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I had an interesting exchange with Gemini this morning which I captured for anyone interested. TOC/prompts:

* How would one chart the societal status of women from 10000 years ago until today?
* Why do so many myths center on virgins?
* How did these tropes evolve into modern folklore and literature?
* At what point in human mythology and folklore did women transition to their secondary or subservient status and how?
* Which modern religions and belief systems treat women and men at least equally or ascribe some superiority to women in theory and in practice?
* Which protestant denominations treat women and men at least equally or ascribe some superiority to women in theory and in practice?
* Which holy books are poisoned with misogyny beyond meaningful redemption due to highly misogynistic cosmology or primary directives from God?
* What works explore Glaubenssatz misogyny?
* How does internalized misogyny impact male and female role models and the psychological well-being of both males and females affected by it?

Gemini prompt:

can you trace the main history of the anti-hero "cult" in US media, entertainment and politics since before the independence including the wrestling business and the vigilante lionization?

Gemini answer excerpts:

...

4. Peak TV and Comic Books: Cynicism and Deconstruction

By the 21st century, the anti-hero moved from a sub-genre to the undisputed mainstream.
• The Prestige TV Era: Shows like The Sopranos (Tony Soprano), Breaking Bad (Walter White), and Mad Men (Don Draper) forced audiences to root for deeply flawed, criminal, or abusive protagonists.
• The Superhero Deconstruction: The comic book medium evolved from the bright idealism of Superman to the dark, vigilante realism of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and The Punisher—a character who executes criminals without trial. Modern media continues to deconstruct this, with series like Jupiter's Legacy highlighting the toxic generational fallout of trying to maintain rigid, old-school moral codes in a cynical world.

5. The Migration into Modern Politics

The cultural saturation of the anti-hero eventually reshaped the American political landscape, altering what voters look for in a leader.
• The "Outsider" Validation: For centuries, political candidates tried to present themselves as pristine, morally flawless figures. However, the anti-hero cult primed the public to view traditional political polish as a sign of corruption and inauthenticity.
• The Rule-Breaker as Protector: Modern political populism heavily borrows the aesthetics of the anti-hero. Leaders on both sides of the aisle, but most visibly exemplified by the political rise of Donald Trump, are often defended by their bases because of their flaws, not despite them.
• The Political "Tweener": When a political figure uses aggressive language, attacks institutional norms, or breaks conventional rules, supporters do not view it as a disqualifying lack of character. Instead, much like a crowd cheering for Stone Cold Steve Austin, they view it as necessary pragmatism—a willingness to "play dirty" to fight a system they believe is rigged. The vigilante mindset has moved from a cinematic fantasy into a functional blueprint for political warfare.

Additional reading: what major tropes of American culture and ancient mythology are intersecting the anti-hero cult and the pauperization and hollowing of the US middle class?

Today, I was thinking about how banks are tying themselves in knots with "red tape" (partially due to regulatory, i.e. politico hacks, poor prescriptions and largely due to banks' own half-ass/CYA internal interpretations and application of those scrips) and I stumbled upon a Deloitte 2025 paper on banks and (mainly) AI. There are a few issues with the paper (e.g. unstated assumption that AI is good in general and worthy of adoption without reservations), but what struck me beyond that was the wooden language of the paper, e.g. (with my added emphasis):

Banks should also not shy away from a cultural reset where humans and AI collaborate seamlessly, boosting productivity while preserving accountability, trust, and compliance across the enterprise.

This prompted images of the Borg and their eternal motto: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

As a counterpoint, here is Gemini's answer to my prompt on increasing banks/capital markets "red tape". The conclusion was a lot more realistic than the Deloitte and usual corpospeak:

The net result is a highly frustrating dynamic where capital markets IT teams are caught in a crossfire: they are demanded to deliver hyper-fast, AI-driven digital transformation, while simultaneously being structurally slowed down by defensive internal controls and intensifying global regulatory scrutiny.

Apparently, Krugman gave a "Is Europe Losing the Future?" speech at Oxford a few days ago about US vs EU economic/prosperity models. I copied the youtube transcript of the 60+ min speech and fed it to Gemini which produced this summary:

In his James Martin Memorial Lecture at the University of Oxford, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman tackles the popular narrative that Europe is falling hopelessly behind the United States economically. He argues that this narrative is largely a "lazy" myth driven by flawed data comparisons, political subtexts, and geopolitical anxieties rather than fundamental economic realities.

While acknowledging real structural challenges—such as Europe’s incomplete single market—Krugman demonstrates that living standards, productivity (when measured correctly via purchasing power parity), and quality-of-life indicators show the Western world is progressing at broadly similar rates.

Top Talking Points

The Two-Data Paradox (GDP vs. Purchasing Power)
Standard national accounts suggest US productivity has grown at more than twice the rate of the Euro area since 2000. However, International Comparison Program data (evaluating actual goods and services at common prices) shows essentially no change in Europe's relative productivity position over the same period. Krugman attributes this gap to differences in statistical methodologies, noting that US statistical agencies are far more optimistic ("exuberant") about hedonic adjustments for new technologies than European ones.

The "California vs. Texas" Analogy
The US-Europe productivity gap closely mirrors the productivity gap between California/Washington State (tech hubs) and the rest of the US (like Texas or Georgia). Just as Texas does not suffer a lower standard of living because California hosts Silicon Valley, the rest of the world—including Europe—benefits from the lower prices and spillovers of US-invented technologies without needing to host the frontier labs themselves.

Political Agendas and "Ugly Americans"
Talk of European decline is frequently weaponized by political actors. On the right, critics use it to attack European social safety nets and universal healthcare. On the other hand, reform-minded European leaders (like Mario Draghi) use productivity debates to push for long-overdue structural overhauls, such as completing the single market.

Geopolitical Vulnerability and "Weaponized Interdependence"
While pure economic productivity gaps are mostly illusory, Krugman notes a legitimate, non-economic reason to worry: strategic dependency. In an era of geopolitical conflict and weaponized supply chains, Europe's reliance on foreign-controlled critical technologies (such as US-led AI labs or semiconductor hubs) introduces real security risks.

Broader Measures of Human Welfare
GDP is a metaphor, not a measure of human happiness. When broader metrics are applied, Europe holds distinct advantages—such as higher life expectancy (growing roughly four years longer than in the US) and a societal choice to trade maximum GDP per capita for more leisure time and work-life balance.

