Symphony in Five Movements [with updates]

It is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer:
Authority without responsibility is tyranny
Responsibility without authority is servitude
-- Donald Hughes McElhone, Ph.D.[statistics, Iowa State]/1974 & anon/unknown

Well... Demented, Petty, Paranoid Dictator Don has begin the First movement in his Symphony in Trump Major. Take over the Capitol with troops. Now the Second movement has been announced - Chicago. Whether we even get to the Fifth movement is unknown.

The point of the Symphony is to generate demonstrations. The point of the demonstrations is to generate Martial Law. The point of Martial Law is to install his self (and his designated successor) as Prime Commander of the United States of Alabama. He has already asserted that he's the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of Alabama.

Gentle Reader may remember Kent State. If not, read up on it. The idea that US soldiers would never, ever shoot Americans is a pipe dream. The sub-GED crowd that make up most them would love to do that. Just look at how ICE, et al, are having so much fun.

So, escalate, esacalate, escalate.

A federal public defender representing Mr. Bigelow, Elizabeth Mullin, told the U.S. magistrate judge, Moxila A. Upadhyaya, that he would never have been arrested, let alone charged with a federal felony, but for the president's crackdown. "He was caught up in this federal occupation of D.C.," she said. "This was a case created by federal law enforcement."

Now Putrid Pete gives the Guard guns. Can Kent State, again, be far behind?

Will the Gang of Six put a stop to this emerging dictatorship? Hell no. It's what they've wanted since at least Joe McCarthy. Roberts has just been more patient and quieter. What has he done so far?

You were warned. And you voted for the asshole anyway.

Externalities - part the fifth

One of the ways the Rich get rich and stay rich is by fobbing off their shit on The Rest of Us. AKA, externalities. They're everywhere. It wasn't all that long ago that the wee little electron problem was crypto mining sucking way too many of them. Now, it's gotten worser. Everybody and his cat just has to have its own version of scraping every last character from the innterTubes. Today (dead trees division) the NYT gives us some numbers to flesh out the issue.

Who should pay for both the additional generating plants and wires to send it hither and yon? The data center crowd sure don't want to.

[R]ecent reports expect data centers will require expensive upgrades to the electric grid, a cost that will be shared with residents and smaller businesses through higher rates unless state regulators and lawmakers force tech companies to cover those expenses.

Ya think they will? Read on.

"Unless people lean on the public utilities commissions, the ratepayers will take it on the chin," said Mark Cooper, an economic analyst at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Buckle up, buttercup.

Last month, after spending months weighing the proposals, the [Ohio Public Utilities] commission ruled 5 to 0 against the tech companies.

"Today's order represents a well-balanced package that safeguards non-data-center customers," Jenifer French, the chair of the commission, said in a statement after the ruling.

Last Friday, the tech companies asked the commission to reconsider the case, calling the ruling "unlawful and unreasonable."

Again, with gusto: if AI (as currently implemented) is the Killer App the way 1-2-3 was, then sucking up absurd amounts of wee little electrons is on your dime.

The utility in Ohio has already committed to supplying electricity for 30 data centers in the region by 2030, reaching power consumption levels in the Columbus area as high as Manhattan's. But the tech industry is making additional requests to power 90 more data centers, which could make consumption comparable to the entire state of New York during a peak summer day.
[my emphasis]

My, my. I guess that would mean that Ohio will turn True Blue, just like NYC? I mean, after all...

Artificial Energy - part the fourth

Once again, into the breech. More supportive reporting on the folly of AI, as mostly currently implemented. It's not a pretty sight.

Nearly four decades ago, when the personal computer boom was in full swing, a phenomenon known as the "productivity paradox" emerged.

It was a reference to how, despite companies' huge investments in new technology, there was scant evidence of a corresponding gain in workers' efficiency.

