Recalling Stupid Things I Once Said

 Once while under the influence of cheap beer in a crowded bar one Friday night I bumped into a very tall lady. I said something stupid, like, "wow, you're as tall as I am." She looked down at me disdainfully and said, "I'm TALLER than you," to which I replied, "yeah, but I know Karate," which was a mistake because she really was taller than me and I really didn't know Karate.

But What About Autonomous Vehicles?

Over here at the blog,  Jewish Young Professional, JYP brings up one of my favorite rant like topics: What do I think of autonomous vehicles? 

[rubbing hands together gleefully]

Where to start. The story goes a building developer once asked Gene Rodenberry what kind of tech did he use to make the bulkhead doors on the Enterprise slide open the way they did. The answer: two guys behind the scenes pulling them open on cue. 

 I'm trying to say there is a mythology of technology that gives technology more credit than it deserves. This is where we're at with autonomous vehicles. Obviously there is money to be made, so the forces that be are leaning hard in that direction, but it's all BS. 

 Please don't say, well, it's going to get better and better over time. The same can be said of a ten-year-old driving a raised 4-wheel drive pickup. The reality is, we're just not ready, the tech is just not ready, etc. I can imagine a scenario where autonomous vehicles would be a real help. One is on freeways/Interstates. With the right software, traffic flow could be optimized and it would all be faster (probably) and much, much safer--provided only if every car on the road was autonomous and under the control of an overseeing AI entity, (yikes,) let's say. 

As an aside, let me say here that under any scenario, if only some cars are autonomous, and not all, regular human drivers are going to mess with them. Big time. They'll resent them, fear them, and ultimately get the best of them. We are clever monkeys, make no mistake. Anyway, implementing this angle seems to be far in the future. Mixing in AVs with humans just doesn't seem like a good idea. 

 Some perspective is needed. This is all about scaling down employee numbers for a number of services involving transportation. Safer? Maybe, if the tech actually catches up. This economic driver is behind AI in general, despite all the gee-whizz stuff that catches our attention. 

 One last thing. I'm not buying the notion that AVs are OK and safe enough, since it is required a human drivers sit behind the wheel, at the ready, in case he or she needs to step in and take over. This is such BS. I don't need to see reaction time test results to already know this is not a good strategy. Not to mention, if one was to actually monitor the computer's driving and actually be ready to take over, every moment, that would undoubtedly be much more fatiguing than just driving the damn thing yourself.

Pre-caffeine Thoughts

I know some people who are "religious," who go to church, and who actually do believe in the existence of God and of the Devil, but I think they are outliers. In my own life, the vast majority of people do not believe in God as defined by the Bible, whether they go to church or not. It's hard to be educated and (supposedly) well-informed and still believe in a magic friend, as Bill Maher would describe God. So, I think it all makes some sense, at least among those of us in the 1st world, and with Internet and media access. At the same time, we are still humans with brains that have evolved to kind of like the existence of the spiritual, so our religions keep on, but only to become more evolved and "technical." Look at Panpsychism. The whole universe might be conscious --- sounds like God.

Greetings

Going out for breakfast in a few minutes, and I have yet to shave. Stay tuned for stunning photography and pithy, insightful observations on the modern world and the human conditon in general. Then, when that doesn't work, read my blog some time. Later...

More Exquisite Details About Bird Mites as They Relate to My Well Being

 Just for form, I'll round off the bird mite story, even though the saga does continue. We asked the management team to spray for bird mites outside, where the pigeon nest must be. And while they're at it, we suggested, they might locate a nest (as there must be one,) remove it, and take measures to deter further nesting. Some buildings have netting, some have those bird spikes. Careful and comprehensive Internet research told us that the mites wander around looking for fresh blood as soon as the baby pigeons leave the nest. So management did go out there and look around, and did some spraying which, by the way, is a very inadequate solution, and to what degree it's not, pretty temporary. At this point they apparently thought, and acted like, they were done with this whole issue thank goodness. 

Partner continued to research pigeon nesting behavior and bird mite behavior. She found something interesting. Bird mites, when they do wander off, only go a very short distance--just a "few yards," due to the fact that they are so tiny, and move so slowly. I don't know what size monitor you have, but I'll bet a dozen or so of these little guys could stand on the period at the end of this sentence. Or the head of a pin, if not for those pesky dancing angels. 

Armed with this new piece of certainty, that is, the short travel distance of which mites are capable, I measured up the room and the location of the electric outlet through which the mites always arrived. Then we walked around the building and into the alley and did a little measuring and brick counting and looked at the outer wall of the building five flights up, to the part of the wall just opposite the electrical outlet in said room. There was a vent way up there, with no grill. I ran and got my camera, put the zoom lens on it and returned to the scene and got this picture: 

That is a mama pigeon head.

Voy La, as they say. I went to the management again and explained how that is the vent and this is the location of the nest and that is why bird mites are getting into my bedroom and biting me, and please do something about this. 

I said I measured and counted bricks carefully. This vent, along with the nest and pigeons and mites in it, is maybe seven feet from my side of the bed just on the other side of this wall. I mean, it's a stroll in the park even for a little bird mite. 

End of story so far. Five days have gone by. Today I asked about the progress on the bird mite mitigation project, but, no, haven't called the critter control company yet and I'll get back to you as soon as I do. Yup. Thinkyew. Later.

Next Post:  It's almost SepSceneWriMo time, which, like NaNoWriMo, is meant to create a reason to write something only this is looser and seems almost possible and, actually, more interesting. I hope to participate in this. Which springs eternal.  Hope, that is. 

Fistpump McRunpants

 

Here, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley
seen fleeing the scene--a "traditional 
masculine virtue." 

Old Age

 I've been thinking a lot about old age, lately, and have decided it is having a deleterious effect on me, because the longer I think about it, the older I get. I don't know about neural plasticity and all that, but I perceive a trend here. Just kidding. I'll throw in here that if you're not old yourself, you will be, someday, if you're lucky.  And I say that advisedly if not slightly sarcastically. 

To get to the whole point of this post, however, we must veer away from this irrelevant introductory paragraph. I'm talking about editing text. In addition to authors and journalists, bloggers and anyone who emails all do at least some editing on what they write. I do. And it bothers me when I find really stupid mistakes, and it bothers me as I wonder if there are some that I don't find. I'm getting old, I lament. Damn it. I don't think I used to make this many errors, let slip this many grammatical errors and wrong words. Wrong words especially with the advent of auto-correct. 

Then I realized that I actually see a ton of all of these when I read news articles on the Internet. I must assume that all the professional editors behind these articles are not nearly as old as I am, since I am well past the typical retirement age. This makes me feel better. It's NOT just me. Then, as I breathe a sigh of relief, it dawns on me that we are all getting stupider because of the Internet, regardless of our ages, and I begin to worry again. 

It's always something. It never ends; and if I can say that, I must not be that old after all.