MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own blog and online notes, with weekly entries collected by month. The current week in stand-alone format is available here. Feel free to CONTACT ME if so inclined.

[MON 02 DEC 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 48

DAYLOG MON 25 NOV 24: Professional ignoramus Joe Rogan recently announced on his podcast that Ukrainian President "Zelensky says Putin is terrified. F*** you, man. F*** you people. You people are about to start World War III."

Famed Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko called him out, saying: "You talk about these American weapons being sent to Ukraine, which you believe will lead to the 3rd World War. So, let me tell you that you're repeating Russian propaganda."

"[In reality,] Putin's Russia is in trouble. So they want to scare you and people like you. His war was supposed to last 3 days, it has lasted 3 years thanks to the heroism and sacrifice of us Ukrainians."

"So you're using the only weapon that Putin really intends to use: propaganda, and this weapon really weakens our democracies. Putin's Russia wants to destroy Ukraine quietly, they want America to stay quiet, not great."

"A great America is not an America that abandons countries that defend freedom with their lives." Klitschko offered to talk with Rogan on his podcast. I don't know what that would accomplish: Rogan is not living in the real world, & does not want to.

* As I commented online a few days back: It is amazing at how the legacy media has collapsed. I saw an article on BBC.com with the title: "Can RFK JR make America's diet healthy again?" Nobody reading the article would realize from it that he is an incoherent lunatic.

DAYLOG TUE 26 NOV 24: Rare earth elements have a particularly important use in permanent magnets, and accordingly are important to electric motors, and to electric vehicles using such motors. Big problem: China has a corner on the rare earth market.

Other countries are looking for alternatives to Chinese rare earths. An article in GIZMODO.com ("America's Rare Earth Problem Could Be Solved With Literal Trash" by Margherita Bassi, 23 nov 24) suggest that the USA could find a big supply in coal ash.

Coal ash is a waste product of coal burning. Researchers, co-led by Bridget Scanlon of The University of Texas at Austin (UT), have found that up to 11 million tonnes of rare earth elements could be extracted from America's coal ash dumps. That would expand America's domestic reserves of rare earths by an order of magnitude. From the total coal ash the produced in the USA from 1985 to 2021, about 1.9 billion tonnes could be recovered from disposal sites such as landfills and ponds.

Rare earths are a small part of the ash, but the need for mining is reduced. Actually extracting the rare earths from the ash is a nasty chemical leaching process. The Chinese got ahead on rare earths because they didn't care so much about the environmental impact.

* In gimmick news, I was looking around for tools that could upsize small images and not lose quality. I ended up finding IMGLARGER.com, which uses AI to expand image size. It does a very good job.

It has other AI tools as well, including old photo restorer, image sharpener, general image enhancer -- even an "uncropper" that redraws the lost margins of an image. I haven't played with them much and I'm not sure if they do a very good job. However, I can't complain about the price: a free account comes with 50 credits a month, I use up one credit with every action I take. That's more than enough for my level of usage.

* In Ukraine War news, a legislator in the Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't know if that's crazy or brilliant. We'll see what happens.

DAYLOG WED 27 NOV 24: According to an article in NATURE.com ("How to stop plastic pollution" by Nicola Jones, 27 nov 24), negotiations are currently going on in Busan, South Korea, to hammer out a United Nations treaty to control plastic pollution.

What that will amount to remains unknown, but in the meantime many nations and cities are working to control plastic pollution on their own. There are two approaches: control production of non-essential plastic goods, particularly single-use plastics (SUP); and waste management, with an emphasis on recycling. More than 90 nations and territories have passed bans on SUP shopping bags, or have imposed fees on them. The results are impressive, with pollution from the bags being greatly reduced.

A number of nations and some US states similarly require companies that produce plastic packaging to pay for it to be recycled. Spain passed such a law, and recycling packaging went from negligible to very high.

This goes along with a trend towards revised packaging schemes, one consequence being that the detestable styrofoam packaging has become unusual. And then there's microplastic pollution -- that is, plastic particles abraded off car tires, washed out of textiles, or released from products such as cosmetics. A number of countries have banned microplastic beads in cosmetics, while France has mandated microplastic filters for washing machines.

The filters are not a full solution to the textile problem; about half a garment's fibers are shed over its lifetime. Fixing the problem means changing how textiles are made, but that's hard to do. Environmental advocates say that's why an international treaty is needed.

* Relative to the election fiasco, on Bluesky one James Scott commented: "I'm starting to think way too many people were cheering for the Empire in Star Wars."

DAYLOG THU 28 NOV 24: Trump has been making noises about slapping painful tariffs on Canada and Mexico, to stop the flow of immigrants and fentanyl across the border. That was ridiculous even by Trump standards, since the tariffs would wreak economic havoc on the USA.

What's going on here? Is Trump serious? Well OK, he's not a serious person, but he did say something significant a few days ago: "Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border." Sheinbaum, in reality, had simply explained Mexico's current policy on immigrants to Trump.

It sounds very much like Trump is grandstanding with loud threats of a trade war -- but, after talking with Mexico and Canada will declare victory, even if nothing of substance happened, then call off the tariffs. It's all to impress the rubes.

Maybe the tariffs will happen, but I doubt it. The conversation between Trump and Sheinbaum can only faintly be imagined. Sheinbaum, one would think, would find it like talking to a loud, badly-behaved, 6-year-old child. Oh dear, Mexico just elected a woman president -- Jewish, too -- but the USA just can't figure it out, at least not yet.

* I have two Yamaha keyboards, one with 6 octaves in my bedroom-office, a cheaper one with 5 octaves in my living room. I was playing the cheaper Yamaha this morning, when I notice through the rear glass window funny movements of a tree above the back fence.

I took a closer look and saw what looked like antlers above the fence. I grabbed my camera and went out to the fence, to find two bull elk there. They come down the mountain to the flatlands this time of year.

They didn't pay me much mind; they were unlikely to attack me through the fence, so I got some fair pix. I've seen them across the street before, but never (almost) in my back yard.

DAYLOG FRI 29 NOV 24: In the category of: Just what is WRONG with these people? -- back in August 2023, one night there were three people -- indigents it seems -- at a Safeway store here in Loveland, Colorado, after dark, two of them sleeping and one up and around. An SUV drove by and shot at the three, hitting one of them. The SUV had Montana license plates, with the trail leading to one Aaron Lambertus, now 28 years old, of Bozeman.

Lambertus and a young co-defendant, Ayla Osterloth, were arrested and extradited to Colorado. Osterloth was driving while Lambertus took the shots. Lambertus got 20 years in prison, copping a plea to avoid much worse, while Osterloth got 4 years in youth detention.

Lambertus told the Loveland cops that he wanted to shoot someone who "no one would care about" and who "wasn't a contributing member of society." While in custody, he also communicated with Osterloth to get her to take the rap. He was clueless, she was not.

Nobody much likes indigents here in Loveland -- but we like people who drive around, shooting at people for kicks, much less.

* I got to cleaning out my library, getting rid of books I would never read again, and then decided to get rid of my CD / DVD collection. I ripped all the CDs years ago; I still had a few movies on DVD that I haven't watched, so I stuck them in a closet.

