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Redemption: Whitney Gear Retrieval Mission : Doing it Right
I returned home from my Whitney Adventure in a state of almost total and complete shock. I had lost five pounds in 48 hours; I’d also lost my phone, and abandoned all my gear — my entire base camp setup — at 11,000 feet. I knew I had to get back — and soon —…
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Mount Whitney Mountaineers Route is Very Real. Adventure. (Winter 2024)
“There’s a razors edge . . . . between genius and madness. That’s a sharp, . . . . hard edge to ride.” — Barry Blanchard — top high-risk Alpinist This is a story about one human summiting and descending one mountain. In this case, the human is me. I am an acrobat, athlete, amateur…
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Rock Climbing 101: Key Findings from Joshua Tree 2024
I recently did a tech-free (well, aside from my camera) adventure in the blissful playground of Joshua Tree National Park. Casually led by 2 seasoned climber friends, we explored a number of rock climbing routes inside the park. I learned a few things. Read as both literal and metaphor. 1. Going Down is 3x harder…
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Roberts Five Laws of Robotics 2024
If you haven’t seen the writing on the wall — like this shiny Optimus robot model that is showing up in Tesla showrooms around the world — AI-driven humanoid robots are coming. And they’re going to need some prime directives. In tribute to Asimov, lets call them the Five Laws of Robotics. Musk states that…
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The Astonishing Age of Abundance : Quantum Compute, Fusion Energy, and UBI 2035
Welcome to 2024, Humans. The aim of this post is to set the stage for Human + AI + UBI optimism going into the new year. There may indeed be an AI Tsunami that radically shakes up human culture, politics, and economies… but that event (theoretically) ushers in the coming Age of Abundance. Whether this…
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The Rise and Fall of SF : A Modern Dystopia c.2023
I’ve lived in SF several times (1998, 2009, 2012, 2016), under several types of economic circumstances (millionaire, homeless, couch-surfing…), and with several “moods” (ecstatic!, curious, dark…) across the decades. And in all that time, I’ve never seen anything even remotely like what I’ve witnessed in the past year: lets just call it what it is:…
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AI and DNA 2030 : The Final Frontier
So, I had this vision of how AI and DNA would interact, many many years ago. I never actually published, so this is a first. Lets explore. When we have a broad swath of the human population sequenced, and we have superpowerful pattern-recognition AIs that can eat Big Data (petabytes? exabytes?) for breakfast, AND we…
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the Hollywood AI Writers Strike: a wild test flight for UBI v0.1
Hollywood AI. This odd portmanteau means many things to many people. Who thought it would, however, actually be the tipping point that pushed us materially towards a UBI (universal basic income) future? It all began with a simple Writers Strike. One of many issues on the agenda was “Hollywood AI Writers vs. Humans.” Astonishingly, the…
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War of the AI Religions : Doomers vs. Accelerationists (r/acc)
There is a war brewing amongst the AI Technorati. It is a war beyond logic. It is a war of belief. It is a war of AI Religion — a genuine techno-jihad playing out in Silicon Valley, Washington DC, and the broader world. It is a war that, allegedly, if the popular narrative is to…
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Safety vs Speed: the AI Jihad / Nov 2023
Upon further examination of the Meltdown / Coup at OpenAI, a story is starting to materialize. This isn’t about money. This is about religion. The epic battle of Safety vs Speed. This is the Jihad that’s been rocking AI frontlines for years now. So: this was not a corporate takeover from Microsoft. And no, this…
