On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:32:52 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> And let us not forget the early influence of Adam Weishaupt! Just look
>> at your dollarbills!
>
> It's those 33rd Degree Masons...
>

Always!

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:30:36 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Interesting! There might be a train ride on my next trip to the US. The
>> wife seems to be more and more interested in it, since neither of us
>> enjoys driving. Let's see what we decide upon. I suspect we might
>> actually go in late 2025.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela
>
> The Northeast Corridor and southern California are the best bets. Outside
> of that you're rolling the dice.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#/media/
> File:Amtrak_network_map_2016.svg

Let's see! She has become fascinated with train videos now. There's this
crescent railway from New orleans to hmm... was it new york (?)... I think
that's one she had in mind.

> Theoretically Amtrak trains have priority over freight trains. In practice
> freight pays the bills and Amtrak is a federally subsidized money sink. It
> makes sense in the northeast. when I worked in Boston I sometimes had to
> go to New York City. By the time you get to Logan, jump through the hoops,
> land at JFK, and take ground transportation into the city, 4 hours from
> downtown Boston to downtown NY looks good. The company's travel people
> didn't think that way. 'It's only an hour and a half flight.'

I usually do the same if I need to go to Gothenburg. Since there's a city
airport in Stockholm, you could get there a bit faster with plane, but the
difference was quite small. Now they are closing the city airport, which
means I would lose 2 hours going to the international one, so the train
would make much more sense. Especially since I can walk around and work
all the way. The only danger is autumn and winter when the trains are
completely unpredictable, but spring and summer works fairly ok.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:37:41 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 19:06:04 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> It's the ponytail. Always the ponytail.
>>>
>>> This town is overflowing with old men with beards and ponytails. I
>>> don't know how many times an utter stranger has come up and started a
>>> conversation assuming they knew me. We all look the same.
>>
>> Hmm, on second though, does that mean that the entire town is full of
>> honorable and dignified Unix-men?
>
> Possibly. There was an attempt to start a Linux users group about 15 years
> ago but it fizzled out. Sort of like c.o.l.m it didn't attract anybody but
> Linux users and since we were all experienced Linux users what was there
> to talk about? There were a presentations but they tended to be esoterica
> that didn't interest anybody but the person who brought the topic up.

Sounds like the typical, dignified, linux/unix man! ;)

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:38:08 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> All it takes is patience. Just wait and see!
>
> https://www.kpax.com/news/montana-news/montanas-southern-passenger-train-
> service-may-not-be-on-time
>
> "The goal to see passenger rail in Montana by 2030 will be difficult to
> achieve"

Well.. there's always 2040!

> There is a lot of history involved. The Great Northern railroad ran across
> the northern part of the state, close to the Canadian border. The area is
> still referred to as the Hi-Line since it was the northernmost railroad in
> the US. There isn't much there, but that's the Amtrak route.
>
> https://takemytrip.com/2017/11/driving-hi-line-across-montana/
>
> The Northern Pacific line runs through the central part of the state where
> people actually live.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_station_(Northern_Pacific_Railway)
>
> Nice station. I've seen a couple of tourist trains that must have gotten
> lost. There is another historic station.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_station_(Milwaukee_Road)
>
> That one is out of the question. Most of the Milwaukee Road tracks were
> torn up and turned into bike paths. The Milwaukee was ahead of its time.
> They electrified 438 miles from Harlowtown MT to Avery ID in 1916. That
> was quite a thing since there is a 1.6 mile tunnel at St. Paul Pass. If
> you've ever been through a tunnel behind a steam locomotive you can
> appreciate the context.

I am always fascinated by all these train related web sites. Few ways of
travel seem to awaken and inspire the passion, as travel by train!

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:35:40 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Many, on my mothers side of the family, have lived in the US for at
>> least a year or two, but all of them (me included) eventually came back
>> to where we came from.
>
> They were Norwegians but I like to compare Rolvaag with Hamsun. Rolvaag
> wrote 'Giants in the Earth' about the Norwegians in the Dakotas in the
> 1870s. He had emigrated and stayed in the US.

You inspired me, and I added Giants in the earth to my christmas wishlist
this year. I think it is/was very difficult to get hold of, but let's see
what santa brings this year!

