License plate MISREADERS

Here's yet another disturbing example of bad data entry causing huge problems downstream. The title of this article is a misnomer, but the actual subject is even more concerning. Becoming the subject of police scrutiny and automatically and wrongly being assumed to be guilty of something, should be a huge concern to all of us. The fact that they don't have a straightforward way to feed back corrections into the database is perhaps the worst part of this disaster. As always, what sounds like a useful approach to law enforcement can be surprisingly bad, when human error isn't factored into the design. 

 

I was looking into this issue a little more, and I found something even more frustrating: This isn't always just a computer being "dumb." It’s a human policy. Some police departments intentionally list a suspect's plate both ways, for example as "BOB123" and "B0B123" in their warrants, to ensure they don't miss the suspect. In doing so, they effectively "criminalize" the innocent owner of the second plate, turning their commute into a gauntlet of potential police confrontations. 

 

As always, y'all be careful out there! Here are some suggestions, for those who are more likely to have this issue:

• Check your plate: If you have an "O" or a "0," be aware that you might be a victim of "Plate Alias" errors.

• Demand transparency: Ask local councils about the "misread rates" of the ALPR cameras they are buying with taxpayer money.

• Be Prepared: If pulled over, understand that the officer might be acting on "hot list" data that they believe is 100% accurate, even if it's a data entry error.

 

Littleton Fire Muster 6/13/2026

 

They'll be hosting a Fire Muster in Littleton on June 13. I stopped into a fire muster years ago, during Littleton's annual Western Welcome Week, when walking Mandy with Ken, and it was a lot of fun to see the old and new fire engines and other apparatus. The kids absolutely loved running around under the high water sprays in their bathing suits. Some of those old fire engines are being kept in gorgeous condition. 

Fun fact: The first recorded fire muster occurred in 1849 in Bath, Maine, involving five hand-powered pumps, or "hand tubs". While that historic town of Bath holds a very chaotic, bittersweet memory in my own life, it eventually became a favorite travel spot for Jennefer and me. But if you want to experience a piece of that 1849 tradition closer to home, head down to ACC this weekend! 

Misinformation: Bixonimania

Misinformation warning: Don't trust anyone quoting Bixonimania as a real disease

If you ever do a search for itchy eye symptoms, and find an article or quote or other information saying that those symptoms are caused by Bixonimania, STOP! The alarm bells should be going off in your head, and the red flags should be waving madly. 

 

I just ran across an article about this experiment, but (as usual, darn it) it quickly disappeared from my Facebook feed, so I went searching to find an authoritative article about it, and found this excellent one at Nature.com. 

 

My initial response to the first article I was reading was, "Huh. Why would anyone in their right mind insert fake scientific research into the public information stream? I can only imagine bad results from this, as gullible humans are equally likely to start using this information. Just look at the misinformed vaccines=autism arguments." 

 

But then I sent that remark to one of my AI resources to comment about it, and it contributed some good points to the discussion. To quote: 

 

It is a valid and deeply concerning reaction. The "Bixonimania" experiment highlights a fundamental vulnerability in how Large Language Models (LLMs) function, and your comparison to the vaccine-autism controversy is apt: both involve the "pollution" of an information ecosystem, but AI accelerates the speed and scale at which that pollution spreads. 

 

To understand why this happens and why it’s so dangerous, it helps to look at the "plumbing" of how AI processes information compared to how a human expert does.

 

1. Pattern Matching vs. Veracity

Humans (ideally) use a "truth-first" filter. When we read a paper, we look for peer reviews, institutional credibility, and internal logic. If a paper mentions The Simpsons as a medical source, our "BS detector" triggers an immediate override.

AI models, however, are essentially "probabilistic mirrors." They are trained to predict the next most likely word in a sequence based on patterns. When the researchers uploaded those fake papers to a preprint server, they provided the AI with a professional-looking pattern: medical terminology, structured abstracts, and citations.

To the AI, "Bixonimania" didn't look like a joke; it looked like a "low-frequency token" that suddenly gained a cluster of supporting context. Because the AI doesn't "know" what a skin disease is in the physical world, it can't cross-reference the claim against physical reality—it only cross-references it against its database of text.

