One year ago today: October 19, 2022, octave-long screw.
Five years ago today: October 19, 2018, the Sear’s catalog . . . .
Nine years ago today: October 19, 2014, top speed 5mph.
Random years ago today: October 19, 2009, 1.4 million foreclosed houses.
That was Ray-B on the phone. Hey, I waited until 8:30AM despite being up since 5:30. What a nice guy I am but I woke him up anyway. We share insomnia but he’s got it worse than me. I quit my career over it (because they put us back on rotating shift work after 11 years). Ray-B is my primary source for computer know-how. Parts of my routine, like the news feeds and checking certain sites stem from his mentoring ten and fifteen years ago. My own age group, where they even use computers, know only what to do for themselves, not how and why. That’s obvious when you ask them to teach you something. They can’t because they don’t understand what is going on. We’re meeting at the library so check back later.
How this works is the theory that somebody intelligent with tools will always outperform the ordinary people with the same tools. Here’s a scan of the book, showing duct tape repairs and signs of rough handling. While this book is more about hardware, I further see that as the route that A.I. must eventually take to sustain itself as a viable discipline. Right now, it is applied most to “easy stuff”, but that is also the realm where counter-measures arrive. But few people turn back once a new gadget makes their lives easier. As I’ve written, A.I. gives an advantage to those who know how it works, and that I intend to make something of. Then we’ll see if intelligence really is a factor.
This can be tricky to understand and I only mention it because I hand-wrote a letter to JZ about how risky it is to not protect investments. The American public only thinks they are safeguarded. Wrong, like any other asset, investing needs tough defenses. You would not invest heavily in a watermelon patch that had no fence. I keep accurate records and the investment in Caltier of $15,000 ties up $22,000 in resources. Research this yourself if you think you can do it cheaper. Almost half of it is what to do if I die suddenly. You see, nobody will sell me life insurance at an affordable price, so go figure. Plan, or the system will get you.
We know who the killer is, and I was wrong. “The American Agent” is more British than I figured and the murderer was not Tucker, the landlord, whose son I suspect was humping Cathy over in Spain. And if he wasn’t, he was the only one. It was Cathy’s best friend’s husband. It turns out Cathy had a baby in Spain but could not look after it, so her best friend, whose husband could not father a child, took the boy as their own. Years later, Cathy reappears and wants him back. During a shouting match the husband shuts her up with a letter opener knife. There’s more.
There is still another disk, so things are not over. One aspect in the book is a subject that irks me in real life. It is laws that make it illegal to know about a crime and not report it. My stance is that it should depend entirely on the circumstances. I say the wife had no obligation to report her husband, but that’s another issue. The remaining disk tells us there is more involvement and I want to see that Tucker clown get a comeuppance.
Corn oil factory.
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I spent noon in Winter Haven. One stop was the old Thrift near the post office. They’ve re-opened, but only Thursday to Saturday and like most now, the bargains are gone. Prices have tripled or I would have bought this box. Called a doll trunk, it is from my viewpoint, extremely well made. Yet is has no rabbets and is all very pro-finished butt joints. Examine it yourself:
One great brainstorming session later, Ray-B and I have decided on nothing. He’s caught in the job-hunting merry-go-round. The jobs in the city pay $500 more but your rent is $600 higher. You wind up going there because your chances of promotion or finding something better are infinitely better. We talked a lot of old material and prospects and one thing is certain, he is never going back to his old job. Can’t blame him, not when I found out how badly it paid. The big topic today was ChatGPT. He has an account and I don’t think I will. You see, you can’t open an account without a phone number and that is something I will not hand over to Google. To activate a new account, you must enter a code sent by phone.
Ray-B is the closest I have to a demographic mentor and he’s in his forties. We used his account to try out ChatGPT and it is great for producing bubble-gum content. It was nice and could generate song lyrics, poems, and scripts quite well, but that’s hardly something I need it for. The product was smooth and on topic. Yet, within five minutes I had test the product beyond it’s capabilities. I asked for a story about storks and then asked it to replace stork with Trump. No way. Ray-B pointed out many “rules” needed to run the system that I did not know for all the right reasons. I’ve not been conditioned to think like social media wants, I guess. It was a highly productive 90 minutes and left me convinced to proceed with Synthesia. However there are some factors that also emerged to temper that idea.
Most important is that A.I. content is palpably capable of satisfying the millennial/XYZ demand for endless mental bubblegum. The lyrics are the simplisitic New Age New Country blab they’ve come to expect and love. That is, well-written material or good content does not necessarily have any advantages. Nor has he ever heard of microtransactions. His experiences can be expected to be normal for what’s out there and he is solidly rooted on what I call “metric thinking”. That is, innovation is good and desirable et cetera—except when it comes to making money. At that point you must obey the rules of the pack.
Let’s lighten things up a bit. The old club has decided to give jam sessions a whirl. Wednesdays 7:00PM for a couple hours. I like the plan because mid-week there is no place to find live music in this turf. First was y’day and Wilford tells me about it today. A few minutes later the club owner tells me. I’m quizzical, I know this town and that guy does not even have a PA system. But, I must check it as that club is the door-opener to a very tough local market. The owner has plenty of say-so and I mean plenty. The club itself is not a spot for us as they keep really late hours. I’m pretty sure even the Karaoke runs to midnight.
That’s your blog for today, gang. Now get back to work or else when you retire, your Thursdays might be confined to the TV room. Let’s recap this nothing day in Florida. We covered ChatGPT, Caltier crowdfunding, small engine repair, wooden box architecture, painting a wheelbarrow, a jam session, Synthesia avatars, audio books, and CAD drawings of a toothpick “square”. Not a bad spread for a nothing day around here.
ADDENDUM
The freak, Maddow, is re-posting her position that if Trump gets elected, he will change the law to make him President for life. Strange, if that could be done, the Democrats would have tried it with Obama. Anyway, I found her stance ridiculous. She says Trump’s options are get elected or go to prison. If that is true, we know who created that situation. Trump leads the party nomination polls by nearly 50% and the overall election polls has him standing as an automatic win. Israel is reeling from a failed attempt to manipulate the media as they carry out attacks in Gaza. And Gaza proves the other Arab states don’t want the Palestinians, either. Now, whose fault is that?
