My Thoughts As Civilization Slowly Unravels

“If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” – Stephen Stills song, “Love the One You’re With” JavaScript is the cockroach language of The Internet Age. JavaScript’s a survivor… but NOT because it has always been good. JavaScript survives because it was the first way anyone could create dynamic websites – thanks, Netscape Navigator!!! – and its privileged position within web browsers quickly became entrenched....

I’ve long debated with myself – and occasionally others – the morality of certain jobs in modern America. Many companies make money – at least in part – by: exploiting people (e.g., unionization suppression tactics to keep wages low; shitcoins) manipulating people (e.g., hacking people’s emotions so they lust for products they don’t need) preying on people’s desperation (e.g., payday loans) preying on people’s ignorance/trust (e.g., Bernie Madoff) bait-and-switching (e.g., jacking up prices once someone has subscribed) selling products and services that harm buyers (e....

My first four “Jazz I Love"s – #1, #2, #3, and #4 – were assorted jazz recordings from the past few decades. #5 focused on 1960s jazz, #6 on piano jazz and #7 trombone. I’ll now share a Japan-focused edition. I’m amazed how many great jazz musicians Japan has. I’m especially impressed how many great female jazz musicians Japan has. I could make a list 100 times longer. Please treat this as a starting point for discovering more amazing performances by these incredible artists....

I’m excited to announce GuessTheUS.com, a challenging quiz on important topics regarding current American government, law, and economics. In my previous post, I explained how I used AI to build a website using a language with which I had little familiarity, Python. In this post, I’ll simply focus on what I built and why anyone might care. I created GuessTheUS because too many Americans aren’t paying attention to politics/government, aren’t bothering to vote, and are voting against their selfish economic interests and our broad collective interests....

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. — Tom Cargill, Bell Labs In a follow-up post, I’m announcing the official launch of GuessTheUS.com. This post explains how I used AI to build GuessTheUS.com to become more familiar with AI and what I learned about AI’s current abilities and shortcomings....

UPDATE: After I received a $140 bill for half a day’s use of Gemini 2.5 Pro, I spent days going back-and-forth with Google Support, and they eventually kindly cut the bill to a fraction of the original charge. I don’t recall how much, but I think they charged me about $45. After watching videos to see how veteran programmers – and even non-programmers!!! – are using AI to code, I decided to grab the wheel and take AI for a spin....

For many years, I’ve been a programming machine, obsessively churning out code that powers my employers. I love coding and pour my heart into it, but I’m pretty wiped by the end of the day/week. I’ve seldom taken as much vacation as I’m entitled to. And even when I’ve changed jobs, I’ve seldom given myself any break… generally finishing on a Friday and starting my new job the following Monday....

A lifetime ago, I discovered my life’s calling… Well, it would have, could have, should have been my life’s calling… Unfortunately, the US government literally blew up my plan! (And I mean “literally” literally, not as an intensifier for figuratively, as so many do these days.) How the US literally blew up my life’s dream, causing me to stop studying Mandarin for 25 years I studied government in college and was studying economics in grad school when I met my wife, a physics PhD student from China....

With a son in college and a daughter applying this fall, it’s time to share my advice on how NOT to pursue a PhD because I’m an expert. Before jumping into self-criticism, I did two things well in grad school: I spent eight years in grad school and earned three degrees without paying one penny because I held a fellowship every year. I studied hard – inside and outside the classroom – and learned a ton....

In my September 2023 post “Xi Jinping has ruined China”, I wrote: Since Xi expelled foreign journalists for doing their jobs, I’ve been struggling to find quality, unbiased coverage of China, since much English-language coverage of China comes directly from the Chinese government, its paid Western shills (“white monkeys”) who are some of the few foreigners remaining in China, or Falun Gong-owned media. I recently discovered a pair of westerners (one American; one South African) who each lived in China for over a decade, motorcycled all across the country, and married Chinese women....