Peter Wung
1234 Hermosa Drive Troy, OH 45373 (937)339-0310(Home) (314)605-7344 (Cell) pwung@earthlink.net http://PolymathToBe.blogspot.com, Twitter: @Phaedrus1 and @PolymathToBe http://www.librarything.com/profile/pw0327 (profile) http://www.librarything.com/catalog/pw0327 (catalog)
Thursday, December 29, 2022
State of the Pete-2023
Equanimity
"Evenness of mind or temper; calmness or firmness, especially under conditions adapted to excite great emotion; a state of resistance to elation, depression, anger, etc."
“I
write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see
and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
Joan Didion
Curiosity
"A desire to know or learn. An object that arouses interest, as by being novel or extraordinary."
無為
Wu-Wei
"inexertion", "inaction", or "effortless action"
Polymathy
"Learning in many fields; encyclopedic knowledge."
"In this great chain of causes
and effects, no single fact can be considered in isolation."
Alexander Von Humboldt
December 2022
This
tradition of the State of the Pete letter started during my gradual school
years. I was writing holiday cards as I was waiting for my simulations to run,
and it has evolved into these overly long and verbose tomes. My friends have
told me they liked it; far be it for me to disappoint them, so I have continued
the tradition. It has grown to be more than just a letter of update; it
is a snapshot of my thinking and opinion over the year. This exercise has been
the means for me to integrate my disjoint thoughts and summarize the year, as
most humans are wont to do at the end of the year. I have tried to steer this
away from being a paean to me, as anything written about personal thoughts will
de-evolve into; you, my friend, are the ones who need to decide it I am successful
in that endeavor.
This
letter is anything but an extemporaneous output, which is how I had hoped it
would resemble, although this is not quite as difficult as giving birth
to a dissertation. I have much more fun writing this than writing about
controlling motors.
My
dearest friends,
I
hope my annual greeting finds you healthy and joyful. 2022 has been a year for
the Wung house. We are still living in Dayton Ohio and my mom still lives with
me. She turned 97 this year. It was celebrated in a low key way at home with
Chinese takeout as she does not care to venture out of the house, both because
of her lack of mobility and because of the threat of COVID, even though she has
had all the vaccinations. Her days are spent between taking care of herself and
driving me crazy.
The
year was passing uneventfully until the Monday before Thanksgiving when mom was
not feeling well. We rushed her to the ER where we found out that she was
suffering from congestive heart failure. She stayed in the progressive care
unit of the Upper Valley Hospital for a week. Her condition had stabilized,
through medication, well enough for her to be sent to the same rehab facility
where she spent seven months in 2021. The idea was to have her rehab physically
so that she can be strong enough to be self-reliant and independent as she was
before the CHF.
While
there, she tested positive for COVID. Luckily, she had all the vaccines, so she
only suffered for a couple of days before she recovered sufficiently.
Unfortunately, she was kept in isolation for ten days. While she was in
isolation, she was not allowed to be out of her room, so she did all of her
physical and occupational therapies in the room. She was released on December
16. She is back home with me now and everything is seemingly back to the way it
was before she went in. Her cognitive abilities suffered a bit while she was in
the hospital and the rehab home. This was something that I did not realize. She
started to hallucinate and was in the throes of various conspiracy theories.
The nurses and staff assured me that this was normal, attributable to a
combination of old age confusion, COVID brain, and the Sundowner’s syndrome. (https://www.seniorliving.org/health/sundown-syndrome/) It took her a
few days, but she is back to her normal faculties today, mas o menos, much
to my relief.
This
experience, along with all the other experiences I have had with mom’s
condition has made me ever more appreciative to the nurses, nurses’ aides, and
everyone working in the hospitals and rehab centers. I frankly would not have
known how to act and react without their compassion and care.
I
am also grateful for my family — the Lin sisters and Dolores Lee — as well as good
friends from throughout my life for allowing me to kvetch to them after long
days and evenings in the various facilities, as I was physically fatigued and
emotionally spent by the time I crawled into bed. You don’t know just how much
the phone calls have meant to me and how grateful I am for you. Thank you all
so very much.
My Life In General
I
am still the manuscript portal administrator for my home technical society, the
IEEE Industry Application Society (IEEE IAS). I am also involved in the
organizing of two conferences within the society. Work that keeps me surrounded
by the latest in the research that in industry, something I have been distanced
from for a few years. I still have an interest in the work but I have gained a
different perspective as I am further removed from the granular daily work,
which afforded me a generalist’s eye view. I am not saying it is superior, but
it is a much different perspective, it does keep me thinking, sometimes way too
much.
December
31, 2022, will be the end of my four year term as the chair of the IEEE Smart
Grid Program. It has been a wild ride, having to go through the COVID era in
any leadership role is challenging. While I am not all that keen on every
decision I had made in this role, I am not ashamed of the myriad of decisions
that we had to make under duress to navigate the treacherous waters. As the
coaching saying goes: never be the last coach for any player; I am glad that I
am not the last chair of that organization. I leave the organization in a
healthy state, having closer alliances with the sponsoring societies. I am also quite excited about the new chair,
Prof. Wei-Jen Lee, he is more than qualified for the job and he is passionate
about the mission. Interesting thing about Wei-Jen, he had met my father when
he came to Taipei with his doctoral advisor back when my dad was working for
the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Republic of China. It is a very small
world.
