This is What We've Come To

 The poor little puppy who gives the scared side-eye at the end? [Chef's kiss]

Not *Quite* A Freeze, but Close Enough

Fall is here and good ol' Mother Nature is letting us know winter's not that far behind.

I don't expect it'll be that cold in the morning, but I did drain the water out of the camper tonight and remove the water pump (when I can't remember where the pump is, remind me it's in a box in the garage) because a not quite a freeze in early summer when Michelle had the camper up at Island Park made the previous, not-so-old pump buy the farm.

I also look forward to replacing the drain valve on the fresh water tank, as when I opened it today I noticed it's partly draining the water into the bowels of the camper, though mostly out of the valve.

Owning a camper I rarely get to sleep in but have to maintain is a lot of fun.

(Annoyed Grunt)

So as I played "The Simpsons Tapped Out" on my ancient Kindle Fire today, this appeared:

I mean, I've played this game for who knows how long, and figured it was on borrowed time.

Now it has an end date, and I'm kinda sad.

I'll miss the game, but as they said in their announcement, adieu.

It does mean I can finally retire that old Fire . . . 

"So You've Ruined Your Life"

I'm trying to parse something here; bear with me as I do.

I stumbled across "Spark Space AI" while perusing the ol' Facebook last night. It's a website/service purporting to help educators(!) use artificial intelligence large language models to evaluate and offer feedback on students essays.

Hence, of course, the title of this post, which I yoinked from The Simpsons:

Seriously?

Seriously.

Thus far, this "service" is being offered only to high school teachers, though I'm sure that's just a wink and a nudge.

Who in the instructional community thinks there's nothing wrong with using AI to grade student papers when educators are so vehemently against students using AI to write those papers?

Well, maybe teachers who have given up, maybe just a little.

Stanford University professors, if we're to be believed by the mention of the university at the webiste linked above. Not that Stanford itself is bragging this up, because any searches for Stanford and "Spark Space" bring up nothing reputable related to this service at all.

I imagine it'll only be a matter of time before the Stanford logo disappears from this particular site.

Speaking of Brian Yun. Ahem . . . Buddies with Sam "OpenAI" Altman. So clearly "going" "places."

I guess I'm old-fashioned. I think if we're discouraging students from having robots do the work for them, we as instructors ought to not use robots to grade said work.

Then again, I guess there are teachers who don't give a flying fart. . .

[Yoink]

You know, it's great you spent all that time and effort in your research and got it put into a paper good enough to be published in a reputable journal.

Would be a shame if hucksters running a paper mill stole your work and ran it through AI machines to try to convince other journals it was original research. . .

Especially if the paper getting the AI-junked up paper calls you to offer a peer review on the job.

Just do your own stupid homework, Hogarth . . .

So, Am I Writing Now?

Here's the rub: Am I writing now?

No.

Creative writing. Novels, in particular. Or short stories. Or poems. Or anything for that matter.

I'm not.

I mean, I'm on the verge. I have some ideas bubbling.

But nothing really in the works.

Doleful Creatures and the Hermit of Iapetus, still sitting there. Moribund. I think they're part of what Ray Bradbury described as the bad writing that has to come out through effort in order for the good ideas to come.

I need someone to keep me accountable. To keep an eye on me, because me on my own, I stink.

I'm getting back into reading, which is good. I love to read a good story -- and even reading the bad ones is educational.

Still at the point I need to get out of a few things. Closing in on getting out of Scouting, and hoping that once that's done I'll have more time to get to writing. But discipline is lacking. I need to get on a writing schedule. But I'm also at the computer ten hours a day for the full-time job, and I'm still teaching, so more computer work.

Maybe my students need to keep me accountable. That's something to think about.

Getting out of a basic English course would also be nice, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

Well, Lah-dee-dah, Mister French Man.

The garage has kind of been the red-headed stepchild of the house, being a dumping ground for all sorts of things, from siding to be installed on the house to wads of camping gear.

But as I worked to fill and organize Mr. Sta-Puft and get the shed into condition to be a very tiny shop, the garage has improved.

I was able to report yesterday that the only thing leaning against Michelle's portion of the shelves in the garage was a stepladder, while the portion I'm in charge of is almost obstacle-free, which is a good thing.

We have some suspicious empty spots on the shelves, but I'm chalking that up to our youngest taking some gear to go camping this weekend.

Mr. Sta-Puft update: It survived its first windstorm, albeit on the mild side, maybe 35 mph winds tops. I have anchored down the less sheltered side with a bit of rope and a big metal stake, so hopefully that adds a bit of stability.

Paranoia, or WHERE IS THAT LEBANESE MONGOOSE?

Spent my reading time with week with Avi's "Catch You Later, Traitor," a book I think anyone who lives in political "perilous times" should read.

The book is set in Brooklyn in 1950 during the McCarthyite "Red Scare," when the liberties of American citizens were violated for wrongthink, plain and simple.

