Weather is among the physical processes that make the future interesting. Just not knowing when a snowstorm or tornado will wreak havoc makes it so. What is life like without surprises? What does future mean, if not “unknown”? Sure, we know the possible, but the probable is less certain. Precise details about actual conditions await their manifestation in the present—but not everywhere.i recall my daughter-in-law, after she and my son moved into the Reno-Sparks area, commented that one TV weather forecaster seemed almost apologetic when the prediction called for cloudy skies.


Sure, there are places around the globe where waking up to weather one day is little different from waking up on any day, but on the Northern Hemisphere’s continents outside the arid an semiarid areas most places have variable weather under seasonal controls. In Pennsylvania, for example, I know generally that winter brings cold weather, and watching spring baseball can be a brutal experience for fans and players with winds and swirling snow. Of course, the seasonal conditions are general; exceptions occur. In these last days of fall (2024) yesterday’s temperatures fell to subfreezing, but tomorrow’s thermometer might rise into the low 50s (Fahrenheit).


Enter AI; Exit Anxiety


I asked AI to predict my local weather for tomorrow. It gave me the National Weather Service’s hour-by-hour prediction, and then added a note that weather conditions can change, so checking with the local weather forecast is advisable. Duh!  Look out the window tomorrow, dummy.


I’m always amazed by TV weather forecasters who make seven-day predictions in seasons with highly variable weather. A seven-day forecast in Reno-Sparks or in Las Vegas is often right on the money. A seven-day forecast in northeastern USA during spring is pure guesswork—maybe that’s unfair to the meteorologists, so make it “informed guesswork.” Meteorologists do the best they can with data that can’t come from everywhere or from every thin layer of the troposphere, the zone of weather. But just when they think they’ve nailed a long-range forecast, that damned butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings.


Nevertheless, your future might hold more certainty as artificial intelligence plays a role in a variety of human and natural processes, including weather prediction. And if the future becomes almost as well known as the present, then your life is about to become rather boring and deterministic—unless you are addicted to routine and are somewhat or very insecure.


Personally, I like dealing with uncertainty. As I’ve said before, “Give me chaos, and you make me a god.” Not God, really, but one who can find or establish order and meaning. (It’s easy to decide on clothing for the day in an Orlando summer of high heat and humidity, not so easy in a springtime Northeast city) Chaos keeps us mentally and often physically active. Keeps us on our guard. Keeps us preparing. The downside is that disorder and uncertainty make some people detrimentally more anxious than others, the intensity which I, as a casual observer, interpret as a barometer of personal inherent insecurity, and the need to find security in social and physical phenomena outside the individual. (The same need that generates the prejudice that places people in sweeping categories of gender, color, and faith)


If AI makes weather predictions as accurately as either the current European and American models make them, then there’s little to gain from it, but Google has just run tests that demonstrate a greater accuracy. Ilan Price and Matthew Willson, in an online article write of AI’s advance in prediction capability:  “Today, in a paper published in Nature, we present GenCast, our new high resolution… AI ensemble model. GenCast provides better forecasts of both day-to-day weather and extreme events than the top operational system, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) ENS, up to 15 days in advance.” * GenCast was more accurate than ENS in more than 97.2% of forecasts.


Happy? Your future is shortly to become known. No more guesswork. No more anxiety.
​
No more worry about the weather for that picnic you planned! Put your faith in AI’s word; it’s a sure bet. Invite the relatives and neighbors. And get those tickets for that outdoor concert while they’re available. Your life’s about to change as at least one category of uncertainty vanishes into predictions on which you can rely.


*https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gencast-predicts-weather-and-the-risks-of-extreme-conditions-with-sota-accuracy/

The legendary Ted Williams said that hitting a fast ball was the most (“single most”) difficult thing to do in sports. Because he was highly successful at the process, his statement bears credibility.


