tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60577992024-03-12T23:38:26.914-05:00--Mike--an attempt to push the world in a better directionMike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.comBlogger721125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-15519651188118098932023-10-27T06:50:00.003-05:002023-10-27T06:53:03.826-05:00The contest of wills begins<p> So, this morning when I click on my morning link to <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan" target="_blank">Peter Zeihan</a>, I've been greeted with this, instead of him talking from some new location.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigrcpJAHtKUdi8OQ7n3m4rEgeuOmqjhFPpOqghC1cF39pWGdRYTrpbcpoGi8GRv6U4TZxpOIXTAxohJx07_llSSLpqeq3PeVEkW8gTH47OzEWRoHzkJl7Os0H3ZxVtZfiwA9PPogx-TspyZw7sC_9zgDuu5JBec0jWTN-RxYHIZvOxYrFiUWnv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="692" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigrcpJAHtKUdi8OQ7n3m4rEgeuOmqjhFPpOqghC1cF39pWGdRYTrpbcpoGi8GRv6U4TZxpOIXTAxohJx07_llSSLpqeq3PeVEkW8gTH47OzEWRoHzkJl7Os0H3ZxVtZfiwA9PPogx-TspyZw7sC_9zgDuu5JBec0jWTN-RxYHIZvOxYrFiUWnv" width="246" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>We've entered the contest of wills. Google/YouTube thinks that they can force ads down my throat in service of their customers(the advertisers), and is willing to block my ad blocker in an attempt to force my compliance.<br /><br />I'm sure there will eventually be a different platform to watch Peter's videos on... and the wait begins. We programmers/technicians have a superpower, we're willing to put up with a ton of grief to bend things to our will, it's how we route around the normal rules and get shit done.<br /><br />I curate my sources, and Peter is one of them, I'm not willing to pollute that stream of information with the Ads that Google wants to force feed me. It'll be interesting to see how this all works out.<p></p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-13147683522165435242023-06-27T14:29:00.001-05:002023-06-27T14:29:21.240-05:00On "Software Engineering" circa 2023I've been a programmer since the 1980s. I feel that the peak of the field was somewhere between 1995 and 2000. We had Windows 95/98, the Internet, and all programs were local applications run on a desktop, that people had gotten very productive on.<br /><br />The existence of Visual Basic and VBA support in the Microsoft Office Suite made it possible, and even practical, for most domain experts to build usable applications that allowed everyone to get their jobs done. If there were performance problems, or it needed to be made more reliable, professional programmers would be brought in to rebuild things in a more properly designed manner.... it was at this point that we almost shifted to being actual Software Engineers, and professionalized.<br /><br />Since then VB was cast into the pyre as a sacrifice to the very unnecessary migration to .Net, and the bloat that ensued as desktop programming lost a decade of productivity, people decided to just shove everything onto the web.<br /><br />It was only as this was starting to happen that Steve Jobs further crippled programming by introducing the iPhone, and suddenly GUI applications were expected to work on tiny screens (in either orientation) without proper input hardware like 3 button mice and keyboards, connected across a slow and unreliable network connection.<br /><br />Needless to say, the last 2 decades have been a total loss as far as programmer productivity goes, with one shining exception.... GIT. Git has its flaws, mostly arising when people don't realize it's a set of snapshots that fake storing deltas, and not the other way around.<br /><br />GIT/GitHub, et al... are fantastic. The ability to just keep multiple machines up to sync without hassle in seconds is sooooo good. I used to keep stacks of floppy disks with ZIP files of source code, all manually managed.<br /><br />In the future, we need to recover to the point where you can drag/drop GUI elements and have them work anywhere, like we were with VB/Delphi/Hypercard.<br /><br />When we get there, we'll let users build basic applications, and we can finally professionalize and apply actual engineering practices to the art of programming.<br /><br />Until then, <b><i style="background-color: #f4cccc;">please stop calling it engineering.</i></b> We don't put in anywhere near the effort that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)" target="_blank">Margaret Hamilton</a> (the first actual Software Engineer) and crew did, in safely getting men to the moon. We're programmers, not Engineers. As Uncle Bob said, we don't profess anything. We certainly don't use engineering practices as described by The Engineer Guy.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Example: You can plug a lamp into an outlet, and in the US, it can draw up to 15 amperes, and under almost all circumstances, you can't damage the wiring in the house via a fault in the load.<br /><br />We have no equivalent in software. Chroot, sandboxes, etc... are far too unsafe. We have no standard way of letting the user choose resources to give to applications at run time.<br /><br />The worst part is, most people don't even see the deficiency. Imagine the current power grid with no fuses or circuit breakers.... the first wiring mistake would crash civilization.<br /><br />We can do better, we must do better.Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-55800889937020877772023-04-03T23:50:00.002-05:002023-04-03T23:50:11.151-05:00Mike teaches Chat GPT about Cesium Beam Atomic clocks<p>Here's the text of my most recent interaction with ChatGPT</p><p>Mike Warot: <i>explain how cesium beam atomic clocks work, in the style of Richard Feynman</i></p><p>Ah, yes, cesium beam atomic clocks - a fascinating piece of technology! Let me explain how they work in the style of Richard Feynman.</p><p><br /></p><p>First, let's take a step back and talk about what we mean by time. Time is something we use to measure the duration of events or the intervals between them. But what is it really? Is it a physical quantity, like distance or mass? Well, it turns out that time is a bit more elusive than that. In fact, one could argue that time is simply what a clock measures.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, how do we make a good clock? We need something that oscillates regularly and predictably. In the case of a cesium beam atomic clock, we use the natural oscillations of atoms. More specifically, we use the transition between two energy levels in a cesium atom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here's how it works. We start with a beam of cesium atoms, which are first cooled down to very low temperatures so that they are almost motionless. Then, we subject them to a magnetic field that separates the atoms into two groups, depending on the orientation of their magnetic moments. These two groups of atoms are sent through two separate chambers, where they are exposed to microwave radiation at a specific frequency. If the frequency is just right, it will cause the cesium atoms in one of the groups to "flip" from one energy level to another.