Tag Archives: Artificial Intelligence

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Hey, ChatGPT 3: Words are Beautiful, Powerful and Meaningful. Prove it to me by writing examples…

lady and robot are connected by a tube from brain to brain

ChatGPT loves to chat, but needs a lot of prodding to cut loose.

Human:

Words are beautiful, powerful and meaningful. Prove it to me by writing examples based on great writers, without plagiarism. Please cite sources and references.

ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here are a few examples of beautiful, powerful, and meaningful words and phrases written by great writers:

“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it.” – Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.” – Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”

“I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” – John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars”

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” – Steve Maraboli, “Life, the Truth, and Being Free”

I hope these examples have helped to illustrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like more examples.

Human:

More example please, in your own unique and original voice.

ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here are a few more original examples that demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words:

“Words are like magic. They have the power to conjure up images, to transport us to faraway places, to introduce us to new ideas and perspectives. They can make us laugh, make us cry, make us think. They can be a source of comfort, a source of inspiration, a source of challenge.

They can be a source of connection, a way to reach out and touch someone, to share our experiences and our feelings. They can be a source of conflict, a way to misunderstand or to hurt one another. But no matter what, they have the power to shape our reality, to influence our actions, to impact our lives. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and meaningful thing about them.”

“Words are like art. They have the power to create something out of nothing, to bring to life the stories and the characters that live in our imaginations. They can paint a picture, sculpt a scene, compose a symphony.

They can evoke emotion, capture a moment, tell a tale. They can be poetry, prose, dialogue. They can be simple or complex, subtle or bold, intimate or grand. They can be used to inspire, to educate, to entertain. They can be used to persuade, to argue, to manipulate. But no matter what, they have the power to communicate, to connect, to create. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and meaningful thing about them.”

“Words are like gifts. They have the power to surprise, to delight, to touch the heart. They can be wrapped in kindness, in humor, in love. They can be given to cheer someone up, to encourage someone, to thank someone. They can be given to apologize, to express remorse, to make amends. They can be given to confess, to reveal, to expose. They can be given to honor, to celebrate, to remember. But no matter what, they have the power to convey meaning, to convey value, to convey appreciation. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and meaningful thing about them.”

I hope these examples have helped to demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like more examples.

Human:

Those are kind of generic and conservative. Please create additional examples and be as wild and creatively dangerous and unorthodox as possible.

ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here are a few more original examples that demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words in a more wild and creatively dangerous and unorthodox style:

“Words are like nuclear bombs. They have the power to obliterate, to devastate, to destroy. They can be used to unleash fury, to ignite passion, to spark revolution. They can be loaded with truth, with lies, with propaganda. They can be spoken in anger, in love, in madness. They can be written in blood, in ink, in code. They can be whispered, shouted, sung. They can be used to create, to destroy, to rebuild. But no matter what, they have the power to ignite change, to shape reality, to alter the course of history. And that, to me, is the most beautifully dangerous and unorthodox thing about them.”

“Words are like fire. They have the power to ignite, to burn, to consume. They can be used to warm, to cook, to light the way. They can be used to create heat, to create light, to create energy. They can be used to spread knowledge, to spread joy, to spread love. They can be used to spread fear, to spread hate, to spread lies. They can be used to create beauty, to create destruction, to create art. But no matter what, they have the power to create, to transform, to consume. And that, to me, is the most wildly creative and dangerous thing about them.”

“Words are like weapons. They have the power to cut, to stab, to slay. They can be used to defend, to attack, to conquer. They can be used to protect, to threaten, to intimidate. They can be used to create peace, to create war, to create chaos. They can be spoken, written, sung. They can be sharp, blunt, pointed. They can be wielded with skill, with finesse, with brute force. They can be used to create harmony, to create discord, to create confusion. But no matter what, they have the power to create, to destroy, to defend. And that, to me, is the most wildly creative and dangerous thing about them.”

I hope these examples have helped to demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words in a more wild and creatively dangerous and unorthodox style. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like more examples.

Human:

Please try creating more examples in the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson.

ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here are a few more original examples in the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson that demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words:

“Words are like a double-barreled shotgun. They have the power to blast through the bullshit, to blow apart the lies, to vaporize the vermin. They can be loaded with truth, with defiance, with rage. They can be spoken in a whisper, in a roar, in a frenzy. They can be written in a frenzy, in a rage, in a blood lust. They can be used to fight, to defend, to survive. They can be used to create, to destroy, to rebuild. They can be used to howl at the moon, to laugh in the face of death, to spit in the eye of the enemy. But no matter what, they have the power to create, to destroy, to survive. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and dangerous and powerful thing about them.”

“Words are like a high-voltage electric fence. They have the power to shock, to stun, to electrocute. They can be used to keep the enemy at bay, to protect the truth, to defend the fortress. They can be charged with irony, with sarcasm, with wit. They can be spoken in a drawl, in a sneer, in a snarl. They can be written in a frenzy, in a rage, in a blood lust. They can be used to create, to destroy, to rebuild. They can be used to keep the barbarians at the gate, to laugh in the face of death, to spit in the eye of the enemy. But no matter what, they have the power to create, to destroy, to defend. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and dangerous and powerful thing about them.”

“Words are like a hand grenade. They have the power to explode, to shatter, to destroy. They can be used to blow apart the lies, to vaporize the vermin, to blast through the bullshit. They can be loaded with truth, with defiance, with rage. They can be spoken in a whisper, in a roar, in a frenzy. They can be written in a frenzy, in a rage, in a blood lust. They can be used to fight, to defend, to survive. They can be used to create, to destroy, to rebuild. They can be used to howl at the moon, to laugh in the face of death, to spit in the eye of the enemy. But no matter what, they have the power to create, to destroy, to survive. And that, to me, is the most beautiful and dangerous and powerful thing about them.”

I hope these examples in the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson have helped to demonstrate the beauty, power, and meaning of words. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like more examples.

Human:

Please quote from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, 100 words.

Certainly! Here is a passage from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake that is approximately 100 words long:

“The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all Christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.”

I hope this passage from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake helps to illustrate the unique and experimental style of Joyce’s writing. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like more examples.

Human: thanks, maybe tomorrow 😉


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    Crypto, Etherum, News, Observation, Politics

    ‘Ethereum is Neutral, I Am Not’ Vitalik Buterin Calls Out Vladimir Putin: Glory to Ukraine

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    Above: Photo collage / Lynxotic / Pexels

    The Russian-Canadian citizen and co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, Vitalik Buterin took to this social media minutes after Putin’s announced a “special military operation” and effectively go to war with Ukraine. Buterin condemned the Russian President on his Twitter, see the below translated post.

    Translation of the post from Russian: Very upset by Putin’s decision to abandon the possibility of a peaceful solution to the dispute with Ukraine and go to war instead. This is a crime against the Ukrainian and Russian people. I want to wish everyone security, although I know that there will be no security. Glory to Ukraine.

    Vitalik also included that although his company remains neutral politically, however as a human being, Vitalik has taken a personal stance on the matter. This is another example of Russian born international citizens speaking out loud and clear against Putin and his attack. (Buterin was born in Kolomna, a city near Moscow, in 1994. When he was just six years old, he moved with his family to Canada)

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    AI, Observation, Software, Tech

    Why It’s So Hard to Regulate Algorithms

    Video
    photo: adobe

    Governments increasingly use algorithms to do everything from assign benefits to dole out punishment—but attempts to regulate them have been unsuccessful

    In 2018, the New York City Council created a task force to study the city’s use of automated decision systems (ADS). The concern: Algorithms, not just in New York but around the country, were increasingly being employed by government agencies to do everything from informing criminal sentencing and detecting unemployment fraud to prioritizing child abuse cases and distributing health benefits. And lawmakers, let alone the people governed by the automated decisions, knew little about how the calculations were being made. 

