Three weeks

TL;DR -- We take modern travel for granted. To wit, the Delta recoil from the Microsoft fail just a week ago. Now, we can look at the details, and ought to. As well, let's ponder three weeks of travel back in the good old days.  

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Having just written on Los Angeles and then finding more information on the California Trail to which travelers on the Oregon Trail switched if they were headed to the Great State of California. Per usual, everywhere we look in the US, we seek out connections to New England. 

A recent focus on Bunker Hill West brought to fore lots of information about people from the east coast and their activities on the left coast. For the record, this area in downtown LA is where we now find the skyscrapers. But, under many of those are destroyed records of, at least, two cultural developments. Fortunately, there is an association in LA that has photos and records about the different eras and areas. 

That will be a regular theme along with technology which comes into play due to the potential for mischief. Already, we have seen photos that seem to have been generated by methods other than a human with photoshop or the like. We're not paying close attention, yet, as there are plenty of photos for study from the repositories that are available. 

On the other hand, tales of people abound and mostly are not known. Technology, you see, can be a boon as it will help document the past better than we have ever seen. 

Case in point, in the graphic on the left, I made the connection between a middle piece of the US with a Gardner name. It was on the Oregon/California and Santa Fe Trails. At the same time, I knew of Butterfield for a long while but only paid attention of late as the researching of New England's diaspora came to be aided by technology. Butterfield's stage line went from St Louis MO down through TX into NM and AZ and onto CA and arrived in LA after three weeks. From there, it was another week plus to SF. Nowadays, that is a little more than a five-hour drive.  

In the graphic below, the bottom middle view has two lines in red on the left. Both represent three weeks. Nowadays, that's not so long. But, if you worked 21 days without a break, you would feel it. 

The shorter line goes back to the top of the graphic which is the route from Independence Mo to Ft Larned KS. Nowadays, that's less than a five-hour drive. Earlier, we had a tale of the founders of Lawrence KS, including women, from Massassachuets who traversed that same route in 1854. The trip was to found the town and the University at Lawrence. Most returned to New England after the al fresco meeting leaving a hearty crew to carry on with the settlement. 

And, it was in the summer. They only had to do one fording of a river which is not large (the Wakarusa). Now, following the route to Santa Fe through Ft Larned has lots of these.

Now, on the right, one sees a line from Boston to London. Three weeks. When on things of that time span, what could one do? Well, that voyage took a bit of time in the past. But, nowadays, a week is sufficient for a modern cruise liner to make the trip. So, three weeks would be three trips from Boston to London, a return trip, and then back to London. Let's say after that, one would spend 7 hours or so flying back to New England. We need to think of other examples. 

As the modern analysis show, One can drive the same route from St. Louis MO to San Franciscso CA in about 39 hours. Most of that would be on the U.S. Interstate system. I have driven that a lot. 

That brings up another three weeks. This Butterfield route tied in with one from San Antonio TX. From there to El Paso took about the same amount of time. See, Pre-Civil War, San Antonio to San Diego (2021). This was a combination of two routes. 

Now, the top part of the image is of a wagon train pulled mostly by oxen. In the bottom part is of a coach pulled by horses. Consider the logistic for this, as horses needed to be replaced and cared for while they recovered for their next trip. People had to be fed, and other supplies would have been essential. 

Supposedly, this is a photo of a Butterfield stage arriving in LA. On the first trip. a report rode the whole way. We need to find that article. See this post: Mirror Building (2023). 

Remarks: Modified: 07/27/2024

07/27/2024 --    

Oregon, by land

 TL;DR -- Getting to Oregon, however done, was arduous. Today, we look at the land routes and note that the ordeals are subject of studies and have been for over a century. 

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Oregon is in the west, nestled above California. They respect their history ought there so preservation of material is a common theme. Recently, the Oregon-California Trails Association had their meeting. 

There were several ways to get to the west coast and Oregon from New England. We covered the water route in several posts and articles: The Gardiner that was (2018). Gardiner's barque left Boston in July of 1849 and got to San Francisco in January of 1850. It had passengers and sold its freight at the harbor. There was a subsequent voyage to New Zealand. In October of 1850, the barque (Bostonian) wrecked along the Oregon Coast. 

Family members went out another route which was descent to Panama, getting across to the Pacific, and taking another ship north. The return trip was as arduous. We'll look at that further at some point. 

