Glad to hear the power is back on. How was the intensity/damage level?

Gusts here on Guam reached a little over 100mph. The small island of Rota got hit directly and is now uninhabitable according to reports. All services and wooden structures destroyed. I can't imagine sustained winds of nearly twice what the gusts here were! I do not want to experience that without being in a very solid structure.

Guam is right where typhoons traditionally form, so that genesis sweet spot only needs a small shift to the east to put you in the firing line instead of being the cannon.

Meanwhile, Bavi is now threatening Taiwan. As i recall, in the past two years the two cat-5s that hit Dulan started out being projected to go well north but gradually the track started lowering towards the south, no doubt due to a blocking high building in. That's possible in this case as well.

On the other hand, it's been several years since Taipei has copped a big typhoon, so they're overdue.

Maybe there's something in that El Nino co-relation with big typhoons hitting the Marianas - two in 4 months seems extraordinary - & we're only half way through the season.

Two typhoons of this size impacting your neck of the woods within a year must be unusual.

IT CAN BE SAID THAT THE NORTHERN MARIANAS WILL EXPERIENCE AN IMPACT OF A SIGNIFICANT SUPER TYPHOON WITHIN 96 HOURS.
- And that's at four days out and this thing still just a kiddie. The certainty is unusual. Someone is putting their balls on the line!

NEARLY ALL RI GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO TRIGGER AND MULTIPLE RI PROBABILITIES ARE EXCEEDING 80-90 PERCENT, AN
UNPRECEDENTED VALUE, PROVIDING HIGH CONFIDENCE TO THE JTWC FORECAST.
- Again, the certainty is astonishing. And note the use of UNPRECEDENTED. If they mean literally, the agreement is higher than ever before.

TLDR: We're fucked.

EDIT: Source https://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/products/wp0926prog.txt

-----

FORECAST DISCUSSION: TROPICAL STORM (TS) 09W (BAVI) CONTINUES
TRACKING NORTHWESTWARD ALONG THE SOUTHWESTERN FLANK OF AN EXTENSION
OF THE STR POSITIONED TO THE EAST OF THE SYSTEM. OVER THE NEXT 24
HOURS, THIS AREA OF RIDGING WILL PUSH SOUTHEASTWARD WHILE STEADILY
WEAKENING, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY THE PRIMARY SUBTROPICAL RIDGE (STR)
CENTERED SOUTH OF KYUSHU WILL BUILD EASTWARD, TAKING OVER THE
PRIMARY STEERING INFLUENCE. THESE DYNAMIC STEERING PATTERN CHANGES
WILL LEAD TS 09W TO ASSUME A NEARLY WESTWARD TRAJECTORY BY TAU 24.
BY TAU 36, AN UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH WILL RAPID MOVE EASTWARD OFF THE
COAST OF JAPAN, MOVING QUICKLY INTO FAR NORTHERN PACIFIC, INDUCING
A WEAKNESS IN THE STR TO THE NORTH OF TS 09W. WHILE THE TROUGH WILL
NOT BE STRONG ENOUGH TO DRAW TS BAVI NORTHWARD, IT WILL BE STRONG
ENOUGH TO WEAKEN THE STEERING GRADIENT, RESULTING IN A FAIRLY SHARP
SLOW-DOWN IN THE FORWARD SPEED OF TS BAVI AFTER TAU 36. BEYOND TAU
72, THE SYSTEM SPEEDS UP MARGINALLY, AS A STR OVER THE RYUKYU
ISLANDS BEGINS TO EXTEND EASTWARD AND ASSUMES THE PRIMARY STEERING
ROLE. THE SYSTEM IS FORECAST TO PASS THROUGH THE NORTHERN MARIANAS
AROUND TAU 96. THE CPA TO GUAM HAS DECREASED BY APPROXIMATELY 30NM
SINCE THE PREVIOUS FORECAST AS THE AIDS PACKAGE HAS SHIFTED SHARPLY
SOUTHWARD. IN TERMS OF INTENSITY, THE SYSTEM IS EXPERIENCING SOME
NEGATIVE INFLUENCE FROM THE 10-15 KNOTS OF SOUTHEASTERN SHEAR,
INHIBITING RAPID CONSOLIDATION AND DELAYING THE ONSET OF RI.
HOWEVER, ALL AVAILABLE MODEL GUIDANCE DEPICTS A STEADY REDUCTION IN
SHEAR COMMENCING IMMINENTLY, AND HIGH-RESOLUTION MODEL FIELDS
DEPICT THE SYSTEM ACHIEVING AXISYMMETRIZATION WITHIN 12-24 HOURS.
ONCE THIS OCCURS, THE SYSTEM WILL COMMENCE RI, REACHING PEAK
INTENSITY OF AT LEAST 140 KNOTS WITHIN 72 HOURS. HAFS-A CONTINUES TO
DEPICT A PEAK INTENSITY EXCEEDING 150 KNOTS. AS EARLY AS TAU 72,
BUT THEN EXPLICITLY FORECASTS AN EYEWALL REPLACEMENT CYCLE (EWRC)
STARTING AROUND TAU 84 AND CONTINUING THROUGH PASSAGE TROUGH THE
NORTHERN MARIANAS. THE EXACT TIMING AND AMOUNT OF WEAKENING WROUGHT
BY THE EWRC IS YET TO BE DETERMINED WITH ANY FIDELITY, HOWEVER IT
CAN BE SAID THAT THE NORTHERN MARIANAS WILL EXPERIENCE AN IMPACT OF
A SIGNIFICANT SUPER TYPHOON WITHIN 96 HOURS.

