For R&D Using Machine Learning Now is the Time

There are areas of knowledge that are of great interest to me.  And of course, there are similar or different areas of interest to other people.  I really could not care much about basketball, or soccer/football, but there are many people in this world who care passionately about them.  It turns out that in the history of these topics, there are periods when people are able to make progress in understanding and other periods of time that are less productive.  Whether that matters to you is for the most part a matter of personal taste. 

There are many examples of this in the history of culture.  One of my favorites is in the world of astronomy.  It turns out that the history of astronomical thought is tightly bound to the invention of instruments.  So, for example, when a clever grinder of glass for spectacles, or eyeglasses, put some of his work together and invented the telescope, a whole category of astronomy was discovered and advanced.  Soon after Hans Lippershey did this, others could look at bright lights in the sky and realize that those lights were not points, but disks, and that they had other, smaller points that seemed to move around them.  Today every time a new telescope is invented, or a planetary probe lands on a distant object and sends back data, there is a burst of activity in that field. What fun!  And how exciting it is to attach your name to this new knowledge. This is not to say that timing is *everything*, of course not.  Connections and money are also essential.

Therefore, you must act fast because these periods of time are short and time is fleeting.  So if you care and you want to be a part of it, then you have to act, or forever hold your peace.

But shame on those of us who do not have the money and connections because we may see the opportunity but not be able to do anything about it.  Too bad, Chucko, history seems to say.  You lose.

And now,  AI or as we might call it, machine learning has opened up a hundred doors, or a thousand doors, all at once.  And everyone is running through those doors and if you dont, well too bad, there is still work to do but it wont be as easy and may not be possible.

This explains why in part I am so frantic and desperate.  I see the opportunities, or some of them, but I cant act on them because I am a bad person.  Because I am poor in America.

After Listening to What They Say

OK I am just very negative.

There is no point in having a constitution if one is not willing to fight for it.

The Good News About US Science

According to a friend of mine who is a full professor of Computer Science, other countries see the destruction of the NSF and the authoritarian takeover of the US as a once in a lifetime opportunity permanently improve the science in their countries at the expense of the USA.  Therefore every professor of serious science is supposedly being offered impossible-to-refuse opportunities at world class universities in other countries.  Of course this also includes financing for their graduate students and research associates as well.

Those few of you who know the history of the Cold War might recognize this as the Brain Drain in reverse.  

With luck, this will have a permanent effect on American science, or at least a generational effect.

An Interesting Discussion with a Trump Supporter

I enjoyed my conversation at a stoplight with a Trump supporter (30 something, male) in his truck flying a big trump banner.  What I concluded was that as long as people live in a fox news bubble, it will never be possible to change their mind.  This self-inflicted problem can not be fixed, and therefore I want out.

Special Thanks to my Fellow Americans

Exactly as predicted, Trump and friends are attempting to destroy American democracy and doing a good job of it.  Apparently all that self-serving rot about checks & balances was all "just kidding". In the history of the world, short of a major war, there has rarely been a national decline so precipitous and self-inflicted.  

We can be proud of failing better than anyone else.  But I want to acknowledge that we could not have done it without the willful cooperation of my fellow Americans, the little people, who voted that idiot into office.  They could not be bothered to vote for a qualified woman of color if it saved their life and their country, which it very well might have.

The Hitler analogies just keep on coming.  My favorite is that after WW2 many Germans said that they had no idea that Hitler "would do that", you know, murder the Jews and invade Russia and so forth. But the problem with that argument is that had they bothered to read the first 30 pages or so of Mein Kampf, then they would have known what Hitler was planning to do because he talked about it.  So it is with our Moron King, Trump and the Republicans were completely clear that they planned to destroy voting rights, betray our allies, destroy the world order created after WW2,  destroy the admittedly corrupt economy,  condemn millions of people to death and disease, oppress women, and turn America into a white theocracy.  You would either have to be stupid not to have known this or, alternatively, wanted it because you thought it was neat.

I doubt many MAGA swine will read this blog, but in the case that they might, they should know that winning a tiny share of the popular vote is not the same as a mandate and furthermore, even if it was, the President took an oath of office and is expected to obey the law and support the constitution.  Read those words again, idiots, you know, "obey the law" and so forth.  Read it until you get it.

