Themes, categories

TL;DR -- We touched upon the rivers of Texas as part of our continuing theme of the rivers of the U.S. We have also looked at houses, including one brought over to Cape Ann in 1623. This was moved to Salem by John Endicott when he arrived. Winthrop then was feted in 1630 in the house when he showed up. He left Salem and went on to Boston. Today, we look at a house on the other side of Boston from Salem. It was built by the Fairbanks family and still exists in Dedham. 

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Yesterday, we looked briefly at the rivers of Texas having covered some of the U.S. rivers that are central to the history of the U.S. and its settling of its interior out to the west coast. Texas plays heavy all around and will be in focus many times. So, that's a theme but has no category involved yet. A topic that is both a theme and a category? Houses. We had a post about the house brought to Cape Ann by the Dorchester Company crew. 

This was known as the The Governor's "Fayre House" (named such by John Endicott). This mention by the Bigelow Society will get more attention: 

It is well known from contemporaneous evidence that Capt. John Endecott, upon his arrival, had floated up from Cape Ann a frame house that had been erected there for use at the fishing settlement. This seems to have been the best house in the infant settlement, as the early cabins and cottages built by the fishermen from Cape Ann, along the shore of the North River in Salem, had all disappeared by 1661.

We have had several posts on that house. Thomas Gardner's crew brought the material from England. Later reports mentioned that it had been constructed and built for transportation. The Conant family was there for a while. After being moved to Naumkeag, it hosted Winthrop (see Hype, 1600s) in 1630 while he decided on whether Salem was suitable. Later, the Downings extended the house. Their daughter (Ann) married the son (Joseph) of Thomas Gardner; the couple lived in the house. Joseph was killed in a conflict with the natives. Ann married Simon Bradstreet. The house got his name. 

At some point the house was torn down; some buildings in Salem had been built with the wood. This link may have been lost in the Salem fire of 1914. 

Today, we look at another house which is in Dedham MA and appeared in 1637. This was built by Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks. Now a museum, the original house is there with extensions made over the years. In terms of location, Dedham is on the opposite of Boston from Salem and was incorporated in 1636, same year that Salem got its name. 

Fairbanks House
Bigelow Society

This area is close to where Thomas Gardner of Roxbury lived. In terms of interest, we start with CapeAnn and Salem and then Essex County. After that, Massachusetts is the focus along with New England. Of late, interest is being directed toward the 250th viewpoint, but we will be stressing the 400th and other mileposts along the way to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

Remarks: Modified: 08/23/2026

08/23/2026 --  

Texas and its water

TL;DR -- As the 250th goes on, we will look at what we have done and discuss the future. One focus is technology. Part of that deals with real assets, such as waterways. This post considers Texas, and its rivers, briefly. 

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This post reviews prior work in the context of the 250th this year. We have had many posts about the waterways of the U.S. Some of these served as a means for transportation (say, the Ohio from PA to MO and further). They were barriers, as any that is too deep for fording, even if only a certain time of the year. They were sources for food. And, definitely, human life and health relied upon clean water. 

Somehow, we forgot Texas. As the map shows, it has many rivers. All drain to the Gulf, from the Rio Grande on the west to the eastern rivers (such as the Red River) that head to the Mississippi River first. Everything is larger in Texas, as the map illustrates: 191,000 miles of rivers. 

Texas Truths and Tall Tales
FB (Meta)

The Trinity River starts north of the Dallas area and flows toward the southeast to the Houston area, emptying into Galveston Bay.  

Remarks: Modified: 08/23/2026

08/22/2026 --  

Who pays for technology development?

TL;DR -- Who does pay? That will always be an important question. But, the 21st Century has already brought new factors to the table beyond what we thought that we knew last century. But, the 400th is here along with the 250th. So, exploring the roles of the US is always interesting. 

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Of late, we have had a technology focus and will look for things on that subject to commemorate (the good, bad, and ugly of technology, let's say) under the guise of the 250th of the US. We have already had this but want to go back to 400 years. 

And further, in terms of the western philosophical views on mind and matter which is being brought to fore with the issues brought by the agentic ways (on a slop basic, GenAI/LLM). But, companies are hiring  philosophers now. So, we'll venture there already. 

Maxwell and Gibbs

We can show lots of posts on these subjects, here are three: 

• Spinoza - he is from the 400th period but in the Netherlands. His Ethics will be the subject. 
• Peirce - the son, C.S., who was instrumental in the logic that is applicable to computing of the type that AI will need when done maturely. 
• Gibbs - early thermodynamics worker in the US. 
  

