21 October 2024

Knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Perplexity AI is being sued by WSJ and New York Post. What puzzles me is why single out Perplexity?  Why not others? At least Perplexity provides reference links back to the source. The others haven't been doing that, although more are starting to do that now. This is why search engines haven't been attacked like this, because it's legal to provide links to a website. But give it a NLP user interface, and that's when you're liable?  Is training an AI model that much different from scraping a website and then parsing it for indexing? There's going to need to be some clarity on this, and perhaps we'll get some with this lawsuit.

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Lots of scientific fraud in Alzheimer's Disease research. This is really bad. Is this a fallout of the way science is done? Was this just the fault of underlings? I can't believe these people are intentionally deceitful.

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Canadian doctors struggle with euthanizing vulnerable patients. When your gut tells you that something is wrong, there often is indeed a problem. What kind of society do the Canadians have where the ending of a human life is offered as a casual service, like trash collection. There are a lot of humans that are hurting for various reasons, and I get the sense that society is giving up on them. Where euthanasia has "become the solution to every kind of suffering out there". Out of sight, out of mind, it seems.  But as mental health deteriorates in the world, people are going to take measures into their own hands, as some already are.

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Young Americans can't get a job. This is a failure of the school system. Young people are finding out that the real world needs people who can actually do the work and solve problems.  Complete the tasks that need to be done. You don't necessarily have to do something mundane for "40 years" as the memes seem to depict. Everything is a learning opportunity. You learn skills and advance. People want 6 figures and "lifestyle" from the beginning.  Not going to happen.

Here's some of that reality: A long-standing Portland company is shutting down.  Another bites the dust. All Dennis Uniform employees will be laid off.  "Severe financial distress".  Why are we even considering Measure 118 at this time?  And yes, the employees were unionized, why do you ask?

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When are you getting your pay raise? Everett residents will vote on two minimum wage increases. "Everett deserves a raise" they say. Sure. I bet those Dennis Uniform employees deserved one, too. 

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They call this Democracy in King County.  You can print your own election ballot in King County.  All you need is an address. If it's not been used yet, you're good to go, apparently. This is how Dems cheat.

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How Americans' vocabulary (and thinking) have changed since Obama became president.

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20 October 2024

This is why you never do anything requiring anonymity using your phone browser. Anonymity can't be guaranteed when your phone is pinging cell towers nearby, triangulating you.  Not to mention having a unique identifier associated with your phone.

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AI engineers found that replacing matrix multiplication with additions reduces power requirements by 95%. But AI companies will still look to nuclear power, as they should. This is a math trick, and it's not going to solve all the problems. There needs to be something more reliable. Plus powering data centers isn't all just matrix multiplication.  Nice math, though.

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Gordon Sondland was right. Even though the statistics say crime is down in Portland, nobody really believes those numbers, and the city isn't seeing the recovery it wants. The problem is not whether people will venture downtown, it's whether businesses care to invest in the city anymore. It's way too risky. And wait for the upcoming election. Antifa just can't wait to start breaking glass again, and setting the city on fire. Nothing stopped them before, and nothing will stop them again. But I can tell you something – shit's moving into Beaverton.  The mayor is all in for building low-income housing, likely for the migrants moving in, and deflection centers and shelters.

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19 October 2024

Sam Altman's Worldcoin is now just called World. And he's not stopping his efforts which look as though he wants to set the standard for retinal scans to be the go-to biometric identifier.  And he'll control the data, of course. Truly James Bond villain stuff.

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Text produced by generative AI can make you sound smarter than you really are. Because you start using words like "delve", "comprehensive", "interplay", "pivotal". Of course, this ronin uses those words all the time, so it would be hard to tell. Indubitably. As my high school friend would say, those are "five-dollah words".

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Hearing loss susceptibility from age or loud noise may be due to polymorphisms of the TMTC4 gene. And a drug developed for traumatic brain injury (ISRIB) may help to reduce this, preventing hearing loss. Ah, too late for my mother.

