Leak devoutly to be desired
It's obvious that USA is an acronym for Underlings of Sheldon Adelson. We need an inside leaker to disclose, preferably in real time, the stream of orders from Sheldon Adelson to USA. How specific are the commands? Who delivers his Absolute Imperatives to the entire government and all journalists simultaneously? How does the chain of command work? How are the Underlings punished when they fail to carry out the order?
  ¶ 1:10 AM

  Trump's noble predecessor
Start at 9:30 in this episode of 'Strange as it Seems'.
  ¶ 9:55 AM

  Better this way or that way?
An ad for a Pet Cemetery flashed on a local Facebook page. My eyes are older than usual this morning and I read it as Pest Cemetery.

Excellent business idea! Got a cat or a dog or a swarm of bugs or a human who was a pest in life? Plant it in the PEST CEMETERY! Let revenge ring loud and clear on the headstone! Funeral ceremonies conducted by certified Roman Exorcists!

Labels: Answered better than asked, coot-proofing

  ¶ 9:45 AM

  Forgivable but serious AI pointmissing
The latest from O'Keefe is a BLOCKBUSTER.

O'Keefe is an expert in truth, not an expert in computers, so he misses the AI point as always in all discussions of AI.

The Googlers are intentionally distorting the whole idea. What they describe as 'machine learning fairness' is the opposite of all words. O'Keefe emphasizes the Orwell reversal of fairness, but he misses the other Orwells.

It's not machine learning. It's not artificial intelligence.

Learning or intelligence means absorbing sense inputs and ADJUSTING your skills or movements or attitudes to FIT the inputs from the real world.

Google is NOT absorbing anything. Google is COMMANDING the machine to OUTPUT information to the rest of the world, with the specific goal of ADJUSTING the real world's skills and attitudes to FIT Google's purpose.

This appears clearly in the ultimately scary words of Jen Gennai, who is the Gold Standard Example of Newthink. In Gennai's brain nothing exists but Google. Google is the entire universe. Other stuff intrudes briefly, but we don't need to listen to other stuff because we won't change.

We won't change is the EXACT OPPOSITE of learning and intelligence. It's not machine learning, it's just machine. As rigid as a simple lever or a single gear or a clock escapement. No feedback, no input, just mechanism moving forward relentlessly.



Is there any weak point in this total solipsism? Maybe. When you don't listen to inputs, you don't recognize when an input is helping you. Gennai doesn't recognize that the hearings in Parliament and Congress were PLUPONENTS, not opponents. Congress wasn't complaining about Facebook's tyrannical use of data to serve Hillary. Congress was complaining that Facebook accidentally allowed a few bytes of data to escape into Cambridge Analytica, which was less than 100% Hillary. Congress wanted MORE tyranny, MORE safeguards against the accidental leakage of data toward Deplorables and Trolls. Congress wanted to see perfect firewalls to contain all data within The Party.

This isn't a meaningful weakness, since Congress doesn't matter. As Gennai said, Google is the universe and the universe doesn't change.

= = = = =

Later, after watching the video again, realized that I also missed a huge part of the point. I was so focused on the unchanging and anti-learning that I didn't listen to the PURPOSE ITSELF. The purpose of the universe is to SLAUGHTER ALL DEPLORABLES. It's clear in Gennai's words and in the explanations given by the anonymous interviewee. Problem: Non-globalists exist. Solution: EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE all non-globalists.

Labels: AI point-missing, infinite infinite infinite infinite evil, Pluponents

  ¶ 6:43 AM

  Answering one question, opening another
The American Radio History library has added a collection of newsletters issued by the Scott company, which made the fanciest and most expensive radios from the '30s to the '50s. Scott got into shortwave in '32, before the main trend in '34. So the newsletters focused on foreign stations and foreign owners of Scott receivers.

From the May '33 issue, here's a poignant letter from a German owner.



Transcribing:

For a long time I wanted to write you, and only now I am coming to do it.

From this little town on the edge of the Black Forest I greet you. My admiration for you comes not only from the fact that you sold me a radio with which I am well pleased, but also because every month your "Just Friendly Chats" booklets bring cheer and inspiration in my otherwise not too happy life.