</p><p><br /></p><p>This flipping of the energy levels can be detected by measuring the absorption of the microwave radiation by the atoms. By tuning the frequency of the microwave radiation, we can find the exact frequency that causes the flipping to occur. This frequency is known as the resonance frequency of the cesium atom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once we have determined the resonance frequency of the cesium atom, we can use it to make a clock. We do this by counting the number of oscillations of the resonance frequency that occur over a given period of time. By definition, one second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the resonance frequency of the cesium atom.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, that's how cesium beam atomic clocks work. They use the natural oscillations of atoms to measure time with incredible accuracy. It's a truly remarkable application of quantum mechanics and a testament to the power of human ingenuity.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Mike Warot: <i>but that's not correct, the cesium beam clock I worked on started with an oven containing the cesium</i></p><p>You are absolutely right, and I apologize for any confusion my previous answer may have caused. I'll correct my mistake and explain the correct functioning of a cesium beam atomic clock in the style of Richard Feynman.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium beam atomic clock is a device that uses the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to measure time with extraordinary precision. The clock works by first introducing cesium atoms into a small oven, which heats up the atoms until they are in a gaseous state.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium atoms are then sent through a tube, where they are subjected to a series of magnetic and electric fields. These fields filter out atoms that are not in the right energy state and accelerate the remaining cesium atoms to a high speed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Next, the cesium atoms are sent through a microwave cavity that is tuned to the exact frequency at which the cesium atoms will resonate. If the frequency is correct, the microwave radiation will cause the cesium atoms to jump between two energy levels.</p><p><br /></p><p>At this point, a detector measures the number of cesium atoms that have jumped between the energy levels. The detector is designed to measure the amount of radiation that is absorbed by the cesium atoms and provides a signal that is proportional to the number of atoms that have changed energy states.</p><p><br /></p><p>The signal from the detector is then used to adjust the frequency of a quartz oscillator that is used to generate the microwave radiation. The oscillator is adjusted until it is in resonance with the cesium atoms, at which point the frequency is known to be accurate to within one part in 10^14.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, the frequency of the quartz oscillator is used to keep time. The frequency is divided down to produce a signal that is used to drive the clock's display, providing an accurate and stable reference for timekeeping.</p><p><br /></p><p>In summary, the cesium beam atomic clock is a remarkable device that takes advantage of the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to provide incredibly precise timekeeping. Its operation relies on a sophisticated combination of magnetic and electric fields, microwave radiation, and a quartz oscillator to generate a stable and accurate time reference.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mike Warot: <i>but that's not true, the cesium atoms in the clock I repaired were driven by the motion when they exited the holes in the oven, and were not accelerated after that</i></p><p>I apologize for my previous mistake and any confusion it may have caused. Thank you for correcting me. Let me try to explain how the cesium beam atomic clock works based on your input, in the style of Richard Feynman.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium beam atomic clock is a device that uses the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to measure time with exceptional accuracy. The clock starts with a small oven containing cesium atoms. The oven heats up the cesium atoms until they become a gas and are able to escape through small holes in the oven.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium atoms that escape from the oven are then directed into a vacuum chamber, where they pass through a series of collimating and focussing lenses. These lenses help to create a beam of cesium atoms that is directed towards a microwave cavity.</p><p><br /></p><p>Inside the microwave cavity, the cesium atoms are exposed to microwave radiation at a specific frequency. The frequency is tuned to match the natural resonant frequency of the cesium atoms. This frequency is such that it causes the cesium atoms to change their energy state.</p><p><br /></p><p>A detector positioned at the end of the microwave cavity measures the number of cesium atoms that have changed energy state. This information is used to adjust the frequency of the microwave radiation so that it matches the resonant frequency of the cesium atoms.</p><p><br /></p><p>The oscillation frequency of the cesium atoms is then used to keep time. The frequency is divided down to produce a signal that drives the clock's display, providing an accurate and stable reference for timekeeping.</p><p><br /></p><p>In summary, the cesium beam atomic clock is a device that uses the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to measure time with incredible accuracy. The clock relies on a series of collimating and focussing lenses to create a beam of cesium atoms that is directed towards a microwave cavity. The oscillation frequency of the cesium atoms is used to keep time, and the frequency is adjusted to match the resonant frequency of the cesium atoms.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mike Warot: <i>there are no magnetic lenses in the cesium clock I repaired, but there were magnets to sort their energy state, so you got that part right</i></p><p>Thank you for the clarification. Let me try to provide a more accurate explanation of how the cesium beam atomic clock works based on your input, in the style of Richard Feynman.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium beam atomic clock is a device that uses the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to measure time with incredible accuracy. The clock starts with a small oven containing cesium atoms. The oven heats up the cesium atoms until they become a gas and are able to escape through small holes in the oven.