SeniorJunior

  I'm surounded by people very upset by what's going on in Washington. Most of them say "What can we do about it? What can I do?" A data wizard I know has built a complete set of handbooks to show you the way. It's very powerful, with specific targeting of each of the "hits" in the exploding chaos in D.C. Whichever huge challenge grabs you the most, there's a "handbook" of what you can do about it. (For instance: I'm grinding my teeth over the defunding of NPR and PBS,  I think the attack on science is tragic, and I am sick over the destruction of USAID.) You can pick your topic and there is a customized set of aids, suggestions, and gems of facts ready for you to use.  https://constitutionaldefenders.org/index.html The site is also motivating, which all of us need a bit. It clearly shows what you can do "right now," then it makes it easy to do. And it's all free.  I urge you to check it out, spend a few minutes clicking ...

 From August 2017 ...Spelled Out in the Most-Read Story Ever in.... Magazine Art with a terrible message* The article, in the June 9, 2017 issue of New York Magazine, was the most read in the magazine's history. It was titled, simply: The Uninhabitable Earth Pretty straight forward, no? Maybe a little hyperbolic; not every square mile of Earth will be uninhabitable, even in 50 years. Just a very great deal of our planet will be purely awful and most totally unliveable. Hundreds of millions  of climate refugees will head for what  livable  space is left. They will be desperate.  The situation, in a few powerful sentences scattered through the piece: 1.  It is, I promise, worse than you think. 2.  Even when we train our eyes on climate change, we are unable to comprehend its scope. 3.  But no matter how well-informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough. 4.  We are currently adding carbon to the atmosphere at a considerably faster rate (t...

 Kawasaki! I'm a big fan  I had a hot rod of a motorcycle in '73. A Kawasaki 350 2-stroke.  HOT. (and smokey, alas, at full acceleration.) You can call me Hotty. Kawasaki engineers really made it right. But now... Holy cow, A robot horse! It's name is Corleo. I feel naked without a rider. But can it handle a Steeplechase? No problemo Check this out. Video -- including that jump. HERE. OK, it's almost all GCI (or AI video), but I believe Kawasaki can take this baby from vaporware to hardware, all based on what a great machine that 350 was . Here's hoping.

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...

 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...

 ... 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...

  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...

  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...

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...

  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 ...