2-17-2026

Let's open with I have another book going live soon! Proven by the delivery of my proof copy.

 

    Yes the cover art is my own, painted some years back when I finally chose a name for the story.  From the back cover:

    "Fifteen years in prison, or survive one full year somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness near Fairbanks completely alone. This is the choice set before Lauren Tupper. Dropped by parachute from a helicopter to land in the middle of a forest with minimal tools, not much food, and no shelter. Lauren has to survive strictly by his own hands and wit. He is watched from drop off to the end by drones used to show his plight to the world. If he succeeds his time is served, record expunged, and his life continues as if it never happened, but is life ever the same after you spend a year totally alone and isolated?"

    A short bit back (February 7th) I posted on twitter (X):

    "About to head to the bank, big deal happening more news soon via my blog, but it's good news 😊"

So what is the news?  Well now that all the ink is dry, I have been able to assist my son in being a home owner!  Now via the attached photos you will see he has a LOT of sweat equity to add to it...

 

 

    Look at this amazing front door!

 

    Yep, it's rough!  Yep, it has a lot of smoke damage.  But it has some very neat architectural details, and it is solid!  Built in 1924, 816 square feet 2 bed 1 bath, no one has butchered the insides with half witted remodeling, the original woodwork is still there, as is the old knob and tube wiring...that gets replaced 😳

We picked it up for back taxes, so when all is said and done he should have $300 a month to pay for it over 5 years and his mortgage holder (me and his mom) wants him to succeed.

 

    Many know I made a batch of copper roses years ago with the first one being nearly five years ago, in case anyone wondered yes they are durable as this one has been riding around on my good coat all winter.

 

For now that's about it.

Maura Out 

Ai, robots, and teachers

     As some may know I have a more or less hate/hate relation with the educational profession….let me quickly clarify why:

1st grade:

Teacher was so inconsistent in instruction that no one in the class could do anything right.  Our classroom of 30 kids pretty much had 30 different sets of rules.

2nd grade:

Teacher had her favorites and her scapegoats

My papers routinely were found in the trash and at a point by the Vice Principle

She would outright steal your personal school supplies to give to others

She would grab your jaw tight and get her face right in yours and almost scream at you–honestly I slapped her in the face after she did this to me several times and knocked her dentures across the room in the process and I still think that was justified.  I also walked myself down to the principle’s office with half the class following me to back me up

She would wall students off from the rest of the class with rolling closets

Forced me via my mother to undergo massive psychological testing that in the end only proved I have a high genius IQ and discovery of my being a polymath

 3rd grade had a starting teacher and a closing teacher:

Teacher one, was so pregnant at the beginning of the year that she was preoccupied with running to the bathroom

Teacher two was right out of college and actually good

 

4th grade:

Most of the issues were caused by the second grade teacher bad mouthing me and causing issues

There was the issue that only assigned female at birth students got A’s in her class

Other issues were caused by the fact the class had 50 students in it

This is the teacher that let me do one massive book report on War & Peace with periodic check ins, in exchange I got the same grade on that one report for all sixteen reports that year–I got a 94% on that report

5th grade:

The same stuff from my second grade teacher was still haunting me and by this point it was firmly in my head that teachers should never be allowed to talk to other teachers about anything ever

She was also having a rather public affair and we as a class got to hear about it in rather age inappropriate detail

She would also spend half of every Monday regailing us with her scuba diving exploits that her and her affair partner had participated in over the weekend

    I’m not going to cover every teacher from 6th to 12th grade but suffice that basically the first five sort of repeated several times except I had none try to mark me as “retarded” (that was the term at the time, I know it is a bad word now).  Some teachers favored one gender.  We had one who unless you were one of the special boys that went camping with him you barely passed his class.  We had a husband and wife teaching in the same building that would invite kids–boys and or girls–over for the weekend–yes both adults participated and yes what you are guessing happened is what happened.

    College was no better, one example is we had an econ professor who only talked about the Chicago Cubs and nothing else in class.

    Are you starting to see why I have a major distrust of educators yet?

    So how do we get past the innate biases that are present in all humans?  The answer is technology:

    Artificial Intelligence or AI may not be infallible and can be taught to be biased, but if we air-gap one, install it in a school district, and cross tie it to individual robot representatives in classrooms we could certainly eliminate most of the racism, gender bias, preconceived notions, and molestations.

    Currently the average starting pay of a teacher in the US as of the 2024-25 academic year is $74,177 annually–this varies a lot by state and jurisdiction. Source

    The average cost to become a k-12 teacher is between $11,000 and $100,000 (Seems quite the gap if you ask me) so let’s say $60k.  Source

    Now applying my spreadsheet skills are correct during a 30 year career of teaching allowing for a 4% annual pay raise a teacher should earn $4,160,212 and we know districts are all having to cut teachers due to funding issues.

    So now that we have some human facts lets look at where AI can assist:

    The main AI system can range from $5,000 to $500,000 so for this thought experiment we’ll say $250,000 for our mainframe AI

    Robot teachers if we go with Tesla’s Optimus robots $30,000 each source with a battery service life of about 5 years

    The ideal class size is considered to be 10 students to 1 teacher now using the 2022-23 school year St. Louis public schools had 20,000 students which means it would have needed 2,000 robots and one AI server for a one time cost of $60,250,000.  If we assume there are 700 teachers in the system and an average pay of $40,000 a year that alone equals $28,000,000 plus social security costs, medical, dental, so each year you get close to the one time initial outlay for the AI teaching system–yes the system will increase electricity costs.

    Like most electronics the service life of a robot is going to vary, but it should be safe to assume in a low risk environment that they should last fifteen years.  Robots never need sick days, don’t need medical or dental, don’t get pregnant, and will only teach what they are programmed to teach.  The AI system would be capable of adjusting in realtime to each child’s learning style and focus their robot’s attention more individually as needed.  If set up correctly the system won’t have gender or racial biases, won’t molest the children in their care, won’t pick favorites, and should handle autistic children without the need of special classes and group separation.