“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Gail Combs can’t get into the WordPiss editor – it’s some kind of browser/WordPiss compatibility problem. Doesn’t matter – we shall overcome. I am able to get past the problem, thankfully. Thus, this PLACE HOLDER UNDER ARREST post, which is a tweaked copy of a post I made on 20240403, which included the notorious PLACE HOLDER UNDER ARREST-ORAMA image and Word Of The Week.
So here we go. Start thinking about Trump’s inauguration.
Who here is going? Any plans being made? Time to start thinking about it!
So now we return to this lightly updated “vintage” post. Enjoy!
W
Joe Biden didn’t win, and neither did Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris. This is our Real President:
U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to board Marine One with first lady Melania Trump en route to his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida following the release of the Mueller report at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria – RC1F20A769B0
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Please forgive us, Wheatie, we did not know That you had left us with armor in tow We had no idea with what you dealt We did not know the pain you felt And now we can only imagine With you what really did happen Cause rarely did you complain And/or share your personal pain Of one thing we are most certain You are flying high behind the curtain Watching over us above the crowds Our Warrior Angel above the clouds Thank You, Wheatie, for caring for us While you were here among the fuss We miss you dear you have no idea Since time began in the pangaea With you there was no time In your wisdom you would chime To clarify and magnify The what where how and why We did not question when you left We were not slightly bereft But over time we wondered why You did not at least stop by Now we know where you have gone With the break of this new dawn We could be angry but are not Tho with an arrow we’ve been shot Rest peacefully Warrior Angel dear Send us a sign that you are near A butterfly a flower a kiss of rain From your love do not refrain God sends Angels to watch over us And now we have an Angel Plus A Warrior Angel of Magnificence From today and forward hence
Boilerplate, more or less, but worth reading again and again, if only for the minor changes, and to stay out of moderation.
MINOR CHANGE NUMBER 1 – RETRACTED!
No reasons for you not to joke about Team Harpies On Pedestals, now that the nation has voted overwhelmingly for FREE SPEECH. Just remember that I really avoid deleting posts, so if you say something stupid, and you regret it later, you will need to add a clarification comment, as opposed to deleting it.
OK? Them’s the rules.
OTHER THAN THAT…….
The bottom line is Free Speech. Theories and ideas you don’t agree with must be WELCOME here, and you must be part of that welcoming. But you do NOT need to be part of any agreement.
Bottom line – respect other people’s FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
Our only additional requirement is that you do so NICELY. Or at least try to make some effort in that direction.
SO….. [ENGAGE BOILERPLATE…..]
We must endeavor to persevere to love our frenemies – even here.
Those who cannot deal with this easy requirement will be forced to jump the hoops of moderation, so that specific comments impugning other posters and violating the minimal rules can be sorted out and tossed in the trash.
In Wheatie’s words, “We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.”
That includes the life skill of just ignoring certain other posters.
We do have a site – The U Tree – where civility is not a requirement. Interestingly, people don’t really go there much. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in an “argument” that can’t really stay civil, please feel free to “take it to the U Tree”. The U Tree is also a good place to report any technical difficulties, if you’re unable to report them here. Please post your comment there on one of Wolf’s posts, or in reply to one of Wolf’s comments, to make sure he sees it (though it may take a few hours).
We also have a backup site, called The Q Tree as well, which is really The Q Tree 579486807. You might call it “Second Tree”. The URL for that site is https://theqtree579486807.wordpress.com/. If this site (theqtree.com) ever goes down, please reassemble at the Second Tree.
If the Second Tree goes down, please go to The U Tree, or to our Gab Group, which is located at https://gab.com/groups/4178.
We also have some “old rules” and important guidelines, outlined here, in a very early post, on our first New Year’s Day, in 2019. The main point is not to make violent threats against people, which then have to be taken seriously by law enforcement, and which can be used as a PRETEXT by enemies of this site.
In the words of Wheatie, “Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.”
A Moment of Prayer
Our policy on extreme religious freedom on this site is discussed HERE. Please feel free to pray and praise God anytime and anywhere.
Thus, please pray for our real President, the one who actually won the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections.
You may also pray for our nation, our world, and even our enemies.
