Christopher Street Day in Berlin: Attacked. One more attack on a peaceful gathering. There seems to be a suspect. It’s early days yet. Again, once more apparently motivated by extremist ideas, whatever the exact political conviction. We as an open and democratic, peaceful and diverse society, who know a thing or two about integration by this time, will not take this lying down.
I’ve been around people from all walks of life and from almost any part of the world you could imagine: All continents, many different languages and convictions, political or religious or otherwise.
But, one thing emerges equally and at once: People with hearts and minds for the essentials in life cannot do such a thing.
My heart goes out to all who were affected, losing loved ones in the middle of life! And the wounded: May they rise again, stronger than before and healthy in mind and body.
There are still people around with grudges. Or those who feel left out. Or those who were actually mistreated. But whoever or whatever reason, this is a NO GO.
I for one will always hold up my ideas, my beliefs and the knowledge that only together we are strong enough to defeat the bullies and greedy and misguided people of this world. Because:
They call it ‘soldiering’ in some places: The thing men do when they feel like playing games, being heroic – and ultimately show off how tough a guy they can be, after all. The bullies of this world and their ‘cohorts’: It’s like a glimpse into the past. Ancient Rome comes to mind – and much later completely rotten types of people that barely retain any sort of resemblance to humans: The present president of the US first and foremost.
Deep inside afraid and downright cowardly, because: He sends others to do his ‘dirty work’. Die.
He sits there in his heaps of money and all that appertains to it and one does not even need to ask anymore: ‘Who benefits?’
Now what? Closing a deal of billions of dollars for supporting a so-called civilian nuclear development programme. They don’t even feel ashamed anymore.
To think that the US is the first-ever nation owning – and using – nuclear bombs; and the first-ever to use them against another.
In all the years Iran had had time to do so, they did not: They did not develop nuclear weapons.
This is not about peace on earth. Or this role of world police officer the US so like to don.
This is cruel and hard-boiled, selfish greed. Since being in office that sorry excuse for a man Trump actually has accumulated more wealth than ever before.
Two New York Times articles. One makes it abundantly clear how the Supreme Court of the US itself even is infested with boot-licking, greedy followers. The second shows nicely how this person together with his family abuses his office and his power accumulating even more wealth:
“Lame duck” is the phrase for that state politicians get into when their term is running out: By not being re-elected or simply reaching the end of their final term.
The present president in the US tries all he can to make it appear as if he was in full control of the situation and not the least bit ‘maimed’. Addressing the nation, as it were.
Yet, the signs are there: Claiming that votes were wangled at the time in 2020 and that the US-voting system is unreliable, not to say in danger of overthrowing itself, is a bit ‘rich’ by such a person – when you think of what happened in 2016:
The New York Times and the (then still reliable) Washington Post reported on the fact that elections had been influenced strongly by Russia, by order of Putin himself. In 2016, already.
Yet, nothing ever was said by Trump himself about that…
Why would he? It was in his favour.
If there had been insecurities they would have been fixed long ago by this time. (Catchword: Cybersecurity).
10 years later.
The contacts between the two heads of state (wouldn’t want to call them ‘leaders’… they miss out on so much that makes a good one…) were known long before that. Trump’s family members regularly visited there…
Let’s hope and pray that not only he in terms of peace but also voters in the US will finally see the light – and smell that rat that just might be a last, though feeble attempt to change any laws, in his favour again…
The Supreme Court has a majority of 4 justices, selected at the time from his followers…
It’s been reported more than once and the present president of the USA, whose name I try to avoid naming, even publicly praised himself for it: The scare tactics he chooses to employ. Scare them and then get the deal made into your, that is his, favour.
Cruel, selfish and completely given to the idea that money rules, and power is better, the ‘more the merrier’, for decades he has been part of a group of people who believe that a person is ‘good’ if they have money.
Actually, looking at US-American history, it’s only partly surprising that so many people there believe it:
Religious beliefs are at the bottom of all that.
