Opinions count?

TL;DR -- We are going through our blog posts and marking those with opinions expressed as OpEd. This does not include instances where there were sources, however they might be considered after new data became available recently. Lots to do and discuss. 

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This post is two pronged. First, we consider OpEd types of posts that have appeared here over the years. As we identify these, we'll put them into a special category (OpEd). Then, on the other hand, we will be updating the FAQ plus all of the other posts that might need to change. ... Notice that the post "The Old Planters Society" comes up in this list.

So, on looking at our OpEd collection, there are none with "new data" generated on the fly. So, we did nto discombulate anything. Our posts are purely reactionary with respect to the lack of data and wondering why (thinking out loud type of thing). 

Aside: This is apropos since we need to identify sources for things being stated with some certainty. The OpEds were not. Though, one might claim tongue-in-cheek. Okay? Juxtapose time. We have just had a year of almost countless "generative" modes pushing out "fakery" without end. It took us (humanity) a while to figure out the issues. Some, anyway, as the debate continues. Those who provide the means for the mischief are doubling down on their position, even though many, this year, have gone to Washington, DC begging (almost) for bureaucratic oversight and control. This little exercise of ours will be used for philosophical discuss (down below).

Let's start with a keyword search, as shown by these bullets. 

1. Backbone - https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/search?q=backbone; you know, we already had a category for this - so, it's OpEd, too. 
2. Now, Cape Ann is not an OpEd, since it was following prior knowledge. https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/search?q=cape+ann
3. Forgotten is in a minor part; much of this does consider those left out of the equation. https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/search?q=forgotten So, we added OpEd where appropriate. 
4. Planters is a core notion. https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/search?q=planters 
5. ... 
6. We'll continue. 

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With respect to "fakery" and such, we have a recent post about AI not being solely ML. It is the ML --> AI shift that is partly to blame for the messy situation. We can explain and will over time. 

What does this mean for the TGS, Inc. work? Like many would agree with, there have been tremendous changes in the internet over the past 2+ decades. Lots of this can be tracked and discussed. Too, during our decade of doing this work, we have seen old sites disappear and new ones appear. Not many of these were consistent. Even WikiTree has its problems. All of this goes back to humans and their ways. 

Computers replacing us? Fact or fiction? Notice, and opinion is not fiction. It's another type of cognitive state. Computers are going to help us discuss how we are. That is one huge potential benefit, since it can be considered objective. But, not, folks. We (people doing technical work) have been at this long enough to know that there's no "truthful" state involved with computational systems. If anything, truth is engineered. So, we'll discuss that. 

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Aside: all good computer systems allow us to follow changes. Wikipedia does this. I can go back to the beginning of any page and watch the changes over the years. WikiTree adopted the same thing but scaled down. Here, we have used Remarks to note changes. And, with regard to the OpEd assignments as well as the subsequent changes that come about as we settle issues, we'll do modifications in a logged manner. ... At the same time, we will be picking up links for older research efforts so that we can describe the changes over time. Lots to discuss. 

Remarks: Modified: 01/13/2024

01/13/2024 -- Added image. 

Thomas Gardner, a puzzle

TL;DR -- On Thomas, we have had lots of posts on various subjects. This year, new information came to fore which we will use to adjust our site(s) which includes the blog(s) and website(s). 

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This day, 29 Dec, of 1674? Thomas Gardner, the one we know of, died in Salem, MA. 

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Consider this a brief look at status. Also, we will cover more in Gardner's Beacon, XIII, 2, shortly. In any case, we will use this post to organize material. 

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Thomas Gardner of Salem? Was he at Cape Ann, too? Who was he? Were there two of this name, concurrently? Were they related? So many other questions asked over the years. In 2024, we will organize better what we know and what needs attention. 

Note: Declarations at WikiTree are without substance in some instances. We will get those corrected. 

This is what WikiTree says about the husband of Margaret Frier: Gardner-159. We have been looking at, and for, information on this gentleman for some time: Dec. 2011; Jan. 2019; Jun. 2019. 

If there was another, here is how WikiTree describes him: Gardner-924. On the two, these were our thoughts in November of this year: Gloucester, 2nd year. 

Of course, we know of Thomas Gardner of Roxbury. 

Too, there is the FAQ.     

Remarks: Modified: 12/29/2023

12/29/2023 --

Gardner's Beacon, Vol XIII, No 2

This issue of Gardner's Beacon continues with the context of our previous issue with respect to a regular presentation of ongoing work as well as reviews of common interests. ...

Topics:

What happened? 

...

GB XIII, 2 (PDF w/links)

New: Mobile-friendly issue of

GB XIII, 2  

See Vol. XIII, No. 2 of Gardner's Beacon for links to Sources.

Remarks: Modified: 12/30/2023

12/29/2023 -- Put draft PDF for review. 

12/30/2023 -- Publication release. 

 

Boston Tea Party

TL;DR -- This party got its name later. But, the event was 250 years ago. We know specifics about the event and its participants. Modern folks have an organization to fete these folks by identifying descendants. Overall, though, the times leading up the Revolution need more attention using the resources and technology of the modern age. 

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The motivations for this post are several. For one, we're only nine days late. Then, we have been watching the approach of the 250th of the U.S. As well, since our start, we have had lots of posts dealing with D.A.R. and S.A.R. which are organizations, for females and for males, respectively, whose focus is the descendants of those who supported the Revolution. Dr. Frank's sister, Marion Gardner, was a member of D.A.R. through her Gardner great-grandfather. 

Of late, we have been distracted by technology but are back to the history and lineage focus. As well, we have spent time since the start of the pandemic on researching the other countries who were here: Spain, France and more. As we close out this year and start the next, we will be summarizing our work, recent and before. Then, we'll have categories of activities. This blog will continue as will our portal: TGSoc.org. 

Aside: Since April, we have quietly researched the topic discussed in the "In summary" post. As mentioned, WikiTree's profile on Thomas Gardner starts from 1636 when Seeth was born here. She was the last child. Lots of work needs to be done which we will help lead and get things resolved as we determine what the data shows. Otherwise, we'll adjust the narrative to illustrate unknowns needing attention. That seems to be an appropriate bit of work in 2024 as we commemorate the Cape Ann effott which was feted this year in Gloucester. Based upon our research, we have not real reason to declare that Thomas was not in Cape Ann in the early period as mentioned by  Rev. Hubbard in his book written in the latter half of the 1600s. 

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Boston Tea Party

So, what and when was the Boston Tea Party? It was a protest about taxes in which a group poured tea in the water on 16 Dec 1773. There has been much written over the past 250 years. Now, we can look back and see how descendants of those who took part fared. Who were the participants? As expected, Samuel Adams was one. We will look at this topic later. For now, there is an organization aptly named Participants in the Boston Tea Party that we will pay attention to. 

