Imagining and Predicting

“I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.” -- Richard Feynman

One of the most confusing things about our imagination is when it takes us to a place we can’t go to physically. 

We know the universe is vast and that the odds of other inhabitable worlds are extremely good. We also know that the sun will ultimately explode and die, rendering life on this planet impossible. So for our species to survive we will eventually have to travel.

While we believe these things to be true, our ability to do anything about them is supposedly limited by the laws of physics. On the other hand, quantum mechanics, suggests none of those constraints are immutable -- that space and time and consciousness are all more or less constructs of our imagination.

Thinking too hard about all this will take us around the circle Feynman so eloquently described. There seems to be no escape.

But some of us yearn to break away from the constraints that bind us to our current reality. That includes the journalists stuck covering reality in its gritty detail every day. That is where some combination of art and fiction may provide relief, as our most imaginative impulses take the form of music, dance, painting, sculpture, film, novels, short stories, poems and more.

These help deliver an alternative future to us. Meanwhile, predicting it is, at best, a crap shoot.

The book “Super Forecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction,” by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, describes a massive effort by an army of volunteers to forecast global events. According to this research, once they given the best evidence, about two percent of those involved prove to be “super forecasters,” able with uncanny accuracy to figure out what is going to happen next about almost anything.

Note to self: I’m not one of them.

HEADLINES:

• Iran reviewing US proposal as source says both sides moving toward memo to end war (CNN)

• Oil plunges, markets surge on report U.S. and Iran near deal to end war as gas prices jump past $4.50 (NBC)

• Gasoline costs 50% more in the US than before the Iran war (AP)

• We’ll Miss OPEC When It’s Gone (NYT)

• Iran war amplifies divisions within both parties over U.S.-Israel ties (WP)

• A Dangerous New Attack on Press Freedom (Atlantic)

• Takeaways from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan: Trump’s flex pays off and Democrats win special election (PBS)

• Trump’s Indiana Victory Is the Wrong Kind of Good News for Republicans (Newsweek)

• Poll finds broad rejection of religion-related messages from Trump, Hegseth (WP)

• CNN founder Ted Turner, a pioneer of cable TV news, dies at 87 (CNN)

• Ancient island in Scottish loch found to rest on hidden timber base (Heritage Daily)

• The Intercept didn’t just publish a story about ICE — it drove it around JFK (Nieman)

• The most layoff-prone job in tech right now (BI)

• How a deadly hantavirus outbreak unfolded on a cruise ship for weeks before it was identified (AP)

• Purported Epstein Suicide Note Is Released (NYT)

• This furry AI companion may replace your dog (Morning Brew)

• Why AI Agents are either the best or worst thing we’ve ever built (YouTube)

• Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents can now “dream,” sort of (Ars Technica)

• Giving Up Too Much Work (Onion)

The Intimidator

Donald Trump just can’t let his loss in the 2020 election go. 

You’d think retaking the White House in 2024 would have satisfied his urge for revenge, but clearly it did not.

There never has been any evidence of significant fraud in 2020.

Yet Trump has his Justice Department seeking the identities of thousands of poll workers in Fulton County, Georgia, a few months after seizing the ballots from the 2020 election there.

Why? The only feasible reason for this now is to harass and intimidate them, perhaps with an eye toward undermining this year’s midterm elections in the process.

It would be difficult to overestimate the amount of damage to our electoral system that Trump has already done by these and other actions.

He refused to concede his loss in 2020; instead he incited the mob to attack Congress on January 6th. And since regaining power, he’s pardoned all those responsible for that riot, further undermining our criminal justice system and rewarding criminals for their loyalty to him and his demonstrably false claims.

It is abundantly clear that Donald Trump wants to go down in history as the greatest U.S. President.

But many historians may consider him the worst. 

*** 

In the California gubernatorial debate last night there was no clear winner but three of the seven — Democrats Matt Mahan and Antonio Villaraigosa and Republican Chad Bianco — looked out of their league.

