Instagram was Instant Money

Wikipedia

After its launch in 2010, Instagram rapidly gained popularity, with one million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion as of May 2019. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. As of October 2015, over 40 billion photos had been uploaded to the service.

Nine years is not instant anything, but anytime you start talking billions of dollars, you are talking something superhuman.

The Strong Appeal of Destructive Behavior

I can feel this appeal personally, as can most of my family. We nave been treated badly, so why not treat others badly, just to get even?

Once we put it that way, it rapidly loses its appeal, so it has to be denied. But the simple mechanism of denial makes it even stronger.

This is true of many negative emotions: they are mutually reinforcing. And taken as a whole - very satisfying.

And once it becomes global, it cannot be stopped.

This is not a cheerful thought, but one that must be faced. And faced consciously. We cannot save the world, and it cannot save us.

Retired and Decentralized

This is a common combination in America.

Retired people move frequently, and change houses frequently.

This is especially true on the East Coast. They spend their winters in Florida, and their summers in Maine. With 30-year mortages in both locations.

They may compromize and live in North Carolina year-round. The weather is mild, jobs are avaiable, and the Universities are excellent.

This also true in Arizona, and has been true in California for some time.

People are Hard to Understand

I ought to know, because I have tried hard enough, unsuccessfully.

And I am not alone.

This must be one of the primary struggles of the human race.

In our time, in the last 500 years or so, we have come to an amazing decision: most of us have stopped trying to understand other people.

And they only exist as members of mass movements, that are not trying to make them any better.

Web App

Wikipedia

I'm glad I looked this up. It's more complicated than I thought.

I am in the process of enrolling to the Web App for the bank I am using in Costa Rica. This bank, the Bank of Costa Rica (BCR) wants to act like a bank in a developed country, not a developing country.

And this means its Web App must act that way also. Today I will visit one of its offices, and see how good its Software is.

If its Software is good enough, I will stay with them. If not, I will move on.

Why Most Software is Defective

Because programmers (or programming teams) that can write good software are expensive and take a long time.

It should always ask the user "Is this working for you?" And take his feedback seriously.

Most organizations only think of themselves (or what they think they are).

Successful compnies know Software is Hard, and Expensive. 

Not Understanding is their Preferred Way of Being

There are many ways of looking at this, for example Does mindfulness in politics make any difference? As one who has done quite a bit of mindfulness training, I can see the limitations of this approach. And my Meditation teacher would agree with her.

And I must switch subjects and speak of the importance of growing up in Los Angeles. And its effect on the many people who have grown up there - much of America has been shaped by its influence.

Every large city in the world has turned into a Los Angeles. Whether it wanted to be that way, or not!

These people have a strange way of looking at things. that everyone wants to imitate.

I grew up in the Midwest, and the people there went two ways during the winter: California or Florida. They thought nothing of driving two thousand miles to get away from the snow!

If you had a car, you used it to improve your mobility.  And to show how much better you were!

I collapsed, then Recovered

It's not hard to do this, it happens all the time and not everyone recovers. Alcoholics, for example, do not usually make it. Every little town in Costa Rica has it own AA meeting place.

Yesterday I went to the place that makes some fried rice that I like. It took them nearly an hour to make it!

Because the place was fill of motorcycles and their riders, dressed in their protective gear. They were eating everything on rhe menu and making a lot of noise. They were bilingual and wanted to tell about their motorcycles, that were expensive!

When I recovered from that and could walk a little, I went to a place that makes deluxe hambugers, with everthing on them. Getting up the stairs to the place was difficult, and other people had to help me with this. I should have realized right then that was in an impaired condition, and not done any more shopping that day. But I got their special burger, a huge thing, And loaded it into my pack along with my fried rice.

I staggered down the stairs (I was having a hard time keeping my balance) and crossed the street without getting run over. This was the center of town, and the vehicles were driving slowly.

I then went home, and had my fancy burger with a Heineken Beer.

