Sixty Years

 The Wright Bros flew in 1903 and 60 years later we had international jst flights and supersonic aircraft for both military and commercial.

In 1966 until 1971 I spent significant time at the MIT Instrumentation Lab working on Apollo missions focusing on guidance and navigation. In 1968 the first flight to the moon was a success. Now some 60 years later as I watched the latest approach it did not seem any different. Outwardly we are repeating 1968.

Air-flight made massive changes in sixty years, space flight not so much? Why? 

Here Goes

 The Government actually defined AI in 2020 in 15 USC 940 as follows

(3) Artificial intelligence

The term "artificial intelligence" means a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. Artificial intelligence systems use machine and human-based inputs to-

(A) perceive real and virtual environments;

(B) abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and

(C) use model inference to formulate options for information or action.

 This is gross nonsense. All machines do this. My mobile phone does this, my lawn mower does this. Other than a Luddite, anything created to help mankind does this. This is how litigation is exploding, definitions that make no sense. 

Another Thought

 Another way to get TSA paid is to charge the flyer to "tip" the agent. Fast and nice and secure agents would get the biggest tips, cash only, and the lines would disappear instantly. Nasty agents would not get tips. Pleasant and efficient agents would possibly get rich!

As Expected

 The White House issued it AI recommendations. And as expected no where do they define AI! So what good are these recommendations. "words mean something" and it is not just in the eye of the beholder. Frankly one really cannot define AI. LLMs are somewhat understood, but image manipulation is not the same. 

This is classic Government nonsense. If all one has to do to avoid regulation is to call it something other than AI. since we really do not know what it is, the what good is the law! 

A Thought

 The solution to the NJ Transit incompetence is simple. For each event of inconvenienced passengers, each passenger shall be given a $1,000 gift card or just cash. The money shall come from management. The distribution is as follows:

1. The total per event is the $1,000 times the number of affected passengers. The total is called the Effected Event Cost, EEC.

2. All managers salaries shall be added up.

3. Then on a pro rate basis each manager shall have deducted from their salaries the  EEC costs for eacxh such event. If the cumulative EEC result in zero effective salaries, then they shall be fined accordingly.

This is the only way to motivate people.  

New Jersey Gross Incompetence

 

Let me recount my tale of going into New York today. I now really despise the place. As a descendant of Paulus Van der Voort, who settled in New Amsterdam in 1645, then bought a patch on the east side of the river called Brooklyn, I should have some family pride. But no longer. So why?

Well I had a meeting at Weill Cornell Hospital, and seeking an easy way in I took an Uber. Needless to say the city was tearing up York Avenue meaning it too 1 hour to exit at 61st street. Yep, 1 hour! I then decided to be loyal and take the NJ Transit back. So I got a cab to Penn Station, waited an hour an tried to board the train. Some 800 passengers had to board through only 2 open doors. The morons who run the train could not get the other doors open.

Then off we went, Off to Newark. It then got really bad. The train died at the Newark station. We st there for 30 min while intermittent squawking over the loudspeakers from the train conductor managed to insult everyone. It was incomprehensible and in that classic denigrating New Jersey accent, second to none in this galaxy for being both denigrating and incomprehensible.

Well we managed to get going to Brick Church. The train died again. Deader than a door nail. The NJ conductor just yelled, "Bwaah, Bwaah, Bwaah" and get of the train! That's it, west Newark, in a drug laden parking lot, 800 people had to climb down stains and seek out a plan B! Except one customer who just kept walking along the tracks to his station. After all, there would no train coming along for hours with the dead train in this key spot.

No directions, no alternatives, just malignant grins from the conductors! After all they were still getting paid so who cares. This is quintessential New Jersey, the pride of our new Marxist Governor. New Jersey is becoming a Cuba on the coast.

Thank God for Uber, I managed to get home.  But no thanks to our helicopter Gov!