Thursday, September 28, 2023

Faster Things



Redding Rock'n Roots 2023/7th Edition: The Allman Brothers are
more than alive and well with FT. Serious jamming here without question. :)

Gallows Hill 3

Redding Rock'n Roots 2023/7th Edition: Progressive rock with a touch of Steely Dan
is on tap for your listening pleasure. :)

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Llamas & Fathers Appreciation Day @ RHS

Llamas rule! Gentle, curious, mellow and large, their visit to The Redding Historical Society
was stellar to the max, something readily seen in this short clip. Enjoy. :)

Monday, September 25, 2023

Bone Dry

With Bone Dry, Buffalo Springfield and The Dead live on. :)

Up front and center

Amber Anchor

Redding Rock'n Roots 2023/7th Edition: Bluegrass & then some applies to how AA approaches this wonderful genre of music. Their interpretation of same is something rather profound IMHO. :) 


AA

Thursday, September 21, 2023

The Lonetown Boys

The Lonetown Boys, country blues at its finest kicked off Redding Rock'n Roots 2023, Charley's gift to Redding, big time. The 7th edition ruled while avoiding rain. Stellar says it all. :)


The boys. :)

Saturday, September 16, 2023

You're either on the bus or off the bus.



I remember reading this many years ago, just after dropping acid in Bean Town back in the day. Totally in the present, Tom Wolfe captures the insane 60's by covering the Merry Pranksters and their bus, Further, complete with tales of the Grateful Dead as the bus band along with the exploits of Ken Kesey and driver supreme, Neal Cassidy, a cosmically talented pilot able to navigate the most complex traffic patterns ever with Zen like calm while tripping 24/7.

A read for the ages applies.

Why channeling Wolfe now? Well, it seems a documentary about the esteemed writer has emerged, a flick yours truly intends to watch as his writing blows me away without question. :)



Interestingly enough, Leary was right as LSD's now being used therapeutically. 
Right on applies ... :)



I read this too, back in the day while mescaline ruled ... :)



And so it goes. K. Vonnegut

Convergence



Computers are getting faster as we all know but the bottleneck of systems becoming even faster centers on the fact systems, at this point in time, don't use photons to do analog when it comes to running AI at truly high level, something not considered doable until now.





Tech never sleeps ...


Convergence

Friday, September 08, 2023

A political time bomb ...


A political time bomb looms for China and Xi as their economy's tanking and the young can't find jobs. Factoid ... The Communist Party started with the young back in the day, a most disquieting fact for Xi to contemplate as people world-wide are slowing down on buying stuff, something proving to be financially toxic to a country totally dependent on society's continued buying of stuff in order to maintain the status quo.

In August, the Chinese government released a shocking piece of data: A record 21.3 percent of Chinese citizens between the ages of 16 and 24 in cities were unemployed. It promptly decided to suspend future publication of its urban youth unemployment rate. The current data is bad enough; it’s about the same youth unemployment rate across the Middle East on the eve of the Arab Spring.

The Chinese Communist Party knows very well that young, educated and unemployed people concentrated in big cities have the capacity to challenge authority. After all, that is how their own party started. For decades, the party-state’s legitimacy depended on economic growth and improving living standards that are now in jeopardy. Instead of meeting the needs of frustrated youth by generating new jobs and opportunities, the aging leadership has doubled down on authoritarian repression as its primary policy response to a worsening economic crisis.

This isn’t the first time the C.C.P. has had to contend with urban unemployment. For more than 70 years now, the problem has bubbled up only to be contained by either a political crackdown or relieved by favorable economic developments.

This time may be different due to climate change, a rather large aspect of reality promising to become an existential event of truly biblical proportions.

To be continued ...

Wednesday, September 06, 2023

I Spy


I Spy, the clever tv show running in the mid 60's, starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, was stylish and very cool, channelling James Bond but with less polish, was a standby for yours truly to watch as action and Sci Fi flicks are and were staples for this rube to view for as long as I can remember. When thinking about I Spy and similar content to peruse, one finds cars always play a huge part as going mobile was, and is, a fact of life of modern civilization as we move further into the 21st century. Be as it may, the car, the perceived refuge of privacy and anonymity, is no longer as they are now rolling computer platforms, equipped with the newest tech, able to snoop on us whenever we get into said vehicle.

To whit ...

Bad news: your car is a spy. If your vehicle was made in the last few years, you’re probably driving around in a data-harvesting machine that may collect personal information as sensitive as your race, weight, and sexual activity. Volkswagen’s cars reportedly know if you’re fastening your seatbelt and how hard you hit the brakes.

That’s according to new findings from Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project. The nonprofit found that every major car brand fails to adhere to the most basic privacy and security standards in new internet-connected models, and all 25 of the brands Mozilla examined flunked the organization’s test. Mozilla found brands including BMW, Ford, Toyota, Tesla, and Subaru collect data about drivers including race, facial expressions, weight, health information, and where you drive. Some of the cars tested collected data you wouldn’t expect your car to know about, including details about sexual activity, race, and immigration status, according to Mozilla.

Dirty laundry applies.



Combine this with the fact Google now has the "right" to take all data published on the net and feed it to Bard and company in order to make their AI variants able to "serve us better" sounds like Black Mirror to me.

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Remember, it's all about the money.

PS, Yours truly tools around in a 2005 Ford 150, a vehicle promising privacy as long as I don't carry a cell phone to keep in contact with a most uncertain world. :)