Neighbors

 I was intrigued by the NY Times piece on the Supreme Court Justice's family and their neighbor problem. In my experience neighbors can fall into three categories. First those one just says hello to and then we all go about our own way. Second, the intruders who either verbally or physically become pests up to and including malicious trespass. Third, the friend type, where one visits the other etc. I prefer the first. You stay on your side of the fence and I stay non mine. I wave hello and that is about it. The second are hell on earth. They tear up your property markers, cut your trees and shrubs, kill off your plants, or create massive water run off flooding your basement. Then there are the self possessed and privileged annoyers who call you things, put up signs, and have a felling of self worth that exceeds that of God. I had this when I lived on Staten Island as a child, Mrs. A, who guarded her driveway like a Storm Trooper. 

The NY Times piece is a classic example of such a case. I suspect that given it is the Times it is hardly balanced. However the solution is to move, far enough away so that your neighbors are out of site. No neighbors, no problem. Pity

Remember

 

 

Normandy, September 2001, just after 9/11.

Gaudeamus igitur

 "It's just $35" 

I noticed a new entry into the accoutrements of graduation attire, a banner asserting what group one belongs to, such as Asian, Indigenous, etc.  Class warfare and Marx had intruded to the graduation ceremony. Instead of bringing together, these banners further divide. 

Harvard has an interesting set of this class associations. I thought back on Joe Kennedy and wonder if he would have worn a green sash acclaiming that he was Irish, how about Jack Kennedy, Kissinger as a Jew, and the list goes on.

At the one MIT graduation I decided to go to, my PhD, it was in 1971, amidst the Viet Nam War, a muggy hot day, and the only ones getting degrees were PhDs, no speaker, just walk up, get your hood, take your degree and go back down to mother and father who were getting more unpleasant as the heat bore down on all. It was fast and well processed. We were all MIT, no class warfare between us.

My grand daughter just graduated from UMass Amherst, amid the local Hamas protesters and many students wore their class, Marxist version, banners. But my grand daughter when asked said it was $35 and that was two hours of work at the local store, and saw no reason to assert her class identity. 

In addition the rather child like glee exhibited was in stark contrast to the subdued mood back in 1971, a year after Kent State and with the War still afoot. No class assertions, no speaker, no child like glee, just all of us trying to get a job amidst the Nixonian Financial collapse of 1971!

Don't Forget COVID

 From early March of 2020 and for the next three years plus, COVID was a sword hanging over our heads. Masks, gloves, tests, vaccines, and a massive hit to the economy and the social fabric. But it now seems all behind us? Not really, the CDC has just gone dark, as usual, and the Government has apparently learned nothing, worse, they just have learned more control mechanisms.

In Nature there is an interesting piece about the Government funded entity that was aligned with the Wuhan Lab. They note:

The HHS memo says that, according to a forensic audit performed by the NIH, EcoHealth was never locked out of the system. Federal auditors have cited the NIH for not pursuing the late report and recommended that the agency intensify its monitoring of foreign institutions that receive NIH funds. Addressing the HHS’s allegation that EcoHealth failed to respond adequately to the NIH’s requests for information and materials related to the WIV’s research, the spokesperson said that, considering the geopolitical pressure on US–China relations during the pandemic, and that the HHS, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the intelligence community were all unable to get evidential information out of the WIV, “it is outrageous to propose this as grounds to debar our organization”. (The WHO organized an initial investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, but further efforts were stymied by that country’s lack of cooperation.)

The Government via NIH entities funded this entity that many have questioned as Nature recounts. We need competent, credible, and trustworthy entities to monitor and report on new viral threats. These entities must be transparent informing professional and public parties. CDC in my opinion has continually failed to do so. WHO has some access but it at times is also questionable.

Ersatz Library

 Dandelion coffee and an AI Library. What have they in common? Just look a the NY Times and an AI company's "library". Nice shelves but the "books" tell the story. These are just shelves in a remainder store in some down scale shopping mall. Lots of used books, none containing any content. Lots of clutter and titles depicting a vapid mind.

The picture tell the whole story of AI. Garbage in garbage out.

Now I speak from my personal perspective. I try to keep my library to just under 10,000 books, all neatly arranged, all read in whole or part, and used as facilitators of knowledge. I still keep a few paper back books, cherished ones from years past. Most of my books are hardcover ranging from the most recent to late 18th century. Each shelf is filled, organized by topic and the by author. Yes, organization is critical when you have 10,000. Every once in a while I make the mistake of putting something back where it does not belong, then spend weeks trying to find it. Discipline is essential.

But this AI company "library" is pitiful, it lacks organization and content. One can tell a great deal about a person by their library. Are they nothing more than a poseur, are they organized, what depth do they have. A Library is a personal expression of a person's mind. The English gentry had massive libraries, mostly filled was room decorations. Other than Churchill, left unread.

The Times notes:

stocked with titles suggested by his staff, the OpenAI library is an apt metaphor for the world’s hottest tech company, whose success was fueled by language — lots and lots of language. OpenAI’s chatbot was not built like the average internet app. ChatGPT learned its skills by analyzing huge amounts of text that was written, edited and curated by humans, including encyclopedia articles, news stories, poetry and, yes, books.

Thus this is not a personal library but stocked with suggestions is a reflection of the mind set. Pity us the AI opponents!

You Can't Make This Up

 I was a NYC Lifeguard from 1959 thru 1963. From Coney Island, to South Beach, to Midland Beach to Ocean Breeze. I had multiple "saves" and some in the City Press. But to get the job I had to swim competitively against others and come out in top 400 in NYC. Then I had to take the course; first aid, rescue, even diving with a helmet. Over the five years I had the privilege to meet some of the smartest and hard working people I ever met. Future Billionaires, Doctors, Professors, lawyers, judges, and the like. Everyone of us was going to college, as professionals. For the most part we were all seeking the position for its "class" since as a Lifeguard we had to maintain the peace while insuring lives were not lost. We had to be respected, we were not California egoists, were were there for safety and security.

