Lift your head up high,

Look to your left and righ.

Walk briskly straight ahead,

…

“””

One day, little brother dragon sought Alice the Witch’s apprentice to play. He finds Alice preparing for her Witch’s apprentice test in her lab.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m practicing the potions section of the test.” She answered glancing at his entrance quickly, gosh, that dragon is beautiful, she thought at the sight of his body glistening and shimmering as if it is covered with oil. He seems so aware and in control of his body every inch, every scale, every hair moved in cohesion and with intent. Even when he is not moving, his body shimmers with a mesmerizing throbbing, longitudinally and sinuously. “Ah, you have come at a great time” Alice’s mind snaps back to her test. “You can help me practice this very difficult spell.”

“What is it?”

“The dragon silencer”

“The dragon silencer?”

“Yes, this spell-potion combo is a challenge question on the test. The physics of it is pretty neat, you should see it.”

The little dragon is silenced

He talked, but no sound came out.

He bumped into the wall, and no sound was made.

He slammed the door, and the door made no sound.

“Heeehee” Alice giggles giddily, “it worked !!”

Little brother dragon blew a fire ball, it burned red hot, but emitted no usual poof sound.

“The dragon silencer silences the dragon” says Alice.

After a few more moments of good natured joshing, Alice decides to undo the dragon silencer. The little brother dragon is most eager as well.

“Ehermmm, let’s see, wow, the undo-spell is five pages long, looks like we have some work ahead of us.”

Little brother dragon shakes his head vigorously gesturing DO IT!

“Oh, hmmmn, it’s a potion,” Alice says after reading the third page. She busied herself with the preparation while little brother dragon tried all manors of noise making but failing to make even the slightest sound.

“Ahhdlakadablahhhhhh” mumbles Alice to complete the spell… the dragon looked at her, holding back a giggle, or maybe he giggled, we can’t hear him. That’s, did she say that right? Maybe it’s just a Chinese accent, but that sounds… different.

Finally, Alice hands little brother dragon a test tube of pink potion. He drinks it quickly.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME??!” Little brother dragon shouts.

“OMG! Yes, please don’t shout!”

“Thanks you! That was nasty!! I couldn’t hear myself pink! Pink!! I can’t hear myself PINK”

“You mean you can’t hear yourself think? That’s an interesting side effect. I’ll have to let my teacher know, she wrote the book on this, maybe she can update it with that info.”

“Pink!!! Pink!! Pink! I’m pink!” Little brother dragon caught a reflection of his body in a flask, “why am Pink?”

Alice looks over, the dreamy dragon was indeed all shades of pink. But even in pink, he mesmerizes endlessly, its throbbing, in hot pink, extends in saturation and radiance, one’s eyes cannot stop looking at such a creature, the senses are so engrossed in catching each and every shade of pink that is possible on each and everyone of the dragon’s magical scales. Even his whiskers are pink, to the tip.

Little brother dragon now has gathered his wits and waves at Alice who has yet to emerged from the trance induced by the sight of this dragon.

“Uhhh, dudette, can I make noise in my normal color?” Asked little brother dragon.

And at this moment, Alices witch teacher, the old lady, walks by.

“Alice! Have you not read the spell instructions in its entirety before performing it ?!” Demanded the old lady. “That lesson I must have taught you a million times. I guess one more time won’t hurt.”

Alice’s gaze shifted down to the book. She seem to have done everything in those five pages. She idly turns the page, and, there on the 6th page, lay one line of instruction:

The potion shall be applied by oral delivery.

“That means, Alice, you should blow the potion at him from your mouth” the old lady explained helpfully, “or any other way, as long as it is delivered from your mouth, but personally, I find blowing the most pleasant. And please read your spell books more carefully and fully in the future. There are orally administered potions which the subject is to consume, but then it would say administer orally. I certainly do hope you do better on the actual test.”

She then marched little brother dragon out of the room leaving Alice the Witch’s apprentice to ponder her blunder…

(Don’t worry, the old lady reverted the pinkness outside, so little brother dragon is all okay now.)

“””

My daughter hates eggplant.

We tried our best efforts but she yells “yuck” any time she tries it.

Her father is vegetarian and feel it is unbelievable anyone cannot be made to like the foods fit for the gods.

Her mother however decided that she’ll like it when she grows up. “I hated eggplants when I was little,” she reminisced, “but by the time I went to school in Beijing, I loved eggplant.”