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Interesting article on healthcare, trying to dispel some myths. Key takeaways:
  • Healthcare expenditures in wealthier nations because people spend more on services (e.g. physical therapy, etc) because they are there.  Consumption increases when income increases. Duh.
  • Healthcare personnel make up the great majority of healthcare costs. Drugs, too, but not as much (those pharmacy benefit managers).
  • When income increases, there's more hiring in healthcare.
  • Healthcare profit margins are not higher than the rest of sectors.  Hospitals and provider offices in the U.S. are not more profitable than in other parts of the world.
  • More Americans work in healthcare than in other parts of the world.
  • Physicians' fees are a small part of the healthcare budget.

So American healthcare is just more expensive because we're wealthier, and we can afford to hire more people in the field?  I never thought of it this way, but if true, it would mean that all the efforts to dismantle it are misguided. I still feel that leveraging market competition in the insurance market could go a long way to lowering the price of healthcare and also putting control in the hands of the consumer, rather than the insurance company or government.

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Biden/Harris "forgives" an additional $4.5 billion worth of student loans.  This again is transferring the payback obligation to all taxpayers and stoking more inflation. This is not fair at all. One of the awful things Obama did was to get the government in the business of handling student loans. The government was never designed to do this.  All this does is to give Democrats the issue of student loan forgiveness as an election teaser, like promises to help Black people. Student loans should go back to banks and related financial institutions, where they belong.

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Autism Spectrum Disorder might be classifiable into four distinct genoptypes. This is potentially important as it can help tailor treatment and provide insight as to what to expect.

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Gosh, maybe we should all get it.  A single dose of psilocybin caused "increases in cognitive flexibility, psychological insight, and well-being." These changes could be picked up on diffusion MRI scans. Psilocin is a 5-HT2A serotonin receptor agonist, so it is indeed a key player in depression, despite the limited effectiveness of SSRIs.
Meanwhile, Oregon's psilocybin training program is stalling, because too many people want to get in on it, thinking they can make money being a facilitator.

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18 October 2024

Ironic. Congressman Don Beyer Refuses to Debate, so His Opponent Is Using an AI Stand-In.  Beyer is in an AI Masters program at George Mason University.  Sounds like someone has already mastered AI and is using it against him. 

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CAR-T cell therapy used to treated autoimmune diseases. Wow, reversing scleroderma – that's something. That disease has no known cure, and people have to just manage as best as they can. To get back to having normal skin again is amazing.

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Marketwatch columnist gives advice on what to do to prepare for WW III that's likely to happen. In actuality, things will unpredictable and all we know is that inflation will go up. In the past, the government printed and spent a lot of money. This time, it won't be as simple. I think having investments in gold and crypto will help, but you have to have them already. It's a bit late to start getting some now.

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Some wealthy folks want to build a community modeled after Chautauqua, NY.  Think it will work?  It's going to be called Esmeralda. I don't think California is the best place for it, especially if it will be open to the public. This "nice thing" is for a different time in America. When people were civil and desired to better themselves. Once it's built, progressive interests will try to build in diversity, and of course, the liberals will agree to it, and then it will fall apart. New Hampshire would be a way better place for something like this. Good luck!

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Passive smoking isn't a risky as previously thought.  Which is good, because I was exposed to a lot of it as a kid.

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When and how do you tell an old doctor it's time to retire?  Medicine is such a tough profession, requiring not only intellectual prowess, but also peak physical state as well, in order to perform like a star. And you have to have firm control over your emotional health as well.  It's not easy, and the sleep deprivation over the years can take a toll. Many doctors are often not there when you need them, and it's getting hard to find good ones. When you hit a certain age, it does become harder to do, and yet, many refuse to quit. And as medicine changes, due to the increased knowledge base you must master, a doctor who underwent the intensive training decades ago just isn't as sharp as a newer graduate.

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Amazon AWS needs to fix their free tier. Yes! That's true. How many people have been burned racking up a large bill, because they didn't shut down endpoints, or monitoring schedules?  AWS is such an overly-complicated beast to master, and a beginner needs to be able to work in a more forgiving environment. 

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"...in most states, public agencies don’t have the authority to redact PII."  Holy crap!  When you apply for permits, licenses, etc with the government, your personal identifiable information may be sent to someone asking for information through an FOIA request. Personal information is sent without redaction.  This is a big red flag.  The Freedom of Information Act was passed with good intentions – to make government transparent. But it shouldn't expose citizens like this.

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Well, it looks like Apple's Vision Pro may find one use case – the operating room. It's still way too bulky, and I can't see wearing one of those things for an hour or more.

