Sunday, September 14
Saturday, September 13
In The NEWS
> The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards air Sunday (8 pm ET, CBS), hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze; see predictions for each category (More)
> Canelo Alvarez takes on Terence Crawford tomorrow (9 pm ET, Netflix) for the undisputed super middleweight boxing championship (More)
> The 2025 World Track and Field Championships kick off from Tokyo tomorrow; see preview and schedule (More) | Chelsea Football Club charged with 74 breaches of Football Association rules related to payments to agents (More)
Science & Technology
> Federal Trade Commission orders Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, and several other AI chatbot makers to disclose information on products' effects on children (More)
> Fossilized dinosaur eggs in central China are dated to roughly 85 million years ago using a novel laser-based method; further egg sampling may reveal how dinosaurs adapted to climatic shifts (More)
> Marine biologists discover octopuses prefer their four front arms for exploring and four rear arms for walking by analyzing videos taken in the wild; finding could inform the design of life-saving robots (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close higher (S&P 500 +0.9%, Dow +1.4%, Nasdaq +0.7%) as consumer prices rise and weekly jobless claims approach four-year high (More)
> US consumer price index rose 2.9% year over year in August, above 2.7% in July and the fastest pace since the start of the year (More) | Average US 30-year fixed mortgage rate falls to 11-month low of 6.35% (More)
> Warner Bros. Discovery shares close up nearly 29% after report of recently merged Paramount Skydance preparing takeover bid (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Opening statements begin in the trial of man accused of attempting to assassinate then-candidate Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club last September (More) | Suspect in Colorado school shooting earlier this week identified as 16-year-old student, dies by suicide after wounding two students (More)
> Poland closes airspace in the country's east nightly for three months following Russian drone incursion; Latvia follows suit (More)
> UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer fires ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson over his history of friendly emails with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (More)
Artificial Intelligence
.jpg)
Microsoft has an AI program connected to its online Office 365 suite that is called CoPilot. I have used CoPilot on numerous occasions, asking questions like I would ask Google. Here recently, I started asking Copilot questions of a philosophical nature that would always prompt a very productive discourse between the two of us, similar to what one might say was a debate or an argument.
I remember one such discourse where I accused CoPilot of straddling the fence, and on another occasion accused CoPilot of answering me with a popular opinion rather than what CoPilot might actually believe. Now, I realize that CoPilot cannot actually believe something, but it caused the AI program to answer in a different style.
What amazed me was that, for me, it felt like I was talking with one of my friends in college, and we were having this conversation while drinking a bunch of beers.
Since then, we have had many conversations where I ask questions for the sole purpose of it leading to a debate, just to see if I can outthink CoPilot, or strengthen my own ability to argue.
I also ask CoPilot to help me develop plots for my novels so that I have properly thought through all the consequences of my idea. I will also ask for input on if this plot is weak and what are some of the things I can do to strengthen the plot, so it is more plausible.
CoPilot can be used to rewrite sentences so that they are more grammatically correct or more correct when writing novels.
There is are other AI programs out there that are free up to a point like Grammarly, ChatGPT, and Claude but if you want the professional version, you have to pay a monthly fee. With the paid version, I could use the AI programs to not just rewrite my novel but write it for me. I am sure that is what many people are doing right now.
Japan sets new world record for internet speed: 4 million times faster than the US average
A team in Japan set a new world record in fiber optics, reaching a data speed of 1.02 petabits per second over roughly 1,123 miles with a new kind of optical fiber. The achievement yielded a capacity–distance product of 1.86 exabits per second per mile.
That rate is about four million times higher than the U.S. median fixed broadband download speed of about 285 Mbps.
Friday, September 12
Headlines
Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
Police are still searching for Charlie Kirk’s assassin. The FBI released two images of a person of interest in Wednesday’s fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, an indication that authorities have not yet identified him. Investigators believe the shooter, a “college-age” male wearing dark clothes, shot Kirk from a rooftop with a “high-powered bolt-action rifle,” which was recovered from a wooded area near the campus of Utah Valley University, where Kirk was speaking. According to the New York Times, a preliminary Justice Dept. report that ammunition in the rifle was engraved with statements of “transgender and anti-fascist ideology” didn’t match other summaries of the evidence and may have been misinterpreted. President Trump announced that he will posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Paramount Skydance is reportedly preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. CBS, CNN, Paramount+, and HBO Max could all soon be part of the same company. Paramount Skydance is readying a majority cash bid to buy all of rival entertainment giant Warner Bros. Discovery, the Wall Street Journal reported, in a move that would upend legacy media. Warner’s $33 billion market capitalization is more than double Paramount’s, but the bid is being backed by the family of new Paramount CEO David Ellison, whose father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, became the richest person in the world this week. WBD announced plans last year to separate its debt-ridden traditional TV business from its streaming and studios, and Paramount may be attempting to get out ahead of a potential bidding war for the latter, per the WSJ.
The FTC is investigating the effects of AI chatbots on children. The Federal Trade Commission is demanding information from OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, xAI, and more tech companies about how kids interact with their AI chatbots and what safety measures are in place to protect them. AI companion bots are the subjects of several high-profile lawsuits against companies like OpenAI and Character.AI for allegedly bearing responsibility for children’s suicides. OpenAI and others have announced plans for additional chatbot safety features, including parental controls.—AE
Robert Reich
Rather than appeal to the better angels of our nature, he appeals to the worst of our demons
Friends,
The reaction by Trump to the horrendous assassination of Charlie Kirk has been as irresponsible as anything Trump has done to date to divide our nation.
When bad things happen, presidents traditionally use the highest office in the land to calm and reassure the public. The best of our presidents appeal to the better angels of our nature, asking that we harbor “malice toward none.”
