Sometimes I think my greatest accomplishment is as completing Lippincott Book L.
Brakes To Break.
I’ve been thinking about stepping away from social media, yes, again. I’ve been somewhat active on Mastodon for the past couple of weeks and I’m realizing that while it is a much friendlier experience than anything else out there (X, Bluesky, etc), there’s still a little undercurrent of something I can’t quite put my finger on that’s requiring more energy than I’m willing to sink into the experience.
When I start writing less on my blog, it’s usually because my energy is being sapped (or zapped!) by something else. And this week I’ve seen my social media participation go up, peak in a little bit of frustration, and subsequently, I’m struggling to write blog entries. This entry will probably sit in the hopper for a few days until I figure it out that’s it’s going to say what I want it to say.
Ironically, I don’t see Facebook as a social media tool anymore; it’s more like a family and friends communication tool. When I post my videos and my pictures there for folks back east to see, I’m basically offering a 1970s style slide show at a family gathering. I’m cool with that.
But coming up with witty remarks and interesting nuggets to engage with others inside a maximum of 500 characters? It’s not working for me as well.
I’m not deleting accounts at this point. I’m going to take a break, probably starting this weekend.
It’ll be a fresh way to start the week.
Technological Inspiration.
I was recently inspired to embrace my “geeky side” and decided my office would look good with a Raspberry Pi powered computer controlling the monitor off my shoulder in my work Zoom calls. I found a good deal on a Raspberry Pi 4 full kit this morning and by supper time Amazon had dropped it off at the front door.
As much as I don’t like Amazon killing brick and mortar businesses, that’s pretty amazing.
It took about 30 minutes to get the new Raspberry Pi 4 kit up and running, complete with downloading and configuring Raspberry Pi OS. I’m using the setup to write this blog entry.
I still have some tweaking to do on the system but I feel like I’m off to a great start.
Check Flight.
The flying club I belong to requires that active members fly with an instructor every six months. It’s actually a requirement of the insurance company; it helps keep insurance costs down. Another stipulation is that we can’t fly with the same instructor in two consecutive check flights. Luckily, there are plenty of instructors as part of the membership.
Tonight’s flight was a good flight. I’m always saying that I’m not flying quite enough since moving to Tucson, and it at times this makes me feel a like I need to knock a little rust off the skill set. I’m resolved to stop flying when I feel like I’m becoming a danger. This isn’t the case at this time.
I did some of the usual basic maneuvers for the flight and learned some new ones along the way. It’s good to fly with different instructors because it’s a great way to keep learning and keep building aviator skills. It keeps me out of the realm of complacency.
Earl and I are scheduled to fly on Thursday with plans to take our friend Ryan up for his first flight in a general aviation airplane, but the weather doesn’t look promising. I don’t want to take someone up for their first flight and have them bounce all over the sky, so I raise my personal minimums a little bit for these situations.
One nice thing about living in the desert is that it’s easy to fly year ’round, so I’m sure another opportunity will present itself if the weather doesn’t cooperate on Thursday.
This Is Why.
On Saturday I had enjoyed a great hike. I was home, feeling wonderful. I had hopped out of the shower, I was staring at myself at the bathroom sink, assessing things before finishing getting ready for the day. “Hey, Siri, play the news”. It actually worked and the typical noises indicating an NPR broadcast starting coming out of the HomePod mini.
The lead story from NPR was about President Biden’s recent State of the Union speech. I hadn’t watched the speech as I’ve been trying to avoid the news since it’s usually very depressing and my mental health is more important than the mental activities coming from the vast majority of elected people. But, I try to listen to the news at least once a week so I know what countries have been blown up and other asshattery going on in the world.
NPR’s lead story wasn’t about the content of Biden’s speech but rather one word uttered during the speech in an off-the-cuff remark. In response to screaming from the audience (how dignified!) apparently President Biden had used the word “Illegals” instead of “Undocumented individuals”.
First of all, President Biden is up there in years. It’s also well known that he has a speech impediment in the way of a stutter, and folks that stutter sometimes have a hard time getting the words in their head to come out their mouth. I’m often in the same predicament and I recognize that Biden does what I do; when he sees himself getting stuck he does a quick word substitution so something comes out and he avoids stuttering. I firmly believe in this case the word “illegals” came to mind and it just came out. It’s not a great word and in this age of thought and language policing from all sides of the aisle, people flip out over these things.
NPR leading the hourly news round up with this, nearly two days after the event, is just throwing gas on a societal dumpster fire. With all the crap going on all over the globe, THIS is what they choose to focus on? One word? I get it, folks don’t like the word “illegals”. Everyone is a human and a border is just a human created barrier anyway. I get it. But focusing on this aspect of the speech, instead of accentuating all the great things he said and has demonstrated during his tenure as President, is just making this election cycle a bleak, dismal, money grab for the media companies. NPR is just as guilty as the corporate owned media conglomerates when it comes to skewing, spewing, and carrying on about “the news”.
Dark times.
Automated Repetition.
A few weeks ago I mentioned an old cash register system on Mastodon. I think it was either the Data Terminal Systems Model 440 used at many grocery stories back in the day or the NCR 220 that was used at some Kmart stores back before Kmart realized they should be embracing technology. A fellow human being on Mastodon saw my update, did a web search on the model cash register I was talking about, and then shared they were surprised to see my blog entry at the top of search results.
This happens from time to time, as I occasionally talk about things that no one else talks about. Like old cash registers at Kmart.
