One year ago today: February 19, 2014, another band no-go.
Five years ago today: February 19, 2010, I describe a heart operation. Non-gory.
MORNING
This is a light louvre. It fits over traffic lights to prevent snow from blocking the signal. This was not a problem until cities started converting to LEDs from incandescent bulbs. The old bulbs emitted enough heat to melt any snow that might obscure the beam. But LEDs don’t and there have already been accidents. Some people don’t know how to drive unless they have help, it seems. Anyway, this item costs $20 and the inventor stands to make millions.
A mystery is about to be solved. Who remembers the tale from the trailer court about the Egyptian math professor found destitute in the Atlantic City casino shelter back in, what was it, 1981? 1982? Going on that alone, I think I found the guy. If I am correct, it is my old math professor and I have not talked to him since 1978 or so. I still have his Physics text, and there written inside was his student number. I believe I found him, that’s top story of the year right there. He’d be in his 80s by now.
He used to say how he felt he had developed a system to beat the house at Blackjack. How he was going to one day try it. Now this guy was no slouch. He’d been studying math at least 15 years when I met him. I think he finally put it to the test, as so many others have. We only hear about the success stories of the people who have been caught.
Is it the same guy? No answer by noon today. But the voice on his answering machine has the same distinct accent, and that accent is exceedingly rare today. I had to spend the rest of the morning on chores. Which was okay, since the roads and parking lots are empty.
Wanting some accompaniment tracks for my music practice, I came across these FPA files. I tried everything to get them to play and concluded they are not worth the effort. Either that, or something is compatible with my Win 8.1 system. Cripey, who needs yet another moronic MicroSoft format? Them azz-clown just don’t know when to quit.
And has anyone else noticed the number of UK (British) sites that seem to be blocked these days? I was looking for info on micro-welders, for crying out loud. You want to know what is really strange? People trying to sell things on-line that are also available for free. Like sheet music and instruction manuals. But what really bites are those push-in electrical wire connectors designed to only work once.
NOON
“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn fool about it." --W.C. Fields
My, what’s this? Looks like our robot bozo is back in town, the guy who disappeared last year with the 3D printer. Jeff. And he’s up to his old tricks. Advertising a Florida Robotics and Artificial Intelligence club on the Nova Southeastern campus. Again leading to the mistaken impression that he has anything to do with Nova and/or that they endorse his activities. False, the guy is an out-and-out fake. I’ve built more robots on my kitchen table, literally.
I see he has stolen my idea of including some type of lecture or talk at each meeting, so that people at least come away with some new knowledge. I’m curious to know how he thinks he is going to pull that off. He doesn’t have anything like the required brain thrust. And this is the guy who “did not like me”. Well, the rest of the group likes me so I'd suggest he now start taking his own advice. That's one guy who doesn't like me, not the whole group. He's claimed to speak with the group before.
Is that so, Jeff? Then explain why 3/5ths of the pictures in your “new” advertising show me somewhere in the picture? Could it be because they are the only damn pictures you and Nova have got that show anybody actually handling robot parts? And the “human size” robot you are building is also a fake. It’s a robot hand design you downloaded and know nothing about. And even that much was my idea, a motion I got voted in one of the many days you failed to show up.
That further means nobody is surprised to read the first responses on your “new” club are complaints from people who drove across town to find your event cancelled or moved at the last minute. But I’m not going to tell you for the third time to take your social media device and stick it up your fat ass. You may be in denial, but most people don’t spend their waking hours glued to gorilla glass in case you abort by text message at the last possible moment yet again.
Oh, and we are on to your feeble excuses that you had “food poisoning” once a month at ten to eight on Tuesday evening.. Go ahead and pretend you are some kind of robot guy, some kind of expert. Yeah, expert time-waster and liar. Let’s see how long this lasts before I post something and shut you down.
Hey, I like that. Jeff, the robo-bozo.