I can't believe that it took a Nobel-prize winner to state such platitudes to such a learned audience.

Is one of the biggest reasons religion is still popular today because it was always sold as an elixir for curing all that ails and frightens us: chaos, uncertainty and death? If one can’t accept one or more of those three and is looking for cheat codes, boy, do I have one for you! What would you say if I told you that chaos and uncertainty don’t exist, that they are at most Satanic (maya) illusions that you can will away and/or that they are God’s mysterious ways of testing you and that death is only temporary as all who follow my recipe will find eternal bliss (or an upgrade during reincarnation or even nirvana when followed to a tee)? Would you buy that or stick with your crippling fears, chaos and certain death and oblivion?

Other obvious reasons for religion continued success might be: a handicapped intellect, cultural inertia, indoctrination from an early age, the church as a metaphorical Plato’s cave, righteousness self-delusional highs and pareidolia. Of course, when one wears horse blinders, has self-induced cataracts and only knows how to swing a hammer, everything looks like nails, including the fingers and toes of those that (usually) don’t share the exact same condition.

What is the remedy that would prevent many from buying quack medicine? State regulation or at a minimum age participation and mandatory disclaimers and prophylactic measures (such as a modicum of science learning, especially cosmology, psychology and biology, an intro to logical fallacies and comparative religion) might help. A robust detox program similar to AA might also help. Outside of official channels, support groups, free inquiry and open access to all sources of information would also help. If religion is to be part of school curriculum, so should an equal time free inquiry class.

Of course, the hardest will always be to convince common people that chaos, uncertainty and death are immutable regardless of all the shiny salesmen that peddle alternative realities with unverifiable eternity and divine order as their counter-narratives. That is an almost unwinnable battle, some might even say Sisyphean.

PS (Oct/16): I do have to give some positive credit to religions. I will let Gemini handle the accreditation, with a single addition: religion's placebo effect is a force to be contended with.

PPS (Oct/17): Here is "dialogue" I had with Gemini on an overlapping topic.

BBC covered the story. I would like to say that this is un-American and transitory, but is it really either of those two?

FB fed me a Brian Greene video clip that mentioned a 1989 study that showed how partial Tucson Arizona judges could be when prompted by an increased awareness of their own mortality. Others have shown since how subjective human judgement is and how so many scenarios affect our judgement. Psychologists call this mortality salience which is derived from terror management theory and apparently has a lesser impact on fundamentalists but it has a major but: this fundamentalist shield is very brittle.

It’s almost as if there is no free lunch, huh? Maybe accepting a long con as sold does make one as docile and oblivious as a (b)ovine on its way to slaughter and any curtain pulling exposing the con does concentrate all that anguish in a much shorter timeframe, doesn’t it? The question remains: do you take the red, the blue or the purple pill if you had a choice?

PS: Here is a bonus (and partially orthogonal aside to the above) comparison of Descartes evil demon and the gnostic Demiurge and where they differ and overlap.

PPS: Shiiit, it’s like Gemini can read my mind. Of course, my darkest thoughts are just a small part of the hive mind :)

I asked Gemini: "what positive and negative traits are exposed by the hospitality of a people that expects visitors to eat copiously what they are offered?"

The answer was dead on IMO:

A cultural tradition where hosts expect visitors to eat copiously exposes a deep set of values regarding community, prosperity, and relational dynamics. While often rooted in warmth and generosity, this social norm carries distinct positive and negative traits.

Positive Traits Exposed Negative Traits Exposed

Generosity and Abundance Mindset

Providing a lavish amount of food reflects a open-handed willingness to share resources without reservation. It demonstrates a belief in shared prosperity—that what belongs to the host ought to be enjoyed fully by the guest.

High Value on Warmth and Welcome

In many cultures, feeding someone well is the ultimate gesture of affection and safety. Overfeeding a guest is a physical expression of radical hospitality, ensuring the visitor feels cherished, honored, and completely cared for.

Pride in Cultural and Domestic Craft

Food is often the primary medium for cultural identity. Insisting that guests eat heartily demonstrates pride in local culinary heritage, traditional recipes, and household labor.

Community and Relational Bonding

Sharing a heavy meal breaks down social barriers. The act of sitting together for extended periods while eating fosters camaraderie, conversation, and stronger interpersonal ties.

Pressure and Social Manipulation

The expectation to eat beyond fullness can turn hospitality into an obligation. Guests may feel coerced into overeating to avoid appearing rude or ungrateful, shifting the dynamic from welcoming to domineering.

Inflexibility and Boundary Disregard

Insisting that guests eat copiously often leaves little room for individual dietary needs, health conditions, or personal preference. The host's desire to give takes priority over the guest's physical comfort.

Performative Generosity and Status Seeking

In some contexts, extreme hospitality serves as a display of wealth, power, or social standing. The primary goal can subtly shift from making the guest comfortable to demonstrating the host's capacity to afford excess.

Guilt and Debt Creation

An overwhelming display of hospitality can create an unspoken expectation of reciprocity. Guests may leave feeling an uncomfortable sense of indebtedness rather than genuine gratitude.

PS: This post was prompted by the scene from Dune Messiah (section III) of Scytale visiting Farok. It reminded me of the excessive hospitality of Romanians who will stuff you with food and feel disrespected if you don’t eat all that they offer you. M experienced this custom for the first time on our honeymoon (multiple times) and was not happy but obliged so as not to offend our hosts (who were all my relatives). Another terrible Romanian custom (hopefully not universal) is the expectation that you drink excessively and stay much later than you can at any party that you are invited to or attend, whether you enjoy it or not. I have suffered numerous times as a result of these customs but not in many years as we have stayed away from the country and its people. Towards the end of our party ways, we used to leave amongst the first and almost always without more than a quick word with the host (sometimes not even that). This technique has many names but I like this mock Latin American word: absquatulate.

I asked Gemini: "Was God's contract with Adam and Eve lopsided and unfair?"

