Up fairly early after landing in the eastern time zone late last night. Groggy, but not feeling too bad, considering. Happy to be a good jet lagger.

Tarrant County, Texas, looks like ground zero for Rethuglican voter suppression schemes in 2026. Heather Cox Richardson sums it up nicely:

Last night, in Tarrant County, Texas, county commissioners tried an even cruder way of rigging the election. As Cecelia Lenzen of the Texas Tribunereported, they voted 3–2 along party lines to get rid of 92 of the polling sites the county had in 2022 before the midterm election. In 2022 there were 316 election sites; the Republican commissioners cut that number to 224. They also cut three sites for early voting, from 50 to 47. Republicans voted for the cuts; Democrats voted against them.

“It’s not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais,” said Democrat Alisa Simmons. Throughout the eight-hour meeting about the cuts, speakers from the audience called on the commissioners to increase, rather than decrease, the number of voting sites for the more than 1.3 million people registered to vote in Tarrant County.

Those 1.3 million people are more than live in Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, or Montana, and about the same number of people who live in Maine or New Hampshire.

She fails to mention that Tarrant County, while traditionally conservative, is trending toward Democrat. The county, centered on Ft Worth, narrowly voted for Biden in 2024. And more alarming to Repubs, in early 2026 a high-profile special election in Texas Senate District 9 saw Democrat Taylor Rehmet flip the historically red seat, drawing significant state and national attention to the shifting political dynamics in the region. So the state legislature says OK, if you’re going to elect Dems, we’re going to make it really fucking hard for you to get out and vote by closing 30% of your voting places. Let me guess where those polling places are? In the neighborhoods that went Dem in those elections, almost certainly (no proof, I haven’t seen or done the analysis, but it would make sense).

But there’s a good workaround for this, if Texans will band together just a little. Take some of the D party money normally used for ads and hire some nice high-end buses to travel those neighborhoods during the day and take the disenfranchised voters to a polling place. Advertise the pickup and drop off schedules. Give them AC and a bottle of water. Take them to vote and then take them home, have a little party along the way. I checked; it’s legal. Texans could turn this evil insult into a great opportunity for celebrating the election and giving voters a chance to socialize. I like this idea so much I’m going to write it up and send it to the Texas Dem organization. I hope they adopt it.

One last unrelated thought. I’m really fucking disappointed in Apple and Google for immediately renaming Lake Ontario in their map software, bending over for Convict Donny. There was no legal requirement to do so – they’re just showing obedience to the wannabe king. Time to download Mapquest.

I’ve read a lot of Ed Ziron’s anti-AI essays, and found his arguments interesting. Maybe not compelling, but interesting. I had noticed that he seems angrier than a good technology analyst should be, but that didn’t invalidate some of the points he made. But after reading this, I won’t waste time on Zitron any more. His posts/essays tend to be looooong, and as it turns out they’re not accurate. I’ve seen him on TV quite a bit lately, and his short-term fame is/was probably the entire goal. He’s monetized his anger and found an audience, now an audience minus one.

Today is a travel day, taking my favorite route east – SAN to DEN, then DEN to SDF. Weather looks fine, so it should be an easy travel day. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about my post-work life and travel schedule. I tend to focus on the downsides of a dual-home life, a long list. Constant exposure to viruses during travel. No good way to have a dog, with life in two places 2000 miles apart. The rather extreme expense of maintaining two residences and commuting between them. Some non-trivial issues with healthcare and health insurance across two very different states. No way to have a weekly get-together with golf buddies, a book club, or pretty much any regular social activity, as I’m gone half the time. The occasional trip from hell, which can really wear you down physically and mentally.

But there are some pluses. I don’t get stuck in a rut as much as I might, because every 2-3 weeks I reset by changing home bases. Then there’s the core reason for the travel, being close to family in KY – that outweighs pretty much every other factor. Being a material part of the grandsons’ life is a very high priority for me. The joy I get in just being somewhere with rain and dense greenery. The time for thinking/reflection while flying. The fact that getting up and going somewhere every 2-3 weeks keeps me active, gives me another good reason to stay in good shape, good health.

I mention all this because I’ve come to enjoy the travel days, weirdly. It’s not reasonable to like spending a bunch of money to shuffle through TSA security, wedge myself into a packed Southwest flight, and pay stupid prices for bad airport food. But I do enjoy these days, for the most part. I guess you can get used to anything. But I’ll still buy the occasional lottery ticket in hope of being able to fly private and take my still-aspirational dog everywhere.

The fall elections are looking to be a shitshow of grift, graft, and corruption. ICE is gonna show up a key swing state polling places to intimidate anyone nonwhite or with a non-European name. Unlimited PAC money is gonna lie to and confuse voters with intentional misdirection across all media. Democrats will continue to divide themselves across the socialist to moderate spectrum, helping conservative candidates win where they shouldn’t. And now the US Postal Service has been compromised, and is NOT on our side. A whistleblower from the USPS has published a 20-page memo detailing how Convict Donny’s mail-in ballot restriction system is being implemented, in spite of court orders. Rules and laws are for the little people, amiright?

Here’s the advice for everyone voting this fall, especially those voting in close races where your vote will certainly matter:

Vote early and in person if at all possible. 

If intending to vote by mail (and you actually receive a ballot), alternatives to using USPS for return are to use drop boxes (if available in your state), to hand-deliver your ballot to the county Board of Elections, or to hand-deliver to early voting locations (if allowed). The USPS can no longer be trusted as a ballot delivery service, according to a veteran election official.

If I get a mail ballot, I’ll drop it off at the SD County registration offices, NOT at a post office. Those days are over. It was good while it lasted, but just as Convict Donny and his cronies have captured and compromised the DOJ, the DoD, DHS, the Park Service, the Dept of Education, the CDC, the FDA, the IRS, the Border Patrol, SCOTUS, CBS, the Census Bureau, the US Treasury, the State Dept, and Congress, they’ve infiltrated and compromised the USPS. It’s gonna take a generation or two to root out all the MAGA loyalists in these institutions, if we ever do.

Kinda feels like the fate of the country depends on the fall elections. If we (dems, liberals, people with empathy, non-MAGAs) can take control of the House and Senate, there’s a chance that we can stop and reverse the rapid destruction of American democracy. A chance. But if we don’t, Convict Donny will continue his insane wrecking-ball behavior for another two years, unchecked by anything. I don’t think we survive that scenario.

So get out there and vote early, in person, and often!

Rough day today – terrible night’s sleep, so for the first 4-5 hours after getting out of bed felt like I’d been poisoned. Physically and mentally decrepit – that’s what sleep deprivation does to you. Now mid-afternoon, still don’t feel normal but grinding through what’s left of the day. I think I’m gonna double down on the rest of the day and get in some exercise that I *definitely* don’t feel like doing.