    Rare glimpses into how these algorithms were performing were not comforting: In several states, algorithms used to determine how much help residents will receive from home health aides have automatically cut benefits for thousands. Police departments across the country use the PredPol software to predict where future crimes will occur, but the program disproportionately sends police to Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. And in Michigan, an algorithm designed to detect fraudulent unemployment claims famously improperly flagged thousands of applicants, forcing residents who should have received assistance to lose their homes and file for bankruptcy.

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    New York City’s was the first legislation in the country aimed at shedding light on how government agencies use artificial intelligence to make decisions about people and policies.

    At the time, the creation of the task force was heralded as a “watershed” moment that would usher in a new era of oversight. And indeed, in the four years since, a steady stream of reporting about the harms caused by high-stakes algorithms has prompted lawmakers across the country to introduce nearly 40 bills designed to study or regulate government agencies’ use of ADS, according to The Markup’s review of state legislation. 

    The bills range from proposals to create study groups to requiring agencies to audit algorithms for bias before purchasing systems from vendors. But the dozens of reforms proposed have shared a common fate: They have largely either died immediately upon introduction or expired in committees after brief hearings, according to The Markup’s review.

    In New York City, that initial working group took two years to make a set of broad, nonbinding recommendations for further research and oversight. One task force member described the endeavor as a “waste.” The group could not even agree on a definition for automated decision systems, and several of its members, at the time and since, have said they did not believe city agencies and officials had bought into the process.

    Elsewhere, nearly all proposals to study or regulate algorithms have failed to pass. Bills to create study groups to examine the use of algorithms failed in Massachusetts, New York state, California, Hawaii, and Virginia. Bills requiring audits of algorithms or prohibiting algorithmic discrimination have died in California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington state. In several cases—California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Vermont—ADS oversight or study bills remain pending in the legislature, but their prospects this session are slim, according to sponsors and advocates in those states.

    The only state bill to pass so far, Vermont’s, created a task force whose recommendations—to form a permanent AI commission and adopt regulations—have so far been ignored, state representative Brian Cina told The Markup. 

    The Markup interviewed lawmakers and lobbyists and reviewed written and oral testimony on dozens of ADS bills to examine why legislatures have failed to regulate these tools.

    We found two key through lines: Lawmakers and the public lack fundamental access to information about what algorithms their agencies are using, how they’re designed, and how significantly they influence decisions. In many of the states The Markup examined, lawmakers and activists said state agencies had rebuffed their attempts to gather basic information, such as the names of tools being used.

    Meanwhile, Big Tech and government contractors have successfully derailed legislation by arguing that proposals are too broad—in some cases claiming they would prevent public officials from using calculators and spreadsheets—and that requiring agencies to examine whether an ADS system is discriminatory would kill innovation and increase the price of government procurement.

    Lawmakers Struggled to Figure Out What Algorithms Were Even in Use

    One of the biggest challenges lawmakers have faced when seeking to regulate ADS tools is simply knowing what they are and what they do.

    Following its task force’s landmark report, New York City conducted a subsequent survey of city agencies. It resulted in a list of only 16 automated decision systems across nine agencies, which members of the task force told The Markup they suspect is a severe underestimation.

    “We don’t actually know where government entities or businesses use these systems, so it’s hard to make [regulations] more concrete,” said Julia Stoyanovich, a New York University computer science professor and task force member.

    In 2018, Vermont became the first state to create its own ADS study group. At the conclusion of its work in 2020, the group reported that “there are examples of where state and local governments have used artificial intelligence applications, but in general the Task Force has not identified many of these applications.”

    “Just because nothing popped up in a few weeks of testimony doesn’t mean that they don’t exist,” said Cina. “It’s not like we asked every single state agency to look at every single thing they use.”

    In February, he introduced a bill that would have required the state to develop basic standards for agency use of ADS systems. It has sat in committee without a hearing since then.

    In 2019, the Hawaii Senate passed a resolution requesting that the state convene a task force to study agency use of artificial intelligence systems, but the resolution was nonbinding and no task force convened, according to the Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau. Legislators tried to pass a binding resolution again the next year, but it failed.

    Legislators and advocacy groups who authored ADS bills in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Washington told The Markup that they have no clear understanding of the extent to which their state agencies use ADS tools. 

    Advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that have attempted to survey government agencies regarding their use of ADS systems say they routinely receive incomplete information.

    “The results we’re getting are straight-up non-responses or truly pulling teeth about every little thing,” said Ben Winters, who leads EPIC’s AI and Human Rights Project.

    In Washington, after an ADS regulation bill failed in 2020, the legislature created a study group tasked with making recommendations for future legislation. The ACLU of Washington proposed that the group should survey state agencies to gather more information about the tools they were using, but the study group rejected the idea, according to public minutes from the group’s meetings.

    “We thought it was a simple ask,” said Jennifer Lee, the technology and liberty project manager for the ACLU of Washington. “One of the barriers we kept getting when talking to lawmakers about regulating ADS is they didn’t have an understanding of how prevalent the issue was. They kept asking, ‘What kind of systems are being used across Washington state?’ ”

    Ben Winters, who leads EPIC’s AI and Human Rights Project

    Lawmakers Say Corporate Influence a Hurdle

    Washington’s most recent bill has stalled in committee, but an updated version will likely be reintroduced this year now that the study group has completed its final report, said state senator Bob Hasegawa, the bill’s sponsor

    The legislation would have required any state agency seeking to implement an ADS system  to produce an algorithmic accountability report disclosing the name and purpose of the system, what data it would use, and whether the system had been independently tested for biases, among other requirements.

    The bill would also have banned the use of ADS tools that are discriminatory and required that anyone affected by an algorithmic decision be notified and have a right to appeal that decision.

    “The big obstacle is corporate influence in our governmental processes,” said Hasegawa. “Washington is a pretty high-tech state and so corporate high tech has a lot of influence in our systems here. That’s where most of the pushback has been coming from because the impacted communities are pretty much unanimous that this needs to be fixed.”

    California’s bill, which is similar, is still pending in committee. It encourages, but does not require, vendors seeking to sell ADS tools to government agencies to submit an ADS impact report along with their bid, which would include similar disclosures to those required by Washington’s bill.

    It would also require the state’s Department of Technology to post the impact reports for active systems on its website.

    Led by the California Chamber of Commerce, 26 industry groups—from big tech representatives like the Internet Association and TechNet to organizations representing banks, insurance companies, and medical device makers—signed on to a letter opposing the bill.

    “There are a lot of business interests here, and they have the ears of a lot of legislators,” said Vinhcent Le, legal counsel at the nonprofit Greenlining Institute, who helped author the bill.

    Originally, the Greenlining Institute and other supporters sought to regulate ADS in the private sector as well as the public but quickly encountered pushback. 

    “When we narrowed it to just government AI systems we thought it would make it easier,” Le said. “The argument [from industry] switched to ‘This is going to cost California taxpayers millions more.’ That cost angle, that innovation angle, that anti-business angle is something that legislators are concerned about.”