One focus will be taxpayer funding of advances that are implemented in a government or military sense. There are plenty of examples worldwide to use. And an agency of the DoD/W handles the administration of most projects of this type: DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). 

We will look at the influence that DARPA works has on our culture. There are plenty of examples. One that we will go into in depth is "truth maintenance" where DARPA paid for a paper and released this to the public. A Stanford offshoot developed it. John got involved with that and related technology. But, despite progress, the motivation for the work dissipated yet still has an impact. We can discuss how the lack of the notions brought by truth are missing in the approach that gave us the likes of ChatGPT and its brothers.  

That leads to this discussion: is the market approach better? Such an approach has a tendency to reward ca-pital-sino'istic thinking. That is, more effort goes into milking the system than into doing the work. Well, we have now seen examples on the other side of that spectrum in many places which deals with conflilcts of major world view. 

From an independent sense, we can discuss sustainability and economics which goes along tightly with technology and its pursuits. Too, the results of the past four years have already brought many discussions to the fore. As well, mathematical insights have both taken a hit and became broader. Not to mention, the legal ramifications are probably the largest set of unknowns. 

Yet, the benefit of technology is that things pale in the light of the technical details. At play are concepts related to higher-level classes after the post-secondary experience. So, these will need to be explained at many phases plus with respect to choices involved. 

Remarks: Modified: 08/09/2026

08/09/2026 --  

Purple Heart Month

TL;DR -- Today is Purple Heart Day in the US. As the remembrances of 250 and the 400 years continue into the foreseeable future, we will increase our awareness of the commemorative events that ought to have regular attention. 

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MacArthur's
version

We have been observing Awareness Months and add another month (August includes Purple Heart Day). 

Here are a few links on the subject of awarding the honor initiated by General George Washington in 1782: see "Purple Heart Day" (next) "Badge of Military Merit ... as a way to honor enlisted men deserving of recognition".

Purple Heart Day - Say thank you to those who sacrificed. 

Military Order of the Purple Heart - a congressionally chartered (Title 36 USC Chapter 1405) United States war veterans organization. 

Honoring Purple Heart Month - The mission of the Purple Heart Foundation is to enhance the quality of life of Purple Heart recipients and other honorably discharged veterans and their families. 

National today -- Purple Heart day - a solemn occasion to honor the profound sacrifices of U.S. service members wounded or killed in combat. 

Finally, Soldier's Angels Org. "Celebrate 250 Years of Service. Join us in celebrating America's 250th birthday by honoring those who have served." 

Remarks: Modified: 08/07/2026

08/06/2026 --  

Alchemy

TL;DR -- For three years now, we have seen a chase after several things: AGI; scaled computing; lots and lots more. Alchemy was respectable for a long while. It still ought to be. 

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The title? Some say that Aristotle so loved by science and pupil of Plato was the cause of the rise of this discipline. Heard of it? If not, alchemy is more than attempting to turn copper into gold in search of riches. Though, modern physics has altered matter. 

We are following another thread, though. You see, the search for AGI which we witnessed of late with the AIn't and tAIn't occupying our minds and computers while wasting gobs and gobs of resources is a modern example. And, it's here for us to study. 

On the other hand, wise engineers respect the efforts of alchemy which some say changed into modern chemistry. Here is an example reference from a College of Engineering. 

The Engines of Our Ingenuity (Cullen College of Engineering)  

The page starts with a quote from George Meredith:  

See ye not, Courtesy Is the true alchemy, 

Turning to gold all it touches and tries?

From asking if character (transformation thereof) might be an example of a proper pursuit for alchemy, the article looks at the history. Too, quantum mechanics is referenced as a modern example. For us, the work on quantum computers will be discussed under the guise of this post. 

We are also pursuing this since the LLMs seem to be falling apart. Companies pushed to bring this bad boy into the process of their company. Many times? Not finding the expected gains. 

Reminder, our theme is technology since the U.S. has lead in this area and will continue to do so. 

Alchemy has many concepts of note. For now, we can mention the active/passive pair. We will have a post about a new approach to designing Radio Frequency boards such as those in a phone. In that sense, the pathways of metal are passive with the flow and its control by components is active. One does not dominate the other. In another sense, geometry can be used as an example of the passive state; but, then one brings in the  algebraic parts of the system and active (via function) arises again. 

The search for AGI got lost. We will look at that. 

Note: As we proceed in discussing the complexities of STEM stuff, we will make use of the SEP. Here is an example in this context: Philosophy of Chemistry. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/31/2026

07/31/2026 -- 

Ah, gaming as progress

TL;DR -- We picked technology. GenAI/LLM came along and offerer itself for analysis. Okay. But, let's drop to the chip level in order to set some groundrules prior to serious discussion. 

