4 March 2025

Regarding the outbreak of Shigellosis dysentery in Portland, ZeroHedge says that 56% were seen in homeless people,  while KGW puts it at 44%. It's not that large of a difference, and I imagine that it would difficult to get precise stats, but what caught my eye was that 46% were in gay men. Ewww!  Portland is such a sick city. There is nothing that would entice me to go there.

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This hero passed away recently. We should celebrate James Harrison. At least as much as some celebrity, or even a celebrity's spouse. Here's to you James!  You were truly a great man. Saving 2 million babies is something I'd be proud of.

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Boy, wouldn't it be neat if this were true.

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The 50 most uneconomical majors to study in.

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For tattoos larger than the palm of a hand, the ink raises risk of non-melanoma skin cancer and lymphoma. The latter had a hazard ratio of 2.73.

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The TCL NXTPAPER 11 Plus is a cool device. Why isn't it getting much publicity?

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Some mRNA can repair DNA damage. Non-coding mRNA of the NEAT1 gene, when highly methylated, helps the cell recognize and repair broken DNA strands more efficiently.  Sometimes non-coding parts of a gene are important. Truly amazing.

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Well, this looks like the beginning of the end of those Lake Oswego lakefront homes. The rabble now can go right up to your house. What fun, given today's propensity for hostile activism. This is a perfect place to post this graphic:

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Portland Public Schools is downsizing their Summer Catch-Up Program. So much for kids' future. Well, fortunately Oregon doesn't care whether you learn anything. You'll see get a diploma. So good luck.

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World's first "Synthetic Biological Intelligence" runs on living human cells. This has been in the news before. Today, it plays Pong, but tomorrow it may do more. 

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Another article about the Mozilla debacle. Mozilla is being run by an ex-Facebook guy. That explains it.

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3 March 2025

DeepSeek was trained on 12,000 live API-keys and passwords. Well, we've seen secrets exposed on the Web by Google.

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The U.S. is going through the same thing Argentina went through when Javier Milei got elected. And now they are flourishing. There were rough times in the beginning, as there are now. But ultimately, this is the best for society.

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Is it premature to cancel Google search? It's definitely premature to cancel search, but you can certainly cancel Google and use something else. The best approach would be to use a hybrid of RAG and search.

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This poor Chinese man. I wonder if he's still with his girlfriend after this.

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2 March 2025

Trust in Mozilla and Firefox is gone. Yeah, a lot of it anway. Here's a comparison table of alternative privacy-focused browsers. I picked LibreWolf as my privacy-focused Gecko-compatible browser. It's taken some time to tweak it to how I wanted, and I now realize how much privacy I was compromising to get access to certain content. Oh well, I guess.

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And here's Google. They don't care what users say about privacy. They'll just put apps on your phone to scan your photos. Unannounced, of course.  Google and Mozilla users sure are different, aren't they?

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Cannabis addiction can destroy lives. Yeah, in medicine, doctors were told that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol. This led to marijuana being legalized. But man, all the problems that came afterwards...

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Belly fat is different from fat elsewhere in the body. It is more pro-inflammatory, which is why many obese people have chronically elevated white blood cell counts. 
Most adipocytes were fairly "classical" — meaning storing excess energy was their main purpose. But a small proportion of the fat cells were "non-classical," as their RNA suggested they carried out functions not typically associated with fat cells.

Among these cells were "angiogenic adipocytes," which carried proteins usually used to promote blood vessel formation; "immune-related adipocytes," which make proteins related to immune cell functions; and "extracellular matrix adipocytes," which are related to scaffold proteins that help support cells' structures.
We're still discovering new things.

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Senators Merkeley and Wyden want to create a permanent Office of Environmental Justice.  What is environmental justice? Why anything you want it to mean. And for Democrats, it means dollars and federal funding. Yasss......

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Incomes are rising everywhere except Multnomah County.  Doom loop.  And here's the New York Post telling everyone about the city's dysentery problem – another reason not to go to Portland.
Umatilla wants to install a small modular nuclear power installation. I bet Amazon has something to do with it.