We have written a lot about the land route. As, for a while, the trail went through Gardner, KS (3 Trails, 2019) where it split with the Santa Fe Trail. Over time, as people got familiar with the Kansas City area, they ventured north on the Missouri River to where they could cut out KS and go through NE. This saved a few days. 

Young bucks in high fever were in a hurry to get to the gold field. 

On the journey through Nebraska, the traffic went by Scotts Bluff (Facebook). For now, we put in a photo of the new and the old way which is apropos. People still ride the trail; one of the east-west Interstate Highways runs through the area. So, a brief nod to technology. 

Eagle Rock and a solar car, 2022

Now, let's go further west and look at another split. In Wyoming, the US Government sponsored work to shorten the trip to California. Lander Road was the cutoff that was made. This bypass saved 60 miles for those going to California via the southern route through Idaho. 

Lots of trails crossed the countrry. We appreciate that folks keep up attention on these routes and work to preserve the historical aspects. We expect that the coming 250th of the country will see a surge of interest. At the same time, we need to keep technology on the beneficial side of things, especially with regard to its potential for aiding historical work. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/25/2024

07/25/2024 --    

OpEd, again, plus Salem

TL;DR -- We have two changes to explain and process. One deals with the Thomases.The other is about technology. But, we also will catch up with Salem and its 400th preparations. Then, OpEd as an interim device to keep coherence? We'll look at that. 

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Recently, we looked at the status. Two changes were noted: 1) a new question arose - were there two Thomas Gardners?; 2) technology has become more interesting due to GenAI and will be a continuing focus for us into the future. 

Also, we looked at 2024 in which Chelsea has its 400th, then 2025 where Qunicy is the celebrant, and then 2026 with respect to Roger Conant moving the crew over to Salem. The first two towns are not in Essex County but in the Boston area and consists of lots of families. As mentoned, we will look at all towns with those in the County of Cape Ann getting special attention. 

Salem? We have written a lot about that coming event. For example, we had a post in Pageant of Salem (6 Jun 2018) which had family members playing their ancestors during the time of the 300th. The play was performed in several areas. Dr. Frank was one of the participants. We mentioned that the celebration was not long after the outbreak of Spanish Flu which dampened things a little. 

Sound familiar? We're not not past Covid with many issues (such as vacine, potential for yearly outbreaks, and more) still being discussed. 

We will pull together the posts about the Salem commerations and mark them as the first step of a restructuring. Mark with what? For starters, we will put those posts in the "OpEd" category (30 Dec 2023). We were reviewing the year. One thing that we marvelled about was the gall of releasing GenAI which was premature in so many ways. Right now, there seems to be potential raging. But, there will be a downturn from this hype, including reactions on the ca-pital-sino that is over 40K. 

You know, there is an adage that when one is getting tips on stock from those that are in the daily life, then a downturn is on the horizon. Okay, we had a major downturn in 2008 (thereabouts) which we saw up close. Since then, there have been several drops, but frankly we have going on 20 years of the "bull" side of things. 

A headline today touted at a GenAI era stock trading program is making lots of money. And, it's on the web/cloud for people to use. Remember crypto (of recent vintage - the bank failure)? This is similar. We also saw a pop last year of the stock of a company that was not worth the evaluation that accompanied the rise in its stock. The pop was due to gaming. We can go into detail, but it's the gist of matter that applies here. 

We will touch upon all aspects of computing and its value to our lives including specifics of advanced systems which is where we spent out life's energy. Along with that, we'll emphasize the mathematics that is involved. One good area to focus on would be machine learning. 

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Again, OpEd? What's that about? See Current Status (9 Feb 2024). Well, one might talk about fact and fancy. Or in betweeen? Okay, the binary logic is not how real life works. The computer's limits many times come from ignoring that basic truism of life. 

So, measurements, tolerances, evaluations, and such? Yes, all are appropriate. If we assume the two Thomases (pre-1635 and post-1635), we can look at either or both or not at all in our work. If you go back, we said long ago that we didn't know much. See What we know? (22 Nov 2012). 

Too, we found the marriage notice in 2014. So, we have been following the right path. Now, we need to go back through the whole of it and separate out the "fanciful" (even Dr. Frank's stuff prior to 1635) and collect them into a historical view. 

