My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…June 2, 2023, Sunday
Weather for the day…NICE! 56 degrees starting out, high 60s by end of walk
Podcast for the day: “Matice Founder Jessica Whited on Harnessing Regenerative Species for Medical Breakthroughs - Ep. 198"
In the podcast they're talking about biological regeneration. If you lose an arm, can you regrow it? Because some creatures can. Apparently a fetus can regenerate without scar tissue up to a certain point and then it stops. Why? I would assume it has something to do with a trade off for something else as to why that stopped working. Salamanders can regenerate, and studies are being done on that particular species by the person in this podcast.
We may have lost the capability for regeneration due to tumor suppression, but that’s just conjecture. But can we stimulate that somehow?
When I graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in psychology, a concentration in phenomenology, one of the main things I recognized about America at the time was in our priorities being out of whack. Considering that today they’re far more out of whack than ever, how do we define that? If I ask anyone, considering humanity and in reality, how do America’s priorities add up?
As I’ve been healing from long Covid over these past three years (I believe I healed from it and it ended at least once or twice already, this last time being the worst iteration of it), and having it this time now over a year, it seems to be healing in a two steps forward one step back pattern. Or in various modulations of a sine wave in coming and going. Couple of months ago it felt like I was over it. And then at raised its ugly head a little bit yet again. One of the things I noticed in my research was how sugar would irritate the vagus nerve, which is part of the issue of problems I’m having, mostly now exhibiting in issues of blood pressure. Which oddly enough, I can typically counter using an antihistamine like Benadryl. I also read something that mentioned how you can get a craving for sugar. Which has happened. Lovely. So you can get a sugar craving, but sugar exacerbates the condition. This truly is in so many ways a nasty insidious disease. Considering other things it does like merging cells and spawning "pillars" within or on veins and vesicles (It's in my book, "Suffering Long Covid".
After a year of having to be very careful about what I eat on a strict diet, my weight had gone down like 15 pounds to where I was feeling pretty good. But now it’s back up to where it had been, for years because how how hard this past winter was to get through. At 6'1" and 225 pounds, I’d much more prefer to be about or just under 200 pounds. I had been down as low as 213 pounds some months back. And then these sugar cravings started, which I didn’t recognize because of a feeling that I could enlarge my diet. Thinking I was getting over long covid, it was a treat to eat more varied foods. After so long being miserable and being able again to get back to a more normal diet was a joy. But I may have gotten carried away. So I’ve cut back. And I’ve been trying to supplement sweets with fruits. I know you have to be careful when you include fruits in the diet, as they are generally full of fructose, which is still a sugar. But if you continue to replace not as good things with better things, it's gonna be a process but in the end, very useful and healthier.
I’ve been finding AI very useful this past year. Chat OpenAI and Bing (where you need to use MS Edge browser). It cannot write as well as I can, but it can produce really good content that I can then massage into readable format. As at one time I was a senior technical writer, one of the things I did professionally was research, writing and massaging content to fit various requested subject matter and formats. For years, I found Wikipedia immensely useful. Not as a subject matter expert source, but as a reference...with sources. So, when I use Wikipedia, it reminds me of things I ad forgotten and it offers things I didn’t know about, hopefully referencing the source(s) which I then use to vet my information before utilizing it to send out to the public. AI is similar. Until they get this “hallucinations“ issue under control and eliminated, where it will say things that have no bearing on reality simply because it doesn’t know what else to say. It will have to remain a reference for now. But the thing I find I’ve been using it for a lot lately, is for things I might query a search engine on. There’s times where I ask "what does this phrase sentence or word mean?" And it will give me the information I’m looking for. Whereas the search engine may offer me a definition, initially, and then many links to things that most are totally irrelevant to what I'm seeking. AI though tends to give me exactly what I want to know. It’s like querying an encyclopedia, only it seems to be more understandable and it’s results are more relevant. And more frequently.
I was just talking to my son about this. He said that Chat OpenAI can now analyze photos you send it. And I said, "Great. It won’t be long before it’ll analyze videos." I’m really looking forward to sending it a video of length, or a text file or link, to have it analyzed it in various ways. I would love to be able to send it one of my films or one of my novels or non-fiction books and have it analyze them in different ways. I would lost to see the result of that. I look forward to one day pointing it to all of my films, or all of my writings and have them analyzed. At this time, I can only send it several pages. Which in a book like my “Death of heaven” book has so many different parts of the book that analyzing one part tells you nothing about another or the book overall. To analyze it overall would be very interesting.
