Very much food was cooked and delivered. DQ still has desserts to make, but she can handle that in the next couple of days. The news is not much change for our friend, except his fever was down some from yesterday, which is good.
Hi all. Got problems solved at computer store. Old desktop still working for time being but I will assume it could conk out at any time. Once I get through the present crunch, will install new laptop I bought today. It's a Dell again, but their hardware warranty will be serviced by the store, plus I bought the store's tech support, much of which can be done remotely. I like Microcenter's attitude much better than Dell's.
Now to catch up on the stuff I meant to be doing before computer went unresponsive over weekend. It is really disconcerting to suddenly have access to files, etc. cut off. Missed a Zoom too. Tablet kept me in touch with world via e-mail and rudimentary web use, but I feel much more normal now.
The display on my son's 3 month old MSI gaming laptop went wonky last week. Good that it was under warranty but the said it would be 2 -3 weeks to fix it. He is holding out impressively well, given that his friends are scattered and that is how they hang out.
What I want to see is a debate between two LLMs about the merits - or lack thereof - of this whole AI business.
Personally, I think a tag team match-up with a couple of dudes named Claude and Jasper going against Llama 3 and Grok would be fun.
And if they can't settle things peacefully in a gentemanly algorithmic way, they could get real about it and be wired up to a set of these guys and settle the matter once and for all in a steel cage match...
BTW, Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" was one of the first scifi I read in middle school & fell in love w/ scifi... haven't stopped. I don't like the space war types, more the sociological, etc...
Ha! Interesting question. Not sure how it could be answered. I’d think both. Yes, but the goals for an LLM have to be set by a human operator. Negative feedback should cause it to change its approach. No, because an LLM can’t actually experience the real world in a way that is similar or recognizable to any living organism.
Yes, AI can respond like Pavlov's dog by utilizing classical conditioning. This involves associating a neutral stimulus (like a bell) with a conditioned stimulus (like food) to elicit a response (salivation).
Reinforcement Learning: AI systems can learn from feedback, similar to Pavlov's dog, where they receive rewards for correct responses, leading to improved behavior over time.
Neural Networks: Researchers have developed systems that mimic Pavlovian conditioning using neural networks, allowing them to learn associations between stimuli.
Optical Processing: New technologies, such as photonics-based neural networks, can implement Pavlovian associative learning on optical chips, enhancing AI's ability to learn and adapt.
These advancements demonstrate that AI can effectively replicate Pavlov's dog's conditioning process, showcasing the potential of AI in learning and behavior modification.
Yes, in fact as I wrote below, Sutton believes the right architecture is where "agents learn through a constant stream of experience and feedback (rewards) from their environment."
Speaking of experiential; I have an honors student that I am working with. Because of a work limit requirement, instead of having him code data, and load some analysis, we did one together. I use Excel to code data, but I use keyboard shortcuts. I was showing him how to do stuff, and my hands were flying. He sat back impressed. He tried to do some, and struggled. But we got it done. For each firm we look up 250 trading days of ending stock price data. We then re-format it, and do the same for the dates for each trading day. The format is 24.11.2025 (Excel doesn't have a default for that, we create a custom one for it, then copy and paste it). I then use "concatenate" to create each line. It's not hard, you just create the first one and then paste it down.
He asked what outcome I wanted (it could go up or down), and I told him I didn't have a dog in that hunt. I was just curious what it would be. He looked at me funny. "Oh, I thought you researched this because it mattered to you". "Not really, I just like finding the answers to questions". He smiled "I just outed myself as a nerd, didn't I". "We guessed"....He confided later his other honors faculty are advocates of whatever they research, so hearing some of us do it for fun surprised him...
Working with Excel for years, it was annoying but funny when I would no longer be able to find menu navigation to features I needed as MS changed the user interface, but my keyboard shortcuts still worked.
Asking Gemini if Sutton and LeCun generally agree:
While they agree on the problems, their preferred solutions diverge slightly:
Sutton's Solution: Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Experience: Sutton's work heavily emphasizes the power of general-purpose learning methods, specifically reinforcement learning, where agents learn through a constant stream of experience and feedback (rewards) from their environment. He believes "the bitter lesson" dictates that general learning methods will eventually win over engineered architectures.
LeCun's Solution: Innate Structure and Joint Embedding Predictive Architectures (JEPA): LeCun believes some "innate" structure or "hard-wiring" is necessary in AI architectures to facilitate efficient self-supervised learning and build world models. He proposes architectures like the Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (JEPA), which aims to learn hierarchical representations of the world that allow the system to predict what will happen next (as a consequence of its actions).
