26 March 2024

Oregon needs money. You thought you were being smart taking steps to reduce your gas consumption. You thought wrong. Lemme repeat that – Oregon needs money. You have it, they want it.

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Modern problems call for modern solutions. Squatter Hunters is a real business now. Check them out:


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Scientists have created artificial human chromosomes. This is huge.

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Another reason to beware of ordering fried food at restaurants.  Reused Deep-Frying Oil May Cause Neurodegeneration.
Deep frying is a common method of food preparation around the world and involves completely submerging foods in hot oil.  Due to the amount of oil used in this process (and to reduce food waste) restaurants and food vendors usually reuse their frying oil. However, according to new research, this not only removes many of the oil's natural antioxidants and health benefits, but can also increase its content of harmful compounds such as acrylamide, trans fat and peroxides.
Not only are these harmful compounds thought to increase our risk of various cancers and metabolic disorders, but they may also increase our risk of neurodegeneration.
Fry your brain, too.

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25 March 2024

The Danes have an ambassador to Silicon Valley. That shows you how much power the tech industry has.

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Japan is hoping that A.I. will boost their dismal birth rate. Worth a try. Anything's worth a try at this point.

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Stability AI founder and chief executive Emad Mostaque has stepped down. This is the company that developed Stable Diffusion. I'm not sure of his reasons – he didn't want a concentration of power in A.I. so he decided to fix it by stepping down. Does that make sense to you?

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Turn this off on your iPhone. Apple added the Journaling app and by default, makes you connected to everyone around you.

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Just one gene, TBXT, prevents humans from having tails. With mutations happening all the time, I'm surprised we don't see tailed humans more often.

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Gresham's Law 2.0. Internet content is deteriorating faster than you realize. So much content is garbage now. So far, it's mainly social media sites, where the kids lap it up, but it's heading to the second-tier "news" sites, too. Caveat emptor, baby.

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How universities lost the Internet. Yeah, I remember spending days at the terminal on the early Internet. It was the only place you could get access. Then came AOL, and the Eternal September.

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24 March 2024

NYC has a parallel economy - resale of shoplifted goods. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do in that Democrat economy.

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Sam Altman is going to create his own Siri and OK Google. Those two companies have been slow in using A.I. so someone's got to show 'em how to do it. At worst, he'll be bought out by Microsoft and make a killing.

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Typical California. The Golden State wants your electricity bill to be income-based. Then they can give you tax breaks if you obey their narrative, like switch to EVs or whatever. It's way past time to leave the state. After all, they have the highest unemployment rate. And they are the poverty capital of the U.S. – nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Wow. And Gavin Newson wants to be President. So he can do this to the whole country.

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China is way ahead of the U.S. in artificial intelligence research. I can tell because nearly all the research papers are by Chinese authors. The Indians are in data science. But there are few American authors doing research. 

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Now that there are devices that can capture your brainwaves, you might want to think about brainwave privacy. And about how laws should be crafted to preserve them. And thank goodness you don't live in the UK, where they really want to lower safeguards and steal your privacy.

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Sick people leaving workforce at record high. Started some time after 2019. Gee, I wonder what would be the cause of that???

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What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? And they really move fast.

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Very cool. Those without vocal cords can speak using a small electronic patch on their throat, using A.I. technology.

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Google's Chrome browser is apparently the last main browser that still saved third-party cookies. They have begun to stop this in January 2024 for about 1% of Chrome users, then it will be eliminated for the rest of users in Q3 this year.  Good! But some think it will reshape the Internet. But for the better.

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23 March 2024

Conscious A.I. is the second-scariest type of A.I.  The scariest is probably that one that causes you to lose your job.

And here's a new one that makes anyone a composer - Suno.AI.

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Heads in the sand over vaccine links to cancer and disabilities. These kinds of links always take you to conservative sites, which have cheesy web designs which detract from their credibility, but the underlying message is true. There's quite a bit of data to support some concern, and it is amazing how little attention it is getting. Take a look at this data. Why isn't this getting more attention?

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What's going on in the Courts? The SCOTUS said it's OK to strip custody rights of a parent for not going along with gender-affirming care? What happened to the sanctity of the family? Who's going to protect kids from this new cultural insanity? And a federal judge (Obama-appointed) says that illegal aliens can now vote. And this is on the basis of standing. Absolutely crazy. At least NY high schoolers know that this gender craziness is insane.

Governmental COVID-era stupidity really taught us a lot about mind-control and believing the brainwash. It was rabid vax-craziness before, and now it's rabid transgender-craziness. We're not fooled this time.

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Google was forced by Feds to reveal who watched certain videos. You think watching YouTube videos is free?

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About time. Oregon's stalking law is now covers electronic stalking.

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Did you know this?  Since 2017, Bull Run Watershed has routinely tested positive for dangerous parasites. Little by little, our infrastructure deteriorates.

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It can get expensive when you listen to AOC and the greenies. And it can cost you your job. As the former Hertz CEO found out.

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The FDA recently removed all the negative ivermectin information on their website. This got almost no mention in the media. You weren't supposed to notice.

