Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Biker heroes, cheese thieves, and stupidity checklists

Sunday Morning Reading time with stories and good writing about crime, incompetence, technology, shifts and changes, and cheese. There’s also hope in and amongst the chaos. Add a slice of cheese to your morning repast and give a read.

A rustic indoor display features a wide variety of artisanal cheese wheels and blocks stacked tightly on wooden shelving. On the left, smooth, rectangular orange-brown blocks are piled horizontally. On the right and center, large round wheels of varying sizes are stacked vertically, displaying diverse rinds—ranging from textured dark brown and dusty gray to smooth ochre and patterned beige. Photo by Azzedine rouichi YW_5rJvAdKw unsplash.

Starting this week’s edition with a surprising feel good story that reminds us we shouldn’t judge books by covers. Marlon G. Baxter tells the tale of young hearing impaired child who was saved from being trafficked in a Walmart by what appeared to most as an unlikely hero. You need to read “Heroes Wear Leather Too”: How A Deaf Child And A Biker Stopped A Trafficking Plot.

UPDATE: This pisses me off. Apparently the feel good story linked above is fake. I and several others have looked into it and it’s not holding up. Pardon my swearing, but this is so goddamned frustrating. I’m leaving the link and my description in for two reasons. Pointing out that we can’t trust a damn thing on the Internet anymore. Secondly, that really sucks given we’re all in a posture of looking for hope whenever we can find it.

In the wake of what’s happening at the ICE Delaney Hall ~~detention center~~ internment camp in New Jersey, Josh Kovensky recounts the story of what happened in the courts after similar battles over humanity happened earlier in Chicago. Check out How The Broadview Six Fought The Trump DOJ—And Found Massive Wrongdoing In The Process. Tough to see hope in these horrible moments as they occur, and it’s hard to believe we have to rely on the incompetence of evil doers after the fact, but here we are.

Speaking of incompetence, there are stories and there are stories. Andrew Kersley’s The Body In The Wheelchair: How Did A Troubled Family Get Lost By the State? This a tough read to digest on a Sunday or any day, but definitely worth your time.

On the arts and politics front, a court has ruled Trump has to take his name off of the Kennedy Center and not close it down for renovations. Sounds like a victory. In the long term it may be, but Janay Kingsbury tells us that in the immediate future the damage may already have been done in Trump Hasn’t Left Much Kennedy Center To Stay Open. So much of what’s happening these days hurts my heart, but this misadventure hits me where I live.

Everything is changing, like it or not. Sonny Bunch thinks Hollywood is standing on the doorstep of yet another pivotal moment. Check out Hollywood’s About To Change (Again).

As far as pivotal moments go, there are quite a few happening all around us. Especially regarding searching the Internet. Google is reinventing itself and the Internet, leaving an opening for companies like DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Doc Searls writes How DuckDuckGo Can Be A Hero. Let’s hope these search companies seize the moment that’s before them.

And while we’re on the topic of tech, John Siracusa has published The EV Stupidity Checklist, suggesting ways the EV industry might get back on track. John could and should publish one of these for so many things in the tech sector. Perhaps also for so many other sectors of our lives.

I’m a cheese fan, and I’ve been known to nick a slice or two off of the hors d’oeuvres tray before the guests arrive. Olivia Potts tells us how organized crime fell in love with cheese in The Grate Cheese Robbery. Who knew cheese was the most stolen food in the world?

(Image from Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

Tilting

Hoping gravity does its job

Several of my areas of interest seem to be tilting, leaning closer of late to the point when gravity might take over and bring the bad guys down. If you read anything at all here, you know I’m talking about AI and what passes for politics as practiced here in the U.S.

Leaning Tower of Pisa ommy fogelberg Xf_dj8e2 s unsplash.

I wish I was in a position to help things along with a stronger push, but alas that’s not the case. If things do ever fall over it would certainly be destructive, but in my opinion, no more so than the destruction currently being visited upon us.

I mean the bad guys have tilted the pinball machine so far that it’s mostly beyond repair and I’m amazed you can still send the balls down the chute.

(Photo from Tommy Fogelberg on Unsplash)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

The Emperor’s New Car Wreck

A recycled, decaying spectacle

Once upon a time there was a guy named Hans Christian Anderson who wrote a story about an emperor who was exposed (literally) by his own vanity. We’re living that now here in the U.S. I’m actually amazed that this administration hasn’t banned every copy of The Emperor’s New Clothes, but it’s possible it’s above most of their reading levels.

The emperors new clothes.BltLFigK_Z2aBtTL.