In essence, Sutton favors a purely experience-driven, minimal-prior-knowledge approach while LeCun advocates for architectural innovation and innate constraints to guide the learning process more efficiently. However, both are aligned in their strong skepticism that simply scaling up current LLMs will result in human-level general intelligence.
G'morning all! The weather here is the same as with Phil H. For some reason that reminds me of an old Jimmy Buffet tune: "The weather is here; wish you were beautiful". Of course I never use that line around Katie.....
Katie thinks I am done mulching leaves, but a neighbors tree still needs to let go of some leaves, as does one of ours. The burning bushes do as well. Plus, the hill. I'm not comfortable driving the ZTR on the hill so I push mow it, and I have some leaves there to get yet. But they will wait as we get ready for hosting Thanksgiving on Sunday. There is a yellow notepad on counter with "to do" items listed. Whenever we think of one we are to write it down. Katie informed me the yard is good to go for company.
She wants me to make noodles early this week, my first batch of deviled eggs Wednesday evening, the 2nd Saturday evening. "𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓖𝓪𝓶𝓮" is Saturday, so 3 hours we won't be working then (perhaps laundry). I'm not allowed to run the leaf blowers nor the mower during that time.
A nephew declined to come because we didn't offer to board his puppy in our basement for him. Officially, it's because he has to work the next day, although the lunch is at 1pm, he'd be home by 6pm easily. He wanted us to have it Saturday, but my oldest and his wife are driving all day Saturday, and it'd have to be an evening meal....
it's 72 now, w/ an expected high of 72, a few showers off & on.
Just purchased hardback copies (I rarely get hardback but for obvious reasons, this had to be) of The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien, for myself & each son & their families.
Tonight going to friends to play Skip-Bo; there will be 4 couples.
next door neighbor passed away so neighborhood is on a food-tree for the wife & her 2 daughters, their husbands. Our turn is tomorrow.
Normally I agree with you but after last year when they were a 20 point favorite and lost 13-10.
My youngest was so annoyed he called the HS field goal kicker (a friend of his) to meet him at the football field. There they both kicked 40, 45, and 50 yard field goals just to show anyone can do it (My son played soccer in HS, not football). He went 13 of 15, his friend did the same, but also drilled 3 of 5 from 55 and 2 of 5 from 60.
Ha that's funny. And a lot of college teams could use kickers that good. Alas, I'm sorry to remind you that my son went to UMich and I'll be on the other side for this game :-)
I'm a Texas Longhorn graduate and facing the same drama when they play the Texas Aggies on Friday. Could be ugly, or a miracle. College sports is fun - I guess.
I sent Cynthia a story for Saturday about "The Game". It's really about my best friend Christy, a well behaved girl (and die hard buckeye fan) who only swore when discussing her illness (fatal) or That Team Up North.
Thanks for this perspective on AI. AI is about words, life is about the physical engagement that leads to the words, not just the words. Words and the ability to use them well are not a reliable indicator of intelligence.
I think it's safe to say that AI can not handle the experiences of heights and glass bridges described below. No doubt theoretically possible in the future, but the necessary data input is not just sitting around waiting to be sucked into a processor to train the model.
You got that right. It is so well written. French is one of the few columnists that I consistently enjoy reading, even when it's depressing. He's good. And, he's walked the walk. That gets my respect.
David French is hit 'n miss for me. I hated his work on why we should send arms and not troops to Ukraine, back in 2022. I felt it was too little too late back then, and that RatPutin would bomb civilians.....His approach was we would weaken the Russian military without having to risk losing our own soldiers. And he is right, if you can accept large numbers of civilian casualties. I disagreed with him then, but found so many people thought that meant I was either a warhawk or a Russian puppet.
Now, people are coming around to the idea that Russia will get some land in Ukraine for its troubles, whether they like it or not.
David French is I agree, hit or miss. He's slowly coming around to the necessary epiphany that I have said for years... He played a role in making Trump and MAGA.
By being a win at all cost conservative vs liberals
By making the soil and fertilizer for MAGA
By silence, approving of hate speech against Liberals, Dems, gays and women. ie see his and the NR silence on Limbaugh, Beck, Savage etc al.
David Brooks had some oh!! I was silently building this current state a while back.
Yeah, I know. I don't like some of his stuff, and often disagree with him, but I can't help liking him. He's one of the only columnists that's actually DONE something.
If we are looking for a thoughtful guy that relentlessly holds "his side" to a higher standard, he's as good as it gets. Still I can't help but think his NYT gig as shaded his writings. How could it not. The only conservative at NYT that has freedom to say what he thinks is Bret Stephens. We need what French provides, but I really do appreciate Sarah Isgur pushing back when French's enthusiasm for attacking his own fails to acknowledge fundamental problems elsewhere.