I likely wouldn't have been a "commie" back then -- but I certainly could have been a sympathizer for those caught in the accusatory webs.

This bit from the book certainly caught my attention:

“Pete,” said Mr. Ordson [a blind man Pete Collison visits daily to read the news to], “we live in a time of great mistrust. This is not always a bad thing. People should question things. However, in my experience, too much suspicion undermines reason.”

I shook my head, only to remember he couldn’t see me.

“There’s a big difference,” he went on, “between suspicion and paranoia.”

“What’s . . . paranoia?”

“An unreasonable belief that you are being persecuted. For example,” Mr. Ordson went on, "I’m willing to guess you’ve even considered me to be the informer. After all, you told me you were going to follow your father. Perhaps I told the FBI.”

Startled, I stared at him. His blank eyes showed nothing. Neither did his expression. It was as if he had his mask on again.

“Have you considered that?” he pushed.

“No,” I said. But his question made me realize how much I’d shared with him. Trusted him. How he’d become my only friend. And he was the only one I hoad told I was going to follow my dad. Maybe he did tell the FBI.

He said, “I hope you get my point.”

Silcence settled around us. Loki [Ordson's seeing-eye dog] looked around, puzzled.

Mr. Ordson must have sensed what I was thinking because he said, “Now, Pete, you don’t really have any qualms about me, do you?”

No spoilers, of course, but I do like this little conversation on trust and paranoia. Because while we can be loyal to a cause, a government, et cetera, there's nothing wrong with a bit of skepticism when we believe things are fishy.

I'm thinking about the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon as of late, thinking that this is not a thing any government should be allowed by its citizens to do, because one can transform from "loyal citizen" to "pager bait" at the whim of whomever decided in the first place planting bombs or figuring out ways to make electronics explode to the point they're killing people was a good thing to do to the "enemy." And I look at my government-issued laptop and cell phone and wonder . . . 

On a lighter note: The book also contains reference to the Giants' "Shot Heard 'Round the World,' which was a much-needed light note:

As I got to that point in the book, I could hear Klinger wailing "Oh nooooo!" as his packing crate hideaway fell over, and I could see Charles passed out in the compound.

Faceook: Two-Factor Authentication? What's That?

 

So I have discovered some negative-vibe merchant is using an email address of mine on Facebook.

I suspect it's someone fishing around trying either to determine if the email address is active or that they're trying to see if they can sneak into somewhere.

I have reported its use to the powers that be (associated with the email, because reporting it to Facebook is utterly useless because there's nobody but bots and algorithms on the other end). The powers said they'd take care of it. But I continue to get the emails asking me to confirm friends and such. I haven't done anything but delete the emails.

I did try to attach the email to my Facebook account to see if I could regain control of it, but as you can see in the image above, no dice. They don't give me the option to send a code to the email I want to capture, but rather have it sent to an email account they already know, so there's a hole in their two-factor authentication.

I'm leaving it there, and will have to report the emails to those on my end again.

SEVEN?!

A bit more on the post from yesterday:

The number of reactors brings only one thing to mind in my brain:

I wonder how much this will cost. . .

Big Nuclear News

This is big news, not that politic slop.

Idaho Falls is "negotiating a power purchase agreement with Aalo Atomics, a nuclear engineering company pioneering small-scale, factory-built modular reactors for clean energy production.

The agreement would give Idaho Falls Power the right to eventually purchase energy from Aalo’s Idaho Falls Project, part of the company’s mission to generate low-cost nuclear energy from reactors small enough to fit in a garage.

"Aalo’s work is inspired by Idaho National Labraotry's MARVEL reactor, envisioned by Yasir Arafat, Aalo’s Chief Technology Officer. The MARVEL reactor is currently under construction near Idaho Falls at INL’s Transient Reactor Test Facility. Once completed, it will demonstrate microreactor applications at test-scale for the first time in decades.

"Under the agreement, Aalo would lease land for the life of the project, up to 80 years, at Idaho Falls Power’s new Energy Research Park, where the peaking plant is currently under construction. With design, approval and construction, Aalo’s Idaho Falls Project is not expected to come online before 2030."

We have, of course, heard similar news, with NuScale planning on building a similar small modular reactor out in the desert. That project got scrubbed after enough potential investors dropped out, making it untenable. I figured when NuScale folded their plans, the chance of local nuclear power folded with it. Apparently not so.

This project won't be built at the INL, but rather at Idaho Falls' newly-inaugurated energy research park, where constructsion started this summer on a natural gas-fed "peaking plant" meant to help the city meet its power needs during the winter when hydroelectric flows are at an ebb.

This will be a cost savings for Aalo's plant over NuScale's plan to build out in the desert, where basalt flows are much closer to the surface than in town.

And it's going to be close to town, viz:

The Google marker shows the location of the city's energy research park, upper left. Toward the lower right in the red circle is approximately where I live.

I actually grew up in a house (no longer there thanks to a pending road project) even closer to the site:

Again, Google marker is the approximate location of the energy research park; the red circle in this case my former abode.

