FL and Treatment

 

Fasting on a Cruise Ship: A Study in Contradictions (and Cocktails)

Or: What I Learned About Health Discipline When Surrounded by Unlimited Crab Cakes

There's a special kind of irony in planning a water-only fast while boarding a cruise ship—a floating temple to unlimited buffets, midnight desserts, and drinks with tiny umbrellas. But that's exactly what I did as my wife and I set sail on our Mediterranean cruise in early November.

I won't pretend this was a typical vacation. Between my follicular lymphoma diagnosis earlier this year and my deep dive into metabolic health research, I'd become someone who tracks weight fluctuations, plans fasting windows, and genuinely cares about bowel movements. (Yes, I'm that guy now. My wife, a PACU nurse with 20 years of ER experience, finds this both amusing and occasionally concerning.)

But here's the thing: life doesn't pause for cancer diagnoses or metabolic experiments. We had this cruise planned. My wife loves to travel. And I needed to figure out how to navigate the space between living fully and living intentionally.

Spoiler alert: it got messy.

Sunday Through Tuesday: The Indulgence Years

The first few days on the ship, I gave myself permission to be a normal cruise passenger. Large salads for lunch, yes, but followed by Indian buffet samplers and chicken cordon bleu with shrimp appetizers. A standard pour of red wine at dinner. Two small cannoli because, well, we were at sea.

Monday brought an easy 5-mile excursion, followed by something I didn't plan for: the beginnings of a cold. Slightly drippy sinuses, a mild sore throat. Not debilitating, but enough to make me question my exercise plans. I compromised—did the excursion bike ride, hit the sauna, then spent a few hours at the martini bar talking with Bob and Jane from Nevada. Had three cocktails (including a Black Russian) and wine at dinner.

My wife raised an eyebrow at the drinking-with-a-cold situation, but in her professional opinion, I wasn't dying. Just being moderately foolish.

Tuesday, I woke at 4 AM for my usual routine: coffee, then track and stairs. Two laps from finishing, it started raining, so I retreated to our cabin for bicycle crunches and pushups. The cold persisted—same symptoms as the day before—but I genuinely didn't feel debilitated.

Lunch was another salad with two small desserts (are you sensing a pattern?). Dinner featured crab cakes and lobster tail, accompanied by two glasses of wine. The clock set back an hour, putting us on New York time.

Here's what I was learning: I could maintain some discipline (daily exercise, starting days with salad) while also indulging in the things that make travel pleasurable. But I was also paying attention to how different foods made me feel. The heavier meals, the alcohol, the desserts—they weren't making me feel energized or sharp. They were just... there.

Wednesday: Packing It In (Literally)

By Wednesday, I was ready to shift gears. Woke around 2 AM, dozed until 5:30, had coffee. The cold was still present but not worsening. Finished my track and stairs routine, skipped the in-room exercises, and started packing instead.

I made a decision: after one more dinner and breakfast before disembarkation, I'd begin a water-only fast. Not as punishment for the cruise indulgences, but as a return to the metabolic state where I've been feeling my best.

The absurdity wasn't lost on me—planning a fast while still on a cruise ship is like announcing a digital detox while scrolling Instagram.

Thursday: The Flying Fast

Disembarkation morning started with a final feast: long slices of melon and pineapple, hard-boiled egg, croissant, smoked salmon, bacon, potatoes, coffee. Then I closed the restaurant chapter and opened the fasting one.

Flying from Fort Lauderdale to Tucson with stops in Nashville and Denver while water-fasting turned out to be surprisingly easy. No temptation from airport food courts. No wrestling with whether to eat the airplane pretzels. (There were no pretzels to wrestle with, but you get the point.)

The cold symptoms remained stable. No bowel movements all day, which my tracking-obsessed brain duly noted.

We arrived home Thursday evening. Fast: Day 1 complete.

Friday and Saturday: Back to Reality, Lighter

Friday morning, I weighed 181 pounds after Day 2 of fasting. Woke at 4:30, had a normal bowel movement (see, I told you I track everything), walked 4 miles, then did an hour on the Peloton.

Saturday morning: 178 pounds. Three-mile walk, another Peloton hour, then I broke the fast.

I started with a small bowl of yogurt mixed with blended dates, almonds, cashews, and rolled oats. Lunch was a big salad—romaine, tomato, cucumber, avocado, onion, cheese. Dinner was two cups of basic paella. Snacks included cashews, roasted chickpeas, roasted asparagus, green beans, and sweet potatoes.

No bowel movement despite all that fiber. By 7:30 PM, I was exhausted—probably jet lag hitting hard—but still walked 4 miles anyway because apparently I can't help myself.