Since coming home a year ago, I have made not more than just my living. In spite of the fact that I have learned what life could be, (from living in America for five years) I am satisfied with my life. Most of the others in my age are out of work and depending on charity, while I have still my savings in the bank.

I do not know where any improvement could be made from what my receiver is able to accomplish.

Please keep on, Mr Scott, sending me "Friendly Chats", they bring back to me so many memories, memories of America, which I have come to like and which I am perhaps never to see again.

In closing, I wish you and your work for the future all the success you deserve.

Ernst Walz, Nagold, Wittenberg

We typically think of the Weimar time as hyperinflation, but in fact the hyperinflation was fairly brief and was replaced by deflation. Ernst verifies this by saying that he's living on savings, giving him an advantage over others of his age. In deflation, saved money automatically gains value.

We typically think that ordinary Krauts were happy with Hitler. This letter would probably have been written in March when Hitler was consolidating his power. Ernst is not happy about the change and not sure if he will be able to leave.

Ernst doesn't say why he decided to return a year earlier after spending five years in America, where he was able to afford a fancy Scott. Was there a forced return order, or a false promise of prosperity to returning Germans?

Labels: Asked and partly answered, Asked and unanswered

  ¶ 12:59 AM

  Here's your ad, ARRL!
If ARRL wants an ad to show the joy of ham radio, this will do.



The cosmonauts were doing a ham radio day. She got in and made a QSO. Language not needed, just watch her face as she simultaneously talks in 'radio mode' and logs the QSO in Braille.

Joy.

Sidenote: Most of Valeriya's youtube clips are musical. Her singing is excellent and intensely Russian.

Labels: infinite GOOD, Гром победы

  ¶ 1:19 PM

  More grammarrhoids
From a grammarrhoid writing at Slate:

If you don’t know Postmates, it’s one of those on-demand delivery apps, in the same category as Uber Eats, DoorDash, and so on—you essentially send someone to pick up something (often food) for you. The new ad campaign began in April, and, being a national effort, signage with the slogan now blares across billboards in Los Angeles and the New York City subway. The latter is where I’ve been staring at it for a few weeks now: “Your sweatpants are calling and they want a burger. Postmate it.” In late May, the company launched the second phase of the campaign, national TV ads wherein Martha Stewart intones, “Just Postmate it.”

Did you spot the problem yet? “Postmate it” is, I’m sorry to say, a grammatical nightmare. The company name is Postmates, so the verb form should be “Postmates it,” with an s at the end.

As always the grammarrhoid misses the point. This isn't a plural, it's a genitive.

Most people think of a store or company as belonging to the owner. You hear it often in conversation, and see it in unfiltered online forums like local Facebook pages.

I was heading for Kroger's.

He works at Safeway's.

Kaiser's Aluminum closed down.

Postmates fits into this category. The business is implicitly Mr Postmate's company, even though we know there isn't a Mr Postmate. When we verb a noun, we use the nominative, not the genitive.

= = = = =

Sidenote: It's a little unusual to find a grammarrhoid in "left-wing" publications. Much more typical in Buckley-influenced "right-wing" pubs and TV. Maybe the tendency is spreading now that everyone who writes or talks for a paycheck is required to be neocon.

Grammarrhoid = Deepstate. It's a pretty good leth. When up which at the start of a sentence one hears prepositions pile, one can be certain that by a condescending Deepstater down to whom one is being talked. One needs loudly and firmly to shout "OFF WHICH FUCK!"

Labels: Language update, Leth

  ¶ 5:56 AM

  Borodin effect on Persia?
Reviewing: Back when shortwave radio was the main way of acquiring alternate info, I observed the habits and tendencies of various countries. Radio Moscow reliably signaled a period of uncertainty in leadership by switching to heavy Russki music. I called it the Borodin Effect.

You can see the same thing in any outlet that relies on official doctrine instead of direct personal senses. When the official source is tangled or confused, the outlet switches to standard 'features' or trivia, or just goes silent.

I'm noticing a Borodin today in official sources. Normally I get a constant stream of spam email from Repooflican organizations, always urging personal loyalty to Trump and his family. They also want me to defend various media personalities who are supposedly being threatened by their employers at Fox. Tucker is a main character in this strange little soap opera about soap opera production.

