I apologize for not approving comments Monday – I was simply so immersed in AI working on tomorrow’s Peoplenomics report, that I literally lost track of time.
OK, so what’s so interesting? Well, there are two articles in the works. The first one – tomorrow – is titled “40 More Years from AI.” In it, I show you how to model 32 over-the-counter supplements to massively extend both lifespan (how long you live) and healthspan (how long it’s still worth living). Spoiler: The high-end is up to 55 years but the schedule’s a bitch.
Obviously, there was a lot of collegial email bouncing around on my “research” list. Which includes a fair number of docs and high-end biz types. Anyway, more on both the extreme protocol and its implications tomorrow.
Deep Work, if you haven’t read it, is Cal Newport’s book. “Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” is the subtitle. While it verges on stupid for me to get up 6 or 7 days a week and write for three hours, it supports my early life programming to be a workaholic, over-achieving, White protestant, work addicted male. Which has the knock-on of screwing up any chance of breaking 80 in golf and running a marathon.
But retirement should have goals. If you’re still young (under 70) an odd thing happens to people with the “fixed goals” mindset. They tend to die in the end zone. By moving your personal goal posts as you sneak up on them, you can maintain your drive and motivation better. Run a bit farther.
Alternatively, of course, you can also set brand new goals – why, that’d work too. The people I’ve known over umpteen years that don’t have deep heart-committed goals generally go to the couch to wait for the Grim Reaper. To our way of thinking, that’s the Loser’s option.
Once in a while, I allow myself the freedom to descend deep into the research. World “out here” gets blocked. Time stops (which explains the comment constipation episode) and one question leads to another, to another, to an email, to a new line of inquiry and next thing you know Elaine’s knocking on the office door: “You OK? Dinnertime…” “Um, sure, uh…be right with you…Do you know what the monthly cost of Rapamycin is?”
Back on the Home Planet
Markets are braced for bad news. Jay Powell, Fed Boss, is up the Hill today to fetch a pail of support for his reign at the Fed. Already, as some readers have pointed out, Ron Paul’s name is being floated to become next Fed chief, but one step at a time.
The balancing act today (and in the mirror stand-up tomorrow) will be convincing that inflation is back and the end of rate cuts is now past and from here, onward and upward to deal with the soaring deficit. The gory deets in Fed’s Powell heads to Congress with good data in hand but rising uncertainty. Which will piss off the Developer-in-Chief. So if Powell swipes the Everclear for the Wall St. punch bowl, expect Trump to use the political lingo for
Remember that tomorrow is Bank Settlement day – which comes along every-0ther week, so volatility is kinda baked in the cake.
Markets: Mirror Channel Troubles
No particular secret how the Markets are doing. As usual, the bull-bear tug of war is about higher or lower from the Monday close.
While this looks fairly simple (yes, we may be trying to turn down), there is the matter of the “mirror channel” facing us.
You have to be into charts to see this, so I’m going to walk you through it. You begin with a simple line chart of whatever you are playing, S&P, Keno, or the NASDAQ (it’s all a gamble), And the first line you draw (cleverly labeled “1” in the chart below). You connect the first “bottom” with the subsequent eyeball that would seem to well-describe subsequent bottoms of trend on the way up.
Line #2 is a simple copy and paste of this line, but then bringing it to the top of the trend to where it seems to fit and make sense up in your visual cortex. Line #3 is another copy, but this time placed as close as eyes permit to the same spacing below the trend. Like so:
Now to me, the interesting part of line 3 is that it is about to go above the red 85-day moving average line as the decline approaches. As Peoplenomics readers will remember, this is our line in the sand for sending widow and orphan money to the lifeboats.
What my visual cortex flashes is a potential to drop all the way down to the mirror trend line and from there a “kiss of death” to the underside of that and collapse at the end of the month into the blood and guts of what will be mini wave 3 down. At the macro level, thinking in terms of a decline over the next month or two (maybe three), a summer rally for the macro 2 rally, and then utter collapse (wear a Depends) this fall. Again, this is never financial advice, just ways to think about when not to play in the street.
Doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made: Gold hit $2,968 but silver’s still having a go at the $33 handle. Bitcoin was $98,161 earlier, but if you find value in (nothing, except made-up numbers) you likely already know that. Because what Eric Hoffer wrote in the classic book The True Believer (Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements) quite likely applies to you if you have a crypto wallet.
To wrap up this visit back “on planet” we are living in a ‘forbidden zone’ where cheap and easy resources to expand have been largely consumed. So now we have to cast off a Western capitalist expansion-only business model and find something that will also handle downscaling (my next book title, by the way) and resource depletion. A fine time will be had in that Berserker’s Mixup with Money when it gets here. For now, we’re in the prelims.
NFIB Data
Surprised us that it wasn’t stronger:
“The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell by 2.3 points in January to 102.8. This is the third consecutive month above the 51-year average of 98. The Uncertainty Index rose 14 points to 100 – the third highest recorded reading – after two months of decline.”
Consumer prices tomorrow. Fire extinguishers are suggested in the event your hair inadvertently spontaneously combusts… As I explained in the Monday column, markets are starting to aggressively price inflation in and that may give Powell an opening today to scare the pants off the bulls. End of Free Money is coming into view.
ATT: All Things Trump
One of these days, it will dawn on one of the “geniuses” of network television that a public “government channel” might make sense. Though the Fox News Now is pretty good. There we were treated (after the Deep Work session) with DJT shocking the world again. (Let me count the ways…)
Elon Gets it Wrong
We have a possible “tier 2” problem which the Trump administration is missing. The big picture read-in is that America has to change its modus operandi to a revenue system that will operate through good times and bad with political “hands off.”
Instead, VP JD and Elon seem to want to keep the old, hyperinflating, broken system on life support and into therapy. Which is how Elon might be able to justify taking out a non-profit AI.
As you read through the details in Elon Musk-Led Investor Group Submits Bid to Buy OpenAI be aware that we have always (since we were cobbling together the foundations of the internet and wireless in the early 1980’s) held that access to data should be free. In other words, for all of us cooperating in keeping the world in one piece (sort of) and spinning, we should all have very democratic information access. The problem is when you put dollars in, now you’re talking about paywalling the future. And frankly, that doesn’t sit well.
Perhaps Musk will come to his senses and acknowledge that corporate control of AI is akin to starting another religion and possibly dangerous.
Democracy built on Data says internet and extensible tools like access to the god-like powers of AI should be an open/public endeavor, like fire and police departments are. Neither of which has worked well as for profits, if I recall the experiments. Oh, let’s have that AI (that Musk’s colleagues are trying to abscond with) answer the question:
South Fulton, Tennessee (2010, 2011) – A subscription-based fire department let homes burn down because owners hadn’t paid the fee, sparking national outrage.
19th-Century American Fire Brigades – Competing private fire companies often fought over fires instead of putting them out, leading to widespread property damage.
Private Policing in New Orleans (French Quarter Task Force, 2015-2020s) – Funded by a billionaire, the program faced sustainability issues and concerns about prioritizing business districts over residents.
Pinkerton Detective Agency (19th-20th Century) – Hired for private security and strikebreaking, the agency was involved in violent confrontations, including the deadly Homestead Strike (1892).
Camden, NJ (Early 2000s) – Private policing initiatives failed to reduce crime, leading to the dissolution of the city police force and replacement with a public county force.
We propose that Musk (or, more importantly Boss Trump) reconsider the notion that Private Enterprise is always best. The short list above doesn’t even get into the matter of “for profit prisons” and other sketchy notions.
We like, use, and enjoy ChatGPT and in any takeover, we would hope it could be spun away from corporate control even though there’s a “risk of going Wikipedia” in its administration. For now, it rocks so don’t steal it. Tantamount to “stealing God” for researchers who need it.
