Been reading about Havana Syndrome. Honestly, the existence of this technology does not surprise me too much.

One year, I flew to China from SFO. I too experienced this thing where I felt aural pressure and a “silent sound” that kept on getting louder and louder. It’s like that feeling you have in the classroom, where a sound somehow just pushes your eye lids down and down and head down lower and lower, and you are like completely lucid, except the head and eye lid cannot lift.

Then a darkness follows.

Except on this plane flying, they had problem with the equipment, so it pushed me down for a while but let up, and I woke up after 10 seconds and remembered that experience. The crew realized that the system is not quite right, so they recalibrated it, and turned it on again at higher gain. But since I still remembered what happens half a minute ago, I lifted my eye lids and head with my hands. I didn’t fall asleep this time. They discovered that I was keeping my self awake, so they turned it off, and I woke up immediately.

After recalibrating, they tried again and just left it on at high. After a while–on the order of maybe 60 seconds, my arm kind of gave out too. I fell asleep.

Then abruptly, I woke up. I think the calibration is finally complete. That pressure on my ear was gone, I felt as refreshed as ever. It seems the pre-flight check list is done because the plane began to taxi just after I woke up.

Mid-flight, I saw my seat neighbor bow his head down on the seat back in front of him in Islamic prayer.

That finally makes sense.

The technology is not new, but it must be new to Cubans and Chinese. Perhaps a secret group of humans always had access to this technology to knock people out remotely. Maybe that group of humans were Americans.(because it’s kind of hard to imagine that Chinese or Cuban were doing this for Americans secretly on my flight) Well, I am convinced of it for sure.

But even believing that the American Embassy staff and I and concocting these experiences in our heads, one has to think–what if some one has a black pool of money and resources and actually made such a thing? Would they dispossess me the use of mental faculties in order to ensure that they can calibrate a sure way to disable the Muslim sitting next to me?

This is the kind of knowledge that drives some people to think about morality and safety of technologies. This is the kind of power that scares intelligent people into giving money away to ensure that no individual or small group of individuals can have too awesome a power–irrespective of their ethical principles.

This doesn’t stop me from dreaming about creation of disruptive technologies. But with all these sound waves flowing through the air, maybe that truly disruptive technologies will not materialize in our life time.

the next Martin Luther King jr. may have a different dream… he might dream that a person is assessed by his living behavior and not by his DNAs… Maybe he will dream about a world where everyone retains their faculties to think awake no matter his belief or proximity to other beliefs.

Let freedom reign!

Let’s all be free at last!

Ps if you wonder, I’m writing this possibly in repetition of several other posts because I am about to embark on a trip involving flight on another airplane out of SFO. I am having vivid memories recalling that particularly harrowing departure from SFO. I mean I suppose I should be grateful for the safety this technology provided us. But I’d really rather not experience that technology again if possible?

I was commenting to my Chinese national wife that her compadres on their beloved WeChat are a bunch of nationalized professional scam artist posting beautiful pictures of lives in the new and advanced China, and another clique that post every ill imaginable to man, from fake drug to fake news to… why don’t these Chinese people stand up for their human rights in addition to their national pride as a best-in-class country? Why don’t the Chinese people spend more time participating in their own democracy and minding the prosperity of all that’s under the heavens?!

But then I realized–digital social media indoctrination is the de facto means of propaganda for all governments in the world. This is the type of control mechanism that every government, every despot, has dreamed about. It was invented in America, but is adopted by the whole world. There are always two groups: the big bold beautiful people flaunting their happiness and successes, and the suffering who offer to share their hatred of something.

The utopia of internet where we are open and share bandwidth relying on every device to act fairly has been hijacked to perform mind controlling deeds of the oppressively rich and powerful to enslave the minds and hearts and eyeballs of the poor and helpless.

This isn’t fiction or outlook, it has already happened! We needn’t wait for realistic VR/AR devices, our brains have already been trained to want to consume these two types of information. There is an addiction to the flipping of pleasure and pain when exposed to this content, and somehow it is addictive.l eve on this tiny mobile phone screen.