I
missed the annual geek fest, ECCE 2022 in Detroit, the conference that I have
been attending every year since its inception. I miss the comradery and
opportunities to converse, hang out, and
enjoying adult beverages with my friends. My friend Emmanuel chaired the
organizing committee for ECCE 2022, and by all accounts it was an absolute
success, much kudos to him.
I
am teaching electric power courses at both the University of Dayton and
Marquette University. I am not, however, commuting between Dayton and Milwaukee;
the Marquette classes are all virtual. I have become somewhat adept at using
Zoom and Teams. I don’t think I will ever be the same with Webex.
I
teach the same class: Introduction to Electric Energy Systems, that I have
taught for the last few years at Dayton in the Fall. I also teach a more
advanced version of that class called Contemporary
Power Systems and the Smart Grid at both Marquette and Dayton in the Spring.
The
changeup for the past Fall is that I agreed to tackle teaching a Power System
Protective Relaying class at Marquette, a class that I last took as a student more
than thirty years ago. I managed to find my notes in the chaos that is my
basement. Unfortunately, they were not of much help as the state-of-the-art in power
system protection has changed significantly in the intervening thirty years. I did
manage to cobble a set of class notes together from three books: one a classic
power system protection book geared towards practicing engineers, a modern
protection book written by a relay manufacturer, and a power protection textbook
geared towards students. Much thanks to Prof. Miroslav Begovic for recommending
the books. The book for practicing engineers was written by a very good friend
of my father’s, J. Lewis Blackburn, Uncle Lewis. In fact, my father took the
famous Westinghouse Protective Relaying class with Uncle Lewis nearly 70 years
ago. I have thus come full circle to revisit an area that my father had studied
while he came to the US as a young man.
It
was a chaotic semester, but it was a great learning experience for me, I hope
that it was the same for the students. What made it all work was that the
students were enthusiastic and were eager to learn, which made all the
difference. It was an exercise in instantaneous
turnaround for me, I had to learn the material and then teach it to the
students the same week.
I
also agreed to teach an introduction to Power Electronics class this coming
Spring. This should be interesting, another topic that I have not reviewed in
years, but much closer to what I was doing as an engineer.
I
had a rather large contingent of non-American students this year, with
different cultural norms, habits, and motivation. We all struggled with dealing
with each other’s expectations. In the end, a number of students who had difficulties
showing up to class dropped the class, while those who did appear in person did
well. I need to rethink how I approach the class for next year if the influx of
non-American students persists.
Volleyball
My
volleyball life has changed. Since I am the primary care giver for my mom, I cannot
travel overnight to tournaments. My club had me working with all the teams,
depending on which coaches ask for help. I did not miss coaching in
tournaments, I did miss hanging out with fellow coaches during the down times
and I miss visiting with my coaching friends from around the country. Living
and dying as the decision-making prowess of teenagers was not the most pleasant
experience.
Since
I was able to work with all the teams within the club, I got to know some
players that I would not have gotten to know if I had my own team. Indeed, I
believe that the group of 18’s that I spent the most time with made me love
coaching again. A good number of them are playing in college now, and they were
keen on being prepared before getting to college in the Fall. We had voluntary
sessions with them, more individualized workouts with about four or five
players at a time. I was able to teach
them some advanced tactics that they had not been exposed to prior to this season.
I benefited far more from coaching them than they benefited from being coached
by me. The 18’s coach told me that they would sneak in some plays that we had
worked on in matches because they just wanted to experiment.
Here
is my appreciation for our time together and for them. (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2022/02/volleyball-coaching-life-teaching.html)
I
also worked with some of the younger players, doing specialized workouts. The
rewards came from working with players whose minds were curious. It was also
quite satisfying that they were quick studies. This is #WhyICoach.
Needless
to say, I did not venture to the frozen tundra that is Omaha 2022 for the AVCA
Convention and the NCAA Division I Final Four. It is the same reason that I did
not go to Detroit for ECCE 2022, in fact I have not travelled in the last three years. I miss long nights at
the convention with my volleyball friends, I miss the learning, the debating, the
sessions, and the arguments.
The Chautauqua
Chautauqua was an adult education and social movement in the United States,
highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies
expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought
entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers,
musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day.
Since
I spend most of my time at home or teaching, I read and try to fulfill my self-proclaimed
mission of becoming a Curious Polymath. It started life as a sardonic poke
at myself, a haughty name for what I do: ask questions, learn so that I can
answer the questions, organize what I learned to facilitate retention, and leverage
that knowledge to become witty, erudite, and be THE colorful conversationalist
at parties, which I of course, never ever attend. I doubt I will ever be known
as a colorful wit, I will more likely be known as the monochromatic twit.