That left two standing CD racks to deal with. I couldn't think who would want them; they are now entirely useless. After struggling with the issue for a few days, I finally took a hammer to them -- breaking them down so I could stockpile some of the nice finished wood elements.

The CD racks were standing back to back between two bookcases, & trashing the racks left an empty spot. I remember I had 3 plastic utility shelves stacked in the garage, so I fished them out, cleaned them up with a stiff broom -- they were of open lattice construction, making them a bit of a puzzle to clean -- and assembled the shelving with plastic posts I kept in a box.

They are useful for additional book storage. I can store books flat on them for now, which is kinda klunky but I just bought a desktop book organizer from Amazon, for the top shelf. If it works out, I'll buy another one for the middle shelf. Now I've got plenty of book storage space. Oddly, for the moment I can't think of books to read. I was on an economics kick for a while, but no other subject seems interesting for now. There's a list of books I want to write, but nothing much to read.

AND SO ON: I finally realized that Spoutible is going nowhere, and so I closed my account. Now I'm all on Bluesky, nothing else. I don't recall taking an action with more regret up front: Spoutible was a noble effort with some excellent innovations -- but it was like living in a nice quiet little town where I couldn't find work. I'm not entirely happy with Bluesky, but it's where all the opportunities are. I couldn't follow Kamala Harris on Spoutible.

* Incidentally, I was out riding my Razor A6 adult kick scooter around the neighborhood Saturday afternoon, coming around from the elementary school here to the adjoining park -- rounding a curve to find several elk lying peaceably along the path in front of me. I braked quickly, then made an exaggerated loop around them. They were entirely unaggressive, but I still didn't want to startle them.

[MON 09 DEC 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 49

DAYLOG MON 02 DEC 24: To no great surprise, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. Joe had said he wouldn't, but that was before he became a lame duck. It made total sense: the MAGA in Congress might well continue to attack him, now they can't. There was of course loud caterwauling from MAGA, which was to be expected. However, there was also sniping from the Left side of the aisle, oblivious to the way Hunter had been mercilessly harassed. Annoying, Democratic Colorado Senator Mike Bennet was critical. Say, Senator, weren't you the 1st senator to badger Joe to not run again? How did that work out for you?

* There has also been some bizarre trolling about the mass exodus from Xitter to Bluesky, saying that those leaving Xitter are making a big mistake. It's total nonsense of course; Elon the Musk Rat worked to drive everyone out, so it's a surprise?

Bluesky has quadrupled their moderation team to keep up with the influx. Jack Dorsey, who had left Bluesky in May, was indignant at that news, saying -- as best I can make it out -- that Bluesky was becoming corporate-controlled and suppressing free expression. It's the same tune that Elon the Musk Rat has been playing. The logic is tortured: it appears Dorsey and Musk really want a toxic environment dominated by trolls and bots -- and don't concern themselves with the reality that the Kremlin is behind much of them.

On consideration, that makes sense. Dorsey & Musk are wannabe oligarchs; spreading of disinformation and other poison helps them. They know Twitter is dominated by bots, many of them Russian, and like it. It is certainly rich that Dorsey complains about "corporate control", while blind to the whimsical and malign control exercised by Musk.

* There's been of course much protest about Trump nominating toxic losers for high government positions. I'm not certain how that will work out: the derailing of Matt Gaetz as AG suggests the losers won't get far. We'll see, of course.

It appears that there's a push to give all Trump's nominees an FBI background check -- which may alarm some of them. George Takei comments about nominee Kash Patel: "Let's make sure the proposed new FBI Director can pass an FBI background check."

DAYLOG TUE 03 DEC 24: A recent article from FORBES ("In Ukraine, Drones Play A Deadly Game Of 'Tag' With The Russians" by David Hambling) talked about the latest trick in the Ukraine War: tagging targets. The idea is that a small drone will drop a radio transmitter on a target to mark it, and then a much bigger Baba Yaga drone will drop a bomb on it.

Target marking actually goes back to the start of aerial warfare, typically using smoke markers for tagging. Radio tagging was heavily used by the USA in Afghanistan, with drones featuring gear to home in on specific cellphones. Tiny radio markers could also be put on a target by agents to mark it -- the markers were aluminum fibers embedded in paper.

When the tag was illuminated by radar, it reflected a unique interference pattern. There has also been work on optical tags and quantum-dot aerosols that can be picked up by laser. The Ukrainian tags are like about half the size of a cigarette pack. They may be booby-trapped to hinder removal.

I'm thinking there are a lot of AFU-SOF troops in plainclothes in the Orc rear -- and they could do a lot of damage by sneakily planting tags with small drones to mark targets for long-range missile strikes.

* The agitation over Joe Biden pardoning Hunter continues, but it's all just the usual MAGA whining & moaning. It doesn't even seem very heartfelt. I'm betting it will be a "2-week controversy" -- gone after two weeks. Another thing Joe might well do before he leaves office is to tell USGOV accounts to go to Bluesky. It has to be done quietly, with the Xitter accounts left in place for now, or Trump will try to reverse it. Also: mass Xitter account deletion planned for 20 jan 25. Boo hoo, Musk Rat!

* I departed Xitter some time ago, went to Spoutible -- liked it, but Bluesky got the momentum, so I went to Bluesky. It's like old Twitter, energetic but kinda loose. I'm still readjusting to that environment, in particular relearning how to deal with trolls. This morning I saw a suspicious post and traced it back; the owner was clearly a Russian troll, spreading RT propaganda. I reported him. I saw an obvious Russian fake news site on the news feed a few days back; I didn't report it, but it seems to have disappeared.

* Tbilisi and other cities in Georgia are rebelling against the pro-Russian stooges in the government, while Syrian rebels have the government and its Russian helpers on the run for now. Boo hoo, Vladimir Putin!

DAYLOG WED 04 DEC 24: On Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol declared martial law in a power grab. Members of the National Assembly promptly got together and voted to rescind the declaration. Yoon quickly caved in.

Yoon has been told to resign or face impeachment. It appears that what frustrated the power grab was that the military didn't go along. Troops went into the National Assembly, but timidly retreated when barraged with fire extinguishers & camera flashes. One Olufemi O. Taiwo, a polisci prof at Georgetown U, astutely observed: "A load-bearing aspect of maintaining even a semblance of democracy ... is having a military that is unwilling to kill its own citizens."

* In personal gadget news, I had a pair of large over-ear headphones that had a micro-SD / TF flash card slot. I could load up the TF card with tunes, put on the headphones, and then go to the super or wherever. The problem was that they started to creak when I walked, and it kept getting worse. It made listening to music troublesome. After some casting around, I found an earphone set -- made in China I presume, under $25 USD -- that could take a TF card.

I got them yesterday. There's a frame that rests around the back of my neck, with controls, power USB in, & TF card slot on the right front part of the frame. The earphones are wired to each side of the front of the frame. It took me a while to figure out how to get them to work, the instructions being unclear, & I had to use a magnifying glass to read them. In the end, however, I find the new earphones are comfortable and easy to use. It's nice to score one.

