Clever New Ad by Walmart

Walmart

The background for this image reminds me of a starting gate at a racetrack. Only the horses here start running both ways. At Walmart, you can push your cart either way. 

I was at a Walmart yesterday, where I pushed my Credit Card into a clever device that read the Chip in it and printed out a detailed receipt that I still have on my kitchen counter at home.

This will not interest you folks back home in the States, but for Costa Rica, this is a step up. Walmart's Computer knows how to take their money!

Living with People, who Do Not want to Live Very Much

And do not want to know about this strange (but common) problem. They never heard of it, and don't want to hear of it.

You can see this easily in their reading habits: which can be summarized easily: they do not read! And they will never admit this.

Any kind of intense reading would be living beyond their carefully set limits.

Finding Yourself

Finding yourself used to be the result of an intense meditation practice, and this is still one way to get there. 

But now it also means finding the right Computer company with the right Cloud. 

For me, this was Google, the Google Cloud Platform and Firebase. 

If you are a seeker, give them a look. 

Digital Learning

MITx Free online courses from MIT

I continue to be amazed by the difference between Industrial culture (or Capitalism) and Computer Culture.

The writer for this article does not mention the past but assumes we (and the rest of the world) are completely into Computers. The following paragraph caught my eye:

Because this idea could have a global impact, MIT is collaborating with eight other top research universities from North America, Latin America, and Europe to create a trusted, distributed and shared infrastructure standard for issuing, storing, displaying and verifying academic credentials.

This is blockchain technology. And they should admit this is what they are using,

They are making a strong effort to include Latin America in their plans. but this will be difficult.

Demonstrating Stupidity

This is the outstanding product of the 21st Century, and people are getting good at it.

If you want to advance in any company, you have to show them you accept their nonsense, their stupidity.

I grew up with a guy in Ft. Madison, Iowa. I worked hard and became an Electronic Engineer. He went to work for the Pentagon and did practically no work at all. But made tons of money.

There was so much money there, you did not have to do anything for some of it to rub off on you.

Amazon noticed this and made this one of its new company headquarters. It is not stupid but knows how to benefit from our nation's stupidity.

What we Think of Other People is Important

What we think of ourselves is important.

But we have to carefully distinguish between our conscious and unconscious minds. Because we are all accomplished liars and know how to bend the truth to get what we want.

This is built into our social life and no drama would last more than 10 minutes without it.

Strategies for Sustainability

I just watched a Webinar on this, presented by Stanford University.

Much of this was focused on Palm Oil, a product that is producing a lot of deforestation.

I wish I could show you the final slide here, that was written by the CEO of a large corporation.  He said Capitalism must now behave responsibly, and for the long term.

This has another title  

Ecosystems of Change: Partnering Across Sectors to Increase the Impact of Sustainability Efforts.

We make our World Ourselves, in our own Minds

This is going to be hard to explain.

We do not live in a world that is out there, but a world that is in here. In our minds, individually and collectively.

Consider this course from O'Reilly, that pushed its way into my inbox this morning. From User Experience Designer to Digital Product Designer, What on earth is this woman talking about (at great length)?

Laura Fish is trying to describe an experience she has had, that she wants other people to have. A new world where she would be the chief visionary. She can see herself, presenting her vision in front of a large audience. Possibly numbering in the millions, on the Internet.

Allow me to describe a similar belief system - the rise of Mormonism early in the 19th Century. The technology here was print, that people were obsessed with, at the time.

This was begun by Joseph Smith, who wrote the Book of Mormon. This was accepted by many people at the time, who were looking for a Prophet of God to guide their lives. They did not know this was what they were looking for until they found it.

In the same way, Laura Fish wants to be a leader of the faithful. Where the technology is the Computer and its networks.

A Reporting Life in Latin America

NY Review

Americans and their drug habits have devastated much of Latin America.

This what Alma Guillermoprieto is writing about here. I do wish she would shorten her name.

She is writing about the huge disconnect between the ordinary lives of Americans (that are innocent enough) and what many of them are causing elsewhere.

By the simple process of making drugs illegal.

Rats

These are featured in a special edition of the National Geographic, devoted to Cities.

It states: wherever there are People, there will be Rats, living on our Trash.

The nation's capital uses specially trained Dogs to kill its Rats. Its many tourists do not get to see this spectacle!

Artificial Intelligence is Nothing New

Because our intelligence has always been artificial.

We have always been artificial animals. That have relied on our language to get ahead.

After a few thousand years of dominating everything else,  we have invented the Computer, that is now dominating us.

This has happened with amazing speed, in less than two centuries: during the 19th and 20th Centuries.

And has produced the stupidest people ever. Let me repeat that: the culture that produced smart machines also produced stupid people.

Looking back at this, we can see that this change was inevitable and irreversible. We have changed who we are, and the results are baffling. We don't know what we have become.

Whatever it is, we are something new and unpredictable.

Knowing the Enemy in Afghanistan

What we should do in Afghanistan is map its mountainous terrain. And supplement that with maps that show its political divisions.

This is the most important information we could have, but we have shown no interest in obtaining it.

Because the decision that should be made first is: should we be there at all?

