Let's face it, the lid is off of Pandora's box, and there is no way to stuff all that shit back inside. You can't un-invent technology, but you can do things to minimize its impact on you, if you so desire. There is no law that says you have to use a cell phone, a credit card, or an ATM machine, at least not yet. There is also no law that requires you to videotape yourself doing something wrong and then post it on Face Book, but people do it. Whatever are they thinking? The best thing is if you don't do anything wrong in the first place but, if you do, you certainly don't need to advertise it.
It's not all bad either. Our local supermarket tracks your purchases, and then sends you coupons for products they think you might be interested in. You don't have to use all the coupons either, you can just use the ones for stuff that you were going to buy anyway and give away or discard the rest. If you call 911 nowadays, you don't even have to tell them where you are, they can track the phone you're using to within 20 feet of its location. This might come in handy if you can't complete the call for some reason. Actually, you don't even have to tell them anything, just dial 911 and set the phone down, and they will send somebody out to investigate in a matter of minutes. You don't even need a cell phone, they can track a land line just as easily.
That accent I used in the title of my last post was supposed to be Spanish. Remember Senor Wences? He was a ventriloquist back in the 50s or 60s, You Tube has some videos of his classic acts. In the one I was quoting, he is trying to teach his puppet to sing a Spanish song, and he keeps warning him that it's quite difficult. The puppet keeps insisting that it's really easy. After they go back and forth for awhile, the puppet says "Difficult for you, easy for me." Turns out that the reason the puppet considers the song easy to sing is that he thinks he can substitute "la-la-la" for all the Spanish words. The moral of the story is that anything can be made easy if you oversimplify it.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Crazy times
Mr. Beagles has a good handle on the Chinese system of social reputation (social credit is too misleading). It can be implemented quickly in China because the government has a piece of every business and it's a trivial matter to integrate the databases to apply pressure on the citizenry to keep them well behaved. I think the system allows the citizenry to rat each other out. See someone littering? A quick pic from a smartphone can be uploaded to the authorities and using facial recognition the culprit can be nailed. AI is just a part of the system, Uncle Ken, so I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it; humans are still needed for critical decision making, as far as I understand it.
A social reputation program is not in place in the US, yet, but it's coming with the enhanced integration of databases. I don't know if the data is being bought, sold, or simply shared but there will be interesting implications. Suppose the banks start sharing data with other companies. Your insurance company might discover that you make a lot of ATM withdrawals at the machine outside a tavern and decide you have a drinking problem and raises your rates. Or your employer learns that you might be spending a lot of time in an off-track betting parlor because of ATM usage; a perceived gambling problem could tag you as a security risk and you are denied a promotion. Smart phones can track your location and movements, credit card usage can track spending patterns, Google tracks your search requests, and security cameras can recognize your face if you have a driver's license. All this might just be the tip of the iceberg of our brave new world.
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I don't know, those bikers sure turned on Harley Davidson when Trump told them too,.
A tempest in a teapot. Harley is selling bikes on the global market and they're too
expensive (tariffs!) unless they are made locally. The bikes for the American market will still be made here, and even then they're too expensive except for the aging Baby Boomers who are buying them. The younger riders can't afford them which is why Harley has some smaller (and cheaper) bikes on the drawing board. The market can be cruel.
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That Woodward book has brought things to a boil, even if only temporarily. And today the New York Times published a piece by an anonymous "senior White House staffer" outlining the goings on in Crazytown. It's like there has been a coup and the staffers have overstepped their bounds and are making decisions that are not theirs to make. The anonymous author, along with his cronies, is being called out on this one to reveal himself. Time to put up or shut up?