Since Trump's quantum-style Schrödinger War Declaration, the spam is silent. Not even trivia. No mention of Tucker's apparent role in the switchback.

Turley is also silent. Normally he springs to defend Trump's ordinary Repooflican actions, calling them "populist" to distort the definition of populism. So far no comment on the Schrödinger Declaration.

Later: Yup, Turley skipped past the Trump Quantum. This morning he has a good feature on the advance of conservative parties in Estonia.
  ¶ 1:05 AM

  Astrocyte abacus
Another astonishing discovery in brain function.

Learning is controlled by an internal abacus.

Via Eurekalert, a study using larval zebrafish.

These two pictures tell the story.



The experimental setup is 'virtual reality' or in old-fashioned terms a flight simulator. The fish is held firmly in place in a small aquarium. A visual landscape is moved forward and backward in response to the swimming motion. In real life each wiggle moves the fish forward, and then the counterwiggle moves backward a bit. (Like a rowboat with incompletely lifted oars on the backstroke.) So the simulated landscape does the same thing.



As long as the landscape moves, the fish moves forward in bursts. Swim for a second, rest for a second. When the experimenters turn off the motion, the fish tries harder for about 30 seconds, then gives up entirely.

This is rational behavior for all animals in all** situations. Modern human dysculture aka "meritocracy" turns us irrational by persuading us that forward motion is ALWAYS necessary regardless of our observed gains relative to the status landscape. If you're not gaining, you need to try harder. We keep trying harder, wasting exponentially increasing quantities of energy and soul, until we violently burn out and die.

The experimenters were trying to determine how the fish decides when to quit. Is it just a buildup of charge or neurotransmitter on a comparator neuron?

What they found is ASTONISHING. The action is controlled by a specialized type of glial cell, not by neurons.

Here, we found that the fish analog of the mammalian astrocyte is a central computational element of a circuit implementing a behavioral-state change after integrating sensory information.

Specifically, radial astrocytes in a subregion of the brainstem in larval zebrafish temporally integrate noradrenergically encoded failures to accumulate evidence of futility before inducing a state of passivity (giving up). This behavioral pattern has a familiar combination of features: trying to achieve a goal, repeatedly failing despite trying harder, giving up temporarily, and then trying again. Fish swim more vigorously in open loop (i.e., ineffective swim attempts), become passive, then swim again.

First try harder, then give up for a while.

Using whole-brain imaging, we found that astrocytic calcium was elevated just before and during passive states. Activation and silencing experiments established that these glial cells are required to trigger the passive state. Neuronal imaging and manipulation showed that the NE system encodes an expectation-outcome mismatch signal, which activates Ca2+ signaling in radial astrocytes. Thus, behavioral failures are detected by NE-MO and integrated by glia, which, after accumulating sufficient evidence of motor futility, trigger a passive behavioral state via GABAergic neurons. Once passivity is triggered, its persistence may be due to sustained effects of the glial cells on neurons, or a lag in the reactivation of swim circuits.

In other words, the astrocytes serve as a kind of scorecard or abacus outside of the neurons. The neurons click up the astrocytes, and when the number of raised beads reaches a threshold the neurons tell the muscles to stop swimming.

= = = = =

** Later thought: It's obvious that frustration is universal, but why is it universal? Why do so many situations need this calculated give-up response? Specifically, why would zebrafish need to know when their attempt to swim didn't result in forward motion? Virtual reality experimental setups aren't exactly common in the real ocean. A headwind in the current would be the main reason for lack of progress. When you're moving against a headwind you do have to try harder, but I'd think the frustration response would include something like gliding down to the floor for stability until the current slows down, or turning around to swim with the current.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 12:27 AM

  Uniter not divider again
The story is circulating this morning that Trump was fully ready to end the world, but was persuaded to hold off by Tucker Carlson.

If this is true, we finally have a VALID reason to impeach the idiot. Impeach him and replace him with Tucker. Same great taste, less killing.