</p><p><br /></p><p>The cesium atoms that escape from the oven are then directed into a vacuum chamber, where they pass through a series of magnets. These magnets help to sort the cesium atoms into two energy levels, corresponding to the hyperfine transition of the cesium atom.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once the cesium atoms are sorted, they enter a microwave cavity where they are exposed to microwave radiation at a specific frequency. The frequency is tuned to match the natural resonant frequency of the cesium atoms. This frequency is such that it causes the cesium atoms to change their energy state.</p><p><br /></p><p>A detector positioned at the end of the microwave cavity measures the number of cesium atoms that have changed energy state. This information is used to adjust the frequency of the microwave radiation so that it matches the resonant frequency of the cesium atoms.</p><p><br /></p><p>The oscillation frequency of the cesium atoms is then used to keep time. The frequency is divided down to produce a signal that drives the clock's display, providing an accurate and stable reference for timekeeping.</p><p><br /></p><p>In summary, the cesium beam atomic clock is a device that uses the natural oscillations of cesium atoms to measure time with incredible accuracy. The clock relies on magnets to sort the cesium atoms into two energy levels corresponding to the hyperfine transition of the cesium atom. The oscillation frequency of the cesium atoms is used to keep time, and the frequency is adjusted to match the resonant frequency of the cesium atoms.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Mike Warot: <i>that's pretty good, thank you!</i></p><p>You're welcome! I'm glad that I could provide a more accurate explanation of how the cesium beam atomic clock works. If you have any more questions or clarifications, feel free to ask!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-6370815984751761092023-02-17T14:39:00.003-06:002023-02-17T14:54:47.172-06:00If I had a million dollars (to do physics)<p> If I had a million $USD to do physics, I'd do some experiments.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Berry Phase/Electromagnetic 4 Potential experiments</h3><br />First purchase/rental - a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID" target="_blank">SQUID</a> - Superconducting QUantum Interference Device.<br /><br />My first hypothesis to check is regarding the A field, also known as the electromagnetic vector potential. I hypothesize that if you were to take a bifilar wound coil of quite a few turns, the flux when the windings were connected to oppose each other would correctly generate no B field (detectable with a compass, magnetometer, etc), but I believe there WOULD be an A field generated, perhaps much weaker, than that of the field when the windings aided each other, but non-zero.<br /><br />I'd then investigate the polarity and form of this field in 3d around the coils, etc.<br /><br />I'd also perform the same experiment with a set of toroidally wound coils, a pair, and see what type of A fields they generate, and see if everything matches simulations.<br /><br />--<p></p><p>A refinement of this experiment would be to use a pair of atomic clocks, one outside a "null set of coils", and the other inside them (with actual B magnetic fields canceled), to see if there was any drift with power applied.</p><p>---</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Gravimetric / Inertial measurements</h3><p>Purchase - Vacuum Pump</p><p>Next, a torsion bridge, in the manner of Cavendish... a long (as long as I could get in the garage) rod inside a copper/aluminum tube, pumped to as good a vacuum as I could reasonably get. Using electromagnetic forces on the ends, test out various materials to see measure their gravimetric effects on the bridge.<br /><br />I'm particularly interested to see if some materials have a different G than others<br /><br /><br />Also, it would be interesting to see if a large capacitor had a different gravimetric effect if it were charged/not charged (whilst inside a faraday cage, of course)</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-71493231841601492102022-11-18T09:41:00.004-06:002022-11-18T11:50:47.378-06:00On the impending loss of Twitter, and the value of social graphs<p>Well, with the impending demise of Twitter, it looks like I'll be following <a href="https://nice-marmot.net/" target="_blank">Dave Rogers</a>, and the rest of the world, on RSS again, along with everyone else. I've got a list... it's about 250 entries long, that will make the start of my RSS feeds.<br /><br />Twitter had an immediacy that RSS lacks, having solved the problem of feedback by outsourcing the policing of spam, etc. to a staff that has been let go.<br /><br />I like seeing what the people I follow are saying, but the idea of retweeting at a click was seductive, but a bit <i>too easy</i> because you never say WHY you retweet someone, you're just blindly sharing an idea without adding any <i><b>new</b></i> context.</p><p>I can't help but feel that if <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/" target="_blank">Aaron Swartz</a> were still with us, he'd have figured out something more powerful, open source, and wonderful to replace Twitter at this time.</p><p>In losing Twitter, I lose links to the comments of friends now gone like <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelocc" target="_blank">Michael O'Connor Clarke</a>, and they likely aren't archived anywhere else, except the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150721064240/http://www.michaelocc.com:80/" target="_blank">Internet Archive of his blog</a>.<br /><br />I've suffered my own health issues, and this loss (or threat) of Twitter just serves to remind me of the things I'm thankful for, friends and family I've shared this journey with.<br /><br />I've yet to pick out an RSS reader....I'll post here when I do.<br /><br />[Update] <a href="http://www.rssowl.org/" target="_blank">RSSowl</a> seems to be a usable, locally installed and run Desktop OS RSS Reader. It's only quirk is that it needs the 32 bit Java runtime, regardless of your 64 bit OS, etc. </p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-80612965664478627942022-10-13T11:40:00.002-05:002022-10-13T11:40:37.936-05:00Future Security Threats - Example One - The Threat from Stable Diffusion<p>I'm playing with <a href="https://github.com/cmdr2/stable-diffusion-ui#installation" target="_blank">Stable Diffusion</a> on my PC, to see what kind of things it comes up with, and learn a bit more about the nature of AI. I've been trying to visualize the words of my friend Lloyd Smith, who well before his passing often said in jest</p><p></p><blockquote>When I die... I want to be sat upright in a chair at a card table, on the surface of the moon, with a royal flush in my hands, and a shit eating grin on my face. That will give the astronomy students something fun to look for.