14Mar2026 email Summary

My quick impressions from this morning: even [simple, cheap] AI is impressive, and is obvously is capable of doing much better. It appears that AI is far superior to what I can do, especially given my detailed-data emphasis for my projects. See the section below "Strengths of a [simple, cheap] AI - duckDuckGo search assistant" for more comments.

What should I dream of getting? I haven't even tried to tie in Google Maps, not to create a "video time progression" of events, with [video, image]s as posted online, covering technology impacts etc. As an example of a video showing the progression of wars, a human-built series of historical videos does this very well! Unfortunately, I can't find links to the "Google map war videos" I saw >5 years ago, but this video is @GeoHistory's [simpler, much more crude] example for WWI.

WARNING: Note that I am still working on software code to fix my website, so for now many links to my website won't wok. Hopefully by late April my webSite links will be more functional.

Table of Contents


search "list by date 2022 to present of significant battle actions in the Ukraine around city of Orikhiv"

duckDuckGo search assistant results:

Significant battle actions around the city of Orikhiv in Ukraine from 2022 to the present include various engagements during the ongoing conflict, particularly during the 2022 Russian invasion and subsequent counteroffensives. Specific dates and details of battles in this area may not be comprehensively documented, but the region has seen intense fighting as part of broader military operations in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Wikipedia criticalthreats.org

Significant Battle Actions Around Orikhiv (2022 - Present)
Timeline of Key Engagements
Date Event Description
April 2022 Initial Russian advances towards Orikhiv, leading to heavy fighting in the region.
June 2022 Ukrainian forces launch counteroffensive operations to reclaim territory around Orikhiv.
August 2022 Continued skirmishes as Ukrainian troops engage Russian forces in the vicinity of Orikhiv.
September 2022 Ukrainian forces successfully push back Russian troops, regaining control of parts of the area.
November 2022 Ongoing clashes as both sides attempt to solidify their positions around Orikhiv.
March 2023 Renewed Russian offensives targeting Orikhiv, resulting in intense combat.
June 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive operations intensify, with significant battles reported near Orikhiv.
October 2023 Ukrainian forces report successful operations against Russian positions in the Orikhiv area.
February 2024 Continued fighting as both sides prepare for potential spring offensives.

Summary of Military Actions This timeline highlights the significant military actions around Orikhiv from 2022 to the present, reflecting the ongoing nature of the conflict in the region.

Johann Baptiste_Homann (Nuremberg, 1720), Ukrania quae et Terra Cosaccorum cum vicinis Walachiae, Moldoviae:


Strengths of a [simple, cheap] AI - duckDuckGo search assistant

Based on my experiences since Nov2022, I was shocked to see how well the "free duckDuckGo search assistant" performed on the search hightlighted on this webPage. I haven't even tried many other possibilities that have probably long-existed in many AI products.

AI beats me cold, by several orders of magnitude, on all points below:

Howell's ship-wrecked ideas, and the promise of AI

ALL of my projects eventually have always been ship-wrecked on the [stormy, rocky] shores of practical constraints like [time, skill, comprehension, tool, etc]s. The current, cheap] AI I have tried won't entirely solve that problem, but "conceptual distance" is everything, as I don't expect to [get, live] to infinity. Here are a few actual examples of my past projects that "ran ashore" and could [practic, pragmatic]ally be re-incarnated by AI:

Tickling the light fantastic, stomping all over the impossible?

If I was able to apply the new AI tools, then I wonder if my biggest challenge will be to destroy my expectations of what is [possible, pragmatic, easy] to do. Am I smart enough, will I ever have the time (even in retirement), are their [people, teams] that I can work with effectively, can financing be found for [materials, people, legal, corporate]?

To what degree have I "under-performed" in my life by shutting doors because of perceived barriers? By not meeting the right people? By not bringing up key [passtime, project, business] concepts with the right people? By not helping by [developing, building] the right people?

Can I escape my long-term self-committments to my priority projects to re-train? Probably, AI tools now and in the future can help with these questions, for those williong to try?

Can AI itself be a key [coach, mentor, inspiration, driver, rib-poker] for people across the social spectrum?