Aeropost is trying to Compete with Amazon

This is stupid of them and is making my life difficult. They see Amazon making lots of money, and don't see why they can't do the same thing.

They have no idea how Amazon works, how they have created the dev/ops space, and the huge number of other companies they have partnered with. They have invented the online retail market.

Aeropost flies packages from Miami to Costa Rica runs them through customs and delivers them to its many local outlets (for me, this is Cartago). This is a valuable service that Amazon cannot offer.

They have hired four young women (each with a car) and told them how much money they will make (a lot).

These gals will make a few sales but they not much than much more than they that already have.

Most People are Stupid

But they do not know this, and they never will.

There is a big difference between being stupid and knowing it - and being stupid and not knowing it.

The difference between constructive and destructive behavior.

Maybe BCR will Work for Me

Enroll to BancoBCR

I need a bank with a decent Web App, so I can keep close track of my money.

Imagine my surprise when I did a search for "How do I access my BCR account?" and got this!

Now I have to talk to my contact in the BCR in Paraiso (who speaks English) and get his help on this. This may be difficult, because he is usually very busy.

Most People cannot Understand Computers

I can, and I have tried many times to help other people understand them - unsuccessfully.

Something about their minds makes this impossible - even though they know this additional expertise would make them a lot of money.

Perhaps they feel the computer is evil, and understanding it would make them evil also.

I am crazy, but part of my craziness is due to other people

I suppose anyone can say this. We are social animals, and what we are as individuals is strongly affected by the society we are part of.

This is most obvious in the language (or languages) we speak. Now that the computer can talk and hear, it wants to do this all the time, just to show us how smart it is!

I am also suffering from the differences between American and Costa Rican banking systems. American banks want to be user-friendly, but the Tico banks do not.

Samsung Galaxy J2 Core

Yahoo Finance

I just bought this because I was told many times "You gotta have one!"

I went to a WalMart and bought the cheapest one they had. And now I have one, I have no idea how to use it. I gotta have a mouse and keyboard.

I know how to use my laptop (I am using it right now, to write this) but I have no idea how to use a phone!

This device supports all the basic functions of a phone such as calling and texting — but it can’t connect to 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, or Wi-Fi.

It's a phone, but not a smartphone.

Donald Trump Is The Dunning — Kruger Effect Personified

Medium

This is the latest attempt to analyze President Trump. And probably the best one.

It is not an easy read. But if you enjoy reading about psychosis, it is made for you.

Ethereum Blockchain as a Service now on Azure

Microsoft Blog

Sounds great!

But look up ConsenSys, and you will get a different feeling:

Joseph Lubin founded ConsenSys in early 2015 as a software foundry to develop decentralized software services and applications that operate on the Ethereum blockchain.

As of July 2018, ConsenSys has more than 900 employees. Its main office is located in an old industrial building in Bushwick, Brooklyn and was described by The New York Times as "essentially one large room, with all the messy trademarks of a start-up operation, including white boards on the walls and computer parts lying around.

How can the Microsoft Cloud and ConsenSys work together?  If you want find out, you have subscribe to the service, and try using it.  You might get lucky or you might not.

Pollolandia uses American Marketing Techniques

America has turned Marketing into a Fine Art, where they manipulate the consumer shamelessly.

And the consumers, for their part, feel they are privileged beings.

Orosi, where I live, is full of failed companies. The only bar in town barely survives.

But Pollolandia has just opened, and is thriving.

The name is a combination of pollo (chicken) in Spanish and land in English.

Anyone who walks in the door is a customer, and is treated that way. This is a new approach, and does not offend the natives.

Understanding the Computer

Most people (99 percent of the population) do not understand them and don't want to. They only want to use them.

The other one percent are busy understanding them and making them better.

The two do not understand each other and don't want to.

They are Nothing, and they can see Nothing Wrong with That

Here I am, ranting away at my favorite subject: the determination of most people to not exist. They are fond of doing but avoid being.

They do not want to be dependent on other people when that is the most natural thing in the world. In fact, they take this to its opposite extreme and destroy others, while making this impossible to detect.