It has been the graveyard of empires because they have been swallowed up by its hostile terrain and tribal warfare. Country after country (including the USSR) has decided to leave it alone. And it looks like the US is being forced to the same conclusion.

We can leave large parts of the world alone. They do not need us, and we do not need them.

They are not our enemy and not our friends.

Doxylamine

I went to my local pharmacy looking for Seconal, that is used as a sleeping pill. They didn't have any. But they did have Nervo Tiamin, that would do the same thing. Wikipedia says it is a first-generation
Antihistamine. A deferent kind of drug that is used for similar purposes. 

It is also used for morning sickness, in case I get pregnant. 
And my debit card would pay for it ($20) even though there was no money in my account!

Sex Toys Are Finally Getting the Update They Deserve

OneZero

This was written by a woman for other women. Because these toys are for them.

A man doesn't need a sex toy, as most women know. If you can get an erection, all you need is a hand (or a mouth) to complete the attraction.

Five Machine Learning Paradoxes that will Change the Way You Think About Data

Medium

This will do exactly what it claims: fuck up your mind. For the better.

The first one, the Ship of Theseus, you are probably familiar with. If the parts of something are completely replaced, is it the same thing?

If all Americans die and are replaced with new ones, is it same America?

Sprawl

I am reading about the Sprawl in today's cities, in the National Geographic, and at the same time reading about it in Software sites, such as InfoQ.

Sprawl is everywhere in our disconnected world.

In Software, there are huge efforts to defeat it. But everywhere else, it cannot be challenged and is an integral part of our self-destructive world.

Spanglish

I am reading Spanish for Gringos, and the first chapter is about this - pretending you can speak Spanish, and getting away with it. Because the other person is pretending to speak English. and you are helping him get away with that.

This is much easier if the other person is a woman. You just have to smile at her, and she has to smile back. Easy!

It also helps if you are smart. I met an American guy when I was living in San Jose. He told me he had met a woman in a park there (she walked up and grabbed his crotch with her left hand while grabbing his wallet with her right hand).

When he realized his money was gone he complained to a policeman, who happened to be nearby, saying "That woman stole my money!" The policeman replied, "That wasn't a woman, it was a man!"

Mayor Pete

Pete Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and he wants to be President of the US. 

The description of South Bend in Wikipedia is exhaustive and shows how hard it is working to recover from the Midwestern Industrial Collapse (Studebaker was once one of its largest employers). 

He is gay, he is married, and he is innovative. 

The Intense Pleasure of Being Stupid

Intelligence is easy to detect, and so is stupidity. And the difference between the two types of people is fundamental.

Take, for example, the smart contracts implemented in the Ethereum Blockchain. I am trying to understand this, with limited success. I am not smart enough to really understand it.

But I do understand how the Computer works. and this puts me into the computer-aware category, where you do have to have some intelligence.

I can see that most people are stupid, and they enjoy being this way. And I ask myself "Why?"

Because they enjoy frustrating the smart ones, they like to mess things up. And they like it when there is more of them all the time.

A clever Idea any Bank can Implement

I am having a hard time, along with Wells Fargo, modernizing my debit card account there. I keep getting unexpected charges. 

I subscribed to the NY Review of Books, for example, and it renewed my subscription for an entire year, a year later, when I had forgotten about it. This set me back $79.95! When this is added to a charge for WIRED magazine, for $19.99. on the same day, it's enough to make me feel poor. 

I need some time to get used to these charges. 

My solution is simple and easy to implement in Software. 

Each time a charge comes in, the bank notifies me of it, by email, and gives me three options: Pay it, Don't pay it, or Send me more Information. 

Wells Fargo will get the first chance at this. 

Two kinds of Average People

I got this idea from Vitalok Buterin's talk on the Ethereum web site. If you turn on closed captions, you can probably understand him better. He will help you understand blockchain better.

When this guy talks, he is worth listening to (I am sure you can think of a few examples of people not worth listening to).

But I have modified his idea a little, and speak of people who understand Computers, and those who do not.

Strangely enough, these are the same people who identify with their cars or do not.

Or want to make a better world, or do not.

This final category is hard to pin down but most important. They can also be defined as those who are constructive or those who are destructive.

The destructive type is now the most common.

They want Things the Way they Are

They will never admit this, but anyone can easily see this, by observing their actions.

They don't want anything very different. And by anything, I mean anything.

There are exceptions to this, and plenty of them. Once something becomes successful (once it makes plenty of money) it is regarded differently.

Once everyone wants it, this means God wants it also.

From Hardware to Software to Artificial Intelligence

People plus AI Guidebook

Does this sequence make you feel things are getting stranger all the time? It sure should. Because things are getting stranger all the time. And at the same time, we are saying, as loudly as we can "Nothing is changing!"

Things are not just changing, they are changing in a strange way we cannot understand. There are plenty of people, such as the writers of this Guidebook, who view this in a positive light. And who say (correctly) that things are now getting better with Artificial Intelligence. We can see where we want to go, and how to get there.

But most people feel differently. They cannot see where they want to go and don't want to.see anything very different. This is too scary and is completely out of their comfort zone.

Jacky needs a husband

Her husband died suddenly two months ago and she needs a replacement.

She has three children, the oldest about six, who is active in the Girl Scouts, a really nice girl. The youngest, a boy, can barely walk. They are all good at helping each other out.