Related: Vice President JD Vance urges Europe to go light on AI regulations – UPI.com Too cozy to make the call?
JUST IN: Elon Musk Leads $97.4 Billion Bid to Take Over OpenAI | The Epoch Times was followed by Sam Altman says OpenAI is ‘not for sale’ after Elon Musk-led group’s $97.4 billion bid to control it. (Whew!)
Like with the invention of radio and television, government has no plan or long term goals or strategy for coping with AI. And look what a freaking boondoggle the regulation of telecom turned into. Now imagine that for AI as DeepSeek’s AI model ‘the best work’ out of China: Google DeepMind CEO. Yessir, history repeats itself, though with a chip change and software updates this time… Hot Patch due in the 2029 congress with corp AI’s are running the world.
Long Range Weather
Should be a decent year for global crops, if the weather holds and if the Ukraine mess doesn’t expand. In the meantime, though, keep an eye on the peak of Solar Cycle 25 which is now forming.
Been pretty good, though a bit noisy on the ham bands. Meanwhile Spring is trying to amble out our way, but confidence in avoiding one last frost is still low around the ranch. *(Which consists of wife Elaine, a dozen feral cats, and a gun range that always needs mowing…)
Also looking ahead at Earth changes: “10,000 Billion Gallons”: A New Ocean Is Forming in Africa. Still, we’re all supposed to have been swimming from climate-driven ocean rise in here, so don’t hold your breath.
News not Views
Thanks, Joe Friday, “Just the facts, ma’am…
Kash in or Kash out? Rapid Response 47 on X: “NEW: “On behalf of the more than 377,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police, @Kash_Patel has our full support and confidence to be the next Director of the FBI.” Stand by for another epic clash between popularity and stupidity on the left.
Attention Wrecking Ball crew: Clean up in the public broadcasting aisle, stat: PBS’s Slanted Exploration of the Controversy of DEI in America. Marxism: the gift that keeps on screwing.
When comes down to it, DEI is leftist bullshit. We know this because? Trump Cabinet Pick Lori Chavez-DeRemer May Be Most At Risk Of Not Getting Confirmed. Hispanic surname and female? What do they want?
Here, let me be Ure Drooler Schooler: Biden Spent $10M On Making Mice TRANS, Rep Mace Uncovers INSANE Democrat Spending On Gender Ideology – Dedicated Issues
How checkbook democracy runs: Elon’s DOGE Makes FEMA Illegal Alien Discovery as Noem Cleans Up Helene Cases.
At the Ranch: Ure Waiter
One of the little side ventures out of all the research into tomorrow’s Peoplenomics report on use of AI for plotting life extension plans, has been moving to the serious side of intermittent fasting. As you may know, that’s going on a 16:8 schedule. Where you fast for 16 hours and then enter an eating window 8 hours long.
In theory, this means I can’t eat until 10:30 this morning, but that’s where I got into mixing keto with fasting. And when I ran that idea past the AI:
“Yes, you can fudge the time edges a bit if you’re strict about keeping your body in ketosis. The key to intermittent fasting (IF) is keeping insulin levels low for an extended period, and keto already supports that by minimizing carbs.
Here’s what you can get away with:
-
- Starting or ending your eating window slightly earlier/later (e.g., shifting by 30-60 minutes) without major impact.
- Consuming small amounts of fat (like MCT oil, butter, or bone broth) outside your window—this won’t spike insulin significantly.
- Extending your fast some days if you feel good—especially since keto makes fasting easier.
What to avoid:
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- Grazing or snacking outside your eating window.
- Carb-heavy meals breaking your fast (even in your window).
- Protein-heavy “snacks” outside your window, since excess protein can trigger gluconeogenesis (raising blood sugar).
Since you’re aiming for long-term weight loss to 170 lbs, consistency matters more than perfect timing. If slight shifts help you stay on track, it’s totally fine—just watch how your body responds!”
AI is just grand, provided you take the time to use well bounded and thought-out questions.
Write when I can eat,
George@ure.net
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