They are machines and not social animals. Or, in a different way of putting this, they are supermen (or women) doing much more than ordinary people can.

In many situations, they are good people to have on your side, fighting evil with you. But they can easily become dictators, forcing you to benefit them.

The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity

Medium-the Atlantic Magazine

My brother supports Trump, and without knowing it, the Evangelica agenda as well.

The Evangelicals are strong everywhere - even in Latin America, where the language spoken is Spanish.

The Catholics are building huge church buildings, but many of their members see that as a waste of money.

Death without Pain

This happens because there are now institutions where people can go to die painlessly.

My mother died in one of those, heavily drugged.

There was no point in our visiting her because she was not really there.

People that do not Exist

This, it seems to me, is the biggest problem of our times. But as far as I know, no one else is interested in it.

Now that I have stated the problem, what can I do about it?

Perhaps that is the wrong way to state the problem. It assumes the problem can be clearly stated and a solution found for it. But the problem cannot be clearly stated because it is many related problems.

It can be regarded as an ontological problem or an existential problem, or a survival problem, or many more. And for most people, a problem that cannot be solved, and one we should not try to solve.

They are eager to solve different parts of the problem, but not the problem itself.

The Online Learning Ecosystem

This has acquired a life of its own, where millions of people are busy learning from each other.

This sounds like a lot of people, but they are only a small percentage of the world's population. Less than one percent. But they are active!

Most people (99 percent of the population) are not interested in learning. They would rather drop dead!

The Masses have Taken Over

This has been a gradual process that was greatly accelerated by the arrival of the Computer. But the basic changes to mass psychology happened before it arrived.

People saw themselves, for the first time, as part of large societies. that operated differently. Part of this change was the disappearance of small businesses, especially the family farm. That was replaced by Big Business, that was hostile to personal interactions. It wanted everything to be Big.

This Economy sometimes stopped working, especially during the Depression. This reinforced the perception, that we were part of something Big,.that we did not understand very well.

And this ignorance was seen as a good thing: people were not interfering with the way things were. That produced the rich and the poor in such abundance.

People in their natural state, are part of tribes, numbering not more than 100 people each, speaking their own language. 

The world in the Fifties was divided into two nations: the US and the USSR. That saw themselves as natural enemies. This produced the Cold War. That many people, including myself, benefited from greatly.

Your Python Potential

The Clever Programmer

I wasn't sure what to make of this. He is coming across so strong, and I have been bamboozled so many times!

On the other hand, I heard great things about Java, when it first came out but didn't follow up on it. If I had of I would be Java programmer now, still living in the States, and making lots of money.

Python is another programming language, that is also taking the Software world by storm! If I were younger, I would be getting on this bandwagon.

Living with Evil

Evil is something we created ourselves, no other being has the foggiest notion of what it is.

"Yes," you will say "But we also created Good." True enough. You cannot have one without the other.

Things got interesting when we created our many technologies, and tried to decide if they were Good or Evil. We could say they were either Good or Evil. depending on how they were used. But we were suspicious of such an easy answer and inclined to look deeper.

This was true of what we refer to as Industrialization, that had huge benefits and huge problems. Taken as a whole, was this Good or Bad? It was hard to say, but Industrial wars were bad enough to make us wonder. Especially when they were linked with Religion.

Most people gave up thinking about this, which created a new phenomenon: people who could not think, or distinguish Good from Evil.

Our latest technology, the Computer, and its Software resolved this problem because it was easy to create Evil Software, and the Evil People to go with it.

We were forced to consider Ethics and all its implications.

Being Real is scary Stuff

And this why many people, including me, became failures. Being successful was too scary.

Only now, when I am 82, am I becoming a success, at being me.

"This is no big deal" you may be thinking, and you would be right. You have to be a success, and continue being a success.

Failure is as Common as Success

It doesn't take much brain power to realize this, because we prefer to hear success stories.

But failure stories are just as common.

