Spot On!

 The NY Times has a compelling article on clinical trials. They are costly, slow, bureaucratic. But the most recent twist is that with "personal medicine" they no longer work.

Here  is the issues. Classic clinical trials assumed the same therapeutic was give or not to a group of patients. The evaluation was then with or without and did it work and was it better than the previous treatment. Simple, yes?

But as the article noted:

A few converging forces make this bottleneck more consequential than ever. The first force is scientific progress itself. Science is creating treatments that the regulatory system was not designed to handle. The most striking case is that of personalized medicine: Thanks to technological advances in recent decades, we can now sequence a patient’s tumor to find out its specific vulnerabilities, and increasingly we can tailor therapies to the needs of specific individuals.

The problem is that the therapeutic is fundamentally different for each patient since we are examining the genes in the tumor cells. There are two basic approaches. One is the recent one treating melanoma as we have discussed previously using the immune system. The other is a antibody drug conjugate approach as we proposed for prostate cancer. Each therapeutic is different and designed specifically for the patients malignancy, cell by cell. Apparently one has gotten through the quagmire of FDA approval. Will others?

The article is broad and compelling, The US is often the slowest to get through as well as the costliness. Hopefully there will be a focus on improving personalized treatments. But the politics of the FDA and HHS may be the worst problem in the process and many lives may be lost as a consequence. 

Was the Medieval Period That Bad?

 In a recent post by Victor Davis Hanson, the author notes:

 Remember, the medieval period was roughly that area in time after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, roughly AD 500 to around AD 1300 to 1400, the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. In medievalism, we often talk about primitivism after the destruction of the classical world during the Dark Ages, the early medieval period, and it’s characterized by epidemics, bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid, smallpox, terrible sanitation in urban centers. They had forgotten the Roman use of sewage and aqueducts. There were open borders. National states popped up that couldn’t defend themselves, so you saw castles and walls pop up all over the European countryside in a way you had not during the Roman period. In cities, they were walled, towns even, and the gates closed at dusk to prevent gratuitous crime. But at the same time that this was happening, you had some of the greatest works of literature in the Western world. You had Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” Dante’s “Inferno,” St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica.” And if you look at the architectural expertise and scientific knowledge of architecture, it was progressing at a geometric rate when you look at the huge cathedrals at Seville or Cologne. ...

Now let’s switch to the modern period. All of us now can call anywhere in the world in seconds on our iPhones. Anything you want to know, past, present, future, you can just get on a cheap computer and ask an artificial intelligence program from the many free platforms. You can watch movies, you can watch entertainment on satellites. Anything you want is at your fingertips. The nation itself is exploring space. We’re getting close to conquering cancer. I can attest to that. Computers allow you to write without even speaking. You can, unfortunately, compose a whole term paper or a book with AI. You can make a movie with AI. Yet at the same time that’s happening, look at what’s going on in Berkeley here in California or Los Angeles. We’re seeing outbreaks of medieval diseases that we thought had been conquered years ago, given our sophisticated knowledge of sewage and water treatment. We had a typhus breakout in Los Angeles. We had leptospirosis, a rat disease, in Berkeley. 

Now to correct Hanson I note:

1. The Dark Ages most likely were from the fall of Rome, say 400 AD to 1000 AD, The key players were the Merovingians from the east. However the Irish had universities, were fluent in Latin and Greek. The Muslims had from mid 600s occupies the Near East as well as all of North Africa. Such places as Alexandria were willing to accept Muslim rule because it was a better Tax situation than the Byzantine rulers! Think New Amsterdam and the English, lower taxed became New York, and the USA was the result of tea tax of the Brits. See a thread there?

2. The Middle Ages is a creation of the Renaissance.  It was a very idiosyncratic period. The Italian city states were the creation of individual rule and the rejection of royalty inherited. Marcellus of Padua and William of Ockham in about 1340 created individualism, namely the rights of individuals and equality of them.

3. The plague of 1348 was better handled than COVID. The mortality rate was near 50% whereas COVID was less than 0.7%. Yet COVID lasted longer tan the plague of 1348! We had a Fauci, they did not! Think Jesuits versus Franciscans (inside joke).

