The view from the office

 

I saw the four deer this afternoon.

The first was forty minutes before the end of legal-light. It was 300 yards away and running.

The second was 120 yards away and I could only see the top half of its body due to cover. It did not look like a very large deer and it didn't move very much.

The last two deer were 5 minutes before the end of legal light and they were in dense brush and near the edge of the property. I don't have written permission to track deer onto the neighbor's property.

No shots were fired.

Pruning

I know it looks like I was able to prune the tree in about 45 seconds, but the contrails were left by two separate planes. The orchard was beneath the approach for the Grand Rapids Gerald R. Ford International Airport

The "J" stenciled on the trunk of the tree is because the fruit keyed-out as (probably) Jonafree based on fruit characteristics and the records of what was planted in the orchard. 

The good news is that my expectation was to get five trees pruned and I was able to prune seven!  I have another fifteen to prune at that location and then I will start pruning the trees in Eaton Rapids.

Nick Reiner. Drugs are bad

At the time of this writing, it is generally believed the a man named Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were tied to chairs and their throats were slit by their son, Nick Reiner.

My first thought had been that they had been killed by thugs who were trying to steal their crypto assets. That seems to be their mode of operation. Take the crypto owners hostage and torture them until they cough-up the account number and password.

I am still slightly skeptical. How does one man tie two, active healthy people to chairs against their consent? We may find out that this was a shake-down gone wrong and that Nick Reiner helped the crew gain access and then things went south.

The current reports are that Nick Reiner had problems with drugs. My assumption is that he was also mentally ill, if not before his heavy use of drugs then afterwards as he spiraled into psychosis. 

 The story is getting plastered all over the place because the male victim "made a difference". The male victim was "famous" and he was "somebody who mattered".

In the end, it will not matter as long as people can afford to kill their brains with drugs and as long as we avoid addressing to our country's systemic failures regarding mental health issues. In many ways the two issues are joined at the hip.

In the long run, it seems highly unlikely that Rob Reiner will make any difference at all. 

A bit of Scripture to wash the taint out of my mouth

For then will I remove from your midst
    the proud braggarts,
And you shall no longer exalt yourself
    on my holy mountain.
But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
    a people humble and lowly,
Who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
    the remnant of Israel.
They shall do no wrong
    and speak no lies;
Nor shall there be found in their mouths
    a deceitful tongue;
They shall pasture and couch their flocks
    with none to disturb them.   -From Zephaniah Chapter 3

Regarding the circle-jamboree of Data Centers and AI

---Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I don't have any "Certificates". This blog post is offered for entertainment purposes.---

Background on AI's foundational technology (numerical methods)

In numerical methods, "integral based algorithms" are forgiving and robust while "differential methods" are rife with instabilities. Rates of change (X,t) tend to multiply measurement error. Acceleration of rate of change (X,,t) is even filthier. "Jerk", the rate of change of acceleration (X,,,t) is even filthier than acceleration.

Also from numerical methods, interpolation (estimating values that are bounded by measured data) is pretty safe while extrapolation (estimating values that are outside the cloud of measured data i.e., future predictions) get squirrelly very quickly. The farther into the future the prediction, the squirrellier the number.

This is important for two reasons. My AI expert informs me that LLM are basically "Auto-complete on steroids". They are guessing what the next word will be. At some point that runs out of gas. The other way it comes into play is that the astronomical valuations and ability to pull financing is based on speculation about how AI will fundamentally transform the economy like petroleum, semiconductors and the internet did. 

Can any of the proponents of AI offer a credible guess as to when the venture will be profitable, covering both the costs of the sunk investment and the variable cost of the energy to run them?

Frankly, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. The AI that will be profitable will be tiny chips embedded in drones (unmanned, aerial vehicles) and will parse out potential targets and communicate with other drones in its cloud. Survival on the battle field will involve keeping your IFF helmet fully charged and the antenna undamaged and transmitting.

"But you HAVE to be investing in AI because that is where the stock-prices are exploding!!!" 

I sort of am. 30% of my retirement fund (calm your beating heart...it isn't that much money) is invested in various equity index funds. Since NVIDIA, Oracle, MS and Alphabet are a substantial slice of the S&P 500, I am invested in them.

I am fine missing out on "beating the market". The exquisite agony of being "left behind" combines the two major forces in the market. It combines both Fear and Greed all in one package. It is fog-of-war and blindness-from-testosterone combined into one package and is virtually guaranteed to result in risky bets. 

Errors AI seems to be prone to

"Nothing is better than God.
Warm beer is better than nothing."
***apply transitive property***
"Warm beer is better than God." 
Words can have very different meanings depending on context. 

"You are a sight for sore eyes"
Oscar Wilde's original intention was "...a sight to cause sore eyes..." 

"You look like the first breath of spring!"
The only survivable way to tell a woman that she looks like the end of a long, hard winter.

(From an AI generated Youtube video) "Alvin York charged the trench filled with 126 German soldiers armed only with his Springfield model 1903 and his 1911 Colt handgun" 

While the "Standard" rifle for the U.S. Army was the Springfield model 1903, there were not enough in inventory to issue to the troops who were sent to Europe in 1917. Rather, they were issued the Enfield M-17 chambered in 30-06. In this case, "standard" and boots-on-ground reality were different.

Mountains of money are being sunk into "Data centers" and AI. I am humble enough to acknowledge that I may be very wrong. But I fear that the results will be more dystopian than empowering.

Snow is a storybook that we write in with our feet

We have had snow on the ground for a couple of weeks now and it is a good time to see the natural traffic patterns in our yard.

I see deer and rabbit highways.