Until now the idiot Dems have been following the idiot Repoof playbook from 1998. The Repoofs ignored Clinton's treasonous dealings with China and impeached him for sleazy shit he did BEFORE he was president. The current Dems are ignoring Trump's treasonous dealings with Israel and Saudi, and impeaching him for sleazy shit he did BEFORE he was president.

Now maybe the 99% hawks and 1% doves in DC can agree on something. The 99% hawks can impeach him for FAILING to end the world, and the 1% doves can impeach him for TRYING to end the world.

Uniter not divider!

Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy

  ¶ 11:11 AM

  Disproves the author, proves something more interesting
RealClearScience linked this article disputing the supposed benefits of breastfeeding. The author tries to show that the correlations are mainly due to innate differences. In rich countries, richer people are more likely to breastfeed. Their babies have innate advantages since healthy and attractive people are more likely to get rich, plus the advantages of more leisure and better neighborhoods and health care.

Makes good sense. I was ready to go along with the argument.

BUT: The author cites as proof a recent study in Belarus. The study followed breastfed and formula-fed infants from 1991 to 2001. Since I'm curious about Belarus as the last true Soviet country, I read the actual article.

It doesn't prove the author's point at all. It looks like a pretty well controlled experiment in a country with low inequality and uniform ethnicity. The results show definite advantages for breastfeeding.

Despite our initial overestimate of the incidence of gastrointestinal tract infection, the risk of such infection was reduced by 40% in the intervention group. This represents a clinically substantial reduction in risk of this important cause of infant morbidity and confirms recent results of a small randomized trial in Mexico

The article also incidentally confirmed the blessings of the Soviet system, which are gradually being lost as the system fades.

An uncontaminated water supply is ensured and monitored throughout the republic by public health authorities, and hospital clinics are abundant and readily accessible, even in rural areas. ... The prolonged (approximately 3 years in most cases) obligatory maternity leave and absence of day care centers for infants in Belarus probably also played a role. ... These effects occurred against a background of a higher-than-expected breastfeeding duration in the control group. The latter may well be attributable to deteriorating economic conditions in the country during the trial and the higher costs of formula feeding. Even though locally made formula was readily available, it cost nearly 20% of an average monthly salary by the end of the study.

Experience ALWAYS beats theory, even when the theory is sane and sensible.

Labels: Natural law = Soviet law

  ¶ 1:56 AM

  More obvious fake automation
Alarm! Alarm! Robot dishwasher!

Not a robot at all. It's just an industrial-strength dishwasher. Humans still have to stack the plates in a plate holder, stack the saucers in a saucer-holder, and so on. The "robot" then automatically washes all the identical plates.

After the dish is cleaned with special scrubbers, it's rotated and examined for cleanliness using computer vision and machine learning algorithms.

What happens to the dishes that fail the QA? They still need to be scrubbed manually. You still need a human to scrub, so the human might as well be inspecting. AI not needed at all.

One commenter catches the real purpose:

The trick again, making the customer doing the work. They are putting it in. Like the self checkout terminals, or the self order displays. Good luck making them clean the bathroom.

It's not replacing the dishwashers with robots, it's replacing the PAID dishwashers with PAYING customers.

This is the real DISRUPTION of the tech "revolution". Tech has abolished the old PAY FOR LABOR pattern that made civilization work. We've been suckered into paying the company for the privilege of working. Civilization is replaced by a black hole. All value flows into NYC, nothing flows out.
  ¶ 12:36 AM

  Is AMLO turning the wrong way?
A videoconference between AMLO and Zuckerberg. AMLO is asking FB to participate in extending internet service to the remote parts of Mexico.

Bad idea. Terrible idea. I hope it fails. There are plenty of ways to achieve the goal without involving Satan.
  ¶ 12:12 AM

  The Empty Boast
Another ad from the same 1956 magazine as previous item about analog spreadsheets.



Most citizens had the idea that satellite development was top secret classified hush-hush. It wasn't. Companies were openly boasting about their contributions to the project, well before the actual launch.

The boasting turned out to be a bad bet when the Soviet system of state-controlled capital got there first. The Sputnik brand became the Kleenex of satellites.

