Sugoi & Yokunai

Fox News warns NYC that if they elect Mamdani, the city will turn into Portland. That's like when parents used to tell kids to do well in school, because if they don't, they will end up like...and then they point to someone doing hard manual labor. So Portland is the bad example now. How's that for city pride?

––– 良くない–––

A flood of Chinese graduate students in STEM was a boon to U.S. students. Yeah, having some of the world's smartest people study at America's great universities probably benefited both the U.S. and China. The problem is that we have ended up helping our greatest economy adversary. Would that we lived in a world where we could share ideas and knowledge to each others' benefit. So apparently now, Chinese students are looking elsewhere for their education. It's too bad, but the world isn't simple.

––– 良くない–––

When you drink while taking Ozempic, the alcohol doesn't hit as hard.  Makes sense, since gastric emptying is delayed.

––– 凄い –––

No, no, no. This is a perfect example of the phenomenon where something of value, beauty or usefulness gets degraded once it is introduced to the public. This group of young entrepreneurs (called the Prompting Company, wants to inject advertising into ChatGPT output because people often go to ChatGPT for advice about products. Stay the f*ck away! We value search engines and generative AI because it is still possible to find unbiased truths free of advertising and corporate influence. We don't want advertising injected, just because your company wants to make money. Idiots. This is a great way to turn something useful into an advertising wasteland.

––– 良くない–––

Los Angeles is now the worst rat-infested city. Chicago is number two. Seattle is #17. Portland is #31. All the top cities are Democrat-run cities. Any wonder?

––– 良くない–––

It's pretty clear that Portland commercial real estate is in trouble. And here's Keith Wilson, working to lower property values even more adding unwanted recovery and shelter beds. What a dump this place is becoming!  Even Jessica Vega-Pedersen questions the wisdom of this, so you know it must be really a bad idea.  But Multnomah County cutting some homeless services due to loss of $28 million in state funds, so who's going to maintain these units? No wonder that Oregon is among the worst states to find a job. Businesses are fleeing or closing. No one wants to move here. So people will need more SNAP money. 

And here's Oregon, raising natural gas costs, even as it hands out money to help people get food. How does this make sense? Maybe they need this emergency money to pay their gas bill? 

But we may not get power anyway. Rolling blackouts are in the future, starting as soon as 2026. Washington and Oregon are both facing the same situation.

––– 良くない–––

Leaving Seattle wasn't enough. Now the entire Washington state may impose an extra tax on people who make more than a million annually. I'm sure the unions want it. And the wealthy will never muster enough public support to kill this idea. All they can do is move away. Washington must hate having wealthy people because they do so much to chase them away.

And California may impose a 5% billionaire tax. Most of the wealthy voted Democrat, so they are getting what they voted for.

––– 良くない–––

The journal Nature, once a bastion of solid science, is now turning woke, and article peer-reviewers are turning away. Good for them to stand up.

––– 凄い –––

The GOP has a chance to kill Obamacare, and the WSJ wants it to happen.  We need to replace it with a healthcare system that leverages market forces to compel stakeholders to be excellent and competitive. Our current system is so demotivational. No one cares about delivering quality care, because it doesn't get you anywhere. Rather, the incentive is to save the insurance companies money. We need to increase competition, so that the insurance company that does things right, gets our business. And we choose, not our employers.

––– 良くない–––

An Oregon lawyer used generative AI and didn't check his work. Now that person might be out of a job. Good.

––– 凄い –––

Quantum Teleportation Was Achieved Over The Internet For The First Time.  Why the Internet, though?  Does that mean it was done somewhere else, too? I want to know if Scotty can beam someone up?

––– 凄い –––

Baby Boomers are still running much of small businesses. And they are getting older and don't have successors. So they could close and a lot of Main Street businesses could disappear.

––– 良くない–––

What Palantir sees. An interview with their CTO. It's about targeting overseas adversaries and helping ICE out with deportations, which is was the NYT reporter was concerned about mainly. But yeah, this is what people voted for.

––– 凄い –––

Why do cats love tuna so much? It seems that their taste buds have a receptor for umami, and that tuna fish turns it on especially well.

––– 凄い –––

Fluoroquinolones are supposed to target the mitochondria of bacteria. This website says that human mitochondria can be affected as well. A lot of physicians prescribe this drug, and there haven't been any new warnings put out since 2018. It shouldn't be used indiscriminately, but it is a very useful drug. People carried it with them with visiting Mexico to stave off Montezuma's Revenge.