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17 October 2024

Interesting. Chinese researchers claim to have cracked RSA and AES encryption using quantum computers.  This has major implications, and could even affect the economy. Well, you knew it would happen someday.

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Amazon wants nuclear energy to power its Oregon data centers. Eventually, we're all going to have to depend on nuclear energy.  There's no way around it, until fusion gets practical. AWS is investing $500 million in small nuclear reactors. Let's do it, man.

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High-potency cannabis causes epigenetic changes in one's DNA. Just what the country needs, eh?

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Ketih Wilson leapfrogs over the competition and is best poised to be Portland's next mayor.  That was unexpected. That's good. Maybe we won't have to "settle" this time.

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Nearly every state saw a drop in overdose deaths. But not in Oregon or Washington.  Nope, we saw an increase. But hey, harm reduction, right?

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Portland State University sends warning of potential layoffs of 100 faculty members. The city is in a death spiral.

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16 October 2024

Ward Christensen passed away recently. He co-invented the BBS system that many a nerd, including myself, used to network with other geeks, back in the heyday of Usenet. When we used XMODEM (invented by Christensen), then YMODEM and then ZMODEM.  The inventor of ZMODEM (Chuck Forsberg) lived on Sauvie Island. Those were good times.

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If you ever wanted to build your own web browser, you must read this. It's so much more complicated now, with all the standards you must observe and adhere to.
And speaking of web browser, Google Chrome is disabling UBlock Origin.  I recall when much protest was raised about this last year, when Google was planning to make this change. Since the chatter died down, I assumed Google changed their mind. Nope. They just waited.

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Breast cancer has been largely unresponsive to immunotherapies, except for triple-negative breast cancer. But there may be a breakthrough using "proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) to successfully destroy RIPK1 in cancer cells".  "Getting rid of RIPK1 triggers immunogenic cell death and mobilizes the immune system to destroy any remaining cancer cells that have evaded treatment or become resistant to drugs."  Still sounds early in the development process, and the work is still in vitro and not a clinical study. Still, it's promising.

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1300 to be laid off from Intel jst before the holidays.  And ASML isn't having a good time either. Not so rosy in Silicon Forest.

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Gordon Sondland schools Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep about the state of Portland.  Inskeep apparently was mollified by an unemployment figure of 4%, up from 3.7% last year, even though we all know you have to be looking for a job to be considered unemployed. The city is full of people who are far from looking for anything except their next hit. And here's a report that Oregon is #4 on the list of states that give out the most SNAP benefits. We're a homeless magnet.

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Sad news.  Sahomi Tachibana passed away last Thursday, just 6 months from her 100th birthday.  She was a very sweet person, like a spirit from a different time. She will be missed.

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15 October 2024

Starbucks has turned into a teen hangout. Sort the modern version of the old malt shop of the fifties and sixties. I stopped going to Starbucks a long time ago, even though I still drink coffee. It used to be the place to go for meetings and nice conversations with friends. Now, they're just installments at Safeway. And the ones with sit-down tables look like McDonalds. This isn't the Starbucks of when the dotcom era was still booming.

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Gravity can exist without mass?  Things can have negative mass? That's someone's theory.

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Oregon in the news. A company (NW Natural) is being sued because they're supposedly responsible for the heat dome of 2021. Well, Cliff Mass would differ with that belief. But this is Oregon, where lefties reign, so the climate change religion is believed so strongly. Funny, we haven't had a heat dome since then. Is climate change improving, then? 

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Nice review on the privacy policies of VPNs. I'm surprised about Mullvad and Surfshark, that the techie privacy sites tout.  I already knew that ExpressVPN and NordVPN were not perfect. Nice to know that my VPN has the top rating.

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As if you didn't know.  LLMs don't really understand math. They just provide you with what looks like it could be the correct answer. Some of them still provide convincing answers, though.

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These three articles came out today:
Worldwide efforts to promote having more babies isn't working.  The first comment says it all: "More legalised abortions as a method of birth control, more lesbian and gay relationships; what did you all think was going to happen for the 21st century especially?"

Human Lifespan Might Be About to Hit a Ceiling, Experts Say.  Looks like human lifespan extension will hit a plateau.