Now along comes the current Mayor in NYC, as the NY Times notes:

Then Mayor Eric Adams was asked about New York City’s lifeguard shortage at his weekly news conference, he seized the moment to make a point about potential migrant workers.Imagine if the city could quickly hire migrants for jobs that urgently needed to be filled, he wondered aloud, before asking: “How do we have a large body of people that are in our city and country that are excellent swimmers, and at the same time we need lifeguards?”His remarks on Tuesday drew criticism from all sides. Immigrant rights groups called the comments “racist and divisive.” Conservative leaders viewed them as an attempt to legitimize the hiring of noncitizens.Mr. Adams, unsurprisingly, saw things differently.On Wednesday, the mayor explained that he had visited migrant centers in the city and asked people there if they knew how to swim. He was “blown away” by the number of those who raised their hands.

 Just being able to swim is NOT what a Lifeguard must be able to do. Swim 400 yards in competitive time, grab a flailing human, carry them back, provide first aid, etc. Also maintaining security. Not a simple task when 1 million people are at Coney Island.

Try it Mayor, you get to keep gangs apart with nothing more than a whistle! You must speak a bit of Spanish, Italian, even Russian. You are in effect a police officer in a bathing suit. 

So the Mayor believes no English speaking people who have already disobeyed the law will be trusted to enforce it and keep people sage. A NYC Lifeguard at the beach is not some Delaware lifeguard at a pool. We would often go to Seaside Park and laugh at the wimpy lifeguards there.

Perhaps the Mayor should spend July 4th at Coney to see what is up.

A Thermometer: A Tale in Design

 Design is an art. The old adage, form follows function, has meaning. Let me tell you the tale of a thermometer. Decades ago we had the simple oral thermometer. It was filled with mercury, had markings, You put it in the mouth, waited a bit, usually a minute, then took it out and read the height of the mercury against the markings. You got the temperature.

Along comes electronics. Early electronic thermometers mimicked the mercury ones in function.. Just now you put it on the temple, pushed a button and out came the temperature. Reasonable, not perfect but fit the job. Along come the new designers, adding more features, forms, so you could do this measuring "better" I just got one by Braun, even measure soup, baby food, but seems not to do well with humans! Why, the design went well beyond the function! There is a point in design where it is perfect, so stop there.However today's designed have the arrogance of the young generation, they want to imprint their way something should be done!  Of course they forget the use and the user, arrogance of youth and designers have come to be the hallmark of so many things! Pity!

I once had a person in one of my groups who had great insight into design. He would often say that a toaster just toasts bread, it does not open cans and make coffee. There were other products that did this. Which is why our kitchen counters are filled with gadgets.

Voice Calls and Telephones

 Back in the late 1980s I was working with some folks who were testing voice quality over cell phones. In order to make them work efficiently it needed some for of compression. For almost 100 years voice quality was always key. But then came digital cell phone, 2nd generation, and fully digitized voice. Voice quality degraded. Then in the late 1990s I deployed IP voice on a massive scale. I tried to consider quality. But the problem was each carriers had different voice codecs and thus degradation was just compounded.

Now in the mid 2020s it has become horrible, Between multiple disparate voice codecs we have customer care centers shifting calls about all over the globe. Add to that the generally gross incompetence of the service people one ends up talking into a tin can.

This effect tells us a great deal about our current society, technology driven in and quality chased out.

1968 vs 2024

 In 1968 I was a grad student at MIT and taking some courses at Harvard. I had my office in Building 20 at MIT, the old Rad Lab from WW II. From time to time one could smell tear gas from Harvard Square. But MIT was still immune from protestors. But by 1969 that somehow changed. I had a distinguished Math Prof suggest we all go to DC and protest. I had multiple courses to study and teach, a thesis to complete, and family to feed and shelter. Besides at that point my Draft card had somehow disappeared I gather due to certain projects I had worked on. 

By early 1970 I was still in Bldg 20, a wooden shack and clearly a fire hazard, when SDS decided to bomb the ROTC located in the adjacent corridor to my office. Fortunately they were intercepted. That June I had a final to monitor in my Electronics class in the Armory on Mass Ave. A Captain from Cambridge Police came and told me of a bomb threat and it was up to me as what to do. My answer was simple, keep going. He thought I was a bit risky but as I told him my father and grandfather were NY Police and we do not put up with terrorists. I then informed the students giving them the option to leave. None did. No bomb. The Captain returned and noted that NY Police seem to have b..ls. 

The reasons in the 60s was clear, a war that was killing thousands of young men and women, yes women were killed, each month, seen daily on TV. It became personal. One could relate. Moreover it became clear to some who had access to certain information that the Government was fabricating facts, things were worse than what citizens were told, and by May 1970 with the murders at Kent State by National Guard forces, things had gotten out of control. 

In 2024 the problem is truly different. The protestors are well organized by third parties seeking to overthrow the status quo. Unlike the Jan 6 riots, these actions are a well organized attempt to instill fear in the populace at large. It is not a one day affair, but a massive attempt of masked invaders to overthrow the status quo, denying access to facilities. Thus in my opinion and in my experience there is no parallel to these two periods. 

1968 overthrew Johnson. I remember his television speech, a shock for those expecting his usual all goes well speech. In the current environment one wonders what will happen. Chicago 1968 Redux or something different. I suspect different. The media world is different. This will be a hot summer in more ways than one. However one does wonder what our Government law enforcement intel folks are doing? Maybe Herbert Hoover had some value after all.