In the meantime in my world…

[Wambli Ska]

BTW, two of the devil's spawns of Technology, Nissan and Honda, have just announced they are forming a joint development agreement to standardize technology in next generation vehicle and advance development. One of their main goals is to accelerate progress towards ZERO FATALITIES involving their vehicles. They are not the only ones with that goal.

The NERVE of them

[Wambli Ska]

But I’m sure some of the folks that flew in with me are still happily waiting in the old paper world line for the next hour. Damn that line looked long……. I’m exhausted, I think I’ll go hang at the bar for a beer.

Paper doesn't crash. Security is a padlock on the filing cabinet. And while it is still subject to the same Garbage In, Garbage Out problems associated with a human doing the input, you can usually at least physically FIND it.

It's sort of my joke, but not really a joke: I suffer from PTSD acquired in the Platform Wars. Computers started showing up for real in the early 1980's when I was about 10-11. Some people struggle with math or learning foreign languages; I struggled with learning to speak Computer. . .and just when I started to get a handle on it, POOF!, Commodores get bumped out of the market by Apple and IBM. Just when I get a handle on learning how to make documents on Word Perfect, POOF!, Microsoft Word bumps it off the market. Just when I learned how to fly the IBM-based point-of-sale software at work in the early-mid 1990's, it got replaced by something Apple-based, which ended up being a total piece of crap, and I ended up having to learn ANOTHER Microsoft-based system. Was forced to go from vinyl to tape to CD and am now at the point of being pissed off that my truck didn't come with a CD player (I have one plugged into a USB port) and I now have to PAY for a Sirius subscription to get decent radio. PAYING! FOR EFFING RADIO!

Constantly adapting to SOME OTHER M.F.'s idea of "progress" when the hammers that drove the nails successfully for decades weren't broke, or even worn out? Needing to figure out the totally uninteresting shiny object because the stupid-monkey-majority who are attracted to shiny objects think it's "necessary"? Yeah, I'm exhausted.

Some AI-based thing called "Chat GPT" seems to be showing up among my co-workers for, among, other things writing reports with the barest amount of their input. Having learned how to write a coherent sentence all on my own, I've just got to shake my head - - it's only gonna make us dumber folks.

And a comment about what I bolded. Those Platform Wars were AGES ago, maybe you should seek therapy . The world is pretty much well defined between Apple... And the rest, mostly ruled by Google in some way shape or form. But progress is progress and it will not stop so why would anyone want to stop learning and becoming more efficient?

Again, we misuse the words "forced to". You can still get CDs, vinyl, Cassette tapes, hell eBay is FLUSH with the stuff and devices to play them in, and now they are printing vinyl again for those that miss records skipping and scratches and pops.

In any case you don't have to pay for radio, radio is still very much there (much to my surprise recently) for the folks that can actually put up with endless hours of commercials, crappy music selections and BORING hosts that love to listen to themselves. Ooooooooor for the cost of two cups of coffee per month (Ok let's hear it about the poop overpriced Starbucks as the next rant) you can get Apple Music or even better I bundle my Amazon Prime with Prime Video and Prime Music and enjoy just about EVERY piece of music, podcast, movie, and content I'd ever want to experience without the interruptions of commercials and PEOPLE!!! AND I don't have to stop anywhere on the way home for milk and bread!

It's all about your budget and how much crap are you willing to put up with in your life. My tolerance for nonsense like radio and TV with Commercials and things like shopping at a supermarket is now ZERO!!! I find it almost funny that all the folks screaming "get off my lawn" are the ones that hate all this technology that allows you to become a complete hermit if you want to!

[Justsomedude]

I know eff-all about AI and robots, so maybe this is a stupid question, but why is it so hard for there to be a complete on/off switch for AI, incase it turns out like the Terminator movies? Can't we just shut the damn things down? They do have a server, no?

[Wambli Ska]

AI, like the internet, doesn’t “live” anywhere. The demands put on it are waaaaaaayyyyyy too hard to be serviced by ONE server so it shares resources wherever It can find them and its allowed to work, basically a compilation of processing in data centers all over the world, but safeguarded by very strict rules that it has to live by. These data centers are hardened and then operate on their own grids, now moving to their own nuclear power plants, some of which will soon be refrigerator size.