Human age reversal: Fact or fiction?  Maybe we can reverse aging. And if that happens, perhaps it would be good to have more babies.  It would be great to reverse some of the damaging effects of aging, for sure.

Then there's this graph. Not all countries are experiencing a decline in birth rates. What will this mean for global demographics?

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14 October 2024

Psilocybin mushrooms are getting more potent. You knew the druggies weren't going to be satisfied with the status quo. And these aren't even legal yet. But who cares, right? Just what American needs right now.

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The mediocre men problem. Nobody can be great anymore.  Mediocre men are finding out that it doesn't pay to stay mediocre anymore. "Employers are scared of bad press, bad employee reviews (on online job sites), or being sued, so they have to be extremely risk averse and impersonal in hiring." Everyone is afraid now. 

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Portland pushes back on progressive policies. Too late, folks. And probably no one will do what needs to be done. Portland is too far gone, and the new governing structure will make sure no one is to blame, and no one takes ownership of Portland's problems. Heck, we don't have a mayor that has power to decide things anymore.

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Over half of Oregon dentists don't take Oregon Health Plan insurance now.  It's so lousy, and not worth the paperwork.

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There's an article here about America's culture of failure, and how people are incompetent in basic tasks.  Well, someone in the Oregon government tried to hire on competency, and it cost him.  The Oregon Forestry Service tried to hire on merit, and got put on leave, because he wasn't mindful enough of diversity and equity BS that Oregon requires.  And apparently he made it so that employees there "couldn’t freely have 'conversations around pronouns'".  This is why Oregon fails.

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James Cameron will take a position on the board of an AI company.

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13 October 2024

Drinking alcohol decreases the body's GLP-1 activity. This is why drinking can make you hungry.  And obese.

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Millennials are likely to spend on frivolous things, because it makes them feel good, and mental health is what's most important to them.  Gotta understand how they think. So different from youth from years gone by. Everyone is so fragile.

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People proficient in math were able to win a Texas lottery.  Love the comment about how officials thought that it was the math guys who were taking advantage of lower income people who play the lottery.  No self-awareness.

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Finally!  Stanford University is not Columbia. You act like an activist jerk, you get slapped with felony charges. Bravo, Stanford. Now, let's hope that some judge doesn't just drop charges.

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Oregon's data centers are consuming energy like crazy, and taxpayers will foot the bill. This is not fair because what ever benefits we get from the data centers are things we'll be paying for anyway.

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12 October 2024

The Illusion of Moral Decline. The thesis of this article is "that people’s reports of the morality of their contemporaries have not declined over time, suggesting that the perception of moral decline is an illusion".  In other words, the world may seem like it's going to hell in a handbasket, but it's really not.  The authors concluded this by doing keyword-term searches of the Roper Center for Public Opinion iPoll Database, and manually searched the databases of the General Social Survey, Pew Research Center, Gallup, the American National Election Studies, the World Values Survey, the European Social Survey and the European Values Survey.  Their conclusion is that people have always thought that things were getting worse.  But that doesn't mean it isn't.

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Investing in the stock market won't get you rich. It'll just help you preserve wealth. To be rich, other than inheriting it, you need to be a business owner of some kind. Even Warren Buffett evolved from just being a shrewd investor, to owning a company that purchased businesses.

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Tina Kotek wants to turn good farmland into chip fabs.  And local farmers are protesting. I don't see why Hillsboro has to be the site of chip fabs. There must be other places in the area in which chip fabs could be built without ruining the rural bucolic feel of Hillsboro, and turning it into an industrial sprawl. 

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83% of household shop on Amazon now.

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What are the safest cities in America? According to WalletHub, Salem and Vancouver, WA are OK.  But not Portland, OR. Portland, ME is OK, though.  Spokane, WA isn't too bad, but stay away from Seattle and Tacoma.

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Who would'a thought?  Bias found when drug manufacturers fund clinical trials.  No surprises. Think about the biases associated with the COVID-19 vax. 

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How I animate 3Blue1Brown. Wow, this is a great peek into how Grant Sanderson created his masterpiece math animation software. I didn't realize it was written in good old Python. 

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Think you're always right? You may be wrong. It's always good to leave yourself some wiggle room, because you never know. If someone who ordinarily is a good thinker but supports ideas you don't agree with, try to understand what made that person think so differently.

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