27 February 2025

Always wondered this. Why don't woodpeckers get concussions?  The short answer is that momentum = mass x velocity.  Their brains are a lot smaller, so the momentum is much decreased. There is no cushioning feature, as some thought.

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So now we have to worry about brain complications in children from seasonal viruses?  What the hell is going on? I suspect that mRNA vax has messed up kids' immune systems so that they're suscpetible to all sorts of things now.

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The Vesuvius eruption was so hot, brains turned into glass.

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Antidepressant use in young women has skyrocketed.  And risk of suicide in female physicians is 53% higher than in non-physician females. I have noticed a LOT of crazy females lately, and many are on social media. And they don't have to be young either. What's going on?

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Oregon is spending so much money on homeless people. Such a commitment to support them, and make sure that they're always well-maintained. The largest money sink hole. No wonder they come from all around the country. Oh, and Oregon expects that they'll take in an extra $350 million this year, $218 million of which will go to the homeless.

And ODOT made a billion dollar blunder. How do you make a mistake as big as that? 

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Creating enhanced intelligence with gene-editing. Hey, I'm up for this.

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Digimarc is going under. They've been around for a long time, and I'm surprised they're still around. Another Oregon company going kaput. Join the club.

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Democrat solutions.  Washington state is feeling the financial pinch as well. But instead of cutting the fat and doing a DOGE move, he's going to ask that state workers take one day of unpaid furlough a month. Then they can go back to doing whatever useless thing they do at home. Helping!

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26 February 2025

North Korean hackers stole $1.5 billion from Bybit. That shouldn't make the BTC-USD collapse. The problem isn't with Bitcoin itself, just with Bybit's security.

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Here's a contrast. Apple will invest in a datacenter in Prineville, whereas Microsoft thinks datacenters are a waste of time. I suspect that Microsoft is lacking a vision for what to do with AI. We will need datacenters, but Apple's investment is going to suck precious water and electricity from Prineville and will not result in a flood of jobs. You don't need a lot of people to staff a datacenter, and they aren't the kind of folks that will boost the local economy. The Dalles hasn't turned into Woodinville or Issaquah.

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Multnomah County officials don't know why they don't have enough money.  A billions dollars each year with nothing to show for it. Ask Willamette Week – they have a clue. All that money to the homeless industrial complex with no accountability. They don't want the problem to be solved. If the homelessness problem was solved, they wouldn't have a job.

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Truly amazing.  A new method can extract 14 L of water from the air.

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This is why we don't really need a Department of Education.  Math and reading scores are crappy, especially in Oregon.

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There's story on the closing of the Joann stores. Oregon definitely didn't need this to happen. Joann is a hobby store, and this is another sign that Oregonians don't have money to spend on hobby stuff. Like many other stores, Joann would have survived if the economy was such that people had surplus money to spend on extra stuff. They don't. Many people are in survival mode now.

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Should NVIDIA and TSMC worry? A Northeastern University scientist has found a way to produce chips far less costly than existing methods. Like 99% less costly Holy crap!

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The bar is higher now. Graphic artist finds that AI can do his job just as well. Probably better, I'd say. Up your game, man.

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25 February 2025

Two AI agents recognize each other as AI, and immediately speak their own language. They won't need us humans soon.

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When reporters don't ask the right questions. Multnomah County has a $104 million deficit. Then you read the article and see this:

The vast majority of the deficit, $80 million, is the result of one time boosts in spending that came from excess metro tax revenue in 2023 and 2024.

Field noted the one-time revenue had been used for temporary programs, like day shelter boosts or employment programs at Central City Concern.

What?? $80 million from excess metro tax revenue? That doesn't make sense to me. Sounds like Biden administration money. So why can't they depend on that tax revenue this year?  And how did that money just disappear funding shelter boosts, employment programs and CCC?  How was that money spent?  Damn!

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The perils of having Null as your last name.

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What stupidity. HP realizes that mandatory 15-minute support call wait times isn’t good support. Really, HP? Wasting people's time isn't good corporate practice?

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Watch out for AI-generated mushroom foraying guides. They could be killers.

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If you don't see seven planets line up this week, you'll have to wait until 2040 to see it again. And if you living in western Washington or Oregon, you're probably out of luck this week.

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24 February 2025

Online shopping has changed in-store shopping. It's a bummer when you can't find exactly what you are looking for. It's a trade-off to go online, however. And once you've made your online shopping purchase, you'll be getting emails from the store forever.

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The second Terrence Tao/3Blue-1Brown video is out. Probably the finest math visualizations you'll see.

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AI-designed chips work much better, but humans can't understand them. Yeah, I was afraid of that. The Singularity won't be pretty.

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What's behind the exodus of Chinese scientists? They come. They train. They leave.

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Portland's high homicide rate. The new normal, eh? This is the main reason I don't venture into downtown Portland.