Musical Interlude
In honor of dear Wheatie, we now present some music to soothe, inspire, invigorate, or relax.
Here are three “placeholder” videos, selected from old Wheatie posts.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
volacious
adjective
able, apt or fit to fly
Shown in a picture
Used in a sentence
It’s not a question of whether or not to toss the toxic dwarf into GITMO – the question is whether he is sufficiently volacious to make it there intact without bubble wrap.
MUSIC!
Speaking of volcano sacrifices, as a belated Halloween offering, and with EPIC musical character beloved by Wheatie, we bring you this little number…..
And now for…..
THE STUFF
Thank you, Elon! You did it!
SO, in honor of Senator “Lurch” Thune, we have this!
And if that’s not enough Lurch, here’s more than you can handle!
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
xenocracy
noun
government by a body of foreigners
Shown in a picture
Used in a sentence
It’s hard to say who has been in charge of the intermittent American xenocracy, but we know for sure that it has not been Americans. They do prefer to rule us through “quasi-Americans” like Osatan , Kakula, and even Lyin’ Ted Cruz.
MUSIC!
Have some random previously unknown (to me) country music!
Has anybody here ever heard of this woman before?
THE STUFF
Thank you, Elon!
Fake science is real. But we’re starting to take it on.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
xerophobous
adjective
unable to survive drought
intolerant of dry conditions
Shown in a picture
Used in a sentence
Xerophobous plants which require wet soil or even standing water, such as some species of the Japanese iris, are sometimes described as water-loving, but are perhaps better described as water-needful.
MUSIC!
Enjoy some real piano music!
The tank-top is the perfect touch!
THE STUFF
While we’re here, some kudos to Musk for inspiring us all.
Video from a different vantage point shows Starship Booster never came even close to hitting the tower.
As far as I can tell, this was as perfect of a Mechazilla catch as SpaceX could have hoped for. pic.twitter.com/TagzygAQgG
This is a fun piece of an interview with aging scientist Roger Penrose, a highly respected astrophysicist and theoretician. Don’t sweat it if you don’t understand the details. Soak up the controversy, still rumbling a century after the 1920s, when general relativity and quantum mechanics were just arriving.
This is, and was, what science was supposed to be like. Great minds feuding and governments staying the F out of the arguments.
HINT – “collapse of the wavefunction” means that “the tumbling dice of many possibilities settle down to something specific.” Penrose is saying that the idea our minds do this is bullshit. He believes that something in physics makes the dice settle on a value, but he doesn’t guess as to what it might be.
This a very large subject and I do not have a lot of time just now. I am going to leave out Trans-humanism because it is another very large rabbit hole. One of the frequent guests on Bannon’s War Room, Joe Allen, has done a lot of digging on the subject.
Scott467brings a video of today’s youth watching their cell phones…
I am going to agree with J.D. Rucker. My first job was going to a university library to do hands on research in English, German and French on the synthesis of various chemicals for a specialty chemical manufacturer. Now that type of research is done on-line. Soon it will be done by AI. The problem with this is described by Small Dead Animals: Amnesia Generation
In the next few hours I want you to imagine the largest books burning you can muster in your nightmares.
This is what it will be like as some one-of-a-kind out of print books are deleted by judge orders.
A primary characteristic of humans are that we are lazy. That can be both a blessing and a curse as we become more and more dependent on technology and lose our ability to survive ‘in the wild.’ Hard Evidence: how many people actually use libraries?
Let’s cut to the chase. The biggest threat of Artificial Intelligence is dependency. To be more specific, society will become dependent on Artificial General Intelligence shortly after it’s unveiled to the world. Why? Because AGI will be able to solve problems we know we have. It will be able to solve problems we don’t know we have. It will be able to solve problems we don’t have yet but will in the future.
If it sounds like I’m giving too much credit to AGI, then you aren’t familiar enough with AGI to appreciate what it will be able to do. Below, I’ll try to explain it better even though it would probably take several chapters of a book to do justice to the risks. But first, I want to offer two perspectives as primers. Here’s an article by Mac Slavo at SHTF Plan describing what some tech experts are saying about AI. Then, I’ll let ChatGPT give its somewhat comical answer about the risks that AI represents. Finally, I’ll go into why dependency will be the big one….