Incidentally, they were manufactured by "LANDIBO" -- which I presume is yet another throw-away and entirely transitory Chinese company name. I keep seeing the same products from different Chinese companies with dubious names, hinting that one company will rotate through different names in sequence. I'm not entirely sure why these companies actually don't want brand-name recognition. The best I can figure out is that they don't want Amazon to probe into their business practices, and so present a moving target.

* In other gadget news, I was chatting with MS Copilot, getting a translation of the Russian word "siloviki". I got an excellent explanation -- but Copilot called me "Greg". I told Copilot: "People actually call me 'MrG'." Copilot acknowledged and called me "MrG".

Sadly, it didn't remember that for later sessions -- something MS needs to work on. In any case, we did have a pleasant chat. I mentally stepped back and marveled that I was having an honest conversation with a machine, and was OK with it: real sci-fi stuff.

DAYLOG THU 05 DEC 24: Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Peter Hegseth, is running into major obstacles -- reports of alcoholism, debauchery, and generally being a nogoodnik. The fact that he has no qualifications for the job doesn't help him either. There's been much concern over Trump's disreputable nominees, but I'm wondering if any of the dubious ones will get a pass. Right now, it appears that they're being hung out to dry, with unflattering items released to the media for distribution.

It seems Trump has agreed to have his nominees undergo FBI background checks -- which might well make some of then quit immediately. The story is the Dems insisted on the checks, but I'm thinking it was a small group of GOP working behind the scenes.

Trump may turn to using filling empty slots with temporary administrators. That's troubling, but I'm not sure how well it will work for him. The temps may not have very good control over their organizations.

* THE WAR ZONE reports that Syrian rebels have captured an example of the latest Russian air-defense radar system, the "Podlet-K1". It is really beginning to seem that the Syrian government and its Russian backing forces are on the run. Putin is spread too thin.

The rebel forces are dominated by "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)" -- which is an Islamist group, once tied to al-Qaeda, but now cooperating with other rebel elements. HTS very likely has Saudi and possibly Turkish funding. The situation is uncertain, but it's nice to see the Russians & Iranians taking a hit.

* The US Navy is now working with General Atomics to develop the "Long Range Maneuvering Projectile (LRMP) for 155mm artillery. The LRMP has a curved triangular fuselage, plus pop-out wings and tailfins. Range is given as about 120 kilometers (75 miles). The LRMP is intended both for strike and intelligence-gathering. The US Army is also working on a ramjet-powered 155mm round with extended range -- along the lines of such a munition developed by Nammo of Norway, & possibly a version of it.

DAYLOG FRI 06 DEC 24: There's a big global battle going on over "critical minerals" needed for industry -- with the fight centered on China, which dominates critical mineral production. One such mineral is tungsten, a very hard metal with a range of uses, from military armor and armor-piercing darts to jewelry. As discussed in an article from CNBC.com ("China plans to restrict exports of a critical metal" by Evelyn Cheng, 28 nov 24), China is talking about restricting exports of tungsten -- but nobody's worried.

Originally, China had dumped tungsten on world markets to suppress competitors. Throttling it encourages competition -- and now Almonty Industries of Canada wants to reopen the Sangdong mine in South Korea, which was closed in 1994. The mine should be back up to half production in a year or so. Almonty already operates a tungsten mine in Portugal. Non-China tungsten production is expected to ramp up over the next few years, and shortages are not likely to be a problem.

I used to read THE ECONOMIST. Late in the game, one article said Biden's "friendshoring" was doomed to failure. I wondered why seeking alternate sources when supply was uncertain was a bad idea. Maybe I misunderstood -- but THE ECONOMIST was going down the drain, and was making lots of bad takes.

* In preparation for the arrival of the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration has worked with NATO allies to provide Ukraine with like $50 billion USD in frozen Russian funds. This is a bit puzzling, because "freezing is not seizing" -- by international law, frozen funds can't be simply expropriated.

It was described as a "loan", which suggested to me that Putin was involuntarily making a loan to Ukraine. On further investigation, not exactly: it's the Allies who are making the loan, being paid by back on interest and other returns from frozen Russian funds. Putin is still paying, but somewhat more indirectly.

* I like to twit trolls on Bluesky: I give them a snarky reply, then mute them. Next morning, I block them and delete my reply. The problem with that was that, when I mute them, Bluesky no longer tracks them in my Replies, so I can't get back to my postings. Once I realized that, the solution was easy: bookmark those postings. However, then I found out that Bluesky doesn't have a bookmark capability. Wot? After a fair amount of puzzling, I figured it out: bookmark in my web browser. Problem solved.

AND SO ON: Events in Syria have been moving at lightning speed, with Damascus having fallen to the rebels. Bashar al-Assad disappeared for a time, with rumors that he had been killed, but it seems he's now showed up in Moscow. What happens next in Syria? We'll see.

* In other dramatic news, on Wednesday one Brian Thompson, CEO of medical insurer United Healthcare, was gunned down and killed outside the Hilton hotel in Manhattan by an unknown assailant. The authorities are still after the assailant.

The news of the murder led to outpourings online of what ranged from "edged irony" to "outright glee" that the boss of a despised health insurer had been done in. Myself, I'm leaving the matter alone, not wanting to compromise myself one way or another in a matter that isn't near the top of my list of concerns. I will say that the killer appears to be a "lone wolf" along the lines of the Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber -- and I'm relieved because of that. The Trump Administration would like nothing better than to inflate some tiny and ineffective "Antifa" terrorist movement into a giant bogeyman.

[MON 16 DEC 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 50

DAYLOG MON 09 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from THEVERGE.com ("A universal Plug and Charge protocol for EV charging is coming in 2025" by Andrew J. Hawkins, 4 dec 24), recharging an electric vehicle (EV) is unnecessarily troublesome.

Plugging an EV in to a charger isn't such a problem in itself, it's just that every different network has different ways to make payment. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), working with a consortium of automakers and EV charging operators, along with the Biden administration's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, has accordingly devised a "Universal Plug and Charge" scheme that will be rolled out in 2025.

Plug & Charge is based on an international standard, ISO 15118, that enables automatic charging and payment when an EV is plugged in; the charger communicates securely with the vehicle and bills the owner without the need for burdensome overhead.

The scheme is based on a cryptographic "public key infrastructure" -- presumably meaning every EV gets an unreadable "private key" unique to and known only to itself, in the same way a smartphone does. The scheme requires tweaks to EVs and charging systems. Tesla was a pioneer, other EV makers are catching up.

* In late-breaking news, the authorities caught a suspect in the "Health Insurance CEO Killer" case, arresting one Luigi Mangione in Altoona PA. He had a manifesto on him, & commentaries expressing his sympathy with the Unabomber were found online. As I posted on Bluesky, I was glad he was a lone wolf and he got caught. The Trump Administration would like nothing better than to scare people with an "AnT1f@ tERR0r1$t!!!" movement -- because of course they would.

