Sugoi & Yokunai

AI-generated text found in 14% of all biomedical abstracts last year. This isn't too surprising, since LLMs are good for polishing text. As long as the content is AI-generated, I see nothing wrong with this. LLMs can help to express ideas more clearly. Ketanji Brown-Jackson could have used AI to help her formulate her dissent. Really. I say "no big deal" to this.  

––– 凄い –––

Palantir is teaming up with Xfinity to allow someone to spy on your movements in your home using WiFi signals. Time to find another ISP.

––– 良くない–––

Usually, one does not have to worry about overdosing with water-soluble vitamins. But apparently this is not true with vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). Excessive dosing can lead to neurotoxicity. This is ironic because doctors used to prescribe a trial of pyridoxine to treat neurotoxicity. Ironic.

––– 良くない–––

White male writers are vanishing. I noticed this when browsing for horror fiction, which is my favorite. I love M.R. James, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, H.P. Lovecraft, August D'Erleth, E.F. Benson, L.T.C. Rolt, Ramsey Campbell and Robert Aickman. But lately, when I visit bookstores, there are very few contemporary horror writers who are men. I think men write better horror than women, as the latter tend to focus on emotions and mental stability issues than supernatural occurrences or ancient mysticism. There is only Stephen King and Laird Barron, and none of these are to my taste. King seems to write about aliens or sick human beings doing crazy things, which Barron does as well. What's going on?

––– 良くない–––

Oregon is no longer paying for homeless camp cleanup along the freeways. Well guess what kind of hot mess Portland is going to look like now? Portlanders pay higher taxes, and just get crap in return.

––– 良くない–––

After laying off 9000 workers, Microsoft wants 14,181 H-1B visas. Do you think that's right? What about American tech workers? What is the deal? Are there no enough hire-worthy Americans? Is that what this is all about? Or do they just want cheap Indian labor?

––– 良くない–––

A short video on Washington state's stupid EV credit program, care of Jay Inslee. The climate change industry is just one big grift.

––– 良くない–––

How embarrassing and cringe. Maxine Dexter with a group of Dem doctors trying to advocate for Dem policies – and no one pays attention to them.

––– 良くない–––

AI can detect hidden lung tumor better than doctors. This is not new, and is just one study where a model trained on a dataset beat a test group of doctors. It doesn't mean that it would beat doctors reading CT scans and chest X-rays in other hospitals or clinics. AI isn't that versatile yet. It's only a start.

––– 良くない–––

Increased sedentary behavior is associated with neurodegeneration and worse cognition in older adults over a 7-year period despite high levels of physical activity. Sounds dire, right? The subjects for this test were those in the legacy and expansion cohorts of the Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project (VMAP), and although some of these over 50 subjects had no evidence of baseline cognitive impairment, others were allowed into the study with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). So already we're talking about those more at risk of dementia. It doesn't inquire as to what kind of activities the sedentary cohort were occupied with. Was it just resting and watching TV, or were they reading books, solving problems or engaged in high cognitive skill activities? Remember, this study showed that exercise wasn't enough to prevent dementia. That's why I'm skeptical.

––– 良くない–––

What a nightmare. Many homes that weren't burned to the ground in the Palisades and Eaton fires are now full of toxic levels of lead, copper, arsenic and beryllium. And what about the fire retardant chemicals? 

––– 良くない–––

IBM laid off 8000 employees because of AI automation, but hired them back in other positions, because they needed human creativity there. Good news, I suppose, if this isn't just an isolated phenomenon. Will other companies also recognize the need for human creativity? I wouldn't have considered IBM to be a company that needed creativity, to be honest.

Microsoft is laying off more people. Doesn't any division there need some imagination?  😂

––– 凄い –––

Hey, I'd watch the heck out of this!

––– 凄い –––

Oh crap. Disney is planning on rebooting the entire Indiana Jones franchise. No doubt to update it with more minority, gay, transgender or girlboss characters. Maybe have Rachel Zegler as Indy's love interest. Leave it alone, Disney. Please.

––– 良くない–––

The NYT doesn't like that Vinay Prasad recommended against the COVID mRNA vax product. Naturally they quote some pro-vax "experts" who decry this decision. Vinay has guts to do this. I'm glad that someone is finally demanding that we put a stop to the now ineffective and completely unnecessary and potentially deadly jabs. Go Vinay!