MODEL DISCUSSION: THE OVERALL TRACK GUIDANCE PACKAGE HAS SHIFTED
SOUTHWARD AS WELL AS TIGHTENED UP SINCE THE PREVIOUS RUN.
CROSS-TRACK SPREAD AT TAU 72 HAS DECREASED TO 100NM, WHILE
CROSS-TRACK SPREAD AT TAU 120 HAS DECREASED TO 160NM AND THE WHOLE
PACKAGE HAS SHIFTED SOUTHWARD BY ROUGHLY 30NM. THE EXPERIMENTAL GDM
FGNI TRACKER AND THE UKMET ENSEMBLE MEAN LIE ON THE SOUTHERN EDGE
OF THE ENVELOPE, WHILE NAVGEM IS POSITIONED ON THE NORTHERN EDGE.
THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MODELS ARE ALL SITUATED IN THE SOUTHERN
HALF OF THE ENVELOPE, AND THE REMAINDER OF THE TRADITIONAL
DETERMINISTIC AND ENSEMBLE MEMBERS, EXCEPT FOR ECMWF, ARE LOCATED
IN THE NORTHERN HALF. THE JTWC FORECAST IS PLACED NEAR THE ECMWF
THROUGH MOST OF THE FORECAST PERIOD, WITH HIGH TO MEDIUM
CONFIDENCE. INTENSITY GUIDANCE IS IN GOOD OVERALL AGREEMENT, THOUGH
UNCERTAINTY IN THE PEAK INTENSITY REMAINS LARGE. THE SHIPS GUIDANCE
PERSISTS ON THE LOW END OF THE SPECTRUM, PEAKING AT JUST 95 KNOTS,
WHILE THE COAMPS-TC ENSEMBLE MEAN AND HAFS-A ARE AT THE HIGH END,
BETWEEN 145-155 KNOTS. NEARLY ALL RI GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO TRIGGER
AND MULTIPLE RI PROBABILITIES ARE EXCEEDING 80-90 PERCENT, AN
UNPRECEDENTED VALUE, PROVIDING HIGH CONFIDENCE TO THE JTWC
FORECAST.

Here's what I think is happening. You've been reading about all the layoffs, right? 14,000 here, 25,000 there, all well-paying jobs. The ORG GODS know that massive unemployment is coming. This on top of the world financial system collapsing (and it is collapsing, not about to collapse or vulnerable. It's failing now), means they are praying (have you read about the ORG GODS embracing religion?) that AI will deliver so much in the way of productivity gains that it will allow them to establish universal BMI (basic monthly income) so that people don't riot and start building guillotines.

