“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ― Mary Oliver

I was thinking that it’s been about four months since I posted something on the blog. That means approximately 12-16 blog posts have been denied to my readers. I’ve been denied writing. Writing is thinking, and that hurts. The upshot is that there are lots on my plate that I want to share with all of you. Hopefully, I can remove that logjam and throw out some provocative and interesting ideas. I know a few of them are very timely, particularly with the expanding AI bubble and the impending enshitification of the AI itself. The current management incentives are leading to the enshitification of the National Labs. American science is enshitifying too. The whole fucking country is enshitifying.

The basic issue around AI and our national strategy is that it inherits some of the stupid ways of structuring programs that I’ve seen in my career. It is also doomed to failure. It is doomed to recreate the same loss of preeminence to China that has infested our research community. Over the last few years, China has clearly beaten us. In science, the Chinese have surpassed the USA in most areas. The reality is, we are beating ourselves. It is an own goal.  Enshitification is one of the topics foremost in my mind. I have come to realize it applies to institutions, including those that I spent my career working for. It’s an important concept that I think has a wider scope than is appreciated. It goes well beyond the internet, although nothing is really separated from that force.

“If you want to double your success rate, triple your failure rate.”– Cory Doctrow

I have five or six blog posts queued up right away. They just need the final markup and to be posted. I’ve continued to write since September, but my belief is always that writing is to be reador it justbecomes lazy. I write for myself in a journal, but it’s simply not the same. In the last four months or so, since I stopped publishing, so much has happened. The symmetry between what I saw at the lab where I worked, and our national shit show has become so clear. It is hard to keep up with events. The magnitude and gravity of events make writing seem transient and out of date.

Here is a rundown of what is on tap for the next few weeks:

1. Experts or Drones, written in September while I was on vacation in Spain.

2. The two episodes that forced me to stop writing the blog

3. The Enshitification of Everything

4. V&V: Past, Present and Future

5. Almost TVD schemes, a path forward to high order and high resolution?

As always comment and let me know what’s on your mind too!

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ― Albert Einstein