 

2. The "Hallucination" Feedback Loop

The most dangerous part of this experiment wasn't just that the AI "believed" the fake papers, but that it began to synthesize and expand upon them. This creates a feedback loop:

a. Injection: Fake data is put online.

b. Ingestion: AI scrapers crawl the web and ingest the fake data.

c. Amplification: Users ask the AI about the topic, and the AI generates "authoritative" summaries.

d. Pollution: These AI summaries are then posted on blogs, social media, or even other low-tier academic journals.

e. Re-ingestion: The AI (or a different model) crawls the web again, finds the "new" mentions of the disease, and concludes that because there are now more sources, the information must be even more credible.

 

3. Why would researchers do this?

While it seems counterintuitive to "pollute" the stream, researchers do this as a form of "Red Teaming" or "Stress Testing." By creating a harmless fake disease (rather than fake instructions for a bomb or a toxic chemical), they prove a systemic weakness.

 

The goal is to force AI developers to:

• Improve Attribution: Making sure the AI tells you exactly where it got a fact.

• Fact-Checking Layers: Implementing secondary "critic" models that are specifically trained to look for satire or logical inconsistencies.

• Source Weighting: Teaching models to trust a peer-reviewed journal at a much higher weight than a "preprint" server (where anyone can upload anything without a review).

 

The "Gullible Human" Factor

You hit the nail on the head regarding "gullible humans." The danger isn't just that the AI is wrong; it's that [some] humans have developed a "transparency bias" toward AI. Because the AI sounds confident, professional, and neutral, some people tend to trust it more than a random person on a forum. For example, if a parent searches for symptoms their child has, and an AI confidently diagnoses "Bixonimania," that parent may stop looking for the real cause, leading to genuine physical harm. This experiment serves as a necessary, if jarring, wake-up call that "sounding smart" is not the same thing as "being right."

Phone End-Of-Support Date

Is your smartphone past its "Expiration Date?"

I just was reminded of something from tech advisor Kim Komando that every phone owner needs to know: Your smartphone has an End of Support (EOS) date.

It has nothing to do with your battery or screen. It’s the day the manufacturer stops sending out security updates.

Why this matters: Once those updates stop, your phone still works. Your apps still open. But the "security door" between your banking info and a criminal? It quietly stops getting locked. Every new vulnerability discovered after that EOL date stays wide open on your device forever.

The Risk is Real:
• Over a billion unpatched Android phones are being used right now for banking and email.
• The December 2025 Android patch alone fixed over 100 vulnerabilities.
• iPhones are just as much at risk after they stop getting iOS updates.
Even if you aren't ready to buy a new phone today, you should know if yours is a "sitting duck."

Check your device's status here: https://endoflife.date

Knowledge is power! Even if you keep using an older phone, knowing it's past its prime might help you be a lot more careful about what you click.

Daylight Saving Switch Starts

Welcome to Daylight Saving Time! 27 clocks later, my annual DST audit is officially closed. I got nine clocks set forward on the main floor last night, did four more this morning in the basement and garage, fine-tuned four auto-updating devices, and verified ten net-synchronized devices. Whew. Glad to have all our devices at least showing the same hour! 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m pleased to report no *new* clock software bugs showed up this year, although my buggy Honda car clock is still living 20 years in the past. So this morning we were tempted to play music from 2006 on the stereo, in its honor… but instead, we’re listening to our local Boulder AAA rock station KBCO FM, playing music commemorating Women’s Day. More fun than changing clocks, is listening to Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do… is have some fun!” Fun fact: Sheryl Crow just came on KBCO to announce that she really appreciates our local station, as they were the very first ones to play her music.

Trying Fedora 40

Every once in awhile, I boot my laptop computer into a different operating system - Fedora Linux. I miss my many work years of developing on a Linux system, with the command line terminals, the programming shells, and the VIM text editor, so I find it fun to step into a tiny version of that world, and see how things are going. 

I started messing with Linux at home in 2020, struggling a little with USB flash drives, trying to set one up with a bootable Linux image, and I eventually succeeded, but it was unbearably slow. It wasn't until later, that I discovered that some USB flash drives (including mine) don't support simultaneous reading and writing of data, which is an impossible constraint in a bootable disk. 