AFTERNOON
News. But not necessarily good news. I was able to contact my old math professor. It was not him in the casino, although he had a laugh at the similarities of the two situations. Alas, he was visited by a series of other disasters and hard times that have left him less than prosperous for the past twenty years, and, as he puts it, merely existing for the last ten. He recalls our university days of chasing women and partying around town but says there is no chance he can even leave the house for one evening any more.
His health is much worse than mine, there is no possibility of his even visiting. It’s been around 35 years since I last saw him. He had been hit by a taxicab and on medical leave. Now I learn that he never did completely recover. To make matters worse, all of our mutual friends have moved on or not kept in touch. He finally moved to Canada to take advantage of the medical system. But remember, while Canada pays, they also monitor, patrol, and watch for any chance to disqualify you.
Him and I were partying the day I met my first serious girlfriend when I was in my late teens. On semester break, there was one and only one lounge in a town of college bars back then. Since we could communicate in an incomprehensible foreign language, it was neat to discuss women we met right in front of them. This left them defenseless. While it didn’t work out, that was Sweet Judy, who I still think about every other week anyway. My professor friend, Sami, does not even remember her.
For now, I’ll put him on my postcard list. I know very well how appreciated real mail is to the recipient, and also how rare. For a mathematician, I was startled to find out he has no computer and has totally avoided the Internet. Well, except that that’s how I cross-referenced his contact information. You can’t dodge the system, but you can spoof it completely. I guess I’ll add him to the situation and see how that turns out.
He dated one of my ex-girlfriends for a few years, it turns out. Not Judy, somebody else. He assures me he is back on track but suffered depression for nearly all the 1990s up to around ten years ago. I would not have ever thought someone of his character could ever be blue. No so, he says, when his spine would not heal, he reports being glum and miserable for years at a stretch. I’ll get a letter away tomorrow to cheer the guy up.
As far as I know, there are no surviving pictures of us during the era. We had a rich buddy who used to drive us up to ski lodges and chase women every weekend or so. Makes me wonder how I ever had time to study, but that’s where being smart helps. It cuts down on the long hours some people seem to need over ordinary university-style courses. Because all you have to do is tell them what they want to hear. It’s a little tougher in the scientific faculties, but it can be done.
One thing has improved. He can now speak remarkable English with barely a trace of accent. He reports my accent is identical to the day we met, staring at women in the coed elevator lounge. Those were the days. At least for me. I gotta get back on campus for any reason. Like I’ve been saying for ten years. Any campus. That’s where the sharp women are, you know. When people say you’ve been looking in the wrong places, I NEVER tell them I know the right place. Besides, it is more fun to insult them for saying something so stupid.
In conclusion, there is an odd parallel. When he described how he had to live while he was down and out, it was not that different than how I had to live when I was in my teens. The scrounging, the poor accommodations, the rotten people who bother you when you’re poor, the bad treatment you get from society. The cheap food you have to eat, the inability to take girls out on decent dates right in your so-called prime, add a far longer list of ills. I was never depressed, but you know, isn’t it peculiar how those who were describe exactly what I once went through just because I had bad family.
Peculiar, indeed.
EVENING
That’s a fine how-dee-hoo. I bought some fancy drill bits in the odd sizes missing from my supply. Not cheap, around $4 apiece. I know how to read a label. It says these bits are 10x faster. Ten times faster than what? My ex-wife? Anyway, I get home and the fine print in the package says do not use in a drill press. What kind of baloney is that?
Typical slimeball Gen-Xers, banking that your victims won’t drive all the way back to Home Depot to return a drill bit. What kind of business philosophy is that, you crumbs? You people deserve all the shit that falls on your heads because you think it is clever to be dishonest. Oh yeah, my generation had their crooks, but they weren’t proud of it the way you are.
I told everyone I was going out, then changed my mind and stayed home to work on my sanding machine. I’m learning the technology backwards, that is, from the standpoint of someone who already knows more about the end results than about the tools. So maybe I’m not joking when I say I give myself two months to get five year’s experience. I don’t have to build up a working competency like those who begin early in life and try to gain the strategic parts later.