Studies of the hitting process reveal two truisms. Williams was right, and all such studies are woefully incomplete. The reason? The process is highly complex, tying perception to action. Involving not only proprioception, but also psychology. The latter arises in knowing tendencies of the pitcher in specific circumstances, the probability that the pitcher might break from those tendencies, the catcher’s pitch calling, the needs and tendencies of a baserunner standing on second, and the mental pressure brought on by a rush of adrenalin. The former involves knowing in split-second timing the arrival time of the ball (the time to contact), the tendency of the ball to move downward under the force of gravity, the position of the hands, supporting movement of the legs and torso, and the proximity to the plate. Did I skip something? Probably, and that’s why hitting is so difficult. Oh! Yes! Willy Stargell said, “They give you a round bat and a round ball and tell you to ‘hit it square’”


And now, after a few seconds of reflection, I realized I didn’t mention that the ball is spinning, changing its apparent size as it moves closer to the plate, and possibly moving either toward or away from the batter. The spin itself might make the fastball appear to rise as it approaches, but gravity won’t be denied. The ball is dropping even over the short sixty feet six inches it travels from mound to plate (shorter depending on the size of the pitcher and length of his arm and release point). Add magnitude to the ball’s velocity: A major league fast ball ranges from 86 to 104 mph. Plus (how much more of this is there?), after the first pitch, all pitches are thrown in the context of a previous pitch or sequence of pitches.


Ted Williams seems to have had a valid point.


But as difficult as the process is, it is not worth $600 million. Or is it? Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million Dodgers contract, which pays him $450 million with another $250 million deferred set the pattern. Now the Yankees might be on the cusp (or the Mets are on it) of signing Juan Soto to $600 million or more. Hitting a fast ball seems to be one of the pinnacles of human endeavors if it’s judged by the salaries of players who do it well.

Brain surgeons make less than star baseball players. Even by Elon Musk standards, a $600 million contract is a sweet deal. And neither Shohei nor Juan have to okay the plans for a spaceship or EV, decide what kind of fuel or battery to use, or run a complex business. Shohei and Juan just have to time a pitch’s arrival at the plate efficiently enough to make contact. And although the world doesn’t turn on the success of batters achieving that, a World Series does. So what makes it so hard that few do it well and only nine players did it better in major league baseball than Ted Williams (lifetime .344 average)? Ohtani and Soto have career averages of .282 and .285 respectively.


Timing a pitch is difficult for various reasons, including knowledge of previous pitches. According to one study, college baseball players involved in an experiment who saw three consecutive slow pitches had difficulty with an ensuing fast ball.* That experiment demonstrated if nothing else that explaining the process of hitting is filled with complexity, for velocity alone isn’t the exclusive parameter governing a hitter’s reaction. Doing the unexpected in baseball favors the pitcher, not the hitter. Those who swing and miss or fail to swing at a strike are among the many who anticipate a curve ball but who get a fast ball; they read the pitcher more than they read the moving ball. Doing the unexpected in baseball favors the pitcher, not the hitter.


Change Up in Baseball


It’s a common scenario, a pattern of breaking the pattern. I’ve seen it, and you have, also, if you’ve ever watched a baseball game. Not slower pitch, slower pitch, slower pitch, but rather, the opposite. Two or three fast balls followed by a slow change up. The batter corkscrews himself into the ground in a swing that is too fast for the incoming ball. The most famous of these change ups is the Eephus pitch, a high-arcing slow (35 mph) pitch that has a history of success and two important failures. Ted Williams hit a homer off one in an All Star game, and Tony Pérez hit a homer in a world Series game, this latter homer spoiling the Boston Red Sox’s bid to win its first Series in 57 years (1918-1975).**


Change Up in Life


Humans love patterns, sometimes too much. The compulsion of some to live routines without change is understandable. We’re lazy as lions by nature, saving energy as a strategy left over from our hunter-gatherer days during which feast or famine meant not over extending one’s energy derived from the feast. Thus, lazy lions, that is, lazy until they’re hungry, and cheetahs that give up the chase when the prey outruns them for a minute or two. (“Ah. Another gazelle will come along”) Maybe wolves and wild dogs, with their ability to run seemingly ceaselessly, are notable exceptions. The rest of the mammal kingdom prefers to stand by the stream like a grizzly waiting for a jumping salmon. Yeah, that’s the natural state of many humans, live the routine because it’s easy to follow a set pattern.