––– 凄い –––

A new interstellar object has been identified zipping through the solar system.  It's moving too fast to be studied. Could be a comet. Hope it's not an alien – we're not ready.

––– 凄い –––

What?!  Nightmares Linked to Faster Ageing and Premature Mortality. I thought it was just lactose intolerance from cheese. But faster aging? Maybe people have to ask for some prazosin after all.

––– 良くない–––.

Electrical stimulation of the frontal lobes makes you better at math.  Step aside, Terrance Tao, here I come.

––– 凄い –––

FaceTime in iOS 26 will freeze your call if someone starts undressing. I wonder at what point does it kick in.  It's all to protect children, they say. Yeah, but....

––– 良くない–––

Rick Beato reviews the first all-AI rock band. Of course, someone was bound to do this someday.

––– 凄い –––

Has Perplexity peaked? It wasn't too long ago when it seemed that Perplexity was going to kill Google. But now it seems like it waited to long to do something. Others are catching up, and what they do isn't quite as unique anymore. Yeah, they hallucinate and sometimes the references aren't for real, so they haven't really completely solved the LLM problem. Apple might buy them, but maybe not. Then what?

––– 良くない–––

Cheese might be giving you nightmares. Only if you're lactose intolerant. I'll take my chances.

––– 良くない–––

Immigration is the only thing propping up California's economy, too. The state depends on cheap labor from illegal immigrants for the farmers and the service industry, as well as cheap labor from H-1B visas for the tech industry. Fake success.

––– 良くない–––

All Classical Radio is losing their CEO. Suzanne Nance is stepping down.

––– 良くない–––

The growing mobile universe is killing Microsoft's dominance. User base is shrinking at last. Microsoft doesn't own the mobile world. Funny how they just let Apple and Google dominate that sector. Denmark has already announced they're dumping Microsoft Office suite for LibreOffice and Linux. Beginning of the end?

––– 凄い –––

Google is investing in fusion energy, hoping it might be ready in five years.  Give or take.

––– 凄い –––

Someone created a Map of Reddit. It's clear – people love kink.

––– 凄い –––

Just like DuckDuckGo has bang commands, Anthropic has introduced slash commands for their models.

––– 凄い –––

AI is having difficulty in pathology classification. Not so easy. It's like the difficulties with radiomics in radiology.  Not that easy. We still need human pathologists.

––– 凄い –––

Cloudflare is going to stop allowing AI bots to use them to scrape websites for training data. That's fine, but I'm still fuzzy on how they plan to implement a plan to allow AI bots to get through it a fee is paid. How does Cloudflare know who paid the fee. What I don't want is for Cloudflare to start charging for who they will let through the Internet. I don't want them to be a tollbooth. I'd sooner use a different DNS resolver.

––– 良くない–––

In Portland, you pay higher taxes and fees, and they cut back services in return.  Less this and that. No money for staffing, they say. And then there are shootings downtown, like this one, so you can't even safely visit the city that you pay to support. And the street quality in the city is crappy.

––– 良くない–––

An AI-engineer out-engineered a human one. Is it any wonder, then, that tech workers complain they are being replaced by AI?

––– 良くない–––

Another researcher has discovered plasmid DNA sequences in the Pfizer COVID-19 product. They really need to take this crap off the market ASAP. What's stopping them? And why wasn't this acted on when Kevin McKernan first reported it?

––– 良くない–––

Gas prices will surge this coming week. But on the west coast, it's not really because of Mid-East tensions. It's because of gas tax hikes.

––– 良くない–––

Already, people are complaining that the minimum wage hike won't be enough. Gee, why can't prices for everything stay the same when they raise minimum wage rates? Why can't Democrats legislate wealth?

––– 良くない–––

Look at the stuff that Oregon agreed to fund at this last session? So much crap.

––– 良くない–––

Getting the news from social media really does make you more informed. Sure is better than Oregon Live, that's for sure. They still haven't reported about the Supreme Court and the impact of invalidating all those TROs.

––– 凄い –––

Microsoft is working on a tool to help doctors solve puzzling diagnostic cases. Seems to be more accurate than other off-the-shelf models. Will it really outperform in the field?

––– 凄い –––

4.16 billion year old rocks identified in Canada

––– 凄い –––

Chinese scientists have been able to turn on limited regenerative function in mice.  A great start. Hopefully it will lead to full regenerative abilities.