The Daughters of the American Revolution held a tea in Washington, DC on the 16th of this month. We support this group's effort for over 125 years, in particular their focus on the upcoming 250th. 

Following are a couple links from organizations who provide good information. 

The Coming of the American Revolution: 1764 to 1776 -- Massachusetts Historical Society - This post is part of a regular series that started to look at the earlier situation. Also, it provides links to associated documents. The Port of Boston was closed for a while by London because of this incident. But, later, in Mar 1774, a brig came into Boston on the way to London. Turn out that it was carring tea. When the Sons of Liberty found out, they had another party and destroyed the shipment which was smaller but helped make the point clear.  

The Many Myths of the Boston Tea Party -- Smithsonian Institution - Not every one was happy with the event and its unfolding. It did make an impression as over 300 chests of tea were dumped. In today's dollars, the value would be about 1.5 million of U.S. dollars. 

One thing that we will consider over the next two plus years will be the state of the colonies prior to 1776. We can look at the general scope. But, family concerns will be addressed, as well. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/25/2023

12/25/2023 -- 

Dartmouth '99

TL;DR -- So, a new role? Nathaniel Fick's position is of interest, for several reasons. For one thing, he was at Dartmouth. Post the AI meeting, of course. Still. It has been a year now since he had his new role. We can start to look at the consequences of his work and of computational things, in general. 

--

He has graduate degrees from Harvard. He is of Darmouth, 1999. Who? 

  Dartmouth Alumni  Magazine - Nathaniel Fick '99

Going forward, we will not have a strictly technical focus with respect to technology. So, where to start? The Technical Czar of the U.S. He was appointed last year by President Biden. 

He did ROTC at Dartmouth enough to get a commission out of college. It's interesting that he picked infantry for his service area. At that time, the web was bulging, ready to burst. And, it did. But, the crucial event of 9/11 was right around the corner. 

So, our interests are several, starting with technology as there have been recent announcements of late of the adults waking up and getting involved with the sandboxy affairs of AI et al. Someone has to take responsibility. For one, those doing anything "AI" now without proper attribution to the methods and their sources will have egg on their face in the future. But, also, pushing out crap-trained systems can be thought of as idiotic, for several reasons. 

But, there are New England connections. There was one part of the family that came into Virginia prior to the Revolution. Then, his family went west post the Revolution. We have not looked at this too closely, yet. 

For those wanting to research further, his parents were Nathaniel Crow Fick and Jane Ella Stimola. 

The office: Ambassador-at-Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Confirmed: 09/15/2022. Two months later? OpenAI's ChatGPT. A little bit later, 100M plus users for the chatty generative thingee. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/22/2023

12/22/2023 -- 

New Frontier, 21st Century type

TL;DR -- Technology is one of our themes. History and genealogy are a couple of others. General interests in the 400ths and the 250ths are others. Like, Gloucester MA did its 400th this year. There will be others over the next few decades. And, the Boston mayhem on a ship is now 250th.  

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We were toying with various avenues of research which are endless in the modern age of the "cloud" despite its shortcomings which are many. For instance, in the western movement, we have looked in the vast interior and along the coasts. CA was a theme last year: LA and SF. We have looked at the middle of the country several times, in terms of the frontier and its settlement. In every case, we try to tie back to New England. As well, we are building a timeline by people and events that emphasizes individuals who are not in historical accounts and their families. That type of work will continue. 

So, today, let's take Minnesota (MN) and Kansas (KS). Both are west of the Mississippi River. MN is north of St. Louis which is, for us, the focal point of the dividing of the land. KS is about the same level. The northern realm has a different dynamic which we have started to study, through the Michigan Territory. KS was on the way west. For instance, the trails run through the State. Lewis & Clark (1804) came up the Missouri River on their way west. 

Cottage,
Round house,
Frontier in the making 

But, we are looking much later, after the Civil War. The image shows three things: a cottage in MN; a round house in KS; news of a new frontier. 

In MN, the town of White Bear Lake is named after its lake. We have run into MN several times in our research and skirted around details. But, for today, let's look at a famous cottage (ca 1868). It was built for Charles Phelps Noyes. His wife was Emily Hoffman Gilman. They're kin of lots of New England families that we are studying. That is the right time frame for some reflection on the Revolution (which was the 5th generation's deal) and on current themes. One thing to note is that Mark Twain liked the area so it got some press. 

Aside: recent post on Little Exeter NH (where two esteems of technology - and AI - went to school. The Society of Cincinnati has a house of repute in the area. 

In KS (and elsewhere), as technology, which is our focus, improved, the railroad replaced earlier modes of transportation. Several lines ran through KS from both directions. But, the photo is in the extreme southeast corner, in the little town of Cherokee. There were strip mines for coal in the area. What did these old iron horses run on? The photo is of a round house (ca 1888) which served several purposed. For one thing, one had to change from north to south, etc. Go to San Francisco and see these in action as the rail cars get switched to return. So, we'll have lots more about that area of the country that became the flyover country, later. We have shown, and will continue to do so, that the history of the country runs through the middle. 

Now history and genealogy? We are talking about an organization whose membership included John Quincy Adams. We had an earlier post about his cousin, Grizzly Adams, and a few others. They are offering a webinar on Using AI in  Family History Research. 

What they meant to say is that they are going to show technology that can be put to use. We are going to use AIn't to keep the discussion going that this state of affairs does not offer sentience nor intelligence in the important sense. It is very easy for the imagination to run wild with respect to these things; that is a human trait that we can value. 

But, as the NEHGS (their real initial) adds, in this: 

She will also address aspects of AI that genealogists should be cautious of, such as accuracy and copyright concerns. Join us as we explore this exciting new technological frontier!  

Okay, we'll take that. But, let's go further. The tricks are being done in a manner that we can understand as it's applied mathematics. People have been lazy and have let things get too loose. We will not use "fuzzy" as that is a legitimate logic and algebra. We will touch on that more. 

In the meantime, our thrust over the past decade is to fill in the 400 years of all sides (New Spain, New France, New Sweden, ..., Native Americans, ..., New England). Plus, the 250th of the U.S. is coming up. What happened recently? The 250 of the Boston Tea Party. Nope, it wasn't with china and crumpets. 

No, we're talking illegalities. Dumping someone else's product in the water. BTW, Samuel Adams, cousin of John whose son is mentioned above, was a participant. You know, later, we had John Brown. Guess where he was? KS. Also, who were his supporters? New England. So, we have a post on that as the Secret Six had to hide out when the Uncle Sam found out that the rebel was being kept by a few brave souls, one might say. 

So, yes, we will do history. But, too, we will continue our support for discussing and using STEM plus. What is the plus? Kant, for one. If you don't know him, you'll hear from us. Stay tuned. 