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The squatter problem is really getting bad in NYC and Atlanta. Some people are afraid to go on vacations. We need more of this problem solver. In fact, in the Biden era, we're probably going to need more vigilantism than ever.

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Amusing. Bentley CEO accounts for declining sales saying that the rich are showing more "emotional sensitivity" and not wanting to show off their wealth with expensive cars.

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22 March 2024

Fusobacterium nucleatum has been found in about 50% of all aggressive colon cancers. Well, we know that finding Clostridium septicum is linked to colon cancer, too, so it may be just an association.

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Wow, Rudy Giuliani was right, the elections were not secure at all. Only now all this is coming out. Why didn't we hear about this before? Because roadblocks were in place.

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Hackers can break into hotel rooms that are secured by those plastic key cards. Do we have to provide our own security now?

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Apple has a new Documentations page, where you can browse manuals.

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There's a drug-free nasal spray that can protect one from viral pathogens. Too bad it's not commercially available.

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Soon to be Portland?

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21 March 2024

Hmmm. Too much energy spent combating stress linked to earlier death in men. 

The amount of effort expended by older men in coping with stressful events has the greatest impact on their mortality risk over and above how stressful an event is -- or the coping strategy employed to deal with it, new U.S. research published Tuesday indicates.

Most coping strategies were weakly to moderately positively correlated, and adaptive coping strategies were employed more frequently than dysfunctional responses, such as avoidance or confrontation.

Of these, only social coping, reaching out to others, was significantly associated with mortality risk with a 15% higher risk of dying from all causes. However, the study caveats this finding, noting social coping included "other-directed action that may deplete emotional and physical resources instead of bolstering them."

So don't reach out? But social isolation is bad for you, too. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I think this underscores the need to develop and train resiliency from a young age. Similar to the training that the samurai underwent. They needed their own brand of Zen, as described in the Kamakura Koans.
Also, people need to find their ikigai.
Instead, apparently Americans are crankier.

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Despite what the Biden administration says, the numbers tell a different story. People are hurting. Not only that, but California is hurting, too.

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Doctors Transplant Crispr-Edited Pig Kidney Into Living Patient. If this works, it will greatly lessen the waiting list for kidney transplants. May the days of dialysis are waning. That would be a good thing.

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Neuralink brain implant allows a quadriplegic man to play chess with his mind. This is truly amazing.

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Is this what being a far-right extremist means?

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So illegal aliens can carry weapons now? But regular citizens cannot?

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Well, there goes Star Wars.

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20 March 2024

Universities Have a Computer-Science Problem. What does that mean? It means that these days, universities put their computer sciences courses in their engineering schools, apart from other disciplines.

In other words, there may be downsides just to placing CS within an engineering school, let alone making it an independent college. Left entirely to themselves, computer scientists can forget that computers are supposed to be tools that help people.

A traditional CS department in a school of engineering would be populated entirely by computer scientists, while the faculty for a college of computing like the one he led at Georgia Tech might also house lawyers, ethnographers, psychologists, and even philosophers like me. Bala told me that her college was established not to teach CS on its own but to incorporate policy, law, sociology, and other fields into its practice. “I think there are no downsides,” she said.
Maybe that's why we are seeing so much harmful tech. The geeks have not been trained to be cognizant of humanity.

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Breakthrough Catalyst Turns Sewage Into Clean Energy. “We have developed a catalyst capable of purifying municipal sewage while simultaneously enhancing the efficiency of hydrogen production, a green energy source.” And it uses iron and nickel, which are abundant.

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And Oregon State University scientists discover metal capable of removing carbon dioxide from air. This one uses vanadium, which is not so plentiful, but still, this makes more sense than restricting leaf blowers.

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OHSU postdoc organize for better wages. Well, their salaries come out of NIH grants, and what you get is what you have. They don't pay all that well. So higher wages means they'll have to let go of some people. There's nothing that a union will be able to do. There could be more money if the University took a smaller bite to cover overhead costs, but with the way things are, I wouldn't bet on it. Sorry, Hannah, you should get a second job to make ends meet, or go into private industry, which pays better. Research technician jobs have never paid well. And you are in Oregon.

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Cheese enthusiasts are mourning the possible extinction of brie cheese. The bacterium that creates Brie cheese is in danger of dying off. So no more Brie cheese, unless they manage to rescue the bacteria. This would be really unfortunate.

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Yeah, we already knew this. Oregon is one of least ‘tax friendly’ states. I'm surprised that Washington is one of the best states. What a difference to live just across the Columbia River.

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A.I. is allowing scientists to design custom antibodies from scratch. Well, designing them is one thing. You have to create them, and do so in bulk. That's the trick. But it's a good start anyway.

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So it's not just amyloid? Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests. Bad news if you have the APOE3 or APOE4 polymorphism.  The APOE gene promotes fat accumulation in neurons.

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Google's woke Gemini A.I. wasn't a mistake. And this is the A.I. model that Apple wants to use. Sick.
“The model is just a reflection of the people who trained it,” one former AI researcher at Google Brain, who asked not to be named, told us. “It’s just a series of decisions that humans have made.”
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Go woke, go broke. Harvard closes John G. Wolbach Library, citing 'financial considerations. I guess the boycotts from the wealthy donors is having an effect. So why pay all the expensive tuition money if you can't get the full Harvard experience?