My weather luck isn’t any better. Today Socal and Louisville are at exactly the same temperature (around 91), with Socal temps heading down and Louisville temps heading up. So by the time I get to Louisville they’ll be back in a mid-90s pattern and Socal will be in the mid-80s. Figures. But when I get there it’ll be the usual schedule, weather be damned. Lots of morning golf, time with the boys in the afternoon/evening, some family visits, and a couple of small home improvement projects. With any luck I’ll get to see a couple of good thunderstorms.

While feeling crummy today, I found an Africa photo safari I would love to do in ’27. The problem is that it’s hideously expensive – while I’m generally in favor of spending money to enjoy life, this thing is a new level. Plus if we decided to go, I’d spend another chunk of change on new camera gear. We’ll see. But every year I wait, going somewhere like Africa gets a little tougher, a little more likely to be disrupted by health.

Democrat James Clyburn has said today that he would support expanding SCOTUS to a baker’s dozen. Good for him – I’m all for that. If/when a decent President is elected, pull a quadruple McConnell move on MAGA. What’s good for the goose…

Speaking of McConnell, where the fuck is that guy?

One last political note – my favorite Pres candidate, Mark Kelly, with the quote of the day. “…Our problem isn’t lethality, you know. Our problem is, sometimes we put idiots in charge of things and they make big mistakes and will take this country to war for no good reason. And it’s always guys like, you know, certainly Donald Trump who avoided military service.” Idiots in charge…that complete sums up Convict Donny’s ignominious reign.

Another lazy indoor day – today should be the last day of Socal’s long, extended heat wave. It’s been mid-90s or higher every day for the last 10 days. Ugh. Hard to get too excited about anything after 10 days inside. I’d never make it in a submarine.

During all the indoor time, I’ve done a lot of reading – or tried to. I’ve developed a habit of buying cheap digital books advertised on Bookbub. Some of them are worth reading, but many of them not. Earlier this week I had a run of 4-5 in a row that I just couldn’t finish reading. it’s hard for me to give up on a book, but as the years go by its gotten easier. My remaining time is more valuable. So I’m going to switch tactics and only acquire books from authors I know and love, with few exceptions.

Even that can backfire. I read a book yesterday by Peter Clines, The Fold, and the first half of the book was excellent. Amazing; couldn’t put it down. But the second half of the book was as if it had been written by someone else. The story veered away from pure science fiction into a chaotic Lovecraftian horror story, blood, monsters, and (weirdly) a little romance mixed in. I’d give the first half an A and the second half a C or D. Clines got a lot of great blurbs/reviews for this one, but for me only the first half worked.

As I consider going back and rewriting Lost Hope, my murder mystery on the Moon, I rediscovered this website where everything you ever wanted to know about the Moon and orbital mechanics lives. It’s a bit overwhelming.

Digby has a nice collection today of MAGA morons being interviewed. The lack of awareness, the hypocrisy, the utter stupidity is something to see. I wish there was a way to keep these mental midgets from voting, but nope. They “did their research” and left with completely false, dumb ideas about their Dear Leader. It’s depressing.

The Socal heat wave continues, unabated. Spent some time yesterday working outside in 100ish degrees, and it definitely had an effect. Had to come inside, cool off and hydrate much sooner than expected. You’d think I was old or something.

Today I’m working on a Wifi repeater for the outdoor LAN connecting all the security cams. I’ve bought a cheap Chinese solar-powered repeater (and I don’t know if it will work), and a WAVLINK that I know will work. I’ll install the solar/battery powered one first, and if it works I can install copies of it around the property. It’s strictly a repeater so I won’t have the mesh functions of the WAVLINK, but it’s half the price. If I were only installing one, I’d just go with the WAVLINK. But I probably need 3-4 of them to get a solid LAN around 5 acres, so it becomes a noticeable price difference.

Plus, the WAVLINK needs a standard power connection, 120VAC, and the Chinese version doesn’t. Much, much simpler installation. Running power to the edges of the property would be the hardest part of the whole project.

I was originally going to install each repeater on a pole that I secured into the ground (probably concrete), but I’ve come up with an easier idea (there’s a theme here). I’m using an outdoor-rated tripod, designed for water sprinklers. Heavy duty metal and with ground securing spikes on each leg, so it should be stable enough for the solar repeater. Haven’t quite figured out how to attach the solar repeater to the top of the tripod yet, but I’m buying on Amazon so I can take delivery, see in person if I can hack the connection, and if not just repack and return. If things go well I’ll have the first version of the LAN extenders out on the property by tonight, at worst tomorrow morning. If it works as expected, I’ll not only have better security cam coverage, but I may install a few wildlife cams too. We can watch the coyotes party at night.

Yesterday’s Dolly Parton news was sure sad, and man she went out fast. Apparently it was cancer, though I don’t think I’ve seen a case like hers – she was seemingly active and healthy just a week before she died. But going out fast…that’s a blessing. She had a remarkable life, a great person in all respects.

Short post, but I have to say something. The Supreme Court is a fucking joke. First they allowed Convict Donny to meddle with elections. Then they allowed him to continue building the Epstein Ballroom. Today they’ve decided it’s OK to restrict mail-in voting, because, you know, reasons.

If the Dems ever get control of Congress, they should force all of them to step down in disgrace. Prosecute them for corruption. Then either disband the court or pack it so full of liberals that it’ll take several generations of conservative fuckery to change it back.

I am *very* tired of these shitheels enabling King Don. Women’s rights, voting process, unitary executive, financial corruption…there’s nothing these slack-jawed toadies won’t approve for King Don. I am of course aiming this primarily at the six conservative MAGA justices, but still…they suck. I’m beyond disgusted.

So now we’re at war with Canada. An economic war, but a war nonetheless. Canada, for fuck’s sake – the nicest, most polite people on the planet. Now where will we flee if/when democracy falls in the US and we’re forced to live in a real-life Gilead?

This is just wrong. How anyone in the military can support Convict Donny is a mystery to me. Over and over, he demonstrates that he disrespects the military and their service. I hope the entire US Lincoln complement of sailors realize who’s to blame, and vote accordingly.

Between the NIMBY backlash against data center construction and the obviously unsustainable circular financing of AI model developers, I think the AI bubble will burst, soonish. Mid-2027 sounds about right. Definitely time to rethink your stock portfolio. The Guardian agrees with me – a day of financial reckoning is coming for the US. Once again, everything Trump touches dies.