What shall we do? Will humanity survive? How can it?

I’ve never felt anything last as long as the product at the bottom of a 14 oz tub of Aquaphor advanced Therapy Healing Ointment. Just keep on digging and there always seems to be more.

“红机一响必因有命必从”

这节目演得好逼真呀。95% FAMX.

I’ve been reading my own blog post on Nationalistic Threat.

So what walls and integration scheme seem reasonable?

At some level one would like the following to be satisfied to grant residency beyond one year of time.

• Basic mastery of a language of this country.
• Demonstrate comprehension of our political system and our laws.
• Explicitly express support for our political system and laws.
• Rigorous training and certification in basic skills of our society: safe driving and internet usage, voting and protesting, consumer rights, how American capitalism works, basic numeracy and scientific knowledge to understand statistics and methodology used by our legal system, some history on evolution of government to America, basics of healthy and sanitary life style.
• Demonstrate an employable skill or highly probably addition to the country.
• Minors need to be under supervision of a Citizen.

(It is acceptable that new residents are required to achieve or exceed a standard more stringent than citizens and previously admitted residents)

The one year of time is a grace period for integration. If they do not integrate, then they will he asked to leave. New immigration should be regulated by

• The country’s social economic needs sets the rate to admit expressed as immigrants per day.
• Selection should be at random among all applicants in the system at the time of selection irrespective of any characteristics or history of selection.
• Asylum and talent admissions can be made but are not exception to residency requirements.

I will declare that I don’t know if this is the way to create a better America in line with its great founding and history so far. And some of it sound like authoritarian state indoctrination. But it solves some problems. At least, I will feel some sense of safety while driving on the road knowing that all drivers has gone through a fairly rigorous training in safe driving. At least I will know that efforts have been taken to help new immigrants to try to change the country in civil ways that they do not resort to weapons and violence. Every resident knowing how our capitalism works will help to promote the efficiency of our markets and fungibility of laborers.

Lastly, foremost feature amongst all, the process to admit new immigrants should not discriminate! For or against any reason or race or place of origin or in-born characteristics, the chance of admission should be complete unbiased!!

P.s. the proposal looks like the rejection sampling algorithm. While it is inefficient, it is guaranteed to select an absolutely unbiased sample from all people that satisfies residency rules. I challenge the reader to propose the use of another more efficient algorithm that can sample from entire humanity in a fair way and still satisfy a list of criterions to require for residency. In the sampling framework one is reminded of sampling unit. In this case we can actually sample on families. This is the case because there are the infirm that our great country cares for. They should come as a part of a caring family.

P.p.s. Sigh, it would appear my original entry have been deleted from this blog. It seems I had watched an episode of Madam Secretary in which several formal American Secretaries of State Cameoed and all stated into the camera that there is a nationalistic threat in the world, that nationalism was a big problem today. Obviously, in retrospect, when the high suit nationalist is now out of the office, and that the white nationalists have been explained to the public, these sentiments about that particular flavor of nationalism do seem completely reasonable. But at the time, I had questioned why they were using the specific words (quite bare without additional modification) “nationalism is a danger to the world”. My concern was that nationalism was a cause for which social order can be enforced and protected. Nationalism is a source of pride that promotes very health competition. Nationalism has even essential in the advancement of our civilization. Why would any one challenge the existence of nationalism, like why don’t we just question money while we’re at it?

Ah, okay, but we are with cryptocurrency. But still, give me a replacement for nationalism, it’s not like they simply declare that fiat currency is bad, instead a new alternative is proposed. What was the replacement for nationalism in these segments?

Anyways, a lot of good-meaninged people, just whirling around the maelstrom of 21st century politics, I suppose.