Aside, again, some think that the revolution was done by rabble rousers. Well, not. If we look, the King trained the men who took him on via their support of his French Indian affair. That was the 4th generation who supplied the leadership for the most part. But, the 5th bore the brunt. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/20/2023

12/20/2023 -- Ramsey County History - Fall 1997 - The Women's Institute and How It revived Downtown St. Paul - 'A Beautiful, High-Minded Woman' Emily Gilman Noyes and Woman Suffrage. She was a daughter of Charles P. and Emily H. Noyes. 

What do we know?

TL;DR -- So, what happened in 2023? Lots. The world has changed, and it has not. People showed their seemingly limitless capacity to bow to the machine. 

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This post serves two purposes. For one, it looks at AI (usual sense) over the past year and collects material pertinent to ongoing discussion and work. The first list contains links with some commentary for each of item. This collection points to different periods over the last year. OpenAI made their announcement on 30 Nov 2022. At that time, we had these two posts which pertained to our continuing topics of research which includes technology.

• Family Search (29 Nov 2022) - we have used this site form the beginning. It represents the efforts of descendants of those who went west. Over the past few years, our focus was on the Interior of the country for several reasons.   
• Perspective, a necessity (1 Dec 2022) - the post looked at veterans from Ipswich, MA (after the Revolution) who went out to Ohio and created a settlement. The trip was well-documented and even repeated later in the 1900s. At the time, that was Michigan Territory. It was only 40 years later that the Santa Fe Trail was formed out of St. Louis, MO. A mere half-century after that, the railroad allowed easier coast to coast travelling. 

The image shows a copy of the "All time, popular" count by post. The topmost, related to the marriage of Thomas and Margaret, comes from the 2014 timeframe. The next one is 2021 as is the one titled "St Louis MO to San Francisco CA" which has spawned several of posts and discussions. The "San Francisco" post is from 2023. 

So, we will continue this area of research as there is plenty questions that are open. Our FAQ will be updated in 2023 to account for new information. In the post titled "A(rtificial) I(Intelligence) researched properly", we go through our own work over the past decade and make some predictions about the future. Given that this work carries on prior research allows a longer time frame that seems to be normal now. So, we will continue to describe things from the historical viewpoint, both technolically and phenomenonally (which is how we view the U.S.). 

Disclosure: We did not get involved with the xnn/LMM, generative material until after a couple of months had elapsed.  As noted above, our timeframe is much longer than normal; and, we need to slow things down in order to establish a little bit of maturity. All of this will be discussed. 

So, going forward, the second list deals with the major change in 2023. We will also use this to start a summarization of our positions on the subjects. The list follows a sequential timeline and uses posts from this blog and related material. 

• Introducing ChatGPT (30 Nov 2022) - there is a thorough overview of the motivation and what was being offered. But, access to the OpenAI system was announced. It did not take long for millions of people to sign up. We did see references to this activity on sites like Quora (who offered POE, later; the head of this organization is on the Board of OpenAI - mentioned them, in yesterday's post - Little Exeter NH).
• ChatGPT (2 Feb 2022) - we heard of the system from a colleague (a linguist) in late Jan and finally got around to doing a query on the 2nd (Groundhog Day). We asked about Thomas Gardner and thought that we were enlightening the thing with a suggestion. In this post, we mentioned that the output did not read correctly. That is a result of the techniques used and can be controlled, somewhat. On the other hand, there is a "omni" and "know-it-all" nuance that is obvious. The New York Times review, How ChatGPT Kicked Off an A.I. Arms Race (3 Feb 2023), looked at some of the issues which were to get increasing attention over the year.  
• Square one? (19 Mar 2023) - Gloucester MA had kicked off their 400th. We were supporting from a distance without bringing in the crew as that would be a 2024 issue, we thought. Our thought was, too, to emphasize Margaret (Fryer) Gardner's contribution. We had not been paying attention to the feeds from WikiTree, however a researcher in Feb of 2023 went through the load of images from the digitized files of Sherborne, Dorset. In doing so, he discovered birth records for about all of the Gardner children, as having been born in the old country. Seeth was born in Salem. So, the family did come over. Did Thomas come over to support the Cape Ann effort? Rev. Hubbard suggested such. Remember, he talked to the principals. But, one thing noticed a while ago was that the Conant family's book did not mention Gardner. Nor did the Woodbury writeup. This feat of technology is interesting in itself, for various reasons. The current state of affairs? There are two Thomas Gardner profiles on WikiTree. One is our Thomas; the other has no information about him. So, one or two? It's like being back at the questions of two or three wives. We settled that in 2012 using the same records. So, Gardner Research opened the door. In the meantime, we did research on California families (the long reach of New England). 
• Research notes (2 Apr 2023) - using our new WP site, we summarized the situation and provided a copy of the list of names and births. There is a gap between the birth of John and Samuel which might show Thomas being away. John was born in December. Thomas could have left without knowing that Margaret was with child. Supported conjecturing will be allowed and supported by technology. Note: at some point, let's discuss how an imaginary basis (of several types) supports science.  
• Technology, computing (May 2023) - after some reading and discussion, I contacted the head of the former Sperry Univac Knowledge Systems Center. He wrote a brief article on how Univac got involved with the effort in the mid-1980s. Lately, one hears more of this, but our contention then and now was that the machine learning solely approach is unbalanced. Hence, we see that the output is not to be taken without some bit of salt (perhaps, a whole lot). But, that is not how it ought to be. Stay tuned. There are several other approaches that can bring maturity. A recent survey points to the diminishing in trust which has been ongoing for a while. But, ChatGPT and its ilk are accelerating the downward slide. Fact? Not there. Fiction? Have at it. Except, one caution (rule) would suggest that "fake" results be tagged as such (analog, truth in advertising). 
• Intro to Bard (7 Jul 2023) - after some time with ChatGPT and looking at issues all around, we finally tried Bard. That activity was all research including things like evaluating how the generative approach performed with mathematical problems. One thing to note is that Wolfram tied this approach to his mathematics system early one, mostly to have more full interchange with users. We need to see how this work is progressing. But, there is a lot more. Bard, basically, was more palatable as it did not try to be argumentative nor did it spout out just to hear itself speaking, so to speak. The post, To Bard or not, summarized some of the issues. For instance, we ran into a PhD thesis that looked at concepts from Kant (the philosopher) being brought bear during training. A known downfall is that the xNN, as being used, squashed nuance. One cannot expect to retract either input or its influence; definitely, there is a need to honor the requirements for footnotes and other referencing modes. In Dec of 2023, Bard was updated significantly. We tried it, but the issue of more fiction than fact remained. One noted improvement was that Bard now stresses teaming, human and machine (rather the "omni" status mentioned above). That was significiant as it changes the tone of the interchange. 
•  ChatGPT a year on: 3 ways the AI chatbot has completely changed the world in 12 months (30 Nov 2023) - we don't agree with the list, as a huge result is trust and its diminishing. What to believe? All of these purveyours suggest checking the results give by their system. Oh, we all have time and energy for that? 
• AI not solely ML (4 Dec 2023) - this is our retort and focus for the future. We need to bring to awareness the knowledge work done in the industrial world. There are many varieties. But, the focus needs to be on humans and their abilities. Enhancements would not be of the machine and its dominance; no, human would obtain an extremely useful tool if this were to be done right.  