Salem's first fort (1629)

Then, the rest will be what carries to the next decision point. 

Oh yes, terms? We have conjectures and hypotheses that we will document. Too, what is a proof? That's an important issue related to technology as well as to humans and their lives. So, tackling the topics fits well within our mission. 

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A focus on Salem (Learn about Salem's History - 400th Salem).  We'll get into this more as we go along, but these are links related to our research. 

• Massey's Cove (16 May 2019) 
• Enduring Gloucester (30 May 2021)
• Where was Thomas? (27 Jan 2012) 
• ...

This is "OpEd" just to include it in the list of earlier posts so that we can collect all of the posts which need some revision. That revision might be a foreward, explaining the situation. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/16/2024

07/16/2024 --    

Maturity, mathematics

TL;DR -- GenAI is a hot topic. Has been for more than a year. But, what is there? Some think it's great; others see worries forming. Many don't care. Yet, it represents something important. 

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For over a year, we have argued that people ought to not exult too much about Gen AI. Here is a summary of the points that were being made.

• Providers - those who let loose immature software without due regard to consequences. This war started right before 2023 in Nov of 2022.
• Users - almost immediately, the launch of a package with "free" access set the world aflame. There were millions (10s of millions, eventually 100s of millions) who signed up. You know, I didn't become aware until 1 Feb 2023. That's two months later. What was the draw? 
• Insight issues - as early as a week after the release, one brain at The Atlantic noted that this stuff was for fun and games; it could not do serious work. That theme played out the whole year of 2023 and even until now. Along with these two camps we saw the scientific minds trying to understand its ways and uses; too, engineers pondered use in a mature sense. 
• Myself - I got involved since people were talking about how badly these things did simple math. I took it further and compared ChatGPT with Mathematica. Yeap. It's not even close. But, Wolfram saw the potential for the thing as an interface; he tied ChatGPT with the langauge of his system and showed that LLM (the other side of this coin) was a terrific frontend to major systems. That has now been done in many situations. Wolfram took it further and increased his work on adding knowledge of physics to his system. My counsel was that these buckets of bits with their novelty were really examples of applied mathematics in action but lead to abuse quickly since the underlying mathematics is complicated. Too, it's easily misused (please keep reading).   

Let's stop there as we want to get to the gist of this post and can expand upon this list as the discussions continue. 

A few days ago, a paper was submitted to arXiv by researchers at several institutions. arXiv is supported by Cornell University and allows quick publication of research results. This graphic was built from the contents of, and is included as a figure in, the article: Beyond Euclid: An Illustrated Guide to Modern Machine Learning with Geometric, Topological, and Algebraic Structures. 

As I have been reviewing the situation plus exercising a few of the GenAI variety of system, I recall my experience with KBE (knowledge based engineering) about which I will be writing further. Also, I wrote articles on the subject: 1st -- AI, not solely machine learning (11 Dec 2023). This seems late, but I wanted to be thorough. I just started the fifth of the series which has no expected ending. 

In several forums, I have argued that we need to lift out the mathematics to public view and scrutiny. Okay, some might see this math as magical. Some will not. In fact, we can explain as needed, just like Einstein said that he could explain his relativity theory to his grandmother (or ought to be able to). This article is an attempt at that and a very good one. 

Let's see that this type of thing becomes an area of research and study. 

Wait, on the other hand, I also argued that we are dealing with buckets of bits that are good at pulling our leg. We can explain the phenomena behind the effects that we see. There is no creature involved that is emerging to take over. GenAI is no closer to a "Singularity" causing issues than anything else that we have seen.  

Heck, we humans can do that ourselves (evidence abounds). 

Next up, I am going to write more on KBE and its history as well as the evolution of CAD/CAE and other computationally assisted systems with computing over the past few decades. 