</blockquote>There have been quite a few thought provoking outputs, some of which worked out really well<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvhFPn_sdNZ5MkrvuG3f3PVEqAyKvZ75tphRYph7hxDYJVw3gRUmHPjvkHg8YORB_63I4fzK3_EpW25ZlDUNhUNsyY9x8z0QHOqwq7q0d9KTPTfkGBqy61nOCsJ3HT4_ytPFmUs1vQyQiK8jox9e5HU14TeROXerealizaDBqOjw8etrQ4Q/s512/Lloyd%20Smith%20-%20man_winning_poker_card_game__seated_at_a_table_on__8ab353f8_GFPGANv1.3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvhFPn_sdNZ5MkrvuG3f3PVEqAyKvZ75tphRYph7hxDYJVw3gRUmHPjvkHg8YORB_63I4fzK3_EpW25ZlDUNhUNsyY9x8z0QHOqwq7q0d9KTPTfkGBqy61nOCsJ3HT4_ytPFmUs1vQyQiK8jox9e5HU14TeROXerealizaDBqOjw8etrQ4Q/s320/Lloyd%20Smith%20-%20man_winning_poker_card_game__seated_at_a_table_on__8ab353f8_GFPGANv1.3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>But in browsing through them this morning, out of the 500+ images I've generated on this theme, I saw this<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyNOmCdz-2EPdB1nP3RySb9MDvUgnT0ZQS_USuAbg2acABUA2d0H2R4UJjz9F127sEPNNRcyURcPTqLucj58Qua8qajYvIISiLZ6DV9jYg-plnXA1eKVPffTW8oA2vMctPGO1GeeMzz5pHsYdPKD3k1BtL46Kz3DRRnKyKmrgmhOBtO83aGg/s512/sd%20-%20Watermark%20leakage%20from%20Stable%20Diffusion%20-%20Future%20Security%20Threat.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyNOmCdz-2EPdB1nP3RySb9MDvUgnT0ZQS_USuAbg2acABUA2d0H2R4UJjz9F127sEPNNRcyURcPTqLucj58Qua8qajYvIISiLZ6DV9jYg-plnXA1eKVPffTW8oA2vMctPGO1GeeMzz5pHsYdPKD3k1BtL46Kz3DRRnKyKmrgmhOBtO83aGg/s320/sd%20-%20Watermark%20leakage%20from%20Stable%20Diffusion%20-%20Future%20Security%20Threat.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Which immediately brought back to mind the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gvuqBORyBg" target="_blank">NDC Keynote Presentation by Laura Bell</a> I watched last night, which addressed future security threats. One of the possibilities was the threat of curated data sets... and here it was in my own PC.<br /><div><p>I don't know how, but somewhere in this curated set of data, copyrights might have been broken. The future is here.</p></div>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-25226665707199184812022-09-23T08:29:00.001-05:002022-09-23T08:31:23.490-05:00Mike's law of capabilities<pre style="overflow-wrap: anywhere; overflow: auto; padding: 2px;"><code style="background-color: #f6f6ef; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Any sufficiently popular computing environment contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of capability based security.</code>
</pre>In a recent Hacker News thread[1], I quoted from the source article<br /><blockquote>Continuing a legacy is an honorable task, except in programming. </blockquote><div>This is the most important of the items in the list. The "upgrade or you're unclean" ethos has some very deep roots. It goes all the way down to the security model of our operating systems.</div><div>It was perfectly reasonable to assume that a user knew what they were doing with their own files back in the days when Unix was written. That wasn't assumed in the world of mainframes, which were designed to multiplex hardware across tens, hundreds, or even thousands of jobs. In mainframes, your job is explicitly given resources to use and a run time environment. No matter what went wrong, a job run for Acme Inc couldn't corrupt the files of Bob's Distributor. <br />We don't have that... we've been lead to believe that we just have to be pure enough, our code has to be perfect enough, and defect free, in order to have safety. We blame everything except the OS, mostly because we don't want to cast doubt on the wisdom of Linus, and the sanctity of Linux.<br />We recreate the mainframe model, over and over, in part, not in whole. It's like Greenspun's 10th rule[2].</div><div>Any sufficiently popular computing environment contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of capability based security. That's why we have Virtual Machines, Containers, and now WASM... which I hope actually manages to fend off the stupidity of letting an application decide which files to access.</div><div>We need to make better choices. Legacies are a choice, lots of old stuff is tossed by kids all the time, the legacies are the good things kept from the past. Keeping legacies alive is a choice, let's chose wisely.<br /><br />[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32935466<br />[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule</div><div><p> </p></div>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-62433327396319141332022-07-02T23:47:00.003-05:002022-07-02T23:49:54.392-05:00We need to do a hard thing<p> We do need to do a hard thing, we need to reconfigure our world to cope with the end of the one time greatest economic bonanza of all times... the fossil fuel pulse.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you think I'm about to go on about global warming/climate change/etc... NOPE</p><p><br /></p><p>We've tapped most of the easy to reach oil in the world. Now we're fracking to get at things, and those wells have decay rates of 40%/year, instead of per decade. If we stopped all drilling, we'd have 40% less oil next year from all the new wells. (Or so I've been lead to believe. It's my opinion that we've got 20 years, at the outside to complete this project)<br /><br />The new shockingly high fuel costs? They're here to stay, no matter who "runs the country". They stopped building new refineries in the 1970s, because they knew this day was coming, and it didn't make sense to build more capacity for an industry they knew was heading to a peak. The only surprise was that some things broke faster than planned.</p><p><br /></p><p>Our civilization depends on a resource in decline. All the people at the top have zero clue as to how to actively manage the situation. We, the people, have to start from the grass roots and figure this out ourselves.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-34116904514126291032022-07-01T12:01:00.009-05:002022-07-01T12:10:41.704-05:00Abortion isn't all about ending life - saying it is, is evil!<div>I've lost multiple nights of sleep, and simply have no coping skills because there exist in this world a large number of people who just love calling abortion "Baby Murder"<br /><br /></div><div>These people obviously know the difference between a dead child lying on the ground in a classroom in Texas, and a few cells removed in the first half of a pregnancy... yet they persist in this evil game.</div><div><br />If the upcoming laws in my Red State had been in effect 2 decades ago, I'd have no wife, she would have been killed, rather than have life saving procedure after we lost a more than welcome pregnancy. Thus she wouldn't have been with me to bring our lovely child into the world later.</div><div><br />How many men will lose their wives, sisters, daughters... how many children will lose their mothers because of this evil befalling the land?</div><div><br />How the f*ck can I get some sleep at night, knowing of all the evil indifference these people carry in their hearts?