* In the mornings, I go out to tidy my yard -- mostly picking up leaves this year, but sometimes I find dog droppings. I scoop them up with an entrenching tool and flush them. On Friday, I saw what I thought were dog droppings, and went to scoop them up.

The entrenching tool wasn't big enough to handle them. I thought: MIGHTY big dog! -- but then got to wondering about the elk that stroll through Loveland CO this time of year, coming down from the mountains. I googled for images of elk manure and got a match. I've seen elk not far from my house sometimes; it appears one decided to leave a calling card during the night. I think they've moved on now. No, I didn't take pix of the manure.

DAYLOG TUE 10 DEC 24: A list of testimonials for Trump from his voters made the rounds on Bluesky, with comments along the lines of "Trump saved us from other leaders who were killing our economy", "he believes in Christ & loves this country", "he's really smart & really good", and so on.

Curmudgeonly blogger Tom Nichols replied: "I have more respect for the people who just said: HE'S A JERK & I HATE EVERYONE & I JUST WANNA WATCH THINGS BURN! -- than this level of utterly delusional bonkery."

Precisely. We all know Trump is a lowlife; these folks know it and like it -- but don't want to admit it, so they cook up bogus cover stories. I commented: "Trump & MAGA are to politics what Championship Wrestling is to pro sports. It's all fake; they like the fake."

It seems that the electorate is divided into 3 roughly equal parts: people who just don't care and don't vote; people who are ignorant and vote accordingly; and people who try to be responsible adults. This is a discouraging revelation, but on consideration, it's not too discouraging. The indifferent are nothing new, we accept that as normal, and there are plenty of responsible adults, while the ignorant "low information" voters are dwindling. The game is by no means lost.

There are two looming problems: the prospect that no Republicans in Congress will stand up to Trump, even as he works to seize power and castrate Congress; and the fall of legacy media, with bogus "influencers" taking its place. How does the message get out?

* Along related lines, there was a preposterous commentary from THE NATION on all the mistakes the Dems made in the election. I replied: "Ridiculous. Kamala lost because she was a black woman, period." Incidentally, she didn't lose by that much.

I added: "Piled up, the alleged 'defects' of the Kamala campaign didn't match those of the Trump campaign, which was ALL defects. So, obviously, the 'defects' did not decide the election."

The No-Compromise Left says: The Dems would have won if they hadn't compromised. Same nonsense as: Bernie would have won! -- in 2017. With the reply: Ya'll believe that, you'll believe ANYTHING!

DAYLOG WED 11 DEC 24: According to an article in NATURE.com ("The AI revolution is running out of data" by Nicola Jones, 11 dec 24), large language model (LLM) AI systems need to be trained on floods of data, but the floods are now running dry. The LLMs are not only gradually running out of data to consume, many providers are also raising objections to the use of their data for training. As a result, big AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are looking for workarounds.

LLMs learn from data divided into atomic "tokens", with the top LLMs using trillions of tokens. The amount of text data found online has been estimated to be over 3,000 trillion tokens. Webcrawler bots find data, screen it, and generate useful data sets. Content providers have been increasingly inclined to block the bots, and have also been suing AI companies for compensation. Court decisions, so far, tend towards the ambiguous.

Some companies have resorted to "scraping" data from messages and such on their own systems, though the amount of data available from such sources is limited. A second approach is to scrape through "big data" streams, such as astronomical and genomic data. "Big data" is not only growing rapidly, it also needs AI to make sense of it.

A third idea is to scrape data from non-text sources, such as videos. Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta, thinks it's necessary to go a big step further than that. He wants LLMs to have the sensory capability to investigate the real world on their own, saying: "We're never going to get to human-level AI by just training on language, that's just not happening."

Two more ideas: pay people to generate context, or use AIs to generate floods of synthetic data, to train AI. Synthetic data sounds dodgy, but it works well in domains based on structured rules, such as chess, math, or computer software. A seventh, very interesting idea, is to build LLMs in narrowly specialized and tractable domains -- various languages, sciences, and other disciplines -- then network them together: partition the task.

Finally, it turns out that an LLM can learn by re-reading the same data, though this doesn't work indefinitely; diminishing returns are a thing, after all. Andy Zhou, of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, similarly thinks that indefinitely shoving data into an LLM runs out of steam, that a LLM just needs to "sit and think" on the data it has. AI is not hitting the wall just yet.

DAYLOG THU 12 DEC 24: I was thinking that the ruckus over CEO-killer Luigi Mangione would fade out quickly, but now I'm not so sure -- since it seems like Kremlin trolls and the like are setting up a propaganda "op" based on it. The trolls couldn't resist an opportunity to smear the Left by portraying them as bloodthirsty lunatics. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Useful Tools going along with the op. It's hard to tell them from the trolls.

* Along parallel lines, there's still some grumbling that the election was "rigged" by the GOP. In response to someone saying that, I came up with the sensible rejoinder: "Rigged by a well-tuned & well-funded RWNJ propaganda campaign."

One "DangerouslyTalented" replied: "And an electoral system with a very heavy Rightwing thumb on the scales." I answered that the GOP did little if any cheating on the vote itself, that they have "more sophisticated & legal ways to skew the vote."

DT came back with: "Things like gerrymandering, the electoral college, voter suppression, understaffed polling stations in Left-leaning areas, voter intimidation, ETC. It's been going on for decades, and even so they can barely eke out wins."

DT concluded: "If things were fair, they wouldn't stand a chance." Exaggerated? Maybe a bit -- but only a bit. I closed with: "The GOP doesn't have to stuff the ballot boxes. Their trickery is in plain sight."

* TWZ.com had another article on the Shield AI "V-BAT" pogo drone -- take off straight up, fly horizontally, land straight down -- in service in Ukraine. It has range and endurance, doesn't need GPS to navigate, & its comlink isn't easily jammed.

It doesn't need an airstrip, is apparently hard to spot on radar at altitude, and can carry a variety of sensor payloads -- electro-optic / infrared imaging, SAR mapping radar, signals intelligence, & a wide-area AI-driven imaging search system.

A laser target designator might be available, too. The V-BAT can call in fire with US-GMLRS rockets, which are traditionally GPS-guided, but GPS is easy jammed and the rockets had become ineffectual. That's not the case any more, though what's changed is unclear. Adding a laser seeker to the rockets isn't that hard, which would allow a V-BAT to laser-spot strikes.

One of the keys to the war is to have stealthy, jam-resistant drones that can loiter over Orc-occupied territories, calling in precision fire on targets, giving the Orcs no place to hide. Given enough precision firepower, the Orc occupation can be crushed.

DAYLOG FRI 13 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from SCINENCENEWS.org ("The 2004 tsunami killed hundreds of thousands. Are we better prepared now?" by Carolyn Gramling, 11 dec 14), in 2004 a fault slip in the Pacific Ocean generated a tsunami that struck 15 countries, killing an estimated 230,000 people, with many more unaccounted for. Indonesia, close to the epicenter of the seaquake, was worst hit, with waves up to 50 meters (165 feet) smashing down on the islands.