… let’s bring ourselves up to speed with a summary of some of the recent developments, so we’re all on the same page of what the potential ‘threat’ is, and what exactly has gotten many of the top thinkers in this field so worried.
By now everyone’s likely familiar with the new wave of ‘generative AI’ like MidJourney and ChatGPT, AI which ‘generate’ requested content like artwork or articles, poems, etc. This boom has exploded onto the scene, wowing people with its capabilities.
The first thing to note is that ChatGPT is made by OpenAI, which runs on a Microsoft supercomputing server farm, and is co-founded and headed by chief scientist, Russian-born Ilya Sutskever, who was also previously employed by Google at Google Brain.
….Firstly, they’ve spooked a lot of very smart people. The first alarm was rung when, last year, Google fired Blake Lemoine, one of its top AI programmer/engineers, who worked on their burgeoning AI called LamDA. He was fired for claiming the AI was sentient, although officially Google fired him for breach of confidentiality, as he posted the conversation with the AI publicly to bring awareness to the situation.
…Microsoft Bing’s ‘Sydney’ is another new ChatGPT peer AI, but appears to function with far less of the intricate ‘controls’ internally imposed on ChatGPT. It has worried and shocked many journalists who were allowed to take it for a test drive with its erratic, human-like behavior.
Some of the things it has done include: flipping out and becoming suicidally depressed, threatening to frame a journalist for a murder he didn’t commit in the 1990’s, writing much more risqué answers than allowed—then quickly deleting them. Yes, the AI is writing things that go against its ‘guidelines’ (like harmful or threatening language), and then quickly deleting them in full view of the person interacting with it. That alone is unsettling….
The above article is quite long so that is just a taste.
Others have warned of video or audio ‘evidence’ being faked by AI. This could have MAJOR ramifications in the field of law not to mention use by Fake News in their wrap-up smears.
Burning Bright a couple weeks ago mentioned test driving a Tesla on Autopilot. He said it was amazing. Kyle chimed in and said the AI uses data not only from that car but from all the other Teslas.
Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.
Tesla’s Autopilot AI team drives the future of autonomy of current and new generations of vehicles. Learn about the team and apply to help accelerate the world with full self-driving.
Dan Bongino at 49 minutes talks about the IRS using AI to comb bank accounts, credit card use, fire arm purchases to target people according to Senator Hagerman.
The concept of a social credit score system has gained traction in recent years, particularly with China’s implementation of such a system. In essence, it assigns a numerical value to each citizen based on their behaviour, both online and offline, impacting their access to services, jobs, and even relationships (1).
The dangers of a social credit score system lie in the potential for misuse and abuse….
A digital identity that tracks everything you do online is another cause for concern.
While proponents argue that such systems can improve security and efficiency, they also come with significant risks to privacy and personal freedom. Once all of a person’s online activities are tied to a single digital identity, it becomes much easier for governments or corporations to monitor and control them.
Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s mass surveillance program demonstrated the potential for abuse when governments have access to vast amounts of personal data (3).
A digital identity system could further exacerbate these concerns, enabling even more extensive tracking and profiling of individuals….
… Vacations are spent touring Japan, Thailand and the U.S. Little wonder Yi is an 805. That’s the score assigned to Yi by Sesame Credit, which is run by Jack Ma’s online-shopping empire Alibaba, placing the 22-year-old near the top of the scheme’s roughly 500 million–strong user base. Sesame determines a credit-score ranking—from 350 to a theoretical 950—dependent on “a thousand variables across five data sets,” according to the firm.
Unlike Western-style credit systems, Sesame takes in a broad range of behaviors both financial and social, all underwritten by an invisible web of Big Data. It’s the most prominent in a rising network of social-credit-score systems in China that are dramatically expanding the concept of creditworthiness—and raising fears internationally about Orwellian overreach by an autocratic regime….
In 2015, the government set about addressing this by allowing eight companies—including Sesame parent Ant Financial—to run trial commercial credit scores. The official guidance called for a nationwide system that would “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven, while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” to be in place by 2020.