They'd wanna get cracking. Though now i think about it, Aus does have one of the largest, highest paid, most annoying/useless bureaucracies in-the-known-universe (where despite the explosion in employees, we're experiencing even higher volumes of calls right now ... so please talk to the robot).

So it's leaching in. People with well-paid jobs/benefits that have no discernible meaningfulness.

The beauty of it is, it still keeps you dependent, as well as feeling (wrongly) that your work has some kind of purpose.
Just go home in the evening like you always did - raise your next generation of cannon-fodder - watch a Plato's cave projection of the footy on your screen.

As you say, it's the goal to kinda keep things on-the-edge - keep the crises rolling so the cannon-fodder are perpetually vulnerable/compliant.
In fact, are we the bio-fuel that fuels ORG GODS? That would be a Matrix-style explanation. It feel like that.

Re the guillotine, one thing that might tip it over the edge is that some human actors representing ORG GODS with vigor, do derive actual joy from fucking people over. They lack restraint - a la Heart of Darkness. In that case do they implode into that black-hole?

The Church

(have you read about the ORG GODS embracing religion?)

Not unless you wrote it. But it makes sense.
If you want to understand an ORG GODS, look at The Catholic Church.

• Been around for 1600+ years as a world power force
  
  
• Cemented their position by banning philosophy & changing Roman Time to BC/AD in AD 550s
  
  
• Committed all kinds of atrocious corruption ... right up to this day - to: crush intelligent dissent/ entrench it's power
  
  
• Has nothing to do with The Teachings of Jesus - the human on which the ORG is supposedly founded - the exact opposite
  
  
• Unabashed mission statement of World Mind Control

Note: The Church & normal Catholic people who want to do the right thing ... are two very different entities

I just had a disturbing covid related thought. In the near future, AI will be in every aspect of our lives, including on all our devices (well, Linux will be a hold out). Just as Covid provided the government an excuse to get into our bodies, AI will do the same for our devices. Imagine an AI covid, a virus I guess, that's infecting all devices. The answer? Mandatory 'vaccination' of all our gizmos, including all smart devices, by the ORG GODS. Everything will need to be certified, but it will be easy! And free! And it will only take a second to install that vaccine.

Can absolutely see that shit happening - some contrived-fucking-crisis. Not even using the Aussie swearing persona to say that.

If you don't take the vaccine, you get villified-fined-jailed - by definition banned from the internet for violating community standards.
The Animal (ORG GODS) Farmers will scream: It's the same as needing a driver's license to drive on the road!

In fact it will be exactly the same play book that we've already seen with Covid - which we'd already seen a bunch of times previously - if you care to look. 9/11 is now looking very suspicious to me - i know you, with your healthy skepticism, were there long ago.

Thing is, lot of bio-lifers Don't Care - or are too busy raising a family in a perpetual uncertain economic times, or pressured sub-silentio-style into self-censoring/censoring others to a point where it's in your personal financial interest to not care.

The Don't Care/Fear of Caring factor is an important part of the equation - you won't get the right answer if you don't consider it.

Then, of course, Animal Farm style, you've got your Greedy Pig ORG GODS' actors feeding off this Don't Care/Fear mentality - that's how it works.

Btw, do you have any nominations (max of 3) for Covid Hall of Fame? (Hall of Shame might be fun, too, as a spin-off - it's more obvious actually - but my thinking was to honour those who served in the fight against.)

Must have those three qualities - Fighter - Rock Star (in the public-eye, which rules us out) - Builder

That was Chat GPT - i haven't used it for much else. I've found it's a bit like my uncle Vic - it will produce a long detailed answer, almost instantaneously, but the facts, although confidently presented, are not very reliable.

Yep! It's weird how often AI is outright wrong in it's answers.

The main value for research is that you can get to source material a bit quicker.

That's been my experience as well. It makes searches way more productive, faster, and as of now ad free. As with the Internet, we may be in a golden period where it's still the wild wild west of the tech. The Internet of 2000 is very different from what it has become.

