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. . . I doubt it. It's very expensive and known as the idiot model because it's self-adjusting.

The lunatic is on the grass remembering daisy chains and laughs hahahaha HAHAHA . . . .

Hello mccannon01, and thanks for taking a moment to comment. I Part II I bring the influence up to the present, including the "reaction" to postmodernism.

The Rocket thrust and refracted light crosses the blood brain barrier, oh, I mean, crosses into the outer border. You can't do this with a photo trick, it has to be done, one color perfectly matched at a time. The refracted light was easier compared to the translucent multi color rocket thrust.
Seeing that this was outer space, why could they not continue forever.

Just needed to change it up, create more beauty and learn a new skill at the same time.

Nice work brother The lunatic is in my head….

Unless it's putting several cells into one single cell that you've been doing for a while now, I'm not sure what the new Visual technique is. Please elaborate.

Created a new Visual technique, (the hard way) let me know what you think.

Also, the AP-NORC poll conducted March 19-23, 2026 is worth examining in detail because it is among the most methodologically sound surveys being fielded, and because its own data, read carefully, undermines the way its findings have been reported. I just didn't have room in the main post.

Start with what AP-NORC does well. They use the AmeriSpeak panel, a probability-based panel recruited from a frame covering 97 percent of U.S. households. This is categorically different from opt-in online panels or phone surveys with single-digit response rates. The 2024 vote composition of the sample, 29 percent Harris, 30 percent Trump, 41 percent didn't vote, closely matches actual election results and turnout, suggesting the partisan balance is reasonable. If you are going to poll Americans about a war, this is a defensible way to find them.

Finding them, however, is not the same as getting them to answer. The weighted cumulative response rate is 6.8 percent, meaning roughly 93 out of every 100 people in the original probability sample never completed this survey. The weighting adjustments correct for observable dimensions of non-response (age, gender, race, education, 2024 vote) but they cannot correct for the unobservable: the correlation between willingness to answer a survey about Iran and the strength or direction of one's opinion on the topic.

The respondents who do answer then encounter a question sequence that shapes their responses before they reach the war questions. The topline questionnaire reveals that respondents were first asked about Trump's overall job approval, then about his approval on the economy, trade, foreign policy, and Iran specifically, all before reaching "Has the U.S. military action against Iran gone too far, not far enough, or been about right?" By the time a respondent encounters that question, they have already activated their partisan disposition through a sequence of Trump evaluation prompts. The "gone too far" answer is downstream of a priming cascade the survey itself induced.

Finally, the subgroup sample sizes are too small to support the analysis most commonly built on them. The margin of sampling error for independents is +/- 8.8 points. When coverage reports that independents oppose the war 64-28, the real confidence interval for the opposition figure runs roughly 55 to 73 percent, the difference between "independents are mildly skeptical" and "independents are overwhelmingly opposed." The data cannot distinguish between these readings, but every headline treats the point estimate as settled fact.

ugh, one missing or accidental "*" and the whole thing gets funky formatting. Apologies for missing that, but I'm not paying to edit posts when there is no preview.

Thanks for your support . . . .

"We are looking at the AI Singularity."

Not even remotely true. I work with so-called "AI" professionally and even develop tooling for it. But it is not actual AI. What is being called "AI" is actually just Larger Language Models, and there is no reasoning, no thinking.

The LLMs are "trained" on human text (mostly) and input, and as such are basically a mirror of what they are trained on. They aren't remotely as good as the doomsayers in media claim, and not even advancing in that direction.

Consider this: who are the loudest voices claiming the impending all mighty AI? Those who are financially invested in people buying their product. Those companies are losing money hand over fist. They need investors, and that means scaring people by proclaiming how dangerous they are because that is basically fear driven hype.

Yet looking below the surface you can see the cracks and failures immediately.

Lets start with "Job replacement" claims. One of the areas they can work decently - if they are managed by an expert engineer - is writing code. Code has never been the goal of software engineering, it has always been in fact the lowest value component (we used to call it SMOC - Simple Matter of Coding). Yet, these companies who have CEOs or investors out decrying how there is going to be massive job loss because of their product are not shedding coders - they are hiring more and more. Why?

Because engineering requires intelligence, reasoning, and even creativity. And LLMs have, and provide, none of that. Look at YouTube and what are the bulk of the "AI" videos about? Hyping basic automation of low-value, low-skill content creation, and selling their courses on how to do it. The software ones in particular are all basically how to make marketing websites.

