There's no connection to myself.
ESOTERIKOS DAIMONAS: Where NTodd's thoughts come to die.
Monday, May 18, 2026
There Is an Invisible Book of Life
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Omar Khayaam.
Doin’ It Naturally
When Mount St. Helens erupted on this day in 1980, it was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in American history, killing 57 people and triggering the largest landslide ever recorded. More than four decades later, the ecosystem is healing. Discover why it's one of… pic.twitter.com/dwfx4gkt6N
— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) May 18, 2026
Saving a couple extra clicks:
In 1983, when Allen and other scientists flew in by helicopter to an area devastated by lava, they found only about a dozen plants surviving there. Even the seeds that birds had dropped in the area were struggling to grow. In an experiment, the scientists airlifted local gophers, known as northern pocket gophers, to two enclosed pumice plots for a day.“Bringing them there was like bringing a mini-ecosystem just for a short time,” says lead author Mia Maltz, a soil microbial ecologist at the University of Connecticut, to New Scientist’s James Dinneen.
The scientists hoped the gophers would help restore the ecosystem with their natural digging activities and defecation, which would fertilize and aerate the soil and bring in microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. Although the burrowing rodents are often considered pests, “we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur,” Allen explains in the statement.
Past research has shown how these animals are ecosystem engineers. In a study from 2022, gophers were described as doing simple “farming.” They turned over the soil by tunneling, dispersed their waste within their burrows—a form of fertilizer—and harvested roots for food, showing how their lifestyle can promote rich soils and root production...
Something similar happened at Mount St. Helens. Six years after the gophers were brought in, the land they hadn’t touched remained largely barren, while 40,000 plants grew and thrived in the gopher plots, according to the statement.
The secret to life was mycorrhizal fungi. These organisms are essential to plant growth: They form symbiotic relationships with roots, allowing them to access more nutrients from the soil and protecting them from diseases. The gophers promoted growth of the fungi by burrowing and moving the soil around, which brought buried fungal spores to the surface and introduced new microbes.
“With the exception of a few weeds, there is no way most plant roots are efficient enough to get all the nutrients and water they need by themselves,” Allen says in the statement. “The fungi transport these things to the plant and get carbon they need for their own growth in exchange.”
So we got that goin' for us, which is nice.
<exits singing, I'm alright, nobody worry 'bout me>
Keep Looking Up
Apollo 10 launched from KSC on May 18, 1969, at 16:49:00 UTC (12:49:00 EDT, local time at the launch site), at the start of a 4.5-hour launch window. The launch window was timed to secure optimal lighting conditions at Apollo Landing Site 2 at the time of the LM's closest approach to the site days later. The launch followed a countdown that had begun at 01:00:00 UTC on May 17. Because preparations for Apollo 11 had already started at LC-39A, Apollo 10 launched from LC-39B, becoming the only Apollo flight to launch from that pad and the only one to be controlled from its Firing Room 3.
Problems that arose during the countdown were dealt with during the built-in holds and did not delay the mission. On the day before launch, Cernan had been stopped for speeding while returning from a final visit with his wife and child. Lacking identification and under orders to tell no one who he was, Cernan later attested in his autobiography that he had feared being arrested. Launch pad leader Gunther Wendt, who had pulled over nearby after recognizing Cernan, explained the situation to the police officer, who then released Cernan despite the officer's skepticism that Cernan was an astronaut.
More background from Chaikin's A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts:
On the eve of Apollo 9’s spectacular success, Mueller, like others at NASA, was asking, why in the world send the entire Apollo spacecraft to the moon—with all the risks involved—and not try to land?
One reason was that Stafford’s lunar module, built before Grumman enacted a super weight-saving program, was too heavy to land. There was some talk of letting Stafford use Armstrong’s LM, the first one built that was light enough for a landing, and postponing Apollo 10 a month to allow the switch.
But some, particularly Chris Kraft, raised strong objections. There were too many unknowns, he said. His trajectory people didn’t understand the moon’s lumpy gravitational field well enough yet to predict what mascons would do to the paths of the orbiting command and lunar modules. Would they pull the lander off course for its descent to the surface? And while the astronauts explored the moon, would mascons pull the command module off course for the rendezvous ahead? NASA needed more navigation data from Apollo 10 before it could commit the next crew to a landing.
Furthermore, Kraft’s flight controllers needed experience in communicating with two separate spacecraft at lunar distance. Sam Phillips, the tough, exacting air force general who served as Apollo program director, listened to all sides of the argument and decided that the dress rehearsal was not only desirable, but crucial.
Tom Stafford agreed. He’d wanted the first landing as much as anyone else, but he wasn’t about to campaign for a mission he knew was beyond accomplishing. Now was the time to find the hidden unknowns and solve them, so that Apollo 11 would be able to concentrate on the landing itself.
