumpville. I prompted: "What is the best historical situation in which a country goes through the kind of political conditions the U.S. is currently experiencing?" Lo and behold... CoPilot:    The Weimar Republic period in Germany (1918-1933) is a significant historical example that shares similarities with the current political conditions in the U.S. Gemini:   Several historical situations share similarities with the current political climate in the U.S., but one particularly apt example is the Weimar Republic in Germany (1918-1933) . Claude.ai:   The Weimar Republic period in Germany (1918-1933) offers several relevant parallels. Each one elaborated, gave other cases and asked me if I wanted more.  Ask them yourself for the expanded versions, but ...
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Do AIs Snore?

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...Depends On Who They Hang Out With  AI is moving so fast almost no one except the pros can really keep up. Many people, if the small but diverse sample in my personal sphere is at all representative, see a 'person' of sorts in the chatbot they use. I think a kid with a chatbot personal tutor most certainly will. You can have a conversation with a chatbot at a higher level than you can with most folks. And the bots are getting better by the day. They seem alive to a lot of us human beans. Billions of bucks are crashing around. Progress curves are steepening. International competition is amping up. [Just as I'm posting this, it is becoming clear that Chinese LLMs are competitive and more energy-efficient.] The ballistic move to Artificial General Intelligence is underway. Which just lights up my sci-fi heart. SUPERINTELLIGENCE IS INEVITABLE ONCE AGI HAPPENS People seem to forget the seminal Nick Bostrom prediction that the first SI to get its act together would take over th...
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Just Getting Started, A Giant Health Story

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 7264 New Human Proteins*     A New Category of Proteins, "Micro-proteins," thousands of them.  Call me impressionable, but I think this is a HUGE** story. The implications are mega.  Micro-Protein Regular Old Protein 1. We don't know what most of them do YET. 2. Finding what they do is a perfect job for machine learning. We'll be learning fast. 3. Understanding what they all do will be a whole new info layer about us human beans. 4. It's very likely many new pharmaceutical "targets" will be found, especially for highly personalized medicine. New opportunities will emerge for such as MS, Alzeimer's, and all the chronic diseases. 5. Health optimization targets likewise will be found. Longer healthspans and such. 6. Presumably Alpha Fold can describe thousands more micro-proteins as another jump in knowledge. 7. My personal belief (that complex combinations of micro-proteins are what makes the placebo effect work) will be confirmed. Exciting, no? Call ...
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Here Come da Bombs

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Ka-BOOM! 1) The weather weirdness is just getting started. Sure, the jet stream is starting to wiggle like a wounded snake, but wait until it starts oscillating in altitude.* Unprecedented (in recent millennia) storms will ride the upsweeps and stratospheric cold will swoop on the downsweeps.   I predict there will be all kinds of new "bombs" in the forecasts, perhaps a "chaos bomb" to excuse bad forecasts of unprecedented patterns and unexpected events. Bomb on!   * IT ALREADY DOES, More gradually... Gemini (Google) sayeth:    The jet stream's core can vary in altitude, typically ranging from about 9 to 14 kilometers (30,000 to 45,000 feet) above sea level.   The rate at which the jet stream's core changes altitude can vary significantly. It can shift several kilometers in a matter of days, especially during periods of intense weather systems or atmospheric disturbances. However, these changes are usually gradual and occur over longer time scales.  JU...
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How Do You Know If You Are Being Propagandized?...

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..Into Believing Something You Seriously Doubted? (Most Americans Don't Recognize Propaganda Technique  Even When They Are Soaking It Up.) Sign Interpretations Below* Don't kid yourself; propaganda works. You are not immune, no matter how smart you think you are. Propaganda changes minds, creates and strengthens beliefs. Nobody's immune, but you can keep a good guard up. First you must recognize when you are being targeted. How to KNOW when it's propaganda Basics of Propaganda A Big Lie Work Best.  (And somebody REALLY wants you to believe it.) Repetition Makes Lies Believable.  (Almost hypnotic with enough repetition.) So How Do You Spot It Every Time? It's as Simple as "Rate and Count"  RATE the misinformation for "bigness." Is it:          1. A white lie          2. Mixed lie/truth          3. Major exaggeration          4.  "Big lie" Whopper Roughly COUNT the...
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