They are from El Salvador and have survived by making Puposas, which Jacky is an expert at. They are basically corn flour (masa) wrapped around an interior, that can be almost anything. but usually includes some meat.

If they are cooked slowly, on a grill. they are quite tasty. But most Latinos do not want to eat anything different, and they have a hard time selling them.

They are illegal residents (they can't afford the process to become legal).

I can sympathize with her (all she wants is a husband) but I have barely enough money to support myself. 

The Troubled History of Psychiatry

The New Yorker

In my Life and Times, it has become common to speak of Therapy and Therapists. And some companies provided Therapeutic assistance to their employees, along with Daycare for their children.

I was not getting along very well at one of these companies and was impressed when the therapist they referred me to, said I should quit my job.

This is even happening in Costa Rica, where now I live. Parents take their young children to preschool, where can play with each other, and parents can help each other with the difficult task of being parents.

Minding my Moods

This, for me, is important.

Much of the time, I am not in a very good mood. But if I take careful note of that, and notice just how I am not feeling good, I immediately feel better. My mind is working, and knowing that makes me feel better.

Most people do not work this way, but the opposite way. They feel best when they are not thinking very much. Their main desire is to be entertained.

I enjoy the National Geographic because I learn so much from reading it. Most people do not read it very often for that same reason. They will look at the pictures, but not read the text embedded in the pictures, because they might learn something if they did.

What is Wrong with Us

I have created a new folder on my laptop to store this in because her writing is so concise.

I also have an article from Open Democracy, that says much the same thing, but uses a lot more words.

You can take your pick.

What do I Think of Myself?

I wish I knew, I really do. I have wildly divergent opinions of myself, from the very bad to the very good. All about one person!

Perhaps I should begin with what my parent's thought of me. They didn't think much of me, and I accepted their valuation. They were not much good themselves, but this possibility never occurred to me.

Let's start with my bad stuff, that's easy enough to see. I have borrowed money and never paid it back, I have been dishonest, and thought nothing of it.

I have worked for the Military, probably the worst people there are. Why? Because the pay was so good, and incompetence, for them, was so acceptable. I made the world a worse place and thought nothing of it.

Beginning in the Eighties, I switched from the Military to Computers. Ethically, it was the same place - massive incompetence but lots of money.

I rode the high-tech boom and bust of the Nineties in Silicon Valley. Then moved to Costa Rica, and now live on my Social Security retirement income.

I wish I could say, I am now a better person, but that would be a lie.

Object-Oriented Concepts

This is from a tutorial about UML, that includes a discussion of objects also.

The objects used in the programming world take the place of people in the real world. That is not putting it very well, but it's the best my feeble mind can come up with.

This is what it says:

An object contains both data and methods that control the data. The data represents the state of the object. A class describes an object and they also form a hierarchy to model the real-world system. The hierarchy is represented as inheritance and the classes can also be associated in different ways as per the requirement.

This is a clumsy way to say

This is what people have always looked like to computers.  

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) the Computer gets its smarts from the data. This is an improvement - it makes the computer smarter than the people that made it. 

The Budget

My family cannot understand why I don't have a budget and stick to it. They have one, and cannot understand why I do not.

They have a cash economy, they can open their bag of cash, and tell you immediately how much is in it.

I use cash also. When I buy something at the local supermarket, I pay for it in Colonies (bills and coins). When I buy meds at my local pharmacy, however, I use my handy credit card. I use cash and credit.

The money from my credit card gets taken from my Wells Fargo bank account in the States.

I subscribe to periodicals, such as the New York Times, and this gets taken from my bank account, at what seems like random intervals. I read it online every day.

I also buy books (sometimes Audible books) using my credit card with Amazon. I read, something unusual for most people.

I also support many charities (such as the ACLU) with small payments (usually $5, every month) These also occur at random intervals.

I have a credit economy, in addition to a cash economy. This is a common situation, but my family seems to find it unusual.

The end of aspiration? Why ‘social mobility’ is falling as inequality rises

Open Democracy

As a consequence, said a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies published this week, inequality is now so wide as to be “making a mockery of democracy".

Luckily, Cameron’s then-coalition partner, Nick Clegg, suggested a means of retaining the government’s claim to fairness. He redefined fairness. “Social mobility is what characterises a fair society” wrote Clegg, “rather than a particular level of income equality”.
This is about the British situation, but it can easily be applied to the American one - and should be.

Being Nothing is Being Everything

For most people, opposites are identical. And this is very convenient for them because they can be as stupid as they please.

In fact, by stating this fact, I am making it clear (to most people) that I know nothing and should be ignored.

UML and Java

I am reading the TutorialsPoint explanation of UML (https://www.tutorialspoint.com/uml/index.htm).

It is simplyeasylearning (as it claims)  but it is also determined to tell you everything about UML. These two goals are not completely compatible.

Java and UML both use objects and define what objects (in programming) are.

Kotlin takes this obsession further as you can read in https://www.infoq.com/presentations/kotlin-run-anywhere?

Learning how to Like People

For me, this was not easy. Hating people, especially women, was easy. You get the picture.

The first day I went to college (a church college) my mother said to me "Why don't you flirt with the girls, and make them feel good?" I wanted to hit her over the head, to knock some sense into it.