Btw, my three nominations for Covid Hall of Fame would be (in alphabetical order):

1. Billy Bostickson - co-founder of DRASTIC, the most influential mini-Org in the fight to uncover the origin - also one of the guys who contacted Formosahut about our Proximal Origin (Pangolin Paper) research

2. Prof Richard Ebright - longtime contrary scientist who had been warning of a lab-leak pandemic since the days of Anthrax

3. Rand Paul - US politician who has done the most to expose Covid's bad actors in the political theatre

Could think of another 30 off-the-top-of-my-head - daresay there's another 500 if you delved - but probably not much more.

My vague plan is to put it on social media & ask for nominations - though i don't have an influential profile.

It's a great idea. Perhaps an influential person could put it on their blog?

I just had a disturbing covid related thought. In the near future, AI will be in every aspect of our lives, including on all our devices (well, Linux will be a hold out). Just as Covid provided the government an excuse to get into our bodies, AI will do the same for our devices. Imagine an AI covid, a virus I guess, that's infecting all devices. The answer? Mandatory 'vaccination' of all our gizmos, including all smart devices, by the ORG GODS. Everything will need to be certified, but it will be easy! And free! And it will only take a second to install that vaccine.

Btw, my three nominations for Covid Hall of Fame would be (in alphabetical order):

1. Billy Bostickson - co-founder of DRASTIC, the most influential mini-Org in the fight to uncover the origin - also one of the guys who contacted Formosahut about our Proximal Origin (Pangolin Paper) research

2. Prof Richard Ebright - longtime contrary scientist who had been warning of a lab-leak pandemic since the days of Anthrax

3. Rand Paul - US politician who has done the most to expose Covid's bad actors in the political theatre

Could think of another 30 off-the-top-of-my-head - daresay there's another 500 if you delved - but probably not much more.

My vague plan is to put it on social media & ask for nominations - though i don't have an influential profile.

To be clear, Lumo is not nearly as powerful as the likes of ChatGPT or any of the other biggies. It's very good for coding and tech questions and basic research, but to my knowledge it can't create images. But it will evolve.

Fuck me with a pineapple if i could add anything of worth to it right now, but will fucking-well ruminate on it, don't worry about that mate.

I was fucking around with AI to make a fucking Covid poster. The concept was that a lot of fucking effort, rightly, has been put into exposing the ORG GODS' brown-nosing human-villains that caused Covid, covered-it-up - but time hasn't been taken to recognize the hero activist cunts that threw some fucking-punches in the sprog-features' faces of these ORG-GODS' arse-lick bullies.

I used ChatGPT, which i already know is a fucking Mind Control cunt of an ORG, but saw that in terms of bringing concepts to life, it's a fucking shitload better than i could muster.

Hence the fucking question: I you don't trust any of those cunts, what the fuck else is out there for resisters to use?

So thanks for your fucking answer, will give Lumo, duck.ai a fucking go ...

Someone who calls themself an activist fighting the ORG GODS who pays them monthly interest is a hypocrite. If they refuse to pay their debt, then they're an activist. But the ORG GODS have perfected the craft of forcing their subjects into debt, which is economic slavery.

Always fucking hated the concept of debt - thought it was coz i'm a fucking tight-arse - why should i pay those cunts for doing fucking nothing?

If they ever do find a way to get me into debt, they can suck their debt out of my fucking dick.

Fucken oath it is! Good fucking point - in fact, we come Pre-Fucked.

That's right, and for people in debt, which is most people at least in the US, there is no escape. They gotcha.

Cultural fucking Cannon-fodder for the ORG GODS' sperm-faced fucker/cunts.

Well put LOL!

So The Fuckers will come after you with their more powerful AI/fucking tech, agreed, whether you engage with it or not - in fact you'll likely attract it's fucking dick-head attention if you don't.

That's right, because whatever you have, they want it. And if they already know you well, you're likely in debt or an activist. Indebted activists are truly, royally, and forever fucked. Wait, I take that back. 'Indebted activist' is an oxymoron. Someone who calls themself an activist fighting the ORG GODS who pays them monthly interest is a hypocrite. If they refuse to pay their debt, then they're an activist. But the ORG GODS have perfected the craft of forcing their subjects into debt, which is economic slavery.