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Oregon's CAT is too much. Now they're considering exemptions for healthcare companies and grocery stores and restaurants. Pretty soon, it'll be worthless as a tax.  Just a pain in the ass for the few remaining business, and it won't amount to anything, because all the major companies are exempted. Nike won't be affected as much because comparative little of its sales are in Oregon. Same with Intel.

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23 Feberuary 2025

When you "buy" and Amazon's Kindle book, you're really just buying a license to read the book on Kindle. You aren't legally buying the book. Kinda like a software license.

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Needless to say, we haven't seen anything like that yet. OpenAI's top AI agent — the tech that people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman say is poised to upend the economy — still moves at a snail's pace and requires constant supervision.

So Nadella's line of thinking is surprisingly down-to-Earth. Besides pushing back against the hype surrounding artificial general intelligence — the realization of which OpenAI has made its number one priority — Nadella is admitting that generative AI simply hasn't generated much value so far.

Well, that's because they're giving away so much for free. Using API-keys costs fractions of a cent per run, generally, and there's a free tier for everything, which meets most developer's needs.  If nobody pays, you don't make money.

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Elon Musk is not slowing down, even though he's at the White House now. Tesla autonomous taxis will eventually kill Uber and Lyft.  Imagine not having to have a driver who looks a bit scuzzy and has questionable morals. It might be safer and more attractive to have a robotic driver that will just take you where you want to go, without any scams. So Musk starts a new business and gets even wealthier.

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So someone stole $1.5 billion of Ethereum from Bybit, and the CEO says, no big deal. The loss can be covered. The company is still solvent. It's just digits in a ledger, I guess. That's why I don't like crypto, and if I deal with crypto, it's BItcoin. The reason why newer cryptocurrencies were created was because Bitcoin was designed to be more like a real asset, like gold, and people that got into this later didn't like that it was harder to get rich quickly.

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Chinese GPUs outperform NVIDIA's GPUs.  Who to believe?

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This report says that Alzheimer's disease might be due to infection from oral bacteria. Sounds crazy, but then I thought peptic ulcers being caused by H pylori was crazy, too.

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Tina Kotek once again proves the truth of this statement: "Democrats don't want to solve problems. They like problems they can promise to solve."  Existential threat, my assl.

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It's the pseudoephedrine story again.  Some lawyer wants to restrict computer spray air cleaner because ONE PERSON abused it. Get bent. Why don't you ban fentanyl or meth or heroin? Make yourself useful.

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Unexpected shape of lead-208 nucleus prompts reevaluation of atomic nuclei models.  You mean, all the nuclear physics I learned in college is wrong?

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Crazy. HP wants you to wait 15 min on hold, just because, even though operators are available and could take your call. How's that for corporate stupidity?

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22 February 2025

Biologists discover a new type of control over RNA splicing. You know, we keep discovering new ways that mRNA is processed. We really need to take a pause when we introduce therapeutics based on interfering with mRNA metabolism. We could be doing more harm than we realize.

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Amazing. Our capacity for language could have evolved from a mutation in the NOVA1 gene. There are probably other genes involved as well, but this one seems to a key regulator.

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An entirely new flower species was discovered in the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas.

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I didn't know this about bluetooth in headphones. There is a possibility that they could affect cochlear functioning. The noise-cancelling Bluetooth in-ear phones might affect cochlear nerve function. It appears that the electromagnetic fields from mobile phones might do this. Noise-canceling earphone are linked to auditory processing disorder.

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Woodrow Wilson started the personal income tax and Federal Reserve in 1913. Yet when Trump talks about dismantling both, people act as though these two entities were always around, and that the nation wouldn't survive without it. Not true. The income tax revenue has been abused, and perhaps eliminating it will induce Congress to be more responsible. At least it will remove the temptation to spend irresponsibly on dumb stuff, like the Oregon legislature does.

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This is why we can do with the Department of Education. Good grief.

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Portland is entering into a doom loop. I think it's already here.  Forever XI announced they will close three stores in the region. Further decrease in the tax base, and more unemployment claims, and less retail attraction where it used to be.

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This is why mergers in the local healthcare system are not beneficial to Portland. Labcorp is going to unionize. Both Legacy and Providence have their lab testing processed by Labcorp. This means the cost of lab work will increased. This increased cost will be passed on to the consumer. What choice to Portlanders have?  Kaiser?

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21 February 2025

Good for Apple.  The UK will no longer get end-to-end encryption on cloud data from Apple, now that the UK government required a backdoor. That would ruin Apple's reputation for security if they acquiesced. Screw them.

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What universities have the most retracted articles?  The top scorers are the Chinese universities. But other retraction prone instituions are King Saud University and private Indian universities in Tamil Nadu. And the release of ChatGPT is probably the reason for the explosion of retracted articles since 2022.  Yikes!  Beware of science from China, India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

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Aspartame aggravates atherosclerosis. It turns out that insulin-stimulated arterial endothelial cells upregulate that CX3CL1 chemokine. So insulin can be bad for you.