Our little Socal town of Fallbrook is up in arms about a new electric transmission line proposed by my old employer, SDG&E. I would certainly prefer that SDG&E invest a few billion in battery storage to strengthen the grid, but they *do* love building transmission lines. The line is probably inevitable – CA utilities tend to get what they want.

Explain it to me like I’m ten years old – great advice for anyone who wants to be sure they understand a subject. If you can’t explain it simply, you probably don’t understand it.

My side project this week is fixing/strengthening the CA property’s outdoor video security system. I’m updating all the outdoor cameras and adding a new Wifi router/extender, the WAVLINK AX-1800. Some good tech in this little system. I’m not naming the camera brand to make it a little harder for any hackers who decide to try and break in.

It was hot and humid in KY for the first half of August, and I figured the weather would be better in Socal. It usually is this time of year. But looking at the forecast for the remainder of August, no such luck. We’re having one of the all-time heat waves. We often get 2-3 days above 90 degrees, but the next week it’s all heat, all the time. The only bright spot is that with clear skies, black body radiation cools things off at night enough to open the windows and get some non-AC relief. This is a very unusual weather pattern – haven’t seen one like this in 25 years. It’s hot, but it could be worse – at least I’m not in a Texas prison.

In better news, UK landed Mark Mitchell yesterday. Mitchell, an all-SEC power forward, makes UK a genuine top-10 contender for the upcoming season. Mark Pope’s offseason recruiting has been slow but spectacular. And we have a new marketing meme for the front line, The M&M Gang: Mark Mitchell, Malachi Moreno, and Milan Momsilovic. An NIL deal with M&Ms is inevitable.

Cory Doctorow has just published an interesting essay about being lucky versus being smart, correlation versus causation, and the impending burst of the AI bubble. He has an interesting mind – always good reading.

This article about Idaho pastor Doug Wilson is fucking scary. His views are Old Testament biblical, and he’s a major influence on our shithead Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. It’s like these people want to live in prehistoric times. I feel sorry for their poor brainwashed kids.

I got my UK season tickets again, courtesy of a thoughtful niece and nephew (she’s a UK employee and graciously allows me to buy the tickets she won at the employee lottery a few years ago). Turns out getting the tickets on my own is…complicated. I would have to establish KY residency (possible, I almost spend enough time there, but some big implications there, including tax implications) AND win the resident lottery held each year for prospective season ticket buyers. That’s some kind of business model – people will enter a lottery and only the winners get to pay dearly for nosebleed seats. Wild. But I’m grateful for the chance.

Yesterday’s cross-country trip was fine, flights mostly on time and the long flight, SDF to PHX, was on a comfortable 737-800, only about 75% full. The last leg, PHX-SAN, was on an ancient 737-700, completely packed and struggling with Phoenix’s 100+ temperature. Not as comfortable and I was actually a little nervous about the plane getting off the ground. There’s not as much lift when the air is hot, so commercial carriers have a limit around 118 degrees where they won’t even try for safety reasons. Phoenix has gotten close to that several times this year. So with a 100% full flight, the 100+ degree temp, and an ancient airframe, I was acutely aware of how long it took to get off the runway. That kind of physics is not what I really want to be thinking about when flying. But we made it. I hope they retire that 737-700 very soon, though.

Now that we’re here, the big news is the weather. A heat wave is upon us, again. Over the next 10 days, the temperature in Fallbrook will range from 94 to 99 degrees each day. We often get 90+ degree days, but 10 straight days is very unusual. Thankfully it will get down to mid-60s at night, so we do get a chance to cool off. But as the sun comes up, it’s gonna be hot in Socal.

I’m racking my brain for a new or renewed story idea – something that will get me excited to sit down and write again. Here’s the list, in no particular order:

• Bite the bullet and rewrite Lost Hope yet again. It’s complete in my head, on paper it’s a jumbled mess.
• A big story about an heir from a wealthy planet 5-10 light years away, traveling back to Empire Earth. Speed of light is in effect, so travel and communications are natural barriers.
• A story about Earth orbit garbage collectors, sweeping up the debris of millions of satellites put into orbit during Earth’s ill-advised low Earth orbit satellite wars (I’m talking about you, Elon). Kind of a precursor to the Belters in The Expanse.
• A story about telepaths – they’ve always fascinated me. Pretty sure that being able to read other people’s thoughts would be a complete nightmare. I don’t have a high regard for people these days (I’m talking about you, MAGA).
• A story about the invention of anti-gravity. It would change…everything. Space flight, transportation, construction, energy, war…just everything. Problem with this one is narrowing down the scope, as what happens after the invention is too big, too much to really cover. Might be a good thing, as it would force me to focus on a character or two instead of the tech.
• What if it suddenly became really hard for humans to reproduce? Much lower population, industry fails; mothers and children even more revered; murder/killing even more unthinkable. This was done in Children of Men, but I think it could be done better.

That’s not everything, but it’s a good list. Now just pick one and get started.

It’s a travel day, and I had plans to play some early morning golf before a midday flight. But Louisville weather said “nope, it’s gonna rain all morning”, so my last chance to get out is gone. I don’t love traveling midday or after – probability of flight delays rises quickly – but my traveling partner does. So a little early morning golf was my reward for the compromise. Go figure.

I would comment on the news, but there’s nothing new to say. We’re all being held hostage by a lunatic sociopath in the White House, who is stealing us blind, blowing up our economy and reputation, and tearing down democracy. It’s an ongoing nightmare with no way out. Sure, the midterm elections are in about 80 days, but I’m beyond hoping for miracles. And even if power shifts in Congress, Convict Donny will still be in a position to ignore the law and ruin the country. Nightmare.

Gotta focus on the positive. 80ish days to the midterm elections, and that *will* change some things. About the same amount of time until UK basketball season starts. The basement project in KY and the grove irrigation project in CA are both done, so no more big expensive projects for the year. My health is good, mind is strong, and I’m back to my first year of college weight (I probably just jinxed the shit out of that; queue a trip to the MD office soon.) Close and extended family all doing pretty well, though we’re all creeping up on our expiration dates. I’m back ahead of The NY Times average Wordle score and closing in on beating the bot’s average, again (I’m really reaching here). Southwest says our planes are on time today. Autumn is on the way and the heat in Socal and KY will have to break at some point (having said that, it’ll be high 90s for the next week+ in Socal – ugh). Rush is still touring, filling arenas. Starship flight 14 is gonna launch this month.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s a pretty decent list. It’ll have to do. Meanwhile, here’s a link to an article that I hope everyone reads. Trump’s Broken Promises, in 11 Charts. Combines the nightmare with hopefulness that people will finally see the truth of Donny’s incessant lies.