He's got a family, he's got some troubles, and it's easy to see how a gig at the NYT is a godsend. Per Sarah...I can't stand her, even when she says something right.
She would never get any public role on her own merits. A very shallow naive person. Look up her hubby. One the the greatest (conservative) successful Supreme Court litigators. Then again hubby Scott is preaching to the choir at SCOTUS
Good morning. 29 degrees this morning, with a high maybe reaching 50, and cloudy. It’s Monday here too. All day.
The mothership is reporting on proposals to ban members of Congress, already banned from insider trading (supposedly) from owning individual stocks. The FP is reporting on immigration :the issue of our age”. I’m reading FP much less frequently these says, generally not the Front Page, maybe some individual articles.
We have 29 locally, too. But the official temp at the ridgetop where the NOAA weather station is—the county airport—, there will be no frost. We’ve got one of the heaviest frosts so far this season.
Local ground contours make for a big difference in temperatures within short geographic distances—five to ten degrees is not atypical. This is why I can rant so voluminously about the idiocy of “global climate change” based on extrapolated past temperatures that make a big deal out of tenths of a degree Fahrenheit. That’s a level of accuracy few thermometers were even capable of registering till relatively recently. Harrumph!
Today is the first day when we can claim to have our apartment renovation all the way done...just a little touch up paint and odds and ends. I got all my paintings mounted and hung. Building stuff in China is an education.
We were able to get all sorts of stuff that I could never afford in the US because it's all made here. We went all in on fancy toilets. The heated seat(s) go up when you walk into the bathroom, it's got those fancy bidet sprayers, and when you stand up they flush automatically. Here, they cost about the same as a cheap Glacier Bay job at Home Depot. Wife went nuts on the TV...75". I don't watch TV, but it's fascinating to have this giant screen on the wall. I got NFL+ and was able to cast the games onto the big screen.
And furniture... All new stuff from Foshan, Guangdong. Did I write anything in here about Foshan, the furniture capital of the world? If I didn't, I should.
Our new range has two 20,000 btu burners for the wok. As a yardstick, the average American gas range big burner is about 9000 btu. Our new one CRANKS.
And doors. I've put together the beginnings of a little essay about doors (gates) in China. If there's any interest, I'll buff it out. I might even put it up in Substack Central and see if I get anyone following me.
What are the standards for outlet current and voltage there? In Europe, you get 240 out of the normal wall outlet. Your run-of-the-mill, plug-in water kettle gets to a boil much, much faster than stateside.
Every outlet is a duplex, one 1-110 and 1-240. That we don't have that standard in the US is one of my multiple beefs with idiotic American building standards. I hit the button on our 2 liter "water cooker" and it's boiling in about 2 minutes.
Yes, we're very interested in your essay on doors. You can write an essay on furniture, too. If we don't get other content, I'll have to write about spiders and snakes and the tiresome train wreck of my church.
I like the sunrise over Tynemouth and the classic cars in the garage in Cuba.
It would be interesting to know some backstory on that: for example, why isn't "State worker Arnaldo Alvarez" wearing a mask while he fumigates what is probably, based on its cleanliness and the classic cars, a garage for important government apparatchiki.
We can't even get American tradespeople to wear masks. In developing countries, mask use is nonexistent. Today, the worker touching up our flooring was using extreme VOC stuff and only wearing a basic N95 dust mask. I told him to get a G100 charcoal type, but I doubt he will.
I hear it’s the same with U.S. coal miners, too. They won’t wear the respirators because they’re too inhibiting and burdensome on the job. They don’t keep hearing protection on enough, either.
Of course, younger workers are given to believing their invincibility. When the older worker role models reject the PPE, it’s a lost battle before the first shot is fired…
China does take care of its state workers, but in the manner I approve of, i.e., they do their job and receive a basic living wage and a couple benefits. It's a coveted job; workers trade big salaries for steady employment. There's no unions, period, and the idea of a public employee's union is laughable.
Cool. I've not been on that particular bridge, but I've been on a couple of other glass bottom bridges over 1000' deep gorges. It's so unreal feeling, my legs literally buckled. To keep going, I had to laser focus on the other side and not look at anything other than the pylons at the end.
In the background in that photo, can you see the walkway on the cliff face? I've been on several of those, and they are terrifying.
Cool photos, especially that big white "thinker guy" thing in Latvia.
I haven't been on that one either, but have on others. I don't like heights, but I keep telling myself "Trust" 'cause I want to experience it to the fullest.
Now, walking on a skinny cliff, nope, not for me. Or driving on some narrow switch-backs w/ steep inclines, nope.
When I was an exchange student in Peru in '73, my host family drove us into the Andes to a vacation chalet. I was terrified. Switchbacks, muddy one lane track, blind hairpin curves. Trucks & buses with chicken coops strapped on the roof coming down with no regard for opposing traffic. I felt sure I was going to end up a couple thousand feet straight down. Nobody else batted an eyelash.
