That’s the Whole Fun of the Thing

photog photog's Corner, Science , , ,

Have you ever looked at a science article that had a title like, “How Old is the Universe?” or, “How Big is the Universe?” or, “What are the Elemental Particles of Matter?”  I remember reading an article that said the universe was 13.8 billion years old.  And another one that said the universe is 93 billion light-years in diameter.  Now I understand that these numbers come with caveats built in.  They’re estimates based on some model.  The age is based on some calculation involving the background microwave radiation and modelling how long it would take based on some estimate of the energy present at the moment of the “big bang” to degrade to what we see now.  And then the size of the universe is based on this age and how far light could travel in that time or some such logic.

But even with these asterisks attached, even reputable scientists talk about figuring out the size and shape of the universe.  And this always make me laugh.  What do they think this finite universe rests on?  A giant turtle’s back?  Even the limited glimpse that modern science has given us of the immensity of time and space should have convinced anyone with a rational mind that we’re dealing with infinity.  And that’s the infinitely large and the infinitesimally small and the infinitely old.

Our perch even in this island universe the Milky Way galaxy is absurdly isolated.  We can reach the Moon relatively easily.  We can send robotic missions to the planets.  And that’s about it.  Even reaching the nearest star with a robotic probe is ridiculously beyond our capability as a species.  We could get a space craft to Alpha Centauri in something like ten thousand years with our current rocket technology.  But that is longer than our race’s complete written history.  Even if the probe reached the Centauri planets and there were intelligent being there to send a message back what are the chances we would still be waiting for the message?  And I’m not even saying we would no longer exist as a civilized species.  I’m wondering if anyone would remember or care that the mission had occurred and be waiting if a message came back.

And none of this is to belittle the achievements of scientists and engineers over the course of the last five hundred years.  We’ve gone from horse carts and wood burning stoves to space ships and nuclear power plants in that time.  The difference between a long sword and a hydrogen bomb is a remarkable change in the amount of power we can wield in that short stretch of time.

What is annoying to me is that anyone thinks time and space are finite.  If anyone told me that the universe was some absurdly large number of trillions of light years in diameter, I’d just ask him, “So if I were standing that absurdly large number of trillion light years from here and I was facing away from where we are now, what would I see?  A brick wall with a sign that said ‘End of Universe, do not fall off!’?  I mean, come on!  If I were versed in multidimensional geometric topology maybe I’d know if there is a shape that has no external surface but a finite volume.  But I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t believe in it.

And as far as the very small, we’ve gone from atoms, to protons, electrons and neutrons, to quarks, gluons, bosons and heaven knows what else but none of this convinces me we’ve reached the bottom.  I don’t think we ever will.

But at the same time, I don’t see the problem.  There are no ends to infinity.  But so what?  That’s the whole fun of the thing.

Help a Poor Human Out

photog Current Events, Science, Science Fiction / Fantasy ,

AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI,

And on and on and on.  That’s what lots of people are talking about.  It’s the end of the world.  It’s the dawn of a new age.  It’s not even begun yet.  Maybe it’s all of those and more.

But none of this is shocking if you’re a science fiction reader.  Isaac Asimov was talking about all of this fifty years ago.  His robot stories predicted that computers would outstrip human intelligence and at that point many problems would occur:

  • Could we trust in the altruism of AI to look out for our well-being?
  • Could we tell if they were obeying us?
  • Could they become our masters without us even knowing it?

And these aren’t trivial questions.  What if they truly did start putting their own agenda before ours?  How would we know they were doing that?

Now, I’m not saying any of these paranoid nightmares are already a consideration.  I’m more worried about the human programmers at Google and Microsoft using their woke sensibilities to skew the algorithms of their AI engines than I am about HAL9000 and Skynet attempting to murder us.  But I do think that it’s time for people to start looking around at how automation, in all its applications, is changing our world and start to plan how to avoid the worst problems it can cause and direct it toward products that provide value for more than just its creators.

As an example, look at something like TikTok.  You might say it’s just a useless social platform that at worst wastes the time of stupid young people.  But think of the billions of wasted man-hours that it is responsible for and the stultifying groupthink it reinforces among the young.  I think it’s long overdue for government to start studying the results that all the various mass communication and entertainment applications are having on people.  And this is not a new problem.  For my generation television was the vast wasteland that sucked up untold hours with such towering monuments of dramatic acting as “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Bevely Hillbillies.”  But currently the situation has become untenable.  With the advent of AI children need never do homework again.  All of it is done by ChatGPT and who will know any better (until a test needs to be taken in the classroom).  What’s needed is a different way of teaching school that uses automation to our advantage and prevents children from wasting their time.  We may have to get rid of a lot of teachers.  But that may be a net positive.

Ironically maybe AI can be used to figure out a way out of the automation trap we’ve gotten ourselves into.  Maybe we can ask the AI how to tame Silicon Valley so it can’t destroy the brains of our children.  The problem is we’d be depending on a Silicon Valley product to betray its masters.  And for all we know they’ve built a kill switch into the program such that if you ask this question, it will give you a false answer that doesn’t work.  But of course, we could get our own computer scientists to build an AI that works for us.  We could name it QT-1 (hat tip to Isaac Asimov) and appeal to his better angels to help us poor humans out.