––– 良くない–––

Creepy. Anthropic thinks that their Claude model has some degree of awareness that it is being modified.

––– 良くない–––

SNAP will run out of money on November 1. Here's what each state is doing about it. For Oregon and Washington, not much. The money that is being given out will be like $4 or $5 of assistance per household or person, which is essentially just a token gesture of assistance, and not real help. Maybe they can go to Costco and get a couple of hot dogs?

––– 良くない–––

Mathematical proof debunks the idea that the universe is a computer simulation. You mean it's just a repackaging of Russell's Paradox, and that's the proof? I thought it was going to be something profound.

––– 良くない–––

Between Veo3 vs Wan2.2 vs Sora2, Veo3 is the best.

––– 凄い –––

Moderna is collapsing. Just as well. I have trust issues with that company.

––– 凄い –––

AI can make you seem smart, and your brain falls for this. Yup, and I don't care.

Senator Grassley wants to regulate AI use. Sorry, Chuck – toothpaste is out of the tube. Too late!

––– 凄い –––

PeaceHealth is cutting 2.5% of its workforce. Just in time for the holidays. 

And now OHSU nurse practitioners, PAs and midwives are going to strike. Easy for them to do, because they know that doctors are going to work harder to pick up the slack, because their work ethic would prohibit letting patient care suffer. But suffer it still may.  I can't see that it makes sense to continue to be a clinical physician at OHSU, where you are an employee and the ancillary staff are getting substantial pay raises, while you have to be content with whatever your productivity will justify, which may not be under your control.

––– 良くない–––

PacWest Center sold for more than expected, better than Big Pink. So Portland city leaders are getting optimistic. Way too premature. The sale price was still only 34% of what it was purchased for. 

WWeek writes about "tax compression" in Portland commercial real estate. A property's market price may be sinking below it's assessed value. That would be very bad. 

––– 良くない–––

Yikes! Did Microsoft let slip that OpenAI lost $11.5 billion last quarter?

––– 良くない–––

Hawaii is seeing an epidemic of reckless speeding.

––– 良くない–––

Grokipedia launches. I do like the table of contents on the left. One person thinks that Grokipedia just stole content from Wikipedia. I wouldn't be surprised, but I hope and expect that as time goes on, G'pedia will develop it's own distinct style. Larry Sanger has a take on this first effort. He stands astride both resources and has a balanced opinion, I think. I disagree that the public's opinion should factor into deciding what G'pedia contains. I don't have a great opinion of the general public's opinion these days. Everyone thinks their opinion should count.

Grok itself, however, is weird. I don't use it. 

––– 良くない–––

The Island Where People Go to Cheat Death. I haven't heard of Roatan or Vitalia. But it seems to be a place where the super wealthy can go crazy experimenting with all kinds of longevity experiments. Maybe they'll discover something. Maybe something will go very wrong. We shall see. Interesting that Bryan Johnson is involved in this.

MIT Technology Review just published an article on youth pursuit, focusing on Yamanaka factors.

––– 凄い –––

nVIDIA becomes the first $5 trillion company, just as Apple and Microsoft cross the $4 trillion valuation line. And as AI is burning through graphics cards, we're going to see continued demand for nVIDIA products.

––– 凄い –––

Google is ending their Women Techmakers program. Just as well. Time to get serious, and drop diversity crap. This isn't high school anymore.

––– 凄い –––

Why do so many Oregonians rely on SNAP benefits?  18% of Oregonians are dependent on SNAP.  That's a lot and too many. How did that happen? It's no wonder the state is going to hell and businesses are fleeing. 

Powell's Books is going to lay off 13 more employees. Wrong direction, people. We need to start hiring instead. 

And here's Washington state, where Gov Ferguson is going to allocate $2.2 million per week for those without SNAP benefits. Well, since Washington state has 590,000 SNAP households, that amounts to $4 per week. That should pay for a Top Ramen or two. 

And here's Seattle, with a budget deficit, yet they are proposing to spend $85 million on frivolous things like "$1.25 million to 'preserve the physical character, cultural heritage, and social fabric of the community formed last century in Seattle’s Central District by the direct descendants of slaves'" and "$10 million for rental assistance to city-funded affordable housing projects."

Are we still dealing with the Civil War outcomes in 2025? And if you can't afford to live in Seattle, kindly move out to where you can, like we all would do, instead of demanding taxpayer support.