A social reputation program is not in place in the US, yet, but it's coming with the enhanced integration of databases. I don't know if the data is being bought, sold, or simply shared but there will be interesting implications. Suppose the banks start sharing data with other companies. Your insurance company might discover that you make a lot of ATM withdrawals at the machine outside a tavern and decide you have a drinking problem and raises your rates. Or your employer learns that you might be spending a lot of time in an off-track betting parlor because of ATM usage; a perceived gambling problem could tag you as a security risk and you are denied a promotion. Smart phones can track your location and movements, credit card usage can track spending patterns, Google tracks your search requests, and security cameras can recognize your face if you have a driver's license. All this might just be the tip of the iceberg of our brave new world.
-----
I don't know, those bikers sure turned on Harley Davidson when Trump told them too,.
A tempest in a teapot. Harley is selling bikes on the global market and they're too
expensive (tariffs!) unless they are made locally. The bikes for the American market will still be made here, and even then they're too expensive except for the aging Baby Boomers who are buying them. The younger riders can't afford them which is why Harley has some smaller (and cheaper) bikes on the drawing board. The market can be cruel.
-----
That Woodward book has brought things to a boil, even if only temporarily. And today the New York Times published a piece by an anonymous "senior White House staffer" outlining the goings on in Crazytown. It's like there has been a coup and the staffers have overstepped their bounds and are making decisions that are not theirs to make. The anonymous author, along with his cronies, is being called out on this one to reveal himself. Time to put up or shut up?
No hope
Is that supposed to be a Mandarin accent? Sounds French to me. Well this sounds like the picture we have had of China for some time. I guess technology makes that stuff easier, but I don't see where AI is involved.
Watched a little of those Kavenaugh hearings. I hate those hearings, most of the time is spent making speeches (with an eye for reelection), and not asking questions, and the pattern is rep-dem-rep-dem and so on and so on, two completely different worlds, and an occasional, almost reflective insult. And the result is foregone, the reps have the votes and the conclusion is foregone. The dems had a good plan about postponing this nomination until after the 18 election, much as the reps did for Obama's choice in 16. But they don't have the votes so it doesn't matter.
And then the book hit the fan. Actually nothing new there, well specific details of stuff you figured out was going on at the time. Trump's razor. It's weird how a prez's unique style of being a lying sack of shit is shrugged off as just a bagatelle, honor and justice as silly ideas, not worth taking into consideration against the glory of having another really right wing guy on the court.
But the blue wave is shaping up for November, looks stronger than ever now, but that's just the house, the senate still seems out of reach.
Speaking of accents like I was earlier, do you think some of those southern guys will take offense at Trump's making fun of Session's (he does sound like he is talking with marbles in his pocket) accent. I don't know, those bikers sure turned on Harley Davidson when Trump told them too,.
Watched a little of those Kavenaugh hearings. I hate those hearings, most of the time is spent making speeches (with an eye for reelection), and not asking questions, and the pattern is rep-dem-rep-dem and so on and so on, two completely different worlds, and an occasional, almost reflective insult. And the result is foregone, the reps have the votes and the conclusion is foregone. The dems had a good plan about postponing this nomination until after the 18 election, much as the reps did for Obama's choice in 16. But they don't have the votes so it doesn't matter.
And then the book hit the fan. Actually nothing new there, well specific details of stuff you figured out was going on at the time. Trump's razor. It's weird how a prez's unique style of being a lying sack of shit is shrugged off as just a bagatelle, honor and justice as silly ideas, not worth taking into consideration against the glory of having another really right wing guy on the court.
But the blue wave is shaping up for November, looks stronger than ever now, but that's just the house, the senate still seems out of reach.
Speaking of accents like I was earlier, do you think some of those southern guys will take offense at Trump's making fun of Session's (he does sound like he is talking with marbles in his pocket) accent. I don't know, those bikers sure turned on Harley Davidson when Trump told them too,.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Deefficult For You, Ecee For Me
I think that I understand that Red Chinese stuff, unless I'm missing something. What they are doing is keeping book on everybody through the use of modern technology. It's the same technology that the US and other countries have, the difference being that the Red Chinese are gathering all the data on each individual into their personal file, kind of like the mythological permanent records that they used to keep on all of us back in the day, only these records are for real. Then they run all this data through an algorithm or something and come up with a quantitative number for each person, kind of like the credit scores they have here for people who buy stuff on credit. This number, however, is not just used to determine your financial credit worthiness, it's used to define how good a commie citizen you are. They call it a "social credit score", not to be confused with the Social Credit movement that they had in Canada during the 1930s, which was a totally different thing. People with high social credit scores are given preferential treatment for things like housing, employment, and whatever else the Red Chinese government controls, which is like everything. People with low credit scores get sent to the Red Chinese equivalent of Siberia, perhaps Mongolia. Any questions?