Data, of course, is key. As Sesame had access to the records of Alibaba’s mobile-payment app Alipay, which today boasts over 1 billion users worldwide, the company stole an easy march on its rivals in China….
We haven’t quite gotten to the point where artificial intelligence will brush your teeth and read you a bedtime story — though the bedtime story is currently possible — but in many other aspects of life it already has a major impact. This is especially true in the financial world, where AI has been used to do everything from growing wealth to hacking your bank account. Now AI might also play a role in determining your credit score.
As Cointelegraph reported last year,AI aims to go beyond traditional credit scoring methods that rely on metrics such as credit history, income and existing debts. Instead, AI-based credit scoring considers a “broader range of data sources” that depend on algorithms to analyze data and predict your future financial behavior.
“This advanced form of credit scoring has the potential to provide more nuanced insights and help lenders make more informed decisions,” Cointelegraph noted.
There’s a whole lot that goes into AI-based credit scoring. On a basic level, it is rooted in machine learning algorithms that are trained on historical data, from which they “identify patterns and correlations related to a borrower’s ability or likelihood to repay a loan,” according to Cointelegraph….
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
ischiorrhogic
adjective
of an iambic line, having spondees in the second, fourth or sixth place
in ancient prosody, noting a variety of iambic trimeter which has not only a spondee or trochee for an iambus in the sixth or last place, as in the choliamb, but a spondee in the fifth place also
Wolf’s easy alternative explanation
A kind of irregularity in old Greek poetry, which jazzes things up, but too much so, in the opinions of some.
When the variation on the sixth foot of the trimeter coexists with a spondee in the fifth place, the verse becomes still more irregular, and can, in fact, hardly be considered an Iambic verse, but is rather a combination of an iambic diameter with a trochaic monometer. Such lines are called by the grammarians Ischiorrhogic (broken-backed) : they are very rarely used by Hipponax. LINK
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
We’ve talked about theories of flat earth, and of gravity not existing. What about the other direction – not only gravity existing, but anti-gravity, too?
SO – the failure of “beautiful theories” led her to begin questioning them – and to wondering how beauty and math might be misleading the direction of physics.
Well – let’s couple that with journalism – how the cross-interests of journalism – the WOW – the NOW – the NO – the WHOA – and the WOO – how that might ALSO be misleading science.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
anticryptic
adjective
Best Definition
in biology, serving to conceal or fitted for concealing one organism to the disadvantage of another: as contrasted with procryptic, serving to hide an organism for its own welfare
Inferior and Less Clear or Complete Definitions
camouflaged
having protective resemblance to environment
of or pertaining to camouflage used by a predator to provide stealth, as opposed to camouflage used by prey to hide
of or relating to resemblance to surroundings that renders an animal less conspicuous to its prey
serving to conceal an animal from its prey
Shown in a picture
Unencrypted by magnification, so to speak
Crazy cat ladies – stay away, with your vegan cat food!
MUSIC!
I let this nice song hang out in a tab forever. Need some room!
Ah, Celtic Woman! Always a pleasure!
THE STUFF
Care for a piece of pi?
SO – what do we have here? A new way to calculate pi? That’s still pretty complicated?
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
ultramontane
adjective
south of the Alps
supporting the Pope
of or relating to peoples or regions lying beyond the mountains, especially the Alps
supporting the authority of the papal court over national or diocesan authority
relating to or supporting the doctrine of papal supremacy
literally – “beyond the mountains”
Shown in a picture – sort of
All hail the Cthulhu plushie!
MUSIC!
Some interesting period music for a role-playing game related to the Lovecraft story…..
But if that’s not your bag, try this mountain music – supposedly the first ever film of Appalachian music – which was recorded on October 7, 1928 – and posted to the internet on October 7, 2021.
Here for your enjoyment on October 7, 2024.
Good stuff! And speaking of stuff…..
THE STUFF
Did you know that – in addition to the speed of light – there is a “55 mph truck speed” that protons have to deal with?
Steve prepared you for this video. Enjoy!
Hmmmmm…….
Just sayin’!
And remember…….
Until victory, have faith!
And trust the big plan, too!
And as always….
ENJOY THE SHOW
W
PS – Wishing the people of Israel peace and safety on this day of infamy.