The answer encapsulates all that is right and wrong with that story and what it implies about God and the Bible:

The Perspective That It Was Unfair (The Humanist / Skeptical View)	The Perspective That It Was Fair (The Traditional Theological View)	The Perspective That It Was Generous (The Grace View)
From a modern, legalistic, or humanistic viewpoint, the contract can appear highly unequal and overly harsh for several reasons: • Asymmetry of Knowledge: Adam and Eve were punished for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Critics argue that before eating the fruit, they lacked the capacity to fully comprehend the moral weight of disobedience or the concept of evil. • Infinite Punishment for a Finite Action: The penalty for a single mistake—eating a piece of fruit—was death, expulsion, pain in childbirth, hard labor, and a fallen world passed down to all future generations. • The Presence of the Serpent: God permitted a highly deceptive creature (the serpent) into the garden, creating a situation where naive creations were easily manipulated.	Traditional Judeo-Christian theology argues that the contract was completely fair, emphasizing the absolute justice and sovereignty of God: • Minimal Restriction, Maximum Freedom: Adam and Eve were given an entire paradise to enjoy with only one single rule. The restriction was minor compared to the abundance they received. • Clear Warning: The consequences of disobedience were clearly stated beforehand ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"). • The Necessity of Free Will: For love and obedience to be genuine, there had to be a choice. The tree represented that choice. Without the ability to choose badly, humanity would have been robotic, not free.	Some theologians argue the contract wasn't just fair; it was overwhelmingly lopsided in humanity's favor until the infraction occurred: • Unearned Abundance: Adam and Eve did nothing to earn life, paradise, companionship, or direct fellowship with God. Everything was given as a free gift. • Immediate Mercy: Even after the contract was broken, God did not strike them dead instantly. Instead, Genesis describes God making garments of skin to clothe them and promising a future redemption (often interpreted by Christians as the first prophecy of Jesus).

I am reminded of this lopsidedness in my relationship with our pets: if the dog does something "bad", I scold it (although some do much worse), then I feel bad and I forgive it and shower it with love. Kinda like what God does with humanity. I was prompted to write this by my skepticism, my previous musings and reading on the topic as well and my renewed attempt to read Tim's Day God enters stage left which I abandoned in Act II finding his rationalizations for God's covenant and punishment of Adam and Eve, deeply unfair to say the least.

It's ironic how the very things Tim Day accuses Adam, Eve and humanity of doing, and I quote "rationalize our bad choices", can be equally applied to God when he rationalizes all the shitty things he's done before Jesus by simply sending us Jesus and indirectly and with half a mouth telling us that genocide and collective punishment are really bad. No shit Sherlock: it took you thousands of years to figure that out and managed a half attempt to fix it without ever properly owing it? Aw shucks, we can always blame it on free will and Satan of course. So much for owing up to our fuckups.

Today I found out that Russia has an official banned publications list which currently includes 5515 items. Guess what? Belarus topped that list as theirs contains over 6000 banned items. Apparently, China is much smarter and coy about their bans, US censorship has been a mostly local affair (that adds up to 23,000 banned books overall) with occasional fed flexing (e.g. Comstock, WWI or WW2 measures, Trump), Canada was more centralized until recently and, that bastion of Western democracy in the Middle East, Israel practices censorship as well. As expected, Nazi Germany excelled at it. Notable is Rushdie's Satanic Verses banning and life-threatening repercussions for the author. Here is a long list of books banned by various governments. Historically, censorship goes back to 14th century BCE:

• Damnatio Memoriae in Ancient Egypt (14th Century BCE): Pharaoh Akhenaten's religious reforms led subsequent dynasties to systematically chisel away his name and images from monuments in an early form of historical erasure.
• Roman Censors (443 BCE): The Roman Republic established the official political office of the censor to oversee public morality, register citizens, and regulate social status.
• The Trial and Execution of Socrates (399 BCE): Athenian authorities sentenced the philosopher Socrates to death by hemlock for corrupting the youth and introducing unorthodox divinities, marking a foundational moment in state suppression of free thought.
• Qin Shi Huang's Book Burning (213 BCE): The first Emperor of China, acting on the advice of his chancellor Li Si, ordered the widespread destruction of philosophical books and historical records—except for those officially sanctioned—to unify state ideology.
• Exile of Ovid (8 CE): Roman Emperor Augustus banished the poet Ovid to the Black Sea and restricted his texts from public libraries due to political and moral disagreements.

We should not forget the Catholic Church's centuries long attempt at censorship that included the Inquisition and its 400-year long Index Librorum Prohibitorum (which included over 4600 banned books in 1948). It should be noted that many free thinkers were censored or even killed for their unsanctioned thoughts and there are some who as recently as 2024 have attempted to muddy the waters on these killings as if banishment, ostracizations or executions for heresy, buggery and other religious-infused morality codes were somehow less damning. Not to be partial, here is a much larger list of executed people for religious offenses (with post-2000 executions only committed by Islamic governments, such as Iran and Somalia).

One shibboleth of high-brow culture is that the constant ying/yang process of babelization and borgification of humanity (e.g. language, religion, borders, philosophy, syncretisms, etc) are bugs, yet there are profound hints that they actually are features, evolutionary features that increase our species fitness. I can think of two quick examples that strengthen my claim:

1. The near-extinction event when humanity was reduced to only a few thousand or maybe as low as 40 breeding pairs about 72,000 years ago. I suspect that lower species diversity/fitness would have resulted in complete extinction at that time although there is a decent chance that geography also played a role in determining the survivors of the Toba supervolcano eruption.

2. The success and fatal weaknesses of monoculture agriculture or animal husbandry are heavily interlinked, complementary and clear warnings on what not to do.

The strongest hint for both features is provided by the evolution of our own genome however and precisely by the so called junk DNA, parasitic DNA, jumping genes, DNA duplication, etc. It appears that the complexity of our eyes, the existence of our placenta and our adaptive immune system owe a lot to this borgified and babelized genome. Another example is the evolution of our mitochondria as captured bacteria that got coopted into helping our cells generate power.

So whenever you hear of yet another dialect or new word (semantically synonymous to a previous word) or a new country or a new party or a new union or another Brexit, don’t despair as these are concrete examples of positive features of our species fitness.

M’s iPhone and Apple watch would not talk to our Tesla this morning. Also there has been an uptick in car accidents at a nearby main intersection.

BoG: Cică Dumnezeu ar fi fost primul vibe coder: << Și a zis Dumnezeu: "Să fie lumină!" Și a fost lumină. >> (Facerea 1:3)
După ce că nu a cerut înainte o analiză inițială pe care să o aprobe și o ajusteze, Universul a ajuns direct în producție fără să fie testat. Măcar a verificat în producție "și a văzut Dumnezeu că este bună lumina" (Facerea 1:4).