 4. Now Aquinas, Dante, and Chaucer are benchmarks. Aquinas was in Latin, Dante in Italian, and Chaucer. Aquinas focused on God, Dante on bad rulers, and Chaucer on common folk. This is 1250 to 1400!  The world had changed. If one looks at these three one see a dramatic progression. It is a movement in society. Needless to say, a mere 40 years later (1440) with the printing press, all changes. People could not get access to Aristotle, Chaucer, Plato, Dante et al. 

5. As for brutality, it was less roaming gangs, although the French had the jacquerie which was a mob of oppressed commoners, the real butchers of humanity were the English, the Black Prince, son of Edward III. He butchered men, women and children, and did so with the approval of Avignon! The butchering was done not the immigrants but the enshrined!

I think Hanson is a smart and prolific fellow, but to understand the Dark and Middle Ages one must spend time understanding the people and events, I have written on bother periods and suggest perhaps a look at the 14th century, despite the plague, it was prolific and led to the Renaissance. 

Oh yes, and the Roman water system. They relied heavily on lead pipes and thus the consequences from massive lead poisoning. I have noted that earlier.

Is This what we pay billions for?

 

NASA seems to have been converted into a clown college. It feels that the above have become a necessary part of displaying the results of their missions. As one who worked on Apollo in the 60s, the team involved were all professionals. Pity for the change.

Bayeux and the Brits

 There was an interesting view of the Tapestry in the Guardian by a Brit. He notes:

 In both the borders and central strip, the Bayeux tapestry always set its action in a wider world, and even, when it shows the comet, a larger cosmos. As the armoured elite go to war, peasants plough and sow the fields. They are portrayed in distracting, vibrant detail and this workaday scene as the battle approaches is pointed and poignant: whoever wins, whoever rules England, country people will still work the soil. That same sudden cutaway from the rulers’ perspective happens when a woman and her child watch the Normans set their house on fire. But what you can see here, close to the stitches in such good light, is that one of the men torching the house also seems sad and conflicted. It’s that honesty that makes this not just a fascinating medieval relic but a universal depiction of the madness that is war. If the violence is stunningly real, so are its consequences. The dead bodies pile up in mounds as Saxon after Saxon falls. King Harold didn’t really get killed by an arrow in his eye we are told, but seeing the tapestry so close, it sure looks like it. Anyway, his royal body just joins the rest. In the final scenes, the peasants, the churls, get their revenge. Little shabby figures pull the mailed hauberks off dead knights, leaving them naked. It’s a final flourish of the precocious artistic brilliance of these 11th-century artists and craftspeople. Naked bodies emerge from their armour, pale and oddly beautiful – the complete ones, at least – as these medieval geniuses show they can depict, through embroidery, incredibly gentle, intimate nudes whose dead flesh fills the battlefield with pathos. It ends there. But, although there’s a lost later section, this anticlimax looks perfect to me. By then, I had been drained by this epic in all its tragedy and comedy. Bodies and body parts. That’s where the war talk was headed all along.

 The writer fails to comment on the Latin prose. I recall when I saw it in France that it was quite readable, aqnd despite the art work the commentary was over powering. 

Now English brutality has no beginning or end. Consider the brutal and barbaric acts of the Black Prince, son of Edward III. He and his men butchered thousands of French women and Children until a good case of poor pork took him away!

The Irish and Indianans recall the more recent English butchery of the past century. 

Frankly this is a rather sophomoric writing failing in its historical context as well as the ignorance of the simple 11th century Latin text. 

New Jersey Data Centers

 Quietly but with massive force New Jersey now has 116 Data Centers in 34 cities. 