I however am not of the same optimistic mind. I am slightly aware of our shared history. The daughter’s mother grew up in a very dynamic time and place. The life-quality inequality in China was rapidly ascending from worse to third-worldly. When she had eggplant as a child in the 80’s, the 1980’s, the country was still short on (cooking) oil, sugar, and many other spices. The food and other basic necessities were rationed: her family, my family, everyone were issued ration tickets which in conjunction with money is the only means citizen can secure rice, oil, meat and cloth, etc.

When her mother ate eggplant for the first time, it was probably boiled. Boiled eggplant can’t be that good. (Steamed taste good though, at least it does to me)

In the 1990’s, her mom did well on China’s standardized entrance exams, and went to Beijing to study. The city of Beijing, the most advanced city of China, due to its proximity to the that totalitarian government that we Americans love to complain about, enjoys very much a different level of quality of life. So even in college cafeterias, their eggplant were cooked with oil and spices. And oil, my friends, is the one thing that makes eggplants Devine to eat.

Fast forward to the 20’s, the 2020’s, we soak our eggplants in organic EVOO, even at her first tasting. But she will never experience this kind of dramatic enhancement of taste because her first taste is already as best as it gets.

I am somewhat saddened that my kids do not like eggplant as I do. One would have expected something as basic as eating tastes to have inherited similarities between parents and children. What else didn’t they inherit from me? I hope more of the bad than the good…

We can be optimistic that technology can improve the taste of eggplants in the future, perhaps some exotic alien spice will elevate it even further. But for now, it seems that our old ideas and solutions will probably not be enough for our descendants. What satisfies us will not satisfy them. What will happen to our world when they take over? One cannot help but wonder if it is too late to invest in “ban eggplant” signs for the eventual political upheaval. “

Has anybody ever thought that there is a racial and social-economic divide between those who want AI to work better and those who want to control AI?

Roughly, rich and powerful dominant society is concerned with control. Poor and deprived population wants more AI.

People descending from societies with strong imperialist history has builtin bias in their upbringing such that control comes to mind automatically. One can hear the grotesque and yet prenatal concern “but how do we enslave this new exploitable subject?! How do we ensure we can wield it fully to our advantage? How do we keep it to ourselves? And most importantly, how do we prevent them from taking over?!”

I’m not entirely certain why these dark thoughts flash through my head as I listen to Stuart Russell’s new book Human Compatible. I mean, it’s not like I subject myself to any brain washing beside American news and entertainment media–they do not look upon this culture negatively. This book is very insightful and educates me to advanced topics in that clear and efficient way as Artificial Intelligence–a Modern Approach does. Some of it takes several passes to absorb.

As I am used to flip flopping, it would be greater for us to be in the imperial role than the subjugated role in the next chapter of intelligent life: who wants to be in the America’s, Africa’s, India’s or China’s of the imperial Europe eras? Wouldn’t I rather have been born in the enslaving countries, white, than to stick to my own skin and cultural traditions, keeping the biases and ideals therein?

I’m not sure where this will go in real life, but I did my best by contributing to Yang’s presidential campaign. He seem to have detected this conflict ahead and offers a solution. He offers a sociopolitical solution in the form of UBI-centered economic reform to unite people of America instead of divide them over unanswerable questions. A better America is better than an embattled and uncooperative world. Yes, turning focus inward is very Chinese, but that doesn’t make it wrong. His ideas may very well not work, but it is definitely much better than any and all other Democratic candidates who are, IMHO, various mixtures of the old, the dirty and the absurd. Old in age and ideas. Dirty both dirty with money and politics. Absurd, with a capital A.

But then again, I might just be looking for something refreshing and new. Same old same old is same as old.

Watching Voyager episodes trying to catch up on Borg episodes to watch Picard.

Did anybody notice how Torres has Hispanic heritage? So… if you think back…. it took a Mexican to entice a Klingon women to bed? Man… there’s always these rumbling of I don’t know what in my mind when I watch Star Trek. On the one hand, the Federation loves diversity, rights, freedom, individuality and… of course unity. But on the other hand, why is it that Kim never got past ensign grade? How come Kim is the one with all the perverse sexual desires/experiences? Why is the Asian kid the most home sick and most gullible character ? Look at Janeway, she certainly has a great forceful but feminine leadership style. (Serious kudos here) But you really see some sex-charged body language… now that coming from a superior… it … it is hard to refuse uncomfortable and yet pleasing… leading to a perverse submission both in Federation command structure consciously and also submission in a homo sapient sexual way subconsciously.