One of the things I would like to see regarding my writings is what we’ve seen done before where someone will read all of an author's writings, and produce a paper or a book sharing “the central theme, or core of an author's writings… “ because, I would find it interesting to see what my writings boiled down to. Or, as someone pointed out years ago, I have written more than once in my fiction about young children in horrific situations. The story I wrote for my first fiction writing class at University was, “Andrew“ about a five year old who experienced a horrific event. Years later, that short story that had grown into a novella, grew into my book “Death in heaven“. That novella at the end of my very first published work, “Anthology of Evil“ (first in the series) is a story about a young boy whose parents were geniuses and had raised him as an intellectual experiment. In a more recent story of mine, a sci-fi tale on another planet, “Jaonny’s Apple Tree”, seems to imply some perhaps emotional evolution on my part, in that again it’s about a young (this time a slightly older) child, with highly talented and intelligent parents whose child (and by the way, neither story being my childhood experience... although my mother was admittedly very clever), became empowered and makes some questionable choices. At the end of the story, you really have to rethink and question if this child, "Jaonny", is evil, or perhaps, justice incarnate?
Podcast is over, I switched to "AI trends: a Latent Space crossover"
Speaking of which, for those who have a fear of AI, do instead have a fear of Donald Trump and his anti-democracy, autocratic toxically capitalistic endeavors. That’s really something to fear. Because it’s happening, it's BEEN happening now for years, decades before he so ludicrously became POTUS45. Realized fears about AI are indeed on the horizon but we still have a chance to be proactive. Something we didn’t take advantage of with the bulbous ignorant one (Trump).
The podcast is talking about Prediction Guard, a company who offers more than something like Chat OpenAI.
As I mentioned above, about sugar… wchich has to do with blood, sugar levels, and insulin. Years ago I started looking at things from an insulin point of view. If I drink, and some alcoholics may not feel hunger, some of us will get hungry... we well may all have gotten "the munchies" at 2 AM after drinking at a bar all night. Or crave sweets. Whenever I have even a glass of wine, or something, it kicks my sweet tooth within an hour or two. It seems to now with long covid, affect my vagus nerve. I found months ago that I could once again eat sweets or have at least one glass of alcohol and so I knew my lung Covid was healing. Recently I’ve had the experience that only two glasses of wine will make things uncomfortable for me at bedtime. I thought I would try to introduce alcohol on a regular basis and see how that affects things. Will it lengthen this duration of long Covid? Will it help me acclimate and heal faster? The thing about long Covid is… what is normally common sense, may no longer have a bearing. Obviously there’s common sense involved in long Covid, but we’re only now learning a bit of how it works in this new paradigm of viral activity against humanity and biological organisms. Not knowing in the beginning that it was affecting the vagus nerve, really made the thing seem a bit crazy, back when long Covid first hit (me certainly in February) of 2020.
At 67 now, I’m still learning to be proactive about things in life, though I've always been proactive on many things. ADHD I found forced that on me. America is over 200 years old and we still haven’t learned to be proactive. We tend to be too reactive. Waiting till bad happens, then reacting. When we need to prognosticate and set up an environment to alleviate or avoid. Problem in that are conservatives who always go overboard when fear or concerns are involved (Probably why we're not proactive as it "triggers" conservatives into their weird forms of insanity). Our laws, our prison system, etc., could be so much better if we were fundamentally proactive. The more conservative one is, apparently the more being pro activity is anathema to your paradigm of ideology. Thus Republicans have been the longest hold out on climate change issues. And now I’m supporting what conservatives will label "authoritarian", at least in part, because their own toxic capitalism ("corporate thought") makes it ever more invisible to them. It's a mad world, surely, for some.
By the way, I learned years ago before Covid hit, that if I was going to have any alcohol, it should be as early in the day as possible. No not for breakfast (though as Sheryl Crow sang, "I like a good beer buzz early in the mornin'..."). But if I was going to have a drink? Lunch is better than dinner. There was a time in life, when I could drink, go out for a night, come home drunk, crash and wake up the next day little hung over, but pretty much feeling great, as long as I didn’t overdo and especially if I drank enough water the night before, before and during drinking. Long Covid magnifies things. So if there’s anything about your system, you know or don’t know about, it could end up exhibiting itself worse under lung Covid. Which is why when I first caught it the last time, maybe the third time since February 2020 (back in May 2022), anything I ate seemed to give me an allergic reaction of sorts. Initially, my pulse would go nuts. A week later my blood pressure issues started. I've never had heart issues. Quite the contrary and my DNA indicates I am above average on absorbing oxygen and muscles able to continue more quickly than normal but I'm more of a sprinter than a marathon runner (I'm more anaerobic than aerobic, basically more oriented toward weight lifting than running). This is detailed in my book, “Suffering Long Covid“. The first week on this last infection, within that first two weeks I had paramedics at my house twice, at 2AM. The first visit led to an emergency room stay of four hours. I dropped my diet down to nothing that first day, but hard boiled eggs that first day and then six hours later had another egg when I didn’t experience a reaction. If I had too much salt or sugar...life was hell.