And Apollo 10 wasn’t simply a repeat of Apollo 9 in a different place; new procedures were required for a rendezvous in lunar orbit. Stafford and Cernan would take their lander and descend to 50,000 feet above the lunar surface, where they would make a critical test of the landing radar. Then, from this close vantage, they would scout Apollo 11’s proposed landing site in the Sea of Tranquillity before rejoining Young in the command module. By any measure, the dress rehearsal was a grueling mission; it seemed to Stafford’s crew that they had more to do on Apollo 10 than all the others combined.
And they did almost KLUNK in lunar orbit, so the dress rehearsal was a good idea...
Sunday, May 17, 2026
I Danced in Laughter with the Ever-After
Ericka's BFF recently sent me this pic of her and Neptune (20-ish years ago?).
Look how young they both are! Might seem paradoxical, but I'm still feeling a bit raw 7 months after her death, ngl. Hell, I guess I'm still feeling a bit raw from when we lost Neppy and Kayla within 2 weeks of each other back in 2012. And in less than a month, it'll be 20 years since Mom died. Jesus fuck...
The Pseudo Intelligence Age
Recently finished my latest re-read of Dune, this time including Brian's sequels (which were not so bad as I feared based on my experience with his prequels). Since I have been deep into building out new tools and curricula in the AI space, I've been thinking a lot about Stephenson's The Diamond Age, so decided to jump back into that for the first time in 30 years.
It's the subtitle that did it for me: A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. In essence, what I've been trying to do with AI to enhance our learning environments is build a tool that grows with the learner. Not just to automate shit, or to remove the human (me!) from the loop, but to take advantage of real capabilities that will support my learners on their learning journey. Not so fancy as Nell's nanotech Primer, but of a piece.
So I now have a Socratic engine that is more of a mentor (and evaluator) than an answer generator or teacher, which adapts and meets each individual learner where they are, and requires them to use their own cognition. And actually, for the new cohort I have starting after Memorial Day, it serves as an example of the kind of thing I am teaching them to build, with observability, and all the code and prompts and other assets exposed so they can tear it apart.
There's still a great deal of tension between my personal ethics and what I must do to keep my job so I can continue housing, feeding, and clothing my children. Yeah, even that justification is a bit hollow, but it's the reality I am grappling with. My reasoning now is that if I do not build a tool that aligns with my philosophical inclinations, somebody else will build something that goes the opposite direction.
So I've designed things to explicitly address ethics, responsible use, cognitive surrender, etc. Really, taking my early work on Brother William and extending it directly into how I deliver courses in a time of constant change and pressure to use AI. I've baked in a lot of pedagogical "stings" that force them to engage metacognitively, pushing back on the tool, making ethical decisions, and whatnot.
In one of the other programs I teach (AWS re/Start), I just kicked off a month of AI/ML sessions, and I began with Diamond Age before we got into foundation models or anything technical. I reminded my learners that “AI” does not think, reason, or possess consciousness. It only “knows” a description of the world that it does not really interact with, generating plausible output that gives the appearance of intelligence. I was inspired by this passage:
“Public relations?” said Finkle-McGraw.
“Sir?” Modern etiquette was streamlined; no “Your Grace” or other honorifics were necessary in such an informal setting.
“Your department, sir.”
Hackworth had given him his social card, which was appropriate under these circumstances but revealed nothing else. “Engineering. Bespoke.”
“Oh, really. I'd thought anyone who could recognise Wordsworth must be one of those artsy sorts in P.R.”
“Not in this case, sir. I'm an engineer. Just promoted to Bespoke recently. Did some work on this project, as it happens.”
“What sort of work?”
“Oh, P.I. stuff mostly,” Hackworth said. Supposedly Finkle-McGraw still kept up with things and would recognize the abbreviation for pseudo-intelligence, and perhaps even appreciate that Hackworth had made this assumption.
Finkle-McGraw brightened a bit. “You know, when I was a lad they called it A.I. Artificial intelligence.”
Hackworth allowed himself a tight, narrow, and brief smile. “Well, there's something to be said for cheekiness, I suppose.”
I told the class that I prefer the term PI because "Artificial Intelligence" suggests we've invented a thinking machine, one that is truly intelligent, rather than just another fancy form of computing and abstraction that mimics intelligence. If I had my druthers, I'd actually go further and call it Virtual Intelligence, only because one of my old jokes is that the word 'virtual' means everything after it is a lie1, but PI works fine.
Terminology aside, I think generally I'll have a receptive audience in my latest cohort as we explore this scary new world together. I'm seeing recently-minted grads actively refuse the party line on AI's inevitability, and it gives me hope that they will use their own Organic Intelligence to do the right things for the right reasons.
I close with Dr King:
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.