Even if we are able to depose this malignant narcissist and put him in jail where he belongs, and elect a legitimate government, America will have been diminished thanks to you wankers.  

Good job!

Let Us Embrace National Decline

The failure of democracy and speedy national decline of the American republic is a useful and perhaps necessary counter to the astonishing hubris and self congratulatory nature of our various elites.  It could not have happened without the arrogance and stupidity of so many people here from the rather blatant self-interest and treason of the Republicans to the weakness of the Democrats and their unwillingness to stand on principle to the obvious corruption of the judiciary (looking at you Justice Cannon, Alito & Roberts).

On the bright side, we should applaud the tremendous and world historical rate of decline of a formerly great country now destroyed.  Lets embrace our failure and look forward to the day when we can benefit from the tourists coming to witness the ruins.  Americans will rise to this challenge and be sure to greet these onlookers with souvenirs made in China.

Modified Coconut Chip Cookies

The following recipe is only approximate.  

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 tbsp plain yogurt, 1/2 stick unsalted butter (melted), 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp salt, 2 or 3 tbsp coconut oil, 1 cup flour, 3 cups or so coconut (unsweetened preferred), 3/4 cup white baking chocolate chips.    Add a few tbsps of hot water as needed.  Mix well. NB: no baking soda or powder.

Spoon out to baking pan.

Cook 18 minutes or so, or in the case where there are two levels of pans, 9 minutes and then switch the pans.

The Various Failures of the Democratic Party

Part 1 of 3.  Find parts 2 and 3 here, when they are written.

When you have a complete collapse of democracy there is plenty of blame to go around.  But I believe that second only to Trump the Pig, pride of place should go to my party, the Democrats.  Gotta love them, but I dont know any group of people more craven, more self-serving, more self-entitled or more self-deceived as the Democratic Party elites.  Weak and indecisive.  As the singing cowboy, Will Rogers, said: "I belong to no organized political party.  I am a Democrat".

In the last 25 years or so, I have watched the Democratic Party studiously work to fail.  Failure of this nature does not just happen; it takes sincere effort and a desire for excellence.   A willingness to work to the point of pain to demonstrate contempt for their constituency.  Instead of working to educate us, perhaps to show why something was necessary, the Democrat Party ignored its people.  And they kicked the can down the road rather than make a stand on principle.

In contrast, the Republican Party who may be despicable, seem to deliver for their constituency. From "her emails" to Benghazi, to Fox News, to defunding the government, to treason, the Republicans always deliver solid red meat.

This is not hindsight on my part.  I have been waving my arms like a maniac since November 2000 when I went to Washington to protest the Supreme Court coup d'etat. 

First there are the policy failures, and second there are specific events where the Democratic Party demonstrated lack of backbone.

On policy, they did not articulate a strong position on immigration.  They abandoned the center of the country to the ravages of a globalized, hollowed out America.  They did not take a strong stand on law enforcement or, for that matter, civil rights.  Always involved in political correctness beyond what most Americans care about.  And of course Biden failed to address inflation and the party lamely said that it did not exist.  

Then there are the specific issues or events where they failed to respond to fight and to lead. In no particular order. 

The Democrats failed to oppose the ridiculous Supreme Court decision that stole the election from Al Gore who was clearly winning.   They failed to get Merrick Garland onto the Supreme Court.  They failed to prosecute anyone in Wall Street for their malfeasance which led to the 2008 economic collapse. The Democratic party elites attempted to sabotage Sanders and give the nomination to Hilary. They exterminated the political career of Al Franken for no good reason.   Justice Ginzburg should have resigned during the Obama administration.  This was a mistake no Republican would make.  Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and Barrett should never have been permitted on the court. Garland, Smith and the DOJ failed to properly prosecute Trump. The Supreme Court immunity decision was an abomination. This list could be twice as long.  The Democratic party did nothing.

There are some exceptions to this of course.  There are some good Democrats.  AOC and Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders (I love Bernie!) but all too few and they are generally muffled by the Democratic elites.  Technically Bernie is not even a Democrat.

Whatever happens over the next few years or decades as we try to defeat our fascist dictator and his party, and restore democracy to this country, however that happens, one thing seems to be clear.  The Dems will not be a help and have nothing to contribute.  I am sure they will try to take credit later.

