Forged Documents

Productive morning clearing tasks—kitchen cleanup, home energy planning, outdoor work installing hose hanger and cleaning decks, laptop repair, planting prickly pear and transplanting window plants. Minecraft building a replica Home Depot. Catching up with Patrick. Walk to Tacovore for beer and queso, saw Donna, groceries at Winco, checked Ace for broom hangers. Photo work. Beer and pizza with Steve at Suds discussing AI and Andromeda objectives. Greatest Controversies revealed up to half of New Testament books are forgeries. Star Trek's Charlie episode unwatchable. Hogan's Heroes scheming to keep Klink commanding. Evening call with Christopher—MRI results show brain tumor, likely OHSU surgery soon. Tough but addressable with good medical team. 16,000+ steps. Grateful for friends, challenging problems, and the resources we have available in our society.

Questions of Authenticity

October 23, 2025

Prickly Pear cactus

Spent the morning being productive in that satisfying way where tasks actually get completed. Cleaned up the kitchen, prepared breakfast, then spent over an hour on the home energy plan. Outside work followed: added windshield washer fluid, cleaned both decks, installed a hose hanger, moved stair treads where they needed to be. Fixed Leland's laptop. Planted the prickly pear cactus and transplanted the plants on the kitchen window shelf. The kind of morning where the list gets shorter rather than longer.

Christopher had an MRI in the morning. The procedure itself was uneventful and he was supposed to get the results back by Friday. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was serious and he had the results back by this afternoon.

Played Minecraft until about 2pm. Made a decision: what I really want to do is build a replica Home Depot. Started that process. There's something appealing about recreating a familiar large-format retail space in virtual blocks—the challenge of capturing the scale, the layout, the functional organization of a building designed entirely around efficient product display and customer flow. It also leverages a certain amount of "muscle memory" for players familiar with real Home Depots—walking through the virtual space feels recognizable, which adds an interesting layer to the building experience.

Had the Mandigo Information System Sprint Review at 2pm—caught up with Patrick for about thirty minutes. The system itself isn't making any progress, but these are good times to catch up. Patrick mentioned he has a show coming up on Halloween—might be fun to go to.

Walked down to Tacovore mid-afternoon for a beer and some chips and queso. Saw Donna there. Stopped by Winco for groceries, then checked Ace Hardware to see what they had for broom hangers. A short walk but productive—errands accomplished, people encountered, beer consumed.

Worked on photos until walking to Suds to meet Steve at 5:30 for beer and pizza. Conversation focused on AI—explored Steve's Andromeda objectives in more detail. These discussions about artificial intelligence, about what's actually possible versus what's promised, about where the technology is heading and what that means—they're increasingly relevant as AI hype reaches fever pitch while the underlying economics look increasingly fragile.

The conversation let me share how I use AI. It's just a member of my writing and research team—a power tool, a force multiplier. There's fear around AI about forgery, uncertainty about where to apply credit. If something requires a tool to accomplish, did the tool accomplish it or did you? In reality the accomplishment would never have happened without you and the tool working together. There's a you+tool entity that causes the accomplishment. As semantic convenience we tend to name those entities with your name and assume a false equivalence—but that doesn't make the tool's contribution disappear or make your contribution less real.

Walked back from Suds. Over 16,000 steps for the day—all that walking to Tacovore, Winco, Ace, and Suds adds up.

Watched TV after getting home. Greatest Controversies was about forgeries in the early Christian church. Up to half of the books in the New Testament are forgeries—texts written in someone else's name, claiming authority the actual author didn't possess. This follows yesterday's gospel authorship revelations: not just anonymous texts falsely attributed to apostles, but many epistles also forged—letters claiming to be from Paul or Peter but written by later authors. The early church was awash in forged documents, many of which made it into the canonical New Testament. Authors wrote in Paul's name to claim his authority for their theological positions. The canonical texts weren't chosen because they were authentic; many authentic texts were excluded while forgeries were included because they supported theology that prevailed politically.

After Greatest Controversies, I tried watching Star Trek—the episode about Charlie, the teenager with super powers. Didn't care for it much, didn't finish it. Moved on to Hogan's Heroes, which was about ensuring Klink continued commanding Stalag 13.

Talked to Christopher in the evening—paused watching TV to take the call. The MRI results showed a brain tumor. He'll likely be going to OHSU for surgery very soon. It's a tough development, the kind of news that stops everything else. But it sounds addressable, and he seems to have a good medical team backing him up. Sometimes all you can do is be available and hope the medical system does its job well.

Other than the news from Christopher, the day was productive and satisfying. Accomplished tasks in the morning—home energy planning, outdoor work, laptop development, planting. Made progress on the Minecraft Home Depot replica. Good conversations: caught up with Patrick, beer and discussion with Steve exploring AI and Andromeda objectives. Saw Donna at Tacovore. Completed errands efficiently. Worked on photos, developing technique through practice. Over 16,000 steps walked between all the destinations.

Grateful for friends to interact with, challenging problems to wrestle with, and the resources available in our society—including medical teams capable of addressing brain tumors. The routine pleasures of a well-spent day: tasks completed, projects advanced, people encountered, ideas explored. Then Christopher's call with the diagnosis—brain tumor, surgery ahead. The day's productive momentum stops mattering quite so much when someone you care about gets serious medical news. But life continues: the work was still worth doing, the conversations still valuable, the problems still worth solving.

Looking closely at things—whether early Christian documents, AI investment claims, home energy systems, or Minecraft building techniques—reveals complexity beneath surface appearances. Some of that complexity is uncomfortable, some is fascinating, all of it beats accepting things at face value. The forgery revelations are interesting in that context: another example of how examination reveals different reality than tradition claims. But it's one interesting discovery among many in a day full of productive work and good conversations.