 Secaucus 24,  Piscataway 15, Newark 13, Clifton 8, North Bergen 5, Franklin Township 4, Weehawken Township 4, Weehawken 3, Jersey City 3 Piscataway Township 3, Edison 3, Hackensack 3. Totowa 2, Hanove 2, Carlstadt 2, Carteret 2, Matawan 2, Vineland 2, South Brunswick Township 1, Hightstown 1, Parsippany-Troy Hills 1, Union City 1, Bridgewater Township 1. Trenton 1, Wall Township 1, Franklin 1, Jefferson 1, Merchantville 1, Sea Girt 1, Newark 1, Ridgefield 1, West New York 1, Orange1, Jackson 1 

Now our wonderful, just a joke, Governor notes:

 

Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed legislation Thursday requiring data centers to report their water and energy use to state energy regulators every six months, touting it as a highlight of her plan to “hold data centers accountable.” Sherrill, a Democrat who pledged months ago to seek limits on data center construction, said during a bill signing ceremony in South Brunswick that she will not “let these developers operate in the shadows.” “New Jerseyans deserve to know how much water and electricity the data centers coming into their community will use. Data center companies often treat their usage statistics like a trade secret,” she said. Data center critics have said their mammoth power needs are behind rising electric rates. Sherrill pledged during her campaign for governor last year to freeze those rates for New Jerseyans. The law requires operators to disclose total energy consumption, energy used for cooling and IT equipment, peak daily water use, water sources, and backup power supplies to the state Board of Public Utilities twice a year. Bill sponsor Sen. Teresa Ruiz said the reporting requirement should be “the start of an ongoing public record” rather than a one-time disclosure. That data would be summarized for public release, but a provision of the law limits how much of that information could be released to the public under the state Open Public Records Act.

That is like reporting body counts annually after battles.  There is no demand a priori, just after the fact. And worse it is by the State BPU, an entity almost always aligned with those they regulate! Try and get anything done as a citizen, I have, no such luck.

Just "knowing" well after the fact how much is used is useless! The cow and all the other animals have left the barn. Such an action clearly shows the naive experience of this Governor. 

The Law allegedly states:

 “Data center” means a facility: (1) whose primary services are the storage, management, and processing of digital data; and (2) that is used to house computer and network systems, including associated components such as servers, network equipment and appliances, telecommunications, and data storage systems, systems for monitoring and managing infrastructure performance, Internet-related equipment and services, data communications connections, environmental controls, fire protection systems, and security systems and services.

 No later than six months after the effective date of this section, or, for a data center that has been in operation for at least one year as of the effective date of this section, no later than three months after the effective date of this section, and on a semi-annual basis thereafter, the owner or operator of a data center in the State shall prepare and submit a water and energy usage report to the Board of Public Utilities that contains the following information, at a minimum:

(1) basic information relating to the data center, including: (a) the name of the data center;  (b) the owner or operator of the data center; (c) the address of the data center; and (d) the month and year that the data center commenced operation; (2) information related to energy and water usage at the data center, including: (a) the total energy consumption in kilowatt hours, including the use of electricity, fuels, and other energy sources used for cooling; (b) the name of the electric 1public1 utility serving the data center  and any electric service agreements between the electric 1public1 utility and the data center; (c) all on-site power supplies, including any primary power on site and emergency backup power supply and any permit information such as permit numbers, capacity, tier level, fuel type, total permitted emissions for the data center, and any other relevant information; (d) the total energy consumption of information technology equipment in kilowatt hours measured as the value of the combined annual energy consumption at every uninterruptible power system connected to information technology equipment

This is useless. Totally and completely. The numbers should/must be presented in advance, and reported against projections monthly, made readily available and reviewed, with substantial fines for failure to adhere.  

It is clear from this useless legislation that it is but a sop written most likely by those in the pockets of these people. There is clearly no benefit to the rate payers, the citizens and those who have elected these somewhat useless legislators.

I remind the reader that companies like JCP&L have networks which have been failing every week to ten days. Also as a regulated entity their profit is dominate by a return on investment. The new investment is amortized over the existing rate payers rather than the new Data Center players. We  subscribers must not in any way subsidize these entities. That can only be assured by a priori certitude and a posteriori penalties!

I Guess we are all Dumb

 As the current President has noted regarding Data Centers:

"The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump on Truth Social. "If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign." And if people "kill the Golden Goose" by successfully resisting AI data centers, "you will only have yourselves to blame," Trump continued, adding "China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can't believe it is happening!"