––– 凄い –––

Yikes. There is a 4% chance that an asteroid (2024 YR4) will hit the moon in 2032. If so, it could result in serious debris being released and hitting the earth. This is only 7 years from now.

––– 良くない–––

Congress might block state AI laws for at least ten years. Sam Altman was able to convince Congress that restrictive AI laws would stifle competition and allow China to advance ahead of us. It's an old tactic, but tried and true. And it seems to have been successful. So on we go down the Moloch path.

Sam has recently decided that specialized AI hardware is now worth investing in. Current computers are not optimized for AI. The company has also decided that they're not going to let Meta scarf up their employees without a fight. Competition is good. 

––– 良くない–––

There's a new VPN, vp.net,  that uses Intel's SGX chip, and they claim that this assures logging privacy. It's brand new, and I'd like to see what others uncover before I jump to this. NordVPN is working OK for now.

Whatever you do, don't ever use Chinese VPN apps. You have been warned.

––– 凄い –––

Six policies that Trump will be able to make serious progress on, now that temporary restraining orders will no longer hamper him.

––– 凄い –––

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan-Zuckerberg are closing their Primary School. It's no longer fun to operate anymore. They're bored with it after just nine years. They also claim that there's no finding anymore. Which is strange, as since when was money an obstacle with The Zuck?

––– 良くない–––

OpenAI's o4-mini can geoguess like a pro. I've been impressed with GPT-4.1. 

––– 凄い –––

Here's another reason not to use Android, Google tools, and WhatsApp. As if there weren't enough reasons.

––– 良くない–––

Do you have Substack fatigue? I do. So many begging for subscriptions. They add up, and are they worth it? If I can't get what I want, I check out Internet Archive. 

––– 良くない–––

Oregon can't afford to lose money now, but they've been dinged with a $15.7 million SNAP penalty.  So incompetent, and now they must pay for it. This is why our taxes have to be increased? And Trump's new budget is going to shift more responsibility to states. Oregon is in deep, deep trouble. There's no room for incompetence, but our government is based on DEI hires and appointees. Quality people don't want to move to the state.

––– 良くない–––

Do people need to get a PhD in AI to succeed now? Goalposts keep moving farther away.  The job market in tech is rough.  Redditors blame the H-1B visa system.  Could be, but I wonder how many Americans are really qualified. Whenever I look at the speaker list at AI conferences, they're almost all Indians, Chinese, and Middle Easterners. If there's a European person, it's likely a Russian.  And whenever there's a hackathon or when some tech company offers an AI course, the attendees are basically Indians, Chinese and Middle Easterners. Such a difference from the demographics of the 1980s.

––– 良くない–––

Oregon dodged a bullet.  The gas tax and "Google" tax died. Dems are still advancing a transportation bill, though.  Oregon is going to raise the surcharge on Uber and Lyft to the highest in the nation. And Tina Kotek wants a special session to figure out how to fund transportation.  Stop spending money on illegals and sheltering/deflection programs that the homeless aren't using!  When will she figure that out?

––– 良くない–––

OHSU selects 'transformational' president after nationwide search.  Well, they were kinda forced to take him, since everyone else didn't qualify or withdrew.  And that's what they said about Danny Jacobs. He was transformational, all right. Although Elnahal has a medical degree, it appears that he worked primarily doing administrative work, and not in actual practice or in medical research.  And I don't like that he's a fan of "harm reduction" policies. That hasn't served Portland well at all.

––– 良くない–––

Half a million Washingtonians drive with expired license tags. When that many people break the law, it's not worth being legal. Why pay when the law isn't enforced? This is the breakdown of society in Blue states, when laws are just for show.

––– 良くない–––

Today is the day when the sun will set the latest in the year.  This always takes place AFTER the summer solstice, because of the shape of the analemma. So enjoy the day while it lasts.

––– 凄い –––

Oh joy.  China isn't the only one with mosquito drones. The CIA has one, too.

––– 良くない–––

How much energy does an AI query consume? Text and video consume about 1.7 Watt-hours. But video consumes much more (20 - 110 Watt-hours).