She was not very bright, but she had strong romantic fantasies, and she wanted me to have them too, but I was equally determined not to have them.

She thought her breasts had magical properties and every man in the world was obsessed with them when they were nothing special.

She was crazy, and every woman in my life after that was crazy too.

Do you see why I hated women?

Sociological Storytelling

Scientific American

Zeynep Tufekci has written something important here. It's too bad more people won't read it.

We have a bias for the individual as the locus of agency in interpreting our own everyday life and the behavior of others. We tend to seek internal, psychological explanations for the behavior of those around us while making situational excuses for our own. This is such a common way of looking at the world that social psychologists have a word for it: the fundamental attribution error.

When someone wrongs us, we tend to think they are evil, misguided or selfish: a personalized explanation. But when we misbehave, we are better at recognizing the external pressures on us that shape our actions: a situational understanding.

She says Game of Thrones was good because it emphasized the sociological, not the psychological.

She mentions this is also a problem in the technical writing that she does, but unfortunately does not go into this. 

Insanity

We are the only species that has this peculiar ability. It must be the result of having a large, complicated brain that also gave us Language, something else no other species has.

When this complicated processing gets out of whack, many things can happen, some beneficial, and some not. Some unfortunates end up in mental institutions.

With the advent of the Computer, people with some special abilities have become valuable employees. And they have sorted themselves into subcategories, each good at doing one thing.

This morning I had to lookup Angular on Wikipedia again. Sure enough, it has changed! And now I have to change along with it.

Hollywood Godfather

I am reading this book on my Fire tablet. highlighting the interesting parts as I go along. This book has quite a few of them.

It begins when he was cut by a champagne bottle in his nightclub in Las Vegas, and he responds by shooting him dead.

Quite a start, huh?

We did not Think

I am this way sometimes. I am antisocial and anti-thinking, the two go together.

I was remembering my time with my therapist as I was cooking breakfast this morning. We were close, and I had to be with him a lot.

When he went to the U of Missouri (to get his Ph.D.) I quit my job and went to the same place to be with him.

This was stupid, but he did not see it that way. He was what was keeping me together, and we had to stay together.

What was really going on? This is hard to explain, and any explanation has to include our background. We were cousins, our houses were only a mile apart on the Missippi river, and we grew up in the same church (the RLDS church) that he never left. I did notice that he abused his wife but managed to overlook that.

He was crazy. and I was too, but no one noticed this, because it was such a common pattern.

To this day (fifty years later) I can only look back at it, in wonderment.

The Engineer who was not Interested in Engineering

This was me, who graduated in 1959 from the U of Illinois as an Electronic Engineer.

I was what the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) was looking for - an engineer who could be part of the Cold War, where the US and the USSR competed to see who was the most foolish. The US won.

It was not quite that simple, as the book The Fifties says, but it was almost that simple. Right now I am reading about the Alger Hiss trial, that showed how stupid Americans were.

Understanding Coursera

Wikipedia is the first place to look.

This explains (in general terms) what it provides for free, and what it charges for.

It no doubt feels that charging $49 a month for its excellent courses, should not be much of a burden for its online students.

As one of these students, living on my American Social Security retirement income in Costa Rica, $49 a month is a lot.

I am taking several Coursera courses, and when it recently started charging me $49 a month I did not know which course this was for and had no way of finding out. Coursera's user interface does not provide this service. It does not provide a way for a student to leave a course either. Its user interface needs to be improved badly.

It should notify a student whenever it charges for a course, so the student knows what is going on financially, and can opt out.

What on Earth am I Doing Here?

InfoQ

I'm reminded of Dorothy saying to her little dog Toto "I don't think we are in Kansas anymore!"

We are not in the Fifties anymore either.

We are someplace in the Software world, or more accurately, several places that are somehow interconnected. And we (and our company) get to pick which places those are.

How Software Developers retain their sanity I do not know. Actually, I do know because I was once one myself, and I observed all the craziness going on around me.

Take look at this chart, and its divisions into Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, and Late Majority. It states Microservices are essential for some, but not for others.

We do not choose where we are - it chooses us.

How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer

IEEE Spectrum

Gregory Travis is a writer, a software executive, a pilot, and an aircraft owner. In 1977, at the age of 13, he wrote Note, one of the first social media platforms, and he has logged more than 2,000 hours of flying time, ranging from gliders to a Boeing 757 (as a full-motion simulator).

The When and Why of Self-Destruction

Two very big questions. To which could be added another: our stubborn refusal to recognize either one.

The when question could be answered simply: we have always been self-destructive. This is built into our genes. But our awareness of this has varied.

Beginning in the middle of the 20th Century, however, the human situation has become more technical and more destructive. We are now destroying everything. Except for our computers, which are getting better and better.

There are now two economies: the Industrial Economy (based on Oil) and the Computer Economy. (based on Information). Opposing forces, and we can wonder which one will win.

For the next fifty years or so, they will be fighting it out, and some kind of complicated compromise is inevitable.

The key to global security? It’s not just about security.

Open Democracy

I read this as I had breakfast with some Capaccino coffee. It made me think, which I did not find an agreeable sensation. And I am sure most Americans feel the same way, They like violence and always have.