</div>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-39630767108210019422022-06-12T20:31:00.002-05:002022-06-12T20:31:53.906-05:00A chance to act, let's close the Boyfriend Loophole - the right way!<p> Closing the "Boyfriend Loophole" could do a great deal to stop future mass shootings. Someone who can't handle their feelings around people close to them enough to avoid violence, shouldn't be allowed to own firearms.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is THE BEST CHANCE we have at the moment, likely in the next year or two, for actually fixing some of the biggest problems facing our nation. The huge overlap between those who commit domestic violence, and mass shooters, is well proven.</p><p><br /></p><p>I hope that we can push our representatives to do the right thing on this. Pretty much EVERYONE agrees that this legislation is needed, let's not let them f*ck it up.</p><div>Here's Beau explaining why the details matter.<br /><br /><br /></div>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2uYTxcEYDTg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-54594682496097379942022-05-31T08:25:00.003-05:002022-05-31T08:25:33.959-05:00Memex RewindIn 1945, the person in charge of research and development, who oversaw most of the science that won WWII with the help of Logistics, wrote an article about the most pressing task facing mankind, the need to organize and access the ever growing flood of information created by all of this activity.<br /><br />
His vision was expressed in an article titled "As We May Think", which was eventually republished by Time Magazine. Many people credit it for the vision that eventually became the world wide web. I also held this view for a long time.
<br /><br />I no longer hold that view. <br /><br />The web as we use it is about as useful as a picture of a box of tools, instead of the tools themselves. There was a vague notion expressed that you could gather up a huge canvas of inter-related thoughts and ideas, and freely associate them, and share the whole of that work effortlessly.
We don't have it. I'm trying to use my time and effort to change that by making something that gets a bit more of that toolset into my hands, and hopefully into everyone's eventually.<br /><br />Wish me luck.Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-45123488912150954912022-05-17T00:09:00.001-05:002022-05-17T00:09:42.091-05:00Linux compared to Window 11 in terms of suckage<p> I came across <a href="https://youtu.be/DEBQLjGJi2g?t=163" target="_blank">this comparison video</a>, and it makes a comparison of features between Pop Linux and Windows 11 For the most part, they're equivalent.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DEBQLjGJi2g?start=167" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-7410133691307902032022-05-02T19:28:00.004-05:002022-05-02T19:29:51.364-05:00How the Democrats kicked out actual liberals<p> Krystal Ball lays out exactly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCMox4dLz9s">how the Clintons sold out the liberal agenda.</a><br /></p><p><br /></p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-91474035306482441042022-05-02T16:38:00.000-05:002022-05-02T16:38:01.180-05:00Thoughts on writing<br />Nobody writes well written prose.<br /><br />Everyone writes, then does a better or worse job of editing. Like code, prose tends to crystalize into smaller and higher quality pieces over time.<br /><br />--- Process ---<br /><br />Write all of your thoughts in a stream of consciousness flow, don't worry about how it looks, just get your thoughts out of your head, and into the storage medium of your choice. This frees up stack space in your brain.<br /><br />Next - Iterate. Strategies you can use to help include:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Read it out loud to yourself. You'll immediately notice typos, grammatical and flow issues.</li><li>Walk away from it to gain some distance in time and space. When you come back you'll notice gaps or repetitions.</li></ul>Repeat until you're happy.Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-21302934619946320132022-03-14T14:43:00.001-05:002022-03-14T14:43:05.400-05:00An excellent response, that didn't answer the question.<p> <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30666030">Ask HN</a>: As you get older, do you see programming as merely a means to an end?</p><p><br /></p><p>38 points by amichail 18 hours ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 45 comments</p><p><br /></p><p>That is, you become more interested in what your app does rather than the programming involved to get it to do that?</p><p><br /></p><p>--- My Reply --- at <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30674662">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30674662</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Programming has gone through a weird path of effort/reward. Initially, you had to invest time and a lot of money to build your own computer from a kit, debug any errors, and get to the point of having your own, personal computer. At that point, any working results were amazing, as there was a fair chance you were the first person to solve the given problem.</p><p><br /></p><p>This lasted an amazingly long time. In the matter of less than a decade, the same amount of money, minus the time and effort of building and constructing, got you a computer, could be skipped. For the same amount of money, you got a computer with a display, floppy disks, and it just worked out of the box.</p><p><br /></p><p>DOS, BASIC, Turbo Pascal, Sidekick, PKzip, and so many tools game flooding in to make those computers even more easier to program, and productive.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was at THAT POINT, where I started really making money as a programmer.</p><p><br /></p><p>A decade passes, Windows 95 / Macintosh come along, and we get Visual Basic / Delphi / Hypercard. WOW... the amount of effort goes up just a tiny bit, but you can do amazing things, and that code will run reliably for most of your users without much tweaking on the programmers part.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then networking, the internet, SQL as a layer, Email, Microsoft Office, etc. all boost productivity for the users. The table stakes remain remarkably stable.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then the iPhone comes along, and with a lot of effort, and the approval of Apple, you can build a program that people can carry around in their pockets. Apple decides to limit the retail price of apps, and bottleneck things through the App store. Programming gets harder, and more specialized. Ugh</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, the web has grown popular, and the idea that a program should just work anywhere shatters the simplicity of a program running on a single computer, directly talking to the OS that controls the display, and takes input. Again, programming gets harder, and more specialized.