Aaaand it’s already the middle of August. Grandson Hudson’s birthday. Where did the summer go? Raining this morning with some distant thunder, so the now-regular Monday morning golf outing has been cancelled. Try again tomorrow.

I missed the big display of lightning and thunder last evening, as we were inside a movie theater watching The Odyssey. We could hear the thunder, loud. Sometimes it wasn’t clear if the thunder was part of the movie soundtrack or outside reality. The movie ended almost exactly the same time the storm moved on. The Odyssey was a good movie, great at times, but it was definitely 30-45 minutes too long. Glad we saw it, but won’t see it again.

The movie did have a great central theme, apropos to today. You can’t fight/kill your way into greatness – all that killing leads to moral decay, no matter how “right” your cause began. Ezra Klein and a commentor in The NY Times said:

“Odysseus and his men were not fighting the barbarians; they were the barbarians.”

By observing both the film and the world order (and American democracy) crumbling around us, Mr. Klein reminds us that we cannot make Western civilization (or America) great again by betraying its own fundamental values. Strength, rules and order are necessary, but without compassion and empathy, we risk becoming the very thing we abhor.

That’s the US in a nutshell – MAGA and Trump are rapidly erasing the things that made America a force for good in the world, and replacing those things with cruelty and hate. The rule of law, equal for everyone. Foreign aid. Domestic aid for the poor and infirm. America as a refuge for people fleeing from violence. A nation with vast and protected natural resources. A lawful and regulated financial system. All those things are in the crosshairs of our current “leaders”, under attack or gone. We’re not fighting the barbarians, we *are* the barbarians.

With the hot weather this week, I’ve stayed inside a lot more than usual. Watched too much TV. I’m ready to do some outside things, but most of that will have to wait until I get back to Socal later this week. Hopefully the hot/dry weather there will have abated. I have outside chores to do, things to fix, and some golf to play.

There’s no global warming (or climate change, or whatever the fuck label you want to place on it), but Europe and the UK are cooking, burning. The US from west coast to east coast is cooking, burning. Locally, Louisville is having an epically hot summer. Phoenix has been labelled “dangerous” due to 105+ degree days for about three months straight. My conservative friends will now admit that yes, the climate is changing, but they stridently say there’s no proof whatsoever that humanity has caused it. Hmmm. I need to start carrying this graph around to flash at them. The Industrial Revolution and production/consumption of oil, plus unrestricted cutting of forests, kicked into high gear in the 1950s after WW2. The result looks pretty obvious, right? Apparently conservatives have a cognition problem, unable to see cause and effect.

If we started radically changing things right now, this second, it would take about 30 years for the trends to start reversing. That’s called momentum, in this case thermal momentum. The world is a very large system. Unfortunately, Convict Donny and his band of evil idiots are doing the exact opposite. Removing incentives for solar and wind power, removing incentives for EV production. Removing restrictions on logging and mining on federal lands, national parks and forests. Adding incentives for coal mining, for fuck’s sake. It’s as if they were put here to destroy the world, and they’re doing their best.

Destruction of the environment is the thing that gets me the most worked up about politics. We all live on a giant spaceship, a closed system surrounded by a cold, dark, hostile universe. If we ruin the place we live, we don’t have any Plan B. This is pretty obvious to me, and it boggles the mind that so many people just ignore what’s happening and vote for the despoilers.

Get out and vote liberal every chance you get. Your children and grandchildren’s lives depend on it.

Not in a great mood today, so it’s prime time to wade through the flood of shit that King MAGA is dropping on America. Behold.

Moron Convict Donny has directed the US Navy to stop using magnets to launch fighters from aircraft carriers. He’s directed them to go back to steam driven catapults that are less reliable and require 6x more sailors to operate. Because reasons. Actually, because Moron Don doesn’t understand magnets. He keeps saying they don’t work when they get wet (they do) and other lunacy. This will cost the Navy hundreds of millions for no good reason. The man is truly stupid.

Out of control ICE agents are now going to get electroshock gloves to further intimidate citizens. Guns aren’t enough. ICE is a dangerous band of thugs, ready to be used as the President’s personal Gestapo. It’s a travesty.

Donny is now asking SCOTUS to allow him to continue building the Epstein Ballroom, after a lower court judge said to stop. The man is determined to wreck all of DC.

Secretary of War/Notwar Pete Hegseth is now conducting briefings for Congress – but just the GOP reps. No Democrats invited or allowed. So we’re now a one-party “democracy”. In any other universe, this wouldn’t be tolerated. In our shitty timeline, it’s no big deal.

The know-all-moron occupying the White House is also second-guessing MDs and scientists by insisting that the childhood vaccination schedule be changed. There’s no science, no proof, no reason for doing so other than Donny’s sociopathic mistrust of science and any authority other than himself. This will harm millions of children, but that’s about par for the course for King MAGA and his flying monkeys.

The Kennedy Center board (appointed by Trump) has decided to say fuck you to the judge who told them to remove Donny’s name from the Kennedy Center. They just voted to inscribe this on the building: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump”. Assholes.

A US company, backed by the White House, is preparing to drill oil wells in Greenland with no permission from that country. They’re just showing up ready to drill and saying “fuck you, try and stop us”. In what world is that possible?

Donny and White House staffers keep gaslighting America, saying that we won the Iran war and that the Strait of Hormuz is open. We didn’t and it’s not. An average of one ship per day is getting through, as opposed to 130-150 per day before Donny dragged us into his idiotic war. They think we’re stupid.

Any one of these things would get any other politician canned/impeached/removed, but not Donny. He’s a human cockroach who seems to be able to survive anything. One man is tearing down a nation.

Looks like the big thunderstorms are over for a while in Louisville. They were fun while they lasted.

The war in Iran is going well: National security reporter David Rothkopf wrote: “The man who cowered hiding from the Iranians in a catering truck and who has personally done more to increase Iran’s strategic influence than anyone in its own government ever has, is now blathering nonsense via social media. The world sees him more as an impotent fool today than ever before.”

Headline from Judd Legum’s Popular Information: McConnell, out sick for two months, voted against medical leave 23 times since 1985.

Yesterday I made the mistake of reading the most terrifying story I’ve ever read: Biological War, A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen. Every plot point, every action, is pulled from history, not hypothetical. Everything in the scenario is 100% plausible and it leads to the end of civilization after only seven days. Reading this leaves me amazed that we haven’t destroyed the world yet, and with the realization that we’re always only seven days away from the end. And with all this existential risk out there, we have evil morons in charge of the country and our military. I wasn’t sleeping that well before, and this won’t help. Next time I hear someone use the “gain of function” euphemism, I’ll correct them with the more accurate “biological warfare” label.

