7 April 2023

WOW!  Tennessee legislators expel two Democrats in the House after they led a raucus protest.  Fantastic.  Their expulsion had nothing to do with race, and everything about them acting like unruly jerks.  Good on the Republicans.  If kids can't behave, they shouldn't sit at the grownup's table.

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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?

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Fortunately, the increase is more left-sided, which is generally less aggressive than right-sided cancers.  Screening colonoscopy should be done sooner, from age 45 years.

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"The enemy of my enemy is a friend…"  Yes, lefty OPB is dismayed that "far-right extremists are winning seats in mainstream Northwest politics.  The comments below the tweet are wondrous to behold.  A sample:
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.

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Google's reCAPTCHA may not be GDPR-compliant.  Good.  I hate it anyway.  Let's scrap it.

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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? 


No wonder Portland is dead bottom on this graph:


6 April 2023

ChatGPT is not ready to replace a human doctor:  I’m an ER doctor: Here’s what I found when I asked ChatGPT to diagnose my patients. 

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.
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THEY KNOW WHERE TO GO.  Oregon, Washington among states with largest increases in homelessness in U.S.  Even the Oregonian reports it.  Governor Kotek wants to build more affordable housing.  But housing is not the entire problem.  Once you get the house, you gotta pay for upkeep, property taxes, utilities, etc.  It's like being gifted with an expensive car.  Where are the homeless going to find funds for maintenance and upkeep?   Even Ted Wheeler's ugly vision for Portland requires upkeep money.

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POOR USE OF FUNDS.  With major Oregon hospitals hurting and not being able to find staffing, why does Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley want to draw $2.5 million in federal money to create a new small clinic in Cottage Grove?  If The Dalles can't find enough nurses for their maternity clinic, what are the chances that this new clinic will find them?  A waste of money. 

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HYPOCRISY.  Amazon's move to kill an emissions bill in Oregon shows that their Climate Change pledge is just talk.  It's all just to score points with the Left.

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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?

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LOW-HANGING FRUIT.  One of the first professions to be eliminated from A.I. will be voice actors.  With A.I. you have a lot more flexibility with the voices anyway.  Sorry, actors.

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Society is forcing us to believe things we know aren't true.  And how easily some people allow it.

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Things that are subsidized by the government vs things that are manufactured in China.

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Arthur C. Clarke was ahead of his time.

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This will be cool, especially when someone exploits a vulnerability and figures a way to bypass your consent to download something. 


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5 April 2023

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.

And what if AI is caught lying? 

"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."

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Clearly a nuisance prosecution  Alvin Bragg doesn't have a case against Donald Trump.  Even anti-Trump David Frum agrees.  The strategy is just to keep Trump busy while he tries to campaign for the presidency again.  The precedent has been set to a new level for weaponizing the law against a political opponent.  And here's what Biden thinks about it.

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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"?

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Hospitals are hurting financially, and are not out of the woods, due to a combination of personnel shortage and payor mix (more folks on Medicaid - which doesn't pay as well - or who simply don't have insurance).  The first factor is sort-of self-inflicted.  But the second one is likely to get worse.  More people are on disability or don't want to work, and Medicaid support is going to decrease soon, as Oregon faces resumption of pre-pandemic income-verification rules.  The chickens are coming home to roost.

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The latest vulnerability.  Using near-ultrasonic frequencies, one can hack Siri and Cortana to hijack a smartphone.  Another reason not to leave Siri on.

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"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.)

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Two articles:

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4 April 2023

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.

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Dr. Cliff Mass, of the popular weather blog, speaks out against DEI statement requirements demanded by University of Washington.

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Gone With the Wind now has a trigger warning.  We're being treated like children.

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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.

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Seeing how glorious life was during the dotcom boom, it's really sad to see how life is now under the administration of Biden and the Left Coast Democrats.  Portland is getting more dystopian, with companies closing and festivals we used to enjoy no longer able to be there for us.  Wealthy people fleeing, while vagrants migrate in.  It doesn't have to be this way.  But it is.

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Steve Blank recognizes technology disruption.  "One of the problems about disruptive technology is that disruption doesn’t come with a memo."  The Financial Times recognizes that something needs to be done, in terms of regulation, but admits that current paradigms don't seem to work, and a different conversation is needed.  It's a start.  Here's a nice summary of a Stanford whitepaper on AI.

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Rare natural phenomenon captured recently.  An ELVE.

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Another myth blown:  Recent meta-analysis showed that there is really no benefit to low-level alcohol consumption.  Even red wine.  The previous studies that suggested it didn't correct for confounding factors.  Those who just drank low-level amounts of wine tended to be wealthier and took better care of themselves.  Subtract those health factors, and the contribution from wine consumption is basically nil.  (This is probably why it's been hard to demonstrate overall benefit from resveratrol.)

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3 April 2023

Portland - "You can run, but you can't hide."