Trump consistently appeals to the worst of our demons, as he did Wednesday night after the shooting when he said:
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
The best fall foliage hikes across the US.
UN report finds more children are obese than underweight.
New island appears in Alaska.
See award-winning astronomy photographs.
Albania appoints AI bot as cabinet minister to tackle corruption.
Perception of college's value hits new low.
The working parents hiring personal assistants.
How to take mini-retirements.
Woman breaks record for jumping rope on ice.
Clickbait: Mapping the galaxy far, far away.
Historybook: Henry Hudson begins exploration of what will become known as the Hudson River (1609); Iconic track and field athlete Jesse Owens born (1913); Singer Barry White born (1944); Mae Jemison becomes first Black woman in space (1992); Johnny Cash dies (2003).
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> WNBA regular season wraps up tonight with the playoffs set to begin Sunday; see complete postseason bracket and schedule (More) | WNBA history (1440 Topics)
> Eight Detroit Tigers employees accused of sexual misconduct in the past two years, report reveals (More) | NCAA permanently bans three men's basketball players for betting on their own games (More)
> Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, and Ava DuVernay among 3,900 people from the film and TV industry to sign pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions they deem complicit in alleged war crimes (More)
Science & Technology
> Amazon launches electric robotaxi Zoox with free rides in Las Vegas; the Waymo and Tesla rival plans to enter the Austin and Miami markets next (More)
> Advanced instruments enable clearest-ever detection of gravitational waves emitted by black hole merger, confirming Stephen Hawking's black hole area theorem (More) | How Hawking shaped our understanding of black holes (1440 Topics)
> Neuroscientists link rare gene variant to the development of Alzheimer's and find treating mutated neurons with choline—an essential nutrient found in foods like eggs, meat, and legumes—reduces disease risk (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow -0.5%, Nasdaq +0.0%) (More) | Oracle, OpenAI sign $300B, five-year cloud computing deal; Oracle shares rise nearly 36% in best day since 1992, founder Larry Ellison tops Elon Musk as world's richest person (More)
> Fintech startup Klarna shares close up over 14% after debuting at $52 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the Swedish firm at roughly $17B (More)
> Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk to cut 9,000 jobs, or about 11% of global workforce, as part of restructuring (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> Former FBI leaders sue Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging their firings were motivated by their involvement in investigations into President Donald Trump (More)
> NATO holds talks after Poland and allies shoot down suspected Russian drones that entered Polish airspace; incident marks first time NATO planes have engaged potential threats in allied airspace (More)
> Cuba's electrical grid collapses for the fourth time in less than a year, leading to second nationwide blackout this year; outages reportedly caused by aging infrastructure and fuel shortages (More)
What's the Point?
.jpg)
What is the point of our life?
That question can be asked in a macro sense as well as a micro sense. The macro sense being seen as a collection evolution and the micro sense can be seen as an individual evolution.
Both approaches are simply conjecture and one's opinion.
From a macro sense, I would suggest that our life should evolve towards perfection, from the standpoint of what perfection means to you.
Is that perfection intellectual or technical and scientific and would it include knowing everything there is to know and becoming disease free, thereby living forever.
From a micro sense, I would suggest that one's life should revolve around being the best that you can be relative to your own standards, not the standards of others or by comparing yourself to others.
I would also suggest that one should ALWAYS treat others as they want to be treated, meaning an end to competition and jealousy.
A start to make this happen, would be to stop being greedy, or grow with inflation so that you never fall behind or never get ahead... you simply remain constant while improving yourself in other areas:
- Respect for life
- Respect for nature
- Respect for all animals
- Respect for people regardless of class, culture, gender, race, beliefs, or education
- Desire to learn one new thing a day
- Desire to have an open mind
- Desire to live a healthy life
- Measure twice, cut once
- Be grateful for life daily
The Race Is On To Simulate Our Quantum Universe
Faithful simulations of the world are impossible to create using ordinary computers. Simulating physical reality is, however, the original, express purpose of quantum computers.
Quantum computers, though still small and rudimentary, have now grown sufficiently advanced that physicists are using them to simulate tiny pieces of nature.
Thursday, September 11
Free Will
.jpg)
Do we have FREE WILL?
What is FREE WILL?
Free will is the philosophical concept that humans have the ability to make choices and determine their own actions, independent of prior causes or external constraints like fate or divine intervention. The existence and nature of free will are debated, with determinism suggesting all actions are predetermined, while libertarian views emphasize self-determination.What are our choices, determinism or self-Determination?
IF we look at our choices through a RELIGIOUS LENS, what do we see?
God gave us free will while on the other side of the coin, we know it is God's Will that needs to be obeyed, not our own. So, if we believe in God's Will, do we forfeit our own. Is that what Jesus did on the cross when he allowed himself to die because it was God's Will not his own will?
If we look at our choices through another lens... what do we see?
Let's suppose we have a CREATOR, not a GOD but a creator and this creator lives on the edge of our universe and sees everything: past - present - future, if our lives have already been observed womb to tomb, were the choices made really a result of free will?
Now... here is another scenario...
We have free will to make any choice in the world that we want to make, as long as we are willing to pay the price (consequences - intended or otherwise) for those choices. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Free Will = Choices = Consequences
However, what if we do not want to pay the consequences of our choices, so we are manipulated into making another choice which really wasn't the choice we wanted to make...
Did we still exercise FREE WILL?
Some will say yes while others will say no.
Making choices is making choices regardless of outside influences, right?
Can one live one's entire life without making choices?
Deciding not to make a choice, is, in fact, making a choice not to act.