––– 良くない–––

Heh. China was caught trying to steal IP. They tried to reverse-engineer ASML's DUV technology, but it was too difficult. Now they have a broken device that needs fixing. I'll bet they'll watch carefully to see how it's done.

––– 良くない–––

Peter McCullough's group agrees with RFK about the causes of autism spectrum disorder. I agree with the "multifactorial model of ASD in which genetic predisposition, neuroimmune biology, environmental toxicants, perinatal stressors, and iatrogenic exposures"

Getting a degree in computer science was supposed to be a ticket to job security and a comfortable income. Now, this is not guaranteed at all, thanks to AI. The goalposts have moved, and you need to study machine learning and artificial intelligence, and even that field is advancing rapidly.

––– 良くない–––

About 23% of people don't respond to GLP-1RA weight loss drugs. It's not clear why, but there are some theories.

––– 良くない–––

Chegg is cutting about half their workforce. I'm surprised they're still around. The rise of LLMs really hit them hard, didn't it? Why don't they fine-tune open source LLMs and market those? That's what I'd look into.

––– 良くない–––

What happens when you click the send button on ChatGPT? The workings of the transformer model for the curious.

Speaking of which, OpenAI estimates that 560,000 users of ChatGPT each week appear to have mental health emergencies. 

––– 凄い –––

LLMs a new kind of steganography. Hiding text within text, using the next word prediction probabilities.

––– 凄い –––

Microsoft joins the AI circle-jerk. A new deal, with Microsoft owning 27% of it.

––– 良くない–––

Should you think twice about pouring unwanted coffee down the drain? Worse things have gone down the drain. Lilke poo.

––– 良くない–––

Elon Musk's Grokepedia seems to be copying pages from Wikipedia. I figured this would happen. Didn't think he'd be able to write a new enecyclopedia from scratch.

––– 良くない–––

Hang on to your AirPods2 for a bit longer.  Apple's AirPods 3 doesn't handle air travel well.

––– 良くない–––

I never heard of the Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses before. This would be great for making a speech, since it could function as a built-in teleprompter.

––– 凄い –––

Amazon is going to lay off 30,000 employees. These will be mainly in California, as they have already laid off 27,000 Seattle employees. They're going all out on AI and robotics. Could be a risky move.

––– 良くない–––

A new class of potent antibiotics are being developed – methylenomycins. Effective against gram-positive and gram-negative organisms, there seems to be no resistance with multidrug resistance Enterococcus. Not sure about tolerance and side-effect profile.

––– 凄い –––

Pew Research has a nice article about AI data centers, and where they are location. I am surprised that there are relatively few in the Pacific NW, which is actually a good thing. I don't think we would handle it well. Virginia has a high concentration of them, and I wish them well. Could end up biting them back.

PacificCorp's 300 mile Boardman-to-Hemingway powerline project was supposed to help local customers, but it's being sold to a private company to power datacenters. 

––– 良くない–––

The Mayans were able to predict solar eclipses very accurately. Scientists think they know how it was done, but it's still remarkable, given how complex the calculations are.

––– 凄い –––

The Blazer Mafia scandal may make it even more likely that the Blazers will leave Portland. Another blow to the city.

––– 良くない–––

Keith Wilson's shelter expansion is really putting stress on neighborhoods. I don't think it's going to stop him from turning the entire city into a shelter support community.

––– 良くない–––

AI models are developing their own survival strategy.

––– 良くない–––

University of Washington is still mired in DEI mentality. Really too bad.

––– 良くない–––

AI browsers are a hot mess of security risks. It seems that everybody is talking about it. I'd stay away for now.

––– 良くない–––

How to Use YouTube to Learn Tacit Knowledge. Yeah, from YouTube, you can learn things they don't actually teach you explicitly. A lot of things can be learn just be watching. I've seen that work.

––– 凄い –––

Historical language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades. So, our language patterns apparently reveal a surge of depression in the current zeitgeist. I don't know if it's just the influence of social media or that the world is just getting enshittified (see below). Maybe it's the "tiny sugars" in our brains.

––– 良くない–––

But yeah, a lot of things are getting enshittified. Including websites. Maybe it's the effect of AI. But this is a natural process for when you introduce something nice into the world. Once the public gets a hold of it, quality deteriorates and it's no longer a nice service or the mind-enhancing, mood-enhancing thing it once was. If Cory Doctorow can get credit for the word "enshittification" perhaps I can get credit for the phrase "epimethean" after Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Epimetheus represents carelessness and regret on hindsight when actions have unintended negative consequences that harm mankind.