So, themes abound. But, what is America about? The dream? Technology can be both a boon and a bane. Why has the latter been more prevalent? We still say AIn't about the emergence of "intelligence" of note. On the other hand, phenomenal mathematical processing has been done by the computer. That could be and ought to be our focus going forward. 

We have a super abacus and slide rule at our disposal now. That is, if only we can understand the need for maturity and the capabilities that it brings. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/22/2023

12/22/2023 -- Dartmouth '99; New Frontier, 21st Century Type. ... THE FUTURE OF AI IN SCIENCE AND MEDICINE, talk at Gairdner Foundation, Oct 25, 2023. 

Little Exeter NH

TL;DR -- Exeter NH has been on our plate from day one. But, we had lots of Massachusetts material to digest, including that from elsewhere. So, while redoing our site, we thought to venture into the surrounding area. A WSJ article on OpenAI's Board got us started by mentioning Phillips Exeter Academy. That ties together several themes for this year. 

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In an earlier post, we mentioned that we need to look at New Hampshire more often. We now have additional motivation for that effort. The earlier post was about the Dudley family. But, the State celebrated their 400th this year, through honoring Portsmouth. 

We have touched upon people, such as Rev. Bachiler (who could not abide Winthrop and went north), General Aldophus Greeley (led the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition), Nicholas Gilman, Jr (signer of the United States Constitution). and others. One of the places mentioned was Exeter, NH which town was home to many ancestors found in Ann's tree. 

One of two houses

Today, we saw another name to look at further: John Taylor Gilman. He was born in Exeter; we got to him in a roundabout manner that ties together several themes. We have been seeing references to this site for years but had a Massachusetts focus for obvious reasons. Though, we learned early, that northern and western movemernt started very early on. 

So, how did we get to John? He attended Phillips Exeter Academy which was founded by John Phillips who was descendant of Rev. George Phillips of Watertown, MA. So, we find several tie-ins here with the major theme of the times. Rev. George was on the first Board of Harvard about which we have had several posts. Of his many descendants, one was Bill Gates of Microsoft. 

Finally, how did we get here? We saw in a report in the WSJ that the head of Meta (Facebook) and Quora had been students at Phillips. And, our technology theme pertains specifically to new ways, of which the computational is a major part. The reference we saw was in a WSJ article about a member of the Board of OpenAI.

We have made use of Quora since 2015. With respect to OpenAI, their release last November of their ChatGPT did not get our attention until February of this year. Somehow the hype associated with these things escaped our awareness. But, since then, we have taken a "deep" look at the "generative" movement of the machine learning crowd. 

Let's just say, the jury is out along several axes. We will discuss this further, see: AI not solely ML. But, tying the new back with the old in this regard makes a lot of sense. After all, the focus of AI (however fruited) ought to be people and their freedoms. 

Not some dominance posturing (and following through) that is problematic even when not out of control. But, then, politics? We avoid that. 

 Remarks: Modified: 12/16/2023

12/16/2023 --

AI not solely ML

TL;DR -- AI is more than ML. For one thing, people need to be included. A bucket-of-bits oracle never was the goal for reasonable folks. 

-- 

AI was pirated by the machine learning people. Forget AGI. AI is good enough if we remember that "intelligence" is more than we have seen represented on the planet. 

    Artificial intelligence, not solely machine learning

Too forward thinking? Nope. We will get to discussing "truth engineering" at some point. ML optimizes without caring. 

Engineeing and economics go hand in hand. 

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Aside: After posting the above article, there was a comment from Tomek which touts being an "AI" company. Will look into this further, but Tomek Venture came up with "whois" as well as several others who have Tomek as a name. With respect to the extension ".ai", Wikipedia is a good source. Have not been paying attention, though I did run into this earlier), ".ai" has been a popular extension, since 2009, for its possible association with "AI" the subject of the above article. Tomek is leveraging on that with an automated interface. Perhaps, will look at it further. Otherwise, doing a survey of this type of activity would be more beneficial as it's going to get more prevalent. GitHub's pilot is an example of enablers. To think, in 2012, I was looking at coding manually. Still will. See Content vs configuration. For now, AI, of all sorts digital, arises from buckets-of-bits whose latest magical behavior with respect to text processing has no intent behind it. We're talking a "stochastic parrot" (in the words of some) and similar. That does not mean that meaning may not formulate from the mix, whether good or bad. But, reasoning as enlightenment liked to tout? Not. On the other hand, knowledge-based approaches do a better approximation, with a good example being knowlege-based engineering (KBE).  

Remarks: Modified: 12/30/2023

12/30/2023 -- Added image. 

Technical review

TL;DR -- Since we are taking a focus on technology as a thing deserving of attention, we will have to be regular in posting information. Expect that more regularly in 2024 as we commemorate the arrival of Thomas and Margaret (or not, depending upon our research)

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We ought to have these on a regular basis and will starting next year. For this post, we'll look at a New Yorker article, briefly. Then, we'll add in a comment about a recent post. After that, we'll show a graphic with regard to one of our web servers. Then, we'll start a list of the web presence plus gather all of the technical posts together under various categories. 

Ambitious task? Yes, we'll start today and finish this up with a week. At the same time, we will consider how to do these and with what frequency. 

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AIn't and AI. We'll be more specific next year. 

• The Godfather of AI - See the New Yorker, 11/17/2023. This is the main article and dealt with an interview of Hinton. There was a genealogical notion brought up. He is Brit and a descendant of Rev. Boole of the logic and algebra that we all love. After casting about for some direction, he picked neural nets. One early act was popularizing the Boltzmann Machine. As we all know, none of the machines/methods found so far is all-powerful. Subsequent work ended up with the back-prop algorithm. In a sense, this is similar to numeric processing oriented toward resolving a multiple-body issue. Definitely, constraint satisfaction applications need a good look. One interesting tidbit is that the author of this article used Kafka's worlview as the basis for an example. This was written up in an issue of the 1986 Nature periodical. To note, please. On seeing an interaction with ChatGPT, he was astonished so as to talk "level of understanding" and even uttered "alive" in the context. He has seen lower-level reality in that his later work deals with neuromorphic approaches. 
• The Economist as example - See the last post: Science and AI. This was motivated by seeing an article in the 11/25/2023 issue of the paper (not a magazine, they say) in which a reporter hypes some good work dealing with rogue waves. Now, everyone ought to be interested as waves are everywhere and densely sought by thinkers. Yet, in terms of the seas, this is old research with lots of data. Too, people have done an exemplary job in trying to understand the data. So, the researcher used the neural net to look at some pre-processed data where the mathematical elements were emphasized. Okay. Good results. But, a genetic (to be discussed) approach was about as capable. The researcher had a disclosurer at the top of his report. Did not TheEconomist writer not see this? Too, there is discussion about next steps. Our gripe? The use of AI as it encompasses much more than machine learning. Now, the post? Links to the data and the paper and the code itself which is at GitHub. That is how things will be, more or less, as research goes further. 