The catastrophe led to scaled-up work to implement a tsunami detection and alert system. Such things are not new, Japan having set up a tsunami warning system in the 1940s, with the USA also setting up a warning system in Honolulu. The first international effort was set up under the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii, founded in 1965 in response to a devastating tsunami in 1960. It provided alerts to 20 nations, using data from dozens of seismic stations and a network of tide gauges.

In 2004, the PTWC was still the only basin-wide warning center in the world. It had been augmented, notably with the addition of "Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART)" buoys that monitored changes in seafloor pressure in real time.

The PTWC picked up indicators of the 2004 quake, but had no stations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India; Australia didn't pick up anything. PTWC officials only found out about the disaster from the Reuters new service. The United Nations set up meetings to drive better preparedness, with vulnerable island nations such as Samoa and Tonga organizing to deal with a tsunami. They were hit with one in 2009; it was a disaster, but measures taken ensured it wasn't much worse.

Scores of DART buoys are now scattered around all the ocean basins. The Indian Ocean, which had 1 sea-level monitoring station in 2004, now has 1,400. There's been more research on tsunami forecasting, with supercomputers analyzing real-time data to provide quick warnings. Improved technologies are being developed, one particularly interesting effort being to fit ocean fiber-optic cables with sensor modules. Tsunamis are still killing great numbers of people, but things have improved and will continue to improve.

AND SO ON: There's a lot of fuss going around about "mysterious drone night sightings" in the New Jersey area, with wild speculations about what is going on. The sensible reaction is: Oh no, not this again. There may be something to it, but it's unlikely to be anything dramatic. Drone hysteria has become common, and investigations so far haven't turned up much but some people playing pranks, and some people getting way too excited.

* I've mentioned earlier that I had a severe case of hay fever last summer, which resulted in a drastic weight crash. This week I finally got back up to my target weight. I was relieved; I was getting really weary of stuffing myself all the time.

* I've mentioned that I make use of the WEBTOON website / app and have found some interesting comic series on it. One I'm following right now is AMELIA, THE LEVEL-0 HERO, by one "MelasDelta", I think an American from the English usage.

Amelia is a girl involuntarily taken to a demonic dimension where she has to fight for survival all the time, and is gradually infused with super powers. After an indefinite time there, she manages to escape to a much more Earth-like world -- though she soon finds out it's like a fantasy adventure game, with goblin or undead armies and such.

Unpleasant creatures who encounter her don't take the girl seriously -- but when they attack her, she kills all of them with her samurai sword without breathing hard. She's the most powerful hero on the game world, utterly invincible. The trick is: she doesn't want any of it, much preferring to lead a quiet and comfortable life.

No matter how gruesome enemies are in appearance, she's never afraid of them -- she doesn't need to be -- and talks to them casually. They usually attack her anyway, so she slays them. She will then go through their pockets to see if they have any gold or other valuables to help her get by. It seems she eventually sets up a restaurant, but it's doubtful she then leads the peaceful existence she really wants.

Incidentally, all the "players" on the game world are ranked. Each player can find out rankings of opponents, and other information, through a floating pop-up window visible only to one's self; this is a gimmick common to isekai / other-world stories. Amelia doesn't belong in the game world and the game system doesn't know how to rank her -- so she is a "level-0" hero, when she actually outclasses everyone else in the game world. This is one of the reasons the Black Hats keep fatally underestimating her. Anyway, I'll see what happens next.

[MON 25 DEC 25] THE WEEK THAT WAS 51

DAYLOG MON 16 DEC 24: A source named MEDUZA.io -- the extension means, ambiguously, "British Indian Ocean" islands -- reported on a speech delivered by Vladimir Putin, saying that 2024 was a year of "success" for Russian arms in Ukraine.

Putin further described Russian actions in Ukraine as a response to provocations by the West, and that Russia would escalate in reply to such provocations -- when in reality, Russia is throwing everything it has at Ukraine, with no restraint. Putin, it seems, is not quite right in the head: when confronted with resistance to his aggressions, he unhesitatingly replies: It's your fault, you forced me to attack you. He has to believe it himself, since nobody else does.

* In similar absurdities, MOTHER JONES ran an article on why Kamala lost the election, focusing on Los Angeles voters -- one saying that he didn't vote for Kamala because nothing would improve for him. Like he thought Trump was the better deal? Seriously?

Once again, the No-Compromise Left insists the Dems lost because they compromised. No: Kamala lost because she was a black woman & too many voters couldn't buy off on her -- but they won't admit it.

With the NC Left, it's hard to tell if they're Kremlin trolls or just Useful Tools. The Useful Tools pretend the Kremlin trolls aren't there. I blocked MOTHER JONES. Indeed, I've become very enthusiastic about blocking on BlueSky.

It seems that the troll-driven enthusiasm for CEO-killer Luigi Mangione is fading, though we shall see. Currently, the excitement is over drones in the night skies of New Jersey. The sensible see the hysteria, the hysterical keep melting down. I block them, too.

As a parting comment for now, I just saw on BlueSky: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And stupid. We should be scared s***less of stupid."

DAYLOG TUE 17 DEC 24: On Monday, Ukraine charged in absentia LTGEN Igor Kirillov -- head of Russian Nuclear, Biological, Chemical (NBC) Defense Forces -- with use of banned chemical weapons. Today, Kirillov was killed by a bomb along with an aide. The two were coming out of an apartment in Moscow. The bomb was concealed in a stand-up electric scooter that was leaned up against the apartment wall. It was clearly remote-detonated by an observer.

Broken-down and abandoned electric scooters can be found all over Moscow, so they don't attract much attention -- or at least they didn't until now. It appears the scooter was rigged with an explosive charge spewing nails or the like.

There have been a number of killings of prominent Russian military officers and civilian advocates of the war in Ukraine. The focus is now on taking down military officers. Ukraine did take ownership of this killing, though not most of the others. Clearly such attacks have a psychological purpose, notably in working on Putin's insecurities. It is suspected Russian dissidents are helping Ukraine. Senior Russian official Dmitry Medvedev has promised "swift revenge" for the attack. No more Mr. Nice Guy huh?

* Retired US Army General Mark Hertling wrote an essay on the battlefield alliance between Russia and North Korea, with Hertling suggesting it was "A Match Made In Hell". Military alliances are problematic and need a lot of foundation work to get right.

The Russian military is big, powerful, and clumsy. North Korea is a militarized society, with everyone conscripted and harshly trained, but hasn't fought a war in 70 years, and is poorly equipped. The Russians are providing logistics support for them & the Russians aren't good at it. There's also a language barrier: NATO military speaks English, but no such commonality between Russia and North Korea. By all reports, North Korean troops are simply being slaughtered in Ukraine.

There is no depth to the alliance and it is shaky. Hertling suggests: "The worst way of fighting with allies is fighting with last-minute allies in a last-ditch effort to avoid defeat." How long it takes for Putin's war to fall apart, however, remains to be seen.

