Update on my degenerated lumbar spine

Sam Altman of OpenAI has put out some whoppers on energy and water use of his AIs. Perhaps even hallucinated the source of his unsourced figures. Still, he claims one-fifteenth of a teaspoon of water is used for the average query, and only .34 watt hour of energy. "The price of inteligence will soon be the same as the price of electricity". (That's not intelligence, honey bunny, it's an 80s style expert system running on stuff that can finally handle it. But the quote is also to mean AI will become as invisible as electricity, if that is a good thing).

Narrow AI tasks are tremendously successful and centaurs (people armed with AI) are beating the pants out of physics problems. Literally brute forcing their way though sample spaces like a slimemold to find the optimum stuff (ala Hollander's evolutionary algorithms from the 90s). Coming up with solutions that are hard for our little pink brains to figure out. Superintelligence? Only in the sense that Nature is superintelligent.

Keep in mind these LLMs and machine learning algorithms and neural nets and what have you are all reverse engineered from brains because we couldn't figure out how to build a mechanical brain. So we scraped our biology knowledge base and in turn replicated what the bots do, statistical inference, to approach brain. 

But one human brain makes AI run on GPUs look like poop in terms of performance efficiency. The human brain runs on 20 watts, a dim incandescent bulb, that can process an exaflop: 10 to the 18 mathematical operations per secomd. So there!

Anyway I got the neurosurgeon to look at my back today. I set up the appointment in March. Damn our healthcare system is broken. It seems I'm not the only who notices getting specialist care is harder and harder to get. This feels like the socialized medicine horror stories conservatives tell of social democracies, but of course this is the privatized version which is even worse. 

Anyway, no surgery. If I need to I can get the injection to reduce inflammation but the plan is to continue with the physical therapy exercises I have learned. I'm fine with that. I asked if I could ever get the pain down to zero and the doc was not optimistic. On the other hand, he said I was young and fit, despite the arthritic lumbar spine and stenosis, there was no need for surgery. Young and fit? I'm 68. I know, he said. Well, he has a point, but I wonder if he is biased? Compared to his other elderly patients, I looked like Superman. Fat old Superman.

I don't look 68. Stay out of the sun, kids. And the past athletic performance reviews I've had at the college gym? Rated me from excellent to superior (for my age). I decided a long time ago, looking at all my decrepit relatives, that I didn't want to be an invalid when I was elderly. Stay active. So far, so good. I guess this is just part of getting old, gettng used to the mileage.Get used to the pain, the constant burning pain in the legs. Weird thing is, I have had brief moments of zero pain, and those are good enough because I'm used to the pain. But moments of less pain are almost as good as zero pain. 

It makes me wonder if I have a berserker gene, if such a thing exists. We Kurmans do seem to be able to take hits, major big hits, so you got to wonder what is in the genertics of haplogroup I-1A, the Northern Barbarian, is more inured to pain? Inbreed enough and maybe. 

Anyway, I am doomed to eternal excercise for the rest of my life. That's fine.

Oh yeah, the art show. That was my public transportation adventure and the gallery is in Bucktown.

Mark and his wife Terry (or is it Terri? regardless she's vivacious) visited and were a welcome addition to the opening. I knew maybe two other people and I am not good at interacting with strangers. 

Thank goodness Mark's brother CJ showed up with them. I was substantially less awkward. We went to a Thai place, they bid goodbye, I took the train home. 

Grandma and Grandpa Land

The neighborhood south of my shitbox apartment is where I go for walks and rambles. I have a main route but go all over. I realized I have a fifteen year perspective on this couple of square miles. Most houses were built in the 1960-70s and almost all are two story (what I could call as a boy a rich people house two stories!) and so the neighborhood was solid grandma and grandpa land when I first looked around it. A neighborhood that was affluent to begin with and more important kept its trees.

In the 2012 election almost every yard had a Romney sign. One grandpa house had no sign but a yellow snake flag before the taller pole for Old Glory. (He had another pole for the state flag, but then eventually it was some weird Christian flag) The pole arrangment was perched in an immaculate yard, with yard art for the missus. In 2016, that old grandpa house had a Trump sign, one of only two houses in the neighborhood. The rest of the houses had no sign, or a smattering of Clinton signs. In 2020, a lot of Biden signs.