In
my quest for Curious Polymathy, I chose
to train my attention on many different subjects. All at once is my modus
operandi, why focus on one thing at a
time when you can try to do many in parallel. Hence the disjointed choices in
reading material in heavy bag of books I always seem to carry with me.
I have also concluded that my temperament is more suited to be a generalist rather than a specialist as I get restless when I am too focused on one topic. I still enjoy digging into the granularity of topics of interest, but I need to spread my attention around so that I can think about everything unencumbered by tunnel vision.
My
attention has been focused on cognitive neurosciences recently, it is completely outside of my comfort zone. The
path I took is a circuitous one. It started as I was trying to fill in the
large gap in my knowledge of statistics. In reading broadly about statistics,
specifically inferential statistics, drawing inference, and learning about how
people make decisions has been a theme in my curiosity meanderings for the last
few years. The path now sits on the
topic of Causal Inference. I had started
and dropped reading Judea Pearl’s The Book of Why?
I
am still at the initial slope of the learning curve, far from a clear high-altitude
view of the subject. It has been
challenging, and the learning curve is stiff.
My
interests in causal inference and cognitive neurosciences led me to a nascent
interest in artificial intelligence. I learned of Gary Marcus’ arguments for
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as opposed to the AI community’s reliance
on Deep Learning through reading his Substack site. By the way, Substack is a
valuable resource. I was exposed to it from my subscription to Heather Cox
Richardson’s daily Letters From an American column.
Gary
Marcus articles speaks with expertise about the burgeoning application of
artificial intelligent, more specifically, his focus on AGI; he posits that it
is the key to creating AI that is capable of reasoning and make better decisions
without the advantage of complete information. Most of the AI that is
commercially applied uses Deep Learning which is based on using the scorched
earth training through crazily large data sets. Marcu’s book, Rebooting AI, takes
on that argument
The
reason I bring this up — as I am only halfway through Marcus’ book — is that there has been a lot of attention developing
about ChatGPT, an AI chatbot which can hold seemingly rational
conversations and churn out articles which is sophisticated enough to fool
people into thinking that the articles are written by human subject matter
experts. ChatGPT is an OpenAI project. OpenAI is partly
owned by Elon Musk, which is why the chatbot had garnered so much notoriety.
They announced the launch of the chatbot with great fanfare, their claim is
that this tool’s development solves the human intelligence problem. The founder
of OpenAI has since walked back much of his hyperbole just months after
the launch, after the open-source testing of the chatbot by the general public
has churned out both brilliant articles and pure garbage. Gary Marcus examines the
tool in this article (https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/ais-jurassic-park-moment ). Academia had
seemingly lost their sh** about this because many professors were afraid that students
had found a way to bypass the essay question, through using AI.
Non-Fiction Books
As I was reading through a list of books that Gary Marcus
has authored, one stood out. He had taken a year out of his life to learn to
play the guitar, approaching the learning process as a cognitive psychologist,
as he is familiar with the latest in the best learning practices. He made
himself his own guinea pig and experimented.
Guitar Zero
I had read about The Puzzler
One puzzle that he did get me hooked on is the NYT Spelling
Bee puzzle. Jacobs said this was one of the most addicting puzzles, and sure
enough, I am addicted. I do it every day without fail. I just achieved Queen
Bee status recently: I was able to get all the words that were possible given
the seven-letters given in the puzzle. I am kind of jazzed about that, as you
see.
Fiction Books
I have generally strayed away from fiction the last few
years except for murder mysteries. A well crafted whodunnit serves to take my
mind off the mental challenges presented by my non-fiction readings. I am a
creature of habit in that regard as I am only reading the books by Louise Penny,
Peter Robinson, Andrea Camillieri, Ian Rankin, and Martin Walker, even though I have a bunch
of fiction books on my TBR stack waiting for my muse to turn to other fiction.
One of the authors I listed, Peter Robinson, a British
ex-pat who had lived in Canada for years passed away this year. Unfortunately,
there will not be any new Inspector Alan Banks mysteries. The series was set in
Yorkshire, a place that I had spent some time visiting when I was working for
Emerson, so I have a soft spot for the story, the Yorkshire locale, and the
characters. Fortunately, the dialog was not written with a Yorkshire accent.
RIP.
I tried to introduce some variation in my fiction reading by
deviating from my list of favored mystery writers this year by reading a couple
of other authors, and I was sorely disappointed. None of their narrative,
plotting, character development, and writing were up to the standards of the
authors I read regularly. I am now resigned to just reading the same writers as
they publish new books. I have paused the new author’s experiment, at least for
a while.
I did throw another changeup in my reading when I read a
novel written by my friend Karla Huebner. It was not a mystery; in fact it was very
far from being a murder mystery. The title of the book is: In Search of the
Magical Theater. Here is my review (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2022/06/book-review-in-search-of-magic-theater.html)
It was a good break for me, it challenged me and pulled me out of my reading
rut, and I learned about the world of theater. I rather enjoyed characters that
did not have deep inner secrets that involved malice. They did have other inner
secrets however.
Reading Pontification (Soapbox Topic)
When did reading become a competitive game? I had always
ignored the challenges advertised by the likes of websites and groups like Goodreads.