I was visiting with a friend yesterday who had gone from riches to rags, without realizing it. An amazingly common story.

She was working for an American couple, helping them rent their house in Turrialba on airbnb. The perfect job for her, because she speaks Spanish and English fluently and she has a car. She would do a meet and greet in Turrialba, and then show them the way to the house by driving on the mountain roads up there, closely followed by the renters, in their rental car.

The view from the house, looking down on the valley below is magnificent, with a view of the Turrialba volcano in the distance, making lots of steam. The house is fully equipped, with food in the refrigerator. This is the easy part.

When the rental ends a week later she has to get busy. Everything in the house has to be cleaned, especially in the bedrooms. She has local help to do this for her, but she has to make sure it is done.

The same for the outside of the house. Weeds grow rapidly, and they have to be cut down. Even the rocks have to be picked up, so everthing doesn't roll downhill. And all this has to be done it one day, to make it ready for the next renters!

It gets done, and Airbnb reimburses the owners, who also pay her adequately. She makes enough to have a fine new car. She works hard, but only for a little while. She makes plenty by local standards.

What happened to mess this up? I do not know, but it did happen. And I know she did not know it had happened. When I last visted her and her family they did not know either.

Ignorance runs in families.

In Latin America, no one Worries about Satisfied Users

This one of the differences between rhe rich countries (in the North) and the poor ones (in the South).

In the South, the rich and powerful concentrate on getting richer and more powerful, at the expense of the poor.

In the North, they know the poor help make them rich, and they want to keep them happy,  so they will buy more, in the ever-present Shopping Centers.

Good and Mad

Elemental-Medium

This is a book about Women's anger, which is nothing new. My mother, for example, was an angry person, and I was one of the things she was angry about.

Most of the women in my family have had intense ambivalent relationships with their fathers and with their husbands. Which they were not usually aware of.

Which often resulted in the death of the man.

Decentralised Finance (DeFi)

Medium - The Startup

The biggest organisations in the world are now starting to realise the importance that Cryptocurrency and DeFi will play in the world.

This was begun with Bitcoin and its Blockchain networks. And is being carried on by Ethereum and its Smart Contracts. Facebook is seriously developing its Libra currency, that is making banks and Congress (that receives a lot of funding from the banks) nervous.

Microsoft's Azure cloud now automates Ethereum and its Blockchain network for you. And the Google cloud (GCP) is doing much the same thing, they say.

One opportunity that interests me is International Transfers - Exchanging and transferring various currencies across borders.

My retirement funds are paid for by the American Social Security Agency (SSA) but I am living and banking in Costa Rica. This creates lots of problems.

Can Beto Bounce Back?

New Yorker

Americans ought to know this guy, he's an interesting person, and he is doing his best to meet all the people he can, driving his own rental car.

But he hasn't a ghost of a chance. 

Inside Google

WIRED

This is not an easy read.

But you should read it, because it explains a lot about our crazy Computer world. With Goggle right in the middle of it.

These people make a lot of money, because Google makes a lot of money. But they are defining stress for our time,

Windows 10 and Me

Windows 10 does frequent updates and some of these updates make huge changes to your computer. This also happens with other versions of Windows, Microsoft has created a monster it is trying to tame, mostly unsuccessfully.

The nice, reliable computer you hsve been using becomes something else, you struggle to understand.

When this happens to you, as it certainly will, it is not you who have gone crazy, it's your computer. 

Many People do not Read the Emails you Send Them

I know. I should known this a long time ago. when I watched some people do it.

They went through their inbox quickly, looking for mail that interested them. Mail that made money for them, right then.

Everything else was deleted.

In some cases they didn't even bother to read their emails, and deleted hundreds of them whenever they happened to look at their mail.

I do the same thing when I look under the Promotions tab in Gmail. But even there I use some discretion, and read a choice few.

Money Problems

I decided to do this in Blogger (with the assistance of Grammarly) instead of doing it in an email.