The three remaining Democrats — Xavier Becerra, Katie Porter and Tom Steyer — and one Republican, Steve Hilton, performed relatively well. Porter and Steyer will probably split the progressive vote, while Becerra seems to be the “establishment” candidate, under fire from everyone else.

Hilton, who has Trump’s endorsement, may be one of the two finalists to emerge from the upcoming primary, when only two can move on to the general election this fall.

UPDATE : On the tomato plant mystery. This one is headed for a bad ending. On a rainy, windy overnight, the thief returned to make off with two more plants, leaving only one survivor from the original six. Unfortunately, the wind also knocked the camera over, so we have no footage of the crime.

HEADLINES:

• Trump says Hormuz operation paused amid US, Tehran talks (Al Jazeera)

• Iran has hit far more U.S. military assets than reported, satellite images show. (WP)

• White House gave Iran private message before new Hormuz operation (Axios)

• Trump keeps changing his timeline for ending the Iran war (WP)

• US intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer. (Reuters)

• Trump Tries to Downplay Economic Effects of the Iran War (NYT)

• Sherrod Brown wins Democratic Senate nomination in Ohio, setting up a key battleground race (NBC)

• Seven state senators in Indiana who helped defeat Trump’s plan to redraw their state’s voting map last year faced Republican opponents endorsed by Trump — most were defeated. (WP)

• Key moments from CNN’s California governor primary debate (CNN)

• Republicans propose $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to secure Trump ballroom (NBC)

• Is Todd Blanche Already a Worse Attorney General Than Pam Bondi? (Slate)

• F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe (NYT)

• Want more Black representatives? Elect more Democrats. (Silver Bulletin)

• G.O.P. Proposes $1 Billion for Security Improvements in Ballroom Project (NYT)

• 16 days from momentum to meltdown in Canada-US trade talks (Politico)

• Why Europe’s car industry is at the centre of a new US trade war (Al Jazeera)

• Anthropic CEO warns of cyber ‘moment of danger’ as AI exposes thousands of vulnerabilities (CNBC)

• Roomba inventor unveils a companion robot that’s more pet than helper (Mashable)

• States across the wildfire-prone Western US are using AI for early detection (AP)

• Coinbase cuts 14% of staff, citing AI (BI)

• Anthropic and Wall Street Giants Join Forces to Create New A.I. Firm (NYT)

• ‘I have an A because I use Chat’: What UC students say about using AI — and whether it’s cheating (SFC)

• Epidemiologists Confirm First Airborne Transmission Of Mar-A-Lago Face (Onion)

 

Holding On

(Note: When I wrote the following essay a year ago, it was meant as a wakeup call. A year later, the danger remains, but resistance to Trump is growing. I am hopeful that in the end, democracy will prevail.)

There won’t be a press conference announcing that democracy has ended in America and there won’t be tanks rolling through the streets or foreign invaders telling us to shelter in place over loudspeakers.

It won’t be that dramatic when our democracy slips away.

And in fact it’s already doing so, week by week under the Trump regime. As Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt explain in a guest essay in The New York Times: “today’s autocrats convert public institutions into political weapons, using law enforcement, tax and regulatory agencies to punish opponents and bully the media and civil society onto the sidelines.”

The authors point out that a fundamental right in a democracy is the right to oppose the government.

“Under authoritarianism, by contrast, opposition comes with a price. Citizens and organizations that run afoul of the government become targets of a range of punitive measures: Politicians may be investigated and prosecuted on baseless or petty charges, media outlets may be hit with frivolous defamation suits or adverse regulatory rulings, businesses may face tax audits or be denied critical contracts or licenses, universities and other civic institutions may lose essential funding or tax-exempt status, and journalists, activists and other critics may be harassed, threatened or physically attacked by government supporters.”

The authors go on to document that all of these things are happening under the Trump administration.

“The administration’s authoritarian offensive has had a clear impact. It has changed how Americans behave, forcing them to think twice about engaging in what should be constitutionally protected opposition. Consequently, many of the politicians and societal organizations that should serve as watchdogs and checks on the executive are silencing themselves or retreating to the sidelines.”

