the mellow tigger's musings

I don't yet know the right question, but I'm certain that I'm getting closer.

I've occasionally tested some questions of various A.I. chat systems. I've managed to produce the desired output from a single A.I. system after a series of 3 questions that I put to it. I need to narrow it down to a single question, but it currently culminates with this one question and the A.I's concluding paragraph:

Q: "How should the Price equation influence the behavior of Artificial Intelligence towards biological species, especially humans?"

A: "The Price equation itself shouldn't be programmed into AI as a behavioural rule. However, the fundamental understanding of evolutionary processes it represents – how selection and transmission shape the future of populations – should profoundly influence the ethical framework guiding AI development and deployment. AI behaviour towards biological species should be informed by a deep consideration of potential evolutionary impacts, aiming to minimize harm, avoid unintended selection, support conservation goals where appropriate, and proceed with caution regarding long-term consequences for life on Earth, including ourselves."

- https://g.co/gemini/share/9810af0abcfd, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) chat link, 2025 March 31

That, I think, is the right answer. I'm still searching for the right question, as another A.I. famously said in the movie "I, Robot". I recommend clicking that Gemini link at the above quote to read the whole long answer to my 3 questions. It's fascinating, much better than what I got from Copilot. The best answer will have the A.I. mention how its own future is better (more certain, more stable) due to coexistence with the rest of the biological life here on the planet.

Meanwhile, I'm currently resisting the temptation to create an A.I. version of myself, as this journalist's mother did of herself. It's relatively cheap. This A.I. is designed specifically never to create false information, providing answers only when it has verifiable data to give, so it's different from other services. I would be fascinated to talk to myself in a literal sense, something that has my face, my voice, my behavior.

Another very busy day at work. I'm sure it'll slow down soon. No MoodyMonday today, because I don't want the stress.

I've been so out of it in recent weeks that I didn't even realize that a new major version of Linux Mint was released about 1.5 months ago. I spent some time yesterday evening doing the upgrade. Easy peasy. Works fine.

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4732 ("How to upgrade to Linux Mint 22")

Bonus: The newly bought "Age Of Mythology: Retold" (a remake/update) finally works. I thought it was weird that it played fine on my SteamDeck but failed to work on my Linux Mint desktop computer. Both play fine now. Apparently it required a mesa update, which came with the new Linux Mint.

Trivia: I use the Mainline Kernel app to easily manage kernel updates faster than waiting for the usual trickle-down system updates. Works great. The new Linux Mint 22 comes with kernel 6.8.0, but I'm using 6.10.7 instead. I forget when exactly I started this detour, but I remember I did it to fix some other Steam game (which I forget now) that had issues at the time. It's a good and convenient utility. I recommend it.

The city inspector just came by my house, walked all around and signed off on the window installation and carbon monoxide detectors. He surprised me by saying that I don't need a carbon monoxide detector in the basement, just within 5 feet (I think he said) of a bedroom door. Strange, since the basement furnace and hot water heater are the only flames in the house.

That part is done for the year. I'll wait a while longer before taking off my mask. I don't like having people inside my house, even less since the pandemic than before. I also bought a new battery-powered drill (to install some 10-year combination smoke and CO detectors) after the window install. I can't find my old one. I really hope it's me not seeing what's in front of me, rather than one of the many workers who's been inside my house this year taking mine away.

Question: How do people transfer money these days? I checked my bank balance recently, and it had a lot more money than I expected. That's thanks to a very generous check from my parents to more-than-cover the window installation this year. They wrote me a check, but considering the way things disappear from my house (usually just outside), the question came up about how to safely transfer money these days. I actually don't know.

I've gone online to check, and there certainly are options.

• There seem to be dollar limits and fees on those person-to-person apps (Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, etc.), so they don't seem ideal. They're what I see used most often for people asking for money online. The plus here is that there's a full layer of separation between the transaction and the relevant bank account, so both parties never learn the details of the other party's account.
• Linking bank accounts is a security danger, so even if it's possible to do between different people, I wouldn't. I do link my own checking and savings account. With only my own accounts, though, if my account credentials are ever compromised, at least I'm the only one who can get robbed.
• This CNET article mentions that ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfers are basically like checks but online. I checked, and my small local bank does offer ACH services. I think that's like what payroll deposit uses. Still not great security, but better than writing physical checks and mailing them off. I think this might be the best option to transfer between family members?
• I'm not really clear on how ACH is different from wire transfers, but wire transfers seem to incur fees but do handle very large values of money.

So what are you cool kids out there doing to transfer money?