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Wow, Oregon legislature was actually contemplating not prosecuting theft of "basic needs items".  They haven't learned from the Measure 110 fiasco and what the Bay Area suffered. How idiotic can that be?

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Women talk a lot more than men, and quite a lot more.  We needed a scientific study for that?

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Cliff Bentz is getting a lot of hate. We're coming to realize how much of Oregon's economic well-being was fake, and dependent on continued flow of federal support. There was so much fat and bloat and money going to support all kinds of poorly-managed efforts. There was a lot of initial pain when Millei instituted measures to trim government waste and fraud, as well, and now the country is better off for it. We're still in that initial phase, and I understand that it is painful for a lot of people. But ultimately it will be to America's benefit. And we have to work to prevent the waste and abuse from building up again.

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Another study showing that gender-affirming surgery, while beneficial in affirming gender identity, is associated with increased risk of mental health issues. There's no justification for this mutilative surgery.

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1 March 2025

Well, the verdict is in: GPT4.5 is really a nothing-burger. Gary Marcus was right (see yesterday's post). o3 is better.

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Mozilla is panicking. Are they backtracking or just trying to obfuscate their way out? Trust, once lost, is hard to regain.

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How to keep hackers from destroying your digital life. This is a follow-up on yesterday's article. I didn't know that guy didn't have 2FA on his password manager. How silly is that? Lesson learned.

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This makes sense. Patients with hemochromatosis can now donate their blood instead of just having it discarded.  They should still have regular monitoring, though.

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That life-extending drug for large dogs is making progress in being a reality.

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Portland Metro State of the Economy.  Looks awful as expected.  The wealthy have fled. The folks coming into Multnomah and Washington counties are mostly "international" – read illegal immigrants. More mouths to feed, and the illegals don't pay a lot of taxes. So more hardship, because the liberals are stuck with their sanctuary posture.

And yes, cuts have to be made. So Portlanders pay more taxes and have less nice stuff and less of the city to enjoy than before. How's that?

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C'mon, be original. Someone in Japan wanted to create a smaller park than the Mill Ends Park in downtown Portland. Just to be smaller, and be the smallest park in the world. Cripes.

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28 February 2025

A surgeon sounds the alarm about his profession. DEI is to blame. I've always thought that diversity is fine, but it needs to implemented early, in the formative years during childhood.  Once you're an adult, it's mission-critical time, and there is no room for anything but merit. Prioritizing diversity gives rise to stuff like this.

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Caffeine can make you cognitively more enhanced, but only if you have the right genetics. You have to be a fast metabolizer of caffeine, otherwise you don't get the full benefit.

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Well, well. It turns out that the major driver of major global climate is orbital perturbances. Not cow farts or gas stoves or leaf blowers. I knew it!

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Mozilla blew it. A lot of folks are commenting about their altered terms of service, and Mozilla hasn't done a good job in reassuring people of their intentions. A lot of folks, myself included, have or will switch to something else. I went with LibreWolf.

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Gary Marcus is not impressed with GPT-4.5.  He thinks it's no better than Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Maybe it's because OpenAI is completely out of GPUs to train.

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Less tax base. More welfare needed.  Oregon is bracing for a slew of unemployed federal workers. This is the last thing Oregon needs. We are seeing what happens when you have a society that has been so dependent of government money to stay above water. This is why things didn't seem so bad under Obama, Biden and during the Great Recession. Oregon has done squat to help business, and so has nothing to fall back on. It's painful to watch, but Argentina had to do it as well, and now they are better off for it. Once the Keystone Pipeline is operational and we're done trimming the major fat, things will improve. But dumping the low-contributing members of society back into the workforce is going to be rough, even though necessary.

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Dem solutions to Dem problems. Oregon wants to continue taxing hospitals hard, and they'll take it, like good Dems. All so that Oregon can continue to support illegal aliens and homeless folks.

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Portland mayor is starting to realize that he won't fix homelessness after all. Not after giving money to all those homeless agencies, and have nothing to show for it. Who will tell him?
And Multnomah Couty is worthless, too.
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Dem solutions to Dem problems. Washington state wants to dump rainy day funds into the general fund.  They'll use that up, too. Then what?

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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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