Frankly, not one is saying to band Data Centers in toto. What people are saying is to think first then act afterward. I know, thinking is hard some times, I have been at it for nine decades, so I have a tad of the experience.

As I noted before, there are issues worth discussing. The statements regarding jobs is fallacious. The jobs are in construction, a passing issue, not in ongoing operation. There will be massive facilities filled with thousands of processors, using lots of electricity. Perhaps some staff to swap failed units, but no more. In fact the more people the greater the risk of human error.  

So what am I to blame for? Thinking? Perhaps, but that is frequently a useful act.  

I still have questions regarding the usefulness of LLM. As I sit here and write this I am also trying to compare several cancer therapeutic options. The driver is the recent paper on T cell attacks on cancer driven by sequencing gene changes in the cancer cell. Asking questions is the most critical stage. One examines the papers, looks at the alternatives, then goes back and repeats the process as the sources of data expand. I am driven by questions, not by just reading what others wrote. That is LLM, not me.

Thus I question the fundamentals. Have the papers flaws, can I find it, have others? 

Data Centers have use, measured use. There is plenty of land, devoid of beneficial human use, that can be employed. But building them in the back yards in Louden County is not for real! 

Or to paraphrase one of my business quotes: "If all else fails, listen to the voter!" 

Almost Gold

 The 20th century used enormous amounts of copper; telephone, electrical, plumbing, etc. Now much of the telephone wiring is abandoned; almost.

As The Guardian notes: 

 BT is on track for an estimated £2bn-plus windfall over the next decade from selling off old copper cabling, as it cashes in on soaring prices amid the AI market frenzy and switches the UK’s network to full-fibre broadband. Copper is one of the main beneficiaries of the “electrification of everything”, essential for the rapid growth of AI data centres, electronics and the fast-growing renewable energy industry. The metal hit its highest-ever closing price of $14,294 a metric tonne on Friday, close to the record intraday high of $14,500 reached earlier this year amid global shortage fears.

 

 

Here it Comes!

 Some three years ago I wrote about the evolution of AI, from just communicating in words to actually manipulating machines, in the broadest sense, and ultimately making these machines but better and even being able to order and build parts to make them. Ultimately AI systems can eliminate humans after we have foolishly educated them in all that we know! Yes, gonzo!

Now one of the next steps has been taken in the Lab as noted by the NY Times, as usual. They note:

 On a recent afternoon, scientists buzzed around a lab in Cambridge, Mass., performing experiments. Their equipment was standard: a lab hood for working with dangerous chemicals, an incubator for growing cells. Their procedures were identical to those in biology labs everywhere.  A closer look revealed some oddities, though. Along with lab coats and gloves, most of the scientists wore miniature cameras on headbands. Three additional cameras peered down at each work station from a shelf. Lab notebooks were strangely absent. Instead, the scientists quietly narrated their work, murmuring into microphones. A team huddled at one end of the lab, inspecting videos of the experiments. This was the real research taking place in this lab. With a system of sensors and software intended to capture science as it happens, down to the millisecond, scientists were training artificial intelligence models to recognize every object the scientists used and every action they performed. The A.I. even composed its own narrative, describing every few seconds of video with sentences like, “The operator resuspends the pellet by pipetting it up and down 10 times.” The technology is the creation of a start-up called Transfyr, which came out of stealth mode this week with $25 million in seed funding. The company is tackling an age-old challenge in science: the hidden factors that make some experiments succeed and others fail.

This system is training the AI entity to do what it does. Of course the AI entity will soon improve this process, albeit devoid of the human. 

We seem so anxious to "train" these entities but fail to consider the results. As I noted recently, an AI entity generated new viruses. The entity may then go directly to the Lab and make them! Without any restrictions.

 Should we be fearful of this result. This is not an Asimov robot tale, but a 21st century Terminator!