---

In some cases, we can use the facilities provided by the servers: Google; WordPress; Quora; FB. But, for our server, we use a Linux-based shared server. We think of it as balancing reliance on the cloud. Lots to discuss there. 

Related to: TGSoc.org/papers

What we see are six metrics. The world has gone mad numerically, many ways. So, that, too, will be discussed. But, with respect to the flow of activity, the topic was motivated by OpenAI's little trick last November. They didn't do the world a whole lot of favors; rather, we will see, in less than two years, just how negative the impact might have been. Now, will subsequent activity on their part relieve some of this. 

An adage is apropos: one cannot train out the crap that was trained into a system via machine learning. 

At the "Papers" site, we put out an article in May and then followed in the latter months. 

---

Aside: John retired as a Technical Fellow having worked in advanced computing systems most of his career. As such, he dwelt in the space between applications and the underlying technology, principally with regard to data management (early data science) and computational mathematics (in the space of engineering support). When he says, buckets of bits, it's with experience. Knowledge and intelligence? Those were themes in the advanced crowd all during the evolution of computing as we know it now. Or, actually, as we do not know it. Think black boxes and their mysteries? They were created by us. To quote an author who is aware of our work: demon of our own designs. 

---

Punting down the road, we have this blog. Plus there are two on WordPress. Then, our website is hosted on Web Hosting Hub. We started with Microsoft's Open Office (need to find the specific name) and moved when MS pulled the plug. That choice dropped the support for many small businesses who had tried to leverage that capability for their on-line needs. See this search: Configuration. You see, this is paired with "Content" or absence of it (which is very much the case in lots of web stuff). The timeframe was 2012 which was two years after we started. At our portal (to truth), we detail our research with respect to rolling our own. At the time, we were astonished by the amount of work done by those who have the time with permutations without end being made available. Interesting. 

Permutations? Sure, group theory comes to mind. It'll be in the background as we proceed. One problem with AIn't? There is no AI. We're talking sophisticated mathematics in action. So, let's raise that level to where we can get the general populace on board with the future. After all, leaving these things to wizard's is problematic. Did we not all learn that over the past two decades? 

Remarks: Modified: 11/30/2023

11/30/2023 --

Science and AI

TL;DR -- Wherein we look at an old problem which has new twists due to technology and its new ways. Media and news morph information severely.  

--

Now, I did not use AIn't in the title because I must refer to what might be called the real "AI" which would be a tool for all of us, including science. Now, "science" has a lot of meanings. We are being all-inclusive. Many think the "hard" types are the top-dog. That drives the STEM focus. But, there are the social sciences which deal with people issues. There is the medical science. We can have a "holy" science that could be discussed. The range covers the whole of humanity and the lives involved. 

Lately, computer science came along which is still being defined. AIn't, partly, might be attributable to issues there. But, mathematics, itself, needs attention as it swerved to mainly being quantitative in focus. Some of this goes back to computing's growth over the past century and its becoming useful through time so as to be everywhere now, via the cloud. We will discuss, later, the concept of qualitative means required by mathematics. The "pure" aspects of the discipline might be invoked, but we are talking other issues that technology will bring to bear. 

Recently, I discussed AI in the context of quantum mechanics (QM). I'll explain more as we go along, but the gist of the conversation was the difference between an overview versus being in touch with the specifics. The former is the state that anyone not involved with a discipline can attain without additional effort which was not really possible in the past. Now, with the cloud (and Wikipedia), one can read on any subject. Now, of course, AIn't's rise make things murky. What can you believe now? 

If I say, not much, that is a statement that was true in the past. But, now? That "not much" would have to be change to "very little" (can be believed) perhaps even "nothing". Okay? Things are dire. We all have to be exceedingly careful and observant. 

Wait, Wikipedia itself? Well, every page there has a history. We must use that facility. And, all changes are tracked with respect to time, editor, and difference in content. This is so back to the beginning of the page. Other sites offer similar means for determining status and history. In general, going forward, we need markers and more (truth engineering will be the topic for this discussion). 

---

So to the theme of the post. The friend showed me [a print of] an article that had appeared in the latest The Economist. Here is another article that quoted The Economist: A New Way To Predict Ship-Killing Rogue Waves. Within this feed, there is a link to the article (requires payment). The article had been marked at the points where the author of The Economist article raved on about AI and the way that this example solved problems beyond the imagination of humans (my paraphrase). Not as a retort, but in the spirit of debate, I marked [the article] where there were words about "mathematical routines" and the use of other techniques to check results of the AI (neural network) approach. Another approach used was of the evolutionary programming type which we have seen used in production. 

Of course, at the end of The Economist's article, there were the words "could" and "should" which are handwaving. The article did not go as far as some modern one have done where it exults of some accomplishment and its promise. Then, at the end, the article (probably forced by the editor) puts in words about this and that and the other thing (my words and emphasis) all being required as, essentially, the thing does not work as the glowing report might have suggested. 

---

In my usual manner, I went to look at the situation. 

Disclosure: The following recognizes the excellent work in this example. The intent is merely to demonstrate what is always a problem: transforming information into other states, faithfully. News and media face this all of the time; modern times seem to be allowing more laxity with its consequences. 

An irony: Perhaps, AI (in a real sense which we have not seen yet) could help hone messages to be more truthful in the transforms. Let's table that, for now. 

The researcher gave a talk at the National Academy of Sciences about legitimate research. And, as is becoming more imperative, he placed his data and the code on GitHub. Also, thanks to the cloud (it has its good points), we can find records for him on Google Scholar, GitHub (repository for code and more where he put his experimental code), and more. 

But, someone at The Economist reported. Or, they read some abstract. 

We, on the other hand, can look at links with supporting information. 

1. The data issues. One commenter touted that there are 300 years of data from an old science. As in all cases, the new approach is starting from the "state of the art" developed by humans and their methods. 

https://static-curis.ku.dk/portal/files/271761876/s41598_021_89359_1.pdf  

2. This is the paper which was quoted by The Economist and others. It can be found at ARXIV. And, the paper only mentions AI cursorily.   