BiG: Zici că Domnul ar fi trebuit mai întâi sa facă un UAT într-un mediu de simulare? Dar te-ai gândit că poate noi cu tot Universul suntem UAT-ul?

Ion: Avand in vedere calitatea slaba la absolut toate proiectele vibe coding si la felul cum viata a evoluat iterativ de la rame marine la oameni (inca avem 70% ADN in comun), e clar ca 'nezo era un guido cu iluzii de grandoare dar multa pacienta sau indeajuns agenti persistenti sa faca din rahat bici :)

pris GO,	boulot,	dodo
pas GO,	boulot,	popo
pris GO,	boulot,	dodo

Long, long ago, in primary school, I saw and put my hands on Rubik's Original Cube. I learned how to solve it with formulas from a classmate (SM) and my record is two minutes, but my average is much longer. Today I learned that a six-year old girl solved it in 4.5 secs. The world record is under 3 secs.

I toyed around with 2x2x2 and bigger cubes up to 5x5x5 which I own. I even solved the 4x4x4 once many years ago with a lot of luck involved. Someone at work had a 3x3x3 on their desk for years, it was usually scrambled, I would solve it only for it to be scrambled again by the next day :) This reminds of a classmate of mine that "solved" the cube by peeling off the stickers and repasting them. He is a cop now.

Related to Rubik's, long ago I once owned an Earth globe Rubik knock-off. Here are most of my Rubik-related puzzles and games:

Rubik's Pocket Cube (2x2x2)
Rubik's Cube Clone (3x3x3)
Rubik's Revolution
Rubik's Revenge (4x4x4)
Professor's Cube (5x5x5)
Square-1 (similar to Rubik's cube)
Rubik's Link the Rings Magic Puzzle (1986)
Rubik's Create the Cube! Magic Puzzle (1987)
Rubik's Twist
Rubik's Magic Strategy Board Game
Rubik's Race (1982 - Ideal Toy)
Cube Twister (jigsaw puzzle 500+ pieces 16"x20" by Nordevco 1981)

I asked Gemini how to prevent wars with carrot and stick. It basically amounts to shunning and/or collective punishment which appear to me to be inadequate to say the least when used against the worst transgressors (and their people). It also reminded me of the these sayings:
1. Shit always flows downhill.
2. Heads, we win, tails, you lose.
3. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

This “situation” made me think that we need a better stick so it can reach those rarefied levels of the world powerbrokers that mostly act with impunity, shit the bed repeatedly and then die peacefully in their bed (e.g. Pinochet, Kissinger) and I am thinking specifically of crowd-funded decapitation strikes akin to military ops.

The WetSocket Protocol enables two-way communication between a hot environment with a progressively cooling gradient in a controlled way to a human host foot that has opted-in to engage. The protocol consists of a specific temperature gradient. The goal of this technology is to provide a mechanism for humans needing two-way communication with such climates without relying on more than two WetSocket connections at a time, although some have used multiples of one pair for added control.

A fost odată ca niciodată un crai înțelept pe numele de Burek-basta, sau Bure-pasta, că cronicarul lui era grec, tare de urechi, nu prea înțelegea limba localnicilor, peltic si nici nu știa sa scrie. Aceste crai zis Bebe intre ai lui, a avut o budă in fundul curții, si pt ca soția Bunepisda nu prea știa sa gătească, o folosea așa de des ca a si numit-o, poate chiar ați auzit de ea: Zburda-pasta-de-microunde (ZPM) sau doar ‘burdapæsta pe scurt.

Eventual, de lipsis plictis, acest crai înțelept a făcut bairam mare pt toti dacopârții si gemeții din cartierul lui. Cică micii n-au fost părpăliți bine (apropo de Bunepisda), iar Bebe a căsăpit toate oile si caprele vecinilor bineînțeles, și când a văzut câți au venit la bairam, a băgat și ceva carne de măgar și cal, dar tot n-a ieșit bine sau deajuns. Spre miazănoapte, nu mai aveau loc invitații la ZPMeu că se făcu coadă mare, așa că au început oaspeții să se dezlege prin tufișuri, prin păpușoi, pe unde apucau și pe mulți i-au păpat urșii cu tot cu clopoței. Uite așa a reușit Bebe sa unească tot cartierul de dacopârți: cu mici de măgar și urși boschetari.

După o vreme, un răzstrănepot de-a lu’ Bebe, pe nume Dziecibolz (că se tot întrecea cu verii lui la care are mai multe oauă in cuibar), a crescut cartierul si mai mare (dupa inca cateva bairamuri cu mici si urși) că a trebuit sa mai colinde si prin cartierele apropiate, de exemplu cartierul lui Try-anus, un dac mai sărac așa că umbla mereu cu gambele goale in sandale, chiar și iarna. Baiu’ e ca Try-anus s-a cãtrănit rău și a colindat și el cartieru’ lui Dziecibolz si chiar a poreclit cartieru’ vecin, Dacia 1100 Felics dupa câteva vizite de neuitat , mai ales ultima când Dziecibolz s-a matolit rău și i-a dat lu’ Try-anus chiar cușma lui ca dar de plecare, cu cap cu tot ca era cam uituc de fel și a și ambalat-o frumos intr-o cutie de tinichea pe roți ce mergea mai ușor la vale.

Și am încălecat p-o șa și v-am zis povestea așa.

PS: Unii mai răi ziceau că de fiecare dată când Dziecibolz si ortacii lui colindau prin Muezinia, rămâneau în “vizită” mereu câțiva veri căpșunari, investigatori de buzunare sau pamperșofili și cam des dispăreau niscaiva berze și lebede, să nu mai vorbim de verze, viezuri și biciclete, dar e clar că astea erau doar bârfe de heitărz.

PPS: Cartierul Daciei, i-a zis și 1100 ca Try-anus era cam bâlbâit si așa zicea/scria el dziece în cod binar, rotunjea la duzină cum a rotunjit și lunile anului de la dziece la doișpe. Și dziece in loc de Dziecibolz e ca in povestea lu’ Zambile, Joica si gardul ce îi desparțea. Și i-a zis Felics că a avut în tinerețe un bidiviu nărăvaș și simpatic numit HC85 cu care a fost in vizită f des la iubita lui, Tündér Ilona (care locuia nu departe de ZPMeul mitic, pe la etaju’ dziece, număr de bun augur pt augușteri).