My problems began when Wells Fargo canceled my debit card (at my request) but would not give me another one, leaving me with no way to access my money.

The beginning of a long list of problems with different companies.

My brother Steve bought a money order and mailed it to me in Miami, at the Aeropost address there. They then flew it to Costa Rica. But Aeropost was having problems of their own and I still have not received the money order, two weeks later.

Then my brother wired me $1500. This was the biggest disaster of all because that money has disappeared completely!

This was probably due to poor communication between Ray, who sent my brother instructions on the account to wire the funds to in the Banco Costa Rica (BCR). These two do not communicate very well, And the BCR is not too bright either.

I have been giving some thought on what to do next. One possibility is to use my post office box in Cartago, and have my brother send another mail order directly to that. This relies on two post offices; the American and the Costa Rican. The American one is fine, but the Costa Rican is not.

Registered mail service is available in the States, but probably not in Costa Rica. What I would like to do is use a Registered mail service in both countries. So this money would not get lost.

I have decided to use my post office box. Mail sent to these is handed differently, because the mail has to be loaded into the boxes by hand.

When Benevolence Doesn't Work

I had a meditation teacher for quite a while and I enjoyed going to his retreats. A big part of his practice was being benevolent to other people. No one could argue with that at the time, the last half of the 20th Century.

But times have changed, they have gotten much worse. And benevolence is no longer cutting it.

You have to know what is going on, and how to react appropriately to them. The basic concept here is to react. To do something.

You gotta have smarts and know how to use them. Right?

There is a meditation center called Spirit Rock in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Probably the most beautiful retreat center in the world.

Not too long ago they decided to mount an all-out attack on the problems of the time. They had a special retreat with some of their best meditators and even advertised, in advance, the expected results of this operation.

Which were zero, nothing!

What happened to Orosi?

First of all, we have to define what the different parts of Orosi are.

This is not difficult, and can easily be seen from the overlook provided for the convenience of visitors. Three new subdivisions have been built to the South of town, populated with small, cheap houses. These were built on land formerly used by coffee farms.

The owners of these houses commute daily, by bus or car, to jobs outside of the Valley,

The only industry, that used to employ lots of people, that grew exotic plants in greenhouses, is gone. Even the greenhouses have been removed. The land they used now stands vacant.

No one planned this huge change in the economy, it just happened. And its effects are poorly understood.

The new residents have no connection to what Orosi was a few years ago. That attracted lots of visitors, The visitors have moved elsewhere, mostly to Guanacaste and the West Coast. That are rapidly developing.

The leaves Orosi with many vacant hotel and hostel vacancies. Many businesses (including the rafting company) have closed down. Tourist buses, that used to be common, are less frequent. There is not much here for tourists to see, or feel.

Cartago provides excellent Public Services

Except for one thing. it does not have much water. Even Paraiso, just up the hill does not have enough water!

Orosi has everything, including lots of water. Electricity is so abundant it is exported to Nicaragua and Panama. Even garbage collection is right on schedule and taken to a nearby landfill.

Our house has high-speed Internet provided by our phone connection and cable.

It even has a bank with an ATM!

Daughters who Hate their Mothers

This situation was common in my family. It was strongest in my mother's side of the family. Where my mother and her sister hated their mother but were not aware of this. They let her dominate the family and stayed close by her side.

This hatred only became apparent when she died, and it was easily observed by women outside of the family. (Women, as a rule, are better observers of human behavior.)

Both women supported their brother and taught school to put him through college, during the height of the Depression. Which he greatly appreciated.

They liked their father but hated their mother.

Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Build WeChat for the West

Medium

This is excellent Technical Writing. By some highly-paid writers with tons of readers.

Journalism so new we don't have a name for it yet.

It merges with online learning like Microsft Academy and edX.

After reading this, you know more about some very technical subjects.

Me and Money

I couldn't think of a better title for this posting. This one is kind of lame, but it is brief. 

To be complete, I would have to say more about money, the US and Costa Rica, and Computers.

