Tinnitus frequencies are not quite random. There are particular frequencies at which you hear that ringing in your ears.
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The genetics of aging. I saw Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick recently, and besides the impressive air sequences, the most awesome part of the movie was how slowly Tom Cruise has aged. Some of it's makeup and healthy living, no doubt, but genetics likely plays some role. This image has been circulating on the Web, contrasting Tom with Kelly McGillis, who hasn't fared quite as well.
An article in Nature reports that RNA polymerase II works less accurately as organisms age, proceeding faster but more carelessly, making more errors as it goes. In some organisms, just slowing the rate at which the enzyme works, giving it time to be more careful, was able to increase longevity by 10% to 20%.
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When Donald Trump was running, some called attention to some of his entrepreneurial flops, such as Trump College, which was meant to provide real estate training. People don't realize that the very rich often do this - start ventures, see how it goes, and shut it down if it's not making money and there is no realistic path to doing so. Google has done this many times - buying small companies and their products, then killing them when there is no future to them. Here's Google's 2023 Graveyard.
Cookie protection. Mozilla is rolling out Total cookie protection. Seems like a small deal. Most savvy users have an extension that destroys cookies on leaving the site, as well as local storage data and service workers. In 2023, making a big deal out of just blocking third-party cookies seems lame. You can already to that in the browser's preference settings or with an extension.
The virus just knows. Oregon OSHA issued a Workplace Advisory Memo, stating that it plans to rescind its rules governing COVID-19 Workplace Requirements for All Workplaces and Requirements for Employer-Provided Housing. While Oregon OSHA has incrementally removed many requirements related to COVID-19 for general workplaces and employer-provided housing, until April 3, certain requirements were still in effect for exceptional risk workplaces such as healthcare settings. While I can understand the fear, there was never anything like this for swine flu or other communicable diseases.
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Oregon is dealt a blow.People are leaving Oregon (especially Multnomah county) in droves. Yes, homelessness and drug use are problems, but they are the effect, not the cause. The cause is rampant lawlessness and unequal enforcement of the existing laws. If you're a homeless bum, you can commit rape, murder, theft, vandalism, property trespass, assault, littering - basically whatever it is you want to do. And you won't get prosecuted. Whereas if you are conservative, you'd better obey the law, pay your taxes, register your guns and follow increasingly stricter gun control laws. You'd better obey progressive manners and watch your pronoun usage and avoid microaggressing someone else. Who can live in this world?
We like to think of ancient voices as being the sources of timeless wisdom. Sun Tzu's writings are venerated in the West that way. But it was not always like that.
Zhuge Liang wept bitterly when presented with Ma Su’s severed head. Since China’s famed strategist personally ordered the execution of Ma Su, one of his own subordinate commanders, this reaction puzzled some of Zhuge Liang’s advisors. “It is not for Ma Su that I weep,” he remonstrated. “I am thinking of the late Emperor, warning me not to use this man because his deeds would not match his boasts. The late king’s words have proved too true, leaving me now to rue my blindness. I weep to recall it."
What incongruous boast sealed the fate of the hapless Ma Su? According to the Chinese historical novel, Three Kingdoms, his fatal mistake was slavish devotion to the military advice of Sun Tzu.
I literally lost my biggest and best client to ChatGPT today.
This client is my main source of income, he’s a marketer who
outsources the majority of his copy and content writing to me.
Today he emailed saying that although he knows AI’s work isn’t
nearly as good as mine, he can’t ignore the profit margin.
I keep seeing people (myself included) saying things like,
“it’s not a threat if you’re a GOOD writer.”
Yes, I am better than ChatGPT. But, and I will say this again
and again, businesses/clients, beyond very high end brands, DO
NOT CARE. They have to put profits first. Small businesses
especially, but even corporations are always cutting corners.
Please do not think you are immune to this unless you are the
top 1% of writers. I just signed up for Doordash as a driver. I
really wish I was kidding.
American's IQ scores are decreasing. This jibes with what I'm seeing. No, I don't think the explanation is that modern kids don't take tests as well. The Flynn effect was still present as recently as 2008 - so it's not like we're comparing it to the early 1900s. So it's not surprising that companies will turn to artificial intelligence if they can't get it in meatspace.