Sunday: Finding the Rhythm

Sunday looked similar: 178.2 pounds, 3-mile walk, Peloton hour. Food included my oat-nut-yogurt blend, a banana, and scrambled eggs with asparagus, mushrooms, onion, garlic, olives, and cheese.

I decided to fast again until Monday lunch. Not because I was trying to lose more weight, but because I had bloodwork and treatment scheduled Monday morning, and fasting felt like the right preparation.

Monday: Treatment Day (Or: The Plot Twist)

Here's where the story shifts from "guy who's really into fasting" to "guy navigating cancer treatment while trying to maintain routines."

Woke around 4 AM, had coffee and a banana at 5. Bloodwork at 7, treatment started around 8:30. I'd packed cheese, cashews, and roasted chickpeas, determined to stay well-hydrated throughout.

Around 11 AM, I developed a sore throat. Not the cruise cold symptoms—something new. The nurse said she'd never heard of that reaction before. It slowly worsened but remained manageable.

Both infusion rounds finished around 2 PM. Remarkably, the sore throat had nearly disappeared by then. Got home around 4 PM and felt well enough to ride the Peloton for an hour, followed by my bicycle crunches and pushup routine.

My wife and I talked about why I didn't feel drawn and weary—the typical post-treatment exhaustion. Maybe it was the pre-medications they'd given me that morning. Maybe those would wear off by the next day. Maybe tomorrow's additional infusion would hit harder.

To be clear: I didn't feel 100%. But it wasn't enough to stop normal activity.

Dinner was Marry Me White Bean & Spinach Skillet, which sounds romantic but is really just a practical, plant-heavy meal.

Tuesday Morning: The Day After

Woke around 3 AM weighing 180.4 pounds. Felt normal with no symptoms. Had a normal bowel movement (yes, still tracking). Consumed yogurt with my oat-nut mix, rode the Peloton for an hour, then had a 610-gram salad with sardines.

The treatment hadn't knocked me flat. Yet.

What I Learned (Beyond How to Eat Crab Cakes at Sea)

This whole experience taught me several things I'm still processing:

1. Health routines can flex without breaking. I indulged on the cruise, maintained some discipline, got sick anyway (humbling), then resumed my protocols. The world didn't end.

2. Tracking everything is both helpful and absurd. Knowing my weight fluctuations and bowel patterns gives me data. But it also makes me the kind of person who writes about bowel movements in a blog post.

3. Support matters immensely. Having a wife who's both medically trained and supportive of my experiments—even when she thinks I'm being a bit extra—makes this navigable.

4. The body is remarkably adaptable. Fasting while flying, exercising the day after infusion treatment, maintaining routines despite illness—the human body can handle more than we give it credit for.

5. Living intentionally doesn't mean living rigidly. I had the cocktails, the lobster tail, the cannoli. I also had the fasts, the daily exercise, the plant-heavy meals. Both can be true.

I'm not recommending this approach to anyone. I'm just sharing what happened when someone with a cancer diagnosis, an obsessive interest in metabolic health, and a love of Mediterranean cruises tried to figure out how to live fully while also living carefully.

It's messy. It's contradictory. It involves way too much discussion of digestive function.

But it's mine. And for now, that's enough.

Important Note: This post was heavily edited by Claude AI from extensive notes taken over time. It describes one individual's personal experience and should not be considered medical advice. Anyone facing a cancer diagnosis should work closely with their oncology team to develop an appropriate treatment plan.

FL and Treatment

 

When a Lump in My Neck Led Me Down an Unexpected Path: My Follicular Lymphoma Journey

The Discovery That Changed Everything

About ten months ago, I felt something I couldn't ignore—a lump in my neck. At 63, I considered myself reasonably healthy. I rode my road bike or hopped on the Peloton daily, maintained what I thought was a decent diet, and kept active. But that lump demanded attention.

What followed was a cascade of medical appointments, tests, and waiting. A biopsy of lymph nodes in my abdomen in December. A PET scan in March that lit up not just the neck node and abdominal nodes, but also my right tonsil—a surprise even to my doctors. The diagnosis came back: follicular lymphoma (FL). The staging placed me above stage 3 due to the multiple affected sites.

Looking back at earlier CT scans, I can now see signs I'd missed. For years—literally as long as my brother can remember—I'd had what I dismissed as a "bad habit" of constantly clearing my throat. I never connected it to my tonsils until now. How long had this been cooking? There's no way to know.

