Thoughts
Extinction
We have known since August, 1945 that humanity has the power and the willingness to destroy all life on earth. Humanity’s ability for this destruction comes from our development of tools, all of which have the purpose for doing more than is normally possible. Our willingness comes from our ego-driven desire to be God. As I wrote yesterday, Artificial Intelligence may be the ultimate amplification. of humanity.
Consequently, I take serious the warnings raised by people working on the technology not because I understand the technology but because of my understanding of humanity. Our ego-driven lust of power prevents us from acting on the fact that there are things in the world that even though we can do them we ought not do them.
Six years ago the world suffered and many died because of a virus. Many people believe, some of whom are in positions of power, that COVID leaked from a lab. In other words, millions died due to a human mistake caused by an unwillingness to stop ourselves from doing something we know we shouldn’t do. I am sure the people who made the decisions to do that research believed they were doing so for the right reasons. I wish that Rand Paul could separate himself from his vendetta and the real lessons that would connect the dots between this type of “research” and this drive for AI.
Our inability to live with enough makes us our own worst enemy. The news every day drives home the point that there are no adults in the halls of power, and those in such positions who claim themselves Christian cannot divorce themselves from the idolatry of more.
Browsing social media this morning was emotional due to all the tributes to Dolly Parton. A question often asked is, how is there so much evil in the world? Perhaps the better question is, why is there so much good in the world? Fortunately there are those in the world, like Dolly, who are in communion with the Divine such that light shines enough to provide glimpses of the Kingdom as it ought to be on earth as heaven.
I think the hand wringing over non-mainstream politicians winning Democrat primaries is very telling in how it shows that a large number of people do not know or will not admit there has been a change in U.S. politics.
What most do not want to admit is that Trump and the “Make America Great” political movement correctly identify the sentiments of wanting change. The message is that the “same old, same old” is not working and less and less accepted. Trump successfully convinced a lot of people that he was truly different, and all the “crazy” things he says and does are just clear evidence. The problem for Republicans, however, is that it is becoming clear that in reality Trump and those looking to mimic him are not different.
In my opinion, Abdul E-Sayed is campaigning on the same problems MAGA is a reaction to. For example, why are U.S. tax dollars sent to foreign governments when there are so many U.S. citizens, including veterans, going without? Isn’t that a common sense question?
Further, if the U.S. government is going to collect taxes, shouldn’t those tax dollars be prioritized on U.S. citizens? Why not spend those billions on healthcare for U.S. citizens rather than on endless wars?
Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris both lost to Trump because they were the “same old, same old.” In a time when many think the Democrat and Republican parties are pretty much the same, those people are looking for clear differences. And if the differences are between “crazy” ideas, which crazy idea is more harmful to the United States, starting a unnecessary war that results in prices going up or stop starting wars and instead spending that money on healthcare for citizens?
A year ago I was working in the basement for my job of 37 years, today I am in a coffee shop in Loveland, Colorado casually drinking a latte and reading. Nothing more than realizing how my life has changed.
The ACM’s proposition to redefine the software engineering profession sounds a bit like the Systems Engineer Development (SED) program of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) that I hired in to in 1989. Unfortunately I don’t think such a long term vision is compatible with the U.S. short term culture, so I doubt many companies nor the industry will take this approach.
Right now I feel there is no point in ranting about the Chicago Cubs because with the same person at the top of the organization thinking there would be a different outcome is insane. Jed’s big off-season signing was an exchange for one under-performing player in the last third of his career for another, so the lineup is the same as last year and thus we had no real reason to expect something better than last season.
My understanding is that during the WWDC keynote yesterday Apple informed us that devices with 8 GB of RAM will not run their on-device AI features. You still get the features via Apple’s cloud but will slow down responses. In my first post about the MacBook Neo I made the point that 8 GB is not enough RAM and speculated the Neo is prelude to Apple selling a subscription to their AI cloud services. All that is left, I think, is for Apple to provide information about the subscription AI cloud services.
Is there anything more disconcerting than a computer keyboard and mouse amok? For some reason just now my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard connected to the MacBook wouldn’t do what I want. Click an icon on the dock and instead of launching the app a Finder window opens with the Application I clicked highlighted. Click icons on the menu bar and nothing happens. Restarted several times, including without the externals and shutoff some items that start at login. It’s gone for now, but I don’t know which item I shut off was the culprit and I don’t know that I care.
I am reading through articles about announcements from Google I/O 2026, and I think this change Google is planning to make to Tiles in Wear OS 7 has to be one of the most idiotic design decisions I have seen. When you have a UI on a small screen like a watch, why would you not use the entire screen? What are they thinking?
Tiles are also getting a redesign. Google will roll out widgets with Wear OS 7 to replace full-screen tiles. A 2×1 or 2×2 block will display app information in a style that more closely resembles Android 16’s widgets. It doesn’t appear that the new design will allow users to stack widgets on top of each other in the same screen, like Samsung’s version of Wear OS allows Galaxy Watch users to do.
I put my Pixel 10 on a Belkin MagSafe wireless charger. Today it dawned on me that it would be cool if when the phone is on the charger that if a phone call comes in the phone would automatically operate in speaker phone mode so I could just tap a button to receive the call and talk.