* 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.
DAYLOG MON 28 APR: The funeral of Pope Francis was on Saturday, with world leaders in attendance -- including, of course, Donald Trump. He cut an uninspiring figure, the first thing being that he showed up in a blue suit and not the obligatory black.
More significantly, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy tripped him up repeatedly without trying. Zelenskyy met with Trump and French President Macron, with Macron giving Zelenskyy the full-court warm handshake -- and then ignored Trump's extended hand. A mere fumble? Maybe, maybe not. There was also a video of Zelenskyy walking in to the applause of the crowd, with Trump then ignored, but that turned out to be at the re-opening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on 7 December.
Finally, photos were taken of Trump snoozing through the funeral service. In the aftermath of the funeral, the comment made the rounds online: "Trump was upset the funeral service was not about him. So was everyone else."
There were talks between Trump and Zelenskyy in Rome on Trump's dubious "peace offensive" -- but could any credence be rested on demented Trump's ramblings? It's all noise, no signal, doesn't go anywhere, has nowhere to go.
Back home, Trump is still charging forward on his tariffs war, with retailers warning him their shelves are emptying out. I can't welcome an economic disaster, but at least it will heavily discredit him. His approval rating is now under 40%, and poised to go lower.
DAYLOG TUE 29 APR: As reported in an article from FUTURISM ("Professors Staffed a Fake Company Entirely With AI Agents" by Joe Wilkins, 27 April 2025), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh used AI agents to simulate a fake company. "TheAgentCompany" used an assortment of AI agents from different firms, with agents working as financial analysts, software engineers, and project managers, along with a chief technical officer and human-relations staff.
The researchers then assigned the simulation a set of tasks like those in an ordinary software company. To zero surprise, the simulation failed dismally, the best performer being an agent that could do 24% of the tasks assigned to. The worst could only do about 2%. The agents were plagued by a lack of common sense, poor communications with each other, and limited ability to navigate the internet. They also were inclined to "hallucinate" -- just making up bogus answers. Even when things worked, it was not cheap.
AI has a lot of potential, but it is vastly over-hyped these days -- FUTURISM suggesting that AI is much more like a glorified predictive-text aid on a smartphone than a human mind. Certainly, AI has room for improvement, but how much is hard to say.
We can make the AIs smarter, sure, but bring them up to human levels of intelligence? Or do we just make them smart enough to handle sets of specific tasks? Going much farther than that might be difficult, and not worth the escalating cost. I use Google Gemini a lot, particularly in my Japanese studies -- it can give good answers to very tricky questions. However, the answers aren't always reliable, requiring some checkup if they don't seem right, and sometimes I get back obvious nonsense, even gibberish.
* In related news, these days people using chatbots like OpenAI or Google Gemini may have noticed that they have become inclined to reply in an obsequious tone, kissing up to the user. Apparently the idea was to improve engagement with positive feedback.
While there are people who like toadies and kiss-ups, they're unusual. People tend to find such talk from a machine particularly creepy, unable to cross the "uncanny valley" of suspicion of machine intelligences. The talk now is to give users the ability to select a chatbot's personality. Myself, I'm seeing no reason they can't just be matter-of-fact.
DAYLOG WED 30 APR: As the world knows now, Canada's elections on Monday the 28th went as expected, with Mark Carney's Liberals winning 166 seats, Pierre Poilivre's Conservatives 144, Bloc Quebecois 22, New Democratic Party 7, the Greens 1. PP's cause was not helped by Donald Trump making noises about annexing Canada on the day of the election. There were comments on BlueSky about Carney needing to claim that as a election gift. PP, not incidentally, lost his own seat.
Carney is a level-headed, highly-educated and competent technocrat. In his victory speech, he spoke with disgust and some regret about the end of the special relationship between Canada and the USA and the need to adjust to the new reality. Carney intends that Canada will run a budget deficit, both to deal with US economic aggression and to support Ukraine, but that the deficit will be filled in not too many years. He also suggests that Canada can supply global moral leadership that the US has rejected.
The Liberals did not get a majority, but they only need support from three other MPs to gte one. The vote was a bit too close for comfort, with the Conservatives obviously enjoying considerable support, to continue to lurk in the shadows.