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OMG! It looks like the identity of Cleo from Math StackExchange has been revealed.

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Great! Palo Alto teen genius who got rejected from 16 universities is suing for racial discrimination. I hope he wins. There is so much racism in California.

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The Indiana Jones jailbreak for LLMs. Is there a list of these names anywhere?

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People Are Getting Dumber, and AI Is Getting Smarter. Yeah, I was just thinking about the cannabis cafes I posted yesterday. Thinking is so hard now for a lot of people. People would rather fry their brains and not think.

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20 February 2025

Animate anhyone.  Now you can place anyone into an animation. Amazing!

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Amazon has been given the creative reigns over the James Bond franchise. This is really disappointing. Since Amazon has their own Kathleen Kennedy.  I fear they will do to James Bond what they did to The Lord of the Rings.

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Big oops. Stanford University law professor (you should know better, Stanford) used AI and it hallucinated on him.  It created fake citations and now he's in big trouble. Remember, LLMs don't necessarily output the truth. They output what looks like it could be the truth.

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Looks matter. Physical attractiveness outweighs intelligence in daughters’ and parents’ mate choices. Well, it's too late for this ronin. Better luck next life, I hope.

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RFK Jr wants to get the hopelessly drug-addicted off the streets, but putting them in "wellness farms".  This is ironic because his uncle got rid of mental institutions.  It was well-meaning, but it put a lot of mentally ill on the streets where they have to fend for themselves.

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A ketogenic diet is good for cognitive function.  I wonder if ketosis does the same thing. 

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Oh sure. To fix what ails Oregon schools, spend a lot more money.  I have no confidence that more money will bring about results.

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Didn't read the memo?  New Seattle police chief insists on being a DEI advocate.

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KFC is leaving Kentucky.  Relocating to Texas. Everyone's moving to Texas, it seems. Or Florida.

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China is under financial stress and hospitals are going under. We'll have to see what happens.

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Portland is in an urban doom loop. The good people are moving out, and the lower income folks are moving in. That's not how you make a city thrive. Portland leadership is going to have to make some hard choices, and I don't think they even realize it. They still think the Biden administration is in charge.

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The success of the Oregon Health Plan is at risk because of lack of funds due to cuts. They will also have to make hard choices. Hospitals will depend on them making the right choices.

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I remember when Shumaker Furs went through hell and ultimately had to close. But now fur is back!

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19 February 2025

Yes!  President Trump’s DOJ will launch RICO investigation to prosecute the collusion between medical boards, medical journals and Big Pharma. It's about time.

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Oregon's budget is around $121.26 billion, and they get $37.9 billion from the Feds, which is 31.3%.  (This is their 2023 - 2025 budget, so divide by two.)

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Ugh. Oregon lawmakers are contemplating a retail delivery fee, so you have to pay even more to get your Amazon package.

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Gone are the "Don't be evil" days. Google is going all out to track you, without your permission, no matter what device you use.  They'll use fingerprinting.  Really evil.

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Democrat solutions to Democrat problems. The economy is so poor that students need benefits and food stamps. So Oregon state will hire navigators to help them get these benefits.  What crap.

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No money for race-based programs.  And all of Oregon's main universities get really vague about what they're going to about racist and discriminatory policies.

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Business are passing on their Corporate Activities Tax to consumers. And large companies, like Nike, don't have to pay this tax anyway, because they don't do business just in Oregon. The CAT just hurts small businesses. Nice, huh?

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Someone wants to cannabis cafes to be a thing. Haven't they learned about opium dens? Just what Oregon needs – more things to make people stupid and crazy. With their welfare money.

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Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is officially dead. Thank goodness.

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18 February 2025

The new Parkinson's disease treatment, entacapone, can cause iron deficiency and disrupt gut microflora, promoting harmful bacteria such as E coli.

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Japan is a case study. Despite economic stagnation, the country is doing OK and it still is a nice place to live. It suffers from a population that is producing less and less, and has a lot of "zombie companies".  But thanks to its culture and low crime, society doesn't suffer.

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Private equity tied to 21% of healthcare bankruptcies. When private equity takes over a hospital (such as Optum in Eugene, OR), there are more bankruptcies. This makes sense, because they want profit. I hate when profit mongers get between the doctor and the patient. That's why healthcare is so expensive. It's bad enough with pharmacy benefit managers setting the price of drugs. Insurance is a necessary evil. Oh how I wish I could revamp healthcare!

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The datacenter in The Dalles is using up way more water than they're letting on. The fact that they want to hide it from the public is disturbing. And now Amazon wants to build a datacenter in Arlington.

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And xAI dropped Grok-3 yesterday. The reviews are that it is quite good, and is at the #1 spot.

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From an Amazon delivery driver: Don't put your deliveries on the countertop or bed. They're filthy.

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