It seems, however, that I am in the minority. In some of the book groups that I
subscribe to, reading has become a blood sport, the gauntlet being thrown down by
the book groups: read as many books as possible within a given time. People are
encouraged to read more books so that Goodreads can sell more books for Amazon.
Some people are reading 100 books a year. How the F can you remember 100 books?
That’s eight and a third of a book a month, nearly two books a week, one third
of a book a day. What kind of books are they reading? Are they counting comic
books? War and Peace, Don Quixote, Infinite Jest, and Robert Caro’s series on
the LBJ presidency are definitely not on their list. The efficacious would devise
a strategy of reading only short books. This is not to say that short books are
devoid of merit, but how boring. A more
germane question is: why even bother reading these books if they are not going
to meaningful, memorable, or enjoyable. The key is memorable, because I cannot
fathom how one can remember the gist of 100 books, especially when they are
read in such a heated rush.
At this time of the year, people are desperate to meet their
pledged goal, so they are begging for short, easy books to read so that they
can reach their goals. I doubt that the last-minute readings are in any way
entertaining because they are reading
with the sword of Damocles hanging over them, that is just too much pressure.
We go through our working life chasing deadlines and giving ourselves
coronaries because of the arbitrary timelines our society imposes on us. The
logical question is: why are people following the same unsustainable pace in
their leisure life? Have we de-evolved so much in our habits to mindlessly mirror
our corporate dictated lifestyle and rhythm? Are we this stupid?
The Tao
One of the threads that followed me into 2022 was the
continued sampling of the book The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang
I read small sections of the book every day; that is, I didn't read it as a book, but as a daily
exercise in philosophy. His reference to Laotse and Chuang Tse rekindled my long-time
interest in Taoism and my cultural roots. His easygoing style and simple way of
looking at playing, reading, writing, loafing, thinking, being human, and
living reinvigorated my mind. Thus
influenced, I bought a used copy of his out-of-print treatise on the Tao Te
Ching, deciding to delve into the meaning of the short tome for my own
education.
#WhenPeteGetsAmbitious Indeed, I could not keep it
simple, I am not Occam, I am approaching the reading in typical overcomplicated
Pete style, dipping into the Tao Te Ching through comparing three
translations of the book — a translation by Ursula Le Guin,
Music
Music is the center of any generation; as with all the other
generations, mine feel like music is more important to us than any of the other
generations, we are entitled in that way. We know that music sets the rhythm for the
narrative of living, it provides the cadence to our lives as we live it. So it
is that I have become uncomfortably aware of the ages of those musicians that
had provided our soundtrack, it is a reminder that I am also getting older.
Bob Dylan is 81. Mick Jagger is 79, Paul McCartney is 80.
Keith Richards is supposed to be 79 and Willie Nelson is supposed to be 89; but
age is immaterial for those two, they will outlive everyone.
A number of my favorite musicians have announced that they
had or are about to embark on their last tours. Peter Frampton had to quit
touring because it became too painful for him to continue to play guitar night
after night.
Genesis embarked on their very last tour in 2022. Mike
Rutherford and Tony Banks are both 72, while the relative youngster Phil
Collins is only 71, but bad drumming posture throughout his career has led to
the bad back that has crippled him; that,
and his numerous remarriages to the same ex-wife. He spent the entire tour
singing from a chair and he left the drumming to his son, which made for some
sentimental shots of Phil watching proudly as his son pounded out the rhythms
that he originated. I missed the tour, I wish I could have seen this last farewell
tour, but the logistics and the price were showstoppers. I have, however, broken
out my newest edition of Seconds Out, the best live album ever recorded.
It is my fifth copy. My first edition of Seconds Out was also the very
first vinyl album I have ever bought. I played it on my Woolco-bought Panasonic
turntable in the basement of 6169 South Steele Street in Littleton, and that
dulcet tone has stayed with me all of my life.
Christine McVie wrote the soundtrack of my high school and
college life, or a large part of it. Unfortunately, I had always thought of her
as the woman in Fleetwood Mac who is NOT Stevie Nicks, a very unfair and
ignorant attitude; but that is the way many testosterone addled teenage boys
saw the situation. After her passing at 79, SiriusXM presented a two-day
Fleetwood Mac Radio Channel, a recycling of the special program they had
presented before. This was where I learned to appreciate her exceptional song
writing talent and the amazing songs that she had written. I am finding time to
revisit classic Fleetwood Mac tunes.
On a more positive note, when I first saw footage of Joni Mitchell, at 79, sitting on a throne and
singing along with the younger artists on a stage, I melted. Brandi Carlile had
convinced the Newport Jazz Fest organizers to allow her to organize a Joni
Mitchell program during the festival. She also convinced many luminous younger
musicians to pay tribute to Joni at Newport. It was a fitting tribute, given
how Joni’s music and adventurous forays into numerous different genres of music
inspired and paved the way for many that came after her. They owed her for
their inspiration. It seems every single musician I respect is a Joni Mitchell
fan. I came to understand her music much later in my life, I heard music in a
cursory manner her when I was younger, but I listened to her music deeply as I
got older. The YouTube videos of the Newport performances were sensational, it
seemed like Joni herself was revitalized by the show. I am so glad people were
able to show their appreciation for her.