The Liberals under Trudeau were hobbled by immigration and cost-of-living issues. Such are likely to continue to be a drag, though any Canadian looking south would have to realize that the Conservatives don't offer a better deal. As with America's GOP, the focus for the Conservatives is to cut government programs that broadly benefit Canadians, while cutting taxes for the rich elite. Americans have also found out that "getting tough on immigration" seems to mean thug policing. The continuation of the Trump regime may well throw more cold water on Canada's Conservatives.
Incidentally, some comments online linked the Liberals to the Gaza genocide. They were obviously trolling: Canada provided no real military backing to Israel, and worked to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Gaza trolling beat up America's Dems; no surprise it was used against Canada's Liberals, too, if with little effect.
DAYLOG THU 01 MAY: In the background of Trump's farcical and futile "peace process" for the Ukraine War, there's been work on a deal between the US and Ukraine for exploitation of Ukraine's minerals, particularly rare earths.
Early on, American proposals for the deal were entirely one-sided -- sheer robbery. Now the deal's been signed, and it looks highly promising on the basis of what has been made known. The original American proposals for the deal said that the USA would charge all the US aid to Ukraine provided by the Biden Administration money obtained from the minerals, which was angrily rejected by Ukraine. The deal now stipulates a "joint investment fund", which will support further US aid. Ukraine will have full sovereignty over its natural resources, and Kyiv will decide where and which minerals can be extracted. The USA will not get preferential treatment, which would complicate Ukraine joining the EU.
Obviously, there's a lot in the fine print, but minerals development can't really happen for years anyway. If there are troublesome clauses in the deal, they can be discussed with the next administration.
Not incidentally, the agreement seemed to subtly cast blame for the war on Russia, while Trump's earlier statements often unambiguously blamed Ukraine. There's obviously been a big fight in the White House over support of the Ukraine conflict with pro-Putin and anti-Putin factions at war with each other. Has Trump simply stopped caring, with the anti-Putin faction on top now? No way of saying, but one wonders if the "peace process" will now go on hold, amounting to no more than lip service.
In closely related news, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who had been one of Putin's most egregious kiss-ups in the "peace process", just resigned. Waltz had got caught up in the blowback from a highly insecure Pentagon teleconference, conducted on the Signal encrypted-messaging system. Other heads may roll. Anyway, Minnesota Governer Tim Walz, scored a hit on BlueSky with a brief comment: "Mike Waltz has left the chat."
DAYLOG FRI 02 MAY: Yesterday afternoon, reports started coming in of a massive Ukrainian air strike on Crimea. Locals took smartphone videos of the sound of drones coming in low in the dark, and of big flashes with delayed thunder. The reports came from widely-scattered locations in Crimea. Exactly what the results were is not clear, but it didn't seem that Russian air defense was very effective. It seems the Ukrainians have good countermeasures to defy Russian defenses.
Ex-Representative Adam Kinzinger ran a video that proclaimed: Russia is not winning the war. Suppose, he suggests, after invading Iraq in 2003, then after three years of fighting all we held was a border region, after suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties. Nobody would think we were winning. Putin's dilapidated war machine is running out of steam; how long it persists is hard to say. In response to the air strikes, I commented online: "Reports of the imminent defeat of Ukraine are greatly exaggerated."
* That is encouraging news in a time when encouragement is needed, and there's a lot of pessimism going around. One Hank Green, posting on BlueSky, commented: "I hope everyone knows that it's very easy for any social content platform, including Bluesky, to be a misery machine -- and that if you aren't intentional about it, they will absolutely decrease the positive impact you have on the world while making you less happy."
I replied that it helps to block troublemakers and avoid getting into useless fights, adding: "That's right. We all know we're in big trouble these days. It's hard to see what good comes from misery and defeatism. I can take the positive or negative road on anything I want to say -- but I just can't take the negative road."
There was a time decades ago when I was inclined to negativism -- but somewhat to my surprise, it's just not really there any more. These days, I get up in the morning thinking: Another day in the fight. That makes it easier for me to get out of bed.
* Late news: Canadian PM Mark Carney is going to Washington DC, expecting "difficult but constructive" talks. I'm certain they'll be difficult, but not so much that they'll be constructive. I commented online: "Conversations with Trump are clearly strange. He says any crazy thing that comes into his head, and has no interest in feedback." I'm sure Carney is prepared.
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