IEEE 2874 - 2025

TL;DR -- In the midst of the hype and uncertainty, IEEE does its thing of standards definition and documentation. This latest one deals with AI (many aspects) and represents a very good start to keeping a focus on mature approaches to technology. 

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We have talked about technology over the past few years as we adopted it as a theme for going forward. But, what is technology? We have had the topic discussed on a daily basis for a long while now. As technological improvements came about, the pace of change increased as did the talking. 

For the past three years, we have had an accelerated bit of declarations about progress or other state of affairs, seemingly disjointedly provided to us. People have reacted in various ways. Lots of the discussion came with flavors of what might be called hype while at the same time we saw people reacting as if we had a new being on the planet. Many saw the potential bad effects. 

Much of the above was related to the emergence of GenAI/LLM (AI/ML) in a manner that allowed free access to anyone with the knowhow to exercise the systems. OpenAI was first on the block with their efforts, of which ChatGPT got the most exposure. We look at it first in February of 2023 and reported on the experience in this blog. 

Since then, we have looked at other systems, one of which Gemini (formerly Bard) of Google. For a couple of years, we experimented, analyzed and wrote about the issues. 

One change in the past year has been the appearance of things related to "agentic" modes on the scene. This includes discussions as well as demonstrations.Our response, initially, was to fall back a few decades and bring forward information about earlier attempts that were successful, under the guise of KBS and KBE. We wrote several articles and have more planned.   

But, for now, let's stop, look and listen (as they did in the olden days for trains at unmarked crossings. While the attention went with the glories of AGI and such, work continued along the lines of progression that accompanies engineering. Last year, there were Standards agrees upon that pertain to the future of computing. This will involve the current modes but actually deals with new stuff that is more dream than reality which is fine. 

The IEEE 2874 - 2025 (The Spatial Web Standards) decision deals with what is called by some as Web 3.0. That usually goes along with the concept of the web of everything. But, actually we are dealing with the totality of what can be considered now. 

An organization with the purpose of seeing the new capaibilities developed was founded in 2025 and is known as the Spatial Web Foundation. We will be looking further at that. 

IEEE's Spectrum had an article about this in its latest issue: Here Comes the World Wide Web of Everything The Spatial Web standard connects devices, robots, and AI agents. 

As expected, we will have a historic view on all of this stuff while keeping up to date on progress. As such, the TGS will offer 400 and 250 year views of technology. After all, major thermodynamics work was done here (Josiah Willard Gibbs) as well as academic influence had a basis in the U.S. (Charles Sanders Peirce and his father). 

Those two examples are Thomas Gardner descendants. And, after all of this, is AIn't still apropos? Yes. Maturity is still a necessity; engineering knows this to its core. Biologists pushed the current craze. Lots to discuss. 

Remarks: Modified: 03/01/2026

03/01/2026 --    

Nearing the day of Evacuation

TL;DR -- 1776 is the official year. July 4th is the day. Of the start of the U.S. Prior to that, 1775 was full of activity which wound down in March of 1776, however the conflict went on for several more years. 

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We are nearing the end of the months from Lexington & Concord to the Battle of Bunker Hill and then to the Evacuation Order. Lots went on during that time from sheer boredom to heavy work to training and some conflicts. An example of work is Knox's movement of cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to the Boston area. 

We can use Siege of Boston for this period which goes from the altercation at Lexington and Concord. During the past eleven or so months, we have had many posts with themes of events from 1775. 

This post is to close out February and open up March where we can then expect July 4th to  kick off the 250th which runs for several years. The topics to look at are unending. An example might be our look at the Southern Campaign during which the Revolution was completed successfully and the final wrappings were put upon the peace agreement. 

But, people are the main interest. Col. Thomas Gardner who was killed at Bunker Hill was a descendant of the Thomas Gardner of Roxbury who was of unknown relations with Thomas Gardner of Salem. The progeny of both of the men spread the Gardner name over the country. The image shows the names of Gardiner and Gardner families here at that time. 

Mass Soldiers and Sailors

Finally, our interest will be in the people and families of the 250th as well as the issues of origins that need a clear resolution to remove confusion and conflicting opinions. We look at the Roxbury family as Ann is a descendant of this Thomas as well as the one of Salem. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/28/2026

02/28/2026 -- 

Truth, what is it?