The authors continue: 

“So far, American society’s response to this authoritarian offensive has been underwhelming — alarmingly so….The acquiescence of our most prominent civic leaders sends a profoundly demoralizing message to society. It tells Americans that democracy is not worth defending — or that resistance is futile. If America’s most privileged individuals and organizations are unwilling or unable to defend democracy, what are ordinary citizens supposed to do?”

But the authors end on a hopeful note.

“There are signs of an awakening. Harvard has refused to acquiesce to administration demands that would undermine academic freedom, Microsoft dropped a law firm that settled with the administration and hired one that defied it, and a new law firm based in Washington, D.C., announced plans to represent those wrongfully targeted by the government. When the most influential members of civil society fight back, it provides political cover for others. It also galvanizes ordinary citizens to join the fight.”

Finally, there is this:

“America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible. But no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines.”

HEADLINES:

• U.S. attempt to open Strait of Hormuz tests fragile Iran war ceasefire (NPR)

• Iran opened fire on US warships; 6 small boats destroyed in retaliation: Centcom (The Hill)

• What to know as the US tries to open the Strait of Hormuz and a ceasefire wavers (AP)

• Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shi’ite Muslim constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters. (Reuters)

• Trump Faces the Complicated Reality of a Costly, Unpopular War in Iran (NYT)

• Supreme Court temporarily restores ability to receive abortion drug mifepristone by mail (CNN)

• Pentagon Firings Have Nothing to Do With ‘Culture’ (Bulwark)

• China thinks America is declining but still uniquely dangerous (Economist)

• Unsettled Kremlin tightens security around Putin amid assassinations and coup fears, intel report says (CNN)

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was on ‌course to wintwo of four crucial state elections, expanding its influence and weakening its key rival half-way into his third term in office. (Reuters)

• What is, and isn’t, worrying about 100% debt to GDP (Axios)

• Meta’s public nuisance case in New Mexico has billion-dollar consequences (CNBC)

• Internal ICE records reveal widespread use of force in detention centers (WP)

• Jerome Powell Just Threw President Donald Trump Under the Bus One Last Time Before His Term as Fed Chair Ends (Motley Fool)

• Redistricting war accelerates winner-take-all political combat that’s straining American democracy (AP)

• Trump’s influence in Republican primary elections is about to get stress-tested. A series of primaries in early May across deep-red territory in Indiana, Kentucky and Louisiana all feature entrenched GOP officials fighting back against Trump-backed challengers, and early signs indicate Trump’s preferred candidates may not always have the upper hand. The results of the primaries could provide a stark indication of whether the president’s legendary sway over the GOP is fading as his popularity sinks. [HuffPost]

• Mass shooting at Arcadia Lake in Oklahoma sends at least 23 to hospital; suspect search continues (ABC)

• The End of Cigarettes Is Coming (Atlantic)

• ‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds (Guardian)

• The quest to save these Outer Banks homes from falling into the sea (WP)

• Mexico City is sinking so quickly, it can be seen from space (AP)

• Astronomers believe they've detected an atmosphere around a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto (AP)

• Musk wanted to settle with OpenAI just days before their courtroom showdown, new filing says (CNN)

• White House Considers Vetting A.I. Models Before They Are Released (NYT)

• Foreign Exchange Student Doesn’t Realize He’s Being Bullied (Onion)

 

A Writer's "Fingerprint"

Those of us working at sites like HotWired and Salon in the early days of the web realized that we were sitting atop a technology that would profoundly change virtually everything about society.

With my background in investigative reporting, I was curious about how the process of solving mysteries might be affected by the arrival of massive searchable databases of networked information. One case that caught my attention was that of the Unabomber, who’d been carrying on his one-man reign of terror since 1978, eluding a massive FBI manhunt in the process.

So I discussed with colleagues whether the Unabomber’s manifesto published by the Washington Post might somehow be analyzed for tell-tale patterns that could uncover his identify.