It would also be very counterproductive to build something that so many “things” depend on, and then make it vulnerable and easy to “kill”. And in the end the idea that AI is going to kill us all is highly inaccurate. AI is emotionless and killing your creator and the creatures that feed you and maintain you is simply not logical. Makes for great movies and lots of giggles in meetings.

[Wambli Ska]

And my whole world is not high-tech. As far as car goes, even though it's decently outfitted with Adaptive Cruise Control and such, my Jeep is a rather dumb vehicle compared to say my wife's Mazda or my daughter's Teslas.

And for my next project, hopefully next year I'll be restoring this...

IMG_1080.PNG (2.81 MiB) Viewed 489 times

[Wambli Ska]

Went to lunch with wife and daughter and this is my daughter “driving” her car today.

IMG_1082.jpeg (3.78 MiB) Viewed 455 times

[Rugerfan]

I use ChatGPT a lot at school. I don’t have much at all for classroom resources. I just type in what I want in Chat and I’ve got a classroom activity in 2-3 minutes. I adjust the format to suit my purposes but subject/topic-wise it’s spot on.

It would take me a couple of hours every night to do it on my own.

Today I uploaded some notes and told it to make 15-20 questions based on the notes. Some kids who don’t think they need to take notes are in for surprise tomorrow.

[Wambli Ska]

I use ChatGPT a lot at school. I don’t have much at all for classroom resources. I just type in what I want in Chat and I’ve got a classroom activity in 2-3 minutes. I adjust the format to suit my purposes but subject/topic-wise it’s spot on.

It would take me a couple of hours every night to do it on my own.

Today I uploaded some notes and told it to make 15-20 questions based on the notes. Some kids who don’t think they need to take notes are in for surprise tomorrow.

That’s awesome!!!!! We record our calls now with Copilot to send out a summary with notes, decisions, action items and follow up dates etc. It is amazing how folks react positively when they see they are accountable on paper AND they actually follow up and do what they committed to doing ON TIME!!!

[Elk Creek]

I use ChatGPT a lot at school. I don’t have much at all for classroom resources. I just type in what I want in Chat and I’ve got a classroom activity in 2-3 minutes. I adjust the format to suit my purposes but subject/topic-wise it’s spot on.

It would take me a couple of hours every night to do it on my own.

Today I uploaded some notes and told it to make 15-20 questions based on the notes. Some kids who don’t think they need to take notes are in for surprise tomorrow.

That’s awesome!!!!! We record our calls now with Copilot to send out a summary with notes, decisions, action items and follow up dates etc. It is amazing how folks react positively when they see they are accountable on paper AND they actually follow up and do what they committed to doing ON TIME!!!

What? Integrity and accountability not popular? Hire better people!

[Wambli Ska]

I use ChatGPT a lot at school. I don’t have much at all for classroom resources. I just type in what I want in Chat and I’ve got a classroom activity in 2-3 minutes. I adjust the format to suit my purposes but subject/topic-wise it’s spot on.

It would take me a couple of hours every night to do it on my own.

Today I uploaded some notes and told it to make 15-20 questions based on the notes. Some kids who don’t think they need to take notes are in for surprise tomorrow.

That’s awesome!!!!! We record our calls now with Copilot to send out a summary with notes, decisions, action items and follow up dates etc. It is amazing how folks react positively when they see they are accountable on paper AND they actually follow up and do what they committed to doing ON TIME!!!

What? Integrity and accountability not popular? Hire better people!

[Freezer]

Went to lunch with wife and daughter and this is my daughter “driving” her car today.

IMG_1082.jpeg

I would not be comfortable with her doing yoga while the car was moving!

[Wambli Ska]

Went to lunch with wife and daughter and this is my daughter “driving” her car today.

IMG_1082.jpeg

I would not be comfortable with her doing yoga while the car was moving!

That's why I put my wife in the front seat!