I've long pondered why Idaho Falls, birthplace of atomic energy for "peaceful purposes" in the United States wasn't powered by nuclear, so I hope this project comes to fruition.

Mr. Sta-Puft, Day Two

So I've moved a lot of, ah, stuff into Mr. Sta-Puft:

The pool noodles are there to help the place not to look too industrial.

I'm getting a little flack on having the spare tire for the camper in there. I counterargue that I have nowhere in or on the camper (the logical place for it) to store the tire.

It looks a right mess. I'm not that smitten with my PVC storage facility, or at least the presence of the funny pipe in it. I may have to bundle that up and hang it from the rafters. I've also got some more shelving and other crud to cram into it before I can declare it finished. I'm trying to get the stuff to crawl up the walls so I'm not taking up floor space.

I've also got two wheelbarrows and a yard wagon to stuff in there too, so floor space is going to be valuable.

I used this storage pile as kind of an object lesson in my Sunday School class this week, showing how I was storing up treasures on Earth rather than treasures in heaven. My wife chuckled at the thought of my treasures being pool noodles and PVC pices. So maybe I'm okay.

What's exciting is that, as you can see, I've got the shed padlocked. A good portion of the stuff in Mr. Sta-Puft was in the shed, but I've got that mucked out enough I could almost use it as a workspace, which is kind of exciting. Keeping it locked will make sure no one messes with the big boys therein (about 27:28 in if my direct link doesn't work).

Goodbye, Slanty Shanty, and Welcome, Mr. Sta-Puft

A few years ago, I used some scrap wood and a couple old tarps to build what I called the "Slanty Shanty" behind the shed, as home to some firewood and a few disused bicycles.

Inspired, of course, by the Slanty Shanty from The Simpsons:

It went in as a temporary measure, but lasted a bit longer than I anticipated.

At about the same time, our youngest brought home a used carport he got from a friend. I made it my goal this year to use that carport to replace the Slanty Shanty, and finally made is this weekend.

Behold, Mr. Sta-Puft:

The last photo shows the hastily assembled PVC rack I built from some scrap lumber. To continue the Ghostbusters theme, I had to add some bracing because of some wood fatigue in the load-bearing members.

This, of course, is also a temporary measure. I'm hoping we can build a shop before I become too feeble to enjoy one, but that's going to take some time and investment, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I have a place to work and to store bulky stuff that right now is clogging the shed and garage.

More Things are Dumb, the More They Stay the Same

You probably have a conspiracy theory in your pocket.

If you look beneath the figure of FDR on any dime, you'll see the initials JS near the date.

The initials are for John Sinnock, Chief Engraver of the he US Mint from 1925 to 1947.

When the first Roosevelt dimes were issued in 1946, conspiracies believed the JS stood for Joseph Stalin. This was compounded in 1948 when the mint issued a Sinnock-designed half dollar with the same initials.

I'm reading about this in Avi's "Catch You Later, Traitor," a book set in New York during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

There's a lot of crap being believed out there, from flat earth (I thought we'd sorted that one out, honestly) to any number of idiot theories about The Man trying to keep us all down. It's discouraging and depressing.

But looking very closely at the dimes in my pockets at least tells me that people believed stupid stuff in the past and very likely will believe in stupid stuff in the future. Only thing is with the Internet, a lot more people having stupid stuff in their heads are finding others who do the same, so they seem louder.

And maybe that's wrongthink, because there were plenty of periodicals and such back in the day that helped people spread their nonsense. Maybe the Internet just speeds it up.

Artificial Intelligence Puts You Deep in Plato's Cave

So. World War I ended in 1918. Let's be generous and assume she was sixteen when she started her service. That would mean [does calculations] she was negative 22 years old when she joined up.

The math not only checks out, it's gone complete wharrrrgarbl.

The more than two thousand people who commented on the photo wished her a happy birthday and thanked her for her service, leading me to believe none of those people are real nor noticed the WW on her hat is typical artificial intelligence art gobbledygook.

Also, English articles, how do they work?

She's also - you won't believe this - A fan of BMW trivia.

Facebook is broken and Facebook doesn't seem to care.

This is what AI does -- it creates a facsimile, but it misses so many details even a cursory glance at it will tell the looker that it's bogus. But in our media-saturated world, no one wants to do even a cursory glance. We want the work done, and to scroll on to the next thingie. Don't do this to yourself as you write, or create, or do anything that AI could "do" for you easier and faster. Because AI is going to miss the details, and those of us who are awake are going to notice the screwed-up details and call you out.

Will we see the screw-ups every time? No, we're human.

But you're not learning if you're using AI. You're in the cave, not wanting to see reality for yourself, satisfied only with reflections and imitations and facsimiles.

It's Like the Scammers Aren't Even Trying Anymore

So I got an email from Coinbase telling me -- breathlessly of course -- the following:

Your account will be closed within 24 hours

Dear Costomer,