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Social Security projections indicate that the shortfall will occur a year sooner than previously calculated.  Well, that's because the Biden administration is doing nothing about it except claming that "they stand ready".   Watch:

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Came across this article from a medical website claiming that Stand Your Ground Laws are a greater health threat than mass shootings.  The article states: "Stand-your-ground laws worsen racial disparities in gun violence" and "Stand-your-ground laws place Black Americans at increased risk of violence, death, and criminality due to firearms."  Well, maybe if one didn't commit a crime there wouldn't be the gun violence?  Why is race injected into this discussion about home invasion crime?  Sorry, doctor — you're just wrong.

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How's that Diversity paying off?  The Oregon legislature has a BIPOC coalition, and now they want to extend SNAP food assistance to illegal immigrants.  And if you are an "internationally educated" physician, you never have to take the medical licensing exam - because there's no deadline to complete it!  The Oregon Medical Board will be prohibited from imposing the deadline.  All because of the workforce "emergency".

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This is true.  AI won't steal your job.  People leveraging AI will.  The world isn't standing still.

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Comment of the day: seen on Reddit Seattle recently:


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Two Los Angeles lawmakers proposed a measure to drastically reduce punishment for serious crimes – a philosophy they called "decarceration".  Fortunately, there was enough of an outcry that this measure was shelved.  What were they thinking, though?
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2 April 2023

Just learned that Ryuichi Sakamoto died on 28 March 2023, of metastatic rectal cancer.  A great loss.  In memoriam, I post this piece, Bibo no Aozora (beautiful blue sky).  Full of sehnsucht and saudade.  Enjoy.



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It's come to this.  Scientific journals are taking political sides now, as Nature declares support for Biden.  What next?  The rainbow, transgender and Ukraine flags on your twitter feed?  Partisan science is indeed bad for society.

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Could these two people represent the King and Queen of the underworld?

Prepare to take a deep dive into Grant Wood.

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Poor healthcare workers.  Just when you thought you could ditch the masks on 3 April 2023 as Oregon lifts the mandate on healthcare workers.  Nope.  Hospitals will require you to still wear them.  They don't specify KN-95 masks.  Not even the ASTM Level-3 masks.  They just want something over your face, whether it really blocks the virus or not.  You can still touch your mask with your hands, and touch everything else in the hospital.  And throw used masks in the regular wastebasket.  Follow the science, they say.

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Chinese universities are offering students and faculty a week to take time to fall in love.  They'll even offer make-out make-up sessions so you don't fall behind.

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A rubicon has been crossed.  Where in the world is there fairness in rule of law?  The United States took a dive in 2021 and 2022 world rankings, not surprisingly.  Democrats openly prosecute political opponents now.  And the mainstream media think it's a good thing.

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And the drugs and crime, too.  High taxes could be driving people out of Portland. 

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What a knee-slapper: "…and to help keep the communities in the states clean".  Walmart in Washington and Oregon will no longer offer bags in the stores.  Gotta bring your own.  Or, like many shoppers in Portland now, stuff the goods in your pants or purse, and run!

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King County, Washington is still seeing population growth, despite the exodus of tax-paying citizens.  Taking its place is what they call "international immigration". 

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1 April 2023

It's April 1, but every day is fakery now. 

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Twitter didn't really publish their source code (as I was told).  It just published the schema for their recommender algorithm.  Nothing surprising.  Twitter was more than a microblogging platform — it was an entertainment system, designed to lure you back over and over again, like an addicting drug.  Like other social media.  Twitter seems to be in its sunset phase.  People still use it, but it doesn't sound like a company that aspiring techies want to work for anymore.  It's not quite the free speech platform that it looked like it was going to be.  People still have tweets censored and accounts get suspended, just not quite as much as before.  An insiders says that no one is maintaining their API anymore.  Is this what Elon wanted?  Is there another entity that he's working on? 
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The Economist asks where the fired techies are going.  The short answer is – no particular place.  Some are pursuing startups, but they're not going to one particular company.  There is no one particular giant today, as there was in the days of Microsoft, Google and Apple.  Some are working at "unsexy" industrial companies.  But the rise of remote work has created "digital nomads" who work wherever they choose.  And one consequence of this has been an increase in rents in some desirable places.  The start of gentrification.

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Vicuna, a LLaMA-based chat-AI, is open for trying out, if you're game.  They claim to be better than ChatGPT. A LLaMA-based approach may be downwardly-scalable to where it can be cheaper and able to run on your laptop, perhaps in the browser.

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Scott Aaronson has comments regarding the open-letter regarding a proposal to pause AI for six months.  Why six months, he asks?  What's the reason for the pause?  What will be done during the pause? I always enjoy reading the thoughts of smart people, and the comments section is also informative.  And here's Eliezer Yudkowsky, calling for a total ban on AI research.  This guy had been working to advance AI for about 20 years, and just when it's really taking off, he wants everyone to stop work.  I don't think that his advice will be heeded.