Additionally in retrospect, these proposals may need further explanation. It isn’t that we don’t care about all humans and al creatures alive or dead big or small. It’s just that I do not believe in an omnibenevolence is a goal of our government. It is no more appropriate to demand the federal government to take care of the worlds infirm than for me to ask my iphone to predict tomorrow’s weather. It is just physically not efficient, based on our current understanding of the world, for them to do these things. Sure the iphone can call out to a cloud and ask for the weather, but we do bot think the White House has a direct line to the almighty in the clouds… I don’t think so, maybe he and the founding fathers thought so., but I do not believe this. The government is a man made machine that works. We may aspire to attain insane heights as we reach for the clouds with the machine, but better we keep our heads at ground level and be effective in our daily lives. It doesn’t make sense to take everyone who wants to come. We have never done that, despite our declarations and poetries, and immigration can’t be a goal, it is only a means to some end–that end not presently omnibenevolence imho.

Does that put things into perspective?

I was born in the PRC of the 1970’s and it shows. My solution to everything seems to be to control all variables. Recall that I suggested trading software should be like professional car races where the trader bots are limited by their flops. Another thought along the same line of political campaign contributions.

It seems there are a lot of thoughts on how to do campaign financing right. Roughly, the political candidate with the most money has the most resources to influence citizens to cast the vote for them. So the political office is won before the election at the fund raising stage.

Political Action Committees of all flavors are the vehicles to which money donation can be made towards a certain cause–indubitably a political candidate.

Why not restrict the media in which political campaigns can spend their money? Supposing that candidates are only allowed to champagne by SMS limit of 160 characters. That seems to drastically alter the competition to the most important stuff rather than fancy presentations that do more to misdirect than inform.

Okay, perhaps SMS limit is a little extreme, but consider the perhaps limiting the AD impressions and prime-time minutes of TV, in a way that the candidates can not drown out another party by spending money to buy out all the campaign media opportunities.

A second way is to semantically limit the content. During a video, the number of letters, words, and numbers displayed on screen can be limited. The number of objects, simultaneous sounds, animation, and images of opponents.

By setting these kinds of limits, one can possibly effect a more issue-centric and content-centric political campaign process.

More simply, it removes the influence of money.

More idealistically, the hope is to engage in better politics by honestly focusing on our intelligent humanity.

…

These SIP thoughts partially inspired by Netflix’s Designated Survivor season 3. Halfway through, will issue FAMX rating of 1.3X for the front half of the show.

It seems I’ve begun to use a scale to represent how much a story or a show is enjoyable. The rough idea is that if I were listening to a podcast story, how fast would I listen to it? If the show is largely content free or uninteresting, I may speed through it at 2X or 3X speed. If a show is packed with information, or emotional content that I may wish to linger upon, then I slow it down to 1X, and some cases, the shows run so fast, like Star Trek Discovery, or Hamilton biography, that I may have to rewatch or re-listen to large portions of it, the average speed slows down to below one–0.5X for example if I watched an episode twice. 0.1X if I had to review a formula or chart 10 times.

There are those moments, where I would freeze a frame or stop reading mid-sentence in thought, agony or enjoyment, until biological reasons stops me. In these situations, the content merit a near 0.

And everyone has experienced content that you cannot finish fast enough, those cases we have a large FAMX rating.

I hope this blog has been at most “FAMX 1X” or simply “1 FAMX”

Hope these explanation helps.

Just saw this film on Netflix…

This is the kind of stuff a parent wishes to show his daughter. Look, take your test and try your best. ‘cos you should know your older sisters didn’t try their best and…

But seriously, I guess one interpretation is that the AI set up the intruder to test the daughter some how? Quality being the ability to survive? Or ability to distinguish those useful for survival and those that are in the way? Why did she have to kill mother? Was this kind of a prove of self sufficiency? Is there an inevitable violence in the maturation of humanity? Is the corruption of those in Eden an inevitable element of our existence ? ( the intruder being the corrupting element with forbidden knowledge) perhaps an existence of overwhelming enemy to overcome is a required element of human evolution? Mother set up the fear in the intruder, and then in Daughter, to introduce the strongest possible fear and hate. Hatred for robots unites humanity, it concludes after failing to unite humanity in peace using other approaches.