I recently saw a headline online about a bus or truck collision in the Andes. Multiple deaths, I believe. I would have thought that was an hourly, or at least a daily occurrence.
One of my son‘s friends after graduating from college probably around 2006 joined AmeriCorp, spent time in South America. after he finished that my son joined him in Peru. They went hiking up Machu Picchu. The elevation is amazing. My son somehow got food poisoning but wouldn’t give up!!! He didn’t tell me that part until he got down & recovered…
Side note was a LOT of bribery as they traveled… had to do it or risk losing your passport…
The Shining Path was in full swing when I was there. We got stopped a few times by military police on a cross-country trip. Let's just say they didn't smile much. They were curious about an American being there, and especially my camera. I sort of got the impression they had never seen a nice 35mm Minolta before. I got the impression they were kind of like hillbillies dressed in army uniforms who had never seen modern technology.
They only place my host family could get butter and other staples was at the Army headquarters in Lima. Some big-brass officer with a chest of medals would come out with a shopping bag of groceries and hand it to my host dad in exchange for money. At the time the military was in charge of the government.
Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina has a swinging bridge over a gorge. I found it okay. I didn't climb out onto the rocks in the gusty rain, though. Only Thor did.
I spent the summer of 1976 in Mabel, just west of Boone, and hiked all over that area. Grandfather Mountain was just getting going as a retirement/tourist destination. You could buy a whole mountain top back then for about $5000. Not anymore.
No, not anymore. I spent the summer of 1976 living at NAS Corpus Christi. It was a very busy time with the Bicentennial celebrations: lots of air shows and parades and stuff.
Yeah, me too. I used to go up fire escapes on 40 story buildings, tightrope walk roofing systems, 40' ladders didn't phase me...but now, it's wobble knees and butterfly stomach.
I won at Wingspan last night. The young men were surprised. It's nice for them to be surprised sometimes, especially Thor.
Teengirl and I are going up to Drama Queen's this morning to cook meals for a family with a medical crisis. Long-time friends, Epic's godparents: the dad fell off a ladder a week ago and is in the hospital in very serious condition. DQ renewed her friendship with the daughter when they both whoops got married and had babies last year.
We'll wait for it to get light and then for school traffic to clear out.
How long does it take to complete a typical Wingspan game? We have it and have played once - my wife loves games but thought it was too complicated. I kinda liked it.
A 6' fall to concrete can easily kill a person, and it's guaranteed to bust one up badly. A 10' fall...whoa...that's tragic. I was on a job when a guy went down from 16'...I'll stop now...
I'll have to look it up. Always looking up games to play. I just purchased more during black Friday deals 'cause I have folks playing games the first Monday of each month, up to 14, on 2 tables.
Very much food was cooked and delivered. DQ still has desserts to make, but she can handle that in the next couple of days. The news is not much change for our friend, except his fever was down some from yesterday, which is good.
Time for a shower.
Hi all. Got problems solved at computer store. Old desktop still working for time being but I will assume it could conk out at any time. Once I get through the present crunch, will install new laptop I bought today. It's a Dell again, but their hardware warranty will be serviced by the store, plus I bought the store's tech support, much of which can be done remotely. I like Microcenter's attitude much better than Dell's.
Now to catch up on the stuff I meant to be doing before computer went unresponsive over weekend. It is really disconcerting to suddenly have access to files, etc. cut off. Missed a Zoom too. Tablet kept me in touch with world via e-mail and rudimentary web use, but I feel much more normal now.
The display on my son's 3 month old MSI gaming laptop went wonky last week. Good that it was under warranty but the said it would be 2 -3 weeks to fix it. He is holding out impressively well, given that his friends are scattered and that is how they hang out.
What I want to see is a debate between two LLMs about the merits - or lack thereof - of this whole AI business.
Personally, I think a tag team match-up with a couple of dudes named Claude and Jasper going against Llama 3 and Grok would be fun.
And if they can't settle things peacefully in a gentemanly algorithmic way, they could get real about it and be wired up to a set of these guys and settle the matter once and for all in a steel cage match...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxH9by9hGCU
Maybe even on the White House lawn. Whaddaya' think, Dana White?
Just spray paint a few tats on 'em and they'd be good to go.
Great!! an upgraded https://battlebots.com/ - yes?
BTW, Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" was one of the first scifi I read in middle school & fell in love w/ scifi... haven't stopped. I don't like the space war types, more the sociological, etc...
56 comments already after I listened/read the podcast... now I want to read the comments...
but, my question: can AI respond like Pavlov's dog?
