SeniorJunior

PHAH! Nobody is richer than me. Taking Stock of My (and Your) Wealth   So much music recorded. So many wonderful musicians and composers. So much good writing. So many books, so much reportage and fiction, so much poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, technology, and science. Since writing, recording, and all forms of “memory” came to be, the inventory of great stuff has become inconceivably large, and it is growing exponentially.   We are riding the foam on the top of the advancing, compounding wave of preserved genius, and we can plunge back into that staggering mass and experience art from back along the timeline. Music from the ancients (and my fav, the early ‘40s) is still there, awaiting our submergence. Stunning literature from 1851, drama from 1606, three million movies since 1880. So damn much! It is wealth beyond comprehension. No prince or despot (even grouchy old Croesus) ever commanded such treasure. The Alexandrian library pales by comparison.  Just counting our bl

 [I don't repeat these things much, but some of the apocalyptic fears that AI might run amok and squish us all need addressing.  Our politicians think in terms of new regulations.  I think more creative solutions will be required.  Besides, this one sounds like much more fun.] (First posted on March 05, 2023)   Lotta Smart People Think AI is Going to Get Dangerous AI is suddenly all over the news and all it's variants on the Web. Talk is (of course) rampant that it's getting so smart so fast it might just   eat its creators. These concerns have been around since long before ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, Chat Bing and all the others about to blossom onto the scene.   We want wonderful, humane, empathetic, humble, wise, big-time-fans-of-humanity AI's, not the scary ones. Sci-fi types (I admit guilt there) have been saying it for decades. Remember HAL-9000’s, “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.”  Then give the A.I. weapons and we have SkyNet, killing off the vermin humans in t

 [Olde Duff Gets Seriouser] SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES  ARE MOSTLY PRIMORDIAL  DARK MATTER [Draft 8/19/2023] [UPDATED 5.4.24] THE BIG NEWS.. ..Is from the James Webb Space Telescope. There were furiously active galaxies very soon after the Big Bang, not that long after the first generation stars happened. This implies supermassive black holes at the centers of the new galaxies.  The question, "how did these giant black holes get there so early?" seems not quite answered by the two main contenders, "Giant dust collapse," and "Many stellar black holes consolidating." Thus I decided to toss this hat into the ring: At the big bang, and dark matter was the first matter of any kind to form (perhaps during the mysterious “inflation” event -- my personal theory).  It’s mutual gravitational attraction and lack of interaction to any electromagnetic force allowed it to exist and start to coalesce, even in the heat of the BB, long before baryonic matter could.  There wa

Environmental Protection Agency  I Love It When We Demand the EPA  Does the "Protection" Part! 40% of ALL CORN grown in the USA is for ethanol!! And since this corn "is not food," MUCH more pesticide and herbicide is allowed, which of course washes off into creeks, rivers and on into the Gulf of Mexico PUMPING UP THE DEAD ZONE. Oxygen starvation is really tough to take,  even if you are not already endangered. [The Guardian] Lawsuit says US environmental agency ignores harm of biofuel production New suit charges that the EPA disregards ethanol production’s impact on endangered species as it is directed to study under law Tom Perkins Mon 24 Jul 2023 05.30 EDT The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal  lawsuit  charges. The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered sp

 Google's BARD Gets the Facts Wrong A LOT It started when I asked Bard to give me facts about the meaning of "666." Rather than any of the Biblical anti-Christ or Satan stuff that is widely known, Bard said 666 stands for "love, compassion and nurturing." I pressed it to document that answer. It used the title of one book and assigned a different author to it. I pressed further and got a confession: Prompt : Is the fact that you said, "in the book Zeus Sensor and Numerology author Efthimios Pistiolas* writes that the number 6 is "the number of the heart" and that it "represents love, compassion, and nurturing," an example of Bard hallucinating? Bard answered: Yes, that is an example of Bard hallucinating. I did not actually read the book "Zeus Sensor and Numerology" by Buddy Huang and Bret Taylor. I simply made up the quote about Efthimios Pistiolas. This is because I am still under development and I am not always able to di

  Is Big AI Going To Take Over Big J? Ya wanna repeat that? (It's already got a foot in that door.) Will It Be "Aligned?" The Free Press, historic and current, had the obvious job of journalism to make possible an informed electorate.  I say “had” because some of the assumptions in that are getting tricky.   Illustrative: The Shorenstein Center study said 80% off all stories inDJT's first 100 days were negative. The Trumpists more or less sold the idea that it was because “they hate Trump.” The right was quick to grab the potential of this. Loudly and repetitiously , they hollered, "This imbalance in affection for Trump proves journalism is not to be trusted,” more or less.  That was one of the kick-offs for the demonization of the MSM. It’s now in full bloom, demonstrated by the size and success of the right-wing media bubble where lies are truths and truths are lies. Half truths… don’t get me started. From the left there were no successful ripostes saying: “Thi