19Dec2025 @militarySummary: drone fibre optic lines carpet Lyman, Ukraine


Are [great, succinct] concepts misleading crutches for [[, mis]under, grand, great]-standing?

I am constantly frustrated with the effort required to sift though the [verbal, written, video, interview, blog] * [Yap, arm wave]ing that has always dominated societal communication. It may be worse now, as everybody seems desperate to [see, hear] themselves yapping.

But rarely is there any "real content" in the yap. Effective [communication, self-promotion] favours [clear, succint, over-all] abstractions, which are perhaps only [superfluous, erroneous, misleading], but a clear necessity give the [cognitive, motor-action, time] limitations of all of us, and the "evil corruption" that most often results from emotion-based thinking.

AI doesn't necessarily require our crutches, even though it may benefit from real human strengths (for now, anyways). For example, many concepts in physics arise "naturally" from the data. Re-deerivations are probably easy for machines (now or in the future), and have the advantage of much [deep, broad]er support for a theory, plus the natual ability to [grow, question, fix] that does not work so well in modern science, in spite of perenniel claims to the contrary.

So is it time for machines to cast away almost all of our abstract concepts for their own "thinking" and re-use our abstractions as [proven, effective] tools to "program the intellectual robots" (us humans).


Detailed results of Howell's hand notes for [Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, Orikhiv]

#] 14Mar2026 duckDuckGo search assistant versus pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter_run
pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter_run #() extract [dateBefore, str] lines

+-----+
my script results (emto Dan Hendrickson yesterday) :
09:04 14Mar2026$ find "$d_projMaj"'History/Ukraine-Russia/' -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "260313 *" | sed "s|https://www.BillHowell.ca/ProjMajor/History/Ukraine-Russia/||"


bash function: pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter_run

The following function is in my fileops.sh bash library. As of 14Mar2026, that hasn't been updated online to include this function. Further, the style of my notes is constantly changing, and the script has not been updated recently to accomodate that.


#] pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter #() extract [dateBefore, str] lines
# 18Dec2025 initial

pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter()
{
dItems="$1"
fNotes="$2"
str="$3"

date_ymd=$(date +%y%m%d)
povr="$dItems$date_ymd $pNotes $str extracts.txt"
pNotes="$dItems$fNotes"
pDat="$d_temp"'pNotes_str_get_dateAfter_StrLine pDat.txt'
pStr="$d_temp"'pNotes_str_get_dateAfter_StrLine pStr.txt'

if [ -f "$povr" ]; then rm "$povr"; fi

linNumStr=0
linNumDat=0
date=''

grep --line-number "[0-9]\+[A-Za-z]\{3\}[0-9]\+" "$pNotes" |
sed 's|^\([0-9]\+\):.*\([0-9]\+\)\([A-Za-z]\{3\}\)\([0-9]\+\).*|\1:\2\3\4|' >"$pDat"
grep -i --line-number "$str" "$pNotes" | grep --invert-match "\] *: *$\|^[0-9]*:_" >"$pStr"

echo >>"$povr" '24************************24'
echo >>"$povr" "pNotes_str_get_dateBefore_StrLine_dateAfter() $date_ymd"
echo >>"$povr" "pNotes= $pNotes"
echo >>"$povr" "strSearch= $str"
echo >>"$povr" ''

exec 7<"$pDat"
read -u 7 linDat
linNumDat=$( echo "$linDat" | sed 's|^\([0-9]\+\):.*|\1|' )
while IFS='' read -u 9 linStr; do
linNumStr=$( echo "$linStr" | sed 's|^\([0-9]\+\):.*|\1|' )
# echo "linNumStr= $linNumStr $sgn linNumDat= $linNumDat"
while [ "$linNumDat" -le "$linNumStr" ]; do
read -u 7 linDat
linNumDat=$( echo "$linDat" | sed 's|^\([0-9]\+\):.*|\1|' )
done
date=$( echo "$linDat" | sed 's|.*\([0-9]\+\)\([A-Za-z]\+\)\([0-9]\+\).*|\1\2\3|' )
# echo "$date $linNumDat $linNumStr"
echo >>"$povr" "$date $linStr"
done 9<$pStr"
}