Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 22nd Birthday, Geraldine Sheldon!
Happy 1st Birthday, Abigail Rice!
We got in on a very short vid-chat with Abigail and her parents this morning at breakfast, but she was in high demand; so we had to share her with the rest of her family and friends from a distance; and left it up to her parents to make sure her day was special. We did not see Geraldine, but while we’re thinking about her; let’s mention that her wedding to Scott Faulkner is coming up in September once the summer season is finished for the store and pub; so they are also busy getting ready for that big day along with everything else they have on the go while starting their new life together! Since we don’t keep up with every collegian story, let’s also take this opportunity to mention that Scott graduated with his Master’s degree in electrical engineering and is starting his own business geared toward custom solutions for farms and rural communities to improve and modernize electrical systems. Geraldine earned her Bachelor’s degree in English Lit and Journalism, and while she helps out at the pub and at Abby’s store now and then too; she wants to be an author and is focused on that. She’s going to continue her education too, but decided to take extra time and do her Master’s degree program from home instead of spending a year away from Scott at Florida State.
As for our news of the day-so-far, it has mostly been a repeat from the first few days of the week. We did our workouts with football or cheer squad hopefuls; Ethan and I spent the rest of the day until now playing with our books or beakers at the lab or archives; and now we’re getting ready to host our four best friends for the rest of the day from dinner through a co-ed sleepover. They are staying with us ahead of our back-to-school shopping trip, and while we’re excited about that – or at least the girls are; that is also going to be a faster trip than normal because Naomi, Sophia, and I have a ball game tomorrow night that we need to be there for to hopefully help with the win to ensure our spot in the championship game on the holiday weekend. Ethan and I need to go and help Mom with the cooking for that dinner; so let’s wrap this up with the world news report.
The wars news includes more attacks on both sides for Russia and Ukraine with far-more devastation happening to Ukraine now that they basically have no air defenses left. In the Middle East, Israel added new attacks on Syrian targets because they aren’t happy-enough with the genocide in Gaza, the horrors they’re inflicting on the West Bank, or the attempts to burn southern Lebanon to the ground. They aren’t done with Iran either – they’re just leaving that fight to the Americans for now! That, by the way, would likely change if President Trump doesn’t ‘finish the job’ for Israel; and they really don’t care how many people they kill to achieve their ultimate goal of a Greater Israel.
Related to both wars, the growing food crises around the world are gaining more attention, and while we wrote about lost crops in Europe being blamed solely on the heat wave; the Russian port blockades on Ukraine are risking the loss of their most-exported crops; stories are making the rounds that Turkey is retaliating on behalf of Ukraine and blockading Russian ships from leaving the Black Sea with oil or grain; and if that continues; there will be many parts of the world running out of food by later this fall and definitely into the winter. That is another disaster waiting to happen!
There are some new stress signs for the economy and the financial markets in general, but our top story there is about our national debt passing the forty-trillion dollar milestone. That number is so insane than most people don’t even try to think about what that should mean for our country, and while our politicians play games with the numbers; it is all a house of cards that inevitably will fall. That reality can take longer than anyone can imagine, though, so there is no point in making predictions. We also really do not want to experience any of the scenarios that go along with those crashes; since major wars are often the result when a massive amount of perceived wealth evaporates.
Finally, for today, let’s talk about the A.I. compute boom. After the big announcement for the NVDIA half-trillion dollar financing deal for building more of the massive data centers, stories are popping up about how much of a bust this bubble could become. In a nutshell, the actual A.I. companies like Anthropic lose tens of billions of dollars every year; they get all of the funding from companies like NVDIA that they turn around and spend on infrastructure that they buy from those same companies; and their products may never produce enough value to ever earn the revenues needed to keep that circle of life afloat. Add in the fact that around half of the major corporate cloud storage services are purchased by those same A.I. companies and that those cloud companies also invest heavily to keep those revenues and profits coming in; and we can definitely foresee another tech crash in our collective future. We could spend some quality time writing about what A.I. actually can and can’t do too, but as with any computer program; the data that comes out of those programs can only be as-good as what the humans creating it could imagine and actually make work! We wouldn’t dream of trying to scare any future readers, but for all of the A.I. enthusiasts, before you get too invested in the concept of computers that think like humans; imagine that future computer thinking exactly like President Trump or other ‘favorite’ political or powerful world leaders and then envision what that kind of computer would do if handed the ability to control everything!
On that scary note; that’s all we have for today. Stay tuned, since our fun level is going to go up from here and through the weekend – starting with a fun evening with Mom and our best friends!
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