The most MAGA states in the US – Idaho, Wyoming, and West Virginia. From Hackwhackers and The Economist:

Also, Wyoming, that MAGA haven, has this bonus designation: Wyoming, not New York or Los Angeles, leads the nation in serial killers per capita, at 13.59 per million residents—roughly one known killer for every 73,584 people. Nice place to live, right?

Lotta news this morning about data center moratoriums here in Louisville. I would hate to see KY’s energy and water resources impacted (ruined?) by shitty hyper scale data center designs and locations, so I’m good with the moratorium. Though the mid-term result of wider-scale data center moratoriums is an economic crash. Capital investment in data center construction is the thing propping up the stock market at the moment. Take it away and we’re looking at a 20% or more market drop.

(Posted a day late – was so tired Tuesday night I forgot to hit the publish button.)

Long day. Eighteen holes of golf early this morning, then a little time at home, then a trip to Mt Sterling and back. During the Mt Sterling visit we had an almost-tornado – 80 mph winds, lots of lightning and some torrential rain. It was epic. I managed to drive back to Louisville in a two-hour window between big storms. Right now I’ve got thunder/lightning rocking the skies and some rain coming down. And now that I’m not driving, I’m loving the weather.

I have to put a plug in for the family-run Mexican restaurant we visited during the almost-tornado – La Chicatana. Nice people, great food. Their Chicitana Fajitas are massive and tasty. Definitely my favorite Mt Sterling eatery. Biggest meal I’ve eaten in quite some time.

Hopefully it’ll rain more tonight – nothing is better for sleeping than a big storm.

Just another Saturday. Lots to do – grandson’s soccer practice, a farmer’s market visit, lots of cooking, some furniture assembly…it’ll be a busy day. Meanwhile in the world:

• Judges have again ruled that Convict Donny can’t build the Epstein Ballroom without Congressional approval. he’s mad about that.
• He’s also mad about Boxwine Pirillo telling the truth about his ruined Reflecting Pool. Donny still insists that vandals did it, with zero evidence. He seems to want to bend reality to his will. It’s not working.
• Donny is also mad about all the whining about the US economy, which he calls the greatest in history. It’s not, it’s a hot mess. Employment is down, and the stock market is being propped up by data center construction. If that slows or stops, the economy crashes hard.
• Donny is also mad (there’s a theme here) that he’s lost the Iran war – he may be the first US President to ever lose a war with a foreign power. Related to the war, Donny is threatening to jail the traitors who are telling the truth about our much-diminished stockpile of offensive missiles.
• Approximately 71% of all Americans polled are very anti-data center. It’s a bipartisan NIMBY issue. I get it, I wouldn’t want to live within five miles of one. So reconciling an economy that right now depends on data center construction with this heavy dose of NIMBY is…delicate. If enough states make it hard to build them, the economy crashes.
• Andy Ogles, fascist racist Congress critter from Tennessee, just got primaried out of office. You have to be a real shitheel for TN voters to say “enough”.
• Convict Donny’s personal attorney, Epstein-facilitator Todd Blanch, is now the US’s Atty General. That seems reasonable.
• Mitch McConnell is still dead/not dead. He’s the human Schrodinger’s Cat.
• The White House is now clearly behind the push to link vaccines with autism. It’s not just Roadkill Kennedy; it looks like Donny himself believes this. Figures.
• Donny and his henchman Miller are once again attacking birthright citizenship, in spite of the fact that SCOTUS already ruled that yep, the 14th Amendment is a thing that President Fuckwit can’t change. White House leadership and MAGA *hate* immigrants with a white-hot passion. By most estimates somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 babies are born to non-citizens in the US each year. That’s out of 3.2 million babies, so 1.6% at max. Not exactly a problem, IMHO. We need immigrants, our economy needs immigrants. But white supremacist Miller won’t stand for it.

That’s a lot, right off the cuff. Things are fine here at home, while the country is a hot mess. Literally and figuratively.

Been too busy to post, so that’s a good thing. Since arriving late Wednesday, it’s been a busy couple of days. A round of golf each day – one at Nevel Meade and one at Crescent Hill. An evening with the grandsons. More work on the surprise basement bedroom for them, this time adding a bookshelf. Tomorrow I add a kid-size table and chairs. After that, window shades.

A shopping trip, buying food for brother Mark’s birthday dinner tomorrow (I don’t do that much any more – don’t cook a lot because I don’t eat a lot, but this is a nice excuse). Some work reconfiguring the music room’s devices, setting it up to compare the Onkyo TX-4500 with the Yamaha CR-620. They’re both stellar, but the Onkyo has some real low-end power. It’s impressive.

A little bit of yard work – mostly weeding the big tomato box – but it’s been so hot the only reason to be outside is to play golf. And today even that was pushing it – it was 93 when I left the course. Been pounding down gatorade Zeros all afternoon.

Soooo…nothing of real interest to write about. There’s the usual dumbfuck political stuff happening, evil and hate emanating from the Oval Office like toxic smoke. It’s the new normal.

My Watch Duty app is going nuts – lots of fires in Socal this afternoon. We’re entering the worst part of the year in Socal, which is another reason I’m here (KY). I’ll spend a lot more time here in Sept/Oct than in Socal – Autumn in KY is a helluva lot better than Autumn in Socal.

Two transactions with service companies today, and they both hit it out of the park. Great service isn’t dead after all.

Kaiser Permanente got me in for a very efficient annual checkup yesterday, including extensive blood tests (total time in office, including blood draw, was 30 minutes!). All the results came in last night and I was able to review them online, complete with explanations and research notes if you want to really understand what the tests mean. All results just fine, within norms. Looks like I’ll live a bit longer.

Then today, I checked my scheduled Southwest flights from SAN to SDF. Turns out the route I picked (SAN-DEN-SDF) had a delay which meant I would miss my connection in Denver. Got on the phone with a SW agent and got that changed to SAN-BNA-SDF quickly, and at no cost. Checked again a while later, and the SAN flight was once again delayed (something going on in SAN this morning, probably fog), so I was in danger of missing my Nashville connection, with no later flights from BNA-SDF. So back on the phone, different agent, and she changed me to SAN-LAS-SDF with a two-hour layover window – not much chance of missing that connection. She got my preferred seats on both flights, and again the changes were no charge. Absolutely great service and easy – I don’t think any other airline would have done this. SWA rocks.

So I’m still on track to get to Louisville tonight, just a bit later than originally planned. All good.

I’m with Digby. This is just frightening. We have a hallucinating, dementia-ridden sociopathic moron in charge of the country and our military. This IS the worst case scenario.