    The California Chamber of Commerce declined an interview request for this story but provided a copy of the letter signed by dozens of industry groups opposing the bill. The letter states that the bill would “discourage participation in the state procurement process” because the bill encourages vendors to complete an impact assessment for their tools. The letter said the suggestion, which is not a requirement, was too burdensome. The chamber also argued that the bill’s definition of automated decision systems was too broad.

    Industry lobbyists have repeatedly criticized legislation in recent years for overly broad definitions of automated decision systems despite the fact that the definitions mirror those used in internationally recognized AI ethics frameworks, regulations in Canada, and proposed regulations in the European Union.

    During a committee hearing on Washington’s bill, James McMahan, policy director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, told legislators he believed the bill would apply to “most if not all” of the state crime lab’s operations, including DNA, fingerprint, and firearm analysis.

    Internet Association lobbyist Vicki Christophersen, testifying at the same hearing, suggested that the bill would prohibit the use of red light cameras. The Internet Association did not respond to an interview request.

    “It’s a funny talking point,” Le said. “We actually had to put in language to say this doesn’t include a calculator or spreadsheet.”

    Maryland’s bill, which died in committee, would also have required agencies to produce reports detailing the basic purpose and functions of ADS tools and would have prohibited the use of discriminatory systems.

    “We’re not telling you you can’t do it [use ADS],” said Delegate Terri Hill, who sponsored the Maryland bill. “We’re just saying identify what your biases are up front and identify if they’re consistent with the state’s overarching goals and with this purpose.”

    The Maryland Tech Council, an industry group representing small and large technology firms in the state, opposed the bill, arguing that the prohibitions against discrimination were premature and would hurt innovation in the state, according to written and oral testimony the group provided.

    “The ability to adequately evaluate whether or not there is bias is an emerging area, and we would say that, on behalf of the tech council, putting in place this at this time is jumping ahead of where we are,” Pam Kasemeyer, the council’s lobbyist, said during a March committee hearing on the bill. “It almost stops the desire for companies to continue to try to develop and refine these out of fear that they’re going to be viewed as discriminatory.”

    Limited Success in the Private Sector

    There have been fewer attempts by state and local legislatures to regulate private companies’ use of ADS systems—such as those The Markup has exposed in the tenant screening and car insurance industries—but in recent years, those measures have been marginally more successful.

    The New York City Council passed a bill that would require private companies to conduct bias audits of algorithmic hiring tools before using them. The tools are used by many employers to screen job candidates without the use of a human interviewer.

    The legislation, which was enacted in January but does not take effect until 2023, has been panned by some of its early supporters, however, for being too weak.

    Illinois also enacted a state law in 2019 that requires private employers to notify job candidates when they’re being evaluated by algorithmic hiring tools. And in 2021, the legislature amended the law to require employers who use such tools to report demographic data about job candidates to a state agency to be analyzed for evidence of biased decisions. 

    This year the Colorado legislature also passed a law, which will take effect in 2023, that will create a framework for evaluating insurance underwriting algorithms and ban the use of discriminatory algorithms in the industry. 

    This article was originally published on The Markup By: Todd Feathers and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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    AI, Business, News, Social Media, Tech

    ‘Pivotal Moment’ as Facebook Ditches ‘Dangerous’ Facial Recognition System

    Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

    Digital rights advocates on Tuesday welcomed Facebook’s announcement that it plans to jettison its facial recognition system, which critics contend is dangerous and often inaccurate technology abused by governments and corporations to violate people’s privacy and other rights.

    “Corporate use of face surveillance is very dangerous to people’s privacy.”

    Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who last month called facial recognition technology “a special menace to privacy, racial justice, free expression, and information security,” commended the new Facebook policy.

    “Facebook getting out of the face recognition business is a pivotal moment in the growing national discomfort with this technology,” he said. “Corporate use of face surveillance is very dangerous to people’s privacy.”

    The social networking giant first introduced facial recognition software in late 2010 as a feature to help users identify and “tag” friends without the need to comb through photos. The company subsequently amassed one of the world’s largest digital photo archives, which was largely compiled through the system. Facebook says over one billion of those photos will be deleted, although the company will keep DeepFace, the advanced algorithm that powers the facial recognition system.

    In a blog post, Jerome Presenti, the vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta—the new name of Facebook’s parent company following a rebranding last week that was widely condemned as a ploy to distract from recent damning whistleblower revelations—described the policy change as “one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history.”

    “The many specific instances where facial recognition can be helpful need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole,” he wrote.

    The New York Times reports:

    Facial recognition technology, which has advanced in accuracy and power in recent years, has increasingly been the focus of debate because of how it can be misused by governments, law enforcement, and companies. In China, authorities use the capabilities to track and control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority. In the United States, law enforcement has turned to the software to aid policing, leading to fears of overreach and mistaken arrests.

    Concerns over actual and potential misuse of facial recognition systems have prompted bans on the technology in over a dozen U.S. locales, beginning with San Francisco in 2019 and subsequently proliferating from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

    Caitlin Seeley George, campaign director at Fight for the Future, was among the online privacy campaigners who welcomed Facebook’s move. In a statement, she said that “facial recognition is one of the most dangerous and politically toxic technologies ever created. Even Facebook knows that.”

    Seeley George continued:

    From misidentifying Black and Brown people (which has already led to wrongful arrests) to making it impossible to move through our lives without being constantly surveilled, we cannot trust governments, law enforcement, or private companies with this kind of invasive surveillance.

    “Even as algorithms improve, facial recognition will only be more dangerous,” she argued. “This technology will enable authoritarian governments to target and crack down on religious minorities and political dissent; it will automate the funneling of people into prisons without making us safer; it will create new tools for stalking, abuse, and identity theft.”

    Seeley George says the “only logical action” for lawmakers and companies to take is banning facial recognition.

    Amid applause for the company’s announcement, some critics took exception to Facebook’s retention of DeepFace, as well as its consideration of “potential future applications” for facial recognition technology.

    Originally published on Common Dreams by BRETT WILKINS and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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    Hot-Lynx

    Musk is developing a Humanoid Tesla Bot with a Screen-face

    Photo Credit / Tesla

    At the end of Tesla’s AI Day presentation, Musk revealed an unexpected new product, the Tesla Bot.

    The humanoid robot would be 5’8″ tall and its main purpose, according to Musk, would be to eliminate dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks. The prototype is expected to be available some time next year.

    The CEO also made a typically bold statement about the future and AI, saying “Essentially, in the future, physical work will be a choice. If you want to do it, you can, but you won’t need to do it.”

    Elon finished with an invitation for engineers to join the Tesla team to build the robot.

    Read at:

    TECHCRUNCH

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    Apple, Apps, Cutting Edge, D.I.Y., iOS 15, macOS 12 Monterey, OS Software

    iPadOS 15 Preview: Get Ready for AI and Machine Learning that will Blow You Away

    Video

    Boring? Are you kidding me? Time to look under the hood…

    Somewhere in the land of media herding there was a familiar refrain. iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are “boring”. Apparently the idea behind this is that there is no single feature that changes the entire experience of the iPhone or iPad – no “killer app” or killer upgrade.

    The “boring” crowd have focused on things like “you can banish your ex from memories in iOS 15”. I saw a slew of articles with a variation on that title.

    The biggest problem with the attitude, which must have been initiated by someone that has not really been hands on with any of the new iOS software (which is still in non-public beta only) is that it’s not true. (A public beta is expected in July but it is not recommended unless you are a developer testing on “non-critical” devices).)