 

I resolved that issue completely, by setting up an external USB hard drive with a Fedora Linux boot image. I think back then, Fedora was at version 31, and I've been updating it occasionally, as they release a new version twice a year. My original installation, and the first few updates, were relatively complicated, but with clear instructions, and some helpful ISO boot image management programs like Rufus, I got through it. 

 

Last week, I updated my system to Fedora 40. Wow, what a difference. The update was pretty much painless, and the user experience is smooth and polished.

Thursday ride and repair

Hot and head-windy conditions for my Thursday bike ride. I was handling it ok, but then just to test my mettle a little more, my rear derailleur suddenly couldn’t access its two highest gears. While troubleshooting that in motion, I discovered that the front derailleur couldn’t shift out of its lowest gear. Hmm… 

I finally came upon a shady spot to continue my sleuthing, whereupon I found that the front derailleur shifter cable had pulled through its clamp. It was an easy fix, thanks to the compact multi-tool that I carry under my seat. 

After I got moving again, I encountered yet another rider who was having difficulty finding his way through the various trail discontinuities, and helped get him back on track a few times.

Technology

I've promised myself that I'd continue to try to embrace “new technology” (whatever that means), as I get older, partly to avoid getting left behind, and partly to enjoy the benefits of new and more efficient capabilities. I was tickled to use Apple Pay for the first time a few years ago, when my niece and I walked down to the South Platte River, ended up unexpectedly at Panera Bread without my wallet, and decided to get lunch. Then, a few years later, I got a pretty capable watch, then found myself without my wallet again, this time after pedaling to the bike shop, and was able to use Garmin Pay for some supplies with my watch! I was so proud of myself. It feels nice, to be working toward freeing myself from having to carry that filthy germ-ridden cash, or having to visit the bank regularly to get it, or having to deal with making and receiving change, or the risk of losing it all to a lost wallet or a mugging. I totally understand that everybody’s different, and it’s rare to find two approaches to life that are exactly the same… 

And then, just to show how far I have NOT come, we just had breakfast with someone who no longer carries her purse or even a wallet. She has everything on her phone, including her ID (Driver's license), proof of insurance, credit cards, and whatever else she needs, within reason. She said it feels so freeing, after years of lugging so much extra stuff around for her young ones. Wow.

 

As we arrived home, we noticed the nearby Quarry fire is still generating significant smoke this morning.

New camera

Happy Saturday morning! Temperatures in Littleton are wide-ranging today, from 62 to 90°F.

I picked up my Birthday present to myself yesterday - a new iPhone 15 Pro Max - woo hoo - I *finally* replaced my good-old everyday iPhone 12 PM, which feels practically obsolete, but hopefully will still be used for years to come, helping me to catch Pokemon, lol. 

My new phone case, with lots of vents for cooling, and a kickstand, should arrive today. This time, I’m not taking my new phone out on the trails, until it’s in a protective case, as the older one has had a deep scratch in the face, since the week I got it, several years ago. 

The busy birds at our deck feeders gave me the opportunity this morning, to try the slightly-sharper new camera. I like the results! Score for the shutterbug!

 

Good article about phishing

We all need to be highly sceptical of unsolicited communications, even from people we know, especially when they contain links to web pages.

I just finished reading this excellent article by Kyle Chin of UpGuard, that describes many of the methods that cyber criminals use to attack their victims. I found it highly informative and well worth reading. 

Hollywood!

Apparently, the red anti-collision light at the top of the Capital Records building in Los Angeles has been spelling out “Hollywood” in Morse code for the past 70 years. Pretty fun!

https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1766712590766624778

Return from Omaha

So, we got to the house in Omaha this morning, to pick up Jennefer’s new flame point kitty (apparently, not to be found anywhere near Denver), and also met his sibling. 🐈🐈

The plan was to choose one of them, but they were both so darned cute, and everybody was concerned about separating them, since they’ve really bonded. So, I said, “Hey, let’s take them both, and do our best to give them a great home!” 🤦‍♂️

Both kitties did really well on the long drive home. We learned that one is a great adventurer, and insists on telling the entire world about it. His favorite place was on the shoulders of the passenger. The other is quiet and shy but cuddly. He would camp out for hours in my lap when I was driving. Occasionally the adventurer would join us. 