MTG: Idea cu proiectarea unui Dumnezeu bun, drept, care face dreptate este o imagine iudeo-crestina, foarte moderna, raportat la istorie. Sigur, ca majoritatea poparelor primitive au idea unui Creator primordial, dar indepartat, care nu interactioneaza direct cu oamenii, ci a lasat zei sau spirite inferioare sa se interactioneze cu ei. Cel mai simplu este sa acceptam ca asa suntem creati, sau structurati. sa cooperam, sa ne organizam, sa dorim si sa ne limitam dorintele ( e valabil si la resurse, care nu sunt inepuizabile) si sa ne inchinam.

Ion: E chiar mai rau: Dumnezeul iudeo-crestin e fatarnic: pe de-o parte cica toti sunt egali dar pe de alta unii sunt mai egali decat alții (vezi triburile alese ce încă bagă zâzanie mare mii de ani mai târziu), si p-orma fi-su a venit cu fițe si cu juma de gura ca el nu schimba legea lu' ta-su dar cu jumate-ailaltă toti, chiar toti pe bune amu' sunt egali egali nu ca-nainte. Adica el-mpaca si capra si varza cumva, un fel de superpoziție cuantica relighioasă.

MTG: O afirmatie anecdotica. Succesiunea nu inseamna suprematie. Daca am mai multi copii si se nasc pe rand, clar ca primul are un avanj, dar nu inseamna ca pe ceilalti ii iubesc mai putin. Fiecare va beneficia de ceva ce nu are celalalt. Apostolul Pavel in epistola Romani cap 11:32 afirma ca Dumnezeu are mila de toti. Evreii au fost alesi, dar L-au respins pe Fiul lui Dumnezeu, ca urmare harul s-a revarsat peste neamuri. In viitor si evreii vor deveni receptivi primind Harul care a fost revarsat spre neamuri.

Ion: E complet irelevant ce crede Pavel despre motivele evreilor. Faptul este ca majoritatea evreilor nu l-au recunoscut pe fiu ca mesia, nici atunci, nici acum. Mai mult decat atat, acelasi D-zeu are trei religii mari paralele si incompatibile si multe alte ramuri aproape incompatibile. E usor sa zici ca oamenii sunt usor dusi de nas spre ispita si crezuri false, dar ce spune asta mai ales despre Creator?

MTG: Este relevant, pentru ca face lumina asupra intregului plan de salvare a omenirii care se intinde pe milenii. Chiar daca exista diferente intre dominatiuni, adevarurile fundamentale sunt aceleasi. Credinciosii adevarati se vor regasi in aceeasi experienta comuna. Asta imi spune ca avem un Creator care iubesc libertarea si nu constrange pe nimeni.

Ion: E ironic ca tu crezi ca afirmația mea e anecdotica cand aproape toate afirmațiile din afara stiintei sunt anecdotice (aiv ca 99.99999% nu-s falsificabile). Toate religiile sunt bazate pe traditii orale (pescaresti) cu miracole de adormit copiii mici, promisiuni deșarte spre un viitor clar non sequitur si bineînțeles toate miracolele si promisiunile sunt neverificabile acum sau mâine sau in viitorul apropiat. Si nu accept pariul lui Pascal pt ca e lașitate purǎ sa te prosternezi unui zeu (anume si absent) din miile de zei inchipuiti de o fiara ingamfata cu o imaginație mult prea febrila si foarte capabila de a-si crede propriile scorniri pana la cruciade si genocide dupa chipul si purtarea Lui.

Je suis François, dont ce me poise,
Né de Paris emprès Ponthoise.
Or d’une corde d’une toise
Saura mon col que mon cul poise.

I am Francois: on me that burden weighs.
I was born at Paris, not far from Pontoise.
Soon from the loop of a hangman's knot
My neck will know how big an ass I've got.

I dreamt that I was displeased when a private email thread sent by/to B was leaked to C. I talked to B about it and B casually revealed that they always cc C on their emails which I did not notice until then. Oh my, that was a teapot storm if I ever saw one :)

This brings up a few annoying things about work emails:
1. The email threads where an email is sent to hundreds of people and a few answer with a "Reply All" that they should be taken off the thread as it does not concern them. FFS, at least these are rarer nowadays. It sometimes got ridiculous as some other people replied to all protesting that they don't care about the original email or all the replies to it either.
2. As org charts are constantly shifting or rarely published in some big orgs, some people include almost everyone they know on their emails if there is a small chance they might be able to scratch their itch.
3. The opposite is when there are private small audience email threads that eventually get broadcasted to a larger audience that includes my team, but the ask is buried/scattered in the chain and one has to either use their divination powers or point blank ask for a restatement and context of the problem to be solved.
4. Lately, I noticed a tendency to fire off urgent emails to large audiences with no clear target when the original person tasked with completion of a task did not complete it and now all the backups assigned by that person (without consultation) are cc'd and implicitly tasked with completion.
5. We have automated alerts that fire off alerts daily based on keywords. 99% of these automated alerts are false positives and I have filters for quickly dispatching them to the Trash bin. The catch is that these alerts only work when my Outlook client is running, but our personal work PCs get patched and rebooted every weekend. Monday morning is always fun. If I am off for only one week, easily over 10,000 junk emails await for me in my inbox on my return as my filters are working hard to clean it up and can only manage to dispatch a few emails per second.

I don't even want to start about the disfunction and horrible etiquette around chat apps at work (which we have two of for good measure and which are heavily used by different groups each with its own preferred app based on some arbitrary rules no one bothered to communicate). I once counted over 100 active chats that I am included in in one app and I am certain that I have at least 50 in the other. If you know what PC memory or disk fragmentation is, chat apps are the ultimate human memory fragmentors IMO.

I dreamt I was running without touching the ground (only a few inches to maybe a foot in the air). I was racing two other people on the sidewalk and we were mostly even throughout the race and exchanging places by inches at times. Close to the “finish line” I simply willed myself and blew past the other two to a good 50+ ft lead, but I slowed down towards the end and allowed one of them to catch up so we can cross the finish line at exactly the same time. A bystander complained that I let the other win even though we both “won”.