Stop there for a moment. The occupants changed, grandma and grandpa either dying off or downsizing or moving to Florida, a younger demographic of families moved in. Going about day to day I didn't notice, but from fifteen years altitude, yeah, all the play equipment in yards, not ot mention the kids who rarely were out of doors. The neighborhood got more electric vehicles. The old ICE rumble was replaced by the whine of the electric motor. Solar panels sprouted on roofs. Zero teardowns among the house sales, but quite a lot of additions. One house in particular insisted on looking like a hideous modern Jersey mob decor. Regardless, the neighborhood got bluer.

In 2020, not every house had a Biden sign, many had no sign. Immaculate Grandpa had a Trump sign and a Trump flag. In 2024, practically every house had a Harris sign. Two houses had Trump signs. Immaculate Grandpa was dead. They had an estate sale and sadly they bought cheap. Oh well. At least the lawn and garden always looked first rate.

Oh yeah I got accepted in a show. I got two pieces in.

Happy Family

While You Were Out

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The show is titled Chimera which is perfect for me as that is all I ever make. Chimeras. One person looked at my work and said there all just jokes aren't they? I said a joke is a chimera, starts out with a wolf head  or something and ends up the tail of a jackass.

Cardassian Dad

Star Trek geek time so stop reading if you ain't a geek. Star Trek Deep Space Nine had some of the best characters in the franchise.It also had some of the worst and most well written episodes. The series turned into a big smoking turd once they went to war, but that is to be expected. War confines stories.

Nevertheless there were some good war episodes and a two parter involved Cardassian former spy Garak hooking up with his dad, Enebran Tain. Paul Dooley (still alive, 97, yay) played Enebran Tain. Paul Dooley, if you look at his filmography played a preponderence of dad parts.

Of course Paul Dooley would be Cardassian Dad.

Ye Olde Ape

I live in a universe of pain. Xray and MRI results are in and I have an arthritic lumbar spine with stenosis. We inbred Scandinavaians do seem to have the cute little buns and the narrow spinal canal. 

Its arthritis of the spine. I'm old. I'lm 67.943 years as I type this. Happy Birthday and thank you for wishing me that, next month. 68. So yes I am an old ape living in a universe of pain. Self medication helps somewhat. Weed and booze,but you can't do that and work a job. So, I get to the pain doctor. They are more than willing to give me an epidural and I'm like, pass, Send me back to PT.

Physical therapy was turning from torture into almost exercise and I know we were getting somewhere. My doctors put a hold on out of caution in case my back was too fucked up. The x-ray was this guy is a cripple how is he doing anything? The secret is the inbred part that fucked up the spine also was part and parcel for being a viking. Bred to take punishment in a grey and cold maritime climate with lots of rowing and running. 

So, I got months of rehab and it better than drugs. I have gone from 232 lbs in 12/24 to 212 lbs in 4/25. I need to be no more than 204. that 204 pounder has no overhang belly. That's where I need to be for the rest of my life. So I guess if I want to live, I have to stay healthy from now on.

Michael Lewis

I've talked before about scary governments are. These massive slow AIs, these superorganisms that can amplify the whims and idiocies of indviduals or gangs. Governments are hideous Lovecraftian monsters. But governments are made of people. Most of those people are not corrupt and /or lazy, a waste of money. 

Quite the opposite, there is far more waste and fraud in the private sector, festering with layabouts, deadbeats and overpaid incompetents. Public service, on the other hand, actually serves the public. And most of the time, no one notices this excpet when something goes wrong.People-run, people-centered governing that does good and even great things, this news is drowned out by the chattering noise poured out by the other smaller slow AIs: corporations, via media corporations. 

Michael Lewis is the author of three books on government: The Premonition, The Fifth Risk, and the recent Who Is Government?

The Premonition is a cogent and lucid look at the COVID pandemic. What worked What didn't.  What went wrong.What went right. What would have gone better under practically any other administration.  

The Fifth Risk is about what the layers of bureaucracy actually do, this weirdly fungal neural net that many departments that together called the Deep State, and how it attempted to accomodate the administration of Donald John Trump. The Fifth Risk is the risk posed by incompetent government leaders. It's a scary book, and, ha ha a premonition of our current interesting times.

I'm now reading Who Is Government?, which came out of the Fifth Risk. Who Is Government is a collection of essays from various authors about public servants as individuals and their accomplishments. Each essay details the exemplary work of federal employees.

So far I read out about a former coal miner who developed and enforced regulations to end mind roof collapses How? Statistics, followed by regulations. The key factor is the word enforced. Corporations do not police themselves. Mine owners don't care if workers die, but they do care if coal isn't coming out due to too many collapses. This bureaucrat worked on this successfully because he was allowed to. 