We’re finally home safe, after a moment of high anxiety along the way. With both cats in the car, we stopped for gas a couple of times. About an hour and a half after the last stop in Julesberg, we realized that we hadn’t seen the second kitty for awhile, which is not that unusual, as they like to wander the car. But they would eventually settle down someplace in sight, sometimes for hours, often in a lap. But this one wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and we decided we needed to know where he was, before we went any farther. We stopped by the side of the road, and tore the car apart, trying to find him. He was not to be found. 😱

We began to doubt our sanity, and wondered if he had snuck out at the last gas stop in Julesburg. We were back in the car, and preparing to turn around for the extra three hour round-trip, to see if we could find him at the gas station, knowing full well the odds were almost zero. 🥺

Then, Jennefer had the brilliant idea to feel all the way around way back under the rear seats, in some nooks and crannies where we couldn’t see, and, wonder of wonders, there was a furball under there. OMG, the relief was tremendous! 🎉 🎈

 Whew. Sooo glad to be home. And now our new kitties are excitedly exploring their new space. And we’re steeling ourselves for this new phase of our lives…

Slam the Scam Day!

SLAM those SCAMMERS on March 9th (Slam The Scam Day), and on every other day as well! Yes, I realize I posted this way early, but it's a timeless message! Stick it to those slimeball scammers, by never losing your cash, passwords, or personal info to any of them! Remember the 4 Ps:

They PRETEND to be someone you trust. Look behind the facade, to the bogus email address or misspelled website behind the message. Be sensitive to ludicrous grammar and spelling. 

They reference a PROBLEM or offer a PRIZE. Be wary of those too-good-to-be-true offers, and too-crazy-to-be-true threats. 

They PRESSURE you into acting without thinking. Always take a deep breath, then take the time to examine the details for flaws in the message, before reacting. Consider asking a friend to help analyze a message. 

They require PAYMENT or PERSONAL INFO, in non-cancellable form such as gift cards, crypto, or cash-transfer apps. 

—————

When in doubt, delete and forget, or better still, mark as Junk or Spam, when that option is available. If you have the energy, forward phishing emails to the anti-phishing working group (APWG) at:

reportphishing@apwg.org

And/or to the US Gov Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Spam fighters at:

phishing-report@us-cert.gov

—————

If you’re interested in some fun 😱 and relatively safe reading about scams, check out the subreddit r/Scams on Reddit, for some tales of woe and some great examples of the scams that people are seeing every day. Here's a link to that fascinating rabbit hole: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/

Goodbye Degoo

This is just a friendly warning, to anyone who was considering using Degoo for cloud storage backups. It was a fun experiment, but since the email announcement from Degoo.com yesterday (12/17/2022), and some of their unwieldy operational considerations, I no longer recommend them for free cloud storage.

They're lowering their free storage limit from 100 GB to 20 GB, and requiring users to either delete data to get under the new limit, or start paying for their "Pro" service, by 1/6/2023. That's an inhospitably short grace period, especially considering that they also have a limit on downloads per day, which could make it impossible for some people to retrieve all their files in time.

I was experimenting with relying on them for backing up all the screenshots from my flight simulator adventures, and some Linux development files, neither of which is a big deal for me, as the originals are already in two places. So I simply removed all my files and deleted my account.

Some people are accusing them of a bait-and-switch tactic, but since I've been using them for over a year now, with no issues, I'm thinking they simply found themselves in a bad financial situation, and felt compelled to make a quick change to fix it. Their "Pro" service isn't expensive, but I didn't like the other constraints they were imposing, so I don't expect to be looking back at them.

Tech stuff on a rainy day

Cool rainy day in Littleton. Nice opportunity to update my Linux boot disk. Turns out, I had to jump the OS up four versions, starting at Fedora version 32, which required two separate installs, and only one hiccup with an unrecognized Wi-Fi card, when v34 booted. Luckily, that was resolved by simply rebooting again. Feels good to have it up to the latest rev for now…

New bivalent vaccine

I recently learned that there's a new "bivalent" anti-COVID-19 booster vaccination available, that is tailored to be more effective against the more recent variants of the virus, Omicron BA.4 and BA.5. This vaccine contains less mRNA, which only makes it effective as a booster. 