An Unlikely Preparation

Here's where the story takes an interesting turn. About three years ago, completely unrelated to any health concerns, I'd become fascinated with longevity research. It started with David Sinclair's book "Lifespan" and spiraled into a deep dive into fasting, caloric restriction, short and long-chain fatty acids, IGF-1, and mitochondrial metabolism. I discovered Peter Attia, Mary Newport, and others in this space, spending countless hours trying to separate legitimate science from pseudoscience and anecdotal claims.

"I found all of this fascinating from a pure science perspective. Then I found the lump."

When I heard about the episode Chris Hemsworth did on fasting with Dr. Attia in his "Limitless" series, my curiosity peaked. I decided to experiment with a true water-only fast to see how it would feel. My first 48-hour fast wasn't nearly as brutal as I'd anticipated. A week later, my wife suggested we try another two-day fast together. After that second round, I discovered I'd lost over 15 pounds. My weight, which had always hovered between 205-210 pounds, was suddenly dropping. We eat mostly home-cooked meals from scratch—avoiding processed foods has always been our style—so the weight came back slowly over about four months. Since then, I've incorporated regular 12+ hour fasts at least three times a month, and my weight has stabilized around 190-195 pounds.

Weight Journey: 205-210 lbs → Currently below 185 lbs

Connecting the Dots

After the pathology results came back in January confirming FL, my wife and I dove into research mode. She had practical concerns—we cruise at least twice a year and spend significant time in Vegas. She wanted to understand how any treatment might impact our plans. My interest ran in a different direction: What was the relationship between cancer and everything I'd learned about mitochondrial metabolism?

I'm fortunate that my wife is a PACU nurse with 20 years of ER experience. She's seen it all, and her medical knowledge has been invaluable in navigating this journey. When I came across stories from other FL patients who had tried extended fasting, including one member who attempted a 21-day fast, I was intrigued but cautious.

Testing the Waters

A week before my tonsil removal was scheduled, I decided to push my fasting experience further. With all my lab results showing relatively good health, my wife and I agreed a five-day fast wouldn't pose immediate danger. She was understandably apprehensive about me doing this a week before surgery, but we moved forward carefully.

The tonsil removal itself was more challenging than expected. Recovering forced an unintended two-day fast simply because swallowing anything was excruciating. I did my best to consume pureed beans and vegetables for proper nutrients, but my weight drifted toward 180 pounds. It took more than five days before I could even think about resuming a normal diet.

My Current Approach: With everything I'd learned about IGF-1, ketones, glucose, and how cellular metabolism relates to cancer growth, I made a decision: my diet would resemble a ketogenic, SOS-free (salt, oil, sugar) approach as much as possible. More fish, more vegetables, minimal processed foods.

Living in the Real World

But here's the thing about strict dietary protocols—life happens. In early June, we visited relatives in Michigan. The diet became decidedly Midwestern with two family cookouts. To compensate, I walked at least three miles daily and did a 24-hour fast while traveling home. Even with these indulgences, the scale stayed below 185 pounds.

Then came the real test: my wife's birthday. I took her to enjoy one of her favorite spots in town for "Tomahawk Tuesday"—a meal for two featuring a massive 38-ounce steak, two sides, and dessert. We ordered asparagus and mac and cheese for sides. I ate most of the mac and cheese. I did lava cake and ice cream for dessert, consuming it with genuine relish. We each had only a small portion of the actual steak, but this was definitely a departure from our usual plant-based fare.

The next day? I felt absolutely terrible. Still managed my daily Peloton session, but it was a struggle. My wife and I have become keenly attuned to how I feel day-to-day with FL, and we discussed it at length. I'm fairly certain it was that heavy Standard American Diet (SAD) meal causing the problem, because the following day I felt significantly better.

I share this not to make any grand claims about diet and cancer—I know this is purely anecdotal. But the contrast was striking enough that we both noticed it.

Where We Are Now

One week out from the next PET scan. The VA oncologist I've been seeing ordered it to assess how things are progressing. I'm hoping to remain in the "watch and wait" category, which is common for FL patients whose disease isn't aggressively advancing.

Daily, I continue exercising—cycling remains a constant in my routine. I did a two-day water fast two weeks ago, followed by a 24-hour fast two days ago. The diet stays primarily vegetables and fish. My weight hovers consistently below 185 pounds despite eating plenty of carrots, hummus, and other plant-based foods.

Reflections on the Journey

If you'd told me three years ago that my curiosity about longevity research would prepare me for a cancer diagnosis, I wouldn't have believed you. But here we are. I'm clear-eyed about what I don't know: I have no idea if fasting or dietary changes are actually affecting my FL progression. The upcoming PET scan will provide more data, but even that won't prove causation.