––– 良くない–––

An economics Nobel Prize winner thinks she knows why countries aren't having kids.  She thinks it's due to the time women have to spend doing housework. But she bolsters her claim with a table that shows only 12 countries, and the fertility rate doesn't look like it supports a trend. She needs to show the data with 100 countries at least, and also graph the fertility rate and report the correlation coefficient, so that we know if her table is just selective data picking. I remain unconvinced, and think it's more related to perception of one's financial security.

––– 良くない–––

Unemployment rate among college graduates outpaces the jobless rate. 

The computer science bubble is bursting.

I am so glad I am not having to job seek right now. You can find a job if you actually have skills, but if you took the easy way to getting a degree and spent much of your time in the fuzzy studies or being an activist, you are going to have a hard time.

––– 良くない–––

The drug MariTide (maridebart cafraglutide) is a once-monthly weight loss medication.  Like tirzepatide, it is a GLP-1 RA and a GIP receptor antagonist. I still think it needs to be paired with a sarcopenia mitigator.

––– 凄い –––

Top AI frontier models parrot Chinese propaganda. Why do you think that is so?

––– 良くない–––

The loan on the 200 SW Market Street Black Box building has now defaulted. Owning commercial real estate in the city of Portland is a money loser. It's a Doom Loop, and city leaders just don't see it.  Raising taxes and imposing more fees is a sure way of seeing the city collapse.

––– 良くない–––

University of Oregon is laying off more employees. More to follow.

––– 良くない–––

Reddit CEO says that he plans to keep the site as a human-populated site, and avoid AI. Well, I don't believe you.

––– 良くない–––

Fred Espenak died this month.  I once went on an eclipse trip with him. Appreciate his hard work. Browsing through his eclipse canon books was awe-inspiring as a nerdy kid. He will be missed.

––– 良くない–––

Earth's Rotation Will Speed Up In July And August. I can understand slowing down, but how does it speed up? Are there invisible arms that are being retracted? The article doesn't explain this too well.

––– 凄い –––

Google was going to have a special "fact-check" tag available so that when you fact-checking someone else's misinformation, you could use it, and it would show up on a Google search. Yeah, they quickly abandoned that idea really fast. Seems that right-wing people can fact-check, too. Yeah, another idea that sounded good in the shower but failed in real life.

––– 良くない–––

What LLMs know about their users. Think twice whenever you use them to query about something, perhaps controversial or unconventional. Why should they keep your confidence?

––– 良くない–––

Doctors discover a new blood type. We're up to 48 types now.

––– 凄い –––

A new organelle has been discovered inside our cells. It's called a hemifusome, and its purpose is still unknown.

––– 凄い –––

The most successful undergraduate theses. Did you have to write a thesis for your undergraduate degree?

––– 凄い –––

How not to lose your job to AI. I find this article very naïve. We really don't know what a post-singularity economy is going to look like. Plus, the author doesn't even mention Jevon's Paradox, which will be a factor, at least in the beginning. But who really knows what kinds of jobs will be in demand?

––– 凄い –––

Yeah, people in the Pearl District are none too happy about the homeless shelter opening up in their neighborhood. But I bet very few voted for a Republican mayor in the last election, so you got what you deserve.

––– 良くない–––

All those sobering beds, and no one is using them. Did they really think people would be lining up at the door waiting to get in? Nope, we let people who have a track record of not being able to make good decisions, make the decision to get help on their own. Then wonder why no one shows up.

––– 良くない–––

Meta also wins a copyright suit against authors using their work. The golden age of writing has ended, folks.

––– 良くない–––

Work is starting on synthetic genomes. Making a human cell genome from scratch. Very Dr. Frankensteinish. What could go wrong?

––– 凄い –––

When macOS 26 comes out, the menubar is going to look nearly invisible. If you don't like this look, you can download Boring Old MenuBar. I think I will.

––– 凄い –––

Seattle is thinking of making tagger do the graffiti clean up work. Sounds like a plan.

––– 凄い –––

The number of high school grads is really going to decrease in Blue states. Some are REALLY going to suffer. Red state colleges are going to do fine. 

––– 良くない–––

Yowza! Mass Deportations of Undocumented Immigrants Could Cost California $275 Billion. Well, the alternative was unsustainable. And the good news is that the political impact of California will be much lessened, which is good.

––– 凄い –––

More layoffs looming at Microsoft. Remember when working at Microsoft made you rich?  Yeah. Good times. Now it just makes you upset. ––– 良くない–––

Tina Kotek wanted $700 million for affordable rentals. Oh yeah. Dream on, Tina, What? You think you govern a rich state?  You think there's a thriving economy, or something? Yeah, even the Dem legislators had to break the news to her.