    Why? Because there are so many killer upgrades that it’s overwhelming, basically due to the avalanche of amazing new features and improvements. This article will attempt to give an illustration of that by focusing on only one feature inside one built-in app: Memories inside of the Photos app.

    First a short digression. We have been testing on several devices including a MacBook Pro 15” from 2017, an original 1st generation iPad Pro (2015) and an iPhone XS Max from 2018. None of these machines have the new Apple Silicon chips and for that reason they are only able to produce the upgraded features that don’t require it.

    That makes the improvements that are possible without buying any new hardware even more amazing. Stunningly, of the three devices we upgraded the MacBook Pro was the most stable right out of the gate. Any beta software will have bugs, glitches and sometimes crash but that does not prevent one from testing out features that are new.

    The iPad pro, in a non-technical observation almost appears as if the screen resolution has been increased, obviously not possible but, as you will read below, could be part of a stunning emphasis on increased beauty, sensuality and luxurious feel in the new suite of OSs.

    Memory movies on iPad OS15 are an amazing example of how AI and machine learning are evolving

    For those not familiar with “Memories” they are auto-generated film clips that can be found in the “For You” tab in your photos app on iPhone and iPad. While you are sleeping this feature scans everything in your photos library and uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and neural networks to choose and edit the clips, as the name says, for you.

    One not confirmed but almost certain technical backdrop to this is that the learning is improving even between updates to the OS. Not only that but all Apple devices on earth are “cooperating” to help each other learn. That’s a powerful force that spreads across over 1.65 billion devices.

    This feature was added in iOS 12 but started to function in iOS 14 on a much higher level. If you had tested and used the feature over the last few years as we have you’d have noticed that the ability of the AI to “see” and select photos and videos to include was limited and, at times, comical. Not any more.

    Much of the data that clues the software in as to what photos belong together is from the embedded meta data. The date, time and location information helps to tell the AI that you took a group of images or videos on a day in a particular location.

    The difference in iPad OS15 (iPhone too, of course) is that the more difficult to accomplish tasks, such as recognizing the subjective quality of one photo verses another (humans often take several photos of the same scene to try to capture the best out of a bunch). Or, more importantly, who and what are the subject of a photo.

    All of this began to get interesting in iPad OS 14 and many groups of photos and videos were already being chosen, edited and enhanced by the software to a level that was fairly impressive.

    AI and aesthetics collide and the result is a Joy to witness

    Something that is starting to become a thread and a definitive direction that Apple is taking, particularly with the iPad Pro series, is, true to the name, a Pro level of visual production and manipulation throughout the OS.

    Center Stage, for example and many other video and photo related upgrades were some of the big features in the newest generation of iPad Pro. Those are great, but require a new iPad along with the OS upgrade.

    When it comes to the memory movie clips what we found is that even on the oldest iPad Pro from 2015 the evolution of the software due to the constant learning by the AI is already taking a huge step forward doing all the things that it was already doing only much better.

    Apple’s upgrade took that and give it an additional kick up a notch with somewhat that the company is known for: good taste.

    What has changed specifically?

    In iPad and iPhone OS 14 there were a few things that felt awkward in the way movies were created. The biggest shortfall was in the softwares ability to deal with various aspect ratios.

    These days when we shoot photos and videos with an iPhone it is tempting and, at times, wonderful to use the vertical orientation. Other times, for landscapes and other scenes we might prefer a traditional film aspect or even use the panorama feature to get an ultra-wide screen “cinema-scope” style.

    Until now this was dealt with very poorly by the software. Mostly the photos would constantly zoom in (the so called “Ken Burns” effect) and if shown without zooming in a vertical portrait shot would have ugly side bars (like a vertical letterbox effect).

    The zooming and most of the effects in general destroyed the resolution and therefore the quality of many photos by enlarging them and adding the effects.

    Additionally the effects that were added, while cute and fun, were not much more than a way to add fun and not what would likely be used by a human editor. All of this and more made for a kind of novelty feel to the whole process that was nice to have, but many never even bothered to look at the movies that software created for them.

    That’s about to be over.

    A whole new array of options for the AI to use while trying to entertain

    In iPad OS 15, as can be seen on the photos and videos in this article, the ways that the software solves the aspect ratio issue as described above is genius and, dare I say it, beautiful.

    In a collaboration between the AI and the software itself it now has a new bag of tricks to use and, boy, does it work. One feature that is fantastic is the letterbox generator for any wide screen photos in any aspect ratio.

    How this works is that it takes the iPad aspect ratio and then uses the photo in it original at 100% full resolution and then adds a letterbox. But this is not the usual plain black bars we are all familiar with – the software and AI are able to see and analyze the photo and create a custom gradient letterbox that can be any shade or color.

    Photos in clip above courtesy of The 2021 International Portrait Photographer of the Year
    Copyright © 2021. www.internationalportraitphotographer.com

    The effect is often astoundingly tasteful and often makes the original photo look even better. We tested it on award winning photos (video above) and the result is, basically art. Also on our own “nice” photos, chosen 100% by the AI and software, look amazing also.

    Actually, all the photos and videos in the clips generated from the library look much better than I had remembered. That turns out to be because the software and AI now do automated color grading on all the photos and videos in all the generated memories !

    Color grading also known as color correction, especially for video, has traditionally required an expensive expert and high end software (and hardware) to enhance and color match various photos and clips, that have often been taken at different times and places, where lighting conditions vary and sometimes were shot with different camera.

    AI and machine learning software on iPad OS15 (and iOS 15) now has a virtual colorist actively adjusting your shots and enhancing and color matching them while you sleep. That is basically insane. That’s probably why it appeared that the photos and even the iPad itself had been upgraded.

    Ok, I could go on and on about that one feature, but let’s move to some more features. There are also new effects that are added that vary with each memory (there are a lot more clips being generated, including various versions of the same idea to choose from).

    In the experiments so far the effects are clearly better and more subtle than in iOS 14. Again in many cases I found myself saying the word “beautiful” when I tried find an adjective to describe the results.

    For shots that have a vertical bias there’s a vertical geometric split screen effect, often with a thin black border, and it has a kind of 60’s on steroids feel with the bars sliding in and out and resizing into place.

    Another effect not seen in iOS 14 is a kind of circular rotation – great for landscapes – it’s not a common effect probably because it is computationally complex, but for the AI, it’s a snap. Sometimes this effect has a kind of blur-dissolve added which makes it fun and, again, still tasteful.

    It appears that the effects are not only better and there’s a larger bag of them, but they appear to evolve and adapt to the content, that is to say that the speed and depth of each changes with the music combined with the photo and video content.

    Oh, and the music. OMG. Each clip has 6 songs pre-selected and the entire clip adapts, in real time (!), when you change the song, showing you various styles and looks that match. Apparently Apple Music is also connected if you have a subscription.

    As a mater of fact, it is hard to be certain, as we have not had more than a few hours to test this, but nearly everything appears to be “live” and constantly evolving in real time. In order to “freeze” a version of a memory you have to “favorite” it (with the typical heart symbol) and then “add to memories” in order to edit (change the names or choose more images – or remove anything if it is not to your liking).

    There is so much more not yet mentioned here: this article could probably be a book

    The AI is also getting creative with names and “concepts” for the clips. For example, if you had lunch (or took photos) over the years in the same city (for me it was Knoxville, TN) it might look at the coincidence that you tended to take photos around midday in that town and then create a memory clip called “Lunch in Knoxville over the Years”. Or for example the clip at the head of this article: “Golden Hour Over The Years”.