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Speaking of artificial intelligence, it looks like San Francisco's driverless cars need more of it. What a mess. I think driverless cars were a solution looking for a problem to solve. Do we really need this now?
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Browsing the Web on a phone is different from browsing on the laptop/desktop. Smart Banners are an example of why that is, and why I limit what apps I place on my phone. Everyone's after your identity.
There's even a greater need to pick more complex passwords. A.I. can crack passwords more quickly than before. When hackers break into a system, they can download the file where passwords are stored. This will allow them multiple tries at cracking the password, bypassing the usual limited number of tries before the system locks you out. Cloud systems often state that your data is encrypted and that they have no access, or that third-parties would not be able to read your data. But of others (such as employees) have access to the server and can easily decrypt the data, then your privacy is easily invaded. Multi-factor authentication is more important than ever.
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The coronavirus jab (is it really a vaccine?) is so politicized now that the CDC is partnering with a private social media non-profit to provide surveillance for citizens who oppose it. They want to turn American into East Germany. It's 2023 now, and the major Omicron variants are mild. Why the need to kill dissenting voices? Even in Oregon, the state death rate is vanishingly low. The problem is with mismanagement of the whole pandemic - from mask recommendations, to stickers on the floor, plexiglas shields, bribery to get the jab, and claims of benefit made without data to back it up and often proved to be flat out wrong. One doesn't have to delve into ivermectin and other wacko claims that unfortunately degraded the anti-vaccine stance.
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Holy crap!
When everyone is at risk, no one is at risk - probably. Essentially, all deposits are insured, else we'd see the mother of all bank runs. But if banks know this, then risky behavior will be encouraged, because Papa Fed will take care of any problems that may arise. Most people are completely unaware of how tenuous things are.
Happy Easter.An t-Aisírí is an old Irish Easter hymn. Here it is sung by Nóirín Ní Riain and the monks of Glenstal Abbey.
'S é Íosa an Fíreán, a shaothraigh ár n-anam, 'S é rinnemuid a cheannacht ón ndaorise; Is d'fhulaing sé páis, agus bás ar an gcroich, Mar gheall ar na peacaí a dhéan'mid.
Curfá Agus aililiú leá, is aililiú ló, aililiú ló
Má maslaíthear ár gcolainn
Ní baolach dár n-anam
Ach ná séanaigí m’ainmse choíche.
‘S é Íosa an Fíréan, Dia dílis don Athair Ó, is é a rinne ár gceannacht ón daoirse; Nuair a d’fhulaing sé an Pháis agus bás ar an gcroich Ag tabhairt sásaimh sna peacaí seo a níonns muid.
Tá an t-arán seo déanta i d’fhianaise, a Pheadair, A Pheadair, caithidh an t-arán seo; [An] té chaithfeas an t-arán seo, caithfidh sé mise, Idir fheoil, anam is diachta.
Tá an fíon seo déanta i d’fhianaise, a Pheadair, A Pheadair, ólaidh an fíon seo; [An] té ólfas an fíon seo, ólfaidh sé an fhuil A bhí ag tíocht ‘na braonta as mo thaobhsa.
Siúlaigí amach sa ngairdín, a Pheadair, Tá uaigneas mór ar mo chroí-se; ‘S é meáchan na bpeacaí is ciontach le m’uaigneas Is fairigí uair liom an oíche seo.
Éirígí suas a tromluí a gcodladh Ní fada uaim saighdiúir mo dhaoirse Rinne sibh faillí fanacht ‘na maidin ‘S ní bhfuair [gur] chaith sibh an oíche seo.
Tá sé ráite i dtairgearacht Mhaitiú Leis an magadh a fuair Íosa Gur éirigh an coileach a bhí ag fiuchadh sa bpota, Chuaigh ar an mbord is lig glao as.
Tháinig na trí Muire ar maidin Dé Domhnaigh Go leigheasfaidís cneácha Íosa. Chuartaíodar an tuamba thart timpeall go gasta, Ní bhfuaireadar amharc ar Íosa.
Tháinig an t-aingeal anuas as na Flaithis Is d’ardaigh an leac ina bhfianaise Bhí leac ar an tuamba, ní thógfadh céad pearsa í, Ach thóg an t-aingeal a bhí naofa í.