The Puritans were the largest group to enter the North American continent and originally, in turn, Calvinists.
Calvin, a Swiss protestant, among many other ideas postulated that a human was God’s favourite if wealthy. By granting people wealth God would show his special grace towards them.
Is it surprising that over 300 years later the founding myth of the US, used as a ‘badge of courage’ and a sign, makes people believe strongly in this idea?
Basically: “Be rich and you are a good person”…?
History of mankind and actual events show nicely, how true it is that greed makes people cruel and violent.
The working uranium enrichment control contracts with Iran were cancelled in 2018 by the first administration of this president. Working contracts, officially confirmed by the IAEA.
Additionally, also historical pattern, starting a war is one of the best-liked ‘tools’ to divert attention from graver or downright illegal internal affairs.
The present president of the USA was found guilty on 34 counts of bribery, molestation and corruption in front of a US court of law. He was heavily incriminated in relation to the so-called Epstein papers.
That’s why he needs sensation, a war, to make people forget about all the other atrocities.
When the first settlers came to the country that is now called the USA, they were looking for religious freedom. Freedom for quite some time was not for all, even there. Viewed from over here, we see all those facts that make it hard to celebrate, especially these days. A bitter reckoning, mostly.
Yes, they made it. Somehow. But the ups and especially the downs are memorable. When someone like the present president from the extreme right is at the head of a government that does everything to revert back to times we have put behind us for more than 300 years… it can become irritating. Namely: feudal structures: A ‘king’ who claims the whole power for himself and would, if he could, reign for ever. Have everybody do his bid.
It’s awfully amazing that someone like that could actually ‘be flushed to the surface’, scum, in a country claiming to be the oldest existing democracy. Due to money: Paying for the necessary advertisements, these days mostly online.
Lives have been lost. The peoples of America, of the whole continent, close to complete obliteration, just because settlers felt they had the right to the land… Cruelty, hatred and death daily; around the world, the latest the war against Iran. For what?
Greed. Power. Money. Oil.
I feel it to be a challenge in face of all this and many more facts, to mention all the fine aspects too:
Literature, arts, painting, music and movies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Steinbeck, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Harper Lee, George Gershwin… a long and impressive list that here can show only a very few.
“Moving pictures”: To think that some of the greatest artists in that field came from Europe, again: Fritz Lang, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergmann, Wolfgang Petersen, Hans Zimmer, and many more, and, towering them all like a small yet wonderful figure of heart and brains:
Charles Chaplin.
He developed ‘the flickers’, moving pictures, into an art form, in a career of over 50 years, coming from most desperate surroundings himself. He knew. Bless his heart.
Charles Chaplin who made it clear what life is about: About empathy in the most tragic and desperate situations. About laughter and that smile he even worked into a song, whose lyrics were created a few years later, in 1954, rendered by Nat King Cole in that manner that encompasses it all: Life at its most wonderful and most tragic.
A scene in “City Lights” that plays nicely with our perception: A blind girl who through hearing the sound of an expensive car door closing assumes a passing man to be rich…
That gift horse… it’s been around for a long time now… Actually, when you think about it, AI is just a gift horse. That’s why you should really ‘look into its mouth’.
Where does that saying come from and why? A gift horse is one you are presented with, for free. Very old horses though originally were considered to be less valuable. Partly because as horses in farming they wouldn’t have power enough. For riding they might also be unequal.
In order to ascertain the age of a horse you look at its teeth, into its mouth, and with experience and knowledge you would know its age with great precision then.
A gift horse comes free. So, don’t look too closely, it’s exactly that: A gift we would want to be grateful for.
In business, people may appear to give something away. But there’s always a reason behind it.
In the case of the major AI applications and chatbots, such as Google, ChatGPT, perplexity.ai, Gemini, Copilot(s), Apple Intelligence and many more, apparently published almost daily these days – they come with a ‘long tooth’:
When you use them, they gather your data, any data you leave, by asking, by searching, by disclosing your whereabouts or even the cookies stored inside your browser. At least their own.