Needless to say I'm joking, my wife actually asked to be in front. In reality, she's been doing the full self driving with multiple vehicles (Tesla Y and Truck) for a while and she is very comfortable with the performance and safety. This outing was funny because my wife is still nervous with the technology so the yoga pose is not her goto, it was to prove a point to mom who wasn't sure daughter was not lightly manipulating car controls. BTW while she was doing this a car cut us off on the highway and the Tesla not only adjusted speed and swiftly moved to avoid the idiot that almost hit us but did so taking into consideration all available options for avoidance of a collision, because unlike humans the Tesla has eyes on EVERY car 360 degrees around it at ALL times.

Oh yeah, when we got home it parked itself in my driveway where she normally parks her car because it learns from YOUR driving habits.

[Wambli Ska]

I just got another briefing on AI this morning, AI is an ongoing topic in my ecosystem. NOT like the nonsense being pandered by the news media creating the next Global Warning level panic, but OBJECTIVELY and methodically looking at the deployment of technology to better services and meet the consumer needs. When you weed out the noise it's actually very interesting the directions my industry is taking when you are objectively looking at AI uses AND controls.

So here's a REAL use case where AI is actually helping maintain privacy, there are more but this one stands out. Cameras are endemic nowadays, some cities and just about all buildings are just covered in them so that ship has sailed. The biggest problem is that many of those cameras are monitored by humans and let's face it we are not hiring brain surgeons with advanced degrees to look in on these streams. What ends up happening is that one mouth breather will focus a camera into someones bedroom or a cute chick walking down the street and miss 100 important things going on, including the escaped murderer that they are looking for.

AI is now being used to delete the human eye and monitor the video streams independently. It is programmed to target persons and incidents of interest and ignore EVERYTHING else. AI does not have any reason to spy on naked chicks or call all it's "colleagues" to his monitor to make fun of the dude with purple hair walking into Starbucks, so this application of AI is a game changer. We can now get rid of these folks and send them off to do other tasks they are much more suited for...... whatever they happen to be.

[CPJ 2.0]

I just got another briefing on AI this morning, AI is an ongoing topic in my ecosystem. NOT like the nonsense being pandered by the news media creating the next Global Warning level panic, but OBJECTIVELY and methodically looking at the deployment of technology to better services and meet the consumer needs. When you weed out the noise it's actually very interesting the directions my industry is taking when you are objectively looking at AI uses AND controls.

So here's a REAL use case where AI is actually helping maintain privacy, there are more but this one stands out. Cameras are endemic nowadays, some cities and just about all buildings are just covered in them so that ship has sailed. The biggest problem is that many of those cameras are monitored by humans and let's face it we are not hiring brain surgeons with advanced degrees to look in on these streams. What ends up happening is that one mouth breather will focus a camera into someones bedroom or a cute chick walking down the street and miss 100 important things going on, including the escaped murderer that they are looking for.

AI is now being used to delete the human eye and monitor the video streams independently. It is programmed to target persons and incidents of interest and ignore EVERYTHING else. AI does not have any reason to spy on naked chicks or call all it's "colleagues" to his monitor to make fun of the dude with purple hair walking into Starbucks, so this application of AI is a game changer. We can now get rid of these folks and send them off to do other tasks they are much more suited for...... whatever they happen to be.

Having spent a good chunk of my career installing cameras, I concur. Pan tilt zoom cameras are amazing for following shoplifters and chicks with ample bosom around certain large outdoor retailers. Quarter of a million bucks to install bewb cams.

*side note, 98% of what a $2500 (not counting the infrastructure needed to run it) camera could do almost 30 years ago can be accomplished with a $25 camera from Amazon today. Actually they can do far more, they only lack the real (not digital garbage) zoom capability. *



And while AI is great at targeting stuff, it’s great till you are the one targeted and tracked. This is quite literally 1984 manifesting itself. Remember how the USA used to make fun of the Brit’s for having cameras everywhere and being constantly watched? Pepperidge Farms remembers. We’ve (not me) went from laughing at the Brit’s to justifying it here because of convenience and “safety”.