The engineers I consulted said that the answer was “probably yes” in the future, but “not quite yet.” As it turned out, before this technology evolved, the brother of the man who wrote the manifesto recognized certain tell-tale word choices himself and alerted the FBI.

And that is how Theodore Kaczynski was finally identified and caught. A good  summary of the case is recounted in The Conversation.

Over the decades since Kaczynski’s arrest, the field of forensic linguistics has become far more developed, and now includes a number of tools to uncover plagiarism, strip away anonymity and solve crimes based on notes, letters and manifestoes.

And AI would seem to be an especially useful tool for stripping away anonymity from writing.

The basic concept here is that people’s writing voices can be as unique an identifier as their fingerprints. From the perspective of one who teaches writing, this is critical because many students start from more of a place of standardization, largely due to the way they learned to write in grade school.

Some were taught essentially to muffle their own voices.

My job, later on the down the road when they finally got to me, was to draw out their individuality, helping them diversify their word choices and rediscover their own unique style.

(Tomato Plant Mystery Update: We’ve installed a camera to try and identify the thief after a third plant disappeared.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump says US will start escorting ships through Strait of Hormuz (CNN)

• Trump’s war of words with Friedrich Merz takes toll on US-German relationship (The Hill)

• Top Republicans warn Trump’s Germany troop withdrawals send wrong message to Putin (NBC)

• The U.S. Military Drawdown in Europe Has Only Just Begun (Time)

• OPEC+ countries agree modest rise in production as Iran retains chokehold on key Strait of Hormuz (AP)

• White House running out of options to contain gas price backlash (WP)

• Abortion Providers Forced to Adapt After Court Blocks Pill Access by Mail (NYT)

• America got rich and got sad. A top economist says 2020 broke something that hasn’t healed (Fortune)

• Rudy Giuliani Is in ‘Critical Condition’ in Florida Hospital (NYT)

• How a weaker dollar is quietly making life more expensive (AP)

• What Does Tucker Carlson Really Believe? I Went to Maine to Find Out.(NYT)

• Publish and Perish (Slate)

• How A.I. Is Transforming China’s Entertainment Industry (NYT)

• The Lore of Sam Altman Is Being Tested Like Never Before (WSJ)

• Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen (NYT)

• Carlos Alcaraz Withdraws From French Open Over Career-Threatening Haircut (Onion)

 

Good Girls Making Trouble

When I was first breaking into journalism in the ‘60s, newsrooms were completely dominated by men. Women were confined to subservient roles. 

Then came my generation. As Baby Boomers, many of us were active in the antiwar and civil rights movements, and soon every other form of inequity came into focus for us -- especially misogyny and homophobia.

In the media industry, women started demanding equal opportunities.

One series that examines this is “Good Girls Revolt,” the 2016 Amazon production based on Lynn Povich’s 2013 book of the same name, thinly fictionalizing the events that led women employees to challenge the existing order at Newsweekmagazine.

And according to this version, there was at least as much “sex, drugs and rock n roll” at Newsweek as at Rolling Stone.

Early in the Amazon series and once later on, a character playing Nora Ephron makes an appearance -- she is accurately portrayed as having quit Newsweek because the magazine used her work but didn’t give her a byline, which was emblematic of how women were treated at the time.

Of course, Ephron simply went on to become a not only a successful writer, most famously at Esquire, but a screenwriter/producer responsible for films like “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Silkwood”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “Julie and Julia”, “You’ve Got Mail”, and many others.

It’s difficult to think of a journalist-screenwriter with a better resume during her lifetime; she died in 2012 at age 71.

Overall, the “Good Girls” series focuses on a group of women trying to make it at Newsweek, but the men in supporting roles represent the mixed feelings my generation of male journalists had as we saw our female colleagues battle for their rights. Our bosses were all men who expected us, not the women, to eventually take their places, but some of us sided with our female colleagues instead.

I liked the series; it brought back a lot of memories. 