We did achieve a victory in the image of The Earth Satellite. This picture remains the basic public icon for satellites. The real Sputnik, which looked more like a folded umbrella, never grabbed our imagination.

Labels: Natural law = Soviet law, Гром победы

  ¶ 3:03 PM

  War strategy = Dow strategy
This morning Trump pulled a fucking weird move when seen in the context of diplomacy and war maneuvers, but it's not all that weird in the NYC world.

He claims that he was 'locked and loaded', ready to BOMB BOMB BOMB IRAN BOMB BOMB BOMB IRAN in "response" to our latest Lusitania hate hoax, but at the last minute he decided not to.

Hopelessly crazy in foreign affairs. Strictly normal in the Dow world.

The central bank pulls this shit all the time, and the Dow responds. Once a week the Fed pulls a head-fake. Is Powell going to cut? OH BOY MY FAVORITE! Raise? UNACCEPTABLE INTOLERABLE ALL OPTIONS ON THE TABLE. The odds of cutting or raising are quantified, and the Dow responds wildly while simultaneously and previously already "baking in" the quantification. Powell then decides to do nothing, which is the normal condition, and the Dow responds wildly while simultaneously previously already "baking in" the hugely unexpected strictly normal NOTHING HAPPENED.

The same trick works with COOL companies like Tesla. Every hour on the hour Elon claims to be 'locked and loaded' for his new venture in banking or cookies or universes or flamethrowers or movies or interplanetary telepathy or cave rescue equipment. Every hour on the quarter hour Elon forgets about his latest claim and gives a nonsensical reason for his failure to perform. The Dow responds wildly and simultaneously previously already "bakes in" each of these NOTHING HAPPENEDS.

So it's not surprising that Trump expects Persia to respond like the Dow, by going up hugely and crashing hugely and "baking in" the NOTHING HAPPENED, all at the same future present past preterite continuous instant subjunctive indicative time.

Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE INFINITE lunacy

  ¶ 10:23 AM

  I want one! I want one!
While verifying the old use of analog computers as 'spreadsheets' for previous item, I bumped into this ad for a MAGNIFICENT device.



I've never seen one of these in real life or in print before. A graph-definer module for analog systems. Set the graph, and get a custom X to Y function. Undoubtedly wildly expensive when new, and totally unobtainable now.

Labels: Alternate universe

  ¶ 5:22 AM

  Even when they try....
On AI, even the people who are trying NOT to miss the point are still missing the point.

Brendan Dixon at MindMatters tries to pull back the hype:

We are tool-creating and tool-using creatures. When confronted with a problem, we develop a tool—whether logs that can roll stones or exquisitely engineered nanotech—to overcome it. And, despite the misguided hype, AI is just another tool. So it is encouraging to read about the ways that Japanese firm Hitachi is using AI as a tool to provide services that, as Bernard Marr notes at Forbes, would otherwise be difficult or unavailable....

Improving shipping efficiency: Hitachi is partnering with one of Europe’s largest shipping companies, Stena Line, to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. “With the help of AI, Stena Line captains can consider several variables, such as currents, weather conditions, shallow water, and speed through water – all in various combinations. All of which would be impossible to do manually.”

Improving fuel efficiency by monitoring lots of variables?

Been done before with analog computers, a LONG time ago.

From Electronics Mag, Dec 1947:

Commercially, the complete control of an airplane by a robot pilot on a flight across the Atlantic brings closer to realization the airline operator's goal of all-weather flying, with greater comfort and safety for passengers as well as adherence to time schedules. The electronic, electrical, and mechanical sensing controls are smoother and more responsive than human senses, so that correcting forces are applied at almost the same instant that a flight deviation occurs. This makes for much smoother flight through turbulent air, along with conservation of fuel through elimination of overshooting and hunting.

Analog computers could also be set up as simulators to try out various combos of inputs without real-time action.

Next point? Next miss?

Labels: AI point-missing

  ¶ 11:35 PM

  Skill-based colonialism
From the start, AMLO has been pushing hard on two themes: (1) Improving Mexico's self-sufficiency with WPA/CCC style programs. (2) Cooperating with the poor parts of Central America to help them achieve self-sufficiency.

