TOAST IN THE MACHINE
Some people seem to find the idea of machine intelligence frightening. And with good reason. Because from where I’m sitting at the breakfast table, the machines around me are mostly dumber than a rock (although that’s a bit unfair to rocks, who are actually very smart).
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My music player has forgotten my wifi name and password and refuses to reconnect.
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My wife’s work laptop is making all kinds of noises trying to attract her attention, oblivious to the fact that she’s not here, and hasn’t been for a good ten minutes.
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There’s our microwave. So many buttons, settings and options. We use it several times a day and only ever tell it to heat food or drink for x number of seconds or minutes. But it’s brainless, and if you don’t keep an eye on it like a small child it will spill your drink or chuck food everywhere.
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My kettle sits quietly now, but I know that when I go to boil water for my tea later it will keep on boiling the water until I manually switch it off, despite all its various settings for different bail temperatures and offers to the keep the water warm.
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And then there’s the expensive toaster. Another one like the kettle that promises to toast (or defrost) every possible variety of bread-based product on its own individual setting, and with six settings for how brown you want it. Wonderful! The grim reality is that there are just two settings. “Untoasted “and “Set the smoke alarm off”.
I’m showing my space- obsessed four year old pictures of Pluto taken by a telescope on a spaceship launched from Earth twenty years ago and I still can’t get a toaster that can do somewhere in between soft, cold bread and cremation.
We shouldn’t laugh. We think Al is dumb, but we elect dumber, and Al will only get less dumb (and more dangerous).
How long before The Mossad detonates my toaster?
In fact, eighteen years ago (I mean, really?) I bought the cheapest toaster I could find in Argos for £10. I plugged it in, put in my rounds of bread and pressed play. Two minutes later, the plastic surround had literally melted.
I would go back to holding a toasting fork over an open fire, but/as my kids point out every Xmas) we don’t have a chimney.
ON JOURNALING
I wrote this a week ago.
My last journal was over a week ago, last Saturday.
I’ve had a week off work with a really bad cough, wheezing, shortness of breath. Generally feeling better these last couple of days, but also still coughing. Last two days I had coughing fits in the afternoons leaving me dizzy, and exhausted. I haven’t slept well some nights either, due to coughing, wheezing and breathlessness.
But sitting here right now, I feel as good as I have done in two weeks or more.
Time off from work has allowed me to go through 90 days of journal entries to categorise and summarise them, and then outline or tease out the key themes or ideas in each area of interest. Why? Well, 1) what are all these journal entries for? I mean, I get the process, but am I missing out on something greater? 2) Lots of people publish weekly summaries and some people like reading them. But why?
I think I get it now. Doing this work has made sense of a lot of daily, weekly and monthly events, habits, routines, scenarios, relationships, that otherwise would have remained loosely connected, strung together like the Christmas lights every year when you take them out of the box you left them in in January. In a mess, tangled up, half working. Better than nothing, but a lot of stress.
And another surprising fact. While I started - and soon stopped - journaling in March, then restarted in August, I had wondered if spending the time to write in a private journal would take away from writing for my blog? Actually (and unsurprisingly, really) the opposite has occurred. I have written more than ever, privately and publicly.
I’ve also generally felt better in myself, although I’ve still had my usual ups and downs, and I’m still quite easily uplifted and dragged down.
It’s also made me realise I do a lot more things than I imagined, and do them OK.
It’s helped me to better understand some of my relationships, particularly with family.
I’m reading more, and listening to music more.
It would be useful (although perhaps less fun)to do the same exercise with my work journal. (41 pages, 46 days).
244 pages over 90 days for my personal journal.
Unfortunately, I haven’t journaled since.
Every time someone mentions Croissant (for cross-posting) I hear big kid’s Mum telling him, “You can’t have croissants for breakfast every morning!”
DIGITAL LEADER
Hoping we found a good solution to help big kid’s Digital Leader application.
He found it difficult to focus and get his head around answering the questions in a sensible (let alone helpful) way.
Instead, I recorded him speaking about the devices and tech he uses, how he helps his little brother and his parents to play games, and how using new apps like Duolingo has helped him to learn Spanish (when previously he hated Spanish lessons).
Google automatically transcribed his speech and copied it to Google Docs. There I edited out the ums and ahs and pasted it into his Discord chat with me. Then he copied it out by hand on to the application form.
🤞
Search the people you follow on Twitter for possible Mastodon/Fediverse accounts.
I forgot the link! https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/
Thanks @pruvisto for such a nice tool.
Why are toasters and smoke alarms still so stupid?