"Taking an active role in my health, educating myself from legitimate sources, and working in partnership with my medical team has given me a sense of agency during an otherwise uncertain time."

What I do know is this: taking an active role in my health, educating myself from legitimate sources, and working in partnership with my medical team has given me a sense of agency during an otherwise uncertain time. My wife's support has been crucial—her medical expertise helps keep me grounded when I might otherwise chase every promising-sounding intervention.

I'm not suggesting anyone else follow this path. FL is complex, every case is different, and what works (or doesn't work) for me may be completely irrelevant to someone else. I'm simply sharing one person's experimental approach to living with cancer, informed by curiosity, tempered by caution, and supported by love.

The throat-clearing "habit" I lived with for years turned out to be something more. The fascination with metabolism that felt like an intellectual exercise became unexpectedly relevant. The discipline required to maintain dietary changes while still celebrating life's moments—like a birthday dinner with your spouse—remains a daily balance.

As I head into next week's PET scan, I'm grateful for the knowledge I've gained, the partnership I share with my wife, and the medical team supporting me through this. Whatever the results show, I'll keep riding, keep learning, and keep showing up for this life.

Important Note: This post was heavily edited by Claude AI from extensive notes taken over time. It describes one individual's personal experience and should not be considered medical advice. Anyone facing a cancer diagnosis should work closely with their oncology team to develop an appropriate treatment plan.

AI Assembly Line

The AI Assembly Line: From Historical Archives to a Polished Blog Post in Under 24 Hours

It all started with a simple spark of curiosity. While reading a book on the U.S. Constitution, I found myself wanting to dive deeper into the primary sources. I didn't just want to read about the founders; I wanted to read their actual words and analyze them in a new way. This led me down a fascinating rabbit hole, chasing a squirrel of an idea: could I build an AI-powered workflow to go from raw historical archives to a polished, well-researched blog post in less than a day?

As I've documented before in posts like my project to download thousands of documents from Founders Online, getting the data is the first hurdle. But this experiment was about the entire assembly line—from data acquisition to final publication.

Here's how the project unfolded.

---

Step 1: Acquiring the Raw Material

My first stop was the Founders Online website, a treasure trove of historical documents. I wanted to get my hands on the writings of figures like Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Abigail Adams. After a quick search with Gemini, I found the site's API, which is the key to programmatic access.

With the API endpoint in hand, I turned to Perplexity, which I've found to be excellent for writing scripts. It helped me craft the code needed to download the writings I wanted and, crucially, to convert them all into Markdown files. As I learned while taming my digital library, having your data in a clean, AI-friendly format is essential for the next step.

Step 2: The AI Research Assistant

With thousands of documents converted, I uploaded the markdown files for Alexander Hamilton into Google's NotebookLM. This is where the magic really began. Instead of spending weeks reading and synthesizing, I could now query Hamilton's entire body of work.

Within just a few minutes of asking questions, the AI generated the skeletons of three distinct articles:

• Hamilton's Blueprint for the United States Constitution
• Alexander Hamilton's Architectural Vision for the American Republic
• 5 Surprising Ideas Alexander Hamilton Fought For (That You Won't Hear in the Musical)

Step 3: The AI Editor and Publisher

The drafts from NotebookLM were a fantastic start, but they needed to be unified into a single, compelling narrative. For this, I turned to Anthropic's Claude to combine the three pieces, refine the prose, and shape it into a final, coherent blog post.

The result of this experiment is the article I recently published: "The Radical Hamilton: What the Founding Father Really Wanted for America."

---

Final Thoughts: What This Means

From the initial idea to a published article, the entire process took just a few hours. It's a powerful example of what one person can do with modern AI tools. While I was just chasing a squirrel for my own curiosity, it's clear that this kind of streamlined process could revolutionize content creation. It makes you wonder—if a blog post takes a day, how long would it take to produce a well-researched book? A week?

As I continue to test the limits of these tools, it's clear that the barrier between idea and execution is becoming smaller every day. For content creators, researchers, and the perpetually curious, we're entering an incredibly exciting time.

Red Wine Myth

My Upcoming Biopsy and the Surprising Truth I Found in a Glass of Wine

It started with a simple, almost throwaway question. I have a minor biopsy scheduled for this Thursday, and as I was thinking about my week, I wondered, "Is there any real reason I can't have a glass of wine the night before?"

My gut feeling, and the standard medical advice, was a clear "no." But I'm the kind of person who needs to know why. The simple answer, I quickly found, is that alcohol thins your blood and can increase bleeding risk.

Okay, fair enough. But that simple answer felt incomplete. It was the first thread I pulled, and it led me down a fascinating rabbit hole into the science of how our bodies work, completely upending what I thought I knew about wine.