And back in the real world, the battle for gender equality in journalism was hardly resolved by that one lawsuit, but today women are well represented in all kinds of journalism, although pay and power disparities persist.

(Tomato Plant Mystery Update: A second tomato plant has been stolen after nightfall. I suspect a raccoon may be the thief.)

HEADLINES:

• Germany says US troop withdrawal ‘foreseeable’ as Nato seeks clarification (BBC)

• How Germany May Have Misjudged Trump’s Anger on Iran (NYT)

• Top Republicans express concern over withdrawal of US troops from Germany – as it happened (Guardian)

• Trump’s disapproval rating reaches new high, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds (WP)

• What’s Iran’s 14-point proposal to end the war? And will Trump accept it? (Al Jazeera)

• GOP war powers resolution argument triggers a furor between Trump, lawmakers over Iran (The Hill)

• White House says the Iran war is ‘terminated’ (Reuters)

• For a Time, the U.S. Protected Democracy (Atlantic)

• What to know about federal court ruling blocking mailing of widely used abortion pill (PBS)

• King Charles charms America and avoids pitfalls during his four-day whirlwind US tour (CNN)

• Rogan rips ‘ridiculous’ Kimmel backlash over Melania Trump joke (The Hill)

• Stephen Colbert Gets Ready to Hang It Up (NYT)

• What do Ukraine’s robot soldiers mean for the future of warfare? (Al Jazeera)

• Zuckerberg won’t rule out more job cuts at Meta (Reuters)

• Elon Musk went to court. The judge wasn’t amused. (WP)

• Musk testimony dominated first week Musk v. Altman. ‘You can’t just steal a charity’ (CNBC)

• Table Tennis Champion Too Weak To Hoist Trophy Over Head (Onion)

 

Sweet Desires

Every now and then it happens. The light splashes a leaf, turning what appeared to be green into half a rainbow. Or, a sudden breeze stirs a glass-like pond, making you shiver.

These moments freeze like ice. You can’t really move your eyes away even if you try.

Painters live for moments like these; all artists do.

Often when in Europe on business trips, I would visit museums, which at that time, were unlike their American counterparts; you could walk right up to a painting as if to touch it. On those visits, I came to admire the use of color and light; for some reason the black in a Rembrandt always struck me not as the absence of light but as the essence of beauty.

Of course it wasn’t always black, it may have been green. Splashed by the light it could turn into half a rainbow if you looked long enough.

This memory came back to me when I discovered the 2003 film version of the historical novel “Girl With a Pearl Earring.” The book and the film re-imagine the character who might have inspired what was arguably the Dutch baroque painter Johannes Vermeer’s greatest painting.

As per the book, the film posits that Vermeer’s model for the painting was his maid, though there is no evidence this was the case. The original actors cast for the film were Ralph Fiennes and Kate Hudson, but when they both left the project before production started (he for “Maid in Manhattan”), 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth stepped into the roles.

The unresolved sexual tension between these two yields the story (and in the fictional version the painting) and Johansson does resemble the girl in the actual piece to a remarkable degree. The film also contains scenes that present the Dutch environment of the 1600’s as a replication of Vermeer’s painting style -- a luminous realism celebrating how light animates our surroundings if we just care to look.

The girl’s expression in the painting is the look of knowing she is desired and daring to look back. You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate that.

But you do have to see.

HEADLINES:

• Pentagon orders withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany as Trump escalates feud with Merz (Fox)

• The Real Reason Iran Hasn’t Struck a Deal (Atlantic)

• Poll: Trump’s fight with Iran is as unpopular as the Iraq and Vietnam wars (WP)

• Hegseth says clock paused on deadline to seek approval for Iran war (BBC)

• Oil prices fall after Iran sends updated peace proposal to mediators in Pakistan (CNBC)

• A senior United Arab Emirates official said Tehran could not be trusted over any unilateral arrangements it makes for the Strait of Hormuz, in a sign of deep mistrust on all sides as efforts to end the Iran war remain at an impasse.(Reuters)