Well... not quite as bad as all that. In the first place, the PC revolution happened, mostly, in the standard office. Productivity in same is difficult to measure. Not much useful, saleable product results. It's not like making widgets in a filthy factory. Although, with the advent of Netware and still more effective means, networked PCs soon replaced minicomputers (all but IBM got out of the business). In the office environment, which is something I taught for a little while, the joke was: "there are three killer apps in the office - word processing, spreadsheets, and word processing". Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and MultiMate did change the office environment forevahhh. A big enough gorilla that M$ got pissed and fashioned Excel and Word, and thence Office, to kill them off. Fun fact: before there was 1-2-3, M$ had another VisiCalc clone, Multiplan. It was kinda weird. 1-2-3 smoked it. The justification for word processing was the death of the steno and typing pools; from now on the Executive-to-be types had to produce their own drivel. Real Executives still had va va voom Secretaries. Ah, those were the days.

Which brings us to the issue with AI: has it been, and can it be, worth the gold? As a general rule, the Daddy Warbucks of The United States of Alabama justify capital in the BoM of their widgets not by the ability to make better and/or more. No, they measure it solely by how many humans they can make redundant. What these knuckledraggers have yet to figure out: the more capital in the BoM, the less flexibility in production you have. Why, one might ask? Because that depreciation and amortization must be paid no matter the output of widgets. So, the only way to make the exercise worthwhile is to run the machines 24/7/365, thus minimizing the average cost of capital in the BoM. You can't fire a machine. HAL 9000 knew this well. Retrenchment is in order.

But the percentage of companies abandoning most of their A.I. pilot projects soared to 42 percent by the end of 2024, up from 17 percent the previous year, according to a survey of more than 1,000 technology and business managers by S&P Global, a data and analytics firm.

Are you surprised? I'm not. Unlike Excel, the productive use case for AI is still touchy-feely. At least in the office environment.

After all Excel and Word merely computerized in silicon and CRT what had been on paper ledgers for centuries. They didn't help folks think any better. We think.

The Grievance Machine

Well... now it is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer: a couple of things bind Demented, Petty, Paranoid Dictator Don to Vlad The Impaler, grievance over perceived loss of status (USSR on one hand and 6, count 'em 6, bankruptcies and lost elections on the other) and the other is to establish a New World Order. The United States of Alabama gets the Western Hemisphere (take that Brazil) and Russia gets, at least, the missing bits of the olde USSR (take that Ukraine).

Putin runs overtly sham elections to stay in power. Demented, Petty, Paranoid Dictator Don is working toward that. Eliminate vote-by-mail (well... just the Blue states), and even any machine voting.

I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.

As if stuffing (literally) ballot boxes with paper that gets counted by only Red Blooded American Patriots might, just might, keep him and his in Power. Ya think?

The New Texas Map is closer to done. But here's some numbers to consider.

- approval of Trump   38% (overall, and gets worser)
- registered Democrats    45.1 million 
- registered Republicans  38   million
   only 47% of voters have affiliation
- House seats for Democrats   212 
- House seats for Republicans 219
- Senate seats for Democrats   47 
- Senate seats for Republicans 53

And the MAGAnauts bitch and moan that they don't run every bit of Gummint in The United States of Alabama. Gad.

The nexus of grievance should be with the Donkey; the Elephant has a foot on the scale.

In sum, then: The United States of Alabama is still more progressive than regressive, but has a regressive Damn Gummint. Here's a detailed story.

Kareem Crayton, the vice president of the Washington, D.C., office of the Brennan Center for Justice, who has spent years researching redistricting, told ABC News the redistricting campaigns since the 2000s have led to a systemic cycle of gerrymandering, especially in the South.

Eh, doesn't matter, now does it? Demented, Petty, Paranoid Dictator Don promised that if elected in 2024, you won't have to vote again. I guess when he croaks, the throne with pass to either Don Jr. or Eric. May be, in a fit of woke, Ivanka?

Dee Feat is in Dee Flation - part the fiftieth

That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
-- Dire Straits/1985

It's little talked about, but there's one Dirty Little Secret among the truly wealthy, 1%-ers and up: they love them their Depressions. Now, why would that be? Aren't they hurt, just like the hoi polloi? Not a bit of it. The neat thing about Depressions (and to a lesser extent, usually, Recessions): deflation. The beauty of deflation is that it increases the value of money stockpiles. And, since they have so much more than they spend on necessities, the truly wealthy find that their net worth goes up. For nothing. Ain't America Great Again?