I will settle for Computers, which have a fatal attraction for me and are symbolic of our age.

Money, for them, is only a number, and this does not blend well with the Human belief that it is damn near everything.

Some kind of compromise must be possible, and I am being forced to make this compromise myself. Why I ask, is this role being forced on me?

I seem to be in the right place at the right time, and all the pieces when put together point right to me and people like me.

I didn't plan for this to happen, and I didn't want this to happen, but here I sit in my pajamas, in front of my laptop, which is giving me some stern orders: "This the way it is, and this the way you are going to be, like it or not!"

I am reminded of Emerson, who wrote: "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." There is a statue in a park in London, of a naked man riding a naked horse, with this inscription below it.

We are naked when faced with the ultimate reality.

A Total Waste

I went to Cartago today on the bus. I have done this so many times I know the route by heart.

I only succeeded at one thing, I found the new location of the Aeropost office. A walk of 450 meters is a long walk. Next time I will take a taxi.  

I was expecting a mail-order from my brother, that he had mailed to Miami. All I got was an advertisement. also in a sealed envelope.

I did get some sandwiches at my favorite sandwich shop. I ate one on the ride home.

Ray loaned me 30,000 Colones, now that is almost gone,

A Constitutional Democracy

This was an American invention, and our greatest one.

We were stuck with 13 independent states, and this was not working very well. We had a Constitutional Convention and after intense lobbying, we had the United States of America - a complete economic success. 

That every country in the world has copied, but not with the same degree of success. 

One thing the Constitution did not address was Slavery. This caused a Civil War and an incomplete Reconstruction after that was only ended by LBJ and his Civil Rights, one hundred years later.

Globalization and the Computer, however, have made Constitutional Democracy obsolete. 

When Mental Problems are an Advantage

I am thinking of a boy was adopted because his parents were not having any children of their own. After they adopted him, they had children, no problem!
He developed severe mental problems. He joined the Marine Corp and served for four years with no problems. He had no Mental problems there. But he did not like being there.

When he got out his problems appeared again. He got married and worked as a smokejumper for the Forest service. He had no problems doing this.

But this was not acceptable to his inlaws, who were high up in the Forest Service. They got him a desk job, for which he was completely unqualified. But he was promoted, twice!

He became a tweeter, tweeted frequently, always displaying his problems for all to see. Much like Trump, also a frequent tweeter.

He was promoted again!

Facebook Is Putting Us All on the Map

OneZero

This my pick of today's online journalism.

I have been amazed by how popular Facebook has become. It (and Twitter) have defined what the Social Media are.

But Facebook has more sophisticated programming, by far. And has a more powerful social impact.

The Founding Fathers, Exposed

I am reading A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

The British colonies along the coast of North America rebelled against their mother country. Declared war on her, without the means to conduct such a war.

George Washington was an officer in the British army in its wat against France. He also sold tobacco to the British from his estate in Virginia.

He now found himself in the strange position of having half of the officers in his army, half of his guns, and all of his gunpowder, supplied by the French!

Eventually, the French fleet blockaded American ports and ended the war. But that would come later.

For the time being, Americans were forced to accept French help without admitting they were doing so!

Franklin played the role of deceitful negotiator, to perfection. And fathered a number of children by French women at the same time (which he acknowledged as his own).

He was one of the key figures who defined what being an American was!

I cannot understand It,, but I gotta Try Anyway

My obsession in life is different. I don't want to be a success, at anything but understanding what being a success is.

Did I confuse you? Good.

I can compare myself to a young man waiting for a bus this morning with me, He was caring for a babywearing nothing but a diaper and a pair of baby shoes,  But you could tell he was very smart by the way he looked at us. An adorable baby!

He was letting the baby know he was adorable too, by the way, he treated him. The young man (and the baby) were a complete success!

Let me compare that, to me and Software. When you develop software you have to know what you are doing, and you have to know how to explain to others, what you are doing, even if they don't understand you very well!