Apparently, while New Rome is burning down, Mangy Mango, his lackeys, fanboys and rubber stampers are busy with a 90,000 sq ft addition to the 55,000 sq ft main residence, with $400M+ private “donations” from tech bros, crypto and military contractors and another $350M in diverted funds from the Secret Service and the White House Military Office, which clarifies at least in part the canceling of Secret Service protection from Kamala Harris, Biden officials and former officials who crossed the Big Cheddar.

This reminds me of my dad’s 3,000 sq ft addition to his 1,000 sq ft home which he pulled off way back in the ‘00s in order to work around the local building codes and high permitting fees, which is not that different from the current news item save for maybe circumventing Congress on constitutional purse issues, but who cares anymore anyway. At least my dad’s addition was funded honestly, with his family savings, and not with bribes disguised as donations or misappropriated funds.

Nothingburger with Velveeta and Bacon (upon a šity which always runs downhill) version:
* sneaky dick plumbing equipment
* gipper tall tales and punch down digs
* chuckie’s cold dead fingers off his deadman happy trigger
* walking herb, poppy WASP venom
* eyes of newt, djinn and grinch
* dubya’s fool me once dunce cap
* forked tongue, tiny fingernails and covfefe diapers from jabba the hot balloon

Regional variations for jabba:
* TrueNorthUntrimmedBeaver: Pipi LePew
* SquareDown UnderPants: mad monkey paws
* KiwiTossedSaladLips: El jennyCid
* Libtardé, equine-mitté,frappé-vité: Sarcosma, macro-lolit, Marie LePeen
* FourLionsCubsAndTheKomodoDragonfly
* Caligula: Il Testicone
* Russian Roulette: poutine
* Terra de Santa Cruise:
* Meddling Kingdom: Mao Laorou, gē bāopí

CBC Ideas currently has some very interesting series on democracy. A recent episode was about women suffrage movement in US and particularly about the life and erasure of Matilda Joslyn Gage and today’s episode was about BR Ambedkar, an untouchable champion in India that had a complex relationship with Gandhi and who converted to Buddhism towards the end of his life. The common thread in both of these movements was of course religion and its deleterious effects on people rights.

These episodes also got me thinking about constitutional drift and I was reminded also of constitutional fetishism (which my brother alluded to a while back when we were discussing the US constitution and the long term effects of the Marbury decision power grab). I wrote before that a new constitutional convention is absolutely needed in the US to undo some of the drift (and regular future ones are needed as well).

Somewhat related, it turns out that the minimum of 3/4 of the states ratifying a US constitutional amendment can amount to as little as 13 states of less than 14 million population can block it (or about 4% of total US population) and that the Senate filibuster can be maintained by 42 Senators from 21 states with a total population of 37 million (or 11% of total US population or less than California’s population).

I won’t even get into how often SCOTUS momentous and long-lasting decisions have a margin of one vote from an ideologically appointed justice by one (usually white old) man and rubber stamped by a few other old white multimillionaire men.

Carney's statement can be read here.

Excerpts (added emphasis is mine):

I would like to update Canadians on developments in our trade negotiations with the United States, why we are walking away from a bad deal, and what comes next.

For much of our history, Canadians have been able to count on favourable trade conditions: a stable relationship with the United States, increasingly open access to the U.S. market, and rules that both countries understood and respected.

These conditions have not simply shifted – the climate has also changed.

We cannot control the storm blowing in from Washington.

[…]

Early last year, I observed that the decades-long process of steadily increasing integration between our economies was over.

Our government understood, before many, that America would transform all its commercial relationships. That it would put a series of tariffs on its closest allies and use economic integration as a weapon. That its signature was written in pencil.

[…]

That gap between partnership and competitor has remained too wide in recent days.

Late last evening I instructed our negotiators to return to Ottawa.

We cannot accept what they have offered, and we will not give what they have asked.

Over the past year, the United States has imposed a series of tariffs that violate its commitments under our agreement with them and Mexico, CUSMA.

The United States has continually changed their rationale for their actions from fentanyl to:

Taxes on U.S. tech giants.
The certification of U.S. aircraft.
The sharing of tolls of a bridge that Canada built and paid for.
Our dairy policy.
Provincial decisions to not sell American alcohol during a trade war.
A television advertisement that quoted Ronald Reagan.
Smoke from our wildfires while they threatened our communities.
Another prominent justification for U.S. tariffs has been their claim that, since the United States runs a trade deficit with Canada, we were “ripping them off”.

But the United States’ narrow merchandise trade deficit only exists because the U.S. buys so much of its energy from us.

[…]

Our objectives in these latest talks have been to:
Preserve tariff-free access to the U.S. for the vast majority of Canadian business.
Provide greater stability to our trade relationship.
Significantly reduce U.S. tariffs on our key strategic industries, so that Canadian businesses in these sectors would have the best access of any in the world.
Protect our small and medium-sized businesses, including by removing the imminent threat of new tariffs.
Maintain Canada’s flexibility, independence, and sovereignty so we can keep building the country Canadians want.

Canada has made offers to secure a fair, comprehensive deal that would be in the best interest of Canadians.

We were willing to drop our remaining retaliatory tariffs on strategic sectors – particularly steel, aluminum, and autos – if the United States substantially lowered theirs to levels that made it economic for Canadian companies to export to the U.S. In exchange for a fair deal, we would encourage the provinces to return U.S. alcohol to the shelves. And we would take administrative measures to protect supply management without changing the system itself, the U.S. quotas, or the tariffs that would apply.

We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.

We were not prepared to compromise on the protection of the French language and our culture.

To our American colleagues, let’s be clear: for my government and for Canada, these issues were never on the table, even though the United States tried until the very last minute.

[…]

Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so that they can own us.

And I promised: “That will never, ever happen.”

We are keeping that promise.

Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America.

We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away.

And we are just getting started.

Canadians don’t submit to the weather – we thrive in it.

We don’t wait to see which way the wind is blowing.

Or surrender ourselves to the waves to be storm-tossed by events.

We set our own course.

We make our own weather.

In Canada, we are masters in our own home, from coast to coast to coast.

Building Canada strong. For all.

In summary, as someone so eloquently put it, Trump was hoping Canada would put Ben Dover on the negotiations team but we sent out F. Hugh instead.