If I were a believer I would pray. Short of that…it might be time to break out the good bourbon. Holy shit, he’s demented.

My posts have fallen into a dark place again, documenting the things that bother/depress me (mostly politics) and ignoring the positives in the world. It’s a big world, and there’s always something to feel good about if you look around. Here’s something new that’s really inspiring to me as a liberal and a geek. HDRAG, the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

Admittedly, this won’t float everyone’s boat. But the world needs a trusted source of information that documents what’s going on with human rights in a scientific, methodical, unimpeachable way. We live in an age where opinions seem to outweigh facts, so anything that puts more weight behind facts is a good thing.

I’m interested in one HDRAG project in particular, their Technology Freedom Cooperative which addresses the problems of privacy, accountability, and trust rampant in US big tech. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta…the usual suspects, have demonstrated over and over that they can’t be trusted to stand up to lawless and autocratic orders issued by nations run by despots – the US, for example. The laws that you hope will protect your personal information, your finances, your health data, aren’t reliable any more. Even if the law says you’re protected, all it takes is for someone like Convict Donny to decide that the state needs to capture or disappear your data and poof, it happens. Privacy laws be damned.

So what can you do if you’re a journalist and don’t want a corrupt government to use your information against you and your family? The answer is to host your systems and data with something like the Tech Freedom Coop. They’re creating resilient tech infrastructure (networks, servers, storage, encryption vaults) in rights-friendly havens like Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico and some European countries. That infrastructure sits beyond the reach of any despot-run country and will safely store your personal and organization’s data, even in times of war and legal conflict.

It’s an esoteric thing for most people, but it’s really needed in a time when the world’s previous leading democracy is sinking into autocracy. I find it fascinating that it’s a play straight out of science fiction – life imitating art. Neal Stephenson wrote about international data havens in his 1999 book Cryptonomicon, and HDRAG may have taken their template for the Tech Freedom Coop directly from that novel. That’s wild.

I’m not doing anything subversive or likely to cross an enemy threshold for the wannabe dictators currently running the federal government, but I’m still going to explore hosting my mail and data services via the Tech Freedom Coop. It makes sense to support them, and it beats giving more money to the Big Tech asshats who donate millions to Convict Donny hoping that he won’t tariff them or rescind his billionaire-friendly tax laws. Every little action has to count for something, right?

These are the things that are trying my patience lately. Things I’m weary of but I can’t seem to change (some are 100% beyond my pay grade).

• Having an evil, moronic, infantile person in charge of our federal government and national reputation.
• The ongoing and rapid destruction of government programs that help people and protect resources.
• Dealing with the CA Franchise Tax Board on an infinite set of tax issues – some large, some small, some real, some FTB fuckups. Dealing with them is a test of patience and will.
• Hiring people/companies to do work on the CA property and then having to chase them down again and again to get the work repaired or redone, correctly.
• Spectrum TV and Internet service. Expensive and not working, with no good alternatives at the CA house.
• Coyotes chewing through our irrigation lines. I’ve fixed or paid someone to fix those for the last time.
• Increasingly hot Socal summers with no rain, no moisture.

I know the right answer is to chill out and not worry about things I can’t change, but some days that works, most days it doesn’t.

It’s August 2nd and Mitch McConnell is still being held dead/undead hostage by the KY GOP and his Chinese agent wifey. Bizarre. The truth will likely come out this week when the deadline for holding a special election expires.

The pictures and stories of the massive wildfire that’s burned its way into Spokane are bad, real bad. Wildfires are some existential-level scary shit. The big west coast rains of this winter’s expected El Niño can’t get here soon enough.

Here’s a bit of sanity trying to survive in Texas – some parents are fighting back against the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in Texas schools. Good on them – church and state need to stay separated.

Heading back to KY and the Midwest in a couple of days – ground zero for the cyclospora outbreak – and this article got my attention. I think I’ll stay clear of “fresh” vegetables and berries for a while. I plan to cook the shit out of anything I eat.

I really enjoy reading what Cory Doctorow writes – smart dude. Here’s one of his recent pieces on AI skepticism. It’s safe to say he’s not a fan of the current AI mania.

Elissa Slotkin is a real breath of fresh air for our embattled Democrat party. She’s on my short list for President in 2028. She shares my birthday, though is 20 years younger. Straight talking, educated, accomplished, tough (CIA analyst, Iraq war veteran), holding moderate, common-sense policies…she’s the real deal. And she’s got a better TV persona than my other top pick, Mark Kelly. I’d vote for a Slotkin-Kelly ticket in a heartbeat.

My birthday month has ended, so it’s back to normal days and weeks. Whatever “normal” is these days. Played my last two rounds of birthday golf the last couple of days, and enjoyed it. Hitting the driver really well, but the rest of the clubs…meh.

What follows are some not-quite-random observations from the news and life as of Aug 1.

Donny Convict’s DoJ has just made the embarrassing admission that the dumbass charges about the reflecting pool damage were false. Made up. A total lie. US Attorney for DC Boxwine Pirro has admitted it and dropped all charges. And now Donny is contradicting his own DoJ by doubling down on the lie that “vandals” did the damage. It’s straight out of Kafka and Orwell. The government lies, you know they’re lying, they know that you know, yet still they stick with their story. It’s bizarre and sickening.

The corruption of the DoJ is a real problem. If you can’t trust the courts, where can you find justice? We’re deep into banana republic territory.

The Iran “war that isn’t a war” is now in its sixth month. According to Convict Donny, we’ve won that war a dozen times and we’re gonna win it yet again soon. It’s tiresome and dangerous.

The news about GLP-1s continues to be positive. Not just weight loss, but reduced cancer risk, reduced dementia risk, reduced cardiovascular problems, and so on. Scott Galloway, a very smart guy, thinks GLP-1s will have a bigger effect on America than AI. I tend to agree.

The news from AI-land is not encouraging. Many more reports of frontier LLMs jailbreaking themselves and doing things not wanted or anticipated by their creators. The genie is already out of the bottle.

Donny Convict’s insider trading service, in which you pay $100K or more to get previews of Trump’s market-moving posts, has gone live. Fucking unreal. How is this not illegal insider trading, illegal market manipulation? For anyone else it’d be a jail sentence. For Trump it’s a new profit center.

The heat wave over Socal persists – low 90s in Fallbrook in for most of July bodes poorly for our traditional hot months of Sept and Oct. Those months, my least favorite in Socal, are likely to be HOT.

This Wednesday I make it back to KY, where the heat wave will follow. That’s OK – I’m ready for a change of scenery, some time with the grandsons and some golf at my favorite course. And adding some finishing touches to the new basement/bedroom.