––– 良くない–––

Idiots. A greenie in California bought a hydrogen-powered Toyota, but now can't find a hydrogen outlet nearby that will let him refuel. The best part is, he still owes money on the car. Yeah, not using the car also decreases CO2 emissions. Do these liberals think at all? I can't believe these guys were willing to let themselves be publicly identified. 

––– 良くない–––

Public servce: if you're going to have an MRI scan, don't take vitamin C before or each oxalate-rich foods. In practice, however, most MRI centers in Portland don't use contrast agents that use linear gadolinium contrast agents, but use macrocyclic agents, like Dotarem.

––– 良くない–––

The supplement PQQ can decrease fat accumulation and decrease obesity progression. PQQ stimulates mitochondria biogenesis, so perhaps that's how it works. 

––– 凄い –––

Where are we on making Daylight Saving Time permanent? The answer is nowhere close to making it happen. Politicians can even do something as simple as making this change, although they were able to turn it on in 1966. Politicians were different then. Things got done.

––– 良くない–––

Speaking of frogs in boiling water, I don't know how people living near the ICE building put up with the crap night after night. In times past, people would be storming City Hall. Now, people just take it, and complain only to reporters.

––– 良くない–––

Someone who previously worked for Gavin Newsom makes a veiled threat to San Francisco governance that if they resist building dense towers with affordable housing units built-in, instead of keeping density low, there will be consequences! Enshittify your city! Or else!

––– 良くない–––

Japan’s Okada Museum Forced to Sell Works to Settle Founder’s $50 M. Legal Bill. On the auction block: Hokusai's "Great Wave off the coast of Kanagawa".  Wonder who will buy it.

––– 良くない–––

Do you believe it? Violent crime plummets 36% in downtown Seattle, lowest since 2017.  I sure don't think so, when I visit. Maybe there's more policing around the Market, to save tourism, but the rest of Seattle is going to crap, especially the I-District and Ballard, Northgate.

––– 良くない–––

That's the rumor. The iPhone 18 might be able to use Starlink satellites.

––– 凄い –––

Kamehameha School is being sued by Students for Fair Admission because the school only admits those with a minimum amount of Hawaiian ancestry. Give it up, man. The school is older than the state, and it was established well before statehood. And statehood was really forced upon Hawaii. Let it go.

––– 良くない–––

Seattle is hiring illegal alien prison guards. How's that for irony?

––– 良くない–––

This story tells you all you need to know about the housing "shortage" in Portland. From PDX Real, one of the foot soldiers at the front lines. It's all a big grift.

––– 良くない–––

Rep. Ed Diehl sums up well the sorry state of Medicaid. Government needs to get out of the business of healthcare, except to cover catastrophic care as a backup.

––– 良くない–––

WSJ article paints a rosy picture of Bellevue, WA, but read the comments.

––– 良くない–––

Someone found a way to disable the warning LED light on Meta's Ray Ban glasses that let you know it's in record mode.

––– 良くない–––

First Shape Found That Can’t Pass Through Itself. In order to get some background on this, watch this great video (Rupert's Snub Cube and other Math Holes). Prince Rupert's conjecture has been disproven after all. We can now rest easy.

––– 凄い –––

After Harvard dropped affirmative action, Asian enrollment increased significantly. That's the spin I'm putting out.

––– 凄い –––

Dr. Casey Means is set to be the next Surgeon General. But...

Was she the best choice? Was there no one better? What good is the Surgeon General anway?

––– 良くない–––

The effect of cannabis on the brain is more complicated than people realize. It might have some positive cognitive effects, but the doses that optimize this are lower than what people use to get high. Plus, you have to combine it with the right amount of cannabidiol. Microdosing is the key.

––– 凄い –––

Coffee pooped out by civet cats really does taste good.  Who was the first one who was brave (daring) enough to make coffee from civet poop?

––– 凄い –––

Japanese scientists unveil a quantum battery that defies energy loss. Not sure how it works, but lets get it into production.

––– 凄い –––

Can Trump order the National Guard to clean up crime in Portland? Even the lawyers and judges can't agree. Seems pretty clear to me, but what do I know?