From a Simple Rule to a Complex Question

My initial search told me alcohol affects platelets, the tiny first responders in your blood that rush to the scene of a cut to form a clot. Alcohol makes them less "sticky" or, in scientific terms, it causes "decreased platelet reactivity." This means your body's ability to stop bleeding is impaired—definitely not something you want when you're about to be poked and prodded.

Case closed, right? Don't drink before a biopsy.

But my curiosity was piqued. This led me to a huge, recent study from the famous Framingham Heart Study. And this is where the plot twist came in.

The Red Wine Myth Gets Complicated

For years, we've heard about the "French Paradox" and the supposed heart-healthy benefits of red wine, often attributed to its effect on platelets. So, I expected this big study to confirm that.

It didn't.

In fact, the study found no association between red wine consumption and decreased platelet function. To my surprise, it was white wine and liquor that showed a measurable effect.

This was a genuine "wait, what?" moment. It directly contradicted years of popular health wisdom. How could a massive, modern study find the opposite of what smaller, older studies had suggested? The only way to find out was to do what researchers do: check the references.

Chasing the Contradiction

I started digging into the sources the Framingham study cited. Sure enough, I found older, smaller studies that concluded the exact opposite. For example, a 2002 study by Pignatelli et al. found that red wine inhibited platelet aggregation significantly more than white wine.

So, what gives? Is science just a mess? Not quite. What I was seeing was science in action. The newer, much larger study had more statistical power and revealed a more nuanced picture. Other research I found suggests that it's not about the color of the wine at all, but about the specific grape variety and its unique chemical profile.

The Final Verdict (For Me, Anyway)

So, after all this research, where does it leave me? To be truthful, I'm having a glass of wine with my dinner tonight (Tuesday).

My biopsy is on Thursday morning. Based on my research, I know that by then it will have been about 36 hours—a day and a half—since that drink. That timeframe falls squarely within that 1-to-3-day window the science says it takes for platelets to fully recover.

For me, understanding the 'why' (the platelets) and the 'how long' (the recovery window) makes this a conscious choice rather than a guess. It turns a simple doctor's order into an informed decision. After tonight, I'll be abstaining completely to make sure my body is as ready as it can be. It's a personal calculation, and having the facts makes all the difference.

It also reminds me that science is a process, not a collection of static facts. A simple question can unravel decades of assumptions and reveal a much more complex and interesting reality. When I do have that post-biopsy glass, I'll have a newfound appreciation for the incredible, and sometimes contradictory, science behind it.

---

Studies Mentioned

• Alcohol intake including wine drinking is associated with decreased platelet reactivity in a large population sample (Framingham Heart Study)
• Red and white wine differently affect collagen-induced platelet aggregation (Pignatelli et al., 2002)
• Administration of red wine but not white wine inhibits in vivo platelet activity and thrombosis in parallel with enhanced aortic synthesis of nitric oxide in hypercholesterolemic rabbits (Demrow et al., 1995)
• Differential effects of 30 different grape-varieties on human platelet aggregation (Iwasaki et al., 2004)

A quick note on how this was written: The ideas, research journey, and personal decisions are all mine, but the text itself was drafted in collaboration with Google's AI assistant. It was a fascinating way to turn a string of questions into a story.

Briefing Document: Synthesis of Themes and Perspectives from the Combined Archives (2003-2025)

Executive Summary

This document provides a comprehensive synthesis of the core themes, arguments, and personal experiences detailed in a collection of archival writings spanning from 2003 to 2025. The author, a retired U.S. Marine and returning student, presents a deeply personal and intellectually rigorous chronicle of their evolving worldview. The writings are characterized by a staunchly atheistic and rationalist perspective, which serves as the primary lens for incisive critiques of religion, politics, and societal norms.

Key recurring themes include a sustained deconstruction of religious belief and its perceived negative impact on human progress; sharp, evidence-based criticism of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, particularly during the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War; and candid reflections on personal identity, class, gender roles, and the challenges of navigating civilian life and higher education after a military career. The author is a voracious reader, and their engagement with a wide range of literature and philosophy—from Ayn Rand to Friedrich Nietzsche—heavily informs their analysis.

A significant trajectory observed across the archives is the author's deepening engagement with technology. What begins as tinkering with computer hardware and Linux distributions evolves into a sophisticated, hands-on exploration of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs) by 2025. The later entries document practical AI application projects, a critical analysis of AI's capabilities and limitations, and insightful commentary on the technology's societal and economic implications, marking a transition from a critical observer to an active practitioner and analyst of cutting-edge technology.

