26 August 2026

Nine life lessons from the happiest man in the world. Well, you can be happy because your life is OK, but it's hard to translate that advice to someone who is struggling and faces severe adversity. I'm thinking of the tragedy that recently happened in the Nepal-Tibet border today. Still, there is value in being able to exert some control over your mind and regulate your emotions. Meditation may be a solution, but it takes regular practice, and while you just starting out, you have to be lucky that nothing major happens to you to disrupt your progress. For emergencies like that, you need something like Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living. Highly recommended. It's like a Break Glass for Emergencies therapy for the distressed mind.

––– 凄い –––

Here are the plans for SpaceX's Starbase in Louisiana. Say what you will about Elon Musk – he gets shit done. As opposed to California unable to complete their relatively simple high-speed rail project. Or Honolulu's never-ending, mismanaged HART transit project.

––– 良くγͺい–––

Who Actually Makes Your Supplements?Β The short answer that it's hard to figure out. And that quality is unclear. When in doubt, go with Nature Made, NOW or Standard Process.Β 

––– 凄い –––

Terry Tao was given the task of writing a more accessible summary of Hong Wang's research that got her the Fields Medal this year. It's still fairly technical, but much more readable than most math research publications. It would be nice if folks like Tao would do this for other arcane and abstruse math research topics, so the rest of us mortals could begin to understand what's going on.

––– 凄い –––

Here's the story of a forgotten man, Douglas Prasher. He first cloned the gene for GFP (green fluorescent protein) and freely shared it with scientists Roger Tsien and Martin Chalfie. Tsien and Chalfie went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008, but Prasher was forgotten. He was booted out of academics by a tenure committee that failed to see any future in his research. To support his family he had to quit academics, and so became a courtesy minivan shuttle driver for a Toyota dealership.

––– 良くγͺい–––

Nitter is no more. This may be a casualty of AI, as apparently bots were using it to access X. I had noticed that it was getting near impossible to use Nitter lately, despite the bot protection. I can still use TwitterWebViewer, for now.

––– 良くγͺい–––


But here are some intelligence tests that generative AI models still flub. But they'll probably be solvable in a year.Β 

––– 良くγͺい–––

Justice Department and FBI Seize Platforms Operated and Used by China State-Sponsored Hackers to Target U.S. Critical Infrastructure. Maybe instead of focusing on artificial intelligence, we should focus on alien intelligence, as in outside the country.

––– 良くγͺい–––

God's Eye View is a site where you can visualize real-time spy satellite surveillance videos from around the world.

––– 凄い –––

It turns out that Z.ai is behind the Ox Alpha mysterious model. The only place I've been able to access it is at Felo.ai.

––– 凄い –––

There has been progress in pharmacologic manipulation of wakefulness. Modafinil was a significant first step, but it was not the solution people wanted. What really should happen is that researchers figure out how to have the brain eliminate the toxins as happens during sleep. Keeping people awake and letting toxins accumulate is not a desirable outcome. Why can some people go without much sleep? That should be a clue.

––– 凄い –––

OpenAI’s Head of Data Centers, Chris Malone, Has Left the Company. What's happening?

––– 良くγͺい–––

The five levels of wealth. This is an interesting way to explain what it feels like to have certain levels of money, but it doesn't tell you how to get there. Rich Dad Poor DadΒ was a breakthrough for me. It tells you that instead of pursuing mere capital-appreciation investments, like stocks, you need cash-flow generating investments. Even dividend-producing stocks are usually not enough to make you wealthy. Cash-flow investments are harder to obtain. You need to find quality real-estate to invest in. Or buy businesses (like Berkshire Hathaway) not just buying stock in them. Or create valuable intellectual property. These require a change in one's mindset, and many are not prepared to make that leap. Wealth generation from capital appreciation is usually way too slow.

––– 凄い –––
Oregon hurts job seekers with more β€˜barriers to work’ than any other state. Maybe this is why Oregon is the second least-hardest working state in America. How are we going to get all that sweet tax money, Democrats, if people aren't working?Β