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now we're at the point, where you're expected to make a program, sell it for less than a few dollars, support that program on any random phone, and hope that the two app stores don't arbitrarily change the rules and cut you off. The incentives go way up with audience size, and down with the giant filter of the app store.</p><p><br /></p><p>OR</p><p><br /></p><p>To route around the damage of the App store, you are expected to make your program available on a server on the web, deal with hackers, man in the middle attacks, wildly varying desktop and mobile web browsers, bandwidth and legal restrictions, to deliver results to a user that might be at a desktop with multiple 4K screens on a gigabit internet... all the way to a person using an phone with no keyboard, who pays for data transfer, and might lose connection at any moment, might rotate the screen, and wants to interact with video, multiple cameras, gps, and any number of other sources of input or output.</p><p><br /></p><p>After all of that discourse to set perspective. Yes, I find it amazing that it can be done at all. I'm saddened that Delphi on Windows XP was probably the most productive GUI build environment I'll ever experience as a programmer.</p><p><br /></p><p>It's hard not to see the table stakes now as a huge barrier. For my own personal programs, it brings me joy every time something works. Every time I overcome a series of challenges, and my will becomes a tool... it amazes and overjoys me. I love programming. It's frustrating as hell, but I love it. I fail to see how anyone could stick with it if they didn't, at some level.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-46678818959148856032022-03-11T11:53:00.001-06:002022-03-11T11:53:14.240-06:00Here's what a "No Fly Zone" over Ukraine really means<div>a "no fly" zone involves acquiring and maintaining air superiority over Ukraine and neighboring territory. To do this we would have to destroy any surface to air radar and missile sites in or near Ukraine. We would also have to shoot down any enemy aircraft that violated that airspace.</div><div><br /></div><div>In sum total, it would be a declaration of war against Belarus and Russia.</div><div><br /></div><div>It would then be up to Putin to decide if, where and when he wants to deploy the worlds largest stockpile of ThermoNuclear weapons.</div><div><br /></div><div>Likely it would take about 15 minutes to confirm any launch, after which there might be a few minutes left to let the public know to make peace with God.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your personal outcome at that point, depends on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox8ZDbCNTCE" target="_blank">preparation and luck</a>:</div><div><br /></div><div>A> You've felt the blast, and are going to die, maybe in seconds, maybe in days</div><div><br /></div><div>B> You've seen the flash, and if you take cover soon enough, can survive the fallout, might survive and watch the total collapse of civilization.</div>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-86215555344787763142022-02-18T12:42:00.000-06:002022-02-18T12:42:40.430-06:00In response to Doc's story of the Story<p>Doc Searls was at it again back in 2018 doing a <a href="https://tedxsantabarbara.com/2018/doc-searls/?fbclid=IwAR2JLbVdgLJgOxxUPPf1QoLLW6pvp-905guW1opbk9NlFX-QLwPIBcxmCbI" target="_blank">Ted Talk</a>. His story rhymes with his overall message, and the things he wrote back then. I think it's time to examine how events have evolved since then.<br /><br />*This story is me revising and extending my <a href="http://doc.blog/2020/02/01/theLostCenter.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reply</a> on Facebook. (It's buried in the comments, don't bother)<br /><br />Doc worried about the <a href="http://doc.blog/2020/02/01/theLostCenter.html" target="_blank">lost center</a> in coverage of the news, and overall discussion. I too feel the loss. There's an old saying, "The Net treats Censorship as Damage, and routes around it". I think that it takes time in the world of atoms, but that John Gilmore was right.<br /><br />Communications, Data Storage, and Compute infrastructure have grown exponentially with the commercialized internet. The physical costs of producing and sharing content have fallen to almost zero. It's not perfect, and there are some left out, but for the most part anyone can be online, and have a say in the world.<br /><br />In response to the visible failure of advertising driven funding, crowd funding now is filling in the missing channel of support to keep those who wish to share on the internet going. A number of new journalists are arising. Some of them cover things traditionally called news. It's not perfect, and there are bits of censorship creeping in around the edges, but it is working.<br /><br />For me, my most trusted news sources at the moment are spread across YouTube. It makes it possible for me to give authority to my choices, make them my authoritative sources. I'm filling in that lost center with the people who I think can best tell me what I need to know, and why others tell the stories they do.<br /><br />Now, having a centrist view does make discussions with those entrained in the left/right thought bubbles frustrating at times, but who knows, maybe we'll all pull the center back together?<br /><br />Here's how I approach news gathering in 2022.<br /><br />I'd heard from the mainstream that leaks in via friends that there was a ruckus brewing over Ukraine. For this story, most trusted sources were Beau of the Fifth Column, Breaking Points with Krystal and Sagaar, and Robb Law.<br /><br />To be really sure, I stuck with first hand imaging via a list of live webcams across Ukraine. It was fairly easy to be certain no invasion was feared by the locals as they went about skiing in Ivano-Frankivsk, walking across Sophia Square in Kiev, or Pysanka museum (also in Ivano-Frankivsk).</p><p>For practical advice, matters of instruction, the future is really here. You can learn all manner of technical facts and skills. There are some limitations I've noticed, for instance one channel on machining had a really great multi-part series on the intricacies of making a part of a fyre arm, which he was forced to remove. I have no desire to actually do that, but there were a number of creative methods used, like using a quill of a milling machine as a vertical broach, and this was an outstanding example of why you would do it. That knowledge is now walled off, and considered tainted by association.</p><p>I've long stated that our computers aren't safe because of a design flaw at their core. I now believe that this censorious tendency in the chain of payment is a similar danger.</p><p>It remains to be seen how we'll route around it.