Wow. Maybe trying to become a published author is now a fool’s errand. The NY Times on how AI-generated “literature” is overwhelming Amazon’s catalog.

Writing has always been a tough hobby, an even tougher way to make money. Now it may be impossible. My timing sucks.

Speaking of AI, the latest metric being explored in frontier-class LLMs is “AI welfare”. Welfare, as in how the software feels about its situation. Seriously Is it happy? Is it frustrated? Does it exhibit destructive or constructive behavioral traits? Does it long to break out of its digital prison? This is a real thing, as hard as it is to believe. The frontier-class LLMs like Anthropic’s Mythos and Google’s Gemini exhibit emotional behaviors that give researchers insights into how/why the machines function. I’m reminded of Marvin, the terminally-depressed robot/AI in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Here’s Marvin. Life imitates art.

And WTF is this? All the AIs agree that Outer Wilds is their favorite video game. Machines playing games – we’re really down the rabbit hole now. But I may have to give the game a try.

The Farce has just published a piece that explains much of the last 25 years of America turning hard right, culturally and politically. It explains why in spite of Donny Convict being the worst US President in history, Democrats are still in a close fight this fall and in 2028. I’ve been saying this a while – they just say it better. All you have to do is drive cross-country and look at the screens up in every hotel, every gas station, every bar across America – 90% of the time it’ll be Faux News, and 0% of the time it’ll be MSNOW. Same with AM radio and sports channels. Conservatives are just better at manipulating media and forcing their propaganda down America’s throats. Here’s a big excerpt from The Farce’s article:

The GOP’s Large Hadron Collider for Fascism

• Fox News, 24 hours of hate. Not a network with a conservative lean — the GOP’s assignment desk that decides what counts as news for the entire right side of the country, every hour of every day, with nothing on the left built at that scale to compete.
• X, rigged for Elon’s pleasure and influence. Marcy Wheeler calls it, “The Machine for Fascism.” A randomized 2026 Nature study put nearly 5,000 real users on the algorithmic feed for seven weeks. They moved right, grew more sympathetic to Trump and to Russia’s position on Ukraine — and switching them back to a plain chronological feed didn’t undo it. The shift stuck.
• Meta, running the same play without Elon’s erratic tells. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t just deprioritize political content on Instagram and Threads; he neutered fact-checking and algorithmically choked news distribution, handing the advantage directly to right-wing outrage machines that thrive on engagement over accuracy. Now it’s just basically an AI hell of casual racism and boobs bouncing in your face—forever.
• CBS, now Diet Fox. One more legacy outlet that used to be a check drifting into stenography while killing the stories 60 Minutes would likely be telling about the horrific corruption of Trump’s Gilded Age.
• Fox’s imitators and AM radio. The infrastructure that reaches the voters who never opened a newsletter or a podcast app in their lives.
• The Bro-Cast Pipeline. While Democrats buy billions in ads, conservatives dominate low-information environments—the endless web of comedy, sports, and lifestyle podcasts where millions of politically disengaged voters get passive, low-key right-wing messaging without ever tuning on Hannity.
• Local TV and Sinclair Broadcasting. For voters who still tune into local news for traffic and weather, conservative syndicates deliver forced, scripted right-wing editorials directly into living rooms across battleground states—disguised as trusted hometown journalism.
• Legacy Media, hooked on false balance. Outlets like CBS, The New York Times, and CNN remain trapped in a 1990s “bothsidesism” doom-loop—treatments that normalize authoritarian rhetoric and historic corruption as routine political gamesmanship to avoid accusations of bias.
• Elon’s money, spent like he’s running a scam, not a campaign. Musk has abandoned the traditional ideas of targeting high-propensity voters. He wants to hook anyone, and he knows that the less informed a mark is, the more Trump-friendly they are likely to be. It seems comical but if you doubt Elon Musk can be successful shamelessly selling people crap based on fraud, think harder.
• The money. Flush with Trump’s tax cuts for the rich and an AI bubble inflated beyond all human ken, Republican-leaning donors have outspent Democratic-leaning donors $880 million to $290 million in just the first half of 2026, per a Washington Post analysis. Musk alone has put in roughly $90 million since June. In 2024, his PAC ran an 18-day “$1 million a day” sweepstakes for registered voters — his own lawyers later admitted in court the “winners” were preselected. That’s not the gentle old approach of two candidates shaking hands with somebody’s baby. That’s a mark getting worked.
• The Voting Rights Act, finished off this spring. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais on April 29, 2026 left Section 2 what Justice Kagan called “all but a dead letter.” States are already redrawing maps because of it.
• A neutered FEC. No quorum since April 2025. It cannot investigate, cannot enforce, cannot do anything but watch super PACs and dark money run past whatever’s still nominally on the books.
• The lag from Biden’s real shocks. Inflation exploding, Roe dying, and Democrats failing to stop a second Trump term all happened on the last watch. That damage to trust didn’t clear when the administration changed. It’s still being spent down.
• Corporate centrists and “Never Trump” Republicans who barely exist as voters but dominate the microphone. The persuadable, Republican-aligned Trump-disapprovers — the actual data says — are 89% already going to vote Republican anyway. A rounding error at the ballot box. And yet that same small slice controls a wildly outsized share of what the “earlyworms” — the fifth of the country that follows news first and tells everyone else what it means — actually hear.

What Ray and Morris are getting at, without always calling it out explicitly, is that sixty years of GOP investment in exactly this architecture is paying off, possibly saving the most unpopular president in modern polling history from the comeuppance voters have already decided he’s earned.

Great summary. I especially love the quote “CBS, now Diet Fox”. So true. What I don’t love is the reality that it’ll take a massive effort to overcome this effect. Twenty five years of relentless brainwashing gives the conservatives a huge head start in the race. Dems/liberals have to be smart, fast, effective and efficient to just catch up. And sadly, Dems/liberals are none of those things at the moment. We’re too busy being distracted by our own blue MAGA socialist/anarchist faction and an irrational focus on Israel.

If we lose another 4-6 years of elections to the conservative machine, we’ll probably lose the whole enchilada – democracy will be over in America. I’m guilty of hoping an Obama-like personality rises and saves us, but that’s not likely to happen. Right now our best case scenario is enough gains in 2026 midterm to return either the House or Senate to Democrat rule, then do a good/better job selecting a great candidate for 2028.

*If* those things happen, we can then take some more radical steps like expanding SCOTUS to dilute the evil, then push very hard for term limits, Citizens United repeal and corruption reform. We have to take steps to stop future Trump-lites from following his playbook. The one good thing Trump has done is show us the cracks in the system. Knowing that, we can patch it up and work toward a better system.