Errrr, okay, so I guess I’m confused about what I object to… I wonder if anybody sees how clean everyone on is on Picard. I don’t know how to explain this, but do you feel… perhaps everyone on Picard is too clean in some way? During first two seasons of Discovery, I constantly complain how bad the acting is and how bad the music is and how bad the acting is… but looking back, I am a little sorry to have complained about that. A lot of minority actors does produce a different kind of show. Boisterous characters are atypical of TNG. Crying characters are atypical of TNG. In fact nobody is sad for more than one episode on TNG. Major characters dying is atypical of TNG characters… a major character with a serious accent.(with Picard’s emphasis), a smiling Vulcan…. but that difference may be exactly what is needed.

Picard is such a great show (so far as of episode 2) but it is just so very clean. It is so well produced. I’m starting to feel…. I feel like I’m listening to a cell phone from the 1990’s. The frequency range transmitted has been greatly filtered. It looks and sounds exactly right. I don’t feel the minority difference any more. No Asians. Except for a mix race asian… not a real problem here, they can explain it away easily. I mean the population of Earth is 35% Indian and Chinese, but they have their own separate space programs seem to be developing separately from European and American efforts in the 2020’s… it might actually happen that Federation doesn’t include any Indians and Chinese people because they have separate space programs and organizations. (Btw, if it is unclear, Star Trek does not have any serious characters of Chinese or Indian heritage–there ought to be at least 35%(and I hope I’m not being a racist but Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani heritage are not part of that 35%))

But let it be said that I can let myself believe these earthbound xenophobia has been solved in a fictional world–if only the producers of the fiction would let me.

The last few seasons of Discovery is FAMX 2 for me, skipping over many episodes, although individual episodes often are X1

It was the first human virus to have been discovered that transmits over the web. When the disease broke out, she became curious and read all about it. She discussed with her social networks, even foreign ones like WeChat… and finally one day, as she read the symptoms again, she felt it in her own body. A few days later, she is diagnosed with the disease that just broke out from half way around the world. After many months of investigation, before her deathbed, the doctor informed her that beyond scientific doubt, she contracted this virus over the internet. She is patient zero and killed a lot of people around her from her exposure OVER THE INTERNET!!!!!!

(If you cant imagine this, you obviously don’t have any close family member who is addicted to social media from the internet.)

Omg, thank god we’re back on earth again. I mean, okay, he’s a nonagenarian, but all the action and fast context switches from dream to reality to dream and back and to space… it doesn’t feel to fast for me. Unlike on Discovery where getting a burger seems to fast to absorb. I can finally understand a Star Trek episode. Picard is a powerful character not only in the actor who brings him alive, but also the psychic embodiment of an ideal that thrives in Trekies minds. What he says resonates, it motivates and perpetuates the story.

I would have preferred a more lit Enterprise D like every time we’ve seen it in TNG. It would have been nice to have a bigger moment of nostalgia.

They come in a pair? Can anybody say GAN? Maybe the neural nets has to be trained side by side, in some sense Data and Lore seemed like opposites because they had been used to create one another in coevolutionary artificial maturation. They had to have each other for either to become sophisticated. Wow, that’s really pretty cool!

I feel sad that Dahji just dies like that… I mean if they’re sentient, that’s like a really life that was lost there. The existence of Soji does not console a mind full of star fleet values… values for life.

This is an awesome start. I am looking forward to next Thursday… heh, they even put it on Thursday’s. That’s the same weekday I looked forward to every week in the early 90’s.

FAMX 0.2 (Actually watched it five times.)

So, Trumps legal team just responded to the impeachment and denies breaking any laws.

Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine, stating that it is so until Ukraine investigates Biden. Biden happens to be son of Trumps biggest competitor with most hope to earn nomination to run against trump in 2020. Trump refused to cooperate with investigation of this negotiation with Ukraine.