TL;DR -- Knowledge systems were (and are to be considered) a primal step in the advancement of computational intelligence. Recent issues notwithstanding, we know how to handle the slop. Part of the ways and means will deal with experience. 

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So, if one gripes, one ought to have a solution. In fact, the glories of progress, if things are done right, rests with those who can show the way. But, slop as mentioned in the last post? 

Walk and not talk. The trouble with AIn't is that it talks. Very well. Do? Not so much. So, the kids of the valley went after "agents" as if they offer miracles for the following: you cannot train out the slop after the fact. Good people know that quality is built in during the process. 

Want to fly a plane that was done by one of these current buckets'o'bits? Seriously. 

At Linkedin: KBE (and MBSE). 

 

This post leads to an article that I am writing on Linkedin. The topics will go back to the '80s which is when there had been a two-decade effort at AI after the Dartmouth meeting in the '50s. And, it deals with the Lisp of John McCarthy which had been packaged into a workstation (Lisp Machine). Coming forward, the world followed DoD (now DoW) into the "quant'" world of numerics. 

Lisp was ported to Unix. Well, the SUN networking workstations were great. But, they were not the qualitative expert as we got with the Lisp Card (to be discussed). Anyway, after a solid grounding in the use of the Lisp Machine where we did prototypes in all sorts of disciplines that worked phenomenally well, I went to Boeing and worked on the 777 digital definition project. 

This is introductory. But, the engineering support work for a major design effort was at the time that solid modeling was getting mature plus the accumulation of mathematical routines (all around) was making the computer more of a tool to replace the slide rule (which was a remarkable little thing). 

That led to "truth engineering" as a pursuit of the middle-out truth that bridges the Suites (uppers, C, G, ...) and the trenches where matter hits the road. 

Where is the "truth" of the matter? Well, it'll take some time to discuss. But, demonstration via computational examples is a good way to go. After all, we have not yet learned what is necessary to be adept generally with complex systems. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/20/2026

02/20/2026 -- 

Slop. How did this happen?

TL;DR -- What could have been great turned out to be similar to a stadium after a concert. What? Yes, there are many sides to the story which we will be looking at thoroughly as people consider ways to recover from the binge of bad choices. 

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This post is informational, only. Somehow, the glories of mathematical computing descended into the state of a concert site after the tens of thousands depart (say even, Times Square on New Years Day). 

In 2026, in a mere two months, we have seen rapid change in the landscape of computing (in particular, that to which I have been referring to as AIn't and buckets'o'bits and such). The splitting of the fields of view are growing. 

We have those who are enthralled with the new way brought by advanced mathematical computing having the ability to supposedly communicate with us via our natural language. So, that is great for the creative bunch. Well not, as now we have mimicing brought to a new level. 

We have those who are not into computing at all and wonder about the hype. Except, go to about any company now and look at their website. After DAVOS (meeting of the uppers in the land of watches in Europe) this year, everywhere CEOs said, go AI big time. 

Except, go to the trenches. It stinks down there. But at the upper reaches of busyness? Ah, the glories seem to waft. From where? 

Then, there is a middle view that is lifting mathematics to view. That is interesting. But, people, let's go to the core and look at the issues that never get discussed due to the age-old aura of the mathematical discipline. Well, it took bad turns last Century. 

There are other views which will be the subject of discussion all year and beyond. The TGS, Inc. chose a few years ago to have technology as a focus motivated by the coming of this age of slop. We saw that a decade ago as an extension of foolhardiness of a decade or two before that. 

Maturity was thrown out the window for something related to what unrestrained young men want. Like one bragged, move fast and break things. Yeap, young guy, for us (the users), it has not been great (I have notes on this back to the beginning of the web's downfall). 

So, we'll use slop, as opposed to what some use with respect to crap (and the necessary crapology): The age of Enshittification; Wikipedia's page; ...

Poor choices? Matters of perspective? There are so many ways to view and unknowns to try to learn about. We have been using Linkedin to try to establish a reporting voice with respect to how the 250th of the U.S. might get us to relook at the history of technology. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/26/2026

02/26/2026 -- Recover image. 