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NVIDIA wants to take away all the nursing jobs that nurses want. The desired nursing jobs are not changing bedpans, starting IVs, checking inventory or making the staffing schedules, although they need to be done. Nurse love the human interaction, and that's what NVIDIA wants to relegate to A.I.

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19 March 2024

I remember when people said that only amphibole asbestos was a problem, and that chrysotile asbestos was OK. Now the EPA is banning chrysotile asbestos, too.

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We might need this in Portland, too. The Squatter Hunter will help you get rid of squatters – way faster than the police and legal system will.

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...we call the attention of medical professionals to the various risks associated with blood transfusions using blood products derived from people who have suffered from long COVID and from genetic vaccine recipients, including those who have received mRNA vaccines...
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18 March 2024

Maglev is possible on regular train tracks. That's nice in theory but I'd hate to see trains whizz by on some of the crooked tracks that are around. We'd see so many derailments.

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Why, Apple, why?  Apple is going to use Google's Gemini A.I. to power the iPhone. This has got to be the dumbest decision. Why can't Apple buy a better A.I.? Why use the woke A.I. that everyone's dissing? No wonder their stock is tanking.

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18 Questions to ask your VPN provider. It's so hard to evaluate VPNs now. So many that were thought to be good are lousy. Private Internet Access and HideMyAss were touted as some of the best, only to keep logs and betray privacy promises.

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Washington follows Oregon's direction downward in not requiring passing the bar exam to be an attorney. Because Democrats have to lower standards so that minorities have a chance, right?

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Claude-3 has a higher I.Q. than the average human. Is this the Singularity?

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Never eat a mushroom based on what a phone app tells you, even if it's A.I.-powered. The technology just isn't that good yet.

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17 March 2024

Who has been the closest and the farthest from the Sun? Surprising answers.

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Can Large Language Models reason and plan? Nah.

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Stanford is no longer the Stanford it was when I was younger. No more anarchy or craziness. Probably just as well. Back then, there was no Internet. You could afford to be "out of bounds". Wink-wink. Now, you might do something, and it'll be recorded forever. Wouldn't want that to happen, right? Times have changed.

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This article makes it sound like we should put it in the drinking water.  Psilocybin therapy alters prefrontal and limbic brain circuitry in alcohol use disorder. Seems like it fixes all that ails you.
Specifically, psilocybin treatment led to increased activity in the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and left caudate — regions implicated in higher-order cognitive functions such as goal-directed behavior, decision-making, and emotional regulation.

Additionally, a decrease in activity was noted in the insula, motor, temporal, parietal, and occipital cortices, as well as the cerebellum. These areas are often associated with craving, automatic behavior patterns, and sensory processing, indicating that psilocybin may diminish the salience of alcohol cues.

The study also revealed unique responses to different types of emotional cues. For negative cues, psilocybin increased activity in the supramarginal gyrus, a region involved in empathy and emotional processing. For positive cues, there was an increase in right hippocampus activity and a decrease in left hippocampus activity, which may reflect changes in how positive emotional experiences are processed and integrated.

“Patients treated with psilocybin showed similar brain responses to pictures of alcohol and positive and negative emotional scenes,” Pagni told PsyPost. “This suggests psilocybin may have a general mood stabilizing effect, rather than altering processes specific to alcohol or negative emotions. The pattern of neural response was characterized by increased activity in the lateral and medial prefrontal cortex, brain regions associated with regulating emotions and behavior, and decreased activity in the insula, a brain region associated with craving for alcohol.”

Just what people living in modern society need right now.

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Moderate to severe sleep apnea was found in a quarter of women and half of men. This is probably linked to all that obesity. But likely people need to fix how they sleep. It's a vicious cycle, and being sleep-deprived can make you fat, too.

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Anxiety drug pregabalin linked to rising number of deaths. A lot of folks are takig pregabalin for treatment of neuropathy. Only now we realize how dangerous it can be?

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If you like Bach's Cello Suites, you definitely need to check out this page.

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The TikTok Problem Is Not What You Think. We do need to come to a consensus about what constitutes invasion of privacy. TikTok is not alone in what it's doing. We will need to talk about Google and Meta, and data harvesting companies, and define what it is that they should not be doing. Again, the adage is true – if the service is free, you are the product, not the customer.

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The Atlantic writes about Why Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Failed. As I type this, though, Tina Kotek still hasn't signed the bill. What is she waiting for?

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Techies are getting laid-off. It seems strange that with all the boom in artificial intelligence that there is less of a need for them. It's because the current techies know little about artificial intelligence. They're old-school techies. The ones that are in demand need to know how to implement LLMs and Computer Vision and data science.  That's what matters now.

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What are the worst paying jobs five years out?  No surprises here. The article doesn't talk about what the best ones are. To get that info, you need to go to the source.

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As A.I. tools get smarter, they get more racist. 

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