––– 良くない–––

Thank goodness. Another Khanh Pham disaster averted. There will be no tax on big tech to pay for Oregon's lousy liberal newspapers.

––– 凄い –––

Dozens of flights into Oregon have been dropped. More signs of a dying state.

––– 良くない–––

Another one bites the dust. Owens Corning will shut down their door manufacturing company in Prineville.  More signs that businesses can't make a go in Oregon.  All 184 jobs will be lost. That's a lot for a small town as Prineville. They're going to feel it.

––– 良くない–––

Saw this on the Internet: What's going on with American game makers? Forget how to portray women?  Why does every woman in games now have to have that non-binary vibe?

––– 良くない–––

FDA approves the chemoimmunotherapy agent, datopotamab deruxtecan, for EGFR mutated non-small cell lung cancer. 
Great news for lung cancer patients.

––– 凄い –––

After many years, the PNG spec has been updated. Now we can have animated PNGs! And EXIF data!

––– 凄い –––

The man who invented the fart smell in natural gas has won a lifetime achievement award for this. This is not The Onion.

––– 凄い –––

Oh-oh. A federal judge says that Anthropic can train AI models on published books without the author's permission. Man, this is going to get a lot of people pissed off. If this, why not music. We'll get a wider variety of AI slop now.

And here's the BBC, trying to sue an AI startup over content scraping. I'd say that this lawsuit has suddenly become a lot harder to win.

––– 良くない–––

The Psylo browser is going to try to make browser fingerprinting a lot tougher. I doubt I'll use it, but it would be great for other browser makers to license this technology.

––– 凄い –––

AI has made Reddit the front page of the dead Internet. The CEO's decision to let AI train on Reddit content and mimic real users, has turned off a lot of people. Although it's still being used, I think people would switch to a good alternative. Discord and Mastodon are too onerous to use. They're like conversations in private salons, instead of the public marketplace that is Reddit.

––– 良くない–––

Jony Ive's secret device is not going to be a wearable. Jony has a distinctive minimalist style in product design, but does that mean he knows what most people want in an AI device, something that has been called the third core device?

––– 凄い –––

More news about the iPhone 17. I guess it won't be thinner after all. Larger battery. Better camera. 8k video. 12 GB RAM. Better cooling. Maybe I'll do a trade-in. We'll see.

––– 凄い –––

So that 16 billion password breach story was a nothing burger?  I changed all my passwords anyway. Glad it wasn't that serious.

––– 凄い –––

Kidney cells have a memory, too. Who knew? But what made them even think to check?

––– 凄い –––

I knew it. Making EV is worse for the environment. All that lithium mining, and disposing of spent batteries.

––– 良くない–––

Wow, Apple might buy Perplexity after all.  Better than Meta, that's for sure.  Hope they make the Pro tier free.

––– 凄い –––

University of Cambridge researchers have devised a test to determine how susceptible cancer cells are to chemotherapy.  This is by no means a new idea. It died because it took too much time to get the results and insurance wouldn't pay for it. People need to start treatment sooner than later – they can't wait for the test results.

––– 凄い –––

Doctors are using unapproved AI to help them. I knew this would happen. There is so much need for regulation. And for doctors to get smart about AI. They don't know what they're doing when it comes to AI.

––– 良くない–––

Trump can pull the plug on the Internet in Europe. If he wants to. I don't think he'll ever do it. But it would be interesting to think about it. So now they want to develop their own version. Lots of luck with that.

––– 良くない–––

Looks like that preschool tax won't get funded after all.  Thank God. But I still think wealthy Portlanders will continue to flee the city.

––– 良くない–––

This is how Democrats solve the healthcare shortage. Import foreign doctors into the medical system.  Should be OK, because regular doctors will have time to supervise them on top of their already busy practice, and make sure they practice OK. Right?  Right?

––– 良くない–––

Best and Worst Cities in America. Republican-run cities are at the top. Democrat-run cities are at the bottom.  No surprises. But we have more diversity and equity and inclusion, right? 

And Portland is going to start a homeless shelter right in the middle of the Pearl District. They really want the wealthy to flee the city, don't they?

––– 良くない–––