For R&D Using Machine Learning Now is the Time

It turns out that science has its periods of boom and not-boom.  We are in a period of boom for many sciences and industrial processes that are using machine learning.   If you want to be a part of that, you have to act now.

Astronomy is a great example of the boom theory of scientific advancement.  Some Dutch guy invents the telescope and suddenly you have Galileo and others.   Same thing with planetary probes, radio astronomy, and so forth.  When they have new data, they can publish new work.

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.

Fortune favors the prepared mind, and it also favors those with the resources who are enabled to do the work when the time comes.

This is all obvious, I am just complaining.

Forgive me.

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?

AI and the Judaic Concept of the Soul

I asked the free version of Perplexity's AI if Judaism has the concept of a soul.  Here is what it said: 

Yes, Judaism has a well-developed concept of the soul, which is central to its understanding of human existence and spirituality. The soul in Jewish thought is multifaceted and has evolved over time, influenced by biblical texts, rabbinic teachings, and mystical traditions.

Key Concepts of the Soul in Judaism:

1. Terminology and Structure:

   • The Hebrew terms for the soul include nefesh (associated with physical life), ruach (spirit or emotional life), and neshamah (the higher, divine aspect). In Kabbalistic thought, additional levels are recognized: chayah (life force) and yechidah (essence or unity with God)^[1][2][3].

   • These levels represent a ladder-like connection between the physical and spiritual realms, with the nefesh being closest to the body and the neshamah closest to God^[1][3].

2. Creation and Divine Connection:

   • The soul is described as originating from God’s breath, as seen in Genesis: “And G d breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7)^[3].

   • According to rabbinic tradition, all souls were created during the six days of Creation and are stored until they are assigned to a body at birth^[2][4].

3. The Relationship Between Body and Soul:

   • Judaism views the body and soul as separate but interdependent partners. The body is not seen as a prison for the soul but as its medium for spiritual growth and moral action^[5][4].

   • Sleep is considered a temporary separation of body and soul, while death marks their permanent separation^[4].

4. Afterlife and Immortality:

   • Post-biblical Judaism developed beliefs in the immortality of the soul, resurrection of the dead, and an afterlife where the soul continues its existence^[6][4].

   • The soul is believed to undergo a journey after death, including stages of mourning for the body and eventual spiritual elevation^[2][7].

5. Moral Responsibility:

   • The soul is seen as responsible for moral discernment and spiritual development. It navigates between inclinations toward good (yetzer tov) and evil (yetzer hara’)^[5].

In summary, Judaism’s concept of the soul encompasses its divine origin, multifaceted nature, partnership with the body, moral responsibilities, and its journey beyond physical life. These ideas reflect a blend of biblical teachings, rabbinic interpretations, and mystical insights.

⁂

1. https://aish.com/what-is-the-judaisms-view-of-the-soul/

2. https://aish.com/what-is-the-soul/

3. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-Is-a-Soul-Neshamah.htm

4. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/body-soul/

5. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13933-soul

6. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-spirituality-and-the-soul/

7. https://www.dorsheitzedek.org/divrei-torah/rabbi-toba-spitzer?post_id=934460

Los Angeles Fires 2025

So far I know three people who have lost their houses in the Pacific Palisades fire.  I also know people in Mandeville Canyon, Altadena and Calabasas who have not lost their houses so far.

Image by Midjourney

All the Ways the Democrats Failed

One benefit of the Trump victory is that it may finally put an end to the Democratic party.  I have been tired of these people for a long time now.  Here are just a few data points.

- It was Bill Clinton who started off the whole globalization thing with NAFTA

- The Democrats did nothing to prevent the right-to-work bullshit.

- When McConnell stole the supreme court slot of Merrick Garland, the Democrats did nothing.

- It was Obama who bailed out the financial system in a way that rewarded the rich and left the poor hanging.

- When Hilary ran, it was clear that she was only interested in helping her rich friends on Wall Street.  

- The only reason I voted for her was because Bernie Sanders, the independent I supported, asked all his supporters to vote for her.

- When subsidies and tax breaks destroyed the domestic visual effects industry, the Democrats did nothing. 

- In the first two years of the Biden Administration, we could have ended the filibuster and added term limits to the supreme court but the democrats could not be bothered.

- When the supreme court installed Bush Jr as president, Al Gore and the Democrats did not complain or in any way fight.  They just rolled over.

- When the Republicans were stuffing the supreme court with obviously unqualified candidates, the Democrats did nothing.

- Most of all, Merrick Garland refused to act to prosecute Donald Trump for his crimes.  

- There are many other issues, including climate change and health care.

The Democrats have proven time and time again they dont have the desire to fight for us.  They should have shut the government down rather than just kicked the can down the road.

Images courtesy of Midjourney

Grave Pictures for Nancy St John

Nancy has passed away and nobody I know is willing to talk to me about it.  