Ha! Interesting question. Not sure how it could be answered. I’d think both. Yes, but the goals for an LLM have to be set by a human operator. Negative feedback should cause it to change its approach. No, because an LLM can’t actually experience the real world in a way that is similar or recognizable to any living organism.
…
The above may consist mainly of brain pharts…
RE: Not sure how it could be answered?!
Silly boy. Here's how...
COPILOT: Can AI respond like Pavlov's dog?
Yes, AI can respond like Pavlov's dog by utilizing classical conditioning. This involves associating a neutral stimulus (like a bell) with a conditioned stimulus (like food) to elicit a response (salivation).
Reinforcement Learning: AI systems can learn from feedback, similar to Pavlov's dog, where they receive rewards for correct responses, leading to improved behavior over time.
Neural Networks: Researchers have developed systems that mimic Pavlovian conditioning using neural networks, allowing them to learn associations between stimuli.
Optical Processing: New technologies, such as photonics-based neural networks, can implement Pavlovian associative learning on optical chips, enhancing AI's ability to learn and adapt.
These advancements demonstrate that AI can effectively replicate Pavlov's dog's conditioning process, showcasing the potential of AI in learning and behavior modification.
5 Sources
Yes, in fact as I wrote below, Sutton believes the right architecture is where "agents learn through a constant stream of experience and feedback (rewards) from their environment."
Woof! Give that dog a bone!!
Speaking of experiential; I have an honors student that I am working with. Because of a work limit requirement, instead of having him code data, and load some analysis, we did one together. I use Excel to code data, but I use keyboard shortcuts. I was showing him how to do stuff, and my hands were flying. He sat back impressed. He tried to do some, and struggled. But we got it done. For each firm we look up 250 trading days of ending stock price data. We then re-format it, and do the same for the dates for each trading day. The format is 24.11.2025 (Excel doesn't have a default for that, we create a custom one for it, then copy and paste it). I then use "concatenate" to create each line. It's not hard, you just create the first one and then paste it down.
He asked what outcome I wanted (it could go up or down), and I told him I didn't have a dog in that hunt. I was just curious what it would be. He looked at me funny. "Oh, I thought you researched this because it mattered to you". "Not really, I just like finding the answers to questions". He smiled "I just outed myself as a nerd, didn't I". "We guessed"....He confided later his other honors faculty are advocates of whatever they research, so hearing some of us do it for fun surprised him...
Working with Excel for years, it was annoying but funny when I would no longer be able to find menu navigation to features I needed as MS changed the user interface, but my keyboard shortcuts still worked.
Thanks for the podcast. The topic is interesting. There was a similar WSJ article recently about Yann LeCun's (at Meta) belief LLMs are a dead end.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/yann-lecun-ai-meta-0058b13c?st=8LDy1S&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Asking Gemini if Sutton and LeCun generally agree:
While they agree on the problems, their preferred solutions diverge slightly:
Sutton's Solution: Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Experience: Sutton's work heavily emphasizes the power of general-purpose learning methods, specifically reinforcement learning, where agents learn through a constant stream of experience and feedback (rewards) from their environment. He believes "the bitter lesson" dictates that general learning methods will eventually win over engineered architectures.
LeCun's Solution: Innate Structure and Joint Embedding Predictive Architectures (JEPA): LeCun believes some "innate" structure or "hard-wiring" is necessary in AI architectures to facilitate efficient self-supervised learning and build world models. He proposes architectures like the Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (JEPA), which aims to learn hierarchical representations of the world that allow the system to predict what will happen next (as a consequence of its actions).
In essence, Sutton favors a purely experience-driven, minimal-prior-knowledge approach while LeCun advocates for architectural innovation and innate constraints to guide the learning process more efficiently. However, both are aligned in their strong skepticism that simply scaling up current LLMs will result in human-level general intelligence.
G'morning all! The weather here is the same as with Phil H. For some reason that reminds me of an old Jimmy Buffet tune: "The weather is here; wish you were beautiful". Of course I never use that line around Katie.....
Katie thinks I am done mulching leaves, but a neighbors tree still needs to let go of some leaves, as does one of ours. The burning bushes do as well. Plus, the hill. I'm not comfortable driving the ZTR on the hill so I push mow it, and I have some leaves there to get yet. But they will wait as we get ready for hosting Thanksgiving on Sunday. There is a yellow notepad on counter with "to do" items listed. Whenever we think of one we are to write it down. Katie informed me the yard is good to go for company.
She wants me to make noodles early this week, my first batch of deviled eggs Wednesday evening, the 2nd Saturday evening. "𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓖𝓪𝓶𝓮" is Saturday, so 3 hours we won't be working then (perhaps laundry). I'm not allowed to run the leaf blowers nor the mower during that time.