Bruce Springsteen, a spry youngster at 73, put out a sublime
album of Motown covers, Only the Strong Survive. He said, in numerous
interviews, that he felt he wanted a chance to sing other people’s songs
because he had spent his career writing songs for himself to sing, it was time
to sing other people’s songs. His voice has mellowed and his singing chops have
evolved enough over the years to do justice to the Motown material. The album
is exceptional. Some would accuse him of doing what white musicians have always
done to black musicians: stealing the music and making money off of their
talents. But. This is Springsteen. His body of work speaks for itself, he didn’t
have to cover the songs, he wanted to cover the songs because he is a fan.
Discussion over.
The song that knocked me for a loop is Nightshift,
the cover of the Commodores 1985 tune. It is the Commodores tribute to Marvin
Gaye and Jackie Wilson. Bruce’s version is a recursion of sorts: a tribute to
the Commodores paying tribute to Marvin and Jackie. I looked up the originals
1985 video, with the band primping their jheri curls and dressed in the
outlandish stage costumes from that era. It brought me back to that time and
space. For better or for worse.
Sports
It was a wonderous Summer, as the Cardinals went on the Pujols
and Molina farewell tour, with Wainright thrown in as a bonus since he didn’t actually
retire; it didn’t hurt the sentimentality of the event that the Cardinals won a
lot. Those three had given the St. Louis fans incredible memories while playing for the Cardinals, this grand tour season
was a fitting end. There were many highpoints: Albert getting 703 homeruns, Wainright
and Molina breaking the record for the most starts as battery mates with 325, Cardinals
winning the NL Central in a tight race; yet the ending was not perfect, as the non-fairy
tale season ended with the Cardinals losing in the playoffs. But what a Summer it
was.
I was one of the many who vowed to never forgive Pujols eleven
years ago for chasing the money with the Angels, and I was gleeful as the
Cardinals made the playoffs the following season while the Angels did not. Time
heals all wounds as they say, I was excited when the Cardinals signed him for
the farewell season. The city of St. Louis was as classy as ever, unlike me,
and welcomed him home with open arms. All three should be HOF inductees,
despite what some Cub fans believe.
My alma maters had mixed results on the field and the
courts. The Illini is playing in what is known as the ReliaQuest Bowl, ugh.
In Tampa. Looking better! On January 2, 2023. OK, not a New Year’s
Day Bowl, but close enough. Against Mississippi State. Oooh an SEC
opponent! Whose coach, Mike Leach, is being remembered because he had died
while undergoing a heart procedure. Uh-oh. These circumstances remind me
of 1982 when Mike White’s Illinois team played Bear Bryant’s Alabama team in
the Liberty Bowl. It was a no-win situation for Illinois as Bryant had
announced that he was retiring after the bowl game. Good thing Tony Eason got
hurt, and White needed to keep Jack Trudeau redshirted, so they played Kris
Jenner, who went 0-3 with three interceptions to ensure the Alabama win. Bryant
died four weeks later.
Illini basketball had an exciting season, winning the Big
Ten (yay!) but then proceeded to be ignominiously knocked out of the tournament
in the second round (boo!). Very disappointing. Boys are not playing well this
season either.
The less said about the Georgia Tech’s football or
basketball seasons the better. The best thing about the football team is that players
didn’t quit on the interim football coach, they kept playing even though they
were out matched, thereby getting the alum a chance at the big chair. The
future looks bright, though we will see.
The Illini volleyball squad did not make the NCAAs this
year. They were somewhat in the conversation, until they folded down the
stretch.
Georgia Tech, however, made the world of collegiate
volleyball sit up and take notice of the North Avenue Trade School. They made
the NCAAs, were ranked 16th in the season ending coaches’ poll, and
had one of the most exciting players in the world. Julia Bergmann was amazing
to watch, a fiery 6’5” redhead. You can hear the difference in the pop of the
ball when she gets her kills. She will be playing for the Brasilian national
team after this season, I am quite looking forward to her international career.
ESPN, to their credit,
actually carried all the matches, albeit on ESPN+ for the first two
rounds, and the finals were broadcast on ESPN2 rather than the flagship
station. I still watched all the volleyball that I wanted. This was the first
time that half of the final four coaches are women, exciting but also elicits a
disappointing question: why did it take so long?
Some of my coaching friends are getting their chance at
sitting in the big chair. Indeed, they did much better than the prognosticators
in the various volleyball groups had prognosticated, at the same time other
friends are leaving the game. The ebb and flow of the volleyball landscape.
Time waits for no one.
Miscellaneous
Knowing what I know about the history of Tesla — the company
was started by Martin Eberhardt, a fellow Illini, and not Elon Musk — I am less
than impressed with Musk and his lack of personnel management acumen. Combine that with what I have learned
about his dangerous promises about Tesla’s AI based autonomous vehicle
algorithm, I am strongly on the side of the Twitter employees.
