Hallucinations Continue

Help me take artificial intelligence more seriously, because as far as I'm concerned, the hallucinations are continuing.

For reasons, today I needed to verify my memory that the phrase "Let me sharpen your pencil, Stan," appeared in a Bloom County comic strip.

I know Berke Breathed, like many artists, is strict about keeping his comics off the Internet, but I knew there had to be somebody out there at least discussing this particular strip, because this is the Internet and everyone is there talking about everything, as Clay Shirky has led me to believe.

Of course the first thing that pops up on any search nowadays is an AI summary. This one I found to be comical.

Google's AI, shown below, denies any connection between the phrase and Bloom County, but pastes the comic use of the phrase on Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, particularly on his character Joanie Caucus.

So wrong.

Also included, textual proof I had not mandela effected myself and that the phrase was indeed used in Bloom County.

But I thought I'd give AI the benefit of the doubt. I don't know my Doonesbury as well as my Bloom County. But searching for the link brought up bupkis, and, interestingly, denials from the same AI that the phrase has any connection to Doonesbury at all.

If I am in fact wrong and the phrase is used in the comic, I stand corrected. But this is clear proof to me that AI as far as searches go is still pretty much making things up as it goes along.

Including, maybe, character names. While I know of Joanie Caucus, internet searches for a Doonesbury character called Stan Mills come up empty.

This is definitely a low-stakes search. But how much hallucination is going on in searches with more substance?

Clearly, everything AI says ought to be taken with skepticism. And trying to verify information just leads you into another rabbit hole.

Nunya Business

File this under Things That Happen

Me: Alexa . . . [Notices TWO piles of dog doo by the back door even though I just had them out] Dammit dogs why'd you do that! I'm tired -

Alexa: Sounds like you're having some trouble with the pups. Do you want to hear -

Me: Alexa, shut up. Nunya business! I don't need you spying on me!

I Want My Spandex Jacket

As I finish reading Peter Stark’s “Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire,” I’m impressed to make a few comparisons to our day.

Astor was, of course, a businessman. A businessman with an expansive vision, which pushed his enterprise, with some support from the United States government, into untractable wilds in search of wealth for one and a cultural and political foothold in rich, disputed territory for another.

It’s difficult not to compare him to Elon Musk who, with his dabblings and vision (I’m not going to discuss the “rightness” of either his or Astor’s vision here) embarks on similar enterprises today.

As Astor looked to the Pacific Ocean for wealth, Musk looks to Mars – lately, the Moon – with similar ambitions. In both cases, there appears to be tacit approval by government, but, as Astor found out, not a lot of material support behind that approval. Maybe Musk is finding differently, at least in government contracts. In Astor’s time, the fledgling United States government, led by Thomas Jefferson at the onset of Astor’s adventure, then by a more cautious James Madison at the end, was too young and immature to do much of anything but look at the maps and dream.

Today’s government, with vastly greater resources, seems limited not by resource, but by resolve and is distracted by a thousand banalities to the point even life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seems more limited in scope than in the past.

There was, of course, great risk in establishing “empire” on the Pacific Coast. Lewis and Clark had only completed their initial journey from the East to Fort Clatsop and back a few years prior, and left enough acrimony among those along the way that those who followed had to take even greater risks to make the same accomplishments.

At the end, Astor managed only to plant a seed – his fort, successfully established at Astoria, sold under duress to the British during the War of 1812. But by mid-century, Americans were on a steady flow to Oregon overland, and political disputes were settled in 1846 with England ceding the southern portion of Oregon Country to the United States.

Whether Musk is planting any Moon- or Mars-bound seeds is open to conjecture and likely years in the offing, if at all, as government-supported exploration of anything beyond Earth orbit by manned spaceflight has evaporated since the 1970s. (Yes, Artemis did a Moon flyby in 2026 with a manned landing mission planned afterward, but whether anything will come of those efforts is also lost to the vaporous attention of government and man, Musk included, as his own SpaceX is now boasted as 93% an artificial intelligence company.

As a kid, I fully expected the option to work and live on the Moon as an adult. As an adult now, I can see that’s not likely to happen to the common schlub within my lifetime, nor likely within the lifetime of my own children, as even the greatest adventurers and entrepreneurs and governments seem bent on recreating the same stupid mistakes made in the past rather than looking united toward a better future.

On that train of graphite and glitter,

Undersea by rail.

Ninety minutes from New York to Paris,

By ’76, we’ll be A-OK . . .

Dreams of utopia from the 1950s, it seems, are as far away now as they were then. And the little government and little businessmen with little visions aren’t likely to carry us there anytime soon.

I want my spandex jacket.