A nephew declined to come because we didn't offer to board his puppy in our basement for him. Officially, it's because he has to work the next day, although the lunch is at 1pm, he'd be home by 6pm easily. He wanted us to have it Saturday, but my oldest and his wife are driving all day Saturday, and it'd have to be an evening meal....
it's 72 now, w/ an expected high of 72, a few showers off & on.
Just purchased hardback copies (I rarely get hardback but for obvious reasons, this had to be) of The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien, for myself & each son & their families.
Tonight going to friends to play Skip-Bo; there will be 4 couples.
next door neighbor passed away so neighborhood is on a food-tree for the wife & her 2 daughters, their husbands. Our turn is tomorrow.
Ohio State an 11 point favorite. I'm not a gambler, but I'd bet OSU gonna deliver a butt-kicking.
Normally I agree with you but after last year when they were a 20 point favorite and lost 13-10.
My youngest was so annoyed he called the HS field goal kicker (a friend of his) to meet him at the football field. There they both kicked 40, 45, and 50 yard field goals just to show anyone can do it (My son played soccer in HS, not football). He went 13 of 15, his friend did the same, but also drilled 3 of 5 from 55 and 2 of 5 from 60.
Ha that's funny. And a lot of college teams could use kickers that good. Alas, I'm sorry to remind you that my son went to UMich and I'll be on the other side for this game :-)
I'm a Texas Longhorn graduate and facing the same drama when they play the Texas Aggies on Friday. Could be ugly, or a miracle. College sports is fun - I guess.
I sent Cynthia a story for Saturday about "The Game". It's really about my best friend Christy, a well behaved girl (and die hard buckeye fan) who only swore when discussing her illness (fatal) or That Team Up North.
Something to look forward to
Thanks for this perspective on AI. AI is about words, life is about the physical engagement that leads to the words, not just the words. Words and the ability to use them well are not a reliable indicator of intelligence.
I think it's safe to say that AI can not handle the experiences of heights and glass bridges described below. No doubt theoretically possible in the future, but the necessary data input is not just sitting around waiting to be sucked into a processor to train the model.
R.I.P. Jimmy Cliff, who died at 81 in Jamaica this morning. Cliff broke reggae out of Jamaica and presented it to the world.
https://youtu.be/FHAbj1pIT4g?si=DWox6M-xYfq2Fgof
The harder they fall.
RIP Jimmy
From JohnM at the mothership:
Worth Your Time II: 'Trump Has Put the Military in an Impossible Situation' -- David French
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/opinion/trump-illegal-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k8.S0cU.EpHx7ySKt53X&smid=url-share
Thanks John M. I read that. More depressing stuff.
Indeed. But a well written article, drawing n French’s experience as a JAG officer deployed to Iraq.
You got that right. It is so well written. French is one of the few columnists that I consistently enjoy reading, even when it's depressing. He's good. And, he's walked the walk. That gets my respect.
David French is hit 'n miss for me. I hated his work on why we should send arms and not troops to Ukraine, back in 2022. I felt it was too little too late back then, and that RatPutin would bomb civilians.....His approach was we would weaken the Russian military without having to risk losing our own soldiers. And he is right, if you can accept large numbers of civilian casualties. I disagreed with him then, but found so many people thought that meant I was either a warhawk or a Russian puppet.
Now, people are coming around to the idea that Russia will get some land in Ukraine for its troubles, whether they like it or not.
David French is I agree, hit or miss. He's slowly coming around to the necessary epiphany that I have said for years... He played a role in making Trump and MAGA.
By being a win at all cost conservative vs liberals
By making the soil and fertilizer for MAGA
By silence, approving of hate speech against Liberals, Dems, gays and women. ie see his and the NR silence on Limbaugh, Beck, Savage etc al.
David Brooks had some oh!! I was silently building this current state a while back.
Yeah, I know. I don't like some of his stuff, and often disagree with him, but I can't help liking him. He's one of the only columnists that's actually DONE something.
If we are looking for a thoughtful guy that relentlessly holds "his side" to a higher standard, he's as good as it gets. Still I can't help but think his NYT gig as shaded his writings. How could it not. The only conservative at NYT that has freedom to say what he thinks is Bret Stephens. We need what French provides, but I really do appreciate Sarah Isgur pushing back when French's enthusiasm for attacking his own fails to acknowledge fundamental problems elsewhere.
He's got a family, he's got some troubles, and it's easy to see how a gig at the NYT is a godsend. Per Sarah...I can't stand her, even when she says something right.
She would never get any public role on her own merits. A very shallow naive person. Look up her hubby. One the the greatest (conservative) successful Supreme Court litigators. Then again hubby Scott is preaching to the choir at SCOTUS
It would not surprise if the strident voice triggers other reasons to dislike her.