More importantly even:
When you know about a subject well, such as your profession of long standing, you will easily be able to judge where AI goes wrong.
On the other hand, you cannot possibly be completely sure, if you are still learning.
How Do I know? And Why?
I have documented AI successfully, with the support by a mathematician at the time and the Product Owner and Designer, IT business. That documentation even was mentioned specially by the US agency Gartner in their Magic Quadrant for Metadata Applications in 2019.
AI per definition does and can do these things:
It is programmed for finding and using patterns of – and inside – knowledge in the shape of data.
This kind of pattern recognition is based on mathematical probability calculations: Statistics.
At first, known data.
After it’s been trained, it will be let ‘loose’ on other, more and unknown data to again find patterns.
The next step is the re-assembling of those patterns in a likely manner.
Or making predictions based on probability: “How likely is it that the cases A or B will occur again, after they had occurred before such and such number of times?“
This means that
in cases where you are sure of your ground or the expected results and can double-check them, you are save ‘trusting’ AI.
Equally, when you ask about a known text or data such as an image or given page/file, it will use that.
But as soon as you would ask it like a search engine to look for answers online, you may find results be faulty.
AI will never ‘tell’ you so. Because it is not able to. It does not recognise meaning. It finds patterns in texts and words.
Reassembling them.
Therefore it will always ‘tell’ you in so many words that everything it ‘says’ is of course right. True.
Online sources can be anything from a Wikipedia article through to an advertisement on some page mentioning the phrases you were entering in the chat’s search box/field.
The conclusion to all of this:
Look into any gift horse’s mouth that is an AI you can use for ‘free’!
“My Way” is a song first rendered in French, actually: Comme d’habitude. The English version has the same melody but different text, saying that a full life can mean to do it ‘your way’. To me there’s of course community. Or the necessities of earning a living. But preferably with things I love to do. In my case that’s texts and technology, being a technical writer.
Yet, in my free time I like to listen to my inner rhythms. The ‘clock’. The necessities arising from an eventful professional life and other considerations, making it a challenge at times.
I’ve learned doing Yoga routines. I know about Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Enough to know that being at one with yourself can mean:
“Less is more.”
Circadian rhythm refers to the fact that the sunlight and darkness means something to our everyday life. There’s a lot of scientific research around by now and they confirm the age-old systems I just mentioned.
It may also depend on the phase in life we go through which can mean that adventure or eventful days are aimed at.
But “the times they are a’changin’.” In other words, to be able to live calmly and quietly, doing the mundane things, really, such as writing here; exchanging ideas. Or have a fine, late breakfast on a holiday, with friends even, can be the ‘order of the day’.
Blissful living in the true sense of the word.
“Agentic AI” – short for AI workflows you save or set up to reuse and even combine. A little like those macros in MS Office at the time they were popular, before their potential to introduce malware became known.
Well, it reminds me of those thrillers a little: In general, AI can be a help and a fine tool, no doubt about it.
But it also is comparable to knives. In the wrong hands it can do a lot of damage.
How Do I Know?
I am a technical writer by profession and documented AI successfully, with the support of a mathematician and other SMEs. That documentation in 2019 even was mentioned specially by the US-agency Gartner in their Magic Quadrant on Metadata Management Applications.
What I find extremely irritating is the fact that – agents or no agents 😉 – it’s constantly being pushed on me: Not just those pop-ups, but actual AI chat boxes instead of searches. Big, first time logging in, as if nothing else existed.
Paid services or not: I hate being forced to use a technology whose results are doubtful at times and have to be checked and checked backwards again.
I know that selling these days can be hard. Kudos to all sales and marketing people who try it anyway. These days especially where only wars seem to be able to let markets ‘look up’…
Still, forcing it on me is like trying to sell a cookie by forcing me to eat it… Imagine someone being allergic to nuts and having to eat a ‘nutty’ cookie…
Can drive you ‘nuts’… ┐( ͡◉ ͜ʖ ͡◉)┌
Such suffering, such useless destruction and waste – completely unnecessary killings.