1. Core Philosophical Stance: Atheism and Rationalism

A central and unwavering theme throughout the archives is the author's commitment to atheism and a rational, evidence-based worldview. This perspective informs nearly all social and political commentary.

1.1. Arguments Against Theism

The author frequently articulates a disbelief in any higher power, viewing religion as a human construct designed to placate fear of the unknown and control the masses.

• Rejection of Faith: Faith is defined as belief without logical proof or material evidence. The author contrasts this with a rational approach, stating, "I judge the reasonableness of the bible because I practice reason."
• The Burden of Proof: The author rejects the notion that atheists must disprove the existence of a deity. This is illustrated through an analogy attributed to Bertrand Russell.
• Religion as a Detriment: Religion is seen as "debilitating to the general well being of the human race." The author argues it diverts focus from collective human progress toward individual, post-mortem destinies and "preserves whatever is ripe for destruction" by prioritizing sympathy over achievement, a critique echoing Nietzsche.
• Hypocrisy and Control: The author observes that religious proclamations often serve as a "veneer" or "shield" for individuals to hide behind, assuming a moral high ground while avoiding self-reflection. They quote Gary North to illustrate a perceived agenda of the "New Christian Right".

1.2. Morality and Humanism

Morality is framed as originating from within humanity, not from a divine authority. The author argues that a sense of right and wrong is unique to individuals, shaped by their chemical structure and environmental experiences.

• Individual-Centered Morality: An action is considered "right" if it is freely chosen and "doesn't infringe on another's freedom of action."
• Critique of Religious Morality: The author challenges the idea that belief in a future state is necessary for moral behavior, quoting Mill: "if he who does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of hell."

2. Political and Social Commentary

The author provides extensive, critical commentary on U.S. politics, foreign policy, and a wide array of social issues, often from a cynical and anti-authoritarian standpoint.

2.1. Critique of the Bush Administration and the Iraq War

The most sustained political critique is aimed at the George W. Bush administration and the rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

• The Office of Special Plans (OSP): An entry from March 2004 includes the detailed testimony of a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who worked in the Pentagon. This account describes the OSP, under figures like Bill Luti and Abram Shulsky, as a "den of iniquity" used to "manufacture propaganda" and "falsehoods" to justify the war. The testimony states the OSP's talking points were "propagandistic in style" and that desk officers were "ordered to use them verbatim."
• Politicization of Intelligence: The testimony alleges that neoconservative agenda-bearers "usurp[ed] measured and carefully considered assessments" and suppressed or distorted intelligence to mislead Congress and the public. Key figures like Colin Powell and General Anthony Zinni were viewed as internal enemies, with Zinni being called a "traitor" in a staff meeting.
• The Soldier's Perspective: The author cites a story from Military.com about Lance Cpl. Jonathan Snyder, a Marine in Iraq who graduated from basic training on September 12, 2001. Snyder is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "Every day you read articles in the states when it's like Oh, it's getting better and better.' But when you're here, you know it's worse every day." His father concludes, "We've lost 1,000 soldiers for nothing."

2.2. Domestic Politics and Social Issues

The commentary extends to numerous domestic issues, often highlighting perceived hypocrisy, irrationality, and threats to civil liberties.

• Voter Suppression: An article by Gregory Palast is quoted, detailing Florida's 2000 election "scrub list" that purged 57,700 voters, over 90% of whom were innocent. The analysis suggests that 54% of "spoiled" ballots were cast by Black voters, and counting them would have given Al Gore a significant victory. The author notes that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) signed by Bush in 2002 requires all states to implement a similar computerized purge system.
• Class and Identity: The author self-identifies as coming "fr0m the ghetto" and considers themself "white trash." This identity shapes their discomfort with idealized images of "normalcy," such as the family in The Donna Reed Show, because "there appears to be nothing wrong, but you know there always is."
• Gender Roles: The author rejects traditional models of masculinity, describing a conflict with a friend who believes the author is "pussy whipped" for treating his wife as an equal. The author states, "My time with my wife comes first, and I value her opinion because she is a lot smarter than I am."
• Economic Inequality and Labor: There is a critique of corporate greed, where excess profits are used for "several 'getaways' for a few lofty executives" instead of increasing employee wages. The author contrasts this with a shoe company in the Northeast that, in December 2003, gave every employee a bonus of $1,000 for every year worked, with those employed less than a year receiving $500. The author is opposed to unions, viewing them as a "bureaucratic exploitation" that contradicts capitalism and is now redundant due to government regulation.

3. Personal Journey: From Marine to Student to Technologist

The author's personal experiences as a retired Marine, a student in various disciplines, and a worker in different fields provide a constant backdrop to their intellectual explorations.