> Hamsun spent a few years in America in the 1880s but went back. 'Hunger'
> and some of his early works were a little strange but 'Growth of the Soil'
> is set in rural Norway. There are many parallels to trying to make a life
> in rural Dakota.
>
>
> 'Giants in the Earth' follows Per Hansa and his wife, Beret. Per really
> wants to make a new life in America; Beret really wants to go home. She
> eventually goes more or less insane. I don't know how well she would have
> done in rural Norway either.

Sounds like Mobergs utvandrarna where the woman wants to go home, and the
man wants to stay. Kind of weird that my wife now wants to move, and I
want to stay. ;)

On the other hand, since there will be surveillanec cameras all over our
apartment complex, I think that's a sign from god that we should move. ;)
Hence my sudden interest in plots and a fortress of solitude.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:37:12 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Brilliant! I doubt I would fit in though. I've always had a very regular
>> and non-inspiring crewcut for as long as I can remember.
>
> When I was a kid it was common for kids to get a brush cut in the summer.
> I got talked into it one year. I don't have the type of hair any amount of
> butch wax can make presentable.

Another thing that's not for me. I don't have the time nor do I care for
hair products and stylized hair cuts. The problem is that after a month or
two it starts to look bad, in my opinion. The wife though, for some reason
loves it when I have longer hair, but I don't feel comfortable with it, so
she is always angry when I ask for 12 mm in the back, and shorter in
front.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:20:24 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:46:52 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> I always thought about starting a mega-church. Seems like a nice
>>>> business!
>>>> I wonder if the time has passed, or if there are any fairly recent
>>>> mega churches started by some elite psychologist?
>>>
>>> There isn't enough population to really go mega but a church I pass on
>>> the way to town has aspirations. It sends out colorful postcards and
>>> has signboards on its property promoting activities.
>>>
>>> https://crosspointmt.com/plan-a-visit
>>
>> Very modern! My european views have warped my expectations. A church
>> that's less than 200 years old?? ;)
>
> Speak of the devil, yesterday's mail was a glossy postcard inviting me to
> 'Come Home for Christmas at Crosspoint'. There is also the 'Drive-Thru
> Live Nativity/Choir of Angels' on the 21th, 6:00-8:00 PM. That must be a
> pisser. I noticed they were building a rather large manger in the parking
> lot but I didn't know they'd lined up angels.
>
> I've only been there for events on New Years Eve but I figure a proper
> church should look like this:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> St._Francis_Xavier_Church_(Missoula,_Montana)

Now we're talking!!

On 2024-12-20, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

> I'm in the camp believing that if everything worked, and you have an uploaded
> intelligence that for all intents and purposes acts like you, it wouldn't be
> you. I like conscious continuity, but many transhumanists do not require that
> or believe that.

On a related note, is it really reincarnation if you can't remember past lives?

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 20/12/2024 21:28, D wrote:
> I usually do the same if I need to go to Gothenburg. Since there's a
> city airport in Stockholm, you could get there a bit faster with plane,
> but the difference was quite small. Now they are closing the city
> airport, which means I would lose 2 hours going to the international
> one, so the train would make much more sense. Especially since I can
> walk around and work all the way. The only danger is autumn and winter
> when the trains are completely unpredictable, but spring and summer
> works fairly ok.

Is Gothenburg srill a reasonable place to be. My sister lived there, but
left. I heard it was now another 'stan...
...Like Malmö

--
"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:24:19 +0100, D wrote:

> Hutterite turkeys? Had no idea such a thing existed! I learned today
> that the japanese eat KFC chicken for christmas, since turkey is very
> hard to get in japan.
>
> If you know someone, maybe Hutterite turkey export to japan might be
> your ticket to wealth and fame! =D

https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/hutterite-turkeys-popular-for-
thanksgiving-dinner_20160510235145833

There must have been a surplus. I was at Pattee Creek yesterday picking up
the makings for sauerbraten and there was a freezer full at 99 cents a
pound. People do eat turkey at other times than Thanksgiving but that's
what the whole turkey industry is geared for.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:36:45 +0100, D wrote:

> Another thing that's not for me. I don't have the time nor do I care for
> hair products and stylized hair cuts.