Patterns serve an intellectual purpose, also. Uncertainty in daily life demands an ordering for our world to be meaningful. Thus, we have categorizations like those in biology (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, sub-species, variety) and all the other fields of knowledge. See a pattern; see a meaning. Different kinds of cancer warranting different therapies, both falling into categories. We categorize, we see patterns, we know. TV shows about serial killers often have a profiler who says, “The criminal has a pattern of behavior, so his latest crime is to be expected.” Police engage psychologists to help them solve crimes and predict future crimes: “Such a perpetrator is likely to….” And nowadays, police departments have maps of criminal activity, showing what to expect and where to expect it. Of course anomalous criminal activity can occur outside a neighborhood with a pattern.


Breaking patterns makes for avant-garde art, innovative business practices, and creative approaches to…just about every segment of life. Take Christmas shopping since the rise of the Web and Amazon. The pattern of going to stores disappeared into cyberspace, where it is still good for businesses that adapted as Ted Williams and Tony Pérez adapted to the Eephus pitch.


And You?


Time to look at how patterns influence you and how you attempt to impose upon or see patterns in your social and physical environment. It’s time to look, also, at whether or not any patterns you perceive or believe to exist derive from your experience or from the words of others. The “meltdowns” of so many after the recent election seem to indicate a society of perceived patterns derived from political propaganda. 


We are tied to patterns of all kinds. Look around. Look at every aspect of your life and ask how patterns play a role, and whether you need to break the patterns by throwing  either an unexpected fast ball or an unexpected Eephus pitch.     
  


*Gray. Bob. “Vision in Flying, Driving, and Sport.” in Jenkin, Michael
R. M. And Laurence R. Harris, EDS. Seeing Spatial Form. Oxford University Press. 2006. 142 ff.


**Wikipedia has a history of the Eephus pitch.

When we first met, my lovely wife said something that stuck with me. Young as she was, she had the insight that we humans think we know who we are with surety until we discover a limitation or ability we hadn’t thought we had. Her expression was, “You don’t know who you are until you are.”


Recently, someone close to me told me a story that reflects the positive side of that expression.


Working out in a gym with a goal to increase strength, the person said, “I’ve recently been able to lift 385 pounds for a set of three deadlifts. Today, when I went to the gym, I saw new weights that I loaded onto the barbell, not realizing that the weights were heavier than I formerly used. When I had the weights loaded, I struggled to lift the bar. Wondering why I was weaker, I told myself to try harder, enabling me to lift the bar not once, but in three sets of one. And then I discovered I had loaded the barbell with 420 pounds, not my usual 385. I had unknowingly lifted 35 more pounds! And I did it three times. When I realized what I had accomplished, I reloaded the barbell with my former maximum and proceeded to lift it for a set of five, exceeding my previous record. I didn’t know I could lift 420 until I lifted it.”


The Corollary


My wife’s expression “You don’t know who you are until you are” has a corollary: “You don’t know what you can do until you do it.”


The expression has a sweeping inclusiveness, also. In 1954 Roger Bannister, a young neurologist, having run a 1500-meter race to set a British record, decided to attempt a mile run under the long-thought human barrier of four minutes. In May that year he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. His feat, once thought impossible, was repeated by a different runner just 45 days later. As of this writing, the record time for the mile is 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco. Bannister’s record has now been beaten by high school runner Gary Martin of Pennsylvania (3:57.98) and more than twenty other high school students. It seems that we humans, saddled with negative beliefs about our abilities, achieve what was once thought impossible after someone surpasses previous limitations. As a species, we don’t know who we are until we are.


And there are plenty of examples in heroic people. Four decades ago, Kansas City Chiefs’ running back Joe Delaney jumped into a Louisiana pond to save three boys. He saved one before succumbing to the water. Joe Delaney, rookie Pro Bowler, did not know how to swim. At 24, and maybe because he had three children, he did what he probably never expected to do, enter a deep pond. Stories like Delaney’s appear every so often, as a passerby, for example, saves someone from a burning car or house. And, of course, there are those many examples of heroic first responders rushing into the Twin Towers on September 11.