after Labor Day
In my years of subbing grade school I don't remember any cigar boxes. You know now they have those Hello Kitty and Spiderman backpacks. At the end of the day they smash all their crap into them and at the beginning of the day they dump it out, it's just a big lump of, uh, stuff that I never probed into. Well there were probably some good kids that kept their stuff in fine order, but as a sub you never notice the good kids because you are never yelling at them.
I didn't notice any particular smell in the schools. My impression was that they were all kept up well, and some of them, the ones built in the 1920's and 1890's, were architecturally impressive, but in the summer they had no air conditioning.
I expect my kids had some kind of pencil sharpeners in their backpacks or their desks. But quietly sharpening your pencil in your seat was no fun. Getting up in front of the class where the pencil sharpener was, was a lot of fun. You could make faces at your classmates and make noise, and just generally insert a modicum of entertainment into the dull drone of daily school routine.
You would think mechanical pencils (we always called them eversharps) would be an improvement, but they are not, There are so many working parts, they need to be pulled apart, examined and recalibrated. Those delicate leads that break if you look at them funny, and that funny spring, and the barrel, and the mysterious thing that made the lead come out, all of that more interesting than the dull drone, spoken of previously.
This Chinese AI stuff is too nebulous for me. I've always believed if you can't write about something then you don't really understand it. It gets tough though. When I'm writing my posts I always come across things I don't really know enough about, so then I look it up, and of course it is always more complicated than I thought it was, and it leads to other stuff and I get to the point where I'm really not sure what I am writing about so I try to wrap it all up and get away from it with some snappy line. Like this.
Smell is our link to evolutionary wayback. It is probably our first sense senses, and its right in the forefront of the brain where the sensory data come in. It was Proust's bite into a cookie that led to all of Remembrances of Things Past, though that is probably a literary device, like I used before.
That O'Hare march was a bust. Not many people showed up, and the cops arrested a few, but it was a gentlemanly affair and both the demonstrators and the cops praised the other side for their good behavior. Well it was the third of three marches. The first one was a big success, the second one did alright although some of the leaders dropped out and likewise the marchers, even more so for this one where there were so few marchers that they were easily quashed.
Demonstrations. I guess they are good for rallying your base, giving those who want to do something, something to do, but I don't see them accomplishing anything in themselves. The assumption of the marches was that somehow the people of the city had a way to stop these shootings but weren't implementing it so they had to prodded by people blocking their access to the airport. Too nebulous/
Much has been made of how the Arab Springers were able to communicate with each other through social media and that got the pot boiling, but whatever became of their cause? A closer example might be the Russkies putting up all those fake facebook pages. Although there were plenty put up by our own Foxies and Alan Joneses. But if you watch those crowds at Trump rallies you have to wonder what are they reading or listening to.
Labor Day is in the rearview mirror now, ahead of us that candy swirl of colored leaves, and behind that, Old Man Winter with his curious leer and phlegmy cough.
I didn't notice any particular smell in the schools. My impression was that they were all kept up well, and some of them, the ones built in the 1920's and 1890's, were architecturally impressive, but in the summer they had no air conditioning.
I expect my kids had some kind of pencil sharpeners in their backpacks or their desks. But quietly sharpening your pencil in your seat was no fun. Getting up in front of the class where the pencil sharpener was, was a lot of fun. You could make faces at your classmates and make noise, and just generally insert a modicum of entertainment into the dull drone of daily school routine.