We go to the grave alone, I guess.  

In honor of Nancy, here are some pictures I did about the grave.

I recall the eulogy from The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung

With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue;

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie;

Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore,

Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

The Angel's Celebrate the Arrival of Jill's Album

The vinyl for Jill's new double album, Earthly Pleasures, arrived at the house today.  The album is about the secular use of sacred music, among other things.  

The angels celebrate in heaven!

The images were created with Midjourney.

Cost of Housing Notes 7/21/2024

As I was moving from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, the issue of housing costs and options came up.  There are a number of reasons for this but it all comes down to money and how you want to live your life.  And I think there was a lot of wishful thinking going on about what kind of housing assistance exists, who is eligible for it, and so forth.  So, since I need to know this stuff here are my notes so far on this topic.  All useful information is in the next paragraph.

The executive summary is as follows.  Santa Barbara is expensive perhaps, but the quality of life is very high.  California overall is very expensive and SB rents are not worse than other parts of California on the coast.  One way to get housing costs down in these areas is to do something like rent a three bedroom house and have two roommates with all the inconvenience that implies.  The Housing Authority in SB is a resource to the community but demand far exceeds supply, the process is opaque, and it is not at all clear when or if housing will be provided.  It is not a viable solution to anyone who is on a deadline.  Finally, my research says that there is acceptable single room occupancy housing in other cities in places like Providence, RI or Pittsburgh, PA or parts of Western MA in the range of $1,500 / month or about 1/2 to 1/3 of what you have to pay in California.

The rest of this post is just details.

I was looking for a single bedroom, arguably a studio with kitchen and bath. It is completely possible for this to be a shared space where each person has their own bedroom but the kitchen and bath is shared.  For me, it is better to be in a place where I can work all hours of the day and not bother other people.  It is better to be in a place where I am not constantly subjected to environmental insults (smog, car fumes, etc) and where crime is under control.  I hate to move, so some sort of stability is good.  It does not have to be a particularly big city, but it is useful to be within mass transit distance or driving distance of a fairly big city due to the need to work with specialist doctors.  

There is some belief that there are housing programs for "the poor".  My experience from Santa Barbara says that theoretically such housing exists, but in practice it does not. The SB housing authority does a terrible job of presenting a rational and responsive front to people in need, but the hard facts are that there is more demand for housing than there is supply. The housing that is available is preferentially given to certain demographics that I do not qualify for, such as being a single mother or a veteran.  The process is opaque.    There should be zero surprise that the SB Housing Authority efforts did not work out.   In fact, they would not even return my calls.  It is possible that if we had filed when I first arrived in SB that there would have been a different outcome but I am not sure.

Images courtesy of Midjourney

There is a belief that SB housing is unusually expensive.  My research says that this is not exactly true.  SB is expensive, but so is all of coastal California.  LA is very expensive and much less desirable than SB.   San Luis Obispo and San Clemente and Santa Cruz are also very expensive.  Santa Cruz may be more expensive than SB.  There are places in CA that are less expensive than SB but they are still not cheap and of course the quality of life goes down, often dramatically.  

I am surprised at how much I miss SB.  I would much rather live in SB and drive to LA to make use of its cultural resources, international airport and medical facilities.

There are cities where the rent is less than half of what it is in California.  So, one can probably rent a place for $1,300 to $1,500 in places like Providence, RI.  Multiply that out, your recommended net salary comes to $60K/year.

So what is the conclusion?  I would not expect to spend less than about $1,500 per month if you are a single person but only if you are not in California.  California is roughly 2 - 3x more expensive.  In SB, a small 1 bedroom starts at about $3,000 a month and goes up from there.  And it is not entirely clear who they will rent to if you do not have, and prove you have, a good job and excellent credit rating.  There are exceptions to this and I have benefitted from special deals more than just about anyone.  But when those special deals come to an end, and they always do, then you have to pay market rates.

Thats just the way it is.

Another image from Midjourney

Trump and Judge Cannon Celebrate Courtesy of MidJourney and AI

 
Trump & Judge Cannon celebrate their great victory over justice and the hoax they have played on the American Public.    So much of the detail here seems to be "out of nowhere". 

The prompt was probably something like: "A room of corrupt politicians and a woman judge celebrate their victory over justice at a dinner party where a pig has been slaughtered and roasted with an apple in its mouth.  The politicians are dressed as clowns.  --ar 16:9"

Alternates:

Is the NY Times is a Right Wing Front Organization?

The NY Times is running a partisan campaign to attack Joe Biden and destroy the Democrats by creating the fiction that Joe Biden is too old to run.  Aside from being ageist, who gave the NY Times the right to decide who the Democrats will nominate to run for election?  They run their front page articles every damn day, an editorial masquerading as a news article.   