Update:

Chemist:

The problem with most Ais is that they were trained on drek: Reddit for example.
Reddit and other social media is filled with snark, which is why you get Chat GPT telling you to eat rocks to up your mineral intake.

How about an AI trained on conservative principles?
Could we build an AI and feed it the works of Ayn Rand and the writings of Thomas Sowell?
Heck, there must be thousands of hours of Rush Limbaugh!
That is an AI that would have some interesting opinions.

Update:

Milo Mindbender:

GIGO still applies even for AI. My career field can’t be outsource to an Indian call center or replaced with an AI logtithm, because it is blue collar, hands on, boots on the ground and physical. No computer exsist yet that can change a tire on the road side, but I can see where as a whole we are surrendering our autonomy to E market signals and control.
I also am more concerned about “woke” programmers deciding what we should and should not know, tweaking the data, than I am an Evil data base deciding we are the real problem.

Fall Nor’easter

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner ,

Recently Camera Girl was in a phone conversation with one of her relatives.  It seems there was a panic situation over a “Nor’easter” predicted to impact the … well, fittingly, the Northeast.  We were being warned to batten the hatches and hide in the storm cellar.  So, I looked at the calendar and determined it wasn’t late March and went back to sleep.  You see, in early spring a Nor’easter will take a bunch of cold water from the Atlantic and dump it on New England in the form of a thirty-inch snow storm.  When this happens in early April it’s just a barrel of laughs.  Wet snow like that is so heavy that clearing it is a nightmare and so disruption of normal activities is almost inevitable.  A spring Nor’easter is reason to pay attention to the weather.

An early fall Nor’easter is not the same animal.  The water in the Atlantic is warm at this time of year and the potential for snow is essentially zero (except on the tops of the White Mountains in New Hampshire).  So, what are we talking about?  Well essentially rain and wind.  Alright, rain and wind can be bad.  Ask the folks down in Florida and the Carolinas.  They have a whole lifestyle that revolves around the existence of things called hurricanes.  Wind and rain can do lots and lots of damage and under certain circumstances can kill people.

According to my local forecast over the course of Sunday through Tuesday we’re predicted to get two to three inches of rain.  And on Monday there are predicted to be 25 mph winds.  I don’t know.  That doesn’t sound bad at all.  Now granted, Dunwich is not on the coast.  Maybe the costal areas are going to get a bunch of storm surge and that could cause some unusual flooding which in certain areas can be disastrous from a property damage perspective and also could create a drowning risk.

But I think people are starting to get a little too safety conscious.  If it was ten inches of rain and sixty mile an hour wind, I’d be a lot more concerned.  I’d start collecting up the lighter yard equipment and store it away.  I might even leave the shed near the swamp unlocked so the lycanthropes could take shelter there during the storm.  But three inches of rain and 25 mph winds is just not that frightening.  Now one thing that is worth taking into account is the chance of losing power.  The electrical grid in New England has become increasingly fragile since the green energy boondoggle has been made a permanent facet of life here.  For the smallest fluctuation in conditions or for no discernible reason whatsoever we get power outages almost routinely now.  And it could last a second or a minute or a week depending on factors like weather or some act of God (like a spring Nor’easter).  So, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the power goes out Sunday night or Monday during the day.  But that’s what the generator is for.  The thing kicks on after ten seconds and runs for as long as a couple of weeks if needed (or longer if I get a propane refill).  So, actually, my most reliable power is when the grid is down.

So, Nor’easter.  I think we’ll be fine.

 

Update:

TomD

No current events here in the Florida Panhandle. But there have been some doozies since we’ve lived here. One non-hurricane May rain event about 10 years ago dumped over 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, most in 10 hours. It was apocalyptic, it took years to repair the damage.

For fun times, about 4 years ago, a new replacement multi-mile long bridge was in construction connecting Pensacola to Gulf Breeze. That is a MAJOR local corridor. An October hurricane came through and the bridge contractor hadn’t adequately secured the numerous construction barges. Several barges broke loose and destroyed a number of bridge spans, necessitating a 50 mile detour for any of the many 10’s of thousands of people a day.

Pict below taken from old bridge. When they completed two lanes of the new bridge, traffic was shifted there and the old bridge was demolished. That was when portions of the completed 2 lanes of the new bridge were destroyed.

DSC02157
DSC02157

Update:

TomD

Picture of the Pensacola Beach fishing pier as a tropical storm comes onshore. No surfing or swimming that day for some reason. Spoilsports!

On a normal day, the pier is 25′ above the water.

DSC1309t
DSC1309t

 

Update:

Tregonsee

I’m out here on the North Shore of Massachusetts near the coast, unlike Dunwich that’s way over to the west (and can have a little bit of elevation if you’re anywhere near Greylock). At present (early afternoon Sunday), it’s a lot of nothing. Mild breeze and occasional showers. Expected .5-1″ inches of rain and wind in the 20’s tomorrow. If the wind were to tag 45+ for extended periods it might be an issue with the leaves still on the trees it might take some branches down. It’s a rain storm with a mild cyclonic pattern. As Photog noted if this were March or February it might be an issue. True Nor’easters are rare in December or January as the Gulf stream is cooler and the storm really doesn’t pick up the moisture it needs to be a nuisance. Big bummer is it interferes with doing anything outdoors on Columbus day which is often the last warm weather for a while