Someone on X yesterday asked for beard oil recommendations. I couldn't
resist recommending Rotella T4 15W-40. My beard gets oiled when something
goes very wrong with a maintenance project.

That's the basis for my style. Brush it back and tie it. Done. No awkward
questions from barbers about what I want.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:28:40 +0100, D wrote:

> . The only danger is autumn and winter when the trains are completely
> unpredictable, but spring and summer works fairly ok.

I took the train from Albany to NYC a couple of times in the late '60s
when the New York Central was headed for bankruptcy. Heat was optional in
the winter.

It was sad. Grand Central Terminal was theirs and the Empire State Express
was famous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxK9-jachh8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhY2-gNG9k

That one brought back memories. I had a Lionel train set but nothing as
elaborate as that one. There were little pellets you dropped in the
smokestack to create the smoke effect. They probably contained 17
different carcinogens but those were more innocent times.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:34:51 +0100, D wrote:

> Sounds like Mobergs utvandrarna where the woman wants to go home, and
> the man wants to stay. Kind of weird that my wife now wants to move, and
> I want to stay.

It's a good read. Part of Beret's problem was the Dakotas are mostly
steppes. Per had his farming but all she had was looking out at endless
grass or during the winter endless white snow. He realizes she is
depressed and has the brainstorm to whitewash the inside of the cabin to
brighten it up. That put her over the edge.

Rolvaag himself grew up on Dønna island in a family that fished in
Lofoten. Looking at photos of that area I wonder if that made his
descriptions of the horror of endless prairies a personal thing. The land
was available and cheap but it must have taken a while to adapt. I don't
do well in the flatlands and don't think I could handle it.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:31:38 +0100, D wrote:

> I am always fascinated by all these train related web sites. Few ways of
> travel seem to awaken and inspire the passion, as travel by train!

There is a mystique even for people where train travel isn't feasible. So
much has been lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_(Albany,_New_York)

That was replaced by

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany%E2%80%93Rensselaer_station

More than the architecture, Union Station was in the heart of Albany.
Rensselaer is a small town on the other side of the river so it's like
landing at JFK. "Okay, I'm here. What do I do now?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_(Troy,_New_York)

When I was very young my mother and I took the train from there to go over
to the Boston Flower show. They just tore that one down. If you wanted to
take the train you had to drive to Albany or, after they shut that one
down, Rensselaer.

So in my lifetime rail travel has went from a common occurrence to an
inconvenient, expensive way to travel outside of specific corridors.

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:38:11 +0100, D wrote:

>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> St._Francis_Xavier_Church_(Missoula,_Montana)
>
> Now we're talking!!

Leaving theology entirely aside Catholics always had a much better
aesthetic sense than Protestants. The protestants even parsed the
decalogue to wind up with "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"
rather than "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain"
that the Catholics and Lutherans use. Bunch of damn dour Taliban types.

Statues! Candles! Incense! Paintings! A church isn't supposed to look like
a barn!

Of course, the Catholics seem determined to give that all away. Francis X
has streaming video of the Mass. I watched once and hardly recognized it.

On 2024-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhY2-gNG9k
>
> That one brought back memories. I had a Lionel train set but nothing as
> elaborate as that one. There were little pellets you dropped in the
> smokestack to create the smoke effect. They probably contained 17
> different carcinogens but those were more innocent times.

Back then, everybody was smoking so much that a few smoke pellets
were neglegible.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 12/20/24 4:18 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> writes:
>> However there is ONE group - the Basques - who seem to have come
>> quite early and were not over-run.
>
> The local language does seem to have been resistant to replacement for a
> few thousand years. However the population genetics is rather less
> static, with almost complete Y-chromosome replacement by R1b-M269 after
> 2000BCE.

I'd heard that - but don't ask me for a ref.

> See e.g. Olalde et al, The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over
> the past 8000 years.

As I kinda menntioned in all this ... there's really
just no such thing as 'genetic purity' in Europe.
Over thousands of years various people/groups kept
moving around and moving around and screwing anything
interesting they encountered.

So, is 'nation' more a CULTURAL THING instead ?

'Culture' seems more resilient - genes rather
secondary.

As for the Basques ... ONLY a 'Y' replacement seems
very odd .....