Take a quick look at this bio of Paul Rogers. He is a professor in a peace studies department!

He wants to make the world better but understands the difficulty of that task. 

Literature imitating Life

Or Life imitating Literature?

This is discussed very well in Wikipedia's entry on Life imitating Art.

It is also discussed, at great length, in the course, I am taking Masterpieces of World Literature.  That makes a big point of noting that many of these masterpieces were written to entertain the common people of the time.

I will take this further by noting that The Book of Mormon, was written by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, as literature to satisfy the needs of Industrial workers. It was a response to their difficult working conditions and continues to be a response to the difficult living conditions we still have.

Kim Kardashian Reportedly Makes $1 Million Per Instagram Post

GQ

Is this outrageous or not?

Firebase

I have been rejected by the Amazon (AWS) and the Microsoft cloud (Azure). Only the Google Cloud Platform still accepts me.

Part of the reason for this strange behavior is the difficulty people have in understanding them. Take a look at this explanatory video.  Understand it?

If you look up Firebase on Wikipedia you will be even more confused. There are some high-level power struggles going on here, that I am now part of. Google is smart enough to include me in.

It knows I cannot hurt it any, and I might even help it little (by mentioning it in this blog).

We Need Jobs

I was told this when I was still in grade school, and I am sure this message is still coming across loud and clear.

We can still remember the Depression. when our grandparents could not get a job. But that was a long time ago. We are now concerned with the quality of our jobs, not just the quantity.

We are also concerned with security, a strange obsession we can hardly define.

The Right to Not Exist

This is a Right? You're damn right it is, and it is getting more important all the time, as everyone else takes everything away from us!

But we have the perfect solution: we can simply not exist, and not be affected by anything they throw at us!

This does have a disadvantage: we cannot get anything done! A problem that already existed, however, because those bastards would not let us!

The Great Open Spaces

This is usually referred to as the Midwest, halfway between IBM on the East Coast and Stanford on the West Coast. In between, there was nothing, or at least nothing worth speaking of.

I came from there, with millions of other people, such as Abraham Lincoln. It didn't take me long, however, to move to New York City, because that was where all the action was, and I didn't want to miss out on that. Guess what I found there: a woman! A beautiful, but crazy woman, a combination I cannot recommend.

I am leaving out, in this short history, the Civil War, that the Midwest did participate in, but not very enthusiastically. Slaves did not make good Industrial workers.

It didn't take Beth long, to insist that we move to California. Why, I have no idea but was a move in the right direction, that I have repeated several times since because Computers ended up there too. They knew where the action was - and still, know.

I have left Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis out of this story. They were important, but not that important, and this is a story of extremes. The same could be said of Denver and Salt Lake City.

Every App should be This Way

Every app alternates between the app asking for user input, and the app sending output to the user. Information flows two ways: from the user and to the user.

But the user does not always understand what is wanted, and the whole process can get off-track, and end up in the weeds.

This can be easily remedied, by always asking the user "Can you understand this?", and if he/she responds, going into the chat mode, where things can get straightened out.

Become a cloud architect: Learn AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more

Mashable

Excellent advice. but few are following it. They want the money but don't want to study to get it.

The economy now consists of two components: the one we are used to, but barely surviving in - and the Computer economy, where people are getting rich - but have to study constantly.

How I Spend my Money

I need to get this problem under control, and the first thing I can do is find out where it is going,  What category of expenses they fall into.
,
I have a Wells Fargo bank account, and it keeps track of each time something gets taken from that.

Medical expenses I don't have much control over, except for medical insurance once a month of $6, to the Costa Rica public health service (CAJA), a real bargain! I see my dentist once every three months, and that costs me $4, (in cash) another bargain. But sometimes she orders some Xrays from another company that set me back 22 dollars. I had to buy new glasses that cost 189 dollars.  I also get a few meds from my local pharmacy.

All this I pay for with my Wells Fargo Credit Card. People love that thing! For them it represents money, and they assume I am a rich Gringo that has much more.

Food I buy locally, in cash. Or once a week at a Walmart store in Cartago, the nearest large town, using my Credit Card. Food is not a big expense.

I take online courses, that are usually free, but some of them cost me $50 a month.

I buy books, usually the Kindle edition, but an expense most people do not have because they do not read!

I do support a number of charities. that cost me $5 a month. This is not much, but they do add up. The people behind these are always disappointed that I don't give more!

The problem for my bookkeeping is that my financial commitments occur at random intervals.

We have an Impossible Task Ahead of Us

It's so impossible I cannot explain what it is, but only hint at it.

As people, we are sensitive creatures with feelings that are easily hurt. But we hurt these feelings frequently, without intending to.

For example, my bank account. Each time I look at it, I cannot account for all those little expenses, but the math is simple: I am spending more than is coming in.

I have a phrase that keeps popping into my head "Everyone has to kill everyone else!" I do not want to accept this, but I keep seeing examples of this happening all the time.

My Youth in my Father's Darkroom

This was my Father's favorite place, and where I got to know him best.

All his best friends (and they were all men of his age) socialized with him there. There was always something interesting going in the processing of his prints. I stood on a box and ran the prints through the hypo that made it possible for them to be exposed to the light, washed, and dried.