• Military Service: The author is a retired Marine. This experience informs their perspective on discipline, authority, and foreign policy. They express frustration with military members who resort to authoritarianism when they "don't have a leg to stand on."
• Academic Pursuits: After retiring, the author enrolls in college, studying subjects including English, Chemistry, Physiology, Spanish, and eventually a radiology program. They express a strong dislike for the "constrictions" of formal academic writing and critique the educational system for perceived laziness among tenured professors who rely heavily on Teaching Assistants (TAs).
• Critique of "Normalcy": An early entry reflects on a bumper sticker stating, "Normal People Worry Me!!" The author deconstructs the definition of "normal" ("Conforming with, adhering to, or constituting a norm, standard, pattern, level, or type"), concluding that since context is always changing, true normalcy is impossible. Therefore, a person who "seems" normal is putting on a "false facade" and is not to be trusted.

4. Evolution of Technological Engagement

The archives document a clear progression in the author's relationship with technology, from a hobbyist to a sophisticated practitioner and critic of AI.

4.1. Early Adoption and Tinkering (2000s)

Early entries show an interest in consumer technology and open-source software.

• Hardware and OS: The author mentions buying a Dell laptop, installing internal wireless cards, and experimenting with various Linux distributions that can run from a CD (Knoppix) or be installed via Wubi on Windows (Ubuntu).
• Productivity: Technology is used for schoolwork, writing, and accessing information. A laptop is seen as essential for managing school and personal tasks, especially when a shared home computer is occupied.

4.2. Advanced AI Exploration and Application (2025)

The 2025 entries represent a significant leap in technical engagement, focusing almost exclusively on the use and analysis of Large Language Models (LLMs).

• Project "De-Bullshitification": A systematic project to analyze the work of Jordan Peterson. The author uses NotebookLM to identify "garrulous and bombastic" language, translates the jargon into plain English, and identifies rhetorical tricks like false choices and hidden premises.
• Example Peterson Quote Analyzed: "Science allows for increasingly precise determination of the consensually validatable properties of things, and for efficient utilization of precisely determined things as tools (once the direction such use is to take has been determined, through application of more fundamental narrative processes)"
  Translation: "Science is great for figuring out how things work and building tools, but our myths and stories must tell us what to do with them."
• AI as a Practical Tool: The author documents using AI (Gemini, ChatGPT, Comet) to build a functional recipe website from scratch. This involves generating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and parsing recipes from PDFs into JSON format. The author notes the AI's limitations, such as its inability to handle file downloads or uploads, referring to it as the "world's most stubborn, literal-minded, patient intern."

Critical Analysis of AI

The author engages in deep analysis of AI's nature and societal role.

• Comparison to NSA: A detailed table compares the infrastructure of the NSA to that of LLMs, highlighting similarities in data ingestion, processing, compute power, and storage, arguing they are "Same Infrastructure, Different Masks."
• AI and Truth: The author posits that LLMs inherit the flaws of their training data, which is often "redundant, contradictory, context-dependent, [and] flat-out wrong." The conclusion is to use an LLM as a "sparring partner, not a guru."
• AI and the Workforce: The author analyzes a study on AI's impact on junior-level jobs, concluding that AI is not the sole factor. Other dynamics include opportunistic cost-cutting disguised as innovation, a preference for retaining senior staff, and strategic under-hiring of new graduates.

Category	NSA (Surveillance Infrastructure)	LLMs (Language Model Infrastructure)
Mission	Surveillance, signals intelligence, cyber operations	Language generation, interaction, prediction
Data Ingest	Global telecom, fiber taps, satellites, intercepts	Web scraping: Common Crawl, books, Wikipedia, forums
Processing	Real-time stream decoding, bulk signal analysis	Batch GPU/TPU pipelines, transformer inference
Compute	NSA supercomputers, custom ASICs, classified clusters	NVIDIA A100/H100, TPUs, hyperscale data centers
Storage	Petabyte/exabyte storage (e.g., Utah Data Center)	Massive datasets + model weights (100s of GBs to TBs)
Secrecy	Total — classified, legally shielded	Mixed — some open-source, most proprietary

5. Literary and Intellectual Influences

The author is a prolific reader of both fiction and non-fiction, and the ideas encountered are frequently integrated into their own writing and analysis.