Although, one do have to commend Daughter for single handedly deciding for the whole of humanity that it does not need Mother AI. Perhaps after an extinction level event, we will really be ready to decide to put automating ourselves out of mind and out of practice.

Thought provoking movie. Worth a watch at 1.25X.

I’ve come to realize that it is very hard to turn Bluetooth and internet off on mobile devices. There is an irresistible urge for the device to be connected. Many operations turns into the Bluetooth on. Similarly, the WiFi refuses to stay off. Connectivity defaults can be reset during OS upgrades. Rebooting the devices resets connectivity setting. Power saving mode changes can flip on these connections. Connecting the phone to computer or car causes them to turn on. Walking into a geofence may cause them to turn on… like your body can act involuntarily, fart or burp or hiccup, and they turn on.

At the present time, it is not conventionally known that these surreptitious auto-connections are causing us any harm. But the simple matter of fact is that I remember turning it off and then moments or days later it is turned back on again.

How will AI endanger our humanity? I feel perhaps the leakage will be here. When by our own, arguably the most excellent engineering organizations, deliberately engineer these features in software and hardware systems that operate against my individually expressed wishes.

The possibilities of how invasive and how offensive an advanced AI would be under governance of present day (2010’s) corporations is painfully forced into my mind.

I said “off” but it is still on. And some people probably got a lot of cash bonus, stock grants and stock appreciation for making it turn on even when I said “off.” Like, it’s not even about that software engineer selling his soul for money any more. That team selling everyone’s humanity for money!

Will more advanced AI technologies be hated by most?

It seems like that’s where we are headed today.

P.s. for those readers mocking me, please keep in mind that I don’t spend all my days on the iPhone. I do not derive my meaning and purpose from staring at this tiny screen all day long. When the button(s) that used to turn wifi(and Bluetooth) on and off suddenly become only a suggestion for the OS, it is very annoying and very inconvenient. In some circles, this might be called a bait-and-switch: get users used to pressing a certain area on the screen, then switch that action to mean something else.

P.p.s. The Mobile OS’s has essentially become mafias. Quite literally, when an OS upgrade lands, your device will suddenly malfunction leading to a forced reboot in the middle of whatever activity that was in progress. When you discover the availability of the update, you realize that it is really “an offer that you cannot refuse.” Nice offer, but still kind of forced down my iPhone’s throat.

Also, one shouldn’t forget that Apple settled the lawsuit paying $0.5 billion dollars for slowing down users’ iPhones via an “over the air update” to force them to buy new ones.

During all this time, it has lost no market value or received any impactful punishment for malfeasance that I as a customer would like to end. Apple has lost no faculty or direction for repeating the same exercise of selfish deceptions to increase its sales numbers or other business metrics.

And other companies do it too, of course, but most reader will have more direct experience with mobile devices from Apple.

The fact that all these things have happened and will obviously continue to happen is very alarming. Granted, my radio devices being turned on unexpectedly harmed me in ways that only I can sense and imagine. But mark my words, when it is an AI that gets turned on you unexpectedly, you will not be laughing at me any more.

It seems that there is a new feature that makes paragraphs all-caps??? WHAT? What-is-this-capitalization-scheme? Or is it just the first line ??

testing… 1, 2, 3… Okay, just first line of first paragraph. lovely!

Now then, having learned of causes for all the quirks in life, we should continue by introducing my own representation for talking about functions. Let the identity brane be the functional association of types with a set of formal parameter names:

    {
        "first parameter"  : Integer
        "second parameter" : Boolean
    }

The actual parameters has a dependently typed I-Brane having instances that look like:

    {
        "first parameter"  : 1
        "second parameter" : False
    }

For convenience, we endow and with mutators: for some we can write to mean adding a parameter to the formal parameter specification, to mean removing a formal parameter. similarly: with the expression has type and can be used in the full invocation of any function typed

Finally we type the type signature:

so, the type bounds would be able to stipulate that

Note the should mostly be defined for functions that has as a formal parameter: .

{{{
   [ ] type up concrete example using ML
   [ ] dive into type definitions to be more rigorous.
}}}