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.12579.pdf  

Abstracts are everywhere, as we find nowadays: NIH; Google Scholar; ... 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37983488/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=8jzVkXEAAAAJ&citation_for_view=8jzVkXEAAAAJ:3fE2CSJIrl8C

3. The code for the experiments that are reported in the paper and the related data are available at GitHub. This type of disclosure is becoming an imperative for several reasons which we will discuss. Now, one bit of irony is that GitHub has piloted the "pilot" mode which has been going on for awhile where people use xNN/LLM to work code. We will look at that process in a later post. 

https://github.com/dionhaefner/rogue-wave-discovery

----

Now, this is an example of science using computing and doing experiments related to analyzing data. It is only one example of lots of work being done that is legit. Those efforts need to be brought to attention and recognized. Lots of shuffling up goes on, much under the guise of feeds. 

But, with the AIn't and its activities coming into play, how do we know legit from not? That is one of the themes that will be of importance in the future with regard to technology in general. One might say that this type of work is what the internet was created for. 

Now, using "collegial" for the former times and their ways, even then there was need for "peer" review and other scrutiny. But, the spirit of the times stressed truthful work and efforts at promoting proper communcation. 

Background processes (there are many others beyond AIn't) always were problematic. The lesson from the mobile phones and their apps brought that to bear. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/22/2023

11/30/2023 -- Minor corrections. 

12/22/2023 -- THE FUTURE OF AI IN SCIENCE AND MEDICINE, talk at Gairdner Foundation, Oct 25, 2023. 

Gloucester, 2nd year

TL;DR -- Gloucester did their 2023 lookback. Now, we're heading toward 2024. We have more information and will be taking a re-look at research. Were there two Thomas Gardners? Some have suggested this, over the years. But, that notion never shuffled up in attention. This and other questions are on the table for Gardner Research. 

---

Of course, we know that there was a party that over-wintered in the winter of 1623/4. Then, there were parties who came over in 1624. Plus, there would have been regular traffic from here to there. This year, Gloucester 400 looked at the original arrival. Except, it was not as there had been regular fishing expeditions sent here for several years before that. 

This year, fishing was a large focus, especially as it pertains to generations over the years since 1623. We expect that this will continue with the second year, as the 1624 party is recognized with less hoopla as is expected after the exhilaration of the the first year. In other words, now, let's get down to business. For one thing, we will be scrutinizing our posts (this blog) and editing/'updating with the new information. As well, as research continues, we will point to the work of others. 

Looking forward, by 1626, the failure of the effort was known. By then we will be looking at Roger Conant's move over to Naumkeak with part of his crew where he overwinterd at Massey's Cove. This was when the first controversies about Thomas Gardner cropped up, according to our records. He was not on the list of Roger Conant's for the old planters which we called Old Planters, Beverly.  

On the other hand, we did a recap of what we knew (based upon twelve years of browsing the material with respect to Thomas Gardner) in December 2022. We mentioned our FAQ and the work related to "whence" which was still open. We delayed digging further until March of this year when we had decided that Thomas' wife (Margaret, equal partner;  Margaret (Fryer) Gardner) was to be the focus. 

Why the delay? Our initial thrust in the year was historic (see January 2023). Then, we found out about ChatGPT which had been released by OpenAI in Nov of 2022 (our first post on the subject was 2 Feb 2023). While we were getting familiar with the new AI and discussing issues, Bob Dunlap who is a Thomas and Margaret descendant, was wading through scores of images that were the digitization of the records of Sherborne, Dorset, UK. In doing this work, he found interesting information. We summarized this in a post: New not old planter. In summary, he found records about Thomas and Margaret plus all of their children, except for Seeth who was born in Salem, MA in 1636. 

After looking at the material, we proposed this: Old, and new, planter. We have many reasons for this point of view. Rev. Hubbard was the source for Thomas Gardner being involved with the Cape Ann venture. His reference does not suggest that it was not the Thomas extant in Salem when Hubbard was doing his work. Too, Thomas could have come over a couple of times. One of these would have been in 1624. In the records, there are gaps between children that would have allowed Thomas to have been away. But, the issue is open. 

Margaret, and the children at the time, would not have come over. Or, "may not" as we have to dig into this. In the meantime, we will report the determination of the Great Migration project at WikiTree. They pulled out another node and created two "Thomas Gardner" records. Here are a few words from each of the profiles. 

• Thomas Gardner (abt. 1592 - 1674) - Thomas Gardner has recently been proven to be from Sherborne, Dorset, England with the discovery of the baptism of seven of his children.[1] He was baptized on 30 October 1591 in Sherborne.[2] This fits well with his deposed age of "about 69 years" on 26 November 1661.[3][4] Anderson states that Thomas Gardner's origins are unknown, but that was of course before the discovery of the baptism of his children.[5] Anderson also equates him with the Thomas Gardner who immigrated in 1624, though this is certainly incorrect as this Thomas Gardner had children born at Sherborne continuously until 1633. ... 
• Thomas Gardner (1600 - aft. 1625) - Thomas came to New England as part of the Dorchester Company's failed attempt to establish a fishing colony on Cape Ann. The effort was funded by the Dorchester Company of Adventurers whose chief advocate was the Rev. John White of Dorchester, England.[1] Gardner was appointed as one of the overseers of the fishing colony.[2] It is not known if Thomas Gardner was among the first 14 men who arrived in Cape Ann in the fall of 1623; it is more likely he was in the group of 32 that arrived in 1624. ...

In short, we will start a major update in 2024 of our records and posts. Many issues remain to be researched. Until those are resolved, we will assume that there was one Thomas. That he was here more than once will be looked at thoroughly. 

On the other hand, that there were two Thomas Gardners in early Salem is not a new subject (Two Thomas Gardners in Salem; Back to DNA). What happened was that technology allowed access to the records. Bob Dunlap ought to be congratulated for wading through the non-indexed material. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/24/2023

11/24/2023 --

Transition year, 2024

TL;DR -- We have records to study; we need to take this further; we need to assess the situation and rework the story of Thomas and Margaret; also, Dr. Frank did wonderful work given the limitations of his time; this post announces that the directions will modify but not drastically; rather, we can firm up the basis for future researchers. 

---

Gloucester which is at Cape Ann where the crew positioned themselves in 1623 has done a great job with their 400th anniversary year and its events. We have remotely supported that theme while continuing our research. 

About nine years ago, we started to look at digital copies of records at Sherborne, Dorset, UK. At the time, the index for these records had included the marriage of Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer. So, we took that to WikiTree and got the Great Migration Project to switch their view of Thomas with three wives to him with two, Margaret and Demaris. At the same time, we saw images of records of the early sons' birth. 