Good morning. 29 degrees this morning, with a high maybe reaching 50, and cloudy. It’s Monday here too. All day.
The mothership is reporting on proposals to ban members of Congress, already banned from insider trading (supposedly) from owning individual stocks. The FP is reporting on immigration :the issue of our age”. I’m reading FP much less frequently these says, generally not the Front Page, maybe some individual articles.
We have 29 locally, too. But the official temp at the ridgetop where the NOAA weather station is—the county airport—, there will be no frost. We’ve got one of the heaviest frosts so far this season.
Local ground contours make for a big difference in temperatures within short geographic distances—five to ten degrees is not atypical. This is why I can rant so voluminously about the idiocy of “global climate change” based on extrapolated past temperatures that make a big deal out of tenths of a degree Fahrenheit. That’s a level of accuracy few thermometers were even capable of registering till relatively recently. Harrumph!
Today is the first day when we can claim to have our apartment renovation all the way done...just a little touch up paint and odds and ends. I got all my paintings mounted and hung. Building stuff in China is an education.
We were able to get all sorts of stuff that I could never afford in the US because it's all made here. We went all in on fancy toilets. The heated seat(s) go up when you walk into the bathroom, it's got those fancy bidet sprayers, and when you stand up they flush automatically. Here, they cost about the same as a cheap Glacier Bay job at Home Depot. Wife went nuts on the TV...75". I don't watch TV, but it's fascinating to have this giant screen on the wall. I got NFL+ and was able to cast the games onto the big screen.
And furniture... All new stuff from Foshan, Guangdong. Did I write anything in here about Foshan, the furniture capital of the world? If I didn't, I should.
Our new range has two 20,000 btu burners for the wok. As a yardstick, the average American gas range big burner is about 9000 btu. Our new one CRANKS.
And doors. I've put together the beginnings of a little essay about doors (gates) in China. If there's any interest, I'll buff it out. I might even put it up in Substack Central and see if I get anyone following me.
What are the standards for outlet current and voltage there? In Europe, you get 240 out of the normal wall outlet. Your run-of-the-mill, plug-in water kettle gets to a boil much, much faster than stateside.
Every outlet is a duplex, one 1-110 and 1-240. That we don't have that standard in the US is one of my multiple beefs with idiotic American building standards. I hit the button on our 2 liter "water cooker" and it's boiling in about 2 minutes.
Yes, we're very interested in your essay on doors. You can write an essay on furniture, too. If we don't get other content, I'll have to write about spiders and snakes and the tiresome train wreck of my church.
OK.
THOUSAND WORDS: Beached buoy, beached seals, and that unnerving glass-bottom bridge: https://www.theatlantic.com/photography/2025/11/photos-of-the-week/684998/?gift=GJ8BttuoXrtu1ZXQn6tAiROZqXkmv_2NQlygnjk1YEg&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
That bridge - not just a glass bottom but inclines and declines and loops -- !
I like the penguin with the traffic cone on his head reading the paper on the Duke of Wellington's head.
This is a wonderful gift you give us, Wilhelm. Thank you.
You're most welcome. I think of it kinda like fireworks -- photographic "Ooohs" and "Ahhhs."
Exactly, and such a pleasant interlude from the morass.
I like the sunrise over Tynemouth and the classic cars in the garage in Cuba.
It would be interesting to know some backstory on that: for example, why isn't "State worker Arnaldo Alvarez" wearing a mask while he fumigates what is probably, based on its cleanliness and the classic cars, a garage for important government apparatchiki.
We can't even get American tradespeople to wear masks. In developing countries, mask use is nonexistent. Today, the worker touching up our flooring was using extreme VOC stuff and only wearing a basic N95 dust mask. I told him to get a G100 charcoal type, but I doubt he will.
I hear it’s the same with U.S. coal miners, too. They won’t wear the respirators because they’re too inhibiting and burdensome on the job. They don’t keep hearing protection on enough, either.
Of course, younger workers are given to believing their invincibility. When the older worker role models reject the PPE, it’s a lost battle before the first shot is fired…
But Cuba is a Workers Paradise, so they should Care!
Well, so is China. Caring isn't part of the operation. I've got a few photos showing what the workers paradise looks like for the migrant workers.
Yes, but he's a State worker! Surely the Cuban government takes care of State workers!
China does take care of its state workers, but in the manner I approve of, i.e., they do their job and receive a basic living wage and a couple benefits. It's a coveted job; workers trade big salaries for steady employment. There's no unions, period, and the idea of a public employee's union is laughable.
The simplicity of the composition makes the dogs under a buoy on the beach in Argentina the favorite this time. Thanks for sharing!