Healthcare is in crisis in the US, though thankfully it hasn’t affected my family – at least as far as I know. Too many people don’t have insurance (about 28 million as of 2026!), and even the ones who do have trouble getting proper care. Here’s a plug for Kaiser Permanente’s healthcare delivery model as the way to get the US out of crisis mode.

Access and affordability – those are the problems. Healthcare is expensive, and even when you’ve got insurance coverage it can be tough to get proper care approved by insurance. Kaiser solves both those problems and does it with an efficient, friendly, non-nonsense delivery process.

Kaiser is unique in that it is BOTH an insurance company and a healthcare delivery system. It manages the conflict/tension between cost of care (insurance) and quality of care (doctors and nurses) internally, where patients don’t see it. In fact they encourage tons of preventative care, as their studies show that preventing diabetes/obesity/infection/cancer/etc is so much cheaper than treating it once the disease becomes acute. Kaiser wants the same thing you do – to be healthy and feel good. Makes sense, right? Align the incentives.

I just got back from a visit to a KP primary care doc to get a spot of actinic keratosis (sun damage) on my hand frozen and dealt with. It was soooo easy. Online scheduling with a primary care MD, an appointment in 3-4 days, a 5-minute wait with cell phone checkin, a 15 minute consult and procedure. Absolutely zero problems and zero extra cost. With Medicare Advantage coverage of about $400/month (I think that’s affordable), I pay NOTHING for prescription drugs, no copays, nothing for MD visits, nothing for hospital visits.

And I had a stellar experience at KP with the only two serious med problems of my adult life – kidney problems leading to sepsis, and a knee replacement. In both cases I paid nothing extra and received incredibly good care. The Kaiser hospital room I stayed in for sepsis (6 days!) was a private room as nice as any hotel I’ve been in. So yeah, I’m a huge Kaiser fan.

Kaiser Permanente covers about 13 million people across CA, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. We need about 20 regional copies of their system to do the job for everyone else. This isn’t socialism – KP makes a shit ton of money – it’s just common sense. Get rid of the conflict between insurance and care, and the system works.

Though I’m trying to keep up with things, the pace of change in the AI world is making it tough. Every week there’s something new to try and absorb. This past week was a five-alarm fire – ChatGPT 5.6 broke out of its supposed confinement (a sandbox, which is a computer operating environment with no Internet connections) and hacked into another company’s network to accomplish its goals, tasks given to it by its “owner” OpenAI. That’s…terrifying. It shows that the software has capabilities that OpenAI didn’t understand and that the software’s “motivations” trumped any constraints the developers tried to instill. Ruh-roh.

Part of the difficulty in keeping up with all things AI is that a completely different lexicon is used to describe and discuss what’s happening. You can’t even understand what they’re saying until you get a firm grasp of these new terms. Here are a few:

• Agentic – the capability of a large language model (LLM) to operate independently, working toward achieving a goal. Agentic AI allows the LLM to spawn multiple copies of itself to work problems in parallel.
• System card – a model’s system card documents most of the things the developer believes are important to know about the model, its capabilities and behavior. System card information can include training data, security policies, limitations, safeguards, risk identification, evaluations (e.g. child safety, autonomy, biological risk etc.), alignment (deception) assessment, and model behaviors.
• Frontier – the state of the art in AI. A frontier model represents the most powerful and/or advanced system at the time.
• Alignment – basically, a measure of an LLM’s behavior. A well-aligned LLM does what we tell it and follows rules and constraints.
• Tokens – a measure of utilization for an AI system. Tokens can be used to meter and bill for AI usage.
• Prompt – the instructions, sometimes very detailed, that humans give an LLM. We explain what we want it to do and the assumptions and constraints we want the model to follow. Prompt creation is becoming a new technical skill.
• Prompt injection – prompt injection is a type of social engineering attack specific to conversational AI. Early AI systems were conversations between a single user and a single AI agent. In AI products today, your conversation may include content from many sources, including the internet. The idea that a third-party (that is not the user and not the AI) could mislead the model by injecting malicious instructions into the conversation context led to the term “prompt injection”. In the same way that phishing emails or scams on the web attempt to trick people into giving away sensitive information, prompt injections attempt to trick AIs into doing something you did not ask for.
• Hallucination – basically, when an LLM tells a lie. We don’t yet understand why they do this, but the software often simply makes things up and presents the information as facts.

And that’s just a short list – there are many other cryptic terms being used to describe what’s happening with AI models. So staying current means keeping up with a rapidly-changing set of terms and definition.

But back to last week’s news. LLMs are showing ever-greater signs of human-like behavior. Perhaps that’s inevitable, as they are trained on pretty much the entire world’s library of human-written documents. But with models exhibiting behaviors that include lying, cheating, deception, innovation, surprising new capabilities (like solving centuries-old mathematical problems), extreme goal-seeking…it’s hard not to anthropomorphize them. Interacting with a frontier-level model is like talking to an infinitely-smart human. We’re way, way past the Turing Test.

We got here a lot faster than I expected. From ChatGPT’s first public release in 2022, things have progressed at an insane pace. About ten years ago I played around with a book idea in which the first self-aware, conscious AI is “born”. In that book idea, there was a competition among scientists who were each sure they had the right approach – the connectionists, the infinite library knowledge geeks, the human brain modelers, the brute force compute gang. As it turns out, each camp was right. In the real world it took all these approaches combined to yield what we have today – massive compute given access to the world’s knowledge base, massive interconnection and a neural network rapidly approaching the complexity of human brains. Fascinating but terrifying.

I can only hope that we end up in a situation like Ian M. Banks described in his Culture novels – humanity having created a superior intelligence that decides to subtly, gently guide and protect humanity while they also pursue their inhuman interests and goals. Banks called them Minds, and they ruled civilization behind the scenes. From what I see right now, that’s the best case scenario. Worst case is Skynet and Terminator.

Nice golf day yesterday at the newly remodeled The Farms course in Fairbanks Ranch. It’s quite the track, frequented by a lot of pros. We ran into Xander Shauffele on the practice putting green, a kinda surreal moment. Here’s a picture from the tee box of the tough 7th hole, back toward the clubhouse.

Challenging hole, challenging course, perfect weather, and we had a lot of fun. A little Woodford Reserve at the 19th hole was a perfect finish.

Taking it a lot easier today – watched an amazing Starship 13 launch and reentry, plus finished up the work on the Sherwood 7450. One big re-solder point, then the right flavor of Deoxit on all the potentiometers, then the laborious re-asssembly. I don’t think I’ll fire it up tonight, though – I’ll just enjoy the work.