(What is interesting is you get the impression that at some level, Level 6, say, there's an expert on almost everything that's been allowed to pursue whatever they are interested in. Rather like the old research laboratories from the 1930s.)

I've also read about the man in charge of the nation's military cemeteries. This National Cemetary Administration is a jewel in the VA, of otherwise not-so-great reputation.  The NCA is considered the finest run public or private organization in the nation.

I'm sure the other essays are just as fun.

Our current administration? Second verse, same as the first, but worse. Trump's got a nest of parasitoids eating everything, even the vital organs within the bureaucracy. Elon Musk is laying eggs in your children's throats. All your data are belong to us, and us is high on the supply of Enterprise AI.

Enterprise AI infested government gets you a demon, a demiurge, a weakling godlike entity built from the rickety ladder of monkey nests and monkey brains. If people run government is not your friend, what will this thing be?

If IT keeps us around, you're going to see a boom in the suicide net business.

Five interstellar robots out there, from the USA and only the USA.

So far, Russian Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov has the record for longest stay in orbit at 437 days 17 hours back in 1995.

Premise: Humans die after 500 days in space, give or take a week.

Doesn't matter why or how, they just do. I would prefer that they explode, but nothing so dramatic is needed. Kidney failure or swollen lung is good enough. I kind of think of the death as like when they bring deep sea fishes up too fast, and they look swole and unhappy and die. Maybe something like that but with gravity or lack of. Regardless, assume people can't live in microgravity.

Is this a problem? Yeah a big one for astronauts and engineers. Long term occupancy means rotating wheels and the costs (already expensive to keep us jellies alive) go up a hundred- or a thousandfold. Example: a ring 25 meters in radius turning at 6 times per minute gets you 1 gravity. It also gets you a noticeable Coriolis effect, and you'll want larger wheels for less puking. A 100 meter radius wheel ala 2001 Space Odyssey is accceptable, but the cost for such a structure is like putting an aircraft carrier in orbit. Probably a trillion for starters. 

Does this put a kaibosh on the manned space program? No. Yes. No.

For cislunar spaceflight? No problem . For deep space missions? Big problem. So, robots.

Robots have done spectacular so far. All of our probes, when we don't crash them, do a darn good job, and usually way beyond their deadtime. Now we we should be throwing some real money at them. Put AIs to good use and have them explore our Solar System for us.  

We'll Always Have Murderbots

 What are the 5 softest genrations in USA history?

Gen Z

Millenials

Gen X

Boomers

Silent Generation

Greatest Generation

Yes, loves, the Greatest Generation were considered soft slackers by their elders. What they all have in common is living in Modern Times and more specifically electrification.

Dolly Parton grew up in a cabin with no electricity, and when they finally got it, she said it was "like going from the Stone Age to the Space Age".

Listen to Dolly Parton. 

Along the great acceleration of the modern age, we have cursed ourselves with each new blessing. Petroleum powered the Monkey Singularity, but also soiled our global nest. Plastics, modern miracle, choking the machinery of life. You get the idea. But we do love our great acceleration and insist on more science and technology. Problem, the carrying capacity of this S-curve is brains. Not enough brains to throw at stuff, and you plateau or decline. Need more brains.

Problem. Not enough brains.

Solution (age old solution) automate. And so it has happened.

Problem. Robot brains even in humanoid bodies cant' handle it.

Solution: Throw more money at it until it breaks. And so it has happened.

Keep in mind, even the electricity powered robots are powered by us food eating robots.

Consider this chart:

Gross per acre is best looked at as capitalist owner farmer's earnings/cost. The net is after the farmer sells it, but you notice a big chunk out of the net is labor. The hated labor. Capitalist owner farmer gets more from the labor intensive crops like vegtables in favor of feed or meat, which uses a lot less labor. But often he or she leaves that money on the table, becuase of labor. In fact, a lot of the tractors are robots, and the farmer is more manager than worker himself, in charge of a menagerie of robot slaves harvesting a vast monolculture. 

Robot slaves don't pick tomatoes very well.

As a result, the United States of Armerica has a slavery problem. We like slaves. We want slaves. But we increasingly cannot have slaves.

I could be totally wrong (I doubt it) but it could be AGI robot slaves to the rescue.

If so, that gives us until the escosystem humans depend on collapses, as early 2032, no later than 2054.