Even though Twitter had been described as a cesspool of
miscreants and trolls, I find Twitter to be a great mode of communication with
people that I don’t usually communicate with. I can directly access people who
are very good at what they do: physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, athletes,
media personalities, coaches, energy and
electrical power engineers, and many others from my two Twitter accounts. The
opportunity for serendipitous discussions while directly learning about the
latest and greatest things that they from them do is invaluable. I am still
there despite all of Elon Musks gyrations to destroy his $44 billion investment.
I don’t know how or if it will survive. I have tried to get on Mastodon but I
have had problems because of the mass exodus from Twitter. I have been told
that the experience is not as freewheeling as Twitter, so I am not in a hurry
to move. We just can’t have nice things.
Sports betting will be legal in Ohio starting in the new
year. I remember when I moved to St. Louis, all the gaming companies were
opening casinos in Missouri. The arguments then, as with the arguments now touted the influx of profits,
the entertainment value of gambling for the masses, etc. I also remember how
ill prepared the state governments were for the sudden opening of the betting
gates. There were stories of people gambling away their mortgage and committing
suicides because of it. All the casino companies did was slap up a bunch of
billboards around their luxurious casino boats touting the programs that they
were obligated to pay for to treat addiction problems as part of the deal for
operating the casinos. We know about Americans and their proclivity for addictions,
the billboards did not do much. Understand that I am not against gambling. I
am, however, an engineer who understands the statistics, so I find it foolhardy
to bet when the house has so much of an advantage, plus I am a cheap bastard.
Not being in the traditional labor market presently, I find
the conversation about work environment and the corporate decisions on whether
to return to the office or to allow employees to stay home revealing. I see the
people who are the most adamant, Jamie Diamond, Elon Musk again, and the other
juveniles in corporate America laughable in their naivete. Some have even implemented
surveillance software and privacy intrusion policies that are essentially legal
stalking their employees. I was gleeful that they have all had to back off of their
threats because today’s labor force doesn’t play that way, as more people
walked away than capitulate to their blackmail. Which brings up the interesting
question of: what ARE these people who are walking away doing for work if they
are not capitulating? We are under the impression that our society is leverage
to the hilt, people owe large amounts of debt. We see reports of increasing
homelessness, and yet the labor statistics are not as dire as what I had believed.
One explanation is that people are moving away from work that they are used to
in order to make their lives better, better in more manners than just the take
home salary, something that corporate America just does not understand. The
service industry is getting hit hard because people are refusing to be treated
like chattel and they are moving on to other industries, but what other industries?
The numbers are conflicting. If you laid all the economists head to toe,
they will still not come to a conclusion.
Currency has always been ephemeral; it all depends on the
trust that people place on the verity of the agreed upon value. Usually this
means central banks and government-backed currencies. Yet, people are shocked.
Shocked I tell you, when FTX, the third largest crypto exchange collapsed. The
cybercurrency market has also collapsed from its highest points. WTF were
people expecting? It was all a house of cards predicated on the ill placed
faith in the non-regulated ledgers. Somewhere along the line people realized
that the emperor had no clothes, that it was all vaporware. The first sign of trouble
is when you realize that you had to exchange real, backed currency to buy
crypto unbacked currency.
My other problem with crypto is that by virtue of the currency mining operations that is the backbone of crypto exchanges, the amount of electrical energy expended to perform these operations is immense. The total is staggering, in the order of the yearly total electrical energy consumption of several sovereign nations. Energy that is unnecessarily expended, energy that can be used to offset our greenhouse gas production. The tone-deaf crypto industry insists that they are converting their operations over to sustainable energy sources, so their carbon footprint can be minimized. A more logical explanation would be if they ceased operations and devote those sustainable energy sources to maintaining our normal energy usage. Just a thought. Surprisingly, the electrical utilities are using Blockchains to conduct their business transactions because of its speed and convenience. SMDH.
When Volodymir Zelensky was elected president of the Ukraine,
he was caricatured as the clown that became president because he was a
comedian. He is now the most admired man in the world for what he did not do,
run away to save himself and his family; and for what he did do, inspired his
countrymen to stop big bad Russia’s imperialist fantasies in their tracks and rubbing
Vladmir’s nose in his own excrement. The undeclared war is not over, but anyone
following the news well knows that Putin is losing ground, internally and
internationally. The western world, especially the US, owe a debt of gratitude to the Ukrainians for
showing us how precious democracy is; so precious that it is worth sacrificing
all that you have. I keep hoping that the white supremacist Trumpites will
learn this lesson, but I am not optimistic, since too many of them were
involved in the traitorous January 6 insurrection.
On that note, you have now reached the fork in the road. The
point of departure. I thank you for indulging in my attempt at storytelling,
but the narrative is turning as you read, and as I write.
You must choose between the blue pill or the red pill, much
as Neo had to do the same in The Matrix.
Red pills, continue reading my partisan, progressive,
leftist, liberal diatribe.
Blue pill, stop right now. You are avoiding my partisan,
progressive, leftist, liberal diatribe.