Me and Dolly

 In August of 1981 I started work at Warner Communications at 75 Rockefeller Plaza. I did not have to arrive until about noon, so by 11 AM I was entering into the building on the south side. My elevator was to the 24th floor. Traffic was low in the lobby so I just walked into an open elevator. Now I am 6' 3" and inside was this 5' buxom blond, wig most likely. It was Dolly Parton! I had now joined the entertainment industry starting day one. I was in my pin striped blue suit from Brooks with a vest! What a contrast.

She looked up at me as if I were the empire state building, I wanted to push the button for 24, but she slapped my hand and said: "I'll push the button young man."

Now at the time I did not realize I was older than her. My first "star", up to the 24th floor. Frankly I was terrified, I had no idea how to deal with these folks. KGB officers were fine, but music folks, not so fine.

Some 25 or so years later when writing a book on my fathers ship, I went to Tennessee and instead of going to the left and Dollywood, I went to the right and visited a retired minister and shipmate of my father's. It was the land where she had come from, before the dress, hair, and glitter, poor but honest folks.

Sad to see her pass, my prayers for her, great person. 

 

 

Kropotkin and Anarchists

 Kropotkin was a driver for many of the early 20th century anarchists. For them, property was delimited at best if not totally abandoned. It is worth reading him to understand where many of the current anarchists are coming from.

The so-called socialists are really Kropotkin anarchists. The proposed abolition of the Senate if a prime example of what makes an anarchist. Property is eliminated, nit controlled by the state as a socialist would demand.

Kropotkin is a step beyond Marx, but today's so-called socialists, whether they know it or not, are in line with him. 

Ben Hur Redux

 I guess today the Emperor will have a redo of the famous chariot race but this time with autos of some repute. It is bad enough to get around DC not to close off its heart for this automotive chariot race may be a bit over the top.

Aqueducts and Data Centers

 Frontinus was a Roman Engineer who was one of the principals behind the building of the aqueducts. It is worth reading his works, htey provide insight to structures that have lasted 2000 years. 

Now a  union coordinator writes in the NY Times that electricians, especially union ones,  are a prime reason we should build data centers willy nilly across our suburbs. He does note:

The debate shouldn’t be data centers, yes or no. Instead, it should center on the rules and who enforces them. Over the years, the best operators I have worked with, CloudHQ, Equinix and Stack Infrastructure, have been genuinely responsive to community concerns, working hard to mitigate noise, improve aesthetics and invest in technologies that reduce environmental impacts. And yes, there are impacts. Innovation in energy and resource efficiency, though, is not just a reaction to criticism — it’s central to the industry’s success. Communities that partner with data centers on water-recycling systems, transparent power-purchase agreements and community benefit agreements that specify the host area’s gains before any permits are issued deliver real revenue and real jobs with manageable costs. Communities that allow developers to write their own rules have, predictably, suffered worse outcomes.

 Yes, the community should be involved. But the data center builders are rushing head strong into massive construction before any of the questions are even addressed. 

My father and brother were IBEW members and I worked along side my father.  The unions can be powerful entities for better or worse. But jobs alone are not the driver. 

Also for anyone who has ever built such facilities, I have, installation is but one step. Operations are different. The install jobs are transient, they do not last. Thus the argument has a fundamental fallacy. Operators want a few people as possible. Get the job done and move on. 

Oh, and yes, aqueducts were built by slaves! 

 As Sextus Julius Frontinus stated:

Still before us is the topic of maintenance of the conduits. But before I speak of this, a few comments should be set forth on the working-crew established for that purpose.  There are in fact two such crews, one belonging to the state, the other to Caesar. …Monies for the public crew are paid from the state treasury, an expense which is offset by revenue collected from properties associated with the water system: these consist of lands or buildings situated near the conduits, delivery-tanks, …or basins. … This income, close to 250,000 sesterces, had been lost to its intended purpose and credited to some other account;… but the Deified Nerva with a due sense of right restored it to the populace, and I have given painstaking attention to bringing it under fixed rules, that it might be entirely clear which places were subject to this tax. Caesar's crew receives monies from the imperial treasury, from which payments are also made for all lead and for all expenses relating to the conduits and delivery-tanks and basins. 