We were still speculating about 'Cheddar Man'. For
awhile they figured African/N.African mostly based
on the length/size/profile of bones. What LITTLE DNA
they could get suggests a migrant from western Europe,
but it was a small sample. There's also question about
WHAT "western euro" actually MEANT, genetically, at
the exact timeframe.

I'm gonna go with what I and others suggested, that
as the ice retreated LOTS of people from LOTS of
places started wandering north to see what was to
be seen and went all humpy with anyone else they
encountered. We're seeing a huge composite result
with various 'holes' created by sheer chance.

Basques, largely, represent such a 'hole' - minimal
genetic mixing compared to most. Probably the
mountain geography and/or perhaps extreme xenophobia.

On 12/20/24 3:30 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:22:40 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> I laugh at those 'ancestry' companies who will tell their clients
>> that they're "12% French" or whatever.
>
> But the percentages are so precise! And the story changes! The last time I
> looked it said I-M253 was very rare among 23andMe customers. I found that
> odd since it can run to 50% in parts of Scandinavia. Didn't they have any
> Scandinavian customers? Today is says
>
> 'I-M253 is relatively common among 23andMe customers.'
>
> Dammit, I'm not special anymore!

But they got your MONEY - and, briefly, appealed
to your vanity :-)

It's all a joke. Mixing mixing mixing .... with
some Neanderthal thrown in.

On 12/20/24 4:40 AM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 19:03:59 +0100, D wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2024, Rich wrote:
>>>
>>>> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>>>> I have contemplated ditching planes for trains, but I don't think the
>>>>> result would be much better.  Perhaps less security theater?
>>>>
>>>> Here in the US, what little "train service" we have has zero security
>>>> theater.  You arrive, walk in with your luggage rolling behind you, and
>>>> no one checks you over, pats you down, feels you up, or otherwise does
>>>> anything "security check" wise.  You show your ticket at the counter
>>>> (to prove you purchased a ticket), go sit and wait, walk out to the
>>>> train with your luggage when it is time, and climb aboard.
>>>
>>> This is very promising! I imagine they have a very beautiful restaurant
>>> where you can enjoy a glass of champagne, and perhaps a delicious 3
>>> course meal as well? =D
>>>
>>> Or maybe it is the swedish version, where you get to enjoy an old,
>>> plastic wrapped sandwich? ;)
>>
>> If you're very, very lucky. There is a group in Indiana that had restored
>> an old steam engine and takes it out for a spin every now and then for
>> fund raisers They also have period cars and volunteers do serve beverages
>> and meals. As a bonus the destination was Peru IN and the Circus Hall of
>> Fame.
>>
>> A couple of times I took Amtrak from Ft. Wayne to Chicago. It was a
>> difference experience. Amtrak on the Boston to DC corridor gets a lot of
>> love; other areas not so much.
>
> There was a train between Stockholm and Gothenburg that focused on the
> "luxury" niche.
>
> https://www.blataget.com/en/history/
>
> The web site is super crappy, and hardly any photos (why??) but you can
> kind of see the interior which looks alright and the food as well. Sadly
> I do not think they ru nany longer. =(
>
> I love the fact that the phone nr on the web site goes to someones
> regular cellphone and not to a company switch board.

Trains are kinda 'yesterday tech' ... and now the profit
margins are negligible. Don't expect 'luxury' unless YOU
are willing to pay for it and the transport co gets enough
high-paying passengers to justify. If ENOUGH then then Hell
Yes they will hire gourmet chefs and such and put in
comfy seats.

Otherwise it's the 10-day-old plastic-wrapped sandwich.

It's a pity zeppelins proved so impractical - THOSE had
a 'romance' and you COULD go for 'luxury'. Cruise ships
are a step up, but maybe only one step.

Anyway, for now, expect all transportation to be Just
Another Uber. We will have to wait for Musk to build
a luxury Earth/Mars travel line.

On 12/20/24 10:59 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhY2-gNG9k
>>
>> That one brought back memories. I had a Lionel train set but nothing as
>> elaborate as that one. There were little pellets you dropped in the
>> smokestack to create the smoke effect. They probably contained 17
>> different carcinogens but those were more innocent times.
>
> Back then, everybody was smoking so much that a few smoke pellets
> were neglegible.

