It's a Scam

14:33 Sunday, 13 September 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 81.01°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 6.22mph
Words: 231

So I guess all the hype about the danger of unregulated AI is the set-up for a government bailout. Apparently the AI companies are worried they won't be able to monetize this product sufficiently enough to cover all their investors' bets and loans.

If the government steps in and shuts them down, well then the government will be responsible for making all those folks whole when the promised payoff fails to materialize. After all, it's the only responsible thing to do. Right?

AI is dangerous, as is any technology in the hands of bad or faithless actors. I include capitalism as a dangerous technology in the hands of faithless actors.

I'm more worried about climate change than I am about AI as a threat to civilization. AI could cause widespread disruptions and calamities, but I think we could recover from those after suffering serious losses. Climate change will simply grind this civilization into dust slowly, inexorably.

But I do believe that people should be prepared for significant economic disruptions due to cyber attacks and sabotage on critical infrastructure facilities in the next few years. I'm thinking the latter part of 2027 so Putin can throw the election into chaos as Trump indulges his authoritarian tendencies and cancels the elections due to a national emergency.

So I think the average person has a little time to prepare.

I hope so anyway.

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Satterly Hill

08:03 Sunday, 13 September 2026

Current Wx: Temp: 66.33°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 5.7mph
Words: 1037

After yesterday's Tinderbox meetup, I asked Mitzi if she wanted to go for a drive. We hadn't done that in a while, and I just wanted to get out of the house and have a look around.

So we did. We drove to the top of Satterly Hill, which is what I see on my walks. I wanted to see what the view was looking back toward us. There's a birding pullout there, with a telescope and pair of high-power binoculars, mounted for kids and people confined to a wheelchair. But the best views are west, toward the lake, which is visible though it's not spectacular.

We'll do it again sometime soon as the color begins to change. I think I'll stand on the bed of the Maverick to get a better view, or maybe I'll bring the drone. Satterly Hill is 1414' in elevation, while we're at about 1450' here on Foots Hill. (We're up where South Hill Road makes a hard left, right there on the corner.)

The clouds were beginning to roll in, but we continued driving around, taking roads we'd never been down before. Had some music playing. It was very pleasant. By the time we pulled back into the driveway, we'd driven 23 miles in a big loop (not including the excursion to Satterly Hill).

Pivoting, I think there's a good use case for "smart glasses." I'd like to wear them while reading, and have them respond to voice commands or finger gestures to add comments to passages like margin notes. I think wearing them in pubic is problematic, if not downright creepy.

I don't have a problem with Apple Watch's 15s audio recording, I think people get too worked up about some things. I sometimes have trouble understanding what people are saying and often ask them to repeat themselves. (I should get my hearing checked, I know.) I don't think the feature would save me that embarrassment, because it's not like you can just ask someone, "Hold that thought," while you tap your watch and read a transcript. For that matter, I don't know how useful the feature would be at all. But it doesn't creep me out.

I went to the B&H website yesterday to pre-order the OM Pen, but it was down for the holiday. It's in my basket, but I can't check out until later tonight. I think the reception has been largely favorable by the usual cast of influencers. The broader internet commentariat is more diverse in its views, as expected. Much of the criticism is directed toward the sensor, and the lack of anything genuinely "new."

I'd like to criticize the commentariat for its predictable reactions and the lack of any genuinely new insights.

Never read the comments.

I've been acquiring some more retro-computing hardware. An Applied Engineering Transwarp accelerator arrived yesterday. It'll be next spring before I get it installed in one of my IIe computers, they're both in storage and there's really no place to work with them in this house. I had a Transwarp back in the previous decade and enjoyed using it with Apple Pascal and a RAM disk. I have an McT SpeedDemon in my Rev B Apple IIe. The Transwarp has 256Kb of RAM onboard, while the SpeedDemon only has about 8Kb of cache memory. As a practical matter, they're roughly the same speed.

Something that is pretty exciting is this One ROM device. The domestic sources don't have any in stock, so I bought five from the developer in England. He's here in the states for the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest this weekend, so he's emailed me that he'll get them shipped out later this week. If I'd have decided I wanted these earlier, perhaps I could have saved a lot on shipping.

There has always been a mod community, burning custom ROMs for old computers. This device is unique in that it is an active device that can communicate over USB to a modern computer while still serving its host. The MegaFlash IIc and MegaFlash IIc Plus each have a custom ROM that offers various features for the product, and JD Micro have a custom ROM product for the Apple II that can host a number of ROM images and even applications in addition to ROM code. I have one installed in my Rev B Apple //e.

I went looking for another one for my third Apple //c, and they are on backorder at Reactive Micro, which is what ultimately compelled me to do a deep dive on the One ROM.

That's the thing about a lot of these modern products for old computers. They're a niche market, and they're made in small batches by individuals, so there's no certainty that there will ever be any in stock. So if you learn about one that you may be interested in, you should buy it immediately.

Like the math co-processor for the Apple IIGS. I've been in correspondence with the developer and he has some boards on hand that he needs to populate. He's said he'll solder one up and get back to me.

And I'm on the wait list for the second run of the Appletini One, which I plan to put in my Rev A Apple //e. The Rev A motherboard doesn't support double-hires graphics, but the Appletini One is essentially a hardware emulator, so it can be a (virtual) Rev B //e with 8MB of RAM in the memory expansion slot, with double hi-res and everything else it offers.

All of which tells me I need to be looking for another IIe, preferably a Rev B. (I've been seeing a fair number of Rev A models on eBay.)

Is this all nostalgia? Probably. Computers were exciting back then. Not so much anymore. The proliferation of modern mods to old computers captures some of that excitement we felt back then. I know this is supposedly "the best of all possible worlds," where we're carrying around a super-computer with all the world's knowledge in our pocket; but it feels more like a burden than a "bicycle for the mind."

The beat goes on, at 1Mhz and it's 8-bits wide.

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