You're most welcome.
Cool. I've not been on that particular bridge, but I've been on a couple of other glass bottom bridges over 1000' deep gorges. It's so unreal feeling, my legs literally buckled. To keep going, I had to laser focus on the other side and not look at anything other than the pylons at the end.
In the background in that photo, can you see the walkway on the cliff face? I've been on several of those, and they are terrifying.
Cool photos, especially that big white "thinker guy" thing in Latvia.
I haven't been on that one either, but have on others. I don't like heights, but I keep telling myself "Trust" 'cause I want to experience it to the fullest.
Now, walking on a skinny cliff, nope, not for me. Or driving on some narrow switch-backs w/ steep inclines, nope.
When I was an exchange student in Peru in '73, my host family drove us into the Andes to a vacation chalet. I was terrified. Switchbacks, muddy one lane track, blind hairpin curves. Trucks & buses with chicken coops strapped on the roof coming down with no regard for opposing traffic. I felt sure I was going to end up a couple thousand feet straight down. Nobody else batted an eyelash.
I recently saw a headline online about a bus or truck collision in the Andes. Multiple deaths, I believe. I would have thought that was an hourly, or at least a daily occurrence.
One of my son‘s friends after graduating from college probably around 2006 joined AmeriCorp, spent time in South America. after he finished that my son joined him in Peru. They went hiking up Machu Picchu. The elevation is amazing. My son somehow got food poisoning but wouldn’t give up!!! He didn’t tell me that part until he got down & recovered…
Side note was a LOT of bribery as they traveled… had to do it or risk losing your passport…
The Shining Path was in full swing when I was there. We got stopped a few times by military police on a cross-country trip. Let's just say they didn't smile much. They were curious about an American being there, and especially my camera. I sort of got the impression they had never seen a nice 35mm Minolta before. I got the impression they were kind of like hillbillies dressed in army uniforms who had never seen modern technology.
They only place my host family could get butter and other staples was at the Army headquarters in Lima. Some big-brass officer with a chest of medals would come out with a shopping bag of groceries and hand it to my host dad in exchange for money. At the time the military was in charge of the government.
Can't.
Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina has a swinging bridge over a gorge. I found it okay. I didn't climb out onto the rocks in the gusty rain, though. Only Thor did.
I spent the summer of 1976 in Mabel, just west of Boone, and hiked all over that area. Grandfather Mountain was just getting going as a retirement/tourist destination. You could buy a whole mountain top back then for about $5000. Not anymore.
No, not anymore. I spent the summer of 1976 living at NAS Corpus Christi. It was a very busy time with the Bicentennial celebrations: lots of air shows and parades and stuff.
I’d be terrified. The older I get, the more susceptible I am to vertigo that I used to be.
Yeah, me too. I used to go up fire escapes on 40 story buildings, tightrope walk roofing systems, 40' ladders didn't phase me...but now, it's wobble knees and butterfly stomach.
Good morning. It's Monday here, unnngh.
I won at Wingspan last night. The young men were surprised. It's nice for them to be surprised sometimes, especially Thor.
Teengirl and I are going up to Drama Queen's this morning to cook meals for a family with a medical crisis. Long-time friends, Epic's godparents: the dad fell off a ladder a week ago and is in the hospital in very serious condition. DQ renewed her friendship with the daughter when they both whoops got married and had babies last year.
We'll wait for it to get light and then for school traffic to clear out.
How long does it take to complete a typical Wingspan game? We have it and have played once - my wife loves games but thought it was too complicated. I kinda liked it.
About an hour to an hour-fifteen. And that's with a break for Crumble.
Congratulations on the win!
Congrats on the victory.
Hope the long-time friend recovers from his fall! Must have been from a great height to cause such serious injury.
10 feet, according to reports. Multiple broken ribs, both lungs punctured, head injury. He has pneumonia now, so things are really bad.
🙏
A 6' fall to concrete can easily kill a person, and it's guaranteed to bust one up badly. A 10' fall...whoa...that's tragic. I was on a job when a guy went down from 16'...I'll stop now...
Yuck! Much worse than Ladder Lady, who “only” broke a rib and part of her pelvis. She’s fine now.
Good t know she is healing well. That can never be fun.
I'm glad to know she's fine now.
Oh dear. Prayers.
Thank you.
I had to look up Wingspan. I don't think I want to lay an egg.
I'll have to look it up. Always looking up games to play. I just purchased more during black Friday deals 'cause I have folks playing games the first Monday of each month, up to 14, on 2 tables.
Laying eggs is good: each egg counts a point, plus you can trade them for other stuff.
Like bacon? Bagels?
:-)
Cards, food ...
Me too. It looks like a fun game.