Note a lot of those gens are still alive while all
the latter ones seem to be dropping dead of cancers
in their 20s/30s.

On 12/20/24 12:19 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:31:30 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> It's the 'hand-wave' thing that sunk the first AI paradigm.
>> Marv Minsky (who posted on usenet for awhile) and friends saw how
>> easily 'decisions' could be done with a transistor or two and assumed
>> it would thus be easy to build an AI. AC Clarke used the Minsky
>> optimism when fashioning the idea of "HAL".
>
> Minsky threw a wrench in the works with his 9169 'Perceptrons'. He had
> tried to implement B. F. skinner's operant condition with a analog lashup
> that sort of worked if the vacuum tubes didn't burn out. Rosenblatt has
> built a 'Perceptron' and Minsky pointed out original design couldn't
> handle an XOR. That sent research down another rabbit hole.
>
> By the '80s the original perceptron had evolved into a multilayer network
> train by back propagation. When I played around with it 'Parallel
> Distributed Processing' by Rumelhart and McClelland was THE book.
>
> https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4424/Parallel-Distributed-
> Processing-Volume
>
> The ideas were fascinating but the computing power wasn't there. Most of
> what I learned then is still relevant to TensorFlow and the other neural
> network approaches except now there are the $30,000 Nvidia GPUs to do the
> heavy lifting.
>
> The '80s neural networks weren't practical so the focus shifted to expert
> systems until they petered out. The boom and bust cycles led to the term
> 'AI Winter'
>
> https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-winter
>
> I think something worthwhile will come from this cycle but ultimately it
> won't be the LLMs that are getting all the hype.

With Minsky and friends it was just naive enthusiasm ...
it was SO EASY to do logic and thus it seemed SO EASY
to wire bits of it together and get an 'intelligence'.

The same gen also promised us those flying cars and
luxury Mars living by 1999 .......

IMHO, if we're gonna get anything largely indistinguishable
from 'sentience' these days it'll be the next few gens of
LLMs. You can argue it'd be "fake" - but if you fake something
WELL ENOUGH it's not fake anymore. LLMs and near derivs are
where the HUGE money is these days.

I did have a few posts with Minsky as his vision was
falling apart. He did admit that he'd totally underestimated
the problem. A few transistors did NOT replace 600 million
years of evolutionary experiments - 'intelligence'/'self'
was really deep/complex with endless fuzzy processing and
pattern matching steps between 'I' and 'O'.

However I still keep a copy of his "Society Of Mind"
as a reminder of yesterday's optimism. He THOUGHT
about it, TRIED ... and thus eventual failure was
not really a failure - it just inspired new directions.
There had to be a foundation to build on.

There was a short-lived UK series about androids
that eventually came to self-awareness (and the
hate/fear directed towards them). The idea there
was that 'self' was a sort of fractal, self-reflective,
kind of paradigm. I suspect they had something there.
Chat/LLMs maybe can't achieve that on their own, but
who says you can't splice on a few more methods ?
Organic brains seem to have LOTS of layers, lots
of 'little people' inside that merge into 'Me'.

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 03:59:06 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2024-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhY2-gNG9k
>>
>> That one brought back memories. I had a Lionel train set but nothing
>> as elaborate as that one. There were little pellets you dropped in the
>> smokestack to create the smoke effect. They probably contained 17
>> different carcinogens but those were more innocent times.
>
> Back then, everybody was smoking so much that a few smoke pellets were
> neglegible.

When we went on a trip my father would break open a carton of Luckies and
spread a few packs on the dashboard for easy access. I was getting as bad
in my 20s. One day my lead tech asked for a cigarette. I gave her the pack
and told her to keep it. The hard part wasn't the nicotine but if you
stopped to talk to some one in the shop you both lit up, if you got a cup
of coffee, you lit a cigarette. If you went to the crapper...

Still alive, I guess.

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 02:27:47 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> I did have a few posts with Minsky as his vision was falling apart.
> He did admit that he'd totally underestimated the problem. A few
> transistors did NOT replace 600 million years of evolutionary
> experiments - 'intelligence'/'self' was really deep/complex with
> endless fuzzy processing and pattern matching steps between 'I' and
> 'O'.

https://historyof.ai/snarc/

Some tubes, milsurp gyropilots, a couple of chain driven pots, and I'm
good to go... He would have been in his early 20s when you figure you've
got the world by the balls.