But there are also, unfortunately, negative manifestations of her expression. Road rage and domestic violence incidents provide examples.


Retrospect makes absolutes foolish and sometimes embarrassing, particularly when we proclaim what we will do should something happen only to find ourselves unwilling to carry out our declaration, promise, or threat. The world unfolds through action. We look at the past and the present to see realities we once only surmised.


Thanks, Donna, for the insight.
    

“You won’t believe what I just got,”
A friend just said; he seemed quite fraught
With anger. So, I asked in softest tones,
“What’s that? You’re rattled in your bones.”


“An email from that girl who lost
“Who ran around at donors’ cost,
“Just spending billions as she flew
“On costly jets as wealthy do.
“The donors gave her millions more
“Than candidates who ran before.
“She gave some to the Vegas Sphere
“And more to Oprah to appear.
“She spent all that and still she failed
“Despite her pleas to have Trump jailed.”


“What’s in the email?” I dare inquire.


“She wants more cash; she raises ire.
“We gave her all we had to give
“Does she expect us to relive
“The garbled answers that she gave
“To send her party to its grave?”


“But did you not once understand
“That she said nothing ‘round the land?
“That she just cackled, played a game
“Just happy for her new found fame?
“She had her sycophants, you know,
“On every TV late night show.
“They laughed with her to please the crowd
“That clapped with cheers that were quite loud
“Now, you might say the other guy
“Who spoke to many ‘neath the sky
“And had his sycophants in tow,
“Were there because it was a show.


“It crossed my mind, as I look back,
“But now I think, ‘he didn’t lack’
“‘Some happy people’; that’s a fact
“And none seemed paid who were attacked.
“Now in contrast, I just found out
“Celebrities went there to shout
“‘Just vote for her, not for that lout.’
“That they were paid just to appear
“To stoke the fires of rage and fear.
“And now this email’s in my box
“She wants more funds to run once more
“‘For what?’ I ask, “‘the governor?’”

“I cannot answer except to say,
“‘You chose unwisely,’ and now you pay
“In losses from the West to East
“In Congress Dems will have the least.
“And from Nevada to PA
“She angered groups, I’d have to say.
“So live with what you chose to run
“Or do what Ellen did, and run,**
“Or better yet, begin to scream
“As women did next to a stream.”***


*Jon Levine. Nov. 30, 2024. NY Post. “Kamala Harris still begging for cash weeks after election loss.” “Getting fundraising requests after any candidate has lost, when they admit that they are still millions of dollars in debt, having blown through over a billion dollars … is especially galling,” Democratic strategist Jon Reinish told The Post.




**Alexandra Bellusci. Nov. 30, 2024. NY Post. “Ellen DeGeneres’s UK mansion ‘floods’ just weeks after she fled the US ‘due to Donald Trump’s presidential win’”


***Andrea  Margolis. Nov. 27, 2024. Fox News. Women engage in mass 'primal scream' in wake of Trump victory: 'Release our pain'
https://www.foxnews.com/us/women-engage-mass-primal-scream-wake-trump-victory-release-our-pain See YouTube under title: “Not mentally stable women come together for ‘primal scream’ following Trump’s victory” “Steam” fit the rhyme scheme, but they actually screamed by a lake.


Epilogue


I cannot stop without a note
That screams alone aren’t all they tried.
Some women had their tubes now tied
For this past vote they can’t abide.
They think the Feds will ban their right
To have abortions; that’s their plight.
But if I had to make a guess
The reasons that each brain’s a mess:
The screamers think as they were taught
And life’s not true to what they thought.
Abortion’s all they voted for
And not an open border door.
I could go on but this I know;
You’ll think in iambs as you go.
In hours late and breakfast time
Iambic beats will make you rhyme.
And every thought you have today,
Will make you wish you stayed away
From thisisnotyourpracticelife
As you speak to your kids or wife.