Regardless, My best wishes to you in the new year, for good health, good fortune, good friends, good reads, good food, and good libations.
Pete
References
Gary Marcus, Ernest Davis. Rebooting AI Building
Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust. New York City: Pantheon Books,
2006.
Guin, Ursula K. Le. Lao Tsu Tao Te Ching.
Boulder: Shambala Publications, 1997.
Hinton, David. The Four Chinese Classics.
Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2013.
Jacobs, A. J. The Puzzler. New York City:
Crown Publishing, 2022.
Lin, Yutang. The Importance of Living. New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1937.
Marcus, Gary. Guitar Zero: The New Musician and
the Science of Learning. New York City: The Penguin Press, 2012.
Pearl, Judea. The Book of Why: The New Science of
Cause and Effect. New York City: Basic Books, 2018.
Yutang, Lin. The Wisdom of Laotse. New York City: Random House, 1948.
The Red Pill
“When stupidity is
considered to be patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”
Isaac Asimov
The quote encapsulates
the modern conservatives, and not just American ones. More telling than the
intelligence of the modern conservative, it is the integrity, honesty, empathy,
compassion, and humanity, or lack thereof of the modern conservative which
defines their place in the pantheon of bottom feeding hall of fame. DeSantis
and Abbott thinking that it is funny to send desperate immigrants as political
showpieces to New York, Washington, and to the Vice President’s house. Abbott
and his award-winning performance as the NRA mannequin and mouthpiece during
the Uvalde massacre. Jim Jordan, who can
not manage to pass a piece of legislation, demanding to be the disrupter in
chief during the January 6 hearings. Matt Goetz, Harvey Feinstein of congress.
Spineless Kevin McCarthy, groveling before the orange moron to seek forgiveness
after making daddy mad.
The epitome of
conservative amorality and dispassion was on full display when Nancy Pelosi’s
husband was attacked by a white supremacist coward. Hammering an 87-year-old
man repeated, that took true courage (sarcasm noted.)
Despite my vehemence, it
isn’t the conservatism that reviles, it is the absence of any positive human behavior
of the so-called conservatives around the world. They speak with their actions
and non-actions. Many have abandoned any pretense of possessing empathy,
compassion, kindness, reason, logic, or love of their fellow humans. Their
greed and hatred have taken over their black hearts and of coure their words
and actions. For this we have the orange moron and his ilk to thank. In this
world where we preach and value compassion and kindness, the far right make it
all very obvious that they have stopped caring to even pretend. The irony is
that the greatest cheerleaders of the far right are the fundamentalist
religious, all because of one issue. They got their wish in Dobbs. If the post
Dobbs actions by the progressives are any indication, these f***** are in for a
fight.
To refer to today’s
American conservative party as Republicans is a slap in the face of the party
of Lincoln. These pretenders to and usurpers of the mantel of conservatism are better identified as white supremacist Trumpites,
because the GOP party machinery has de-evolved to the point that formerly traditional
Republicans have discovered, much to their chagrin, that they are not welcomed at the inn. Liz
Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are leaving congress. The formerly mainstream
conservatives have abandoned ship because the “party” decided to cast its lot
with the white supremacist Trumpites.
The red wave that was supposed to be the tipping point for
all that is evil turned out to be a red trickle, or a red spritz, a premature
spritz that is emblematic of Mister tiny orange hands.
It is an interesting conundrum, on the one hand, the
endorsement from the Orange moron proved to be deadly, which restores my faith,
somewhat, in the American electorate. On
the other hand, the Orange moron’s slate of candidates were such a pack of dismal,
unqualified, amoral, incompetent knuckle draggers that one wonders if someone
had found them while looking under every slimy rock in the universe. The fact
that those races were so close made me want to reconsider what I had said about
the American electorate. The Fetterman and Oz race was close because people
were wondering about Fetterman’s health, I get that. But the choice between Warnock
and Herschel Walker? Seriously? Even Walker’s son disowned him. Why was this
even close? Kari Lakes and Katie Hobbs? Another no brainer, but it was close.
Why?!!
The surprising red premature ejaculation has the political
pundits scratching their heads. The common wisdom, which may not be so common,
is that the midterms are usually disastrous for the president’s party; the
addition of the inflation and economics
news should have doomed the chances of the party in power. The electorate ignored
common wisdom and prevailed over evil, although not completely. The Dems
retained the Senate, even though the betrayal of Sinema dampened the good news;
and lost the house because of the gerrymandering. The shame is that the Dems
are limited in what they can do with the findings of the January 6 committee.
The January 6 hearings
had plenty of former Republicans testifying against the orange moron. Their
testimony was powerful and it took courage to go against the white supremacist Trumpites.
The real question is: why did they wait so long? Why didn’t they stop him? By
all accounts there are officials within the White House who tried mightily to
rein in the moron.