Hype, 1600s

TL;DR -- Anne Dudley Bradstreet is well known, as is her husband Simon Bradstreet. We can use her experience to consider hype over the centuries to the present, as we find now with technology. In Anne's case, she showed up on the Winthrop fleet in 1630 and found out that the colonial life in New England was not what she had told about (or experienced) in England prior to her departure. When she died after enduring several decades in New England, her husband moved into and lived in the house of his new wife which house had a history back to Cape Ann and which house came to bear his name. 

Anne Bradstreet

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Hype? As old as mankind. Let's look at an example. 

Many know of Anne Bradstreet. She was a Dudley and came over with her husband, Simon. We have had lots of posts about the couple. There will be more as we start to explore a theme related to technology. So, please continue past this reflection on how we can learn from past times beyond the generalized view of the historical records. 

Simon and Anne came over with Winthrop in the 1630 fleet. Simon was heavily involved in the guidance of the development of New England and Massachusetts. So, they lived in Boston as well as Essex County. When Anne died in 1672, they were in North Andover. 

Subsequently, Simon married the widow of Capt Joseph Gardner, son of Thomas Gardner who is the subject of our research and namesake of the organization. Joseph had died in a military conflict with a local tribe of Native Americans. 

At that time, Ann Downing Gardner was living in the Salem house given to her and Joseph by her parents. We featured Joseph and Ann in a February 2012 post in which we mentioned that Ann had Simon sign a "what was essentially a pre-nup. Was this the first of its kind on this continent?" We also featured The Downings in 2022. Her brother is the namesake of Downing Street in London. 

Also, we have looked at houses. The Downing house was an extension of the original house brought by the Cape Ann crew. Our post on the 1st Year has images that show the progression in house technology over those decades in the 1600s. Ann Downing's family's house became known as the Bradstreet's Salem Mansion. 

Anne Bradstreet's
comments, 1630

That earlier post looked at what was available in those early years. Anne Bradstreet provided us a description of her first view of Salem, which gets us to the gist of the post. They arrived with more than could be handled in 1630 as they had been promised that there was a house ready for them. At the time, there was one house of substance which had been brought by the 1623/24 crew and assembled at Cape Ann. Later John Endicott had the house brought to Salem. The Downings did some renovation. 

What Anne saw, largely, would have been huts. Their configuration would have been a modified wigwam with the interesting addition of a stone fireplace which would have provided more structure.   

English wigwam

The Governor's Faire Mansion was the house that the Cape Ann crew put together which later was moved and then extended to the "mansion" that Ann and Joseph enjoyed until she became a widow and married Simon Bradstreet. 

Governor's Faire Mansion
Great House (Cape Ann)

Winthrop was feated in this "Faire Mansion" when he arrived with his fleet. Some of the party went to Cape Ann to pick strawberries. So, Anne would have seen the future. 

We will look further into the technology of the time as points in contrast to discuss modern variants of age-old issues. That is, we have the 250th of the U.S. But, we really need to understand better the colonial period from the perspective of the real people who lived through the involved periods and sent their DNA down to the present time. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/14/2026

02/14/2026 -- 

 

Gateway Ancestors, redux

 TL;DR -- Hereditary societies co-mingle regularly. Technology comes in and complicates matters. We cope with whatever in this sense, but there are ways to ease the burden. We look at the update of the HSC website and its list of gateway ancestors. 

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We have had a lot of posts dealing with things going back to former times as this search on "Hereditary Society" shows. Our first one was in 2013 (Hereditary  Society communities) when we had come back from attending meetings for the third year. 

There are two things to look at today. The HSC has a new website and an updated page for Gateway Ancestors. As we might expect with continuing research, their list has been and will be kept up to date. People are added; sometimes, they take a name off the list. 

Also, Heritage is nothing new to the U.S. or the colonies from which it sprang. A list of the organizations under the HSC includes one from 1637: Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts (A&HAC). It's the oldest chartered military organization in the U.S. Last year we had a post on this organization.  

AHAC in London with
English Peers
1896

The A&HAC was founded in England in 1537 (during the time of the long bow) by a royal charter from Henry VIII under the name of Honourable Artillery Company (HAC). "It's the oldest regiment in the British  Army." And, it "can trace its history back as far as 1087." Many colonists were members before coming over and sought to preserve the heritage. 