But is there an embedded secret fucking portal into the very weapon used against you ... that a Refuser-type-hero might be able to fucking crack/fight-back with? Some arse-crack hack?

The only way would be to somehow turn it on itself, sort of like our Refuser did. The problem is that AI is creating its own code now so the likelihood of finding some human created arse crack is quickly diminishing.

Otherwise, how do you fight this shit-stained Greed - or is it like 'see above' - you're fucked

Here's what I think is happening. You've been reading about all the layoffs, right? 14,000 here, 25,000 there, all well-paying jobs. The ORG GODS know that massive unemployment is coming. This on top of the world financial system collapsing (and it is collapsing, not about to collapse or vulnerable. It's failing now), means they are praying (have you read about the ORG GODS embracing religion?) that AI will deliver so much in the way of productivity gains that it will allow them to establish universal BMI (basic monthly income) so that people don't riot and start building guillotines.

The ORG GODS game has always been to give the masses just enough to keep them from rioting while at the same time creating division between them, racial, economic, cultural, gender, age, whatever they can find to create a wedge, and you see that now especially in the US. The US now has very bad inflation, worse than the the 'official' numbers, and so they have to dial up the divisions between people to take their attention away from how bad they're getting fucked.

But think about the productivity gains that AI will bring, and it will, massive gains. What will happen to those gains? Straight into the pockets of the ORG GODS. They feel that they have no choice to keep the greed going because to do otherwise, to share wealth as equals, would be to admit that they do not deserve such power. They must keep people afraid and divided.

The ORG GODS are actually in a bit of a pickle now because they somehow have to convince people that the pittance they receive every month is just grand, and that they're lucky to have it, even though AI is creating more wealth and abundance than the world has every seen. It's as if free energy were discovered. If it were (and maybe it has been), the ORG GODS would collapse.

And that's because they're entire system is a debt-based system. Inflation isn't just a symptom of this system, it's required. Creating more debt is essential to their survival. To oversimplify again just a bit -- imagine that no new debt could be created and we had to survive with the existing money supply in the world. The whole system would collapse because all the money in existence would have to be used to pay for the existing debt! So they must keep that debt engine running. The stock market will keep going up (well, with some crashes), inflation will keep going up, and debt will keep increasing.

(NOTE: Remember that fractional banking means that when a bank loans money, it is creating that money.)

On topic, you mentioned Proton's Lumo - if i accept we're rooted, but want to go down swinging, is that a reasonable choice? (Might try feeding the Aussie swearing style into it)
Or you think have nothing to do with any of it?

I use AI, but not fanatically. It's great for coding. Amazing, really. This shift is way more profound than the Internet. It's, IMHO, the biggest tech development of our lifetime. Easily. Even bigger than the biggies of flight and penicillin.

Lumo is good but it has limitations. But I do believe that it's secure. Maybe I'm naive. There's also https://duck.ai/ which is a better option than using straight chatgpt or any of the others. Aside from using it on your computer, much of what we do now if we're interacting with technology at all is training AI. There's just no way around it.

To touch on one point ...

But that's just surveillance. The big threat here is mind control via media. The Internet has become a collection of a very few portals run by the ORG GODS, and it is now a weapon more than anything good.

Pre-AI we were fucked. Now we're super fucked, like so fucked we can't unfuck ourselves, and any effort to unfuck ourselves will only make us more fucked. It's like we're in a Mitchell and Webb skit.

Fucken oath it is! Good fucking point - in fact, we come Pre-Fucked.

Cultural fucking Cannon-fodder for the ORG GODS' sperm-faced fucker/cunts.

Mind Control has always been their thing. Ask any Religious ORG - they'll openly fucking brag about it.

So The Fuckers will come after you with their more powerful AI/fucking tech, agreed, whether you engage with it or not - in fact you'll likely attract it's fucking dick-head attention if you don't.