They run this same article, with small variations, every day.  

And of course the NY Times could not care less about reporting on Trump's 34 felony convictions, about how he is unqualified and dangerous as president, about how he will murder Ukraine, about how he has always been corrupt all these years in NY, about his racism, his sexism, his abuse of women.  No.  None of these things matter to the NY Times.  Nor does the NY Times care to report on the illegitimacy of the legal system which is failing to try Donald Trump for his crimes during the January 6 attack on our government.  Nor does the NY Times care one bit about the delays of the case in Florida.  Nor does the NY Times care about women bleeding out from miscarriages that the doctors and hospitals will not treat in a Red State.

I remember when SCOTUS threw the 2000 election to their right wing nut, W. Bush, which caused a trillion dollar war in Iraq and put Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.   Not one word of protest from this right-wing rag.  From the day the SCOTUS pissed on the constitution in public, not one word was said about the illegitimacy of the W. Bush administration, its wars, or its judiciary.

There are several mysteries here.  Why do people continue to think and to say that the NY Times is in some way a bastion of progressive thought, the primary outlet for the so called "liberal media"?  That is as obviously false as saying that the Jews control the media, a joke if I ever heard one.  The second mystery is why are they doing this?  Who is telling them to do this?  Well one obvious suspect is that it is the elites of Wall Street and possibly just the elites who run our government, or think they do.  I have heard that Wall Street is all in support of Trump, just like Silicon Valley hates Biden for daring to talk about regulating AI.  

I dont think I know why the NY Times wants to destroy Biden.  I am certainly cancelling my subscription and I am sure the NY Times will not care that I do so, not even a little bit.

A Midjourney impression of unused newspaper printing machinery

Possible Solution to Supreme Court Ruling to Destroy the Homeless

Since the Supreme Court believes that we should destroy the homeless by denying them anywhere to go, but the Court also believes that it is unconstitutional to do anything to regulate firearms, why not put the two policies together and give AR-15s to the homeless and allow them to defend themselves?

Image by MidJourney

Fan Art for "Earthly Pleasures"

 
Jill Fraser's new album, Earthly Pleasures, is loosely based on the music of 19th century hymns.  As a fan, I contribute the following fan art, based on the idea of an angel and worshippers.  The angel is wearing a silver bathing suit and carries a whip.

There are some very entertaining things that were mostly unintentional in some of these pictures.  Notice how the groveling worshippers seem to be in pain.  Is that because I said the angel was carrying a whip?

On Valerio Street, They Wait for a Customer

 
God forbid, LA or Van Nuys would do anything to help the women who hook for a living on a cold night.  Maybe a coffee shop where they can wait in warmth and have their customers vetted for VD and other issues.  No, not in LA, LA doesn't give a fuck.

Pictures courtesy of MidJourney

Knight's Templar and my Friend Speer

 Not everyone who is a right wing Trump supporter is a nut, but Steve Speer sure is.  Stay away from him is my advice.

This is an image of the Knight's Templar courtesy of Midjourney.  That was our topic of discussion.

Drone and Child in Graveyard

 
I tried to get Midjourney to create a picture of a drone using facial recognition on a statue of a child in a graveyard.  I spent very little time on it and I did not get what I wanted.  Still for the amount of time I spent it is not too bad, I think.

Ancient Roman Frescoes with MidJourney and AI

Here are some examples of "ancient roman frescoes" as created with Midjourney.  One is of an inscription foretelling doom, two are of sea creatures, and one is of a Cthulu-like creature from space.  I find that one is much better off to tell MidJourney what kind of style or artist's work to use as a template than to let it default to its own banal choices.

Doom is foretold

Roman fish of some sort

Cthulu, where are you?

Appeals Justices with a Pop Culture Spin

 

Using Midjourney to visualize three appeals court justices as the Joker.  Not exactly what I wanted but not bad for 5 minutes work, either.

Faces 12262023

 

As a tool of self expression, MidJourney can be very productive.  You can spend all day and get no where, or you can spend an hour and get interesting work.

Politeness to Robots

When working with Siri, I always try to say thank you when he/she/it/they does something for me.  Today it even said "you're welcome".  What should the protocol be when working with robots?  I think they should be treated like you would treat any conscious being and not rudely like we might treat a car.  I never say "thank you" to a car but I always do to Siri.

Does Apple keep statistics of who is polite and who is not?  And couldn't such statistics be useful in aggregate and by region to show how different regions differ in pro forma politeness and how that changes over time?

Midjourney Continues to Surprise

Midjourney is sometimes brilliant, sometimes useless, sometimes surprising, but always a leap into the night.  The images of a witch with curly blonde hair at her synthesizers was nearly perfect on the first try.  The angel on the beach was an evolutionary result and not what I was aiming for although I think it moved in an entertaining direction.

Witch with synthesizers 

Angel at the beach