You would think mechanical pencils (we always called them eversharps) would be an improvement, but they are not, There are so many working parts, they need to be pulled apart, examined and recalibrated. Those delicate leads that break if you look at them funny, and that funny spring, and the barrel, and the mysterious thing that made the lead come out, all of that more interesting than the dull drone, spoken of previously.
This Chinese AI stuff is too nebulous for me. I've always believed if you can't write about something then you don't really understand it. It gets tough though. When I'm writing my posts I always come across things I don't really know enough about, so then I look it up, and of course it is always more complicated than I thought it was, and it leads to other stuff and I get to the point where I'm really not sure what I am writing about so I try to wrap it all up and get away from it with some snappy line. Like this.
Smell is our link to evolutionary wayback. It is probably our first sense senses, and its right in the forefront of the brain where the sensory data come in. It was Proust's bite into a cookie that led to all of Remembrances of Things Past, though that is probably a literary device, like I used before.
That O'Hare march was a bust. Not many people showed up, and the cops arrested a few, but it was a gentlemanly affair and both the demonstrators and the cops praised the other side for their good behavior. Well it was the third of three marches. The first one was a big success, the second one did alright although some of the leaders dropped out and likewise the marchers, even more so for this one where there were so few marchers that they were easily quashed.
Demonstrations. I guess they are good for rallying your base, giving those who want to do something, something to do, but I don't see them accomplishing anything in themselves. The assumption of the marches was that somehow the people of the city had a way to stop these shootings but weren't implementing it so they had to prodded by people blocking their access to the airport. Too nebulous/
Much has been made of how the Arab Springers were able to communicate with each other through social media and that got the pot boiling, but whatever became of their cause? A closer example might be the Russkies putting up all those fake facebook pages. Although there were plenty put up by our own Foxies and Alan Joneses. But if you watch those crowds at Trump rallies you have to wonder what are they reading or listening to.
Labor Day is in the rearview mirror now, ahead of us that candy swirl of colored leaves, and behind that, Old Man Winter with his curious leer and phlegmy cough.
Monday, September 3, 2018
One Thing Leads to Another
Funny how one thing leads to another. Old Dog mentioned that he used to keep his school supplies in a cigar box, which reminded me of the plastic pencil boxes we used for that purpose. Mine had a little manual pencil sharpener at one end, which reminded me of the mechanical pencil sharpeners that each of our classrooms had in them. This brought to mind the puke incident, which made me glad that I had my own pencil sharpener so that I didn't have to use the classroom one very often. I seem to remember that the shavings accumulated inside the pencil box instead of falling on the floor, which meant I could use it without incurring the teacher's wrath.
One thing that I noticed in Orwell's "1984" was he assumed that the government would have a monopoly on technology. It never occurred to him that the people could also use technology against the government and each other. I'm not sure how much of that is possible in a place like Red China, where the government was pretty totalitarian even before the advent of digital technology. I have read on occasion that they do have hackers who keep busy finding workarounds to a lot of the government imposed restrictions on internet usage. I have also read that modern communication technology was instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that was before the internet was even operational.
I'm way behind with my firewood again this year. I'm beginning to think that this is the new normal for me. I used to get all my firewood for the next winter put up by May, then it was June, then it was July, then it was August, and so on. Now it seems I cut firewood off and on all year round. I suppose that's the problem, too much "off" and not enough "on", but I have other projects that are weather dependent and, like the old saying goes, "You have to make hay when the sun shines." There's no use worrying about it, the worst thing that can happen is that I run out and have to use the gas. There are lots of people who don't even have the firewood option, so I should consider myself lucky.
One thing that I noticed in Orwell's "1984" was he assumed that the government would have a monopoly on technology. It never occurred to him that the people could also use technology against the government and each other. I'm not sure how much of that is possible in a place like Red China, where the government was pretty totalitarian even before the advent of digital technology. I have read on occasion that they do have hackers who keep busy finding workarounds to a lot of the government imposed restrictions on internet usage. I have also read that modern communication technology was instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that was before the internet was even operational.