I am happy that there is actually a light at the end of the tunnel, as that famous phrase goes.
But at what price!
People scarred for life. Civil population as well as military: What does all this do to a human being?
Interestingly one of the most striking records of souls in pain comes from the US: Award-winning director John Houston as early as 1946 directed and published “Let There be Light“.
The present president whose name I avoid naming, is wholly responsible for this ‘charade’:
Just as was the case with Iraq in 2003-2011, no reason could be found. Not the weapons of mass destruction. But: Oil in abundance. And a nation reeling from the onslaught to this day.
The present president and his ‘horde’ cancelled working and observed contracts of uranium enrichment control with Iran as early as 2018. Confirmed fact. Do we need to say – or think – more?
“Cui bono?” – “Who benefits?” The central question, so often.
If it wasn’t so dreadful, cruel and cold-hearted, a moneymaking ‘cult’ behind it: One would have to laugh at that behaviour for being so extremely ridiculous, practically childish.
Let’s hope – and pray, if you will – that an actual agreement finally will be reached.
Do we need to ask what they plan to do for the ‘victory festivities’ in the US surely to be held – and just as the inauguration – financed by the big tech companies…?
That agreement needs to be reached in a hurry to have a reasonable period of time elapse before they start them…and early enough before the end of the last term in office of this sorry excuse for a man that is that US president.
It’s not new anymore, these days: But it still is worth another look and thought: How moneymaking as a cult has apparently taken over our lives. I am old enough to remember life with the Soviet Union still in place. Looking at it from today’s vantage point I feel more and more: since moneymaking as a system has no rival, no ‘enemy’, no opponent anymore, it’s like medieval times – two hard-liners in moneymaking and serving their own personality (character would be the wrong term) at the top (?) in order to make their followers and themselves even more – money. In Russia and the US.
‘Raw capitalism’, unleashed as it were, again. Yes, of course, some people will argue the same way: Just let it be. It will take care of itself, if you only let it.
That’s Adam Smith’s theory, who stated that enterprises should be left to their own devices and the ‘market would take care of itself’. The USA’s national myth. That’s what myths are: A basic fairy tale.
Well, more than 200 years into the picture – and we are still waiting for it – to take care…
Have some ‘guys’, the tough stuff, at the top. The more they misbehave, an actual felon as a US president, the more they make some people believe that ‘tough guys’ still exist, the more they feel reassured.
Because there’s that other view… always lurking around the corner; they just might not be all that tough inside; they just might feel doubtful and insecure deep down about the ‘cowboy’ and ‘hunter’ and ‘soldier’, not to say ‘hero’ image they long for most of their lives.
Some will never get it, not in this life: Male precedence has a history.
And being a man does not mean, be tough, unyielding and unflinching in the face of adversity. If we could finally get that new male image into place (again), we might even stop wars altogether.
One day, women, children, elderly people and even men (who are out of the picture these days because they are so busy saving the others in wars they started in the first place) might be living in peace. Greetz to all those fine guys out there, who know that being a male human is more than just being tough!
The FIFA World Cup this year, starting today is one more instance of that embarrassing excuse for a man called the present president of the United States and his priorities – not to mention that actual name once in a while. Prices for anything related rocketed sky-high. Just so many people even refused to enter the US, for no justifiable or indeed any sort of ‘reason’, as in: rational thinking.
Related to all that moneymaking and the question of ‘news’ are social media, many of the largest consumed around the world in one or two ‘pockets’.
They don’t do it for nothing: They sell our data.
Interestingly, in front of that court in the hearing about his company’s policies in regard to content control or data privacy, when asked, Mark Zuckerberg himself refused to state then and there the name of the hotel he had slept in the previous night. Or the phone number of the last person he had called before entering court.