One of them was a Catholic Priest from Ft. Madison, who got an offer from the Church he could not refuse. There was a parish somewhere else in the Midwest, that was in bad shape. If he took it over and made it profitable again, he would advance rapidly in the church. If he failed, he would remain an assistant priest in Ft. Madison for the rest of his life.

He accepted the challenge.

The Antisocial Society

I am hardly the person to complain about this because there are times when I am antisocial myself. Very antisocial.

And this is true of most of us: we have been treated badly, and we are only getting even. And we can see nothing wrong with this.

In fact, we are ethically blind and intend to stay that way. Being ethical takes too much thinking, that we are not used to. I have to ask myself why I avoid women sexually, is this really necessary?

I can see no way out of this. Large social changes are difficult and require large social commitments to make them. And I can see nothing this large on the horizon.

We live in a society that is technically advanced, but morally deficient. And the best we can do is be aware of this.

From Rust Belt to Robot Belt: Turning AI into Jobs in the US Heartland

Medium

Some smart people wrote this article. Readers of it will have to be smart also. I had trouble staying awake.

But few people will read it. And this is the tragedy of our times. A few of us know what we need to know, but this knowledge is not getting to the people who can use it.

The Worst Hard Time

I downloaded the free sample of this, and I recommend you do the same.

This guy knows how to write, and has picked a good subject  The map at the beginning, that shows the extent of the dustbowl, is priceless.

The Importance of Learning in the Computer Economy

There are two economies now: the one we are used to (where people are barely surviving) and a new one I have labeled the Computer economy, that most people know nothing about, but where people are getting rich.

Back in the Eighties, there were hundreds of computer companies. Now, there are four: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple. What happened? 

What happened is no secret: and those who have succeeded want you to succeed also. But to succeed. you will have to learn at a pace you are not used to. 

A good example is Deep Learning for Computer Vision, a free online course I am taking.

If you master this subject, you will have your pick of very good jobs. 

Facebook is building the new Facebook.com with React, GraphQL, and Relay

Facebook explains itself

A cute young woman in tights reads from a teleprompter. She knows you want to know, how this magic is done.

You do want to know, don't you?

Behind the scenes of their smartphones

Medium

I do not have a Phone myself. Next month, after my bank account has recovered, I will buy a cheap one that I can use down here, in Costa Rica.

I will have the phone number, that every app is demanding.

Self Hate

Once again, I am asking myself "What is wrong with us?" The same question we have been asking ourselves for thousands of years. Or at least some of us are asking that. Perhaps one percent of the population.

The 99 percent are saying many things, but they do not believe in questioning the way good people (such as themselves) are.

But there are people who feel differently and do question the way other people are. How a society treats these dissidents is important.

I was working in Silicon Valley in the Nineties, where I did not fit in. The hatred I felt because I did like their high-tech hustle, was considerable.

This self-hatred did not last, fortunately. As can be seen in one company, Microsoft. In the Nineties, it was the Evil Empire. Now, twenty years later, it believes in helping people. Really!

But this is still one percent of the population. Hatred is still endemic elsewhere.

Writing

Writing continues to be produced in large amounts on every conceivable subject.

The people who have time to read however has remained the same. Which means most writing will not be read.

I worked as a Tech Writer for 20 years (1980-2000). But what I wrote, I have to admit, was of low quality. But at least I knew what I was trying to do.

My grandmother wanted to write novels but had no idea what she wanted to do. As a result, she ended up collecting rejection slips, having no idea why.

Writing about Software, by contrast, is being produced in ever-greater quantity and quality.  This is only possible because Software is part of a new economy (the Computer economy) where things work differently.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

This is a famous book, but I had never read it. Yesterday I bought the Kindle version (for $9.99) and I can now see why it is so famous.

There is a lengthy review of it (and the people it has influenced) on Wikipedia.

I can also see why it has not influenced most people - because they have never read it.

We cannot Make the Good Life

For ourselves or anything else. And the reason for this is simple: we have destructiveness built into our very nature.

And part of this mental state is a lack of an ability to be aware of it.

I am not saying the situation is hopeless, it is hopeless only for people, who cannot step outside of themselves occasionally, and see how they are behaving. This is the case for most people, at present.

AI Researchers Want to Study AI the Same Way Social Scientists Study Humans

MIT Technology Review

Maybe we don’t need to look inside the black box after all. We just need to watch how machines behave instead.

This simple line of reasoning has resulted in a short online article.

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Throws the Doors Open Ahead of Build

WIRED

“Ultimately you have to have that awakening that human dignity, decency, and that empathy for your coworkers is key,” Nadella says. “In this industry, we’ve had for far too long, I would say, role models of the talented jerk. That’s done.”

Sentience and Survival

Open Democracy

This woman is saying to the Human Race "You must do better!"

The response to this purple prose is the same as always: she is ignored.

People will do whatever they please. not what they are supposed to do.

San Diego was Home, and they were Not Going Anywhere Else

I was surprised to hear this coming from a fellow-worker in a Computer company, back in the Eighties.

I was willing to go wherever the jobs were. And I did that, moving to Silicon Valley, quite a ways to the North, where everything was better.

My friend could not imagine anything better than San Diego.

This was true at one time, maybe twenty years ago. But Diego had gone through a lot of growth, so much so, it alarmed everyone.