Like the rich man of old, we have foolishly minimized the internal of our lives and maximized the external. We have absorbed life in livelihood. We will not find peace in our generation until we learn anew that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," but in those inner treasuries of the spirit which "no thief2 approacheth, neither moth corrupteth."
Selah.
1 - A Virtual Private Network is not, in fact, physically private, but with encryption and logical isolation can be treated as such. A Virtual Circuit is not a circuit, and rather packet-switched with other control features to be circuit-ish enough for government work. Etc.
2 - Every artist might not be a cannibal, but every AI is a thief. A thief of intellectual property, a thief of human dignity, a thief that has no inner treasury of spirit.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
I'm ready for the shuffle, ready for the deal
But when he sings that line, why does Bono shoot craps?
The Bees Just Need to Stay Outside
The honey-bees are gumming
— A.A.Milne (@A_AMilne) May 16, 2026
On their little wings, and humming
That the summer, which is coming,
Will be fun.
For the spring is really springing;
You can see a skylark singing,
And the blue-bells, which are ringing,
Can be heard.
~A.A.Milne pic.twitter.com/EjmI0E1pnR
The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long
There's a major civil rights protest taking place in Selma, Alabama, right now in response to the SCOTUS decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act and the ongoing attack on Black Americans’ political power
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 16, 2026
(video: defiancedispatch/IG) pic.twitter.com/tk7fmq3U8i
It might bend toward justice, but it can just as easily snap back if we don't actively keep bending. 'twas ever thus...
We Pray for One Last Landing on the Globe That Gave Us Birth
Glenn gave a ten-second countdown to retrofire. Cooper kept the spacecraft aligned at a 34° pitchdown angle and manually fired the retrorockets on "Mark!".
Cooper had drawn lines on the window to stay aligned with constellations as he flew the craft. He later said he used his wristwatch to time the burn and his eyes to maintain attitude.
The crew of USS Kearsarge spells out "MERCURY 9" on the flight deck while underway to the recovery area.
Fifteen minutes later Faith 7 landed just four miles (6 km) from the prime recovery ship, the carrier USS Kearsarge. This was the most accurate landing to date, despite the lack of automatic controls. Faith 7 landed 70 nautical miles (130 km) southeast of Midway Island, in the Pacific Ocean. This would be near WikiMiniAtlas27°30′N 176°15′W.
Splashdown was at 34 hours 19 minutes 49 seconds after liftoff. The spacecraft tipped over in the water momentarily, then righted itself. Helicopters dropped rescue swimmers and relayed Cooper's request of an Air Force officer for permission to be hoisted aboard the Navy's carrier. Permission was granted. Forty minutes later the explosive hatch blew open on the deck of Kearsarge. Cooper stepped out of Faith 7 to a warm greeting.
STS-134 was planned to be the final regularly scheduled mission of the NASA Space Shuttle Program, but with the passing in 2011 of an appropriations bill authorizing the conversion of STS-335 to STS-135, this was no longer the case. It was also originally scheduled to coincide with Expedition 26 before delays in the Space Shuttle launch schedule pushed it past that Expedition. If STS-134 had launched during Expedition 26, then Mark Kelly and Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly would have become the first siblings (and twins) to fly in space at the same time.
Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly's wife, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, flew to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to view the first launch attempt, her first trip since moving from Tucson to Houston for rehabilitation after being seriously wounded in the January 2011 Tucson shooting. On May 16, Giffords was again at KSC for the launch, which was "one of the most anticipated in years," according to The New York Times.
Looks like a fun crew. A bit about their mission patch:
The design of the STS-134 crew patch highlights research on the International Space Station (ISS) focusing on the fundamental physics of the universe. On this mission, the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavour will install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment - a cosmic particle detector. By studying sub-atomic particles in the background cosmic radiation, and searching for anti-matter and dark-matter, it will help scientists better understand the evolution and properties of our universe.
The shape of the patch is inspired by the international atomic symbol, and represents the atom with orbiting electrons around the nucleus. The burst near the center refers to the big-bang theory and the origin of the universe. The Space Shuttle Endeavour and ISS fly together into the sunrise over the limb of Earth, representing the dawn of a new age, understanding the nature of the universe.
All good programs come to an end, with the hopes of new beginnings...
Friday, May 15, 2026
tormented mind tormenting
["My own heart let me more have pity on"]:
My own heart let me more have pity on; letMe live to my sad self hereafter kind,Charitable; not live this tormented mindWith this tormented mind tormenting yet.I cast for comfort I can no more getBy groping round my comfortless, than blindEyes in their dark can day or thirst can findThirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do adviseYou, jaded, lét be; call off thoughts awhileElsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy sizeAt God knows when to God knows what; whose smile'S not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skiesBetweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile.
Gerard Manley Hopkins.
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