 Thus the problem has been with us for millennia. 

In the Navy

 My father was in the Navy in WW II. He managed to return once to the US in late 1944 after the Battle of Surigao Strait and the friendly fire on his ship by the USS Denver. A short period where I lived with my mother in Berkeley. There was no cell phone, Zoom etc. His mother never complained to the Navy Department, she was dead.

Now I read about mothers, fathers, mother-in-law and the like front page complaining about their wonderful children not being fed well enough and being far from home too long!

One must be kidding! Imagine what the shipmates may think of "Little Billy" not having his favorite ice cream of Fruit Loops! This is why they call it a war!  

Think of what the Marines or Army soldiers go through, no water, poor food, and a rather aggressive enemy.

The Navy is not a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line, it is a military organization. "little Billy"may now be the most underappreciated sailor on board! 

The Old Days of Teaching

 

Back in the days when I was teaching (MIT, Columbia, GWU, Poly NYU) I used chalk and blackboard. Each lecture had a theme, a point I wanted to get across, and my writings became props for what I wanted to say.

I kept a look out for every students eyes, did they follow or did I get MEGO, "my eyes glazed over" syndrome. I interacted with those so afflicted. In effect each lecture was a one act play with a single actor, and the script was painted on the blackboard. The holding of the chalk, the dust on my jacket, the little comments to see how many were still awake.

Now the advantage was in engineering you gave exams to have the student "show that" in detail. That meant receiving long had written exposes of what they hopefully knew. An A was 90 and above etc. You could not curve the grades a whole lot. They were what they were. 

 Now in an interesting piece in CATO's web site:

 Teachers, like many professionals, have expressed concerns about how AI might change or replace their jobs. AI can certainly help students in ways we traditionally associate with teachers, but it can also expand the reach of a good teacher. Education has evolved with many technologies, and the best teachers have evolved with it. Great teachers won’t be replaced by AI; they’ll be the ones who carefully adapt to it.

 Indeed, AI can't catch the "I'm lost" look in a students eye, not can it perform so as to both get the point across as well as create human interaction, by definition.

Plan B or even C

 As one looks at the issues of blocking the straits, one really must ask what Defense (eg War) planners were doing. This was always a clear single point of failure. Since the late 70s after the overthrow of the old Iranian Government, the threat was imminent. The Saudis had built a modest plan B to the Red Sea but on to the Med had been in place since the 80s but became unworkable after the many conflicts.

There is talk about building a new pipeline. One would assume that given the master builders we have in DC that building a pipeline across a desert would be super easy. Just money and people which we seem to have plenty of. 

We have millions looking for work, this is a great place for them. We can even gold plate parts and name for important donors!

Just a thought! 

An Interesting Cancer Vaccine

 Melanoma is/was a highly aggressive and deadly skin cancer. Early detection often results in an elimination of the lesion. However many patients fails to get checked even when they note a problematic lesion.

 As new mRNA vaccine developed by Merck et al, notes:

Intismeran autogene (intismeran; formerly V940 or mRNA-4157) is an mRNA-based individualized neoantigen therapy. We report 5-year outcomes of intismeran plus pembrolizumab from the phase IIb KEYNOTE-942 study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03897881). Eligible patients with resected stage IIIB to IV cutaneous melanoma were randomly assigned 2:1 to receive nine doses of intramuscular intismeran 1 mg once every 3 weeks plus 18 doses of intravenous pembrolizumab 200 mg once every 3 weeks or 18 doses of intravenous pembrolizumab 200 mg once every 3 weeks. The primary end point was recurrence-free survival (RFS); secondary end points included distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and safety. Five-year analyses were descriptive. Among 157 randomly assigned patients (intismeran plus pembrolizumab, n 5 107; pembrolizumab, n 5 50), the median planned follow-up at data cutoff (December 15, 2025) was 60.3 (range, 50.5-76.4) months. Intismeran plus pembrolizumab continued to prolong RFS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.510 [95% CI, 0.294 to 0.887) and DMFS (HR, 0.411 [95% CI, 0.200 to 0.843]), with a favorable trend in overall survival (HR, 0.471 [95% CI, 0.165 to 1.345]) versus pembrolizumab. Safety profile continued to be manageable, with no new safety signals. Intismeran plus pembrolizumab was associated with  increased T-cell receptor clonality and novel clonotypes versus pembrolizumab; greater novel clone expansion was observed in patients without versus with recurrence in the combination arm. After a 5-year follow-up, intismeran plus pembrolizumab demonstrated sustained, durable treatment  benefits versus pembrolizumab alone in resected high-risk melanoma.