An associated organization is the Order of Descendants of the AHAC which is open to males who have a genealogical lineage back to one of the original members of the AHAC. The group for women is National Society Woment Descendants of A&HAC. This is the list of the "eligible ancestors" from the colonial times. 

There are other organizations related to the start of the U.S. that we will get back to in the near future, such as D.A.R and S.A.R. The 250th of the Revolution has been in the news for a year. Come 2033, we will be looking for the start of peace which was broken by the 1812 event but eventually the two sides of the English heritage settled their differences.

Now, to the second item, way back in 2010 (in our third month of blogging for TGS), we had this post: RD example, using gateway. This is an old post and needs some update, but looking at the HSC's updates brought this to mind. The post mentions the Brookfield Ancestry Project which deals with the Magna Carta legacy. We liked this site. However, nowadays, one finds that on WikiTree, the Maga Carta Barons have been getting attention. The project has been proving "gateways" who formerly were identified by independent research and publication. Some of these books became out of date; many might be in need of some moderization. 

But, we can compare these two efforts, as in Brookfield and Wikitree side-by-side. We know of some newer names on the gateway list that come from recent findings. On the removals, there is no place to go to find out the final story. Right now, the HSC can be considered up to date. On the other hand, the in and out of the situation is situational. A publication on the Plantagenets, for instance, will have many who have a wide-range of ancestors. However, those who do not have as much right to look for confirmation via publication. 

With technology changing and the emergence of AI/ML (or GenAI/LLM), it will be interesting to see how things like provenance play out in terms of necessary source references. We are neutral on that at the moment and conform to the organization's wishes. 

But, we also did our "portal to truth" with respect to tackling now only the gateways, but heritages on this side of the waters. I got shot down for suggesting a national database. D.A.R. provides one with respect to their membership. And, they do have a "Passenger to Patriot" project (Mayflower). We started one titled "Cape Ann to Patriot" to go back further. 

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As an aside, we looked at the Society of Cincinnati which is U.S. based and founded right after the Revolutionary War ended. We have had several posts on different subject. For instance, two of the houses of the organization are associated with Ann's family. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/01/2026

02/01/2026 -- 

Kansas Day, 2026

TL;DR -- 29 Jan 1861. That was the day that Kansas came into the Union. We look at some information about the history. But, other States will get some attention, too. 

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In this blog, we have mentioned many states, mostly those of the colonial period. But, the state of Kansas has been mentioned a lot, for various reasons. Its neighbor, Missouri, has featured as well. Then, Calfornia has had more than its share of mentions. Of the other states, Texas has come up several time. And, there are many others that we ought to consider. 

Well known area that impeded 
the travel along the Sante Fe trail
(courtesy of the Friends of Flint Hills)

A category related to States would not be a bad idea. We'll add it. Meanwhile, here are some of the posts with a Kansas theme. 

• Kansas and Lawrence (2017) -- This post reminds us that the State was a project of New England. Some of those involved are mentioned, such as Col. TW Higginson. Another post describes the trip from New England of the folks who came here and got Lawrence and the University of Kansas going. 
• Kansas Day (2024)  -- Theme of the 29 Jan 1861 entry of the State into the Union. 
• 3 Trails (2019) -- This post was about Gardner, KS where the trails split after having started in Independence, MO. They went in different directions to Sante Fe, Colorado, and Oregon (California). Hundreds of thousands of persons passed through the site. 
• KATY- western railroad (2021) -- Looks at the spread of the railroad through the southeast corner which has its own history. Several New England families who passed through or settled are mentioned. Holbrook is one example. 
• Coronado of the early times (2023) -- The Spanish explorers were into northern Kansas back in the 1540s. So, the 400th of this place happened almost 100 years ago. A related story involved Arkansas and its river. As well, Pike of the peak passed through. 

What is this about? We will look to celebrate State anniversaries. Perhaps, we might look at the Northwest Territory first. That's the area around Michigan, by the way. In The Massachusetts Magazine published by Dr. Frank and friends, there was a regular report of families that moved to the area. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/28/2026  

02/28/2026 -- Chased down the image which disappeared.