I'm way behind with my firewood again this year. I'm beginning to think that this is the new normal for me. I used to get all my firewood for the next winter put up by May, then it was June, then it was July, then it was August, and so on. Now it seems I cut firewood off and on all year round. I suppose that's the problem, too much "off" and not enough "on", but I have other projects that are weather dependent and, like the old saying goes, "You have to make hay when the sun shines." There's no use worrying about it, the worst thing that can happen is that I run out and have to use the gas. There are lots of people who don't even have the firewood option, so I should consider myself lucky.
Marching on
I wish Old Dog would explain in his own words this Chinese AI social reputation thing, whenever I read one of those articles my head needs scratching.
A head scratcher, indeed; I've read so many articles on the subject that I'm starting to confuse myself. I've reviewed some of the older links, found some new ones, and it's becoming a little more clear to me. AI is just a part of the Chinese program which is still a work in progress, not to be fully implemented until 2020. If I fully understood all the implications of the social credit/reputation system I could put it into my own words but I don't and I can't. Until then, this newly found link may help.
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Puke on a hot radiator, Mr. Beagles? That's a hard topic for follow up on but it shows how olfactory memories can be deeply embedded in our minds. I remember the first time I was in a high school gym and I thought it smelled like grilled onions in a cheap diner. So now when I'm in a cheap diner I think of high school gyms. It's odd how odors can trigger memories but sights and sounds don't, at least not to the same extent. I can be walking down the street and I'll catch a whiff of something and think, Damn! That reminds of the little store next to the tavern in my old neighborhood near Humboldt Park.
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Public protests and demonstrations aren't a new thing, especially in big cities and folks in Chicago are doing it a little differently recently. There is a trend to blocking streets and expressways; this weekend there were a bunch of folks screwing up traffic near O'Hare airport in a protest against gun violence, I think. Their cause may be righteous but I think they're in the wrong location; not a lot of shootings in that area and I don't think they'll be making a lot friends. They'll get some attention but not accomplish much in the way of stopping gun violence; it's a problem in certain areas, areas in which they don't seem to want to hold their protests. But this is a sticky topic, one in which I am ill informed so I will shut up now.
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Has Mr. Beagles put up his firewood for the upcoming winter? I've read that this year will be colder than the last but I could be wrong.
A head scratcher, indeed; I've read so many articles on the subject that I'm starting to confuse myself. I've reviewed some of the older links, found some new ones, and it's becoming a little more clear to me. AI is just a part of the Chinese program which is still a work in progress, not to be fully implemented until 2020. If I fully understood all the implications of the social credit/reputation system I could put it into my own words but I don't and I can't. Until then, this newly found link may help.
-----
Puke on a hot radiator, Mr. Beagles? That's a hard topic for follow up on but it shows how olfactory memories can be deeply embedded in our minds. I remember the first time I was in a high school gym and I thought it smelled like grilled onions in a cheap diner. So now when I'm in a cheap diner I think of high school gyms. It's odd how odors can trigger memories but sights and sounds don't, at least not to the same extent. I can be walking down the street and I'll catch a whiff of something and think, Damn! That reminds of the little store next to the tavern in my old neighborhood near Humboldt Park.
-----
Public protests and demonstrations aren't a new thing, especially in big cities and folks in Chicago are doing it a little differently recently. There is a trend to blocking streets and expressways; this weekend there were a bunch of folks screwing up traffic near O'Hare airport in a protest against gun violence, I think. Their cause may be righteous but I think they're in the wrong location; not a lot of shootings in that area and I don't think they'll be making a lot friends. They'll get some attention but not accomplish much in the way of stopping gun violence; it's a problem in certain areas, areas in which they don't seem to want to hold their protests. But this is a sticky topic, one in which I am ill informed so I will shut up now.
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Has Mr. Beagles put up his firewood for the upcoming winter? I've read that this year will be colder than the last but I could be wrong.
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