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The pendulum swings.Seattle is facing a major downturn. The article seems to blame the pandemic for this. But remember, as they saying goes, the coronavirus didn't kill the economy. It was the government response to the coronavirus that killed the economy.
More than 50% of Americans think 4-year college is not worth the cost. This was especially true in the younger age groups, and could mean that they don't believe that the money is worthwhile the gain in the quality of education they will receive. Maybe the educational curriculum has been dumbed-down so much that a college degree doesn't qualify you for a good job. Requiring the jab is also likely a discouraging factor. But the skills required for America to advance will necessitate education in math and the sciences. But getting ahead and learning complex topics requires some mentoring and one of the benefits of a collegiate education was networking with the brilliant people you met along the way. This will be lost.
Why do I blog? Danny Guo lays out his reasons. For me, it is to document the salient items of what's interesting to me, and perhaps it might be of interesting to a passing visitor. It is a journal of sorts.
Blame Obamacare.This is a great article on how government policies greatly changed the face of medicine for the worse. What resulted from Obamacare was the eradication of the small doctor practice, and the rise of the employed physician. Insurance companies ruled the land, and so entities were created to help them make profit, like pharmacy benefit managers. A whole industry came into existence to help healthcare systems deal with insurance billing and other administrative overhead. Hospitals also became dominant as they received generous largess from Washington D.C. The glass and steel buildings on the Hill and the waterfront were obtained during Obama's tenure. Big Medicine didn't help doctors, however. During that time, doctors sold their practices and became employed physicians, and what care you received was no longer up to the doctor, but what the insurance company would cover. Most physicians may struggle to pay off their debts now. Medicine will become more like a government-run operation (which it kind of is), than a place for holistic healthcare.
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COVID is over, right? So why does there need to be a special ICD-10 code for COVID-19 jab status? We have never had a special code for who didn't take a medication, or who didn't undergo a certain surgical procedure. Although the Z28 codes for not being vaccinated was created in 2016, the code has been fine-tuned specifically for the COVID-19 vax, to document not only that a person did not get the jab, but the basis for this status (e.g. group pressure, refusal etc.) The government says that it needs this to track vaccine efficacy and disease mortality, but they never were interested in this before with other diseases. So why now?
Update (9 April 2023): Here is the reason: it "will help health insurance providers identify emollees [sic] who may
benefit from outreach and further education about vaccination.”
GPT-4 isn't always reliable, and the book is filled with examples of
its blunders. They range from simple clerical errors, like misstating a
BMI that the bot had correctly calculated moments earlier, to math
mistakes like inaccurately "solving" a Sudoku puzzle, or forgetting to
square a term in an equation. The mistakes are often subtle, and the
system has a tendency to assert it is right, even when challenged. It's
not a stretch to imagine how a misplaced number or miscalculated weight
could lead to serious errors in prescribing, or diagnosis.
Like previous GPTs, GPT-4 can also "hallucinate" — the technical euphemism for when AI makes up answers, or disobeys requests.
So it's not yet time to ditch your physician for an A.I. model. And see the first item from my 6 April 2023 posting.
The first time [Priya] received her paycheck, it was the most money she’d ever seen in one place. Uttar Pradesh is infamous for having higher school dropout rate among girls compared to other parts of the country. Its not exactly the safest place for girls either. Her father had invested in her education and kept her in school. And it had paid off. Sending your first salary back home is one of the proudest moments in a young Indian’s life, and that was the case for Priya also.
I think you know where this is headed. The day I got off the GPT4 wait-list I asked it to do what Priya does on a daily basis. It got the answer wrong in the first try, but some chain-of-thought prompting and boom. GPT4 gave the correct answer in 1/10th the time it would take Priya and cost a lot less.
I don’t see a long-term career in software anymore. Any dreams I had of earning decent money as a software engineer are slowly fading. Lex Fridman in his podcast said “if you’re anxious about GPT4 its probably because you’re a shitty programmer”. I mean, I’m not the smartest in the room but I have generated value with the software I’ve made. And was convinced that I’ll make decent money as long as put in the work. I’m just not that sure anymore.
What is the economic impact of LLMs? Idk (openAI has published some lengthy paper about it). What I do know is that some rich bloke in the US will get a few million dollars richer and Priya will lose her job.