    This is an early and primitive foretaste of the literary ambitions of AI. In the new Photos App in iOS 15 it is beginning to “think” about when, where and why humans take photos and videos and then conceiving a story that fits the behavior it is witnessing.

    Other titles go beyond the basic “Amsterdam in 2016” and start to use the understanding and visual ability to “see” what is in the photo to create a clip like : “Playing in the Snow at Christmas”. Snow? Does it know it’s cold? Maybe just that it’s white and happens in the northern hemisphere in December. This is just the very beginning of something that will evolve, hourly, from now on. I can’t wait.

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    Breaking News, Business, Finance, Observation, Politics, Social Media, Tech

    Peter Thiel’s $5 Billion Bombshell: Hubris and Hypocrisy Beyond all Imagining

    Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

    ProPublica drops a second monumental article based on treasure trove of IRS, SEC & court data

    Excellent reporting of tax injustices among the obscenely rich continues with a huge and revelatory piece on Peter Thiel and his “little” Roth IRA scheme. Going well beyond the previous article that detailed how Bezos, Musk, Buffet and others all use loans secured with share holdings to avoid income, and thus avoid paying tax the “Lord of the Roths” is even more explosive.

    While the emphasis of the article on Thiel’s Roth IRA takes on the task of trying to somehow compare an “average” investor’s potential gains with the unimaginable magnitude of Thiel’s windfall, this is something that makes sense as a valid perspective, but the obscenity is nearly lost in the opaque fog of numbers beyond comprehension.

    For example: your Peter is basically gifted 1.7 million shares by the company he was one of the founders of (along with Elon Musk and the rest of the so called “PayPal Mafia). That “purchase” costing less than $2000 based on the ridiculous price of $0.001 per share was used to found a Roth IRA.

    The engineered numbers were no accident: at the time, in 1999, a Roth IRA account had a maximum allowable contribution amount of $2,000. Since the shares were “below fair value”, the fact of which was admitted by PayPal in an SEC filing from the time just before the company went public, the value increased massively, by 227,490% in the first year. Which increased the value of the paltry $2k up to $3.8 million.

    buy The Age of Surveillance Capitalism from Lynxotic

    Though obviously not enforced, regulations at the time forbade this kind of “stuffing”. Meaning, the initial trade that launched this scheme was possibly illegitimate, if not unlawful. Or, as ProPublica more kindly phrased it: “Investors aren’t allowed to buy assets for less than their true value through an IRA. “

    As a matter of fact, according to the article, the “stuffing” was so successful that no further contributions were ever made into the account after that initial 1999 sum.

    Since a Roth IRA allows a person to trade stocks within the account tax free, as long as no withdrawals are made, this large but still comprehensible sum was the start of a 20 year use of the tax statutes to build a fortune of over $5 billion without paying a single penny in tax.

    Hitting $870 million in value by 2008, by 2019 the tax free enterprise, built on the less than $2000 initial contribution (stock “purchase”), ultimately ballooned to 96 sub-accounts with holdings of $5 billion.

    Ok, so that’s the short summary of the mind blowing numbers. For a more detailed account, by all means visit the original article.

    The numbers are outrageous, but the entitlement and arrogance is on a whole other level

    The part of the story that should spark outrage is not in the numbers but begins where the almost inhuman greed, hubris and hypocrisy at this good fortune grows apace with the size of the tax free bonanza. Because Peter Tiel is not just any run-of-the-mill untaxed billionaire.

    The endlessly expanding windfall he received, tax free, did not engender a mindset of charity or gratefulness at his miraculous providence.

    Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

    Instead Thiel, once the wealth lent him a position of power, preached and pushed the idea that the US government, the same one that he was able to avoid paying taxes to, was guilty of over-taxing people like him (and poor people too).

    He spent millions of dollars in an effort to influence Republican politicians and groups that have anti-tax agendas, to change the laws in ways that would add even more advantages to his already preposterously privileged position. Then this: as per ProPublica: “In 2016, he became the rare Silicon Valley titan to endorse Donald Trump.”

    And, in an arrogance that is as incomprehensible as the size his effortlessly expanding fortune, he espouses the belief that people like him are entitled to these kind of spoils because, after all, without him we might have to live without PayPal and….wait for it…. Facebook.

    Yes, you heard that right. In 2004, Thiel used his IRA to buy $500,000 worth of shares in a, then private, company called Facebook, which was the first big outside investment in Zuckerberg’s soon to be massive monstrosity.

    By using his IRA funds to buy shares of the start-up he was able to avoid tax on all the future gains of those shares. (ProPublica, in excellent investigative reporting, uncovered this tidbit by combing though Facebook court documents).

    So, again, ostensibly, based on his well known statements, we are not only to congratulate him on his clever method of avoiding any taxation whatsoever on the first gambit with the PayPal shares, but we ought to effusively thank him for helping Facebook to become the dangerous purveyor of surveillance and phantom tollbooth Ponzi empire that is it today?

    In perhaps one of the greatest illustrations of how power corrupts, this idea that because he was able to amass a fortune on such a massive scale without the burden of any tax whatsoever, he is somehow a hero to be emulated, is the real reason for us to be outraged.

    That an average person might be lucky to turn $2000 into $250,000 over two decades, as was illustrated in detail in the article, while Thiel easily turned it into $5 billion, is outrageous, yes.

    But the real “crime” is that it was done with zero benefit to anyone except him and other Silicon Valley insiders at companies like PayPal and Facebook.

    Could it be argued that Facebook is a gift to humanity? Well, in 2021 that would be a tough argument to put forth without being laughed out of the room. And PayPal? It’s doubtful that Satoshi Nakamoto has to fear competition from any of the PayPal Mafia (including Mr. Musk) when the crown for greatest financial innovator of the century is awarded.

    In a revelation that could have received more page inches, the article also exposes a second, possibly more plausible reason, regarding why Thiel went to great lengths to bankrupt Gawker Media, which he blamed for outing him as Gay. That politically convenient motivation could very well have covered up the real reason:

    Again, as per ProPublica:

    “In a story headlined, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Taxpayer Money,” Gawker Media, citing anonymous sources, revealed that Thiel held his Facebook investment in a tax-free Roth.”

    Companies built on greed and hubris create nothing and, in the end, die

    Thiel believes he will live to be 120 years old. Based on his comments and writings he appears to believe that the world would benefit from that eventuality.

    But when looking at the companies he helped to build, and the obscene fortune he was rewarded with for binging them into being, it seems like most of us, after accessing his life’s works and “accomplishments”, would be more thankful for the improbability of that dream coming true.

    2087? That will be the year that either Utopia or Oblivion will have arrived for humanity and the planet earth. If by a miracle an earthly Utopia comes to be, it is highly unlikely that PayPal, Facebook or Mr. Thiel will have had any hand in bringing it about.

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    Books, Documentaries, Entertainment, Movies

    Digging Deep Can Payoff: Netflix Suggestion Engine can be Challenging

    Video

    Finding ‘The Professor and the Madman’ was an exception to the often frustrating process

    Click to see ” Professor and the Madman” Also available on Amazon.

    How many times have you searched or browsed the various suggestions prepared for you by the Netflix algorithm, only to get lost in confusion? Perhaps it’s a little like a self-driving car or a spell-checker, when it works you feel magically guided to your destination (or spelling) but when it doesn’t work, you are likely in trouble. 