Then, this year, a Gardner descendant took the time and expended the energy to look through loads of digital images, currently not indexed, for Gardner, And, lo and behold, he found records for the rest of the children, minus one. That was Sarah who was born here in 1636. So, questions arise about Cape Ann as we have lots of information about Thomas in Salem. 

Okay, was Thomas here in the early days? Rev. Hubbard suggested that he had been here for the first year. It turns out that two sons had some extra markings on their record. One was John. He would have been born while Thomas was away. Okay, conjecture? Yes. Families can do that. 

Right now, the genealogists of WikiTree have records for two Thomases. The one of this organization's interest though we actually are interested in all things Gardner. The other is for an unknown fellow who was here since there are various references to Thomas Gardner involvement with Dorchester Company. 

In 2024 (actually starting this year; we'll recap what we have done so far), we will put more focus on origins than we have in the past. As in, thirteen years ago, we heard this: Americans worry about this side; leave the other side to the Brits. Well, we're announcing to the Brits that the Yanks are coming, somewhat. 

----

This is preliminary. The post will be edited with links. It's being posted as a reminder. With respect to research, we want to hear from all of the families about their knowledge. We have used WikiTree due to its support for projects that we think are important: GPM; Magna Carta: Gateways; ... 

.... When the post is done, this line will change. ...

Remarks: Modified: 11/08/2023

11/08/2023 --

American Indian Heritage Month

TL;DR -- Awareness months have different themes. We are targeting those related to heritage and study of such. Though, we do have a technology focus, as well. So, expect many themes and sub-themes to be on the table for research and discussion. 

---

Back in February of this year, we noted that we would be more regular in honoring heritage months: Awareness months. In this post, we looked at what we had done in 2022 and before. 

The month of November last year was announced by the White House, and we continue on that with this post. So far, we have touched upon five months. There are many awareness months, not all of them relate to heritage which relates more strongly to our work. 

We will start there, however technology is a theme chose, as well. Gairdner Foundation's work in medical biology was our initial example. This past month, they gave awards to researchers. We will get back to that news soon. --

Source: Wampum Wear

On Facebook, we saw this image and were captured by the list. Rather than point to a link, we traced down the source what was Wampum Wear (FB group, a Trading Company). Their intro says that they are "Pequot to Crow" in focus. 

We have mentioned the Pequot people a few times from the material that we read about New England. We will fill in that view with information from the American Indian viewpoint as we go forward.  

Remarks: Modified: 11/08/2023

11/08/2023 -- Had used image from FB whose URL signature expired. So, using copy.  

Little Essex, town and county

TL;DR -- One might say, Halloween thoughts. But, no, we're talking the eve of All Saints Day. Nutfield Genealogy mentioned, as will be eternal, Essex of Essex County, that little place. And, the theme was of the time. So, we looked at Essex and what we have researched, with lots more to do. Then, there is a comment that brings things forward to now. As in, the 400 years of progress has not been in vain. 

--

Per usual, we ran across a post that was relevant to today, the eve of the All Saints Day as well as containing seeds for future research. Let's recap a few things and follow that up with a few things that need more attention. 

"Little Essex" refers both to a town and a county. Essex County contains Salem and surrounds. Also in Essex County, one finds Essex the town. We have written a little about both. Here are a few examples. 

• Essex County, then and now (Aug 2022) - Shows a graphic (map) of the area as it was in 1692 and as it is now. 
• Shipbuilding in Essex (Sep 2022) - This was an interesting find. We had not thought of that sized vehicle being made in that area.
• Newbury Essex County MA (Oct 2022) - Later, we went back and looked at this area which handled much larger vessels. 
• USS Merrimack (1798) (Jun 2012) - This may have been the ultimate find which pertainted to a gift from the folks of Newburyport to the new country.  
• Shipwrighting (Jun 2021) - Interesting technology. We were impressed by the capability of the group that came very early, into Popham, established a colony, and built a boat (Virginia) that was seaworthy sufficiently to cross the Atlantic several times. Maine has been featured in a post.

As an aside, we have been fascinated by the big iron ship work in Bath, ME and almost went that way. However, it was the ships of the sky that was our lives where weight is a major concern. We will get back to these topics from a technology perspective. 

--

With respect to the times, we point to a post that was at the Nutfield Genealogy site in Apr 2010: Body Snatchers 1819. Our first post was in Sep of 2010. Several things caught out attention. For one, John Wise was of Essex (Chebacco Parish of Ipswich - see image). We have featured Ipswich quite a lot (Ann's heritage is full of families in Essex (all over the place). More below on Rev. John.

But, it's of interest to dive into the details which we will gloss over except for this. The person involved was banned and went to DC. Oh, how timely? That's not political. Then, his efforts led to what is now the George Washington University down there by the Foggy Bottom and other stations of the Metro of the area. 

BTW, notice that some places have gotten more attention, like LA of late and San Francisco and the large interior of the US, as these are where we lived or spent working time. Ann grew up in Essex County (Salem, of the day, too, to many - we think Andover) and went west. John grew up in the middle of the country and lived mostly in the west with some east coast times thrown in. We would like to feature more about places with Gardner descendants (or those of Essex County or MA or New England) live now and how they (or their families) got there. Ann's work with D.A.R. has helped us fill in some pieces of the puzzle. And, mentioning D.A.R? The 250th of the US is coming up; so too, Gloucester (little site of great expanse) of little Essex County MA looked at its 400th this year. 

---

Rev. John Wise was an Indian wrestler. There is, at least, one story of his prowess. But, he was also a farmer and a Harvard graduate and a minister. Too, he was the inspiration for the Declaration of Independence. This influence came though he lived over 150 years prior. Technology would come into the discussion. In the time of the turmoil (say of Samuel Adams), Rev. John's books were republished. Our final bullets relate to this. One is from this blog. The other comes from the Ipswich MA site. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/31/2023

10/31/2023 -- 

GitHub as an example

TL;DR -- We have come a long way since 2009. So, too, has the world. And, change? Many things have happened over the past two decades. But, just the past decade and its new ways need a lot of attention. We'll be pursuing discussion of all of this under the guise of technology, especially computing. In this post, we look at some dealings of Microsoft. 

 

--

We have mentioned our technology focus from time to time and what motivated our thinking. On the first topic, we have had several posts this year. Here is a sampling: Year to date, 2023; Knowability; Technology thoughts. For the second focus, we have had seveal posts about the Gairdner Group of Canada. 

Our topics of a technical level would relate to computing and its growing basis operationally plus the impacts that we see and will see. But, there is a lot involved, hence we will do a series of posts relating to different aspects of technology via computing. 

Code is (has been) how we govern what computers do. Much code is outside of our influence. In cases where we can actually influence things, the scope is limited. And, the approach is not trivial nor to be taken lightly. Of late, we see emphasis on generating code via what is known as AI. 