• Key Philosophers: The author engages with the works of Ayn Rand (criticizing her idealized characters but resonating with some individualist themes), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (noting his difficult prose but analyzing his ideas on inequality), Friedrich Nietzsche (on the detriment of sympathy-based morality), and John Stuart Mill (on liberty and the harm principle).
• Non-Fiction and Current Events: Books on history, politics, and science are frequently reviewed, including works by Bill Maher, Charles Fishman (The Wal-Mart Effect), James Bamford (Body of Secrets), and Shelby Foote (The Civil War).
• Fiction: The author reads a wide variety of fiction, including science fiction by Octavia Butler and Robert Silverberg, horror by Stephen King, and supernatural fiction by Anne Rice. These often serve as points of departure for broader reflections.

 Another ChatGPT conversation

It started with a quote presented to me.....

"A Stanford University study found that AI adoption has caused a 13% decline in employment for workers aged 22-25 in AI-exposed occupations, while older workers in identical roles remain largely unaffected"

I put it to ChatGPT

"What are the possibilities that some of the decline is due to employers using AI as an excuse to streamline their workforce. In other words, AI is an excuse and not necessarily a cause"

The response is below, but it also offered to dig into "the dataset appendix to see how much of this decline is explained by actual AI adoption intensity at firms versus sector-wide trends"

I said yes, and after a lengthy response this was presented at the tail end..

What this means for your “AI as excuse” hypothesis

• The dataset does control for non-AI shocks, so the measured effect isn’t just macro noise.

• But, the mechanism isn’t necessarily “robots replacing humans” — it’s very plausible firms are using AI adoption as a rationale to stop hiring younger workers and keep a leaner, older, more experienced staff.

• In other words: AI isn’t always the cause — sometimes it’s the justification.

Project De-Bullshitification: A Field Guide to Hunting Profundity

It starts, as it so often does, with a conversation. My brother, like many others, has fallen under the spell of Jordan Peterson. He speaks of the man’s ideas as “profound,” and points to the dense, academic language as proof. The logic is a curious one: if you have to consult a dictionary to understand a sentence, the sentence must contain a deep truth. It’s a compelling idea, but one that demands interrogation. Is it genuine depth, or is it a rhetorical smokescreen?

This question is the starting point for a project: a systematic effort to go through Peterson's work and distinguish the genuinely insightful from the intellectually fraudulent. The goal is not to dismiss everything out of hand—that would be intellectually lazy. The goal is to hunt for the bullshit, to isolate it, and to understand the function it serves.

Step One: Isolating a Specimen

Every hunt needs a target. I turned to my digital toolkit, using NotebookLM to scan Peterson’s writings for the kind of "garrulous and bombastic" language my brother found so profound. The tool provided a list of suspect phrases, a rogues' gallery of academic-sounding terms. From that list, I pulled a perfect specimen:

"Science allows for increasingly precise determination of the consensually validatable properties of things, and for efficient utilization of precisely determined things as tools (once the direction such use is to take has been determined, through application of more fundamental narrative processes)"

This sentence is a masterpiece of its kind. It sounds intelligent, respectful of science, and philosophically rigorous. It’s the kind of statement that makes you nod along, feeling smart for simply having read it. It was the perfect place to begin the dissection.

Step Two: The Dissection

The first step in any analysis is to translate the jargon. Stripped of its academic costume, the sentence says something quite simple: Science is great for figuring out how things work and building tools, but our myths and stories must tell us what to do with them.

On the surface, this seems reasonable. But the bullshit is often in the setup, not the punchline. A critical look reveals the rhetorical tricks at play:

1. The False Choice: It presents only two options—directionless science or science guided by "narrative"—conveniently ignoring the entire history of secular ethics.

2. The Power Grab: By calling narratives "more fundamental," it performs a subtle but significant demotion of science, placing it in the role of a mere tool awaiting instruction from its mythological masters.

3. The Hidden Premise: It smuggles in the unproven assumption that the only valid source of human values is ancient story, a premise that just so happens to be the foundation of Peterson's entire worldview.

What appeared to be a profound statement on the limits of science was, under scrutiny, a Trojan horse designed to subordinate reason to myth.

The Path Forward

This single sentence is a microcosm of the larger challenge. The book is filled with similar linguistic traps: The Logos, The Dominance Hierarchy, Chaos and Order. Each term carries a similar veneer of academic weight, and each demands the same rigorous, critical dissection.

The project is now clear. I will proceed, chapter by chapter, not as a cynic dismissing everything, but as a surgeon with a scalpel. The goal is to weed out the bullshit, to separate the parts that are genuinely insightful from the parts that are merely dressed up to look that way.

The hunt is on.

On the Irony of the Algorithm

To be clear, it’s not lost on me that there is a deep irony in using an AI to help dissect the work of a man who champions the human "Logos." One could easily label this project as intellectually lazy—outsourcing the hard work of critical thinking to a machine, and the accusation deserves to be met head-on.