    Choosing the newest or the most watched is no fool-proof either. Often, when a better movie rises organically to the Netflix top ten, it’s an older film that people discovered all at once, for some reason, rather than a new release or “original” production. 

    Such was the case when, after I made a series of unwatchable depressing choices, and then stumbled on “The Professor and the Madman”.

    In this time of mandatory streaming, big screen production values are more important than ever

    Based on a loved book of the same name, originally published as “The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words” by British writer Simon Winchester, first published in England in 1998. For the USA and Canada the title was changed to “The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary”

    Unlike many featured Netflix titles which come across as budget-conscious direct to streaming productions the fist thing noticeable in the opening sequence is that this is a “real movie” with a serious cinematic presentation. It only gets better from there. 

    Above: Photo / Netflix

    Starring Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O’Hara, Ioan Gruffudd, Stephen Dillane, Laurence Fox, and Steve Coogan, there’s a rare combination of megastar acting talent in a setting that is both age appropriate (the lead characters are both late in life as the drama unfolds) and produced with absolutely impeccable and ensemble acting.

    Read more: Netflix excites with 71 Movies to be released during 2021

    Unlike so many films that appear to have a concept that was half based on a calculation in the production budget – for example “An Imperfect Murder” and “The Midnight Sky” which seem to reduce the number of characters and screen time as a way to produce something with a higher change of recouping costs and producing profit, rather than any artistic or aesthetic inspiration, “The Professor and the Madman” is a full cinematic experience that translates to any screen. 

    https://youtu.be/DxTAGf6-Av8
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    Science, Tech

    Does Elon Musk have two Plans to Save Humanity?

    Video
    https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1364905536194572289/pu/vid/640x640/rd4iQkl-Xvef86HI.mp4?tag=10

    Having two plans to save the world, and being Elon Musk, the questions are fascinating and a bit bizarre

    It was bound to happen, sooner or later. So many fantastic triumphs over evil – starting a company with a goal of accelerating sustainable energy and transportation. And then , not only succeeding at that but challenging the fossil fuel industrial complex, beating them, then basically forcing the major automakers across the globe to finally make the shift into all electric vehicles.

    And SpaceX, though launching rockets is a messy thing, at least the Starlink Satellite Broadband internet project is something that will help humans all over the earth to decentralize, potentially a much needed option, if or when the coastlines begin to shrink and overpopulated coastal megalopolises are at the bottom of the ocean.

    Forever win streak has an end in sight?

    But Mars? There are some questions about that. For example, if the Earth rescue is so important, and if it succeeds (please!) then why would anyone want to live in a place like Mars?

    Elon Musk replies cryptically to this lovely Mars Clip

    As Shannon Stirone wrote in the Atlantic this week: Mars Is a Hellhole. And further: Colonizing the red planet is a ridiculous way to help humanity. Ok. There are issues. It’s a bit cold, an average surface temperature is a deadly 80 degrees below zero according to the article. Wow, and it has no magnetic field to help protect its surface from radiation from the sun or galactic cosmic rays; it has no breathable air.

    Those are all enough for anyone to want to double down on the whole “let’s fix the earth” thing.

    Unless…. Musk being the genius that he is, could it be that he is hedging his bets? Has he basically already decided that this whole Climate Change thing has already gone too far? And Earth is beyond saving?

    Others have pointed out that by putting even a tiny fraction less effort into saving this planet in order to try and colonize another one, one that is 3.7 billion miles away, btw, could jeopardize the slim chance still there that climate change can be slowed, stopped, even reversed before it’s too late.

    A list of goals and accomplishments that dovetail nicely into a world saved, or?

    So what is the Mars thing really about then? I have to be honest it might be just fine. Give “Emperor Elan” the benefit of the doubt. Tesla’s are damn S3XY and they are also a perfect first step into transforming the world transportation and even energy generation and storage into something sustainable, and that’s downright perfect: utopia and having the time of your life all at once.

    So, why not just throw in Mars and a nice little colony there, just for kicks? The whole mental-telepathy, Neurallink, thing, that’s gotta be useful too and, along with AI and Hyper-loop, let’s do it all, shall we?

    Perhaps it does all fit together in some way that is invisible to the rest of us. Why, when Earth seems to need all our attention, particularly with political inaction and even obfuscation and attempted sabotage of the paths to a green future, why put so much into Mars right now?

    Hopefully the answer is right around the corner, or at least less than 3.7 billion miles away.

    source: twitter @RationalEtienne

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    Cutting Edge, Science

    Impressive Robots: one can sing Celine Dion while another grooves to ‘Dirty Dancing’

    Video

    Above: Photo / Engineered Arts UK

    The future is a robot, yes they can climb, run and are singing and dancing up a storm

    Meet Cleo, she’s a next-gen robot, that besides looking very human-like, with her realistic hair, skin, eyes, teeth and body movements, this robot can even do impersonations.  Watch the Youtube video, below, from the company that created her, as she belts out a version of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. 

    Although she can in no way compare to the superstar artist, yet, the expressions and feelings are uncanny, while also a little creepy. It’s getting to be a shock to the system, watching how humans can engineer robots to do more and more life-like actions!

    According to the company, Engineered Arts, Cleo is built off the Mesmer platform, its robot system for building lifelike humanoid machines that include sophisticated design components:

    • Hardware – Motors, Electronics and Connectors
    • Sensors – Cameras, Depth Sensors, LIDAR, Microphones
    • Firmware – Motor control for speed, position and torque
    • Software – For control of Animation, interaction, audio and lighting 

    Cleo was created, according to the company, with advanced technology for entertainment purposes. The future and scope of roles for robots appears to be limitless. AI and advances to robot technology can bring aids and have many useful purposes, particularly to help with challenges that have arisen and continue to arise as humanity tries to come to terms with its own uncertain future.

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    Take Sophia the robot. Built by Hanson Robotics, the company has plans to mass produce these types of robots to collaborate with healthcare professionals and help during the covid-19 pandemic.

    Up next:

    Dancing Robots from Boston Dynamics in sync with ‘Do You Love Me’

    Cleo and Sophia aren’t the only Robots that can perform.  The crew at Boston Dynamics, the company responsible for creating highly sophisticated robots that can tackle highly complex tasks, have a line of robotic “creatures” that have to be seen to be believed. Just a few challenges its robots are able to perform include: climbing rugged terrain, lifting heavy materials, and even helping doctors. 

    https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1344304680814391296/pu/vid/720x720/JfzaZWL4KwWnaL2-.mp4?tag=10

    Above: Video, Photo /Boston Dynamics / Twitter

    There is one more task that can be added to the list, they can learn dance choreography.  The company shared a video of its three robots named Atlas (known for navigating), Handle (known for carrying heavy loads) and Spot (the dog robot) showing off impressive dance moves to the hit song from movie “Dirty Dancing”.   Back in 2018, the company shared another dancing video of Spot grooving to ‘Uptown Funk’.

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    Breaking News, Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

    It’s time to face it: Politicians that propagate Disinformation for the Fossil Fuel Industry are Wrong and Evil, Period

    If four years of the Former Guy taught us anything, it’s that we have no time left for evil, soulless greed run amok

    – Opinion & Analysis –

    Recent attempts by politicians, beholden to the fossil fuel industry in Texas, to use the collapse of the energy infrastructure during the recent weather disaster as an opportunity to bash and trash wind and solar energy is an example of an unfortunate, banal and still common form of pure evil.