I’ve never thought much about this blog coming up in search results on various topics, but I know that I’ve seen this blog more than once on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo in the past. I just didn’t think anything of it; I’m sharing things on here and search engines are suppose to show what’s shared.
What I didn’t realize until today was that there are probably lots of “AI” (Artificial Intelligence), or more accurately, “LLM”, or “Large Language Model” programs out there vacuuming up every bit, byte, vowel, and consonant of well over 20 years of blog entries from my site. Hell, they’re probably gathering up the punctuation as well.
I don’t think much about LLMs, inaccurately called “Artificial Intelligence”, because in some ways I think it’s going to be a passing fad like Google Glass or Bitcoin. However, there’s a lot of people worked up about AI and the way it takes bits and bytes from various places on the Internet, regurgitates it just a bit to make it look like it wasn’t stolen, and then presents the outcome as fact. It wasn’t that long ago that ChatGPT told me the population on Mars was around four million people. Don’t tell Elon.
The realization dawned on me when I read a blog entry around this subject by Les Orchard. Les nails it in this regard, and now I’m wondering what hazy memories I’ve posted on my blog that have been regurgitated as absolute fact because some WhizzGPT said it so.
This is not a good way to inform a society. Misinformation is misinformation, whether it’s emblazoned on a screen by an overly engineered computer or spewed out of the mouths of the likes of Kellyanne Conway.
Never forget the Bowling Green Massacre.
I’ve never really thought of the longevity of my writings beyond when I turn dust to dust. I figured someone wouldn’t pay the ongoing web hosting bill that keeps all this running, and some lackey would hit delete and it’d all be gone not long after I’m gone. But if my writings are now being vacuumed up by this latest fad of AI? I might have to think a little bit more about my content, the accuracy, and the volition of my musings here on this bloggy thing.
Nah. I’m just going to keep doing what I do. I hope it doesn’t clog up the electronic Hoover.
Cactus Forest Hike.
I had a great hike yesterday. Starting at the “Broadway Trailhead”, appropriately named for the end of Broadway Boulevard just outside of Tucson, I made my way into the Cactus Forest in Saguaro National Park East. For some reason openstreetmap.org has the trail in two parts. I believe it’s a 10 mile round trip end to end.
The desert is amazingly green after the recent rains. The views and foliage was quite stunning.
Cactus Forest Hike.
I went for a hike along the Cactus Forest Trail in Saguaro National Park East today. I made another video.
Caturday.
Truman has been in a rather cute mood this week. His typical routine usually involves sauntering to my office in the morning, standing on his cat tree until we “play ball”, and then staring at me until he gets two treats twice from the ceramic dish in my office.
Playing ball involves me throwing a NERF gun yellow and black ball in his direction and him swatting it back at me. He’s pretty good at getting the ball back to me, but I see his grin when the human has to do the fetching of the ball. Interestingly, he’s the first predominately “right pawed” cat that’s been in my life; his predecessors all used their left paw when playing with balls and other toys back in the day.
So back to his routine. This week Truman has been wanting to spend much more time with me in my office during the workday. He often settled in for a bath and a nap at my feet.
Another change in routine occurred last night. Earl and I were watching “The Lincoln Lawyer” and Truman decided he needed a new place to enjoy the festivities.
This is only the second time in our history together that he’s situated himself on my chest. but he got settled in, all 17 pounds of him, and purred until he fell into a cat nap. When I moved slightly he immediately hopped off and resumed his snooze on the couch snuggled in between his two Dad.
Stepford.
I didn’t watch the State of the Union speech last night. For years these speeches have tended to not be about the state of the union but rather a drawn out, overhyped political speech full of all sorts of rhetoric and the like. Since there is little decorum in just about anything these days, the hooting and carrying on from those in attendance really rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps State of the Union is an apt description after all. We are just one page turn away from “Idiocracy”, anyway. Like humans will survive on a burning planet that long.
I’m digressing.
After the State of the Union address the other party (in this instance, the Republicans), select a representative to give their rebuttal to the points outlined during the hoopla of the SOTU speech. These responses are written well in advance of the actual speech and assumedly the person giving the response works with a coach to present themselves in an articulate, sane manner.
Apparently last night the selected winner was Senator Katie Britt from Alabama. Until last night, I’d never heard of her.
Today on social media, it’s all I’m hearing about.
I was only able to get through about two minutes of Senator Britt’s response before I shut the lid on my laptop and found something more productive to do. In those two minutes I observed the following:
- A string of 10 words would be accompanied by three to four emotions… choking back tears, whispering, a seed-of-chucky like hiss, and fake fire in the eys
- It appears Senator Britt is auditioning for a rendition of “The Sound of Music” taking place in the back of a barn. It’s easy to see she’s auditioning for the role of Reverend Mother. “What is it you can’t face?”
- So, even Republican Senators that happen to be a woman are suppose to be in the kitchen?
- Why isn’t she wearing the red and white cloak thing from “The Handmaid’s Tale?”
- Do women that vote for Republican really weep and moan in their kitchen over the existence of TikTok?
I don’t know what the Republicans are trying to accomplish with this train wreck but whatever it is, it can’t be good. I can’t believe anyone with the IQ higher than the tax on a Big Mac would think this was a genuine attempt at reaching out to voters. If suburban moms are falling for this shtick, we are so further screwed as a country.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This has to be the most bleak presidential election in recent history. It’s certainly the bleakest cluster I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I’ve seen the likes of Dukakis, Kerry, and Dole.
So as not to begin two paragraphs in a row with the same phrase, I’ll simply say, I’m grateful to be on the back half of my life.