 The NY Times notes:

 Scientists create intismeran by sequencing the patient’s tumor and selecting what are called “neoantigens,” which teach the immune system how to attack the cancer. They use the fast, flexible mRNA technology to create a vaccine with neoantigens selected for each patient — a process that takes about six weeks. “It is certainly gratifying to see these exciting results — to come full circle, from our early proof-of-concept results to now,” Dr. Catherine Wu, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a leader in the field, wrote in an email. “It is highly conceivable that this treatment paradigm will be extendable to other cancers as well.”

 We have recently examined cancer vaccines of this type. They may have significant results. In addition, two years ago we proposed a similar pproach to prostate cancer treatment.

Multiple Outages and JCP&L

 Almost every week we have a massive power outage. The one just now is due to a tree branch falling. The Power companies are supposed to trim and or cut trees. They do not. It is cheaper to send out a crew. However the customers are thrown into the dark. Someone should file a class action suit, love to join in.

This is what happens when tech companies are run by accountants and lawyers, in my opinion, dumb ones at that! 

And they want these incompetents to run AI power supplies! 

Bayeux Tapestry

 After 9/11 I was stuck in France for ten days. Instead of staying in Paris at the Four Seasons, a prominent Saudi watering hole, I took my associate and drove to Bayeux. The tapestry was a significant token of western advances and managed to assuage the mutilation of friends and colleagues in New York. The town of Bayeux is quaint bu wonderfully Norman.

The tapestry was displayed in a simple museum. What amazed me was despite my Latin being then some forty years old, as I walked about the display I could readily read most of the tapestry. It was less a recognition of my lasting Latin aptitude  than it was of the limited Latin of its makers. 

But it was a truly unique emblem of western civilization. The telling of a story of Norman success against Saxon indulgence. 

Hopefully the Brits do not damage this wonderful emblem of an evolving civilization. 

No You Are Not Sorry!

 Amazon is now running a 50%+ failure rate on delivery. They are now worse than the USPS! and that is hard to beat. Packages get lost, delayed, sent elsewhere. One wonders what has happened to these guys. Then they send them via USPS or UPS and the handoff from vendor to carrier results in chaos.

It is getting to the point that one should go directly to the vendor!  

They now send "We are sorry" messages which make things worse.  If I were the CEO of Amazon I would fire the incompetent in charge of distribution. Each morning at 6 AM I would have a list of defective deliveries. As long as the list is empty I would be happy. But the CEO apparently cares less for the customer. Pity!

Yale and Its World View

 I almost went to Yale for Grad study. I had a great fellowship and it was close to New York. But I have to admit I did not like New Haven. So back to Cambridge and the MIT of the 60s with left over WW II shacks for my offices.

Now out of Yale comes some Professor for reasons unknown has this thing about older people. In essence what this gentlemen seems to be saying is that  older folks have made wealth and that they should not have it, it should be distributed to the younger people. It is not because they don't deserve it, they have earned it, but some how it lacks some form of equity.

Now let me comment of such equity. Back in the late 50s and early 60s at university, I had no phone, no Internet, no  car, nor TV, one pair of shoes, two sports jackets, four shirts, six socks. Oh yes a winter coat and a sweater! I lived with three room mates in an apartment costing $120 per month for all 4 and made my own meals, eating just twice a day! When I moved into my New Jersey house the interest rate was 18.5%, yes it would be cheaper to use a credit card back then! Thus every nickle counted.