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Gaming? That which wastes time of the youth. The lure of Hollywood. Busyness and the machinations that are to take money from your pocket. Which of these? 

We have to set the ground rules first. That will take some time. And today, we look at technology. 

We need to get a discourse going with respect to GenAI/LLM and how to handle the messes that have accumulated over the past three years. A discipline that has been ignored will get some attention. Namely, knowledge based engineering (KBE) and its high-performance computing cousin (HPC). These two need to make up in order to bring peace and order to things computational.

Our human cousin, DTG, will serve as the master due to his 50+ years of researching the topic of All things Gardner. DTG brought us clarity with respect to the dynamics of history related to King Richard III of England. Too, he has ventured along the long threads of Gardner as a name. 

But, technology first. Browse and ask us to clarify the relationship or whatever of the following:  

     https://spectrum.ieee.org/bolt-graphics-zeus-gpu      

This is one of the progressive steps beyond what Nvidia is trying to wrought upon the earth. Notice that there are several subjects that we will be covering in more depth. "graphics" is obvious to the gaming crowd; our technology focus will concentrate on the geometric aspects of such. That is, structure is at the core of all things related to knowledge. 

How is this? To be discussed will be a patent in the context of this post. Essentially, it demonstrates modeling for filtering and smoothing data in areas requiring high precision. The above link mentions this topic too, as well as both GPUs (graphics unit) and HPC. 

The discussion will stress "jerk" and the differences being ignored by the biologist as they pursue power without proper insight. That is written thus to be a hint. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/26/2026

07/26/2026 -- Input links. 

2,000 years of history?

TL;DR -- DTG has been releasing under Gardner Family Trust. This post announces a recent one that has a long historical view. This hypothetical work has a basis that is beyond the current influences of SciFi that are so problematic. But, we have work to do in this area. 

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With the U.S. government buying into what I have been calling 'tAIn't, and the DoW diving in big time, can we go wrong following them? Well, we ought to be be aware. So, here is an example that I have been paying attention to. 

David Todd Gardner contacted me in the early 2010s, about the time that the body of Richard III was discovered. Briefly, people reading historical documents used modern techniques to pinpoint where the body would be if it had not been moved according to contemporary accounts. 

That's the key here? Are there records that will influence the historical view? Suppose some might have been found in Wales? 

Let me make a comment with respect to the 250th. Last year, we went to reference the papers of General Nathanael Greene which were just recently published. The first efforts (about 1/2 of the amount) were published after the 200 (1976). The research began a few decades after the Revolution was over. Slowly, people gathered documens which were mostly related to northern New England. The rest of the material related to Greene's term as General was mostly about southern New England. 

And, Greene won the war by cornering Cornwallis in 1781. The treaty was not signed until 1783. And, this guy got no notice for about 200 years? Washington was the one who put him in charge of the Southern Campaign. 

As we go through the six years of the conflict after the Delcaration celebrated lately, we will find research pulling out lots of interesting information. 

Unfortunately, the likes of Grok will add huge amounts of uncertainty, of a new type. More on that. 

So, DTG published this post under Gardner Family Trust. 

           https://www.2000yearhistory.com/2026/07/gardner-family-codex-orthographic-root.html   

Using Grok for certain functions, DTG has pulled out and published information that had been largely stored in Wales. Grok was great at transcribing, it looks like. DTG, used OCR for the text processing. Then, having trained his system, DTG had Grok match up his material with known material. 

That is the point. What is published is generally a small set of the total information. Additionally, the profession of history, like any other, puts efforts into finding generalizations that work. Too, as this type of work progresses, algorithms come to fore, many through identification of patterns. 

But, taken too far, there is no provenance trace for the majority of this work. So, the caveat would be to consider the work as conjecture. But, pay attention as it may provide something useful. We cannot handle that type of judgment a priori. 

And, if that is not understood, we, at TGS, will go into that as necessary. There is reason that some companies are hiring philosophers. But, my counsel to them is that they are looking for good old autodidacts who have waded through all of these fields looking for the nuggets. And, finding them. 

As such, DTG's Grok work deserves some attention which we intend to provide as we go forward. For one thing, auxillary topics will be discussed. One example, the hype of recent vintage seems to have been driven by marketing or even SciFi interest. Whereas the preferred modes ought to relate to science that has sloughed along for over a century.  

Remarks: Modified: 07/04/2026

07/04/2026 --