Election Night

How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened?  The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men.  Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven.  If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.

-- Jeremiah S. Black (1810 - 1883), American statesman and lawyer.  He served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (1851-1857) and as the Court's Chief Justice (1851-1854), "The Third Term: Reasons Against It"; first published in The North American Review (March 1880)

Rock The Vote!

Rock the vote, people!

Black Belt Kudos

A shout out to 3 of my Taekwondo students who successfully tested for Black belt ranks at the Fall Full Rank test in October.  I've mentioned David a couple of times before -- he has now earned his 3rd-degree Black belt, and is a very accomplished martial artist.

Ruby joined the academy five years ago and has really taken charge of her martial arts training over the last year. She earned the rank of 1st-degree Black belt.

And last but not least, Henry also earned his 1st-degree Black belt. He joined the academy 4 1/2 years ago, and while preparing for his Black belt test he showed that he has matured and can focus on his work.

These students helped each other prepare throughout all of 2026. They're a good crop of Black belts.

RIP Patrick Stewart

I know that if it were all to end this evening, everything, I would be largely known for my work on Star Trek.  I would be Captain Picard.  Not Macbeth, King Lear, not Shakespeare, not any of those things, but Captain Picard.  And I am absolutely fine with that.

-- Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (13 July 1940 - 28 October 2026), English actor with a career spanning seven decades on stage, television, and film, nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, as quoted in The Captains, a series of interviews conducted by William Shatner, (1 October 2011)

Treacherous

Ideological data -- like personality data -- is treacherous when fed into a computer.  For by its use the loyalty and security board's failure or refusal to clear a person becomes a virtually incontestable ‘fact.'  All one has to do now is to press the ‘subversive' button and all the names of 'dangerous' people come tumbling out.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 28

I Voted

I voted.

I parked near the courthouse and went in to vote in person.  It was quick and easy, with no waiting.

Plan your vote today.  You can literally google "How to vote".  Then vote today, if you can and you're ready.

Don't forget to vote.

Never Trust An AI

You can never trust an AI's recommendation.  If you ask an AI to recommend a course of action, and there's any chance that pursuing that course of action could require the expenditure of resources, then that circumstance virtually ensures that the AI will provide a recommendation that results in benefits to the AI owner from the expenditure of those resources.  The recommendation itself is a vector for advertising.  Imagine asking an AI for stock tips, and the intrinsic conflicts of interest for a corporate AI answering the question.

-- Don Appleman (25 October 2026)