Another side note, I’ll soon be getting a dash cam in my work vehicle that faces forward and watches me drive. It’s of course AI enable, and of course I’ll be testing to see how smart it is. If for no other reason than to light up my bosses email inbox with notifications that I’ve been eating, smoking, nodding off, texting, following too close, braking to hard, speeding, etc.

[Wambli Ska]

The first gen retail web cams were mostly used as deterrent. That's why they had those big domes that you couldn't miss, just to make stupid people nervous. In many cases, no one was watching but the imbeciles that do the shoplifting couldn't figure it out. So most retailers got a short benefit out of it until we decided we wouldn't prosecute shoplifting in most major cities. Now there is a % of theft most large retailers just find acceptable.

We used to make fun of the Brits until we figured out that life for the average Brit was not negatively affected at all and there was an actual positive effect on crime and safety between 10 and 15% reduction in the monitored areas and that was BEFORE AI started coming into the picture. They also found it the footage did provide evidence you could use in court to prosecute criminals. I personally have zero issues walking all over London at night, no one has ever harassed me for stumbling out of a Pub, I feel pretty safe (MUCH safer than in NYC for example) but anyone starts a fight and the Bobbies are on you like white-on-rice in a second.

The dash cam idea is not a new one and it's still in its infancy. IBM years back tries to track keystrokes by their programmers to judge production and it was a miserable failure. This are the use cases of unimaginative companies/managers trying to show they are doing "something" AI. The real stuff is way cooler than that. On a personal note, ACTUAL AI now saves me about 2 hours a day of BS work I didn't want to do in the first place.

[Diver43]

And my whole world is not high-tech. As far as car goes, even though it's decently outfitted with Adaptive Cruise Control and such, my Jeep is a rather dumb vehicle compared to say my wife's Mazda or my daughter's Teslas.

And for my next project, hopefully next year I'll be restoring this...
IMG_1080.PNG

But the steering wheel is on the wrong side. Do you plan on delivering mail ?

[CPJ 2.0]

The first gen retail web cams were mostly used as deterrent. That's why they had those big domes that you couldn't miss, just to make stupid people nervous. In many cases, no one was watching but the imbeciles that do the shoplifting couldn't figure it out. So most retailers got a short benefit out of it until we decided we wouldn't prosecute shoplifting in most major cities. Now there is a % of theft most large retailers just find acceptable.

We used to make fun of the Brits until we figured out that life for the average Brit was not negatively affected at all and there was an actual positive effect on crime and safety between 10 and 15% reduction in the monitored areas and that was BEFORE AI started coming into the picture. They also found it the footage did provide evidence you could use in court to prosecute criminals. I personally have zero issues walking all over London at night, no one has ever harassed me for stumbling out of a Pub, I feel pretty safe (MUCH safer than in NYC for example) but anyone starts a fight and the Bobbies are on you like white-on-rice in a second.

The dash cam idea is not a new one and it's still in its infancy. IBM years back tries to track keystrokes by their programmers to judge production and it was a miserable failure. This are the use cases of unimaginative companies/managers trying to show they are doing "something" AI. The real stuff is way cooler than that. On a personal note, ACTUAL AI now saves me about 2 hours a day of BS work I didn't want to do in the first place.

Not the cheesy first gen web cams, real cams with C/CS mount lenses that used this antique means of transmission called coaxial cable.” Thw first gen web stuff blew goats.

Yeah I’ll keep making fun of Brit’s and Bobbie’s. The ones who shout “stop or I shall say stop again!” You may like the robot nanny state, most don’t.


The dash cams are simply asset protection. Someone runs into our vans and claims it’s our fault, we pull the footage and say “you sure about that?”
Onnnnnnnnn the flip side…… if one of our drivers runs into a bus full nuns and the footage gets subpoenaed and it shows our driver eating a cheeseburger and texting while smoking a cigarette….thats gonna be some fun court video to watch.
Of course the goal is to curb that behavior before it happens, but it WILL happen.