Nothing ever really changes, it just gets recycled. Anderson’s story was actually based on others from Aesop to Persian folktales. So even within the frame we used to think of as American exceptionalism, we can’t claim this farce as our own. It’s like a virus or a comet that comes along every now and then. Or watching a car wreck. Or a train. Perhaps a space ship explode on a launch platform.

Regardless, I do think we’ll probably be able to claim the worst version of the story when this one does come to an end.

It’s more than obvious that Trump and his sloppy lickspittle sycophants can’t run a country, a war, an economy, or apparently not even a big 250th celebration of America’s founding without making a fool of themselves while they dig deeper holes for the rest of us. Small hint: you just need lots of fireworks and a military band. As long as the members meet the height and weight requirements.

They’re good at grifting and making money. For themselves. Apparently there are still enough suckers out there willing to pony up. That’s the only surprising part of our version. Although some who’ve seen enough are looking for new digs in Argentina. I’m guessing the real estate market there will see boom times as others follow. As long as the data centers don’t get there first.

The sinking spectacle is so obvious that it feels like most have started to ignore the water rising around their ankles, hoping they develop webbing between their toes. Those still shocked seem to be adopting a wait it out attitude. That makes some sense. There’s nothing really to be done until he’s no longer on the planet. Although I do have my doubts that his courtiers will even announce that he’s gone once he passes, out of fear for their own lives. We might even get a new definition of what death is. We’ll all be living through a Death of Stalin moment. Which is a shame because that movie was actually a good one. And funny. Watch it and see that part of our future.

Or just read The Emperor’s New Clothes. Not for anything new. There’s no insight to be gleaned with your eyes shut or turned away from what we’re seeing. But it’s better than watching the literal decay displayed daily on some screen or the other.

One day there’s going to be a large cleanup on aisle six. It will probably be as messy as it is glorious.

The Economics of AI Don’t Add Up

Bottom lines are where everything sinks to eventually

Money talks. Bullshit walks. Bubbles pop, and the world just keeps on burning while the big wheels just keep on turning. Pick a vibe. Pick a cliché. Pick a metaphor. Pick and mangle a song lyric. Just don’t try to pick a winner in the big AI race when it comes to dollars and cents. Or sense. The racers are running in circles, burning the planet and dollars trying to figure out how to keep things on a track no one has figured out quite yet.

Hint: It’s a circle, jerks.

From the beginning the hype about Artificial Intelligence has felt like it’s all about the vibes. So many vibes. I define “the beginning” as when OpenAI took the wraps off of ChatGPT and kick started the race. Maybe they should have just done a Kickstarter.

Those were heady days. I remember everyone thinking ChatGPT would replace Google. Now we’re at the point where Google is trying to replace itself.

Today, chatbots are replacing human connections, and all sorts of crustaceans are being installed on computers, causing some havoc in the hardware markets along the way. Things have now progressed to a point that folks are vibe coding up a storm, now that it seems more doable. And it’s interesting to see and hear some who were initially skeptical about the broad scope of AI now embracing it. For what it’s worth, the current vibe feels to me like AI is heading into its GUI phase of computing, only you need a keyboard or a microphone instead of a mouse to get around on a screen or without one.

And yet, when it comes to the money game, the vibe feels like the math behind all those 0’s and 1’s might not add up.

Corporations are starting to scale back usage now that the bills are coming in. Microsoft and other tech companies are pulling plugs, in most cases for third party access among the employees they haven’t let go. At the same time there’s whispers that AI costs are beginning to exceed the costs of human employees. Corporations are starting to adjust because the beans they are counting don’t look like they will add up and no one has vibe coded an accounting app yet to project when, of if they will.

Consumers are looking at that $20 month subscription cost and backing off while trying to choose which, if any, of the constantly updating models that still promise inaccuracy will give them the best monthly bang for a double sawbuck. To make the math sting even more, Google, OpenAI, Claude, etc… are tossing around $100 a month (and higher) plans for the latest and supposedly best features that make $20 a month feel like a poor man’s vibe.

There’s a technology intersection that has always been on the roadmap for computing technology since the dawn of the personal computer. To an extent, enterprise computing always subsidized consumer technology. The vibes I’m sensing hint that roadmap may be changing, and it won’t just affect the costs of using AI, computer memory, and chip production. It potentially may filter into every facet of life from medical bills, to insurance premiums, to any wholesale or retail concern that might employ AI. Don’t think for a minute that any company is going to simply eat the rising costs of AI usage, or cut back prices should using it somehow actually produce savings from cutting employees.