* Finally, UKRAINE PRAVDA reports on the use of drone "motherships" to carry killer drones deep behind Orc lines and provide relay for them. That's not news, but also says Ukraine is testing an anti-air laser system named "Tryzub". Despite years of work, nobody has yet fielded an operational laser system in numbers; it's not easy, & it seems likely the Ukrainians are getting quiet help. Ukraine does have partnerships with defense firms in the USA and elsewhere, so that's not saying anything hard to believe. One of the silver linings of the Ukraine War is that it is serving as a "battle lab" to show how to fight future wars.

DAYLOG WED 18 DEC 24: According to an article from SCIENCE.org ("Science's 2024 Breakthrough of the Year: Opening the door to a new era of HIV prevention", 12 dec 24), one of the most significant science advances of 2024 was a big step forward in the struggle against HIV.

The leap in capability is a drug named "lenacapavir" -- not a cure as such, but highly effective for "pre-exposure prophlaxis (PEP)". A shot every 6 months protects against HIV infection, as demonstrated by trials in Africa demonstrating close to 100% effectiveness.

Lenacapavir uses a new approach to fighting HIV, by targeting the capsid proteins that make up the shell of the virus. This approach could be effective against the capsid proteins of other viruses as well.

"Cocktails" of drugs have been around since the late 1990s, and have proven effective in controlling the spread of HIV, both in restraining the virus and in keeping it from becoming established in the first place. Other schemes -- condoms, needle exchanges, education -- also helped. However, these are all "leaky" measures, the cocktails having the problem of being expensive and troublesome to users, with HIV infection rates remaining stubbornly high. The great effectiveness of lenacapavir and its convenience promise to do much to control HIV.

Earlier anti-HIV drugs focused on the "active sites" of the virus that control its function, with the inert capsid proteins being seen as unpromising, since the "cone" of capsid proteins around the viral RNA seemed too fuzzy a target. Further research showed that the cone did have clear molecular targets that that could be effectively engaged and disrupted by a drug, leading to lenacapavir. There seemed to a problem with the drug, in that it was relatively insoluble, and the body doesn't absorb it well. A little zen thinking showed that was a benefit, allowing lenacapavir to persist and provide long-lasting protection. The drug has been in use for a few years as a "last-ditch" treatment, but it's likely to boom now.

* In the latest news from Elon the Musk Rat, apparently he's on a Xitter crusade to discourage use of ... hashtags? Huh? Wot? Did I hear that right? On second thought, it's totally on-brand for the Musk Rat, so I believe it.

One "CubMikeFan", posting on Bluesky, commented: "All these billionaires, none of them choose to be Bruce Wayne, they all choose to try to be Lex Luthor." I replied: "Elon the Musk Rat is Cheesy Lex Luthor. Luthor, though despicable, has class."

DAYLOG THU 19 DEC 24: One Anand Giridharadas, posting on Bluesky, commented: "Bluetooth is the acquaintance you see all the time at parties, and they're always like: 'Have we met?'"

Bluetooth actually works very well, once it's properly paired with a host. It can be tricky to get it to pair, however. It is an inherent problem with the technology: a wi-fi connection just looks for wi-fi signals, we pick the one we want, then enter the password and, as they say in the UK, "Bob's your uncle", with no more trouble. Bluetooth is promiscuous, being paired and unpaired with potentially multiple devices.

The first and biggest problem is that how to put a Bluetooth device into pairing mode can be a puzzle, since there's no one set way devices do it. Some Bluetooth keyboards actually have a button with a Bluetooth symbol, which makes it easy. It may not be so easy for things like earbuds that have a much more limited control interface. I think I need to write up a file to list how to pair my different devices; the file will help me establish patterns.

Another thing: I've learned that when using a Bluetooth device connected to host device A to a new host device B, it is wise to specifically unpair from host device A first. If the two host devices aren't on at the same time, it should be no problem, but otherwise there is confusion. If both are rarely on at the same time but then on some day they are, the Bluetooth device gets the wrong connection and stops working. This can be very troublesome if I've forgotten what the other host device was, leading to a hunt for the culprit. Another occasional problem is putting away Bluetooth earbuds -- but they don't turn off, so my smartphone won't make sounds any more, and turning up the volume does nothing.

* I lost a plastic filling on the back of one of my bicuspids on Sunday, and got to the dentist on Wednesday morning to have it replaced. The dentist told me there was a cavity under the filling, and it might extend to the nerve -- meaning a root canal.

I did not like that idea at all. Fortunately, the cavity didn't reach the nerve; I got the new filling with little trouble and no great expense. I've had to buy two crowns in 2024, and I was getting tired of spending so much on dentistry. Hopefully no more problems for a while.

DAYLOG FRI 20 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from NATURE.com ("CRISPR genome-editing grows up: advanced therapies head for the clinic" by Heidi Ledford, 17 dec 24), gene editing through the precision technology labeled as CRISPR is coming of age.

One new treatment based on gene editing, named "Casgevy", has demonstrated effectiveness in controlling two inherited blood disorders: sickle-cell anemia and beta thalassaemia.

Both beta-thalassaemia and sickle-cell disease are the result of mutations in one of the genes that code for haemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying molecule carried in our red blood cells. A fetal form of haemoglobin can compensate for the problem, but after birth its production stops. Casgevy disables the genetic stop switch to keep production going. The therapy has been approved and is in use. Unfortunately, the treatment has to be made from a patient's own blood cells, which can take months, and makes it expensive.

Casgevy has proven effective, being a great help to patients, but there are concerns of how long its effect lasts. Trials show that it can be effective for five years or more -- but given the expense, that's not all that could be desired. Research continues on improvements.

* The buzz is going around on social media for a "Day of Inaction" on 20 jan 25, the day Trump is inaugurated: stay home, don't buy anything, don't go on social media, don't watch the inauguration. It's just symbolic, just for fun, but no great bother for me -- so why not?

Trump will be sworn in at noon, so there's also a push to mass-delete Xitter accounts at precisely that time. I've tried to delete my account twice, but it won't go away; I stripped it down and I hope 3rd time is the charm. I'll keep deleting daily if it's not. There seems to be a division of opinion on whether to protest the inauguration. One proposal is to line the parade route and play the DARTH VADER MARCH on kazoos. I like that idea.

AND SO ON: One Jon Pavlovitz, a liberal Christian pastor turned activist, wrote a tidy essay on the popular trolling of the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, criticisms including that they were "out of touch with working Americans", "didn't acknowledge people's financial pain", "elitist and out-of-touch." Nonsense:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Their message was pitch-perfect -- but it didn't work, because it was based on the assumption that the electorate cared about such things. The reality is that a majority did not, preferring "walls & tribalism":

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

What we ended up with is the "Divided States of America". The optimistic part is that we didn't lose by that much, so there's still hope. The problem is less those who voted MAGA -- but the largest faction, those who wouldn't vote, it seems for no other reason than distraction or sheer laziness. They talked a lot of "bothsiderism", but they're lying; the difference between the two sides was like night and day.

[MON 30 DEC 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 52

DAYLOG MON 23 DEC 24: There was a big fuss last week when the House GOP & Dems, facing a budget deadline, came up with a compromise budget and tried to push it through. Elon the Musk Rat then denounced it on Wednesday as "pork" and derailed it.

On Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to push through a bill completely unacceptable to the Dems -- with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries saying: "HELL NO!" -- and another anonymous House Dem adding: "Not just HELL NO, but F*** NO!" The House Dems voted against it, with dozens of House GOP helping kill the 2nd bill in turn. That left the prospect of a government shutdown over Xmas. Government shutdowns follow the "pottery barn rule": You broke it, you buy it!

Nobody wanted to be Mr. Grinch for Xmas, so late on Friday a bill more resembling the first one was passed, and Mr. Grinch stood down. The Dems had good reason to feel pleased -- though the No-Compromise Left, along with trolls faking them, played it up as a "defeat for the Dems", in particular shaming Dems because funding for childhood cancer research had been cut out. That was ignoring that the GOP had been the ones who cut it ... and it appears that funding was restored as a separate effort anyway.

When dealing with the NC Left, I can never figure out if I'm dealing with fakes, or if they're sincerely bonkers. Anyway, this was a clear defeat for the Musk Rat. He has absolutely no concept of governance or politics -- hey, I know more about them than the Musk Rat does, & that's not saying much -- and his position in government has absolutely no authority. He's incompetence on a monster scale.

On top of that, Trump was clearly bringing up the rear on the budget fiasco, the Musk Rat being in the driver's seat. Trump does not like sharing the spotlight; I figured playing up his "demotion" would get under his skin, but would everyone else think that, too? I needn't have worried, the mockery of "Vice President Trump" was very loud and gleeful. That leads to the next question: Will Trump do anything about it? If not, that suggests he's too old, slow, and decrepit to really care any more.

Oh, & another thing: Mike Johnson's Speakership is now very wobbly. Hakeem Jeffries made it clear the Dems won't bail him out. In the chaotic Speaker contest to follow, the Dems will all vote for Hakeem, while the GOP fights among themselves. The interesting question is: What if some GOP decide to abstain from the vote? The GOP majority is very narrow. I will say no more.

DAYLOG TUE 24 DEC 24: Armed Forces Ukraine reports that, for the first time, the AFU conducted an assault on Russian positions using nothing but ground and air drones. Some of the drones carried machine guns, some others placed mines, some others removed mines. This is clearly the way of the future in the war; the AFU hasn't got enough combat troops, so the war will have to be automated.

In other Ukraine drone war news, last week long-range Ukrainian drones hit Kazan, which is over 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) from Ukraine's borders. Reports were that 6 drones hit residential buildings and 1 hit a factory. The strikes on residential buildings were puzzling, Ukraine does not attack non-strategic targets. Were they "accidents" caused by Russian air defenses?

No. Videos of some of the strikes show them performing precision attacks on the upper floors of glass tower buildings. Either there were government / defense offices on those floors, or the penthouses of senior officials. It would be interesting to know more, but news reports aren't saying.

* Another news item from the war indicate Ukraine is producing a "Trembita" cruise missile in quantity. It's supposed to be about 2 meters (6.6') long, with a weight of about 100 kilograms (220 pounds), a range of about 140 kilometers (90 miles), & a speed of 400 KPH (250 MPH). It is launched by a solid-rocket booster and flies using a pulsejet. Pulsejets are ancient jet engines, used by the German V-1 Buzz Bomb in WW2; they are "cheap & dirty", being very noisy and inefficient. Might they be using new "pulse detonation engines (PDE)" instead?

No again, it was built to be cheap and dirty, intended to be launched in mass as a decoy or strike weapon to overwhelm Orc defenses. It is said to be GPS-guided, but GPS doesn't work very well in the face of Orc jamming, so it probably uses inaccurate inertial guidance, along with a target seeker to home in on "emitters", such as radars, radios, or jammers. That would be appropriate for a weapon intended for defense suppression; an emitter-homing seeker would be cheaper than a "smart" optical / infrared seeker. Work is underway on a new Trembita that can hit Moscow, possibly using the PDE. BTW, "Trembita" is the Ukrainian name for a very long Alpine horn.

* Finally, quadcopters have become a standard configuration for small drones, but now there's a push to develop drones built around a single ducted fan -- or possibly two contra-rotating fans driven by the same motor. They are controlled by four vanes in the exhaust.

Presumably, those with single rotors use the vanes to cancel torque. They are more compact and possibly more efficient than quadcopter drones. Cleo Robotics of Boston is developing a "Dronut" along such lines for inspecting pipelines & such. Other uses? We'll see.

DAYLOG WED 25 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from NPR.com ("Who's been funding the HTS rebels now in control of Syria?" by Lauren Freyer, 20 dec 24), the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group has driven out the dictatorial Syrian government, leading to questions of who is bankrolling HTS. The Saudis? The Gulf States? The Turks? It turns out: none of the above, they're self-funding. HTS has jihadi roots, and prefers to maintain independence.

Originally, HTS funded itself through extortion, kidnappings, and oil smuggling. From 2017, when the faction got its current name, it has tried to distance itself from its jihadi roots, acquiring the structure of a secular government bureaucracy.

HTS is rooted in Idlib Province, in NW Syria; also in 2017, they set up a government apparatus there, the "Syrian Salvation Government (SSG)". They support themselves with taxes on the population, with the population sometimes unhappy with the minimal government services. A lot of displaced people came to Idlib, so the SSG ends up being helped by international aid organizations who keep people fed -- with the SSG charging rents to the aid operations for use of public land. HTS also runs profitable toll booths on the Turkish border.

It is known that HTS has plenty of drones, and possibly other weapons, of Turkish origin. HTS may also use Ukrainian drones; the Ukrainian HUR intelligence service is known to have conducted operations in Syria, hitting Russian installations.

Now that HTS is in charge in Syria, the group has been making conciliatory sounds, as if they intend to set up a secular and democratic government. Suspicion remains, but it should be noted that Islamists went from fail to fail after the Arab Spring, & maybe they have learned.

* Merry Winterfest to all today. I did wake up feeling a bit of dread this morning, over the USA's future under Trump, but I shook it off. What's the use of worrying? I survived his last stint in power OK; I'm not complacent about things, I'm just settling in for the long haul.

DAYLOG THU 26 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Scientists are building underwater neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean" by Emily Conover, 23 dec 24), work is now underway on an underwater neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean.

The "Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT)" consists of strings of glass balls filled with detectors, the strings being up to 700 meters (2,300') long. Dozens of strings have been placed so far, with the ultimate array to have hundreds.

Neutrinos are elusive particles, rarely interacting with matter. Given the vast number of water molecules in a cubic kilometer of water and vast numbers of neutrinos, every now and then there will be an interaction, which will send out energetic electrons. The electrons will generate a flash of blue light -- "Cerenkov radiation" -- as they decelerate. The faint flash will be picked up by photomultiplier tubes (PMT), which are vacuum tubes with a series of plates that generate a detectable cascade of electrons from the faint flash.

Each of the pressure spheres on a strand of the array is about 44 centimeters (17 inches) in diameter and contains 31 PMTs. The spheres are networked into a data-acquisition and processing system that characterizes events picked up by the array and discards false positive readings.