But is there an embedded secret fucking portal into the very weapon used against you ... that a Refuser-type-hero might be able to fucking crack/fight-back with? Some arse-crack hack?

Otherwise, how do you fight this shit-stained Greed - or is it like 'see above' - you're fucked ...

On topic, you mentioned Proton's Lumo - if i accept we're rooted, but want to go down swinging, is that a reasonable choice? (Might try feeding the Aussie swearing style into it)
Or you think have nothing to do with any of it?

For one thing, AI will make surveillance much easier and will take it to a level not possible without it. For example, let's say someone has 10 different accounts on Reddit or whatever platform and uses them all for different purposes in the hopes of remaining anonymous. Let's say they use a VPN to further mask their identity. Pre-AI, it was very difficult to tie these accounts together, but with AI, it will be simple. Your language style is like a fingerprint. If the ORG GODS already have good samples of your language use, my guess is it will now be easy for them to identify your 'anonymous' accounts. In short, anonymity is now impossible.

It won't just use language. It will use time of posting, VPN IPs, interlocutors, themes of messages, place names mentioned, age (easy to nail, I suspect), gender—basically, all available data can now be crunched in seconds rather than requiring a room with eight people and bad lighting, hunched over computers and getting carpal tunnel syndrome as they try to connect the dots.

But that's just surveillance. The big threat here is mind control via media. The Internet has become a collection of a very few portals run by the ORG GODS, and it is now a weapon more than anything good. Pre-AI we were fucked. Now we're super fucked, like so fucked we can't unfuck ourselves, and any effort to unfuck ourselves will only make us more fucked. It's like we're in a Mitchell and Webb skit.

To avoid surveillance if you're trying to stay anonymous online, one thing one could try would be to take their messages and run them through an anonymous, encrypted AI engine like Proton's Lumo, telling Lumo to take your message and reword it in some way, like it was written by a native Spanish speaker who learned English late in life, or someone from a different socio-economic-geographic background, etc. It's very good at doing that.

If a student wants to avoid detection of their use of AI, here's what I would recommend. Let's say they need to write an essay on the first moon landing. OK. Tell AI to write the essay. 500 words, bla bla bla. Now give AI a sample of your own, original writing. The more samples, the better. Past essays that they actually wrote would be great. Now tell AI to take that essay it just wrote and redo it in the style of your own writing, grammar mistakes and all. Bingo. Take that teacher. I'm so glad I retired.

As with the computer/internet/culture, AI's a two-edged sword.
Great for controller Orgs, but a potential weapon for those who resist them.
Which says something about the generative dichotomy of existence - it's hard to have existence without dichotomy/observation.

Either way - it now defines the field in which the game is played.

As a researcher/activist, i see how it can be a tool.

As a computer ignoramus, i'd like to hear Dan's assessment of what are the better ones going around.

Still, I was surprised that what was essentially a tropical storm for us, with some typhoon-strength gusts, took down electricity for the majority of the island for over two days in addition to water for a lot of people. Many are still without services. It's just one of the drawbacks of living on a small, remote island.

Luxury. Ex-tropical storm Alfred made landfall around here last year packing winds of 50-60kph (max gust on the coast of 90kph) & knocked out power to over 800 000 homes, costing billions.
The modern world, in Aus at least, is ridiculously flimsy.

You'd think underground lines would be a good idea in Guam - it's not like it's that big.

Was going to post a photo of damage in Saipan, but i can't tell what's AI generated or real anymore.

Still, I was surprised that what was essentially a tropical storm for us, with some typhoon-strength gusts, took down electricity for the majority of the island for over two days in addition to water for a lot of people. Many are still without services. It's just one of the drawbacks of living on a small, remote island.

Yutu, in 2018 also hit Saipan (in Oct, the other end of the season), so it's not quite as uncommon as i thought. Interestingly, 2018 was also an El Nino year.

Before that, you've got to go back to 1968 & typhoon Jean (the start of an El Nino) for a storm of similar strength.

80mph winds in Guam is serious, especially when it's dragged out. 2&1/2 days to get internet, power back on is not bad going. Saipan would have been fucking scary. That got totally smashed.