Dispatches from Vilnius

I have a few friends from high school and college that fell down the rabbit hole and there no longer seems any escape.  One of them is Bruce.  It's not that I knew him very well in high school but we became friends through facebook all these years later.  He seemed like a reasonable person.  A graduate in geology who spent a big chunk of his time in Brazil, where he married and had children but is now divorced.  He's in the petroleum industry, currently residing in Houston, where he has become a big Astros fan.   Before Trump we used to engage in friendly conversations.  We had different views politically but could usually find a middle ground or at least remain friendly.  He was even critical of Trump during the 2016 election, especially the way he treated women.  Sadly, after the election he became a committed Trumpist, willing to look the other way when it came to his many indiscretions.  Bruce has only gotten worse in the two-a...

My daughter was back for a week and hooked me on The Last of Us , watching all nine episodes over the course of three nights.  It wasn't long before Daina got hooked as well, as she is a sucker for survivalist tales, especially in the wake of the pandemic and ongoing war in Ukraine, hoping for some good tips.  After watching the HBO series, Daina wants to restock the basement as we tapped into a lot of the goods down there, as we are too lazy to go to the store sometimes. I often wonder why we live with such dread of the future.  The creators of this series make a convincing argument that it will be mycelium that gets us in the end.  It is everywhere, with a vast network that has been referred to as nature's internet .  Who knows maybe it is already controlling our lives in ways we don't understand? Whatever the case, it seems most people are very pessimistic about the future.  Whether it be climate change, pandemics or just the general sad state of polit...

Watching the NBA playoffs, the two most impressive players have been Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic.  Butler moreso as he came out of nowhere to lead Miami to the brink of the Finals.  Maybe not nowhere, but no one was expecting such a standout performance in the playoffs.  I expect the Heat to finish the deal tomorrow as Miami ripped the heart out of the Celtics on Sunday.   Butler came into the NBA with little fanfare but made his mark at Chicago.  Unfortunately the Bulls couldn't pull it together as a team, and decided to see what they could get for Jimmy.  He jumped around the league for several years before ending up at Miami, where he has been solid but nothing spectacular.  One of his problems is that he rarely completed a season, averaging about 60 games per year.  Now, everyone is comparing him to Michael Jordan.  Even going so far as to post "Dad" memes as Jimmy's father abandoned him at a young age.  Jimmy says he has lon...

My idea of the Florida Man is Travis McGee in Cedar Key, taken from Jimmy Buffett's song, Incommunicado .  It came out when I was at the University of Florida. Everyone could sing the lines to his songs word for word when Jimmy played the O'Dome in 1981 on his Coconut Telegraph Tour.  Things have changed considerably since then. The  "Florida Man"  today has become an object of ridicule. Add Scott Baio to the memes, who recently  moved to Florida , citing homelessness and crime as his reasons for ditching sunny Southern California.  I don't know what he expects to find in Florida but he seems to think the world's gone mad and that the only sanity that can be found is in a resort town just south of Tampa on the Gulf Coast.  I quit trying to defend the state some years ago.  Most Lithuanians don't have much respect for it.  I had to get an apostille for my transcripts and diplomas from the University of Florida, as the Architectural Union ...

In reading Naomi Klein's lengthy but very good article on the takeover of AI, she quoted Geoffrey Hinton as saying we won't be able to distinguish reality from fake, leading to a catastrophic existential crisis - the end of humanity as we know it.  I have to think this is a bit overblown as we have been dealing with historic revisionism, fake and misleading news stories for centuries, not to mention all kinds of forgeries that many persons take to be real like the " Shroud of Turin ." AI may make it easier to peddle this kind of bunk, but a hell of a lot of people have been misled to one degree or another for a very long time.   While it is refreshing to note that only  20 percent of Americans  take the Bible to be literal, down 4 percent from 2017, that's still a hell of a lot of deluded folks out there.  Nevertheless, these mythmakers persist.  There is actually a field of Biblical archeology with its own society that tries to prove Biblical events...