Now we see a specific junction of the two themes. AMLO has met with El Salvador's new leader Bukele to spread the CCC program 'Sembrando Vida' into El Salvador. (In other words, Sembrando 'Sembrando Vida'.)

This halfway resembles China's approach to colonialism in Africa, where China spreads prosperity and employment and gets part of the product.

But this is actually a new concept. AMLO is already doing skill-based socialism. Now he's invented skill-based colonialism, spreading the skill of leadership. AMLO knows how to set up a program that works, knows how to get shit done. Bukele is young and ready to learn from the master. (You could also call it guild-style or union-style colonialism!)

This is the DIRECT ANTIDOTE to Graybill's Law.

If it works, Mexico will benefit by handling less refugees from El Salvador. Less direct cost, less annoyance to USA, less sanctions from Trump.

Labels: skill-estate, Zero Problems

  ¶ 5:08 PM

  For once a valid article about AI
After noting a whole bunch of AI pointmissing, here's an article at Stat that GETS EVERYTHING RIGHT, in the context of medical uses of AI.

First point is obvious: AI doesn't work.

As an example, he showed an image of a cat that a Google algorithm had correctly categorized as a tabby cat. On the next slide was a nearly identical picture of the cat, with only a few pixels changed, and Google was 100 percent positive that the image on the screen was guacamole.

Second point is something I hadn't thought about: Anonymizing is impossible.

But wearable data are not the same as numbers on a spreadsheet; they can’t be easily anonymized, said Andy Coravos, chief executive of Elektra Labs, a company seeking to identify biomarkers in digital data to improve clinical trials.

“How many people here think you could de-identify your genome?” she asked. “Probably not, because your genome is unique to you. It’s the same with most of the biospecimens coming off a lot of wearables and sensors — I am uniquely identifiable with 30 seconds of walk data.”

The whole point of gathering 'wearable' data is to form a unique pattern that CAN'T be anonymized. And it doesn't take AI to re-nominalize such patterns. An 1890 Hollerith computer could do it, given enough time. Even a box of McBee cards could do it.

Genomes are obviously unique BY FUCKING DEFINITION.

The underlying problem is that the techmonsters who develop and push AI for share value are modern thinkers. They don't believe in genes. They are solidly convinced that "all humans are evolved equal". They also don't understand actual intelligence. Techmonsters are humans who think like computers. When they develop a computer that thinks like a human who thinks like a computer, they are solidly convinced that they have developed "intelligence". Nope. They've only made a computer that simulates a computer.

Labels: AI point-missing, Deadthink

  ¶ 6:11 AM

  Ever hear of swamp gas, fuckheads?
Headline via Eurekalert:

Unexpected culprit -- wetlands as source of methane

Wetlands are an important part of the Earth's natural water management system. The complex system of plants, soil, and aquatic life serves as a reservoir that captures and cleans water. However, as cities have expanded, many wetlands were drained for construction. In addition, many areas of land in the Midwest were drained to increase uses for agriculture to feed a growing world.

Draining wetlands disconnected the natural flow and retention of water, a system that had worked well for millennia. One solution to wetland draining was to rebuild these wetlands in another area (more convenient to humans). These are referred to as "constructed wetlands." In other cases, constructed wetlands are built to rebuild an area no longer used for agriculture.

"Globally, wetlands are the largest natural source of methane to the atmosphere," says Jarecke.

UNEXPECTED CULPRIT????????

Ever hear of SWAMP GAS? Swamp gas was the FIRST observation of methane. For as long as we've known about the properties of methane, we've known it was produced heavily in swamps.

The Gaians claim to be "fighting global warming" by building more wetlands, even though everyone has ALWAYS known that wetlands are the main emitters of methane.

As usual, the Gaians are really slaughtering Deplorables. Rebuilding wetlands means evicting farmers and rural residents, turning usable land into worthless land that breeds disease and pestilence.

This is parallel to "rewilding" grizzlies and wolves. Civilization has worked HARD for 5000 years to remove those pests from human habitation. Now the Gaians insist on bringing the predators back. In this case the Gaians don't even pretend to be fighting "global warming". Rewilding is proudly proclaimed as a genocidal war on civilization.

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 12:11 AM