So, suppose Hitler was an American with Trump as president. Nobody would question him for trading military strategic dealings for that foreign country to find evidence of Hitlers bad acts. I guess my feeling is that this type of executive action can be justifiable. Just because Hitler is a political opponent of Trump, doesn’t mean he can’t break laws or be evil. Also, since the action is military related, it seems also plausible that its secrecy has strategic value–for the country. The complexity of the problem arise in that we, ordinary civilians, are not privy to the entire scope of global military affairs. We don’t really know the direct or indirect effects the withholding of aid has on our allies and global geopolitics. I mean, it may even have been a ruse to delay the aid for some other reason that we are still not aware of.

I guess it would be simpler if we knew whether the Bidens were Hitlers. That doesn’t excuse a political act on Trump’s part, but at least it’s hard to demonstrate damages when you successfully investigates Hitler. Another matter is universality. It seems conceivable that if we read all of Trumps briefings and found there were similar evidence for a Republican citizen Hitler with similarly suspicious offenses as Biden, and he did not act to incite foreign investigation of the Republican Hitler, then clearly he acted against the country driven by political motivations.

But one has to argue to the Republican response brief that if Trump is allowed to perform clearly politics motivated acts using power of his office, Congress is equally allowed exercise its power to impeach despite appearances of politics-based motivations.

And honestly, the more important point is what trump responded to these… Everyone on the hill does this kind of dealings. I mean seriously, if they are all doing it, we should impeach trump and then make each of them pay for not acting in the interest of America.

I guess there’s the conundrum. If they are all doing it, Trump will be held innocent, due to Senators’ own self serving politics.

Sigh.

Last democratic presidential candidate debate of 2019. NO! For all the candidates who insist immigrants like dreamers ARE America, I wholeheartedly disagree.

Americans who are Americans, all Americans are America. Immigrant needs should not supersede those of Americans. They are NOT the only hope for America’s future.

I will not be a party to a party that puts non-American’s human needs above American’s human needs. Immigrants needs to be given a chance to be a part of a more advanced society through an integration process. They should NOT be imported to solely to work low wage jobs and pay for drugs. I’m glad a Andrew Yang is able to steer clear of this issue and focus on Americans.

And, Democratic Candidates, really?! Your realistic performance in mud wrestling should get you a role on Peppa Pig and not in the Whitehouse, so, please, resist the urge and certainly don’t flaunt it. You embarrass me.

On the other hand, I wonder if Andrew Yang will regret saying that Human value and Economic value should be separated. I guess he can’t really, since one of his two major proposals is actually proposing a social credit to account and store Human values. My own interpretation of Capitalism is that Capitalistic Humans believe that money represents and serves Human value. An American Capitalist would not separate the two any more than an Italian Catholic would not separate the holy trinity,… or a Chinese Taoist would separate the Yin and the Yang. The unique relationship between Money valuation and Human valuation of things, actions and situations is exactly why we think it’s so great. Lacking that, Capitalism is just another banal attempt at organizing human interactions with nothing sacred attached.

Money buys happiness with superior reliability.

On this day after the Democratic Presidential candidate debate, days before Christmas, all I can think of doing is to praising Money.

OMG thank you fucking gods Silicon Valley looks over.

Honestly, this TV show come at a difficult time to write a TV show like this. I mean between bitcoins and deep AI… and the Trump presidency life is more fun than fiction.

Also, I hope the authors and allllllll his technical advisors and consultants actually ran out of material. Does that mean that we’re at the wits end of the likes of Gates and Ellison and … all the VC’s that consult does this show? for absurdity?

this last bit where compression un-does encryption was all the rage, possibly because compression suddenly got really good due to “deep” style algo’s, maybe two to five years before the show. Basically if you can reliably compress all encrypted messages, it means you know something’s about the message which is either the encryption method or the encrypted message.

It’s interesting that the show illustrates the problem with Tesla auto-pilot. Some how, the end… seems like the beginning of something really bad…. and the worst part is that the bad sequel might take place in real life.

I’m glad the show is over. I hate it when the single Chinese character person, sampled out of a quarter of the world’s population, just happen to be evil… and everyone else is great. Like literally, they’re like great more than great can be…. every stinking racist character on the show except for the Chinese character.

I guess this is like a thing white guys do where the guy takes his dick out and waves it in the wind and says, look at my huge dick, no shrinkage even in the morning San Franciscan wind. That they write and act these thoughts out just to show that they can do it, get paid, and have a good laugh at it all at the same time.

Great. Now you’ve done it. Please put it back and let’s return to normal civil living. I hope you enjoyed wasting your life.