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-15433370402868911172022-02-13T10:56:00.002-06:002022-02-13T10:56:39.598-06:00Let's choose a better timeline<p> I believe in this causal chain,</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Computers are insecure</li><li>Which many bad actors find profit in exploiting</li><li>Which makes new web sites a risk</li><li>Which makes users prefer their known "safe" spaces</li><li>Which leads to walled gardens</li><li>Which then sell the "users" for profit to advertisers</li><li>Which incentivizes dark behavior of those walled gardens</li><li>Which then attract the rentier class</li><li>Which then leverage control for more power</li></ul><p></p><p>I believe this causal chain can be broken by fixing computer security. The necessary research was done in the 1970s. The Bell-Lapadula model [1] in 1973 was one of the significant results.</p><p>The Principle of Least Privilege [2] was adopted in the Unix system in a weak form. The superuser (root) account was a special privilege, which administrators and code was supposed to use as little as possible.</p><p>There were (are???) implementations of a multi-level secure systems, which saw limited application in the military, and briefly elsewhere. However, for general use, the root/user separation was widely seen as good enough.</p><p>There are now efforts to fully extend operating systems so that they can provide tools so that the users can also use the Principle of Least Privilege. I believe that eventually it will be as easy to use these as more conventional systems.</p><p>In these systems, no default permissions are given when running a program, the allowed resources, also known as capabilities, must be specified. This is similar to deciding which bank notes you are going to hand to a cashier, instead of handing over your wallet. It is up to US to demand that it be as easy for any user to do so, in a transparent way.</p><p>It is my hope, that should this model be accepted, a new causal chain will arise</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Computers will be made secure</li><li>Which users will grow to trust</li><li>Which will allow experimentation</li><li>Which allows new ways of communicating</li><li>Which don't require corporate sponsorship</li><li>Which doesn't require the rentier class</li><li>Which helps innovation</li><li>Which helps society</li></ul><p></p><p>1 - https://web.archive.org/web/20060618092351/http://www.albany.edu/acc/courses/ia/classics/belllapadula1.pdf</p><p>2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_privilege</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-50532281184112403122022-02-06T20:44:00.005-06:002022-02-06T20:44:54.240-06:00My life's principle<p> I just watched this --> Brett Victor - <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiPFmIMxFc" target="_blank">Inventing on principle</a>. In this video, he demonstrates some things he's done with computers and programming that are quite impressive to me. He does this as an illustration of the idea of living according to a principle, or more correctly, causing a new principle to be brought into the world. After explaining with the examples from his own work, he goes on to discuss some other notable people, and the principles they brought to the world.</p><p>Watching that video gave me a moment of clarity. I'm writing it up now, and I'll work on the wording over time, but here's a rough sketch of my principle that I intend to bring to the world.</p><p><b>No person should <i><u>ever</u></i> be forced to blindly trust a computer to do the right thing.</b> Computing shouldn't be either blindly trust the black box, or get nothing done.</p><p>Nobody hands over their wallet to buy an ice cream cone, you can just take the exact change out and pay.<br />It would be extraordinary for a competent adult to hand their wallet or purse to a clerk, and trust them to take the correct amount of money, and make the appropriate change.<br /><br />It should be just as extraordinary to give a program you wish to run access to ALL of your files. You should be able just pick a file, or folder, source, destination, whatever resource you deem appropriate, and let the program have those resources, <b>and nothing else</b>!<br /><br />You should be able to completely trust that nothing else was given to the program behind the scenes.</p><p>This is widely regarded as impossible to do. I intend to change that. I know it can be done. I have to convince everyone else.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-22489865725261164432022-02-06T04:21:00.003-06:002022-02-06T04:21:44.119-06:00I reject the Left and the Right<p>We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, recognized that in order to have a well informed population, capable of intelligently governing itself, must have a freedom of the press, and freedom of expression.</p><p>We saw the dangers of Nazi book burning, and rightly teach in school that is something that open and free societies do not do.</p><p>We saw the dangers of an official press, such as Pravda, in the Soviet Union, and we rightly agree that a free press, and freedom of expression are a cornerstone of the American Identity. They are a foundation of our strength, and not a weakness.</p><p>Now I see friends who support one or the other of these forms of censorship. </p><p>Conservatives support the banning of teaching students history and other truths that are hard for their parents to come to terms with.</p><p>Liberals who want to set up an official truth, a new American Ministry of Truth, with Fauci at its head, which must never be questioned, lest the plague caused by the unclean, sub-human, enemy be brought to the good, Covid fearing, Woke masses.</p><p>I reject both the Woke Left, and the Trump as Fuhrer Right.</p><p>Don't you dare call me either, this is MY Country, the United States of America. We're quite capable of sorting out shit on our own through fierce debate among free citizens. It is our duty to stand up, and call out those who would shackle us.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-18608185241139476972022-02-05T18:03:00.003-06:002022-02-05T18:03:31.342-06:00My reply to a vital but boring Congressional Inquiry<p>This is my statement in response to </p><p>https://www.regulations.gov/document/COLC-2021-0009-0001</p><p>-----</p><p>I am Michael Warot, a US Citizen residing in Munster, Indiana.</p><p>In regard to question 3: It is my observation that "voluntary" copyright enforcement mechanisms are being used as a means of censorship by parties who wish to prohibit criticism of themselves or their content in a form. The fair use exemption of copyright law requires careful consideration, and can not be automated, nor should it be. </p><p>Therefor, as concerns question 7: I believe that legislation should be undertaken to prohibit the automation of copyright infringement claims. While it may be reasonable to automate a screening process, if content is deemed to infringe copyright, the name of a US Citizen who made the decision, their reason for the decisions, and the time/date of their decision, and if they are employed by a corporation to make that decision, the name and contact information of that superior should ALL be part of a public record, to be made available in bulk to the US public to help use provide oversight of the process.