As one would expect, code needs management. Per common themes, libraries have been defined for such a purpose. Libraries functions included storing code, keeping track of changes, and much more. One of the utility functions would be version control. There are other functions and utility programs developed over time to provide access to functions while providing some track record of events relate to code change. 

A popular project was Git which came to fore in 2005. Before then, there were many others which are still around. But, we picked Git due to its lack of earlier involvement. Too, it came to be around the time of Linux and was done by the same programmer. 

Then, that 2005 timeframe was when the US GSO noted that government agencies could use the cloud. Of late, there are several of these services offered. Companies, and people, ponder the benefit and negative effects of taking that turn. The TGS, Inc. server is a shared host, though we use other means that are cloud-based. We have been researching architecture options from the beginning. For us, the concern was expressed as the balancing of content versus configuration. 

We might be said to have gone full circle. Our intitial thrust was on Microsoft's Office Live (need to check the name - we started in the 2009 timeframe). But, we used blogger, too, which was picked up by Google. Then, we have ties to other facilities. Since our focus at the time that Microsoft went to Office 365 was historical and genealogical research which was new to us. Too, we were working on minimal budget by choice. 

We self-funded, and John has worked pro-bono on this and other projects since the beginning. That gave us freedom to study when and where we thought there was something of interest. Of course, we followed the machine learning work, as our interest is truth engineering. John will explain the particulars. That work was done independently. Except, all along, the 400 years of generational change in the U.S. very much has analogs in what we see (or have seen) with computation. That is a topic needing some discussion. 

Computing, as we saw it evolve over the past 20 years, has gone astray. Ignoring that, for now, we are now back to Microsoft several ways which we will explain, in time. Today, we point to a Microsoft project the results of which are being documented at GitHub. That is "Git" in the cloud. In the past, coordinating the code work of projects was fairly hairy. It still is. However, the cloud allows common access to people in disparate regions working at different times of the day. Too, the control mode can be better documented and managed. 

So first, this bullet points to Microsoft's project's repository collection. They have been doing this for several years now. 

• Open source projects and samples from Microsoft 

As an aside, GitHub works with OpenAI (publisher of ChatGPT) to support a "Copilot" project in which people use the xNN/LLM approach to help them with coding tasks. We are skirting that discussion, for now; be assured, we will get back to that. Then, Microsoft has supported OpenAI and has tied its Bing to some level of the ChatGPT system.

Now, back to Microsoft, a team related to the company has been using the new ways in pursuit of market analysis which goes with the new modes of algorithmis trading. Besides value that might relate to successful trading, however that might be defined, we have to look at concerns of many of natures, many of which would have been purely academic had these new ways not created a means to observe. And, so whole new approaches to busyness and its modes are now reachable, albeit not as easily as the reports may get one to consider. 

• Qlib is an AI-oriented quantitative investment platform that aims to realize the potential, empower research, and create value using AI technologies in quantitative investment, from exploring ideas to implementing productions. 

Code generation is found everywhere now. In terms of the interfaces, we like Bard though it suffers from the same problems as do the others. A huge discussion going forward will be how to balance the dynamics of the new way which we have seen generates many reactions from maniac dreaming to angst of machine dominanc. 

Our intent is not to lessen the seriousness of the different view nor to argue that we do not know enough to make good decisions. One factor being overlooked is that the underpinnings of the operational truths deal, for the part, with applied mathematics having found a home on the computer, partly has this happened because of design changes. The motives for progress largely was gaming and trying to enhance the illusory experience. 

Well, we got that now many fold. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/30/2023

10/30/2023 -- 

Lewis & Clark, again

TL;DR -- Today, a great map of the interior of the U.S. came up via a FB group who follows the venture of Lewis & Clark. In those areas visited by the L&C team, people living there now pay attention to the trek and the surrounds visited. This is an example of technology being used for a good cause. 

--

It is always nice to see great maps pop up. This one comes to us via a post today on the FB page of The Lewis and Clark Historical Trail. It is of the great interior of the U.S. which was traversed along its northern side in 1804/5 by the two gentlemen. At the time, TGS, Inc. and our websites did not exist. It is nice to see that the historic interest continues through local participation. 

Lewis and Clark Historical Trail 

Fortunately, the 250th of the U.S. is being celebrated through planned remembrances and active research. D.A.R./S.A.R. are examples of groups who are maintaining the interest and keeping up with research pertaining to families. 

Especially, we need to follow families, during the frontier century, who went west from the east coast, whether they had only recently arrived or were descendants of earlier settlers such as those of interest to our research. Or, whether they came from the northern or southern areas, we have an interest; our areas of interest are large when one considers all of the extended family relationships. 

This is an example of technology in use. We will be touching on that subject on a regular basis. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/23/2023

10/23/2023 -- 

History redux

TL;DR - Quora has been mentioned a few times over the past few years. This month, we point to an answer which deals with naming of the tribes of North America. Also, we need to always mention technology. Time to recall the contributions of RA Douglas-Lithgow, MD, LLD. 

---

Earlier this year, we mentioned an intent to get Awareness months on our radar, regularly. This month, we had a holiday which is associated with the populace here prior to the "discovery" of Columbus in 1492 which we all grew up learning about. 

So, we are a little late getting to this. Since 2015, we have spent times on Quora which touts itself as " a place to gain and share knowledge. It's a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers." 

In fact, we have posted several answers which link back to blog posts related to the Thomas Gardner Society. Here is an example from five years ago: Thomas Gardner (Cape Ann). As we can see from activity this year, we will be redoing the history with regard to Cape Ann. See the "In summary" post.  

---

Erik Painter is a writer on Quora covering several topics. One of these is about Native American culture. The topic of this post is very much apropos to our interest. 

Erik answered this question: How did the different Native American tribes of North America get their names (i.e. Sioux, Cherokee, Mohawk)?  He mentions several tribes, including Narragansett, Mohawk, and Mohican, who were cohorts of the early New England activity.  

Then, his coverage of the western tribes was quite instructive. There have been several other answers by Erick that we can discuss in the future. 

For now, here is a listing of posts with the topic of Native American in this blog. Expect  more of these as we look to the west coast to provide a focus for the 250 years of expansion of the U.S. 

Prior to that, we will relook at the history of Cape Ann, Essex County and Salem with the intent to update Dr. Frank's two books as well as our own posts (and publications). 

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On another note, and with regard to technology, this year (or since the Nov. 2022 release of ChatGPT) we have seen how technology is going to be more of a bane than ever. For us, balancing the views by including Native American insights will be a prime aspect of truth engineering. Gloucester, MA showed this with their 400th activites in 2023 (Cape Ann, 1623, crew overwintered). 

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Finally, let's mention an import who wrote a book on New England names and places: RA Douglas-Lithgow, MD, LLD.

Remarks: Modified: 10/22/2023

10/22/2023 --