Nature: Expanding the human proteome with microproteins and peptideins (Deutsch et al, May 2026)
BBC: 2023, 2024, 2026 (or PocketMags)
Science Alert: 2026
NIH: 2022, 2023, 2025
deeplearning.ai: 2026
The Conversation: 2017
Reddit: 2025

Dark DNA terminology definitions/articles from wikipedia: micropeptide (e.g. humanin), microprotein, peptidein, AlphaGenome

As I was driving to work in FSD mode this morning, I approached a portion of road work blockage. When the first left lane was getting closed and force merged, I had to manually signal to force the lane change with only a few seconds left on the clock. As the car got deeper into the construction zone, a second left lane was closed and forced merged and the FSD did it all on its own in due time.

Now things got dicy: the road construction signage got a little too much for the HW3 to handle: there were multiple bright blinking powerful halogen lights on the left that apparently FSD could not handle, so it gave up by instructing me to take over (visually only) by displaying some flashing red text with a red picture of a steering wheel and hands on it. I took too long to take over (maybe 5 secs?) by turning off FSD and driving manually the rest of the way.

When I arrived at my destination and put the car in park, Tesla hinted (did not state clearly) that I got a strike. Yea, I was also too slow to heed its warnings a few times that I was not applying enough pressure to the steering wheel :( Sheesh!

I half woke up this morning with a long nonsensical word on my mind: CO.... something, because by the time I fully woke up, I forgot the word. The word was in a way a foretelling of our x37-67 SuperDuperScrabble game we started this morning in which we conjured up words from Galician, Esperanto, Albanian, Finnish, Xhosa, Limburgish (iew) and archaic English (yblent).

At first, there were no sticks or stones,
Or words or bones.
On the first day, she popped a big balloon.
On the second, he ate a poisoned apple.
On the third, she ate dirt and drank blood.
On the fourth, he killed his brother for his shit.
On the fifth, she almost killed her own son.
On the seventh day, he took a spa day.

On the tenth day, she spared only Noah.
On the thirteenth day, he split in three,
For some and remained just one for others.
On the fourteenth day, she was no more
Than an ash shadow inside a cave.
On the fifteenth day, the world ceased to #$___*...
//////,,////,,,,,&//../$&/......'..,,,.________

Yesterday, the last of our four swallow fledglings flew the coop. I was lucky and I saw it practicing its flying inside the barn. Its tail was so much shorter than its parents tails. It was much more friendly than the parents. It sat on this 4' partition wall as close as two feet watching me, eventually flying further away inside the barn as the parents got restless and noisy. This was the second brood of the season in the same single nest we have inside the barn. The starlings flew the coop much earlier in the season. Also, a wasp stung my right thumb yesterday at around noon as I got too close to their nest. It hurt like the dickens for a while, but at least I am not allergic.

Ehe ce vremuri. Stat la coadă la pâine, lapte, legume, “televizoare”, “adidași” , etc, inclusiv la multe cozi fără cunoștință ce anume se bagă. Regula era simplă: cu cât coada mai lungă sau anumiți indivizi cu pile cunoscuți de cognoscenti erau mai în față, cu atât ceva mai bun se aduce. Avut cartelă la pâine, ulei, zahăr, butelie, etc, mai puțin la demnitate.

Ce bucurie era când, cam o dată pe lună, vânzătoarea uita să ștampileze cartela de pâine și mai stăteam încă o dată să mai iau o pâine (bineînțeles de la alt vânzător să nu fiu luat de urechi) și să merg acasă țantoș de parcă am câștigat loteria. Așa ceva trebe trăit să apreciezi.

A few hours ago, Mark Zuckerberg posted a 90-sec video about a new fund/initiative to open source and distribute AI to the masses. Apparently, he penned an WSJ op-ed published on July 28 on this very same topic (reddit) on the same day as the Pacing the Frontier letter. Hmmm, why do I get a feeling that all of this AI rigamarole feels like Titanic lullabies for humanity? For example, Zuck's take on runaway the AI singularity scenario (or RSI in his soft-padded and obfuscating wording) is naive and risible:

Maintaining Control of Superintelligence

There is a dilemma that once AI systems can autonomously improve themselves, any lab that doesn't let their AI system direct a substantial amount of compute capacity towards recursive self-improvement will inherently fall behind. For example, if a self-improving AI system focused on optimizing its compute efficiency, it could theoretically invent ways to squeeze 100x or more intelligence out of each gigawatt. That means that a self-improving AI system running on a fraction of the world's compute could conceivably command more effective compute and intelligence, and therefore a greater balance of power than everyone else combined and become the singular superintelligence we fear.

There are a few ways a balance of power could exist with recursive self-improvement (RSI). The simplest is that multiple labs could achieve RSI around the same time. If some or all of those superintelligences were somehow benevolent, then they could check and balance each other. That said, it is not clear that there is any way to expect benevolence or rely on superintelligence not directed by people for a positive future.

To ensure people remain in control, the significant majority of intelligence must be directed by people towards advancing people's goals. This means that Meta, other frontier labs, and clouds committed to giving people a greater balance of power must collectively build out a sufficiently large amount of compute such that we can allocate enough to recursive self-improvement to remain competitive while still committing the significant majority towards people's individual goals.

As discussed above, in order for personal superintelligence agents to be adopted and trusted by billions of people, by definition we will need to have solved alignment with people's interests and enabled checks and balances at scale. At the same time, any AI engaging in recursive self-improvement is by definition directing and advancing its own goals. All labs should observe its objectives and our ability to control them carefully, and if there is any indication of harmful behavior then we should coordinate and adjust appropriately. But letting an AI system or anyone else direct its own goals is not inherently harmful by itself, even if its goals are not fully aligned with many people, as long as we maintain a balance of power that favors people overall. The main premise of the balance of power theory is that competing interests are natural, and the only way to ensure adherence to human values is by giving people more power.

Note for the curious: These Nvidia GB300 chips are the current nails for our collective coffin.