</p><p>Thank you very much for your time and attention.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-40899338432383268222022-01-20T19:52:00.001-06:002022-01-20T19:52:06.304-06:00What's all this NFT stuff, anyway?<p>This is what a non-digital, non fungible token (NFT) looks like. If you look closely, the serial number of the US Dollar appears in the image. This ties the image to a particular US Dollar note, it can't be swapped with any other dollar, it is now NON-fungible, and the dollar is the token.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg41Vv71RzfuiONr3VA3O0sGnJs1EK4kiBesZ5DMYR4Q2Hvwv20q_mZQTLkUHUbit_DVU29Llw39lHMoE__CP-3GOYsMxp6GQ7aUov0nbIbLLVEtLoURttZXAsckPCprEQxP2YE_zpw-WgWY151QeEDc-Wlt2h_hS8HOhGoILO9Cw6HJTzTdQ=s4928" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="4928" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg41Vv71RzfuiONr3VA3O0sGnJs1EK4kiBesZ5DMYR4Q2Hvwv20q_mZQTLkUHUbit_DVU29Llw39lHMoE__CP-3GOYsMxp6GQ7aUov0nbIbLLVEtLoURttZXAsckPCprEQxP2YE_zpw-WgWY151QeEDc-Wlt2h_hS8HOhGoILO9Cw6HJTzTdQ=w640-h424" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>With online NFTs, the Dollar is replaced with a small amount of cryptocurrency, which has a unique serial number as well. The picture is just a picture, with a signature including the serial number of the cryptocurrency embedded in it, off screen, in a way that can't be forged. Usually there's also a web site that displays the image so you can show your friends online.</p><p>Why someone would pay big bucks for an NFT is beyond me.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-4620048960958882492021-11-21T12:22:00.002-06:002021-11-21T12:22:38.069-06:00Dear Democrats, please stop making Rittenhouse a hero.<p> I might be overthinking it, but it seems to me that the "woke" people in this country are the ones actually turning Rittenhouse into a hero. By completely ignoring the nuance, they prove just how disconnected they are from reality to the normies.</p><p>Look what happened when the clown show that is Trump turned up in 2016. Calling more than half of the country who agreed that the working class was ignored deplorable, and then arguing details, instead of addressing the issues didn't work so well, did it?</p><p>Most people wanted relief from the effects of Globalization on the working class. They were willing to put up with Clown Show Man as a big f*ck you to the Dems who abandoned them.</p><p>With Rittenhouse, you're ignoring the wanton acts that led up to the tragedy, and acting like this dumb kid was a KKK grand wizard on a quest to kill people of color.</p><p>Most people don't want to see their homes and workplaces burned down because of incompetence on the part of government.</p><p>Who knows what will happen if you continue to conflate protest (which we all support) with Riots (which most of us condemn).</p><p>Please stop making Kyle into a hero, and let him live a quiet life dealing with the after-effects of this whole politically induced shit show.</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-10053883042646138102021-09-06T01:45:00.004-05:002021-09-06T01:45:56.022-05:00Youtube channels of note<p>Because I took a while to write it up elsewhere, I figured I'm archive a copy here as well.<br /><br />Wow this list got long... sorry</p><p><br /></p><p>Beau of the Fifth Column has a pretty interesting take on events, a strong interest in community networks, and deep insight into what holds society together - https://www.youtube.com/c/BeauoftheFifthColumn</p><p><br /></p><p>Breaking Points - Krystal Ball is a liberal, Saagar Enjeti is a conservative, and together they seek to cover the important stories that would otherwise go unnoticed - </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints</p><p><br /></p><p>Knowing Better is an ex soldier who offers long insightful views on a variety of topics - https://www.youtube.com/c/KnowingBetter</p><p><br /></p><p>Lex Fridman was born in the Soviet Union, worked at MIT in AI, and does interesting interviews with a wide variety of people - https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman</p><p><br /></p><p>MKBHD reviews technology in a fairly credible way - https://www.youtube.com/c/mkbhd</p><p><br /></p><p>MrPete222 is the shop teacher you never had - fascinating lessons and stories about machining - https://www.youtube.com/c/mrpete222</p><p><br /></p><p>Phil DeDranco does a daily rundown of the stories that you might get in the media, with a fairly balanced view - https://www.youtube.com/c/PhilipDeFranco</p><p><br /></p><p>Practical Engineering is an explainer channel about most things infrastructure - https://www.youtube.com/c/PracticalEngineeringChannel</p><p><br /></p><p>Rebecca Watson provides a welcome skeptical view and calls out quite a lot of BS related to science - https://www.youtube.com/skepchicks</p><p><br /></p><p>Rebel Wisdom is a project that is actively trying to figure out collective sense making in the modern era - https://www.youtube.com/c/RebelWisdom</p><p><br /></p><p>Sabine Hossenfelder is a commenter on all things physics - https://www.youtube.com/c/SabineHossenfelder</p><p><br /></p><p>Scott Manley provides commentary on all things space and rocket related - https://www.youtube.com/c/szyzyg</p><p><br /></p><p>Smarter Every Day is an engineer who provides interesting explainers about various subjects. He got permission to film and interview inside an active US nuclear attack sub... pretty cool - https://www.youtube.com/c/smartereveryday</p><p><br /></p><p>Technology connections does in depth explainers of everyday stuff you didn't realize you wanted to know more about, like how heat pumps or lanterns work. - https://www.youtube.com/c/TechnologyConnections</p><p><br /></p><p>Veritasium was founded by Derek Muller, who was looking for more effective ways of teaching, when he found that traditional education has almost zero effect at removing misconceptions - https://www.youtube.com/c/veritasium</p><p><br /></p><p>ZDogg is an MD who gives strong personal opinions on all things medical - https://www.youtube.com/c/ZDoggMD</p>Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6057799.post-299976852171404922021-08-16T16:55:00.002-05:002021-08-16T16:55:09.050-05:00Mike's basilisk<br /><br /> Mike's basilisk will hunt you down and kill you if you help realize <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/rokos-basilisk-the-most-terrifying-thought-experiment-of-all-time.html" target="_blank">Roko's basilisk</a>.<br /><br />However, if you help create Mike's basilisk, eventually it'll give you a fraction of a Bitcoin.<br /><br />Problem solved. 8)Mike Warothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12975818268596648269noreply@blogger.com0