 

I realize that "effective" means that, even though there's no use data out there yet, to show if it prevents infection or re-infection, it's even more likely than the original vaccine, to suppress any symptoms, and keep vaccinated people out of the hospital, considering the current mix of variants out in the wild. Everybody (and their metabolism) is different - no guarantees of course - but I'm planning on getting this one too, when it makes sense for me.

And yeah, we're still wearing our masks in close quarters in public, in case we do pick it up, so we don't give it to anyone else, and also because doing that, and being careful in other ways, we haven't caught COVID-19 so far. With thousands around the world still dying every day from this thing, I don't see any good reason to let down our guard. 

 

So... this feels more like what they've been doing with the Flu vaccine seemingly forever (since the 1930s) - tailoring the vaccine for the current threat, one or more times a year. Welcome to the new freakin' normal... Y'all stay healthy and safe out there!

Tuesday bike ride

 Perfect Tuesday morning bike riding weather - sunny and 67° with dry trails and a cool breeze. There's just a hint of Fall in the air, although not a lot of colors to see yet. This is the third of perhaps five bike path tunnels along my route, with a short but steep climb on the other side. Descending into the shadows...

 

We finally received the Palisade peaches that I ordered from my neighbor’s son, back in early July. Yum! These huge peaches are as sweet and delicious as always. I suppose I must have been ordering peaches from coworkers' and neighbors' kids for a few decades now, and they never disappoint.

 

I’ve been using the new MarineTraffic tracking app that I found this week, to follow my brother-in-law Bob and his sister Janet on their cruise to Alaska. They invited me along, but I had to decline, in consideration of Jennefer's compromised immune system, wanting to spend time with her, and especially not wanting to leave her alone for a couple of weeks. Fun technology in this app, as it will let me search for a vessel by name, or just browse an area, and pick it out from the collection of little icons in the water. Bob had posted a photo of the Space Needle from their ship, as they were leaving Seattle, so I found this app, then went and looked in Elliott Bay and found what I think is the ship they must be on, and started tracking it. Looks like they're heading for Juneau.

Scammer warning

Yet another scammer warning: Scammers are piggybacking on the Walmart and Target names in a fake giveaway scam - don’t fall for it!

Here’s a quote from Snopes: “In summary, no, Target and Walmart weren’t giving away or donating refrigerators or ovens on Facebook on pages named Target Fans and Walmart Fans. We strongly advise readers to never click any links in offers that seem too good to be true. Also, we recommend sharing our article with family members or friends who might be susceptible to falling for this kind of a Target or Walmart Facebook scam.”

 

Of course... this is just one of an overwhelming number of ways that scammers try to get to you and your bank account. Don't fall for any of them! 

 

Y’all be careful out there!

James Webb Space Telescope

It took a lot, to replace the aging Hubble Space Telescope with the James Webb Space Telescope. The increased resolution is significant. Here’s a link to a tool by John Christensen, that allows us to compare the resolutions in images of a few different areas of space. Wow! 

Snowy Saturday

It snowed quite a bit on Friday night and Saturday, maybe half a foot, here in Littleton. This little hummingbird looked a little sullen, perched on their feeder in the snow. They were lucky that Jennefer had brushed a large mound of snow off each feeder. We were glad to help them find a place to get food in the cold.

The power went out shortly after we got up, but we were planning to head out and pick up a hot breakfast anyway, so no big deal, we thought. I forgot that the garage door opener is electric, with no backup. I also forgot that we usually heat up our takeout breakfast in the microwave after we get home, so it turned out to be a lot cooler than usual. And I forgot about all the things around the house that go beep to remind me that the power is out. 

I was glad that electrical power came back on after 3 hours, which I thought was pretty good, considering the number of downed tree branches we saw during our drive back from picking up breakfast. The Internet/TV/Landline didn't come back until several hours later.