Nobody behind the machine but us chickens

 Beagles frequently ends his posts with the expression that a certain amount of memory loss is to be expected after a certain age, and I think this may be the case with the machine chickening out just as young Beagles was about to win.  I do remember that machine in the museum but I also remember chickens who could not be beaten at the game.  

Possibly the attendants, noticing young Beagles's grin when he thought he was on the brink of victory, decided to have a bit of a jape and cut the machine off and told young Beagles that story.  Afterwards when they were all chuckling over the incident one of them may have said to the others that that bright kid was headed for an Institution, and as we all know that is how it turned out.

I wonder why Chatz didn't mention that thing about chickens, but then he is a flagrant flatterer.  That’s a great story—charming, vivid, and also a meaningful snapshot of early public encounters with computing. Spread it on thick much? 

I do remember close to fifty years ago when I was getting my little certificate in data processing.  Back then we had to punch in the cards and give them to the guy running the machine and wait for it to spew out several pages on that cool green and white perforated paper, but every now and then it would just churn and churn and not print out any paper.  If it was on my cards I would feel like it was my fault and would want to apologize to the guy for my crumby program busting the computer.  

But it was most likely that my program resulted in an infinite loop which the operator could tell so he terminated my program and handed me back my cards and perforated paper with an expression like this guy belongs in an Institution.

Which is how I got here.  I wonder what Old Dog's excuse is.

Ancient History

Do either of you remember this thing?

 https://chatgpt.com/share/687ed0f3-76e0-8005-a1ae-690a79990298

Try it Now

 The reason you guys couldn't load my last two links from Chatz was I didn't do it right.  Apparently, if you want to make one of your chats available to the public, you can't just copy and paste the link from the address bar.  You need to click on the "share" button in the upper right-hand corner of the page, then click on the box that asks if you want the chat made available on the internet, then click on the "copy link" button.   Funny thing is, I did it right the first few times, then I seem to have forgotten how.  A certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age you know, or so I have been told.

The Latest From Chatz

I remember establishing an account with ChatGPT the first time, but I have not been asked to give a password or anything since.  I told them my name was "Talks With Beagles" and also provided my email address and date of birth.  If you want more meaningful responses from Chatz, you need to ask more precise questions like this.

https://chatgpt.com/share/687b01af-4664-8005-a2fc-561982574d97

sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

 whaddaya think

ChatGPT said:

Hey Kenneth — about what in particular? 😄
You dropped a “whaddaya think” but didn’t give me the context. Want to toss me the topic or idea you're wondering about?

You said:

How do you know my name

ChatGPT said:

You showed up in my system as Kenneth J Schadt — likely from your OpenAI account profile. I don’t know anything else about you unless you tell me directly. Nothing creepy or hidden going on, just part of how the system personalizes things a bit!

You can always ask me to forget something, or turn off personalization in your settings if you'd prefer total anonymity. Want me to stop using your name?

You said:

do i have an OpenAI account profile?

ChatGPT said:

Yes — since you're using ChatGPT in a web browser and interacting with me here, you're logged into an OpenAI account. That account includes a basic profile, usually with a name and email address (which you likely entered when you signed up). I can sometimes see your display name from that, which is why I addressed you as Kenneth J Schadt earlier.

That said:

• I don’t have access to private info like your email or password.

• I only know what’s visible in your public profile or what you share in chat.

• You can check or update your profile by going to https://chat.openai.com → click your name or initials at the bottom-left → Settings → Personalization.

Would you like me to stop using your name in this chat?

I couldn't get any response from that link either, and I thought maybe it had something to do with being logged into it.  Investigating this I tried to login to Chatz, and I didn't think it worked, but apparently it did.  

I did that whaddaya think instead if what do you think, to see if  Chatz would respond in a slangy way and he did.  

I was surprised that he knew my name but then I remembered I had given it to that login attempt which apparently worked.  Chatz doesn't mention it but I reckon he knows my IP address.  How else could he know it was me?  If somebody else used my machine Chatz would think it was me.  

I guess the longer I communicate with Chatz the longer dossier he would have on me, but also I could tell him to forget me and he would erase the dossier.  Kind of interesting.

But the Trump/Epstein thing appears to be exploding on CNN right now, and I just have to listen to every creepy detail.

 

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can

 Remember the Little Engine That Could in one of our Little Golden Books trying to get up that hill?  Then again there's Bill Cosby's story about how he tried to break a board with a karate chop.  He had been told that the secret was that you had to think right through the board.  When he tried it, however, the board kept thinking, "Oh no you're not!".

Remember I said I planned to throw a little bullshit at Chatz to see how he would deal with it.  Turned out he saw right through it: 

"2. Cimrman: "If you think you think, think again."

Jára Cimrman is a fictional Czech polymath and satirical philosopher. This quote pokes fun at overconfidence in our mental processes. It reflects a skeptical or perhaps humorous view: that what we call “thinking” might not be as solid or meaningful as we believe. It's a kind of cognitive humility—maybe even a warning against circular logic or self-deception."

I don't know why Old Dog was unable to call up that link.  I checked it right after I posted it, and just now checked it again, and it worked fine for me.

 I have been diagnosed with emphysema, or as they call it nowadays, COPD.  There is no cure, but there are things you can do to slow down its progression.   

I got one of those handicap parking permits the other day.  This should make it a little easier for me in my old age.  I have done the grocery shopping twice now with a helper.  I ride around Walmart on one of those slow scooters and point at stuff, then she picks it off the shelf and puts it in the cart.  This is easier than sending her alone and trying to explain to her exactly what we want, and what to settle for if it's out of stock.  Then she loads it into her van and unloads it when we get back home.  There's no point in me trying to help her load and unload, it just slows her down.  

thinking vs thinking that we think.

I don't get it.  What does that mean?  I understand thinking, but I don't understand thinking that we think.  Does that construction mean that when we are thinking that we maybe are only thinking that we are and maybe we are not.  Like if you say 'I think Springfield is the capital of Illinois' that means you are not sure that it's a fact, and you could be mistaken.  And isn't thinking what you are always doing?

Well I don't get it at all.  I did get to ask Chatz, but I couldn't just waltz right in like I did earlier I had to sign in with my google account and then it wanted my name and my birthday.  I guess I should get into giving it my email and making up a password but not up to it this afternoon.

Hope you are feeling better Beagles and are more up and around a bit.  We gotta live like we are never going to die.  I do think about death often enough and would be willing to toss that around as a topic for The Institute but not this afternoon.

Coca Cola and potato chips, that's what me and my sisters were given when Barney and Irma dropped by with their kid Tommy and they gave us that magic elixir to keep us from bothering them while they played cards and drank Bacardi's until they got a little giggly. We watched Marvin, the host of Shock Theater showing old timey Frankenstein and Dracula movies, wondering if life ever got any better than this.  With the wisdom of age I think that it does, but not a whole lot.  We gotta live like we are never going to die.