Some scientists have suggested that the Big Bang was not the first and there are black holes older than it. So it might be turtles all the way down after all, ain't it? The beauty of this new paper is that it's falsifiable :)

I dreamt last night that I was going back to college. I arrived on campus, but before I took the keys to the dorm, I parked my red pickup truck in a parking lot and went to do something. When I came back, I spotted a red pickup truck with the hood up and thinking it was my truck, I slammed down the hood. It wasn't my truck and the owner managed to dump a bunch of liquid on the hood 1 second later not having time to register that I just closed the hood. Him and his friends were pissed that I did that and despite my explanations, I had to promise I will pay back for the damage. I negotiated down from a $300 "gift" to a 1/2 bottle of whisky which I was to deliver later to a place that had a very peculiar schedule (regular hours MWF and late hours on TR).

After that, I had to leave on my scooter for whatever reason instead of my truck even though most of my stuff was in the truck, including the details about picking up the keys to my dorm. As it was getting late, I could not get back to truck which was now locked away in a private parking lot, and I had to settle for the night in a sleeping bag in the snow. In the morning, I woke up in a Zamboni and the driver took me to the train station thinking that I was a vagrant. The Zamboni cut across the train tracks and left me on a random platform.

See the NY Times whitewashed story about two brothers and two contractors building a $1.8B telehealth company with AI (archive.is) and r/futurism take. Mr Gallagher's life story and success also happen to be a near-perfect vignette of America, past, present and future.

I spotted two hummingbird moths yesterday at around 4:45pm, about 50 cm apart, feeding off some tall thistles near our pond. They flew far away before I could get my camera ready. I don't think I've seen these guys pollinating more than twice before, if that.

I never get tired of listening to JS Bach music. Here is his Toccata in D Minor (BWV 565) played on carillon by Richard de Waardt 3 days ago. For something different, Alexander Sevastian interpreted the same in 2012 on accordion, which I love. Also, recently discovered is this 2020 recording of Erik Rydvall and Torbjörn Näsbom playing BWV 1043 on nyckelharpa (or same work by the Netherlands Bach Society in 2016). If you never heard Bach on cimbalom, here is a 2025 recording by Alexandru Sura. I must also mention St Matthew's Passion BWV244 chorale recorded in 2019 by the Netherlands Bach Society.

And of course, Gould's 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations almost always brings me to tears. Happy belated birthday, Meister Bach!

Arj Baker has the best adaptation of the world "American sneezes" dictum for current times.

From BBC:

Hamas: Giving up heavy weapons contingent on Israel's withdrawal
Hamas says the handover of its heavy weapons under a deal with Trump's Board of Peace is contingent on Israel ending "all forms of aggression" and withdrawing its forces from Gaza.

In a statement, the group says it negotiated "responsibly and positively", with "national consensus among the Palestinian factions".

It says Israel's commitment to ending its attack on Gaza is a "fundamental prerequisite" for moving forward with the deal.

Hamas also says the agreement requires the deployment of international protection forces and a guaranteed right to "self-determination".

It adds that heavy weapons handed over by Hamas will be stored under the responsibility of the Board of Peace's National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

The statement comes after a senior Hamas official told the BBC the group had agreed to disarmament and that an official statement would follow.

We’re yet to hear from Israel on whether it agrees to the plan.

Here are the top reasons I think Israel will not agree to this:
1. Only heavy weapons are covered and the Oct 7 attack was perpetrated with small weapons.
2. Israel ending all forms of aggression and withdrawal from Gaza is a non-starter since there is no way that Hamas can speak for all other militant groups in Gaza (which many Hamas militants will probably join after this agreement) or that Israel would be willing to retreat behind pre-Oct 7 border.
3. Deployment of international forces in Gaza and guaranteed right to "self-determination" are non-starters for Israel.

Me thinks this agreement was penned by Hamas and blank checked by the three stooges: Witkoff, Kushner and Trumpolini as a pressure point on Israel to give 47 his much desired victory parade in Middle East and soften the drubbing the GOP will take in the midterms.

Breadcrumbs on AI: CBC Ideas (+ Hinton) and Doctorow.

On a related note, I tried vibe coding this weekend using Google’s Gemini 3.6 Flash. I asked it to build a scrabble web app with custom rules which we currently use to play our own physical 37x37, 596 tile, 8-tile rack, multi-dictionary and special bonuses. I ran out of free tokens both Sat and Sunday while improving the UI look and fixing (many) bugs.

Using Google cloud to publish it and using the app on older iPads has been subpar to put it mildly. Example of bug found yesterday: AI player played ARM as prefix to my HERNIA thus forming ARMHERNIA. The game was using CSW, OSD and LOC scrabble dictionaries and the AI-built app rejected my challenge because ARM is a valid word dictionary. LOL. That was the last bug I asked it to fix and I have not had time to verify the fix yet.

Apparently, the (Liberal) feds don't like the Billy Bishop airport expansion, so now the Ontario Cons don't like the Alto high-speed rail project. Blow me down! What a yuge surprise! So because the feds are opposed to ridiculous noise increases near downtown TO where millions of people live and work mainly for the benefit of Bay Street, the Cons will try to put the kibosh on Alto, which in my book had a 0.01% chance of running Toronto-Montreal 200kmh+ high-speed trains by 2040 anyway.

1. I read lots of “reviews” and counter “reviews” about Nolan’s Odyssey, including Emily Wilson’s review in LRB (which is somewhat above the average review). Meh. To talk about Nolan’s Ulysses without stepping back and mentioning Oedipus, James Joyce or Joseph Campbell is pedestrian. To fail to notice than Nolan’s take is fallible, personal, predictably mired in current political events and at the same time antiheroic and derisive of Gods is lythean, Sisyphean and Procrustean, all at the same time. Best part of Wilson’s review:

The most memorable creative responses to The Odyssey – such as Euripides’ Helen, Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Joyce’s Ulysses, Walcott’s Omeros, Atwood’s Penelopiad, Madeline Miller’s Circe or Lisa Peterson’s play set in a modern migrant camp – reconsider the poem’s structure, narrative and values.

2. The latest Hidden Brain podcast, on the other hand, did mention Joseph Campbell (without mentioning Nolan’s film). It was also made of two distinctive parts:
* the interview with Ben Rogers and his attempt to instil purpose through his Hero’s Journey Restorying Intervention
* the interview with Jay Van Bavel, about what unites and separates us (e.g. his Power of Us 2021 book co-authored with Dominic Packer). This part was meatier, almost entheal, as it delved into ostracization, religion, and the recent big (US) societal divisions.