What is “stable diffusion“? Is it this?
I am so sick of jingles for drugs in ads on TV.
See the podcast episode from the books to production. On this Practical AI podcast: "AI trends: a Latent Space crossover" and "From notebooks to Netflix scale with Metaflow".
My phone just got an "AirTag" notification. WTF? It says, "AirTag found moving in with you." Good to know, and something to track down if it happens to you.
I used to think…well? I believed. And people have told me this, that at least in certain specific areas, I'm kind of "genius". I've been in many situations where people were taken aback from me and exhibited amazement at something I did or said. My advising professor at university did say I was in the top 10% of the top 10% of psych students in universities across America, for what it's worth. I questioned him about that, disbelieving him (he is very smart, Prof. Rod Rees, is). He thought about it and then said he stands by his contention. He was also referring to my girlfriend whom I lived with through our college years and she was very smart. But we were smart in different ways so that we made an incredible team. I've written about that (substantiating it) elsewhere. Rod did not say we were "geniuses", just that we stood out. The term as typically used on social situations of "Genius" is a pop term just meaning remarkably smarter than others.
I grew up thinking I was stupid (step-dad used to tell me that but I later realized he just didn't know what I was talking about most of the time. I had a friend in high school tell me that, saying he and our friends liked me, but didn't know what I was talking about half the time, so I started to "dumb down" my talking and got along way better with everyone, which helped me socially, but not academically). I used to think, "that can’t just be me", but that maybe everyone has something discovered. or not yet, that they are indeed genius about. But I no longer ow believe that. The whole Donald Trump phenomenon has aided that disbelief of mine in humanity. What I will say is that many, maybe even most people, are or can be genius in some way or another. But many will also die without ever finding it. A true genius to me is a jack of all trades and genius about anything, able to synthesize data and information form one thing to any other. Otherwise, one is merely genius in a single field or area. Many more of those than a "true genius", which may indeed be a myth.
Moving on... since this whole transition became more prominent, and since my own and youngest child came out as trans male, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this. First off, do not embarrass oneself with others, do not act in the extreme, just be humane. If I understand this correctly, one would say a trans male was born female. And I just thought of this myself… that doesn’t really seem accurate, does it. Well, those who are toxically binary, that is lacking ethics and compassion and morality, sometimes through religion and being anti-trans and/or anti-LGBTQ+, I think a more accurate way of putting it would be that if they’re trans by definition, then a "trans male" was one simply not born female, so born "non-female" not, "born female and transitioned to male". Well, many wish to use external biological references to define another person, who themself disagrees with that. But one really need look into things such as the DNA, which you cannot easily see and we may not be able yet to define it. So rather than history showing us how ignorant and stupid we are… far better to err on the side of caution and human decency. Trans males using a female bathroom are not perverts seeking titillation. You're thinking of anti-Trans types. Any incidents of CIS gendered males who are actual perverts utilizing this excuse in practice is minuscule to the point of not being bothered with it. It’s just another form of bigotry to throw a tiff over such things and to be so emotionally week and frightened, triggered, in order to deny evolving along with the rest of humanity on such a thing. Yes it’s uncomfortable, but it surely is for trans people. Some of them are being murdered just for being who they are, or who they’re trying to be. because when they try to be themselves, they feel more sane and the quality of their life. which America guarantees in the US Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence directly, should be supported and not scurried away from like frightened little, religious fools. Myself I prefer not to suffer fools, but we now have an entire political party (conservatives of course) where a quarter of America are proud to be in their Party of Fools, their political "ship of fools" where they can satiate and saute in their own stupid soup of bigotry and ignorance.