Camper Plumbing: My Least Favorite Noun/Gerund Combination

Spent a good portion of my day crawling around in the camper, checking and replacing various plumbing-related parts, trying to identify the part that was leaking -- a new problem the camper faces.

We knew we had some problems to tackle.

We needed a new kitchen faucet:

And a new bathroom faucet:

But as I filled the holding tank before replacing things so I could indeed verify that things were dripping, I discovered a new and exciting leak that was jut dripping water out the back corner of the camper.

So I did the following:

1. Checked the connections on the water pump (I have to remove it every winter to keep it from freezing; we lost two pumps that way.

2. Checked the plumbing lines.

3. Checked the filler port.

I removed the filler port, cleaned things out, then reattached everything, this time putting the port on perpendicular to the camper wall. I don't remember installing the other one with a slant, but there it was.

Then I replaced both faucets, because I knew they were dripping because Michelle told me they were last year and why would she lie about that?

I also -- horrors -- disconnected the toilet so I could check on the valve to make sure it wasn't broken. It wasn't. But that meant I had to reinstall the toilet, and that meant rolling around on the floor in a little flood water until I could get the two stupid bolts tightened. However, it went a lot faster this time because I knew what to expect and was able to use the noisy cricket adjustable wrench Michelle got me the last time we had to wrestle with the toilet.

Honestly, this is how it feels for me, not a small man, to work in this camper:

My friends, per usual, are having a fun time with my adventures on social media, bless them.

And it Exploded.

 

When you have an old man potty accident at church, you know you can rely on your sons to being:

1. Humor 

2. Help.

The gif in the first text is from this scene of Galaxy Quest:

Freezer Door? Closing.

When you have little victories in trying to keep a 50-year-old camper going, you celebrate them.

Peeking at Local Politics

I live looking at maps and trends and such.

Learned today that Mark Fitzpatrick, the non apologetic Mormon hater who lost the Republican primary for governor this week, got fewer votes than fellow right-wing nutjob Janice McGeachin, and Idaho Falls resident, in the same race in 2022.

I remember back in 2022 being pretty happy that she lost her home county, and I'm just as happy now to see it happen to the current right-wing nut job.

RIP

 

RIP. I like it.

So glad Chad didn't win.

He supports a candidate for governor - who also lost - who has, shall we say, interesting things to say about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then can't figure out why his own support in the Bear Lake area - home to many members of the Church - dropped from the last election.

RIP indeed.

Your Corporation Will Never Love You

From Peter Stark's "Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire:"

"Captain Thorn had trained in a military and naval tradition in which lives were sacrificed in the name of a mission for the good of the country. He remained an officer in the U.S. Navy, on leave with permission to pursue Astor's hugely ambitious enterprise in the Pacific. He burned with an unrelenting determination and patriotism to carry out his mission per his orders from Astor -- in this case, to cross the Columbia Bar as expeditiously as possible and land the first American colony on the West Coast. But Astor's great expedition served at least as much a commercial as a nationalistic purpose. Captain Thorn appears not to have reflected on this: What cost in human lives was a commercial mission worth? Or if he did reflect on this weighty issue, he kept it to himself. He may have felt unsure of himself in this, his first command, but sealed it off with his outward toughness. The more perceptive passengers might have sometimes caught a hint of a softer Thorn. Franchere reported that when those aboard the Tonquin realized that Fox's whaleboat was lost, Captain Thorn looked as distressed as anyone. Was this for the loss of human life, or the setback it represented to his mission?"

Like Starks, I can only speculate.

But as we look at the world of employment, as much as business decries the lack of loyalty in workers, there's a more than sufficient lack of loyalty among employers to make their laments ironic.

Nevertheless, men must be governed, it seems.

This Taxpayer is Tired

We've seen our property taxes double since we moved to Ammon in the early 2010s. Voting yes on a larger levy for School District 93 means another increase.

I get that the schools need the money. Thing is, everybody needs the money. I know we could use it. I'd love to pay off that mortgage that much sooner. Build a shed or a shop. Repair the porch roof that's sagging. So many other things.

If we had a state legislature that was doing something to help schools instead of frittering tax money on vouchers and tax cuts and only restoring some of the cut funds after the cuts literally killed four people, maybe I'd feel differently.

That's a big if, I know. So I'll probably vote for this levy. Just like voting for legislators that actually care about education, it's part of the bargain. But I'm tired, boss.

2013, we paid $976 in property taxes. Same year, about $740 in state income taxes on income of about $75,000.

Last year, $2018. This levy vote will put that up another $150 a year. Same year, $4,200 in state income taxes on income of about $110,000.