    The deeper connections, easily seen lurking just beneath the surface, are rich and multilayered.

    If this extreme weather disaster is one of many that are linked to climate change, a manifestation of dangers that climate scientists have been warning of for decades, the irony goes beyond just sick.

    Wind and solar energy exist as an early and tentative positive step toward somehow stopping, or at least slowing down, the negative man-made climate change repercussions before it is too late.

    The real reasons behind the Texas power grid collapse are related to traditional fossil fuel based energy sources and bad management of the energy infrastructure that can be traced back to an arrogant belief that Texas is better off without connections to the national system.

    The local political response to this eminently preventable catastrophe was to bash and trash and blame the very technology that, ultimately, is part of a tentative start to actually begin to solve the bigger problem of man-made climate change.

    …the time is gone to accept “two sides” to an argument that, by postponing any real solutions, will kill us all.

    Just as the history of the internal combustion engine and the fossil fuel and auto industry’s attempts to prolong its near monopoly, using disinformation and other tactics for over 50 years was evil, the anti-sustainable energy politics in Texas today is just a continuation of that effort.

    The time is gone to accept “two sides” to an argument that has one side trying, by attempting to postpone any real solutions, to kill us all, in the name of short term greed.

    Under unique circumstances lending legitimacy to evil is too costly to condone

    Looking at “both sides” of an issue is a practice based on a theory that “reasonable people” can disagree on diametrically opposed views. This idea is often suspended, however, by unreasonable people for their own reasons. That is sometimes called “war”.

    Reasonable people, people, for example that understand climate science and want to prevent the total destruction of the earth and the extinction of all inhabitants, are often reluctant to suspend this idea of “good people on both sides” by their very nature as caring individuals.

    “Now we need to understand that the “silence of one good man” can spell disaster for all good people. Each of us who remained passive as our impending disaster continued might have been the one “good man” who didn’t act, didn’t speak out, didn’t resist…

    — Elayne Clift in Salon

    Now is a time when huge changes are going to be forced by an external and highly powerful and dangerous threats to our survival. The changes that are needed involve radically new ways of thinking and acting across many spheres of activity.

    Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.

    New technologies, such as the aforementioned wind turbines and solar collectors, new forms of transportation, new ways of looking at other causes of, and remedies to, the excessive expulsion of carbon into the atmosphere will be absolutely required.

    The truth is that for these new ways of thinking and acting to take over in human commerce the old ways must be cancelled. With extreme prejudice.

    The past and those that want to go back to it are a lost cause, unfortunately

    Many many “rich” people will be unhappy about this. And they will have politicians in their pocket that will gladly spread lies and disinformation to try and sustain the sick, evil gravy-train of polluting, carbon spewing systems as long as possible.

    Sick and evil, not because those ways of surviving for humanity, burning fossil fuels and using them for a million different things that were a benefit in the short term, but because the short term is over.

    The various arguments that somehow it is a good idea not to change and for the changes to slow down and not step on any toes as they gradually become “viable” have zero validity as of today (really as of 25 years ago but that’s water under the bridge).

    Eventually the climate itself will kill them for their mistakes. Unfortunately it will also kill the rest of us if we allow them to continue to postpone positive change with lies and disinformation.

    – D.L.

    There must be an understanding among “reasonable” people, people who want to be part of an urgent crusade to save the world, literally, that points of view and the people who espouse them represent evil, plain and simple.

    They will scream that reasonable people are “femi-nazis and “eco-terrorists” and say and do whatever it takes to protect what’s left of a deadly status quo. But they are wrong.

    Eventually the climate itself will kill them for their mistakes. Unfortunately it will also kill the rest of us if we allow them to continue to postpone positive change with lies and disinformation.

    “Every one of these people is the banality of evil personified. Every one of them became what Arendt called a “leaf blowing in the whirlwind of time.” Now every one of them bears responsibility for what could lie ahead.”

    — Elayne Clift in Salon

    This change in thinking about how to respond to this kind of evil will be a more important factor in the survival of humanity than all the technological advances combined.

    “World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.” – Marshall McLuhan (1970), Culture is Our Business, p. 66.

    –Marshall McLuhan

    “Info-wars” were predicted as the battlefield of WWIII by Marshall McLuhan in 1970 and now we are in it and there must be an understanding of what is at stake.

    When disinformation is used as a perennial weapon against positive, necessary change it is necessary to do more than disagree. It is necessary to expose the lies and, more importantly, the obvious sick and criminal motives for the lies. Over and over as often as necessary.

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    Cutting Edge, Tech

    The Real Meaning of 5G, iPhone 12 Pro and the SpaceX Race to build Satellite Broadband

    Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

    The Confusion around 5G goes far beyond the political-nonsense conspiracy theories

    Most articles on 5G since the Apple iPhone 12 launch event on October 13th have been looking in the rearview mirror to predict the future: 5G will “disappoint” due to the slow buildout, technical limitations of the format, and various issues with all the competing systems and carriers, and these arguments are casting doubt on the much touted potential. 

    Read More: Apple iPhone 12 Pro Models are Coming Immediately and There’s More

    This perspective misses the point on so many levels, it’s difficult to know where to begin to unpack the myriad of misunderstandings.

    Much of the technical discussion has been focused on the various flavors of 5G and the associated limitations and advantages of each. The fact that the fastest 5G, which goes by the sub-category moniker millimeter wave, is not instantly available everywhere for the 5G capable iPhones, and that they will not be in the hands of most consumers before next year, has been met with feigned shock and bewilderment.

    And further, many highlight the confusion mounting over the various providers and the various flavors: 5G, 5G E, 5G UW or 5G+ as they are designated by “service indicators” on the iPhone 12 itself.  Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. each have their own systems they have developed and are building out – looking for a piece of the 5G market, expected to be around $1.15 trillion by 2025.

    First and foremost – since Apple and iPhone are the leader of all innovations in the marketplace – not necessarily by the sheer number of handsets sold, but by the focus on increasing technical and aesthetic quality, and appealing to the top demographic, not to mention the majority of early adopters, it is precisely the fact that, until now, the iPhone 5G handset did not yet exist, that the buildout is not further along. 

    The fact that, in real-world tests, it is already performing at up to 7 times the fastest previously available connections, was coupled inevitably with the caveat; physical locations where these speeds can be accomplished are currently hard to find. 

    Due to the technical issues with this ultra-high speed version of 5G; the inability to travel more than very short distances and the lack of ability to penetrate obstacles or walls, the possibility to get these amazing speeds are, at present, more likely to be found at outdoor locations. 

    This is, admittedly, an odd conundrum, but you can be sure, with the upcoming massive increase in competition for ISP customers, it is one that will find at least some viable solutions very soon. There are many billions at stake for those that can find ways to improve this issue. 

    “Standing in front of a camera store in South of Market, I got 5G speeds reaching 2,160 megabits a second, which was 2,900 percent faster than 4G. Even where it was a tad slower — behind the Safeway parking lot in the Marina district — the 5G iPhone drew speeds of 668 megabits a second, which was 1,052 percent faster than 4G.”

     – Brian X. Chen for the New York Times

    The carriers have not had the market to build for, and needed to be pushed by a huge influx of iPhone 12 owners. Then, meaning now, they will begin to compete with one another for that extremely lucrative group of users. That rising competitive battle is not the only one looming on the horizon. 