[Author's note: did I just say “intercompatible”? What I mean is that while American industry was churning along, the greatest economy in history (past tense), this policy of making pieces that didn’t match anything else made for great employment statistics, but bad long-range planning. Now we are stuck with industrial plant where everything is a too-expensive custom order, progress stalls, and there isn’t enough quantitative easing money left in the universe to change it. Even if the money did go to the right people.]
There seems to be no convenient, economical source of couplers to connect, say a 5/16” shaft to a 7/16”. Yet, these are common bolt, dowel, and rod sizes. I will try to manufacture my own but it is shameful how such useful devices are expensive and hard to find for small hobby motors. It looks like the next challenge, but right now it is like working on a team. The challenge is not the work, but putting up with the other people.
It’s already past midnight and I’m wide awake. I think I’ll do some navigational exercises. That will put me to sleep. Let’s see, it is 0523:43 GMT and I need to know where the sun is. Then proceed to calculate an arbitrary location and proceed to a line of position on a plotting sheet. See, I’m tired already. By this exercise, I am near Molson Lake in Manitoba, Canada. Since it is night, I’d best learn to read some stars visible that far north.
ADDENDUM
Here’s Amazing Grace like you’ve never heard it before. I was seeking information on the current state of AI (Artificial Intelligence). All I found was millennium idiots interviewing crazy old men. Want to know where I see AI heading? Toward eliminating the remaining jobs that require no education, that’s where. It would not bother me one iota if waiters and middle aged barmaids were replaced.
Some may argue we will always need unskilled jobs for those just entering the workforce, but that’s nonsense. I think the last generation that could skid by without a high school diploma was the graduating class of 1991. After that, only the truly stupid plan on life as an unskilled laborer. Some think AI must become god-like in its capabilities to start taking human jobs. That’s not realistic in my view. Have you ever worked with the uneducated? I think they were damned lucky to have gotten away with it as long as they did.
Since 1991, jobs have become about as watered-down as they can get. These people can’t read, can’t write, and I know those two skills were the only useful thing I ever learned in grade school. It was in university where I learned you cannot gain knowledge if you are constantly worried where you next meal is coming from. In college I learned you need lots of free money to take the courses that you really need—and the colleges today know this.
What this all means for those who cannot even read or write is that the concept of life-long learning is meaningless. A pipe-dream. There is no reason a robot could not do the job of most people who are illiterate. The caliber of skills needed these days has sunk so low, I see no reason that general purpose robots should not appear on the scene quite soon.
Here is your crash course on how AI works. The robot is not programmed to perform specific tasks, rather given a general set of guidelines. I worked with “expert systems” in college in the 80s and developed a program that could classify gemstones. I wasn’t very good at it, but my resulting code was easily as good as 80% of gemologists—and infinitely faster. But not at first. And that’s where most faultfinders will focus.
This is a photo of the AI type computer I worked with [say back when], a modified 3640. The keyboard was a totally new innovation back then, we formerly used teletypes. That program manual at the bottom was kept from the students. The language used was the horrid LISP (“list processing”, which I never liked because the construction of the code itself was needlessly complicated. It could be replaced by a series of ordinary if-then commands. But of course, Patsie, the programmer, could be telling you all this).
What happens is the robot learns by filing away the events that produced positive results in the past. Within minutes, it learns to ignore probably 95% of what doesn’t work. Then things really pick up. But I feel the potential [of expert systems] was never realized because the plan back then was to capture the knowledge of experts. These days, you only need to find out what the idiots are doing.
Program that, and within minutes, you will have a computer that can “learn” to outdo all manner of humans. The way I see it, computers need no longer need to surpass humans, they only need to wait for humanity to continue dumbing down at the pace they already are. Computers need only look back into their memory banks to see what worked before. And they never forget.
Trivia: so you’ll know, “fuzzy logic” is accomplished by assigning a probability to each item in those memory banks so the computer can recognize and try alternatives. It does this by applying an algorithm to the product of the probability and calling that the best guess. There is nothing fuzzy about the logic at all. You do it in your head all the time, weighing outcomes. It [the computer] knows exactly what it is doing. Does your waiter?
Last Laugh
Wayne Gretsky weather, 2015