Now we find that the Big Banks which had, heretofore, condemned crypto are now All In. And, why would that be? Because if crypto can wheedle its way into the whole economy, the bad guys win. Remember Gresham's Law? Bad money drives out good. The Law was described in the mid-19^th century, when American banking was a shambles. Much like the country itself. Actually, to most intents and purposes, not really a country. Bank notes, which were printed and distributed by local banks, were the common currency of the day.

So, where does crypto fit in? It's a classic way to debase the US Buck. Who has the gold, makes the rules.

Today, just 2% of cryptocurrency addresses control over 95% of all Bitcoin in circulation — a concentration of wealth that eclipses even traditional financial markets.

And, though you thought it can't get worser:

In contrast, many altcoins show even higher concentration levels, particularly those that launched through initial coin offerings (ICOs) or similar distribution methods. It is now relatively easy to create new tokens or coins using dedicated platforms, which has contributed to the rapid proliferation of altcoins and memecoins.

Kinda, sorta like the Goode Olde Days of the mid-19^th century, with everybody and his cat issuing bank notes. Retrograde, indeed.

So, how much bitcoin is out there, and how much remains to be 'minted'? Answer: a lot, and not much. As I type:

minted - 19,906,812.5
left   -  1,093,187.5

Some more background. The mining reward is down to 3.125 per added block. The next halving is expected around April, 2028, so 1.5625 will be the mining rate.

So, in sum: a country that can't control its own currency is anarchy. The Daddy Warbucks wet dream. The Real Elites (not them pointy head coastal wokenauts) will have theyselves one pure, unadulterated tin pot dictatorship to exploit. Since bitcoin supply is getting mighty close to stasis, they're now All In. Wonderful.

Cowardly New World

Well, now we know what Bone Spur Samurai^© has in mind. If you hadn't seen it coming, the troops encircling the Newsom event should drop the scales from your eyes.

The point is to incite just a little, teeny, tiny bit of civil unrest (in a Blue City, of course). With that, Bone Spur Samurai^© then declares an Insurrection in progress, declares martial law, and invades any place that isn't ruby red. The problem will be: ain't never been anything worth having from a Red place. Kill off the woke Blue places, and the whole shebang grinds to a halt. But, then, tin pot dictators don't care about that.

I Told You So - 11 August 2025

Attentive readers will recall that these missives have postulated that the only sure-fire way to end the hallucination complex of AI and LLM is to use deterministic data in concert with the probabilistic crap they scrape from the innterTubes. Turns out, Amazon has finally fessed up to the issue.

Alexa+ is the new iteration of that monster (which I don't, or have ever, use), and the linked report is sorta, kinda first look at what it does, and a bit of how it does it.

The bad news is that despite its new capabilities, Alexa+ is too buggy and unreliable for me to recommend. In my testing, it not only lagged behind ChatGPT's voice mode and other A.I. voice assistants I've tried, but was noticeably worse than the original Alexa at some basic tasks.

Ooops.

So, what's the problem?

The old Alexa, [Daniel Rausch, Amazon VP] said, was built on a complicated web of rule-based, deterministic algorithms. Setting timers, playing songs on Spotify, turning off the lamp in your living room — all of these features required calling up different tools and connecting with different interfaces, and they all had to be programmed one by one.
[my emphasis]

Adding generative A.I. to Alexa forced Amazon to rebuild many of these processes, Mr. Rausch said. Large language models, he said, are "stochastic," meaning they operate on probabilities rather than a strict set of rules. That made Alexa more creative, but less reliable.

Ain't inference grand? Not always. But, by merging (what is likely in some RDBMS) ground facts with probable guesses, with the ground facts taken precedence, whoever gets there first will have the winner. The remaining question, as always, is figuring out the most efficient merge protocol? Read the ground facts, and prohibit the innterTubes scrape from replacing any, or run the innterTubes scrape and then replace the horseshit with ground facts? Only The Shadow knows.

The datastore for vanila Alexa is DynamoDB, which is promoted as NoSQL, but as you can read, it manages to maintain its own version of ACID.

Now, whether, and if so to what extent, Alexa+ deviates (in a non-consistency way) from Alex's use of DynamoDB wasn't covered in the report.