I watched as his life got worse and worse, and he noticed nothing.

Most People Do Not Exist

Because this gives them tremendous advantages.

They cannot be blamed for anything that happens, for the simple reason that they were not there.

This is the cop-out of our time that is all-powerful because it cannot be seen.

What about people who do exist? What can they do to combat this? All they can do is what I did - I got out, and moved to another country, taking my retirement benefits with me.

I was able to make the internal adjustment to living as an ordinary person (not the extraordinary persons Americans are). 

Keeping It's and Its in Their Places

Merriam-Webster

I subscribe to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, for $5 a month, because I get help with tricky problems like this. 

The Case of Anna H

The New Yorker, Oliver Saks, 2002

He was an unusual person, a doctor who could write, and did so frequently.

But, come to think of it, I know Software experts, who can write, and do so frequently.

The ability to write (about anything) can easily become an obsession, that I have myself, as the Compulsive Explainer. 

We Need a Post-Liberal Order Now

Medium

I haven't had the nerve to say this. And if I did say this, who would I say it to?

There are millions of people with Internet access. who can read English, but very few who can understand (or want to understand) what I am saying, or he is saying.

Middleware at Adaptec

I worked for Adaptec in Silicon Valley in the Nineties. And got a crash course on how not to do many things. A smarter person would have learned something from this experience - but I did not.

This was when we were making the transition from the Industrial economy to the Computer economy. Or trying to make this transition.

I was right in the middle of this mess, seeing everything but understanding nothing.

Adaptec had manufactured Adapters for Desktop Computers, big things three feet high, three feet deep, and a foot wide. You couldn't do much with them, right out of the box, but had to buy (and install) adapters to make them do other things, such as use the Internet.

The Laptop computer included all these capabilities, right out of the box. and put Adaptec out of business. Adaptec decided it would reinvent itself, but did not know how to do this.

One of our engineers decided we would produce Middleware, and he would show us how to do this. He knew nothing about Middleware but came up with some weird stuff he thought would do the job.

It didn't, and Adaptec continued its slide toward obsolescence.

I was surprised this morning when I looked up Middleware on Wikipedia. It is several varieties of really cool stuff!

A Lack of Interest

I continue to be interested in people who do not exist. This condition is encouraged by today's cultures.

Part of this condition is a lack of interest in reading about anything that is new to them. They retain an interest in drama but have no interest in thinking about what the characters in the drama are doing.

They are interested in the details of what is going on, but cannot speculate on its causes. They are interested in flooding on the Missippi River, for example, but cannot connect this to Global Climate Change.

I can make this discussion more concrete by relating what happened in Software in Silicon Valley in the Nineties when I was working there. This is a long story.

The Java programming environment had been invented by Sun Microsystems, with the intention of replacing Microsoft. This did not happen, for a variety of reasons, including Microsoft's devious business practices, that had many states suing it for illegal business practices.

The Feds stepped in and appointed a special prosecutor to take the place of all the Microsoft cases that were pending. After piddling around for quite a while, she did nothing.

Meanwhile, Microsoft was completely redesigning its NET software environment, that included two new languages: C# and F#. And it's own Cloud, Azure. And Sun Microsystems went out of business.

The Java programming environment continued to be developed by its own enthusiasts. This often happens in Software: it is developed on its own, by people who care nothing about its profitability.

There are two economies in operation here. And this causes intense confusion.to the people living in them, who have no idea what is going on.

But elect dictators to make these complicated decisions for them.

Software keeps getting better. while people keep getting worse.

Computers Became People

And people became computers.

The first equivalency is well-known, as computers took jobs people used to have. Or at least took the routine part of their jobs. Typewriters took the place of human copyists.

My grandmother graduated from a business college, went to work in Boston's business district (where only men used to be seen) and got her picture on the front page of the newspaper.

People becoming computers has not received as much attention, although this effect on people's personal lives (needless to say) has been more profound.

This can be looked at in two ways: people controlling the computer (by becoming programmers) or the computer controlling people (using the Social Media, that people and the computer created together).

Why was I a Bad Person?

Because everyone else was. And still is.

Perhaps that is putting it a bit strongly, but it would certainly be accurate to say that most people are.

And for the best of reasons. Because people always have been.

The best example of this was the ancient Romans. Who gave us an example that lasted until recently, with the advent of the Modern World.

Although it would be more useful to begin our account a little later, with Industrialization. Or you may prefer to speak of Capitalism. The two terms overlap.

We can also speak of the masses and mass production, beginning in 1930, that had the biggest effect of all. And produced a general public with little social awareness.

I am reading an online article about GM's closing of its Lordstown plant. The formatting of this uses the latest tricks, but it cannot cover up the basic fact. The economy no longer needs these people.

The article makes you realize these are real people, maybe not the brightest of people. but not bad people.

I went through the same crisis when I lost my engineering job in 1990. I became financially irresponsible and used up all my credit.

This was bad, but I didn't give it a second thought.

Record-wet weather in the Midwest has brought some of the worst flooding in decades

Scientific American

Experts say the cresting Mississippi, which is expected to swallow dozens of more river towns below Davenport over the coming days, will probably rank among the top five floods in history. In some areas, it could challenge the Great Flood of 1993, the most destructive on record.