But if you learn to fear this all powerful "AI" is going to eat your lunch as a business, you just might buy into it with your limited cash flow. That is why the fear-hype game is in full play; the "AI software" companies are hemorrhaging cash with no real plan to even break even. They are drunk on their own propoganda.

The hardware side, however, has seen the underlying ugliness and found an alternate path: electrical power. If you pay attention you see that these companies are quietly becoming electricity producers to power these massive dedicated datacenters. It is an easy to see play: build the ability to power your DC, then when the bubble pops, you can sell that electricity to the grid. Because that is where their real value lies.

Those who should be concerned are those producing crap easy to mimic fluff content, specifically low-information, low-attention videos and articles - which is one of the major "learn this one trick with AI" content - conveniently made via LLMs - genres. And yet these LLMs can't even accurately do that without significant guidance and management by humans. This is where the term "AI Slop" comes from. You know them, you've seen them. And with no small dose of irony, LLMs can even recognize them.

This is exposing the sheer bulk of that type of content being written by humans. Those are lazy people who will not learn how to use LLMs as a tool to actually get better, but instead will fall for the allure of more output with less effort, thus degrading their already low-value content further. Ultimately it won't be "AI" that puts them out of a job, they'll do that to themselves due to their lack of real interest, work ethic and, for many, lack of ability to actually think, analyze, and face the reality that what they do is simple and simpleminded; they'll not lose it because these mythical AIs are so powerful.

I suspect it will be pretty close to being back to normal operations by maybe mid-late September. The conflict in the Strait is really one of logistics and regardless of political opinion on it, Iran is and will continue to lose that at an accelerating pace.

From a military perspective they are small-squad fighters trying to play set piece battles than anything else. They've chosen a battleground they cannot maintain control over, and to play against a force that has one of the best logistics systems in the world. Meanwhile their logistics is not built to handle the type of battle they chose, and attacking others in their region isn't going to do them any favors. China won't do anything because they can't; for all their bluster they are landlocked and lack the capacity or will. Same with Russia, slightly less landlocked but also lack the capacity or will.

It is possible Iran may try to reach out to European states with their attacks, and if they do it will end even sooner. I don't expect WTI to be at a premium by October, November at the latest. If it is is won't be by much.

Aye, refineries are complex operations that can yet appear almost primitive in many ways.

To us folks who do not have such knowledge, your article is a light going on in a dark room. Thank you for opening a well of understanding.

Thinking good thoughts your way, Dino. Feel better soon! As for this batch of historic madness, loved every one of them, and really lost it with Groucho, T-Rex, Benedict A. I really needed that good laugh!. Thank you ouc, for doing your irrepressible work!

From the article: "The “administrative state,” of course, is anything but democratic; it is autocratic to the core." Hit that nail on the head! Excellent article, thanks for posting.

Very well written, WDonway, and much appreciated. The contrast of the American revolution gone right and the French revolution gone wrong so quickly is stark. I'm wondering if in these times the American revolution is going wrong in slow motion.

Thanks for clearing something up for me, personally. For some reason I always thought the phrase, "Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute" was a Jefferson quote regarding the Barbary pirates. I looked it up and now I know the quote predates that time and was said by Robert Goodloe Harper regarding the French ambassador's demands for bribes.

I started looking for a militia here in northern NV. Found articles about how scared people are about militant groups...haha...

Thanks for the Dino update,

Lot's of butter and lot's of chocolate covered raisins!

Maybe he has the new model with the FAFO mode adjustment.

Agreed on the refinery complexity stance. I had the opportunity to work at the Chevron refinery north of Oakland, Ca. and it was quite an experience. Marvelous and complex engineering, for sure. As an outside contractor, I worked on some of the software for a filtration system that separated crude and various other liquids, gases, and solids out of seawater contaminated by an oil spill. Awesome to say the least. Security was tight and my badge would only let me into areas concerning my work. I would have liked a tour, though.

"Was he out of locusts?" I'm still laughing...thanks, OUC. Took what was a not-quite-so-good day and made it much better.

Excellent points CaptainKirk. Thanks

That's common. It's likely you're using the wrong FA mode adjustment. The quad mode frequency adjustment array optimizes the feedback loop for variable doopler shifting. Hope that helps!