[Wambli Ska]

And my whole world is not high-tech. As far as car goes, even though it's decently outfitted with Adaptive Cruise Control and such, my Jeep is a rather dumb vehicle compared to say my wife's Mazda or my daughter's Teslas.

And for my next project, hopefully next year I'll be restoring this...
IMG_1080.PNG

But the steering wheel is on the wrong side. Do you plan on delivering mail ?

Nope , have to have a chat with daughter and see how far we'll take the restoration. Fully restored examples with AC upgrades and such can get to the 6 figure range. This one is all original with matching number AND a factory V-8 which is apparently rare.

[Wambli Ska]

The first gen retail web cams were mostly used as deterrent. That's why they had those big domes that you couldn't miss, just to make stupid people nervous. In many cases, no one was watching but the imbeciles that do the shoplifting couldn't figure it out. So most retailers got a short benefit out of it until we decided we wouldn't prosecute shoplifting in most major cities. Now there is a % of theft most large retailers just find acceptable.

We used to make fun of the Brits until we figured out that life for the average Brit was not negatively affected at all and there was an actual positive effect on crime and safety between 10 and 15% reduction in the monitored areas and that was BEFORE AI started coming into the picture. They also found it the footage did provide evidence you could use in court to prosecute criminals. I personally have zero issues walking all over London at night, no one has ever harassed me for stumbling out of a Pub, I feel pretty safe (MUCH safer than in NYC for example) but anyone starts a fight and the Bobbies are on you like white-on-rice in a second.

The dash cam idea is not a new one and it's still in its infancy. IBM years back tries to track keystrokes by their programmers to judge production and it was a miserable failure. This are the use cases of unimaginative companies/managers trying to show they are doing "something" AI. The real stuff is way cooler than that. On a personal note, ACTUAL AI now saves me about 2 hours a day of BS work I didn't want to do in the first place.

Not the cheesy first gen web cams, real cams with C/CS mount lenses that used this antique means of transmission called coaxial cable.” Thw first gen web stuff blew goats.

Yeah I’ll keep making fun of Brit’s and Bobbie’s. The ones who shout “stop or I shall say stop again!” You may like the robot nanny state, most don’t.


The dash cams are simply asset protection. Someone runs into our vans and claims it’s our fault, we pull the footage and say “you sure about that?”
Onnnnnnnnn the flip side…… if one of our drivers runs into a bus full nuns and the footage gets subpoenaed and it shows our driver eating a cheeseburger and texting while smoking a cigarette….thats gonna be some fun court video to watch.
Of course the goal is to curb that behavior before it happens, but it WILL happen.

Coax cable!!! Damn you bring back some old memories... I don't like or dislike what some folks call "nanny state". Mostly because throughout history we have had REAL "nanny states". Feudal Middle Ages, your life was literally in the hands of the dude in the castle that threw a shadow over your muddy village. I mean if he disliked you for whatever reason your head would be separated from your body that afternoon with zero recourse. So in all honesty, we have it much better AND I think I have a LOT more freedom to enjoy my life than those folks, back then.

Anyway this "nanny state" is nothing more than the change that happens organically whenever a civilization needs to advance and get smart enough to invent good stuff that is actually helpful to most. We now do SO MUCH MORE than ever before, personally and a society. It was not so long ago that when a human needed a pair of boots they had to hunt an animal, tan a hide, cut a pattern and sew the damn things themselves, then someone invented a sewing machine, bulk tanning of skins and shoemakers. Now a bunch or Oriental children glue together millions of Nike's ever year made out of oil byproducts and that week that it used to take to make that pair of shoes is now used for other much more likable endeavors.

There is no stopping this, no matter how much folks yell at the sky or try to scare kids off your lawn. It might feel good to some but it's about as useless as looking to stop a tide. It just is what it is, like it or not. So my attitude has always been, can't beat it so might as well be a part of it so I can at least use some of my small influence to steer things for good. And while I'm at it learn to use it for my and other's benefit, and I have personally gotten REALLY good at that. I can't imagine a life without technology that makes any sense to me.

[Zorba]

The apologetics are getting pretty deep in here...