Software developers attend conferences frequently, so they can learn the latest way of doing things. Their experts will get up in front of them. And spend 20 minutes (no more!) explaining how he (or she) is doing things better!

They better know what they are doing or they will lose face, and never get it back.

Even Emperor Nero had to write (and sing) some pretty good poetry.

Tanker War

Washington Post

Wasn't the UN supposed to handle crises like this? In all the talk about this (and there has been plenty of that), the UN is not mentioned once.

I can suggest a solution: make the Straits of Hormuz International Property. Force any tanker there to be under international control,. protected by UN gunboats.

These gunboats could be provided by any country, but be under UN control. There is ample precedent for this, UN peacekeeping forces have been in existence for some time.

Before entering the area, any tanker must wait until a gunboat is assigned to protect it (placing UN observers on the tanker is also possible). The position (and identity) of all vessels in the Straits would be constantly monitored.

This will never happen, however. Countries reserve the right to wage war on any other country, for any reason. If this causes a huge war, this not seen as a problem, because it would clean things up. Weaker countries would disappear, and only the strong would survive.

This is the same reasoning used by the shooters now active in the US. They will survive, but the victims of their shooting will not.

Facebook Romance Scams and Banking Hacks

NY Times Bits newsletter

Scams are nothing new, bu scams based on the latest technologies are.

This article makes a complicated situation simple, as all good writing should.

It is an easy read.

Interpretability

An Introduction to Machine Learning Interpretability

An Applied Perspective on Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Explainable AI

Written by O'Reilly, a computer publisher and a provider of Computer events, and Dataiku, a company I never heard of before.

It was written with some exotic word processing techniques that generated an outline along the left margin. 

Interpretability: what a strange word! I had to look it up in a dictionary to see if it was real. 

But in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) it is enormously important, as this paragraph explains:

Machine learning promises quick, accurate, and unbiased decision making in life-changing scenarios. Computers can theoretically use machine learning to make objective, data-driven decisions in critical situations like criminal convictions, medical diagnoses, and college admissions, but interpretability, among other technological advances, is needed to guarantee the promises of correctness and objectivity. 

Without interpretability, accountability, and transparency in machine learning decisions, there is no certainty that a machine learning system is not simply re-learning and re-applying long-held, regrettable, and erroneous human biases. Nor are there any assurances that human operators have not designed a machine learning system to make intentionally prejudicial decisions.

This addresses the question "Can we trust Machine Learning?" Strange things are going on here, that we do not understand. And the more we learn how this is done, the harder it is to trust it. 

Sophie’s World

New Yorker

The Computer has made writing like this possible. The writer lived with this family and got to know them, and their daughter, intimately.

Any search for this story, from anywhere else, will not work!

The Web has its secret compartments, that only it knows about.

Being Stupid is now the Normal way To Be

This is having a huge impact on who we are, and our way of life. And our competence at doing anything.

I spent some time in the Black Foot Indian reservation. just east of Glacier National Park. And I was shocked to notice that they could do nothing, not even change the oil in my car.

Most Americans are now becoming the same way; incompetent at doing almost anything. 

The RLDS felt they were Better than Anyone Else

For them, an important event was Prayer Meeting every Wedneday evening. As a child I attended these, and was encouraged to participate in them.

No one wants to remember them now, because their objective was to feel superior, and encourage this feeling in others.

I didn't attend any prayer meetings when I went to college in the Fifties, even though the first two years were at a church college (Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa).

The idea of the One True Church became embarrasing, and was replaced by the idea of a community of churches. In fact, that was the name of the church that replaced it: The Community of Christ. This felt right to everyone.

Even the LDS church became more like everyone else, and worked at showing what Good Americans they were. The result was a balance between being exclusive and being inclusive - but they have made that balance successfully.

Linda's Doctors are Making Money off of Her

This not the way it should be, but I am afraid it is the way it is.

They have this client (Linda) who has many things wrong with her, and they can chose which ones to work on. Whatever interests them, and whatever her insurance will pay for.

Let me know if you agree or not.