I do find the attempts to model neurophysiology fascinating. I was about
20 years too early or I probably would have wound up in cognitive science.

On 12/20/24 4:21 PM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:31:30 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>>    It's the 'hand-wave' thing that sunk the first AI paradigm.
>>>    Marv Minsky (who posted on usenet for awhile) and friends saw how
>>>    easily 'decisions' could be done with a transistor or two and assumed
>>>    it would thus be easy to build an AI. AC Clarke used the Minsky
>>>    optimism when fashioning the idea of "HAL".
>>
>> Minsky threw a wrench in the works with his 9169 'Perceptrons'. He had
>> tried to implement B. F. skinner's operant condition with a analog lashup
>> that sort of worked if the vacuum tubes didn't burn out. Rosenblatt has
>> built a 'Perceptron' and Minsky pointed out original design couldn't
>> handle an XOR. That sent research down another rabbit hole.
>>
>> By the '80s the original perceptron had evolved into a multilayer network
>> train by back propagation. When I played around with it 'Parallel
>> Distributed Processing' by Rumelhart and McClelland was THE book.
>>
>> https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4424/Parallel-Distributed-
>> Processing-Volume
>>
>> The ideas were fascinating but the computing power wasn't there. Most of
>> what I learned then is still relevant to TensorFlow and the other neural
>> network approaches except now there are the $30,000 Nvidia GPUs to do the
>> heavy lifting.
>>
>> The '80s neural networks weren't practical so the focus shifted to expert
>> systems until they petered out. The boom and bust cycles led to the term
>> 'AI Winter'
>>
>> https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-winter
>>
>> I think something worthwhile will come from this cycle but ultimately it
>> won't be the LLMs that are getting all the hype.
>
> I wonder if not facebook, open sourcing their llm threw quite a wrench
> in the Open AI machinery this time.
>
> Open AI:s ai is stagnating, and I think perhaps the development of the
> open source models will be good enough so that open ai might not be able
> to recoup all the massive amounts of money that has been invested in them.
>
> Then another ai winter, and after that, our dear llms might be ready for
> prime time!

I think what LLMs do is a PART of 'intelligence/self',
just not ALL of it. OTHER methods/layers maybe CAN
be spliced in to fill the weak bits.

Brains are an evolutionary hodgepodge - 'whatever was
needed/worked'. 600+ million years of field testing.

Kinda amazed they work at all. There's also a weird,
almost 'holographic', nature to them - some of those
kids blasted by hydrocephalus, with little grey
matter left, still managed average or even a bit
above average IQs. It's the same with 'cerebral
palsy' cases. They STILL produce a 'person' in
there. The System WANTS to work.

Anyway, LLMs contaminated by some NN action and
e-motions and maybe a few other odd bits ... and
don't forget to include those hard-wired evolutionary
sub-routines.

TIGER !!!

On 12/20/24 4:22 PM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:57:38 +0100, D wrote:
>>
>>> But now we have LLM:s!  What I find interesting is how different people
>>> view them. I find the free ones you can play with online to be
>>> incredibly boring. I use them as a kind of search engine on steroids for
>>> stuff that is not important (for entertainment purposes).
>>
>> Brave added one to the search engine but I turned it off. Might as
>> well go
>> straight to reddit which seems to be heavily mined.
>>
>
> That's the thing. LLM:s for me, are good at summarizing articles, so
> instead of being "ai" they are just a nice complement to searching, and
> as long as they work and don't hallucinate, they save me some clicks.
> That's about it.
>
> Oh, and writing government policy documents. When doing that, their
> hallucinations are actually an asset! ;)

Ha Ha Ha - SO true there :-)

Anyway, as I say elsewhere, LLMs are just PART of
'intelligence'. OTHER parts need to be spliced in.
Brains are just WEIRD ... 600+ million years of
field-tested neural insanity.

However, somewhere in there - early - "ME-ism"
emerged. There's some neat-o trick to that which
we haven't yet grasped. We're not thinking quite
right about 'self'. I think THAT is the basic
paradigm and then you add more IQ and such ONTO it.