I see where I go, at least in the winter.

That is useful information from the standpoint of planning "zones" as defined by "permaculture".

Practitioners of permaculture suggest that it is rational to place enterprises that are high-maintenance and high-output close to the paths you walk daily. For example, you might put everbearing berry bushes long the path between your kitchen door and the mailbox or the hen-house. Gathering enough berries to dress up your breakfast or lunch does not require any additional steps and consequently are more likely to get picked than if your berry patch was a 100 yards away.

Gardens and chickens both thrive with daily attention so it makes sense to put them close together from the standpoint of labor. They offer symbiotic opportunities in terms of nutrient cycling, especially if you have a station for cleaning your vegetables next to the chicken run. Toss the "seconds" over the fence and "BOOM!", recycled with no composting required.

Everybody is going to do things a little bit differently because we start with different property. Some are loath to cut down mature trees. Others are ruthless.

Rough guidelines 

Zone 0: Inside of your house: Looms, spinning wheels, work benches, kitchen, pantry, herbs on window sill. 

Zone 1: Several times-a-day to daily visits: Inside the "yard". Porches, gazebo, kitchen/salad garden, everbearing berry bushes/trees, BBQ pit, swings, arbors, sandbox, flowers, barns, dog-kennel, hen-house, driveways, garages, water spigots

There will be blurring of zones. The milk cow is staked out in the pasture every day but the pear tree on the left side of the frame might only be harvested once a year.

Zone 2: Daily visits to 3X week: Garden with crops that require less care (potatoes, sweet corn, winter squash). Orchards. Pastures grazed by milk-animals.

Zone 3: 2X a week-to-every 10 days: Pasture grazed by meat animals, some kinds of orchards, intensive coppice.

Zone 4: Every 10 days to every 2 months: Hedgerows for seasonal fruit and mushrooms, a spot for fishing.

Zone 5: Less frequently than once very 2 months: Forest crops like poles, firewood, nuts. Places to trap. Marshland hay-field.

Another flexibility involves NEED. In times of famine you will be walking the pasture of your meat animals collecting dandelions, chicory, and other greens every few days to take pressure off of your garden. You will be bird-dogging the hedgerows to beat the birds and squirrels to the edibles. When you have high needs, what was Zone 2 is promoted to Zone 1-1/2 and Zone 3 is promoted to Zone 2. 

Redecorating tip

Mrs ERJ hinted that she wanted to have one of the bedrooms repainted with Seafoam.

I did not know that there is a color called "Seafoam" but I know that now.

Most men will look at this and shrug. I look at it and think "That means that girls need 25 bottles of "blue" fingernail polish. Think of the profit potential

Any clue on how long it will take for the smell to disappear? 

Another Ukrainian Grandmother video dropped

Three of her daughters (or daughter-in-laws) and two grandsons spent the day with her. (Link)

I thought the video was spliced together over several days due to changing hat colors

But, no. I was wrong. Three different women, same day. Rewatching the video, the different colored hats was useful to see how tasks were divided up. I think the woman wearing the plum-colored hat is the take-charge, oldest sister. 

The ladder circled in red has been in every video and seems out of place. All of their other tools are stored inside or underneath eaves to keep them out of the rain. Why would they haphazardly leave this ladder in the weather where it will rapidly age and become unsafe?

Perhaps it is the only way to get to the items stored in the attic. Items like winter clothing and such.

They visited a neighbor to have oats dehulled and to collect wood-shavings.

Their neighbor's house has the same architectural feature.

Reapplying grout to the outdoor stove at the 10:30 mark.
 

The profile and spine of this knife looks a lot like a knife used to fillet fish.

 

Small details like that make me wonder if fish is a large part of their diet.

Random note: I think there must be a steady market for small luxuries like fingernail polish even when war is raging in the middle and on the other end of the country.

Family Party After-Action-Report

Yesterday was when my sister hosted the extended-family Christmas party.

Mom died two years ago and Dad died in 2019. Last two Christmases were not particularly festive as the family regrouped. 

Five siblings and our spouses attended. 

Seven of the next generation + five of their spouses attended.

Eleven "little ones" were in attendance. 

I got to hold a couple of babies and feed one a bottle.

White Elephant gifts were exchanged by random-lot and then the gift stealing followed.

The older geezers talked about our new knees, hips and issues with vision and spines. We also talked about the exceptional mobility of athletes in college sports and how that impacted recruiting, talent retention and program success/failures. In many ways it mirrors the issues on the productive side of the economy.

The oldest man sported hearing-aids and he turned them off when it got loud. Then he smiled. 

The mature women talked about family matters.

The young guys talked about jobs, the complications of home-repairs in hold houses, wood stoves and the cost-of-living. 

The girls (about third-grade) retired to the bedroom where we had left our coats and talked about "boys". 

We watched a couple walk across the frozen lake from north-to-south. It has been several years since December was cold in southern Michigan to where anybody dared attempt that in December (much less in the first half of December). They made the crossing without going swimming.

They were not walking side-by-side. The man was walking about 7 paces in front of the woman. Maybe the ice had started hissing-and-cracking. Ice will usually "tell you" when you are being stupid and spreading out reduces the risk of falling through. If you are alone and you hear that, spread out your feet and shift only part of your weight as you move rather than lifting them. Slide each foot in-turn. Oh...and head back to shore.

Or maybe it was just a case of the man was in a hurry. 

I ate too much and moved too little and we stayed too long. It was a magnificent party and it had a splendid turn-out. The crowd is a testament to what a great hostess my sister and her husband are. I am sure there are tens-of-millions of parties across the US that are nearly identical, but this is the party I attended.