The midterms in Ohio were a dismal. Ohio is theoretically a
purple state, albeit a reddish purple. The problem is that the white supremacists
Trumpites have been unchallenged for so
long that they feel they can run any idiot and win, witness J.D, Vance. The
Democrats knew they have no chance, so they gave up too and they ran Tim Ryan,
who might as well be a Trump Republican. The political ads from those two mouth
breathers drove me to distraction, the strategy was to throw everything against
the wall to see what sticks, the gloppier and smellier the ads are, the more they
showed it. Vance, an immoral, lying, sack of vermin excrement who is in the
pockets of Big Pharma won, to no one’s surprise.
The governor’s race was between Mike Dewine, the milquetoast
carpetbagging former Democrat who switched parties going against Nan Whaley,
the former Dayton mayor, who should have been indicted for corruption but
wasn’t, probably because her corruption does not add up to a hill of bean’s
worth of difference as compared to the white supremacist Trumpites. Dewine’s son
ran for Ohio supreme court and won; my jurist friend is apoplectic because Pat
Dewine is not supreme court material, he is barely human material.
The influence of Alex
Jones and Infowars got smacked to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars. That sounds so good,
even though it won’t give those parents their babies back. Too bad Jones only owes
money. I was hoping he would become well practiced in reaching for his ankles
when ordered.
The is the best video ever. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMB7QMIUkhA)
Turtle boy and McCarthy getting snubbed by the Capital Hill police being
honored for their bravery during the attempted coup.
I would go on, the material is there, but my blood pressure
is too high and I don’t have the energy to continue. Once again, I thank you
for reading as I bid you adieu.
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Ruminations-Thanksgiving 2022
Last year I had talked a little bit about Thanksgiving in my
blog post, it is my favorite American holiday. https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/11/ruminations-memorable-thanksgiving.html
This year I will delve a little bit more into why I have
such a love of the Thanksgiving celebration.
When I first moved to the United States. We lived in Littleton,
Co. My mom had no idea on what to do about the turkey, never having seen a turkey,
nor ever having cooked the turkey before coming to the United States. We were
invited over to our friends’ house and had the whole feast with their family, their
in laws, and their friends; it was my first real taste of American roasted turkey.
I can't say that I had a very deep memory of the turkey itself, although I
enjoyed the dressing, the mashed potatoes, all of the fixings, and, of course,
the pumpkin pie.
Years later, we decided that we would get together with some
of the other expatriate Chinese people in Littleton since they were our family
in Colorado. Everybody was assigned a dish and my mom volunteered to cook the turkey
herself. After much teeth gnashing, she reached out to the mother-in-law of the
family which hosted us on our first Thanksgiving to learn the art of cooking a delicious moist
bird. The mother-in-law marched mom through the paces, taught her how to truss
up the turkey, taught her the tricks of her experience, like putting bacon on
the turkey’s joints so that the skin doesn't crack and get dried up. I don’t
know if the bacon did the trick, but it was delicious. If I remember correctly,
it was a very popular bird.
Of course, being a gathering of Chinese ex-pats, everybody
brought the traditional Chinese holiday dishes to augment the turkey itself.
The dining table was groaning under the weight of dumplings, roast duck —the backup turkey— fried rice, fishes, and all
sorts of non-Thanksgiving feasting foods.
This is where I think my vision of Thanksgiving came from, even
though we've had other large parties and celebrations with lots of people, this
was the official picture that I had of what large celebrations with others feel like. Thanksgiving made an indelible impression on
my mind, a very American ideal of fellowship, of friendship, of sharing meals
with people that you choose to spend
time with rather than having to spend time with. This idea appealed to me
deeply, even to this day.
As I got older, the nature of my parents’ traditional Thanksgiving
party evolved. The nature of the people who came changed. The guests became children of my parents friends who were faced with the
prospect of spending the scant holidays alone in a cold dorm because it was too
far and too expensive to take a trip home, as well as friends who were alone
for that time.
I'd like to think that our family introduced them to the
American tradition of Thanksgiving. At least I hope so. It was always a big
deal for my parents. It was always a time of conviviality and friendship; it was
always a time of togetherness and warmth with people. That is what drew me to
this particular holiday the most.
Christmas just wasn't as big of a deal in my mind, mainly
because it felt like the gratitude and thankfulness so much of an afterthought.
The focus is on the Christian rituals for the birth of Christ rather than
celebrating the very human love of being with other humans. Thanksgiving is a
celebration of people, of us, of friends, of people that we felt liked us, people
that we have something in common with. It is a celebration of friendship and amity.
I'm not sure how it got to be so important in my mind, but it has.
I have much to be thankful for this year. I am enjoying what
I do very much, I have had many chances to indulge in my polymathic curiosity,
as scattered as they are. I have had chances to interact with some very
intelligent young people, to teach, to lead, and to mentor at two universities.
I am most especially thankful that I still have my mom with
me, and she is healthy despite her 97 years of living.
This time of year though, given the cold weather, the early
darkness, and the waning of growth, seems more poignant, it also brings forth my own gratitude to life,
to people, and to the humanity that surrounds us, because that is what we need
to focus on. At this point of time of divisiveness, I feel extremely thankful and
lucky.
I am especially thankful for all the people who are in my
life because it is those of you who are reading this that I am the most thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)