Budgets and the Supreme Court

The appalling effort to destroy American democracy continues at full speed.  There are so many outrages it is hard to know where to begin.  Lets start with the destruction of various departments in the executive branch.

Let me explain how it is supposed to work.  The president is supposed to act within bounds set by Congress and the courts.  There is a process here and of course Trump is abusing executive power and privilege.  But how is it supposed to work?  Here is a brief but oversimplified description.

There is a complicated budgeting process in Congress in which the House and the Senate each come up with their proposed budget.  Then the two groups meet in a joint process and try to hash things into a single budget.   Obviously some things get funded and some do not and people do not get everything they want. There is endless haggling here.  Some spending is mandatory, some is optional, there is lots of history. There is so much for foreign aid, so much for the National Institute of Health, so much for the National Parks, the Dept of Defense, Medicare and Medicaid, etc. Sometimes the budgets are broken into pieces, sometimes it is all one comprehensive budget. The various parties martial their votes and the house and the senate work to align their bills.  There is horse trading.  There are limitations on the debt and many other things.  When both houses agree, and when there are 60 votes in the Senate, then it gets sent to the president who could veto it, but if not, that becomes the budget for the year.  And when they can not agree, that is when we have a "continuing resolution" to give more time to hash things out.

If the president could just decide to do some of it and not all of it, that would give him a so-called item veto.  And so far as I know, we do not have an item veto.  Now of course there is a lot of leeway in how the president implements the budget.  A pentagon project, 50 people in the DEA, lots of adjustments.  But they are adjustments.  Not wholesale deletions.  If that is what he wants he does that during budget time. .  It all has to be in accordance with the intent of congress.  It all has to be more or less in good faith.  Is that what we are seeing here with Trump?  Good faith?  No, certainly not.  

So why hasn't the courts put a stop to this nonsense?  Specifically, why hasn't the Supreme Court put a stop to this?

You know why.  The Supreme Court is filled with corrupt right wingers who are installing an authoritarian government in America.  If I am wrong, the Supreme Court will act at once.  

But it wont.

Maybe too busy fishing?

Research in Visual Effects Practice & Technology

I am writing a monograph based on a course I taught in the previous century at NYU.  Maybe it will never get done (likely) or maybe it will be self-published on the internet (also likely) or maybe it will even become a book.  Who knows.  But since things will be written down, it makes sense to try and research it and see if I know what I am talking about.

The course/book is a study guide to visual effects, talking about the use of the different technologies as they evolved and in context.  Its about other things as well related to animation and visual effects.  I have lots of eccentric opinions and colorful anecdotes, some of which may even be true.  It turns out a lot of what I have picked up over the years is highly debatable or at least there are other stories out there.  

What kind of things am I talking about?  Here are two examples.  One of the great scenes in film from 1949 is the Ferris wheel meeting between Harry Lime and Holly Martins in The Third Man.  Another is a big chunk of the start of Lost Horizon that takes place in what is supposed to be a DC-2 over the Himalayas.  In both cases, I am pretty sure they built a set of the interior that would make it easier to shoot, sent a photographer out to shoot some plates, and then shot the hero sequences using (probably) rear screen projection of the exterior footage. In the latter case, shooting in a real DC-2 high over the mountains would be cramped, noisy, cold and difficult to light. Your actors would hate you and besides you would have to do the sound again later. So I am pretty comfortable that something like I describe here happened.  But it would be nice to know.

The Third Man and Lost Horizon are famous films and I may be able to find a book or article about production and it may have what I need. There may also still exist an actual shooting script from the production which is a very different thing from what purports to be scripts on the Internet.  My hope was that there would be Am. Cinematographer articles is not working out because it was only in the mid-late 70s that Am Cine started doing articles on things like this.  There may be old Cinefex's that go over classic films.  The Academy Library has a great collection of "oral histories" which are available.  They have interviewed a lot of interesting people over the years.  That is lucky because most of the people who worked on these films are no longer with us.

My guess is that there is no general solution, but just a lot of research to do in different places for the different films.  5 Million Years to Earth (the Hammer version) will not have the same sort of sources as Fantastic Voyage.  So I think I just have to tough it out, baby.  In some cases, I am just going to have to rely on surmise and deduction and document it as that.

I think this is going to take years.