I've long said that the best way to go after Trump is through the civil court.  E. Jean Carroll had no criminal case against him given the 20-year statute of limitations on rape charges, so she sued him for battery and defamation and won.  This sends a clear message and should give hope to the many other women sexually abused by Trump that he can be held accountable for his actions.  The interesting thing to me is how Republicans are split on the verdict .  Some senators say so what, but others see this as yet another body blow to his pathetic campaign.  Opinion is mostly divided between party stalwarts like Cornyn and Romney, who believe Trump should stand down, and freshman senators like Rick Scott and Josh Hawley who don't seem particularly put off by the verdict, even if it affirms Trump's worst instincts.   Yet, CNN plans to sponsor a Town Hall with the Orange One next week, treating him as a viable presidential candidate.    Kaitlan Co...

Living in the Material World was on television last night.  George Harrison is by far my favorite Beatle.  There are so many great stories about him but I like Tom Petty commenting on George as the " quiet Beatle ."  There was nothing quiet about him, Tom said, "he never shut up."  Petty continued, "he was the greatest hang you could imagine." George got stuck with the tag because he was the youngest of the Fab Four and was constantly being overruled by Paul and John.  Most of the songs he wrote during the Beatle era never appeared on any album.  When the band finally broke up in 1970, George had all this personal back catalog, spilling it out on one great big triple vinyl album All Things Must Pass , which came out the same year.  Few can argue this isn't the greatest Post-Beatle album of any of the Fab Four.  It's one of the greatest albums of all time! In many ways, it surpassed anything the Beatles did, as George reached far and beyond what P...

Watching King Charles' coronation, as much of it as I could stand anyway, Daina said that much of Lithuania's royal heritage is spread around the world in museums. I suppose it was auctioned off after the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom in the late 18th century.  Many of these artifacts date back to Grand Duchy times, like this Horse's head armor from the time of Grand Duke Nikolaus "The Black" Radziwill, which can be viewed at the Met.  Daina noted that the pattern on a tie I bought from the Met some years ago is from the Radziwill family.  Indeed, I can see it on the horse head armor. The noble family still exists, albeit similarly spread around the world.  One of its most well known members was Lee Radziwill , sister of Jackie Kennedy.  She had married Prince Stanislaw Radziwill of Poland, where it seems the Radziwills ended up after the Russian partitions in the early 19th century.   However, the ancestral homes are here in Lithuania....

Your guess is as good as mine as to what Geoffrey Hinton is trying to say in this truncated article .  The only thing I could come up with is that Artificial Intelligence in the wrong hands is very dangerous.  He notes the example of Cambridge Analytica using vast data banks to help manipulate elections, which has been well covered , but then that's always been the case.  If you know how to target your audience you can get them to believe almost anything.  So, I really don't see how AI makes a big difference here other than to have a much broader reach. Nevertheless, Mr. Hinton says Bernie Sanders, the White House and Elon Musk have already reached out to him since departing Google, fearing the worst has yet to come.  Interesting he put Bernie first but then you read down and he claims to be a socialist.  If so, why was he working for Google in the first place?  He had to know that their only interest in AI is how to game the system, which he subsequen...

When spring comes it comes in full bloom.  I had been meaning to add another wire trellis panel on the kitchen wall to contain the climbing rose bush but it was already full of new shoots.  I did it anyway, pulling out a step ladder and battling through the vines to mark the holes for the panel.  The only problem is that my son had borrowed the electric drill and the masonry bits were worn to a nub.  Cursing, I went to the hardware store to buy more masonry bits.  After a short struggle with the vines, I finally got the panel in place, pinning the main stalk to the wall.  My hands and wrists with filled with pricks and scratches but no matter, mission accomplished.  Although I probably need to add one more panel.  That rose bush has gone crazy. At best I'm a reluctant gardener.  I get a little annoyed when Daina ropes me into these activities, but when I start working I get into the horticultural spirit.  We cleaned the yard and flower b...