Grombles

70 YEARS YOUNG At last my hubby’s seventy – though hard for us to see, He went bald at forty, yet he’s aged so gracefully. Less Jerrer’s the Rave, more Jerry the Mellow, what will the future bring, He might stop shouting at his screen or even start to sing!   The youthful signs keep showing, they’re honestly quite clear: He dresses smart in Loakes, and splashes cash around with cheer. The biking leathers are long gone, now it’s Gant and Charles Trywhitt— Yet once a year as Elvis, he still looks quite the tit!   He’s been a tech adopter, plugged in right from the start— On TikTok, X, and Facebook, a true social-media tart. He podcasts, doomscrolls, and watches documentaries all year And now walks around the house with speakers permanently in his ear.   He’s always been a twitcher; he can identify all their calls, And he forages for mushrooms – from penny buns to giant puffballs, We’ve had them in risottos, pastas, sliced and fried on bread, Although when following Heston B...

My parents were both Jews. Each of their parents were Jews, as were all ancestors I can trace. From a young boy I was always led to believe that 'marrying out', ie marrying a non-Jew known derogatively in Yiddish as a Shixa, is heavily frowned upon. Hence my bloodline, according to 23&me, is 99.9% Ashkenazi Jew, mainly originating in Western Ukraine (where both my grandmothers were born). Side note:- according to 23&me, 0.1% of my ancestry is Chinese! How exotic. In addition, according to the 'rules' of my tribe, to be a Jew, your mother has to be Jewish. But your Jewish name is inherited from your father... a Jewish name has three components: Your personal name, typically chosen from the bible, old testament of course!; Your father's personal name, where it's preceded by the word 'Benreb' meaning 'son of'; and your tribal name. Mine's 'Ha Levi' meaning 'from the tribe of Levi'.  There's a hierarchy where each of t...

In 1954, the USSR requested to join NATO. The US President at the time, Dwight D Eisenhower, rejected their application, believing that their intention was to weaken it from the inside. How different would the world be today if they had been allowed to join? Russia wouldn't have been permitted by the NATO alliance to invade its neighbour for a start... NATO is a treaty. It's an agreement which binds signatories to 14 articles . These are (summarised): Try to settle differences peacefully Be proactive at promoting peace Develop individual and collective defence capabilities Consult with each other over claimed border disputes An attack on one is an attack on all. All members will defend any member under attack Defines where and what is defined as an attack Abide by UN charter Not currently doing anything that conflicts with these articles Form a council to manage membership Be able to unanimously invite other nations to join Process of membership ratification managed by USA Revi...

I am tired of reading and hearing statements by press and politicians alike that companies like OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT) started the AI revolution. Just today, with the announcement of the Stargate data centre project, the BBC's Verify (?!) website stated "OpenAI kicked off the AI race in 2022". I'm not claiming that a little company in London called Tome Associates Ltd, of which I was a founding director, started AI in the 1980s. There were already plenty of people exploring it around the world at the time. Indeed a project called Logic Theorist, developed in 1955 by Newell and Simon at the Rand Corporation in California, is probably the world's first AI application. But to the best of my knowledge, Tome Associates were the first company in the world to launch a commercial product based on AI... which subsequently met a resounding blank look from everyone we showed it to. People were fascinated, but confused about what to do with it (don't forget Tim ...

In case you can't read it, I've transcribed it at the foot of this post.  I am particularly proud of the quote in the final paragraph.  Despite trying incredibly hard, all over the world, to get people excited about AI applied to search technology, few understood what we were pioneering in a tiny company called Tome Associates in London from 1986 until we ran out of money in 1991.  We started the company 3 years before Tim Berners Lee invented the worldwide web. We were also accredited as the first company in the world to launch an AI product known as Tome Searcher.  Ho hum. What might have been... sigh. THE TIMES TUESDAY MARCH 8 1988 TECHNOLOGY Growing too big for their own good Cartoon by Smith By Robert Matthews Technology Correspondent Last week, London-based Tome Associates unveiled the result of four years' research into a problem that is becoming more pressing with each day that passes: information databases are just too big for their own good. Sin...

The world is plunging into an extraordinary period of widespread political instability at incredible speed. Ukraine, France, South Korea, Lebanon/Gaza, plenty of turmoil in Africa and S America, and let's not forget the bonkers leader of the free world about to reappear in the White House. No-one is betting he's got a clue how to calm seismic changes from occurring - he couldn't even stop his own Capitol from being invaded by extremists. Indeed he encouraged it. Nor is anyone going to be surprised if he just adopts the pose of two of the three wise (?) monkeys covering his eyes and his ears, but continuing to spout divisive rhetoric from his uncovered and now legally protected mouth. "Not our problem"...  The USA does not occupy the planet in isolation, even if it's physical borders are unlikely to ever be threatened by an invading army other than desperate people seeking a safer life. Perhaps Trump should read the inscription on his Statue of Liberty: "G...