Why Facebook was so Popular

Because it made using the Computer easy, Even things you didn't know you wanted to do, are easy and fun.

It is taking over your mind, and making it available to others. Who value it more than you do.

Compare what Facebook and Google do for you.

Google wants to make you smarter It can't help doing this because it is so smart itself. Facebook has no such ambition. If you never get any smarter, this does not bother it in the least.

Membership in the Church

When I left the Church, I was surprised to learn it didn't know I was in it.

In this day and age, it should have a database with all the basic info for each church member in it. And a team of people tasked with maintaining and updating it.

I suspect this is not the case. And all the statistics on Church membership it provides are estimates.

It could easily show I am wrong, by providing some basic facts about their database.

Being Ethical

Business, once the most conservative force in the world, is becoming liberal.

"I have heard this before", you may say, from Obama, who talked about the audacity of hope and delivered nothing. And then from Trump, who said much the same thing, and delivered nothing.

What's different this time? GitHub, and the forces that made it. And made Microsoft buy it (for an insane price). An insane thing to do, from a business standpoint.

Microsoft has decided that being ethical is a good business practice and backed this up with plenty of cash.

Look at this video for the amazing details

Wireless Earbuds

Amazon

This a good example of Amazon functioning as a third-party marketplace.

Other sellers can say whatever they please about their product. Amazon will collect the money for it, ship it, and charge them for these services.

When I got them in Costa Rica, they didn't work, and could never have worked. If I lived in the States, I would have simply returned them and got my money back.

Living down here, this would not have been possible, They will end up in the garbage, that is picked up regularly.

Short-Lived Brands on Amazon

Marketplace Pulse

As a loyal buyer at Amazon, I have sometimes been snagged by this problem but didn't know how it happened, or who to complain to.

Amazon has become the Big Brother to me, who can easily outsmart anyone in his domain.

I will have to read Marketplace Pulse more often.

Whenever Amazon functions as a third-party marketplace, this will set off alarm bells.

Want to develop great microservices? Reorganize your team

This article not only has good advice but is also easy to find.

It says:

A build-and-run team ideally consists of six to eight people, but certainly no more than 10. This team owns everything from development to operations, including testing and product management.

Our cousin Florence was tasked with Finding Missions for the Temple. She could have easily taken some of the activities already performed there and turned them into microservices.

https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/want-develop-great-microservices-reorganize-your-team

Why Globalism Is Good for You

Medium

The difference between globalisation and globalism might seem obscure and unimportant, but it matters. Globalisation is a word used by economists to describe international flows of trade, investment and people. Globalism is a word used by demagogues to suggest that globalisation is not a process but an ideology — an evil plan, pushed by a shadowy crowd of people called “globalists”.

Being Grateful

This is something Americans are not good at.

They have been given everything, but are not the least bit grateful for this.

This change in attitude must have happened during the last half of the last century, We knew something was going on then, and it was not good for us. But did not know what it was.

This would have required an improved internal awareness, such as acquired by meditation. And improved external awareness. both.

For some reason, we were determined to not be aware of our external situation, our social situation. 

Making Our Parents Better

Two of my siblings (a brother and an older sister) are working hard at this. My younger sister was close to her father, but not her mother and her loyalties are divided.

We have the oldest of conflicts being acted out in our little family, with one difference: they are not aware of this!

Perhaps we should be grateful we had parents, even if they were bad parents. Plenty of children are missing one parent or both of them.

Technology Is Threatening Our Species’ Survival

Medium

It's nice to find someone who agrees with you, especially when you know they are right. And Anna Machin is right.

Here is a quote that applied to me:

At the other end of life, possibly our most critical relationships of all, with respect to our future mental and physical health, are those we form with our carers as a baby while the brain is still rapidly developing. The negative consequences of poor attachment at this age can include developmental issues, addiction, and anti-social behavior. 

Anti-social behavior certainly applies to me. 

People who do not Like Other People

When I took the taxi into town from the airport in Costa Rica, I noticed immediately that the people there liked other people. And I said to myself "This is the place for me!" And I am still here.

This is not true of most Americans, most of them go back after a few years. Because they have adapted to being there and can live nowhere else. They like friendliness, but the hustle of being in America is more important to them.

This is true in many places. People like people who can help them get ahead. and they know instinctively who these people are.

What we Really Want

We have to go by what we do, to determine what we really want, and pay little attention to what we say we want.

I'm sure we can all agree on that.

All we have to do is agree on what we are doing. Which seems impossible.

We are not equipped with reality detectors but are storytellers instead, and love a good story.

I spent 20 years of my life (1980-2000) being part of the biggest story ever invented. We called it the Computer and believed it would produce Heaven on Earth. What it produced instead, we have no words for, but it was not Heaven.

We still have the Computer, and it is more powerful than ever. But it has not made us better.

We should be paying close attention to our new situation and the desperate situation we are in. But part of our situation is our lack of social awareness.

Perhaps this blindness was caused because these changes happened gradually, over half a century. And because in some ways, we are better off.  We now have the Internet and Cellular networks. And the SmartPhone that we can hold in our hands, and the Cloud. These have given us incredible new capabilities. that we never dreamed of before.

But they have not changed us.