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Hint: I may as well get it off of my chest. My focus is truth engineering. There are reasons for that. One is that people are involved with the judgments that involve truth. We cannot compute truth. Nor, can we know it outright, in general. Truth is a private experience. Now, then, computing and truth? Let me just mention a few concepts that we will look at further: homogeneity (this is a strong assumption being taken without a basis many times; and ignored that I can see, many times - lots to discuss); equivariance (yes, fiddling, fudging, force fit - I will use the 777 and its success in attaining "fit" as well as meeting form and function - that is, it was the first attempt at complete (not met) digital design; and the metrics accomplishment, it was real - in this paper, the mention of the concept can be found in references and in one area where Lie algebra plays a role); geometry, topology, algebra (there are more subjects to bring to proper attention, such as category theory, dynamics (various sorts), and more). Essentially, as Poincare noted, mathematics is a huge subject. What's been associated so far with this approach of computing is a small subset, yet it got attention due to the unexpected ability to bring results that got our attention. So, computing got more powerful? We are so far from truth that we have to step back and get more scholarly. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/19/2024

07/16/2024 --

Why is 2024 quiet?

TL;DR -- 2023 saw Gloucester, MA celebrate its founding in terms of arrival of a crew from England. 2024 continues that activity, somewhat. 

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We have had several posts on Gloucester, MA who did their 400th last year. The Cape Ann crew arrived in 1623, overwintered, and others showed up in 1624. 

So, the modern Gloucester continues their celebration into the 2nd year. What happened to the TGS, Inc. involvement? We support their lookback. Dr. Frank and Ann have ancestors who were with the original crew. Two that come to mind are Conant and Woodbury. There are other families. 

What of Thomas Gardner? In 2018, there was an article that we commented at: The Settlement of Cape Ann: What is the Real Story?

300th celebration of the
Cape Ann arrival

Recently, we commented again. Here is the content of our comment: 

A year ago, we were chasing information related to the appearance of GenAI. That kept us busy. In the meantime, a researcher found the birth records of all of Thomas Gardner’s children in Sherborn, Dorset, UK.

See https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/2023/04/in-summary.html (Apr of 2023).

We added a few more words this year as we absorbed news of a changing world.

See https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/2024/02/current-status.html (Feb of 2024).

The technology work continues. It’s time to get back to Thomas Gardner and Margaret Frier. On WikiTree, the profile of Thomas was split into two. Daughter, Seeth, was born here. So, did they arrive around 1636? That’s the 1st Thomas. The 2nd one is for the unknown Thomas Gardner who was here according to scattered pieces of information that we have seen.

I argue that there was time for Thomas to come over and go back between births of two of the children. There are various ways to continue the research. It’s time to get this on the plate, I would think.

https://thomasgardnerofsalem.blogspot.com/2023/12/thomas-gardner-puzzle.html

https://thomasgardnersociety.org/html/Research.html

....  end of comment .....

So, we have research to do. And, we are reconstructing our sites and blogs to fit the story. 

With respect to Thomas and Margaret, we will be looking for evidence that he came over here alone, at least twice, before he came over with Margaret and the children except Seeth who was born here. 

In the meantime, watch WikiTree for commentary and research results as well as our legacy site. 

Now, Chelsea, MA has its 400th this year. We will look at that shortly since the date is set for September 21. There have been activities so far this year that we can catch up on. 

Also, there are other towns to celebrate over several years: Quincy (2025); Salem (2026). 

400ths for Massachusetts 

Remarks: Modified: 07/14/2024

07/14/2024 -- Aside: the Salem History for the 400th does not mention Gardner. The 300th had a focus on the old planters who were not of the group associated with the Beverly land grant. The 200th would have been after the Revolution and 1812 Conflict and probably muted. The 100th? Worth looking into. And so, for the 500th, will we have something to add? As in, look to fill in some of the missing pieces. 

Gardner Beacon, Issues

TL;DR -- Before we publish GB XIV, 1 and 2, we take a look at the fourteen years of Gardner Beacon issues. Some of the PDF files have been republished with links. That effort will continue until they are all updated. 

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Yes, we are in our fourteenth year with our first issue being in May of 2011. One thing to notice is that the blog has "Gazette" in the name. We were leaning toward that but changed to "Beacon" for several reasons, one of these does point back to Winthrop's sermon in which he used the "City on the hill" phrase. 

We have an Index from the beginning. For every issue (using GB I, 1), we had the blog post (above link) and a PDF (with a link to a print version) at our Heritage site. For the first four issues, we had a Sources file which gave some sense of the provenance of the material. Two years ago, we started to redo the PDF to include links to the material being discussed.   

At the same time, we created a mobile-friendly version of the issue using WordPress which was an improvement on the HTML/CSS experiment that we did earlier. This happened when Google announced that they would not link in their search results to sites that were noncompliant. This was the 2015 timeframe. 