Working in A.I. right now seems like a dystopian dot-com boom. Except that there's no money or cultural admiration to make people happy. Only the stress of trying to be the first to develop something first. With all the stress and burnout. And back then, we didn't have China to compete with.
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ONE OF THEIR OWN. Silicon Valley has been pretty silent about the decline of San Francisco. Many of the workers, who are able to move out of the city, have done so, but the big tech moguls don't seem to express concern from their mansions in Woodside and Hillsborough. But a tech executive (Bob Lee) was recently knifed. Will they say something now?
So how would you label the incumbents who have done nothing but steadily
enable drug trafficking and overdose deaths, widespread homelessness,
rampant crime, and lawlessness all from the comfort of their publicly
funded offices?
Far right, aka anyone 1/8" right of antifa......
Far-left extremists are in control of Northwest politics, so maybe this will balance things out a little. Maybe.
When today's far right was 20 years ago's liberal.
Let me help OPB: Just so we’re all on the same page… a red hat that says
“Make America Great Again” is violent extremism… but the growing trend
in shirts that reads “trans rights or else” with silhouettes of guns on
it is nothing you need worry about.
OPB just thinks they have a handle on the majority opinion.
HOW ABOUT JUST HAVING POLICE? The Oregonian suggests that we undergo bystander training to deal with downtown crime issues. Have they been inhaling too much of that newsprint ink?
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There's so much city fire crap lately. Burning under bridges just can't be good for structural integrity, you know?
My fear is that countless people are already using ChatGPT to medically diagnose themselves rather than see a physician. If my patient in this case had done that, ChatGPT’s response could have killed her.
This is likely why ChatGPT “passed” the case vignettes in the Medical
Licensing Exam. Not because it’s “smart,” but because the classic cases
in the exam have a deterministic answer that already exists in its
database.
My experiment illustrated how the vast majority of any medical encounter is figuring out the correct patient narrative.
THEY HAVEN"T FIGURE OUT THE FUNDING GAME. Oregon's higher education institutions charge are dependent on their high tuitions since they receive the lowest levels of state funding in the nation. Well, more success universities crank out successful people who become wealthy, and they donate back to the school and fund many important programs. Rather than overcharging current students (and parents), a more sustainable strategy is to target alums. Each year you get new alums. If they all donate generously, one will do well. It's probably because few Oregon university alums become successful in the world. They should ask themselves, why is that?
The question that needs to be asked if we are going to trust AI to write our news articles and other documents: What happens when robots lie? The same issue applies to generative AI. Because someone, for sure, will code them to skew their responses a certain way.
"Our study's results indicate that after three violations and
repairs, trust cannot be fully restored, thus supporting the adage
'three strikes and you're out.' … In doing so, it presents a
possible limit that may exist regarding when trust can be fully
restored."
"Even when a robot can do better after making a mistake and
adapting after that mistake, it may not be given the opportunity to do
better. Thus, the benefits of robots are lost."
Could this explain all the "unconventional behavior" we're seeing in schools? The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in U.S. children is now 1 in 36. No one knows precisely why. There is no sign of leveling off. What will happen to society when, say, 10% of kids are "on the spectrum"?
"If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" MIT revisits this query. This analysis puts too much emphasis on luck. There is indeed an element of that, but no amount of luck is going to enrich the average Joe/Jane except for the lottery. Clearly hard work (Bezos) and skill in managing business risk (Jobs and Musk) play a large role.
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Toyota and Lexus vehicle owners, your car is at risk of being stolen due to CAN injection. It's slick and it's fast. (Actually, other models are vulnerable as well.)
Third year Stanford Law student writes that the loudest voices are a minority, but they are the ones listened to by the faculty and administration. Isn't that always the case? Instead of getting shut down, their often radical and ill-considered viewpoints are given a platform, and weak leaders, unable to muster courage to put them down, acquiesce to them.
NPR is facing backlash as they have to let people go. Not enough people cared to consume their new woke programming. Who knew? (Can't believe they let Sylvia Poggioli go. Sad.) They're learning that DEI is like a snake's mouth. You don't try it, and later decided to back out. Nope, the teeth point only one way - towards the throat. You only go deeper. Trying to back out tears flesh and leaves wounds and scars. Best to avoid it completely. Southern Wesleyan University is having none of it.