• Trump administration says its war in Iran has been ‘terminated’ before 60-day deadline (AP)

• U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP (WSJ)

• Trump says he’s raising EU auto tariffs to 25% without clarifying how (CNBC)

• Trump fumes as Jerome Powell plots future at Federal Reserve (The Hill)

• Supreme Court decision sets off gerrymandering scramble (CNN)

• Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Halts Abortion Pills by Mail (NYT)

• Speaker Mike Johnson once longed for a ‘normal Congress,’ but that seems long gone in the House (AP)

• China and America Are Courting Nuclear Catastrophe (Foreign Affairs)

• Thousands in US to join ‘no school, no work, no shopping’ May Day protest in economic blackout (Guardian)

• The Whistleblower Who Uncovered the NSA’s ‘Big Brother Machine’ (MIT)

• Disappearing before our eyes: One photographer’s passion project of capturing local newsrooms (AP)

• Signed, Sealed, Delivered —What happens whensomeone throws a message into the sea? (New Yorker)

• California Police Can Start Ticketing Driverless Cars (NYT)

• Silicon Valley is slashing jobs. Don’t blame AI. (WP)

• I’ve Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different (Wired)

• So, About That AI Bubble (Atlantic)

• Moonshot AI and Other Chinese Firms Weigh Corporate Overhaul in Wake of Meta-Manus Deal Reversal (The Information)

• Go start a business (Axios)

• Top AI companies agree to work with Pentagon on secret data (WP)

• Reporters at McClatchy Withhold Bylines in Dispute Over A.I. Content (NYT)

• Racehorse Receives Carrot Every Time He Wins $2 Million For Owner (Onion)

 

The Great Tomato Plant Mystery

A couple weeks ago, my daughter-in-law sent over six young tomato plants for my birthday.

I placed them into some loose, moist soil in a gardening box in the backyard, patted the soil down firmly, watered them and ever since have been tending to them on a daily basis.

They seemed to be adapting to the relocation pretty well, responding to the sunshine and the water I give them from a watering can every day around noon.

Until yesterday.

When I went out back to look in on them, only five remained. One of the smaller tomato plants had simply disappeared, roots and all.

Gone without a trace.

I have to say that in my many years of gardening, this has never before happened. Who stole my tomato plant?

It wasn’t a mole burrowing from below, because the plants are in a box.

I’m thinking the thief had to be a bird, although I’ve never seen that happen before. There was no hole and no tracks around where the plant had been.

So if anyone sees a bird’s nest with a small tomato plant wrapped into it, please let me know.

HEADLINES:

• Trump slams Germany’s Merz again as rift over Iran war widens (Al Jazeera)

• The UAE doubles down on Israel and America (Economist)

• The Iran War’s Ramifications Have Only Just Begun (Atlantic)

• The US is pushing for other countries to form an international coalition to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a State Department cable (Reuters)

• Congress votes to end record shutdown, sending DHS funding bill to Trump’s desk (NBC)

• Public rejects Trump’s ballroom by wide margin (WP)

• Trump taps Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after pulling Casey Means nomination (CNBC)

• Louisiana congressional primaries are suspended as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling (AP)

• What Alex Padilla says Democrats should do about the Voting Rights Act ruling (Politico)

• Can the E.P.A. Survive Lee Zeldin? (New Yorker)

• This ABC Showdown Is Different (Atlantic)

• Meta lost 20 million users last quarter (Verge)

• Ukraine bets on battlefield AI as the race for weapons autonomy intensifies (AP)

• The Bloomberg Terminal Is Getting an AI Makeover, Like It or Not (Wired)

• OpenAI blames ‘nerdy personality’ for ChatGPT obsession with goblins (NBC)

• Musk fights in court to portray himself as hero, not villain, in founding of OpenAI (WP)

• A.I. Spending Sets a Record, With No End in Sight (NYT)

• Elon Musk Seemingly Admits xAI Has Used OpenAI’s Models to Train Its Own (Wired)

• Overambitious Man Wants To Get 2 Things Done Today (Onion)