Since then, we went with a more adaptable method using HTML/CSS/Javascript as we see with the portal (TGSoc.org) which was quite interesting in terms of doing custom sites. The trend has started toward the look-alike type that has become so prevalent. There is a lot to discuss about using these, but let's put that off, for a while. As the topic will be important in the near future as the world shakes out the influence of technological changes that came about with no seeming forethought. 

Now, before going on to  GB XIV, 1, this table shows the list of issues where we are tracking the conversion of the issue to the PDF with links. The exercise allows us to review the past fourteen years in terms of content through time. 

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Curation will be more important in the future than it ever was. The following effort allows us to go to all of the issues and link to material that can be considered source. 

         Track updates to GB issues, Published  

• 2011 Vol. I No. 1; Vol. I, No. 2; Vol. I, No. 3; Vol. I, No. 4; Vol. I, No. 5
• 2012 Vol. II, No. 1; Vol. II, No. 2; Vol. II, No. 3; Vol. II, No. 4; Vol. II, No. 5; Vol. II, No. 6
• 2013 Vol. III, No. 1; Vol. III, No. 2; Vol. III, No. 3; Vol. III, No. 4
• 2014 Vol. IV, No. 1; Vol. IV, No. 2; Vol. IV, No. 3; Vol. IV, No. 4
  
• 2015 Vol. V, No. 1; Vol. V, No. 2
  
• 2016 Vol. VI, No. 1; Vol. VI, No. 2
  
• 2017 Vol. VII, No. 1; Vol. VII, No. 2
  
• 2018 Vol. VIII, No. 1; Vol. VIII, No. 2
• 2019 Vol. IX, No. 1; Vol. IX, No. 2; Vol. IX, No. 3 
• 2020 Vol. X, No. 1; Vol. X, No. 2 
• 2021 Vol. XI, No. 1; Vol. XI, No. 2
• 2022 Vol. XII, No. 1; Vol. XII, No. 2; Vol. XII, No. 3
  
• 2023 Vol. XIII, No. 1; Vol. XIII, No. 2;
  

Since 2022, we have published with WordPress

Vol. XII, No. 1; Vol. XII, No. 2; Vol. XII, No. 3
Vol. XIII. No. 1; Vol. XIII, No. 2; 

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After we complete this exercise, we will go back and determine where we need to publish a correct due to the change in status of the information. That is, what impact does finding the records of births of the children in Sherborne, Dorset, UK have on the issues? We expect that we'll include a link to an error-correcting blog post that will be availabe with lists of contents and indeces. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/13/2024

07/13/2024 -- One issue relates to starting the new blog in WP. In the focus on content, a couple of configuration steps were not completed. One of these dealt with comments. That was no problem for two years. GenAI's general emergence in 2024, as 2023 was a period of getting familiar with the phenomenon, allowed easier programming, such as hacking out comments. The comments accumulated by the 1000s, slowly down response. That stream has stopped; all existing comments were deleted. Hence, response is now as expected. Comments can be sent to: jmswtlk@tgsoc. org. 

Next two years

TL;DR -- The next two years have major historic connections. One is of the old country. The later is the start of the new one. 

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Two things, with more later. On Quora, I was reading a comment by a Berkeley grad (see first bullet) and thought so use this post from 2015. 

• Vicissitude and life's puzzles (June 2015) -- I had gone to a talk by Douglas Richardson. This post had a  link to his site. Today, it didn't work. Okay, that's going to be a common thing on the web along with the intentional (many times) introduction of mis(dis)information. So, I go looking for information on DR. Turns out that Wikipedia has a page (Note: Wikipedia, being human curated, is going to serve a savior role for some time). So, in our post, I changed the link for DR to his page on Wikipedia. Too, I was reminded that he was a Berkeley graduate. 

With respect to this, the Magna Charta involvement by Henry III will be celebrated next year. More on that later. 

• The 250th of the U.S. (list of posts) -- We have had several posts.    
  

D.A.R. has been involved for almost a decade in the planning. One action was to have a committee that helped get difficult applications documented. That work got us to realize that there is something needing study on a continual basis: America's Lost Generation. We have seen a lot of this type of thing. Fortunately, we have found the committee's help to be of great value to Ann's work. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/11/2024

07/11/2024 --