I’m finishing up my last half mile of my 5 miles today and I feel great. It was pretty easy today. As I detailed in my previous walk, two days ago, in that blog, at around mile four it was very difficult, but I pushed through it. I believe I’ve plateaued now and 5 miles, if I keep it up, will help with my long Covid a great deal as it had before winter hit. I kept telling myself that if I could just stay in shape over the winter, then winter will go much easier on me. The trouble is something always happens in late fall/early winter. It knocks me down and makes it very difficult to exercise during the winter time, meaning I really need to either be a "snowbird" or live someplace with an annual fairly even climate.
I find myself looking forward to going home and kicking back, hydrating and putting those ice packs made for the knees, on my knees. to reduce swelling from this walk. I am noticing, that now I almost don’t need it. But I think it help with something. I don’t need it for the pain now (progress). I might need it for helping the muscles to heal/grow properly after these walks. Something to think about that we often don't and also is relevant in our balance of mental and emotional (IQ/EQ) processes.
What I really need to do is get the last five blogs or so updated and online. I have one about my screenplay and true crime biopic “The Teenager Bodyguard“ [I got it updated and it's online as of the 4th of July 2023]. It’s set for July 4th, 6 AM and "a happy Fourth of July. Independence Day publish!" I apologize for these delays, but to just read through these blogs from top to bottom takes me a long time. I wish I could just hire someone to do that. It’s just basic editing to clean up the "speech to text" transcription. Maybe add some links to make it easier for people to "see" what I’m talking about at times or for reference purposes.
I still haven’t published my blogs at this walk, over the weekend past. last week, with the Russian coup. How do you say Putin is still a war criminal and still invaded Ukraine illegally. And both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump deserve the full "Ceausescu" with all due prejudice for their ongoing crimes against humanity and democracy.
To make that comment clear, Wikipedia on Ceausescu:
Execution
The Ceaușescus were executed at 4:00 p.m. local time[30] at a military base outside Bucharest on 25 December 1989.[10]
The execution was carried out by a firing squad consisting of paratroop
regiment soldiers: Captain Ionel Boeru, Sergeant-Major Georghin
Octavian and Dorin-Marian Cirlan, while reportedly hundreds of others
also volunteered.[31] Before the execution, Nicolae Ceaușescu declared, "We could have been shot without having this masquerade!"[18] The Ceaușescus' hands were tied by four soldiers before the execution.[32] Simon Sebag Montefiore
wrote that, before the sentences were carried out, Elena Ceaușescu
screamed, "You sons of bitches!" as she was led outside and lined up
against the wall, while Nicolae Ceaușescu sang "The Internationale".[33]
The firing squad began shooting as soon as the two were in
position against a wall. The execution happened too quickly for the
television crew assigned to the trial and death sentence to videotape it
in full; only the last round of shots was filmed. In 2014, retired
Captain Boeru told a reporter for The Guardian
newspaper that he believes that the shots he fired from his rifle were
solely responsible for the deaths of both of the Ceaușescus, because, of
the three soldiers in the firing squad, he was the only one who
remembered to switch his Kalashnikov rifle to fire fully automatic, and at least one member of the group hesitated to shoot for several seconds.[34] In 1990, a member of the National Salvation Front reported that 120 bullets were found in the couple's bodies.[31]
In 1989, Prime Minister Petre Roman
told French television that the execution was carried out quickly due
to rumors that loyalists would attempt to rescue the couple.[30]
End Wikipedia article.
On the concept of translating Wikipedia, into every language… Apparently that’s not workable. Because some countries don’t want a Wikipedia, because that’s not how their language works for them. While some other country's cultures are very verbal and/or illiterate, it wouldn’t do them any good. I don’t know if I agree with that. That was a comment from the podcast. You can do a verbal search online and you can receive a Wikipedia page, potentially in your language, and even have it read aloud to you so you don’t have to read it. We have translators on our phones now, as if we were "Star Trek" back in the 60s. Well they weren’t in the 60s on the show, but you see what I mean. Also, there is the concept… that was rude… I just hit my home block intersection and somebody in a truck facing me, stopped at the stop sign and just stared at me. and they had their blinker on. so I didn’t know what to do. I tried to hurry across the road as well as I could at this point, after 5 miles, and as I get up alongside their truck, they takeoff heading straight down the street, not turning. WTF? Anyway… Another way to look at having something like Wikipedia in your language, while a country may not want it, what does that mean? Who doesn't want it? The country? The citizens? The government? The educated? One of the classes, upper, lower, middle? If you have something like Wikipedia, in your language, wouldn't over time, it enhance your culture and raise your standard of living, your quality of life? These are things you can't know... without trying.
Cheers! Sláinte!