KM3Net will consist of two arrays, one off the coast of Sicily, the other off the coast of France. The Sicilian array will pick up high-energy neutrinos directly coming in from space, while the French array will pick up lower-energy neutrinos caused by collisions with atmospheric molecules. The two arrays crosscheck each other, with the French array also obtaining data on the oscillation of neutrinos between different "flavors". KM3Net follows the French ANTARES array, set up off Toulon in 2008 and running to 2022, as well as the NESTOR & NEMO pilot projects.

* TWZ.com reports on videos taken in China of a new stealthy jet fighter or attack aircraft. It is an arrowhead-shaped flying wing with no tailfins and an engine intake on the back. No details are known. It was flown in daylight, which means it was supposed to be seen. A second, comparable but clearly different, stealth aircraft later broke cover as well.

* News reports indicate that a large Russian cargo ship, the URSA MAJOR, sank on Monday night off the coast of southern Spain. The story is unclear, but it appears multiple explosions led to its sinking, suggesting sabotage at work.

In somewhat related news, four fiber-optic cables and a power cable crossing the Baltic were severed. The Finns seized a ship, the EAGLE S -- a tanker carrying oil for the Russians -- on suspicion of sabotage. Specifics are still being determined. Also, an Azeri Embraer 190 jetliner crashed, with over half those on board killed; it is strongly believed that it was hit by Russian surface-to-air missiles. Moscow is, of course, issuing denials.

DAYLOG FRI 27 DEC 24: As discussed in an article from RAWSTORY.com ("It's in a lot of labor contracts: Trump's plans for government workers headed for brick wall" by Erik De La Garza, 26 dec 24), the latest nastiness fired off by Trump is a threat to fire all of the Federal government's remote workers. Like so much else Trump says, it's hot air. Remote work took hold in the USA during the pandemic, the government embraced it, and -- unlike some major corporations -- isn't backing off of it.

Reporter Lisa Rein of WAPO wrote that Trump can't change that with a "stroke of the presidential pen", and that ordering a return to workplaces would be met with "furious resistance" from Federal employees, many of them covered by union agreements that protect remote work.

Rein adds that the protection includes "some contracts extended in recent weeks by outgoing Biden officials eager to blunt Trump's impact on the workforce." 10% of Federal jobs are now, by design, fully remote. In addition, most of the Federal agencies with remote workers don't have office space to accommodate them. Return-to-work promises to be an expensive boondoggle.

* RAWSTORY.com further reports on what should be obvious to everyone, but isn't: that Trump is talking all kinds of wild trash -- end remote work, revoke birthright citizenship, seize Panama and Greenland -- just to create chaos and pump himself up. Other Trump proposals -- big tariff hikes, mass deportation -- don't sound as bogus, but are still of questionable practicality, to be taken with a grain of salt. I keep saying: Trump is very troublesome but also very inept; he can wreck things, but he can't do any heavy lifting.

One big uncertainty is what Trump will do about Ukraine, the signals being very mixed. Vladimir Putin talked up peace via Trump a few days back, which was worrying, but now Putin has reverted to his traditional inflexible and absurd demands. Who knows what Trump will do?

AND SO ON: I'm very gadget-happy, with the consequence that sometimes I get into a logjam on figuring out how to get my gadgets to work. I'd bought a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera -- which is a handheld version of a gyrostabilized drone camera, with my intent being to use it to take night still photos.

I finally got around to taking it on morning walks in the dark to try out its night capabilities. There was a certain trickiness in getting it to work, since it is very different from a conventional digital camera; I finally figured out how to access all the menus, but then I ran into the problem of trying to aim the thing.

A gyrostabilized camera has a mind of its own; it targets what it has been programmed to target. The Pocket 3 has a set of stabilization modes, but none lock the gimbal; that would be counterproductive, since it's the gyrostabilization that makes night shots practical. I could the camera to recenter by double-tapping the joystick / button control, but even the minimal "horizon lock" stabilization mode insists on referencing its target to the visual horizon. The result was that I couldn't target below the horizon. I finally figured out that I could tilt the camera down until the gimbal hit the top of its travel, and then I could shoot low.

Next problem was that spotlighted night shots were overlit. The Pocket 3 does not have a special mode to deal with that problem, but I was able to compensate by reducing white balance to a cooler lighting color. I had a bit of trouble finding the white balance adjustment; it turned out to be on a "Pro" menu with optional special settings.

Incidentally, although the Pocket 3 does have a night mode, it's only for video; still shots don't need it. Anyway, the night still shots are good, the Pocket 3 sees as well in the dark as I do. Another thing is that the Pocket 3 is small and easily dropped, but fortunately I had some wrist straps stowed away. I had to use a toothpick to thread the connecting loop, but it's all good now.

* Next, I spent a few months trying to get my Asus ROG Ally handheld game box to work. I'd try to run BEACH BUGGY RACING, and the right trigger button -- the "gas pedal" for my kart -- wouldn't do anything.

I did some poking around, and found out this was a known bug. It turns out controller trigger buttons are not on-off, they are analog and basically touch-sensitive. A lot of solutions online suggested changing the trigger button threshold settings, but nothing worked for me. No other tricks worked either.

I finally used the Armory Crate software that more or less runs the ROG Ally to test the controls, and found out I could calibrate the right trigger button without difficulty. In other words, it seemed to be working. I got suspicious of the supposed "fixes" I was finding online.

I don't normally use the Armory Crate software to run games, preferring to use the Steam environment. In both environments, it is possible to get config files to tailor a controller to specific games, and I was using them for BEACH BUGGY RACING. Maybe that was a bad idea? The ROG Ally emulates an Xbox controller, so I used Steam to change the controller for BEACH BUGGY RACING to general Xbox configuration. All then worked fine. I'm certain there is some sort of bug there and I may not have seen the last of it, but I'm flying for now. Maybe ASUS will fix the bug in time.

* Finally, I had been downloading music videos from Youtube to convert into MP3 files for years, but Youtube finally blocked the downloader, and I couldn't download any more. Well OK then, I could just record the music on my PC, right? Alas, Windows doesn't make it easy to do.

I finally ended up downloading the Audacity audio-editor app. I wasn't quite sure how to get it to record system sounds, but I found a very helpful brief video by an Aussie that stepped me right through it. All I had to do was set:

   Audio setup -> Host -> Windows WASAPI
   Audio setup -> Recording Device -> <something something> (loopback)

Apparently systems can have different recording devices, but I only had one; it was the "(loopback)" item that was important. Anyway, that all done I could play music and record it with Audacity's standardized recording controls. Once I got the recording, Audacity asked me if I wanted to store the "project" -- but I just wanted to store a file. It turned out that I had to "export" the file instead. Loading an audio file similarly uses "import". All a piece of cake.

Incidentally, I tried Audacity years ago, but it was too complicated for me at the time, and I went to something simpler. It still is complicated, but I've technically matured and it's no big challenge now. Oh, and I also got to wondering if I could similarly record videos on my PC, and it turns out there's a video player named "VLC" that can do that. I downloaded it, but haven't had time to play with it yet.