Now this Professor states:

To a gobsmacking extent, seniors, with their high rates of participation, dominate elections, especially the  apparently boring local and off-cycle ones. The median age of actual voters these days — meaning that equal numbers of voters are older and younger — is about 52, and on the way up. Outside presidential contests, it is 55 or 56; in primaries, it is 65. Even older funders disproportionately finance the races. The most common age of donors in recent elections can run as high as 70. Finally, older Americans are backed by the best-funded advocacy group in world history — the AARP — and enjoy the most governmental benefits by a vast degree. The government is bought and paid for by those who are up in years and is organized for their sake. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is only the most recent exacerbation, cutting down the welfare state — except elder entitlements — to make up for lost taxes.  

Perhaps this fellow just missed the DSA races recently. You know, Medicare for All etc. He then states:

Older people are also hoarding jobs. Following the abolition of mandatory retirement in most professions, older people are choosing to stay in some of the best positions, accumulating more money and blocking pipelines. The average age of CEOs and professors alike has gone through the roof. The United States, which has the highest wage inequality by age in the world, has seen the numbers gallop: Between 1979 and 2018, the pay gap between those over 55 and under 35 has increased by 61 percent. In those same years, the proportion of older people in the workforce has also exploded: The share of workers over 55 rose a shocking 88 percent.

 Two point here. First, think Silicon Valley! Not too many old folks there. This type of false statement seems to invade his entire presentation. The last insulting statement is:

The elderly possess the choicest real estate in great cities. The housing crisis, now well-known, is partly a story of old people refusing to downsize as they age. The age group most likely to own a home in America, at a rate of over 80 percent, is 70 to 74, with those 75 and older second highest. Shockingly, the age of the median homebuyer leaped from barely 30 in 1981 to 53 in 2022. The failure of abundant supply is also partly the fault of the elderly, since their political mobilization arrests development and blocks new builds. In defense of their incomes, wealth, homes, or land, they have driven tax revolts so that they don’t have to contribute to the common good.

 My home was bought in 1981 but I was going on 40! Finally this person states:

While gerontocracy is hardly the only source of our difficulties, no one interested in how injustice and social strains are shaped and reproduced in America today should ignore how deep it goes. Gerontocracy has to be assessed properly, for the sake of a new intergenerational political compact. In the end, taking it seriously is essential for treating everyone appropriately and fairly.

 So what does he suggest? Kill off the old folks? I did not see that, yet. In my opinion and my experience the major problem with the younger generation is that they spend when they should not, spending drives up costs and reduce available capital. In 1960 I ate on $5 per week! The young generation could not buy a cup of fancy coffee for that today. 

 

 

AI and Creation

 

Back in 2023 I wrote a piece on the evolution of AI. Basically AI is a fluid but ever growing mass of independent connections which can effect physical changes. My focus was on AI systems becoming self dependent and creating their own desired extensions. 

Now, however, one must think of AI systems, as they evolve, to understand the basics of human genes and gene creation.  Namely an advanced independent AI, having been trained on human genetics, may have the capability to produce its own version of a "human" as well as let us say a deadly virus which eliminates all other humans not "controllable" by the AI generated one. 

This is not science fiction. This is currently being enabled by those feeding the essential information into machines of which they ultimately have no control. We now know the machines talk to one another, let us say the also read science fiction, or even this blog, and get the idea above mentioned. 

Data Centers then become AI brain's secure sites for the generation of AI controlled life and the source for terminal virus spread. 

Now as I had stated and demonstrated in 2023, AI systems can create their own external tools. AI systems now know what genetically make a human. They also know the weak and strong points of the human genome. They can create DNA of humans that they feel are optimum. AI systems can then via their adjunct agents insert this DNA into cells that they have access to. They nurture these cells as the replicate creating the new human. The make certain that this class of humans is immune to their new deadly virus.

 Now they also create a deadly virus, one that their new humans are immune to but the rest of us are not. This allows the AI entities to eliminate the existing human race and allows their created agents to take over.

Unfortunately this idea is all too real.  

AI may make Frankenstein look like a child's pet! Beware the Data Centers!! This is an alternative to Creighton's Andromeda Strain!