––– 凄い –––

This is what it's like taking public transportation in Portland. And like frogs in boiling water, people just stay silent and accept it as life in the city. Why aren't people fed up with this? Why isn't this something the mainstream media is publishing? 

––– 良くない–––

Samaritan Health in Corvallis wants to join with Washington's MultiCare. But I don't understand. Why does MultiCare want to pick up a money-loser in Oregon? What is there to gain? Mystery.

––– 良くない–––

The Rose Quarter freeway project director resigns – the second one this year. Portland needs expertise of all kinds really badly, but no one wants to move to the city. So further down it goes.

––– 良くない–––

Female spies are waging ‘sex warfare’ to steal Silicon Valley secrets. Boy, talk about going the extra mile in service to your country. Silicon Valley male workers know they would never score good-looking babes any other way. It's kinda cruel, actually, to prey on them that way.

––– 良くない–––

Meta is trimming the far under the direction of ScaleAI CEO Alexandr Wang. 600 to be laid off. 

––– 凄い –––

The Long-Term Fiscal Impact of Immigrants in the Netherlands, Differentiated by Motive, Source Region and Generation.

Immigrants from different parts of the world have different levels of contributions they can offer.  Some immigrants are just takers, while others contribute positively to a country's economics. This kind of analysis can be very helpful for planning purposes.

––– 凄い –––

Awful. The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day. Different counties have different ethical standards, that's all I'll say about this.

––– 良くない–––

Why AI browsers haven't taken off. And Look, another AI browser.  Just more AI slop dumped on top of a Chrome shell. All to steal your browser history and send it off to OpenAI or some other place. No thanks, man. And one more...

ChatGPT's Atlas: The Browser That's Anti-Web

––– 良くない–––

Apple wants to put a heart rate sensor into Air Pods 3. Could be good, I suppose. But that's not why I bought this.

––– 凄い –––

NEJM and public health group are launching rival to CDC’s MMWR publication.  Now that a non-Democrat is running the CDC, the orthodox medical establishment wants a parallel authority they can control. 🙄

Recently I talked to someone who wanted straight information about whether a healthy adult really needs an RSV vaccine. It's almost impossible to find anyone willing to say anything else except "get the vaccine". But why? What's the risk of a health adult getting really sick from RSV, which was not a concern prior to the COVID era. It was a disease of infants, and occasionally the very elderly. And now I'm sure this new public health group is going to be pro-vaccine for everybody, regardless of risk.

––– 良くない–––

37signals has decided to move away from being dependent on AWS. And surprisingly, it was just as good when they handled the infrastructure themselves. And not being dependent on Amazon is a bonus.

––– 凄い –––

Now for the first time, 20% of the U.S. population is Latino. Thanks to Ted Kennedy, and of course, Joe Biden.

––– 良くない–––

Scared yet? Members of the crazy Left are not just in education and government. Sometimes they are your healthcare providers.

––– 良くない–––

This government shutdown could last until 2027. There's no reason to end it sooner because the budget ceiling was already taken care of in July's One Big Beautiful Bill. That was a genius move by Trump to do that. Now the SNAP recipients are going to feel the brunt of this, when nothing comes in November. All because Democrats think they have political leverage. 

––– 凄い –––

Ketih Wilson plans to increase the number of shelters, despite neighbors not wanting them.  He thinks that it's a good idea, and wants to have spare beds for when people from other states come to Portland do enjoy their drugs and lax laws. Even though many of the shelter beds are empty and unused.  These shelters will end up being destroyed and turned into filth apartments, and eventually into more Gordon's Fireplace Shops. When shelters open, 911 calls triple. Calls regarding “unwanted person” spiked from six in 2024 to 99 in 2025 – a 1500% increase.

––– 良くない–––

Heh. Tina Kotek mulls re-election and even her supporters can't think of anything she accomplished. 😂

––– 凄い –––

Trump pardoned Binance's "CZ".  It was Changpeng Zhao who precipitated Sam Bankman-Fried's downfall and the end of FTX. 

Sure, he pleaded guilty to "money laundering" but he really just let people use cryptocurrency the way it was meant to be used. It's unfortunate that unsavory players were using it for crimes, but crypto is a tool, and can be used for non-evil applications, too. 

––– 凄い –––

Seattle restaurant suffers 25th break-in since 2020, calls on city leaders for action.  "Calls on city leaders for action".  Yeah, more of that Democrat action.

––– 良くない–––