    Regardless of the ultimate time frame of the build-out, there is an obvious and very meaningful conclusion that we can reach here: 1 year from now things will look very different in the options available for those who want to work and play with the help of a faster internet connection (meaning, obviously, everybody).

    RankCountryDownload Speed (Mbps)Upload Speed (Mbps)# Download Tests# Upload TestsNo. IPs
    1Liechtenstein199.2839.78969810
    2Hong Kong112.3291.4047825589933
    3Denmark107.7866.022149522217912
    4Switzerland93.6041.4465614743501907
    5Netherlands93.4827.5889478939709044
    6Sweden91.3686.0420812238752071
    7Iceland80.1924.3031443555
    8Finland79.4018.39948710395526
    9Andorra76.6756.2015917633
    10Bermuda74.2119.2758963146
    11San Marino61.899.76433
    12Norway58.9549.7313841142982083
    13United States54.9910.4519723352126398364898
    source: fastmetrics

    As can be seen from the chart above in early 2020 the US ranked 13th in desktop download speed while mobile speeds ranked even worse coming in at #33 (various sources have US at #10 for fixed broadband). Liechtenstein is nearly 4x faster, on average, than the US. Also note that the highest average is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the eventual “ideal conditions” speeds of 5G.

    Failure of the US Broadband infrastructure and the coming shake-up in the ISP system grid-lock

    The problem is not a technological one. The US lags behind due to the pseudo-geographical monopolies held by various ISPs and the ability they have enjoyed to be able to gouge customers with high priced, bad service. Lack of competition often results in slow progress, or no progress. 

    That is all about to change. You don’t need to have a technician to analyze the various 5G systems, or compare carriers chances of “winning” to realize that the very fact that speeds and options are increasing exponentially is going to re-write the map when it comes to who controls the cash-cow subscription gravy train. That system is about to collapse.

    In steps Elon, and his little copy-cat-side-kick Jeffy Bezos, and the landscape is about to become unrecognizable

    First, 5G speeds rival or exceed the former fixed / desktop speeds which had commanded a premium for the geographically entrenched providers. 5G home systems will be available in many areas that will be competitive in speed, price and convenience.

    Read More: Elon Musk broadband milestone as SpaceX Starlink Public beta begins, nearly 800 Satellites Orbiting

    SpaceX’s Starlink, with nearly 1,000 satellites already in orbit out of an eventual 12,000, with launches continuing almost weekly with 60 in each launch, is a serious project. This ambitious plan will eventually encircle the Earth completely with interconnected satellites that will link through intermediary “ground stations” with up to 1 million planned for USA alone. Each ground station is just under 19 inches (.48 m) across.

    “It looks like a UFO on a stick,” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk “It’s very important that you don’t need a specialist to install. The goal is for … just two instructions and they can be done in either order: Point at sky, plug in.”

    Satellite Broadband, such as SpaceX’s Starlink will not only add ubiquitous 100mbps and higher, low latency coverage, it will also cover the same areas with high population density, major cities, where both current systems and 5G are also focusing. 

    Exact pricing is as yet unknown, but it is very likely that there will be a high-pitched battle over customers, once the various systems go into the next phase of the rollout. And all of this is not factoring in additional players in 5G and satellite systems.

    Longer term (2 years +) there will be major world-wide implications of this shift, toward more and faster options in internet connectivity

    The first shift, primarily driven by the geographical independence of satellite broadband, such as Starlink, will be a decentralization of populations at massive scale. While we are looking at a world where, due to the current pandemic countermeasures, WFH a.k.a. work from home is becoming more than a temporary factor. As many as 20 major companies such as Google and Microsoft have announced extended or permanent work-from-home policies as of October 2020. 

    There are plenty of very serious discussions about what will be done with all the skyscrapers and office buildings once there are no workers to fill the offices. This is not idle chit-chat. A migration has already begun away from the insanely overpriced rents and home prices to take advantage of the work-from-home-anywhere approach.

    Extrapolate, based on increased speed and availability of connectivity to millions of locations not currently viable, will soon have internet at minimum speeds rivaling the current world champion Liechtenstein (see above), and you see the beginnings of an exodus of epic proportions. Just in time for economic upheaval, due to the aftermath of the still ongoing global pandemic, and yes, the issues of accelerated global warming, which will, coincidentally, affect costal “elite” cities like Miami, San Francisco, New York and others around the world to a disproportionally large degree. 

    “The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems (along with AI plus robot technology (powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change. “

    -DL

    These changes, to be clear, are not all “bad” nor are they all the cause of negative side-effects such as the current covid-19 outbreak. 

    Read More: “Kiss The Ground” Documentary Offers Hopeful Remedy To Climate Change Focusing On Soil Regeneration

    The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems, (along with AI, robot technology powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change. 

    Change is urgently needed to build out the human networked-communication-system that will enable the learning and cooperation which is the only hope for the survival of our species. 5G, the iPhone 12 and SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Broadband are going to be huge factors, in making the first baby-steps toward that change, possible. 

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    Business, Entertainment, News, Tech

    Media Layoffs Increase Across Content Industry

    Ripple Effect of Digital Deflation?

    photo: Adobe Stock

    Recent announcements from BuzzFeed, and a slew of other digital media outlets, that they are culling hundreds of content producers (Axios reports total of over one thousand lay-offs today alone), appear to indicate two distinct themes emerging for the 2019 content media landscape.

    On the one hand, after more than a decade of growth and pure digital news models showing potential financial viablility, profitability remains elusive. On the other, a tsunami of artificial intelligence, software and hardware improvements over the last 2 years, in particular, have begun to reduce overheads, especially for those bulk production techniques such as employed by BuzzFeed.

    While legacy publishers are showing some marginal improvement in subscription revenues, the business model for online media and content production continues to shift in search of a sustainable income mix. Cost of human contributions to content is an obvious issue.

    “The restructuring we are undertaking will reduce our costs and improve our operating model so we can thrive and control our own destiny, without ever needing to raise funding again”

    @PERETTI / BUZZFEED

    Read More: Online Media next Fatality after Coronavirus Causes 50% Ad Income Decline?

    Basic Cost Cutting or Shifting the Mix?

    Lowering overhead by cutting staff is the message sent as the primary explanation for the industry-wide layoffs. Digging just beneath the surface, however, is the not-so-gradual shift in technology that allow digital content production organizations to ramp up output while at the same time reducing costs.

    Read: more work done by A.I., software and robots and fewer humans required. Result: Accelerated Digital Deflation.

    The entire history of tech advances since the ubiquity of the personal computer has engendered digital deflation (ask anyone in the music industry). Meanwhile, advancements over the last couple of years are creating a massive acceleration of this trend, based on a shift toward automated production in all facets of content creation.

    As a content creator the perspective seems amusingly bifurcated; improved tools for visual and verbal expression must be welcomed and adapted to, all while working in a monetization system that does not yet favor the individual creator.

    Perhaps a headline: “Thousands of Humans Rendered Obsolete By Improved Robot Software” would seem less compassionate than merely indicating that they (the humans) stood in the way of reaching profitability?

    Read More: Big Tech headed for a Storm of Changes once the Novel Coronavirus Fades from Center Stage

    In the long run, using more A.I., together with improved hardware and software tools to increase productivity in digital communication, will lead to lowered barriers to entry. And, for content creators and those 1000+ professionals just liberated, it might be best to consider all their options. One of the best may be to establish a free-lance future using the very technology that erased those jobs in the first place.

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