Call me when you hear the first company touting that they are cutting costs due to AI. Trust me, I won’t be waiting by the phone.

If a vibe has a bottom line, here’s how I see this one. We’re heading into a moment where what we think of as computing and the Internet is going to run on two diverging tracks. It’s becoming obvious that whether someone is running any of the AI robots on their own device or somewhere on the Internet that the costs are more than anyone could have predicted, or thought might become sustainable.

The $20 a month marker was a big hint early on. We were all used to the Internet come on of getting in free, being swamped with ads, and then having to eventually subscribe so our data could be collected. That $20 a month heralded a change, but only at the point of entry.

Given that we all know that advertising is coming to AI, we’re escaping the orbit that we’ve been in for quite some time that most of the Internet was free but required a level of tolerance for advertising. I’m guessing that those who can only afford the $20 a month price tag with ads will think back on the ways we’ve complained about the streaming entertainment services and their ad proliferation as quaint by comparison.

The Circle

That $20 entry fee will rise. So will the more expensive options. I’m actually surprised we haven’t see that already. The fact that AI has to continually train itself to remain relevant means it’s going to continue to need new computing cycles to consume whatever is generated in the future, whether by humans or robots. I don’t think you can build enough data centers on the surface of this planet, under the sea, or in space to afford the churn and burn. That’s the circle. In the end it’s a real estate play that yields only cul-de-sacs.

Take a look at this article from Simon Willison. Unlike my pessimistic vibe on this, Willison seems to think Anthropic and OpenAI have found their product-market fit. He’s spending $200 a month ($100 to each) and considers that a bargain since his usage of the two generated $2,180 change in token use for a month. That math certianly adds up as a good deal in the current moment. Until you consider that at some point the difference between what he’s paying and what he’s using is going to have to be put on somebody’s balance sheet in some way. These companies can’t run at a loss forever.

It’s a good piece by Willison that informs quite a bit on this discussion and worth your time, because I think that’s what the discussion is going to inevitably come down to. Set aside all of the debates about accuracy, copyright, and environmental issues. Set aside the rising consumer backlash. Bottom lines are where everything sinks to eventually.

I admire and am grateful for folks like Willison, Federico Viticci, and others who are exploring this frontier and think we should be paying attention to their efforts and learn from them. Viticci has crafted a few interesting bits of software of late and spent some coin in doing so. I’m enjoying reading about his efforts.

I may be wrong, but it feels like we might be headed to a point that to use some software in the future we’re going to need one of these ever changing and increasingly expensive AI engines on our computers to run some of the software that will be generated in the future. That will certainly come with a price tag. If, (actually in my opinion when) that happens, it will become another border defined by costs, dividing users between those who can afford the entry fee, and those who can’t.

It will also affect far more than our computing lives.

(Image from Viktoria_P on Shutterstock)

Two Weeks and Pinky Promises

Promises, promises

Two weeks. We’re all more familiar than we’d like to be with Donald Trump’s announcing anything and telling us it will manifest in two weeks. It’s become a joke worth laughing at, but without a punch line. It’s become mundane.

Two hands joined in a pinky promised. Photo by Olivia anne snyder wT_BwKOeEik unsplash.

We’ve also become accustomed to hearing promises from tech companies, that a safer and perhaps smarter course of action is to look askance with a skeptical eye, or perhaps turn a deaf ear. Autonomous driving is one of those, (as is anything Elon Musk promotes) and so too are most of the promises about achieving some sort of Generative Artificial Intelligence that might lead us all into some future where we all don’t have to work, money becomes no object, and all of our problems are solved. Let’s not forget curing cancer.

If we’re standing in the “foothills of the singularity,” I’m guessing those enjoying that view drove there instead of climbed.

It’s one thing for politicians and anyone trying to sell a product to make promises. It’s quite another when the world’s economy turns on the hype, yet never seems to suffer ill effects when deadlines are missed, ignored, or just punted down the road again and again.

Apple caught much deserved grief over its Apple Intelligence promises in 2024, as of yet still unrealized. But that seems to be one of the rare occasions when failure actually left a mark. Even so, that gigantic mistake seems to be have been quickly forgotten. It certainly doesn’t seem to have affected Apple’s bottom line. Even a class action settlement between Apple and those who bought into the promise when they bought a new iPhone doesn’t seem to have caused much of a ripple.

Even when software products are released, it feels like we’re too often in a perpetual beta, always waiting for the next update. When it comes to AI, there are so many bets being made on it being our future, even with all of the products today warning us that they are imperfect and capable of mistakes. When will someone pushing that hype tells us that those warnings will one day be gone? I’m guessing never. At least if the lawyers have a say.

