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 --

Iron roads

 TL;DR -- Rails. Iron roads. Puffing motion. The early view. 

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Wall Street Journal has had several articles on the 250th. Two days ago, they covered their view of the top inventions. We will go over this list. One issue had an image that we used in a post a while ago. Be mindful of the first year which was 1860, prior to the Civil War. By 1870, there was one thread out west. Then things boomed. 

Pace of change (29 Jun 2021)
Note comparison with the U.S. Post Office

Meanwhile, here are a few links to WSJ material. 

• A (Mostly) Happy 250th. 
• World's Greatest Economy. 
• Three milestone front pages. 
• ...

 As we have noted, the 250th needs to be in mind over the next few years, until the 250th of the 1783 peace treaty was signed with Britain. 

Remarks: Modified: 08/08/2026

07/04/2026 --

LinkedIn - its use

TL;DR -- We have pushed posts from this blog to LinkedIn. We have referenced LinkedIn posts from here. That will be regularly done with link both ways. This is about a new idea conjured up by scientists and philosophers. But, it's not so new. 

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We think of this as the adult Facebook (Meta). People use it to find jobs. Let the world know about themselves. 

Several posts from the TGS, Inc. blog have appeared at the sight. This post is from LinkedIn. We made a comment and copy it below.  

Subject: 

A team of scientists and philosophers has suggested a new basic rule of nature that might help explain how many different kinds of evolving systems change over time. They call it the “law of increasing functional information.”

Link:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ratanak-roth-oeurn-kent-627b1974_in-the-news-carbon-under-pressure-forms-share-7477644560811290624-Rvw7/?

Our comment: 

Kant comes to mind (Prolegomena, where he defended his Critique of Reason clarifying his thinking for future researchers). 

Briefly, we only know phenomena and not their noumena (things in themselves). Quantum modes may break down to pieces. But those pieces we do not know in the sense of ripping them open as the biologists of old could dissect a specimen (so too, many a school child tortured a frog). 

Differentiation has been easy; integration? Not so much. 

Some barf at Kant's attempt to explain how we know phenomena where he uses "representation" (wait, model-based computing and lots of mathematics seem to agree, yet differences in viewpoint abound - ah, relativity). 

Kant wins. He proposed that we have noumena, too, and know it. Consider. 

Waiting in the wings: psychether; truth engineering (with the computer fully simpatico with ancient human ability that we can study through careful consideration of the thoughtful words left). 

Jump back to Spinoza and overlook his attempt at Ma Nature as being God. 

Knowing? Emotions are prime. We learn to manage them with reason which is sorely needed, sought, and difficult to attain. It is not the fancy marking in chaulk as we see with advanced science. 

Humans and their noumena? 

Notes: 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/

I use the Carus translation of Prolegomena.

https://archive.org/details/kantsprolegomen00carugoog/page/n4/mode/2up

Context - Insights from KBE within the phemenonal world of the 20th Century.

https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/2022/10/time-lines.html

Commentary: 

We have mentioned both Kant and Spinoza several times with respect to AIn't or what we are now identifying as 'tAIn't which ponts to the pending disasters that are on the horizons (we will get to this). 

One general comment. Philosophers are those who think deeply and write. I like Spinoza and Kant for the reason that they were prime examples. Spinoza had a career, optics - generating lenses. Kant taught Logic and wrote a book on the notes of his class. Or, he gave his notes to a student who wrote the book. 

As an aside, intelligence, reasoning and such with respect to AIn't. Well, not. Our strongest argument deals with the work of Spinoza who laid out the rationale for describing Emotions and their power. Our Reason develops in learning how to handle Emotions. 

What says that about buckets'o'bits? We are due to our humanity and long periods of evolution and learning. The machine tries to simulate use. In fact, that concept/notion is quite prevalent with some thinking that a mathematical system might behave so as to be like we humans. Good luck with that. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/22/2026

07/22/2026 -- Made local copy of the image which kept moving on Linkedin.