The main concern I have regarding AI is the mischief that will come from unbridled access to the technology, and whether society is prepared to deal with what it might bring.  There are elements in government, for example, that get hyperscared from COVID-19 that they want to keep emergency status ongoing.  Or want to ban guns from law-abiding citizens and add more laws to the books, when the existing ones aren't being enforced and criminals wouldn't deterred by them.  But back to AI, what will the response be when something unprecedented happens?  Some are already envisioning how AI will kill us.  But unforeseen disasters often result in clamor for more government control and draconian laws to repress personal liberty.  AI may or may not kill us.  But the people behind evil AI will.  Just like with guns.  But you won't be able to take away AI now. 

And here's Bloomberg, with their new BloombergGPT.  Getting on the AI bandwagon!

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You wouldn't believe what it was that bankrupted Mark Twain.  The tech may be great, but if the execution is crappy...

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But why worry about AI when we have more dire things to worry about.  FT has some sobering data on how far the U.S. has dropped in terms of life expectancy, especially compared with the U.K.


COVID-19 was a factor, yes, but what's killing us are deaths from drug overdoses, violence and suicide.  More informative data at the link.

It's odd to see this bad news contrast with an article that suggest that based on mathematical models (assuming that human population growth follows Gompertzian kinetics), that we have not achieved maximum lifespan at all, and have the potential to live much longer. That is, if we don't get shot by someone, or overdose on opioids, commit suicide or get involved in a fatal accident.

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Scientists have created E coli bacteria that is resistant to "all viruses".  And they have put into place firewalls to make sure this organism doesn't escape the lab.  I hope they've achieved this - life often manages to find a way.

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Two insights in the psychology of loneliness and depression.  Scientists at UF Scripps found that a variant glycine receptor, GPR158, which sent an inhibitory signal upon glycine binding instead of a stimulatory one, was associated with stress-induced depression.  Mice lacking this variant receptor exhibited resilience to chronic stress.  And German and Israeli scientists found that chronic loneliness is a self-reinforcing problem, as reward centers for social interaction gradually atrophy.  You can't just introduce friends to lonely people.  So when prisoners are put in solitary confinement, are we making them more sociopathic?

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Biden thinks that the shooting deaths of six people at a Nashville Christian school is a joking matter.  America has never been lower than during this administration.  I hope the state of the nation will survive his leadership. 

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Gee, ya think? San Francisco could be on the verge of collapse.  But they have all that diversity.  How could it be?

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31 March 2023

300 Portland city employees won't have to return to the office.  Can't blame them.  I wouldn't want to either.

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Man turns table on squatters.  This was in northern California, but maybe the strategy could be used in Oregon, too.

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This ranks as one of the most under-reported headlines:  China and Brazil reach a deal to trade in their own currencies, instead of the U.S. dollar.  Bye, bye reserve currency.  Maybe the decline of the dollar will be the only thing to dampen Democrat spending.

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Being Asian is a huge detriment into getting accepted to higher education now, especially in Ivy League and University of California schools.

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Now they're panicking.  Seattle is facing a taxpayer outflow, and the houseless vagrant population is increasing.  What to do?  Why, triple the housing levy, of course.  To $970 million.  This will undoubtedly lead to more outflow, and with more services being provided, more vagrants.  Rinse, repeat.   Like Multnomah county lost more residents than any other Oregon county, and actually was 7th in the nation.  Oregon overall lost people to other states, as well, although central Oregon grew.

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Congress passed a resolution to end the COVID-19 emergency status, and even Biden is ready to sign it.  Guess who is opposed to this?  Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkeley, as well as Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.  Eternal emergency!  Eternal autocratic control!

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30 March 2023

Nice review and discussion about the proposed RESTRICT Act.  It should be called the Domestic Surveillance Expansion Act.

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ChatGPT has passed the Turing Test.  A milestone, yes, but still, it doesn't seem that the software is truly conscious.  What should the next test be?

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Healthcare is a right?  Legacy's Birth Center has closed, although the OHA has denied it's request to do so.  But what do you do if there isn't enough staffing to make it feasible?

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Plants emit sounds when stressed.  Like being dehydrated, or having pieces cut off.  Complicates things, doesn't it, vegans?

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29 March 2023

Woops.  Planning on charging your EV at night, so that it'll be ready to go in the morning?  Stanford recommends you don't do that.  Too hard on the grid, you know, if everyone does that.

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A few Asians discuss anti-Asian discrimination in the educational field.  All too real.

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Musk, Wozniak and others call for a 6 month pause on AI more advanced than GPT-4, until people figure out what the implications are.  Too late, man.  Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.  They didn't listen to Elon Musk and Hawking in 2015.

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I can see that:  American's IQ scores are dropping.  Lots of reasons for this. 

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Sad:  Oregon is seeing a record number of assisted suicide deaths.  Why is that? 

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The virtuoso you may not have heard of:  Michi Hirata North is giving a double concerto concert at age 91 years.  Up in Seattle.  Mozart and Tchaikowsky.  Impressive!

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Portland makes it on FOX News, and it's not for something good. (Video from https://twitter.com/wtfportland1).
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