I guess I’m showing my age when I say I grew up in a time when if you announced a product you were judged on whether or not you delivered. If you didn’t, how you handled the broken promise mattered.

They say all good things come to those who wait. These days there are times when I wonder if any of it is worth any of the wait. The promises sure aren’t.

(Image from Olivia Anne Synder on Unsplash)

AI Foes Are Getting The Terrorist Treatment

Quite a protection racket

I guess the AI models are predicting problems.

It’s obviously apparent that there’s an increasing sense of antagonism building around many of the issues associated with Artificial Intelligence. Data Center protests seem to be getting the most attention. The one thing you can say, is about AI is that it attracts detractors. Couple that up with the Trump administration’s policies to police speech and actions that they find unfavorable and it sounds like the interesting times we live in are about to become more interesting.

According to a report from Wired,

More than 1,000 pages of unpublished reports from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and fusion centers obtained by WIRED show a national shift taking place to surveil this new and worryingly broad category of people and activities deemed an emerging threat.

I encourage you to read the report. Not only do those of us who have major concerns about Artificial intelligence have all of the implications of the technology push to worry about, but apparently we may have to worry about expressing those concerns.

The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City.

On the one hand you can say that the backlash might be having the desired and necessary effect. On the other, it looks like concerned CEOs are calling in their chits after stuffing money into the pockets of the Trump administration.

Quite a protection racket. In the end, my guess is no one will be protected from any of this.

(Photo by Here Now on Shutterstock)

End Of A Crazy Wonderful Week

Too much fun was had

Well we survived. At least I think we did. We’ve spent the last week with the grandkids and to quote their father, “these two will run you into the ground.”

A side-by-side composite of two outdoor photos taken on a wooden deck.
In the photo on the left, an older man with short gray-brown hair, a beard, and a gray t-shirt smiles warmly while giving a young child a shoulder ride. The child, with shoulder-length light brown hair and a tank top, grins down at the camera while holding onto the man's head. The background shows the back of a house with large sliding glass doors and a hanging basket of pink flowers.
In the photo on the right, a young toddler with blonde, wavy hair smiles widely while sitting on a colorful toy ride-on scooter. The toddler is wearing a pink, sparkly Disney Princess dress. The front of the toy scooter features bright purple, green, and yellow buttons on the handlebars.

We met some ground. That’s for sure. But it was a delightful time that I wouldn’t trade for any other as bonds get stronger, laughs got louder, and they keep figuring out all my grandpa tricks.

Sunday Morning Reading

Wandering through the Internet, disregarding along the way

We live in interesting times. I’m spending a lot of my time being interested in watching my grandkids develop, and watching everything around how I thought they might grow up change. In my opinion, change not necessarily for the better. They won’t know what things changed from necessarily, unless they choose to look into it. That assumes they’ll be able to do so the way we can now. I have my doubts about that. Regardless, that’s tomorrow. Here are some links to share in this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

A close-up photograph captures a bronze statue of a young boy sitting on a stone bench outdoors, absorbed in reading a book.

Terry Godier says the Internet is dying. I’m not sure if it’s dying, morphing, collapsing in on itself, or just in the midst of growing pains, but I take the point. Check out The Boring Internet. (That’s a link to the text version. There’s also an animated version here. Quite nicely done.

JA Westenberg believes Nobody Is Destined For Greatness. I happen to agree. Shakespeare gave his greatest comic villain, Malvolio, lines about being born great. I wish I could label our current day villains as comic. Perhaps one day.

Derek Sivers reminds us that Geography Is Four-Dimensional. How true. There’s a reason Shakespeare more often than not capitalized the word “Time.”

Stories about religion occasionally get shared here. Mostly they are stories about how it’s really not religion, but a cover for grift and abuse. This is one of those. He Remade The Southern Baptist Convention In His Image. Then Came The Abuse Allegations by Robert Downen chronicles yet another of those tales we seem to hear far too frequently these days.

For another take involving religion, check out Neil Steinberg’s Being Formed By Christians Does Not A Christian Make. He quotes Thomas Jefferson’s “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” I’m not sure we can say either of those things any more.

There was a bit of a funny fracas after Google’s all in on AI announcements this week at its annual I/O conference. Apparently for a short time after Google announced big changes to Search, you could not Google the word “disregard” and expect the usual quick definition. Google quickly fixed that. The root of the problem? “Disregard” is an AI command that you have to put in a prompt to keep the AI demons from you know, making a mistake. Check out Russell Brandom’s quick story, You Can No Longer Google the Word ‘Disregard.’

Speaking of Artificial Intelligence, the talk is all about agents. (Actually that’s been the talk for a while, the volume is just increasing.) Hayden Field thinks If Google Can’t Make AI Agents Useful, Maybe No One Can. FWIW, I think Hayden is spot on.

In an article The Economist credits as anonymous, someone thinks Vladimir Putin Is Losing His Grip On Russia. Perhaps that’s true. I don’t know about you, but I’m as tired of hearing about autocratic oligarchs losing their grip as I am about hearing all of the promises about generative AI and autonomous driving being just around the corner.

Google Is Paving A New Information Superhighway

Getting from here to there is about to change

This is a feelings post. Meaning it contains things I feel, more than things I know or can reliably speculate about. It comes in the wake of Google’s announcements at its recent I/O conference.

An expansive aerial, high-angle photograph captures a major highway demolition and construction zone cutting through a dense, forested landscape under an overcast sky.
In the immediate foreground, an old concrete overpass bridge is actively being demolished. Several large excavators—colored in yellow, blue, and orange—are positioned around the rubble, using hydraulic breakers to smash the concrete structure into a large pile of grey debris, sending up small plumes of dust. Stripped brown dirt embankments frame either side of the demolition site, bordered by bright blue temporary construction barriers.

The way I’m feeling things, Google is essentially repaving what we’ve been referring to as The Information Superhighway, better known as the Internet.

Gone (or soon to be gone) is the Google most Internet pedestrians think of when they think of Google. Google has decided it’s ready to quit A/B testing and slowly spoon feeding us Artificial Intelligence, and chosen to bulldoze new paths ahead that will be all AI, all the time, everywhere.

From what I’m seeing if you want to use Google’s products, whether it’s on a Google device, Samsung or other Android device, or even an Apple device, you’re serving Google in larger ways, while serving yourself.

This has and continues to be a race that Google has always had the resources to win, and for the next few laps at least it feels like they will. Frankly, I don’t see the others being able to compete on that scale, for the simple reason that like it or not, Google is far more entrenched in users minds as a go to than any of the others.

Also, the other competitors may be good at creating code, but they appear far more incompetent at selling what they offer. Google has become pervasive enough, that it doesn’t need to care as much.

As to feelings, this does feel bad as it feels inevitable. I liken it to the days of Interstate construction that spread across this country. Entire generations have grown up not knowing how to drive great distances without traveling along an Interstate. Sure, there are folks who avoid them and take their time along more conventional routes, but that’s a very distinct minority.

Eventually there will be entire generations that will never know what the verb “Google” meant, the way those understand it today, just like those pre-Interstate generations of drivers. Even so, I’m guessing using it as a verb will probably mean the same to those down the road in the same way my grandkids don’t distinguish driving to grandpa’s house any differently than I do, when what today would take less than an hour, back then took at least two, often three.

But like many communities that slowly died out when Interstates and expressways bypassed towns, depressing changes will come to the Internet as Google owns more of the traffic and shares less, and essentially has to charge tolls to head down it’s superhighway, that used to be free.

I’m still digesting the news from this week, and I don’t think the story has been completely told yet. There’s also no way to know that if any of these promises will ever pan out. (Google is as famous for announcing what might never come to pass as it is for search.) That’s why this is a feelings post. Perhaps one of the most unsettling feelings I have about all of this is that Apple, by adopting Google’s approach to AI, in lieu of its own failing efforts, is helping create an Internet universe that for most users, will essentially be controlled by Google. Samsung is already all in, Apple as of this fall will be too. That essentially means that buying a smartphone from one of the largest two sellers, or any other that uses Android, is buying a ticket to travel on Google’s superhighway.

The various theories that suppose Apple is doing this as a stop gap until it can come up with its own solution the way it had to with Maps back in the day, don’t hold much water in the vessel that is my brain. There’s money to be made certainly, but there’s money (lots of money) that needs to be spent to construct all of whatever Google thinks it has going. My hunch is Apple will let Google spend the dough, take the credit and the blame, (there will be plenty of both) and happily collect a percentage as long as it can still sell iPhones and other hardware.

We live in interesting times.

(Photo from Rob J. Follet on Shutterstock)

Rare Moments of Stillness

Contemplating next moves

My two grandkids are usually in constant motion, so it’s rare when I have a camera ready when they aren’t.

A side-by-side composite image features two separate photographs of two young children with light brown hair, appearing pensive or downcast in different outdoor settings.

Somehow I’m more anxious when they’re still and thinking.

It’s been quite a week so far, and it is no way close to over.