You can save a few birds

Many of us have had a bird smack into a window in our homes and seen the bird stunned on our decks or the ground. If it’s very cold out, the bird may die of hypothermia in only a short time. I’ve constructed “bird rescue boxes and given them away to friends. Mine are insulated and made of wood that’s heavy enough that the wind won’t blow them around. You can easily make one that works almost as good from a shoe box, it’s just the right size for songbirds. The box helps to keep them warm and allows them to recover their senses free of the urge to fly off before they are recovered. Oh, we also have strips and dots on our windows (and the fixed windows are tilted out at the top to reduce the amount of reflected sky a bird sees). The population of our eastern songbirds has fallen significantly in the last few years. Every little bit helps.

Bump

“Bump”, said the 10-year-old boy as the ’55 Chevy station wagon rolled down the highway at 55 miles per hour. The car went “bump” a half second later. “Bump” said the boy as another dark patch appeared on the highway on the road to the beach where everything was wonderful. The car went “bump” and the trailer went “bump” a half second later. "bump bump" “Bump” said the 10-year-old boy when he could see from the backseat that there was another black patch on the pavement just ahead, because it was obvious. “Bump bump” said the car and trailer a half second later. “Bump” said the 10-year-old boy because he could see that every bump on the highway jerked another drop of black oil off of the bottom of the thousands of trucks and cars that drove this highway. Each drop a black stain on the pavement. He stopped saying; “bump” because no one was noticing.

“Bump” said the 11-year-old boy the next year as his friends’ dad and four children, one friend each, rode down the highway to the beach where everything was wonderful. A bump lifted the car and half second later “Bump”, said the boy to himself. The same group drove on the same highway to the same beach where he would not see a single black person. “Bump” said the boy one or two more times when he saw the black spots. Didn’t anyone else see? “Bump” said the 12-year-old boy to himself as his sixth-grade class learned about the Civil War from the perspective of Jim Crow America; and this was the state of Maryland, not Mississippi. “Bump” he said to himself as his class “celebrated” the Centennial of the Civil War and over one half of his classmates chose the South in a mock debate. Why say anything aloud if people can’t even hear it? “Bump” said the 16-year-old boy as the first black students were admitted to his high school; two girls and one boy. “Bump, Bump, Bump!” said the boy to himself as he realized that those three students were all high achievers (even though the white students didn’t seem to notice and the jocks made a "pet" of Vernon). And certainly the faculty and principal never said anything. Maybe they couldn’t see anything. Maybe they couldn’t say anything in a high school just 10 miles west of Cecil County, cradle of the Maryland KKK. Maybe they said it to themselves because they knew that no one was listening. Or maybe some of them were racist. “Bump”, said the 20 something man as he attended college where there were black athletes but very few black students. “Bump! Bump!” said the 38-year-old man when he attended his high school reunion and the small statured black man and his six foot tall blond wife attended. He and Vernon shared memories of high school life. “Bump”, said the 78-year-old man as he remembered the black spots on the road to the beach when he was ten because he could see that every road bump caused oil to spot the road where everyone could see it and ignore it. “Bump”.

Positive feedback? The real danger of Artificial "Intelligence"?

In the beginning of searchable data bases like Wikipedia and Google the problem was how to enter all that information. The fear was that we’d never get that huge backlog of information all loaded in and an “ignorant” incomplete library would lead to bias or manipulation. Now, these systems have evolved into AI Large Language Databases. As millions of people have queried the data bases, the questions and the answers have become part of the data that the models have learned to search, reword, and reply to. The AI Large Language Databases are now copying words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and whole explanations of concepts. The bases are using computer speed to generate these things based on how often they are found.... IN THE DATA BASE! They are now quoting themselves, and they are indefatigable enterers of data. They are using queries by billions of human questioners to answer things they have "seen" in the data base that they are rapidly becoming the majority contributor to. They are quoting their quotes of the quotes of themselves. Look up "positive feed-back" and see what you find.... but the AI Large Language Databases may have already distorted the answer by running it through their tautological echo chamber of feed-back. Gee, what would happen if you asked it whether or not it is quoting itself?

Dismissive Journalistic Report of near-earth objects

So, the “tour bus sized” asteroid that zipped by earth on September 24, 2020 and missed us by 13,000 miles was dismissed in the paper as no big deal. Let’s look at that little old rock. The kinetic energy of a moving object is defined as ½ mass times velocity squared (1/2M times V squared). If the bus was 50 feet by 8 by 8, it had a volume of about 100 cubic meters (100M cubed). The mass of rock is about 3,000 kilograms per cubic meter (3,000Kg/cubic meter) that’s 300,000 kilograms for our “bus rock”. The velocity of sun orbiting asteroids varies but 15 kilometers per second (15,000 meters per second) is a good guess (15,000 KM/SEC). The exact velocity of this object is known so this calculation can be corrected if necessary. Multiplying ½ M times V squared we get about 6.7 X 10 to the 13th power (lottsa zeros) joules of energy. The bomb that the USA dropped on Hiroshima, Japan contained about 6.3 X 10 to the 13th joules. So, had this little rock hit Earth, it would be about the same as that atomic bomb”. Where it hits is kind of important. One smallish Abomb isn’t a big worry, but imagine if it had hit North Korea; what do you think wing nut extraordinaire, Kim Jung Un would have done?

Cutting Entitlements and defining the words you use

Two words need to be redefined in the minds of the American people; liberal and entitle (entitlement). From the dictionary: Liberal: 1) One who advocates greater FREEDOM of thought or action. One who has these principals. 2) Not narrow or bigoted; broad minded. 3) Free to give or bestow, generous. Entitle: To justly qualify a person or a claim; to give a right (as in; his labor ENTITLES him to his wages). So: Entitlement: That which is due to legitimate claimants of their just rewards. For the last 40 years republicans have argued that I should be able to keep my money and invest it in ways far better than the Social Security System (ala Ayn Rand). They, the republicans, have never delivered a policy based on this philosophy, even when they were in complete control of the White House, the Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court as they are now. Now, they tell me that my Social Security “entitlement” isn’t mine. But the money that I have been forced to invest in the general fund of the USA (my taxes, the money THEY spend every penny of on their deficit causing short term pork-barrel pet projects), is theirs to give to billionaires in a cut to their taxes. I’m a “moocher” and don’t deserve my SS, or government services like good weather reporting by NOAA or important medical research. Those “entitlement expenditures” need to be trimmed. The best way to do that is to allow the richest man in the world decide how tax dollars are distributed. SO Sorry! He doesn’t have diabetes, He doesn't shop for food; his life is nothing like any other human being in America. I can’t do much about him stealing my tax dollars, but Social Secruity is my money. It’s even double money, matching funds from my employer (those private business guys that the republicans hold up just an inch below the statue of Ronald Reagan [the God]). It’s my money. I’m entitled to it, and if that’s a bad thing, then I’m a liberal and I’ll own that too.

If you are bothered by DMs of social media

I suggest that you respond by asking this question: "Why do fruit flies like bananas but time flies like the wind?" This is a Tunning Test question, designed to separate humans from AI. A human being might try to answer the question in a fashion that makes some sense to you... maybe like: "WFT? or, Why would you ask that? or What do you mean?" A robot or AI will have no clue what to respond and you get to identify it as something you needn't waste your time on. You're welcome.

The Parable of the Peruvian Condor Killers

Once apon a time, there were Peruvian farmers, sheep and lama husbaners, who were losing baby animals to predation by condors. They got together are hired a man to kill the condors, he was paid very well because sheep and lamas are valuable. There were a lot of farmers and a lot of condors and soon, there were a lot of condor killers. They had families and they spent the money they earned in the local economy and became a large part of the community. After a while they killed all the local condors and had to travel long distances to find more to kill; they even argued for extra pay to buy boats to pay for the increase in cost of doing “business”. The people didn’t want to pay for killing condors way far away but the condor killers said, “You can’t take our jobs away!” The condor killers got lobbyists and sent them to the government… they were also supported by the buggy-whip manufacturers and the incandescent lightbulb lobby…. Coming soon to the USA, sparkplug companies, automobile radiator companies, gas tank makers, antifreeze bottlers, and millions of people who make things needed for a gas powered internal combustion engine. Their jobs are going away… we’re not taking them, they just won’t be needed any more. Change is hard, there are always winners and losers. The losers never go quietly. Very often we continue to do things because we always did them “that way”. Now about those insurance companies and the middlemen in our for-profit health, liability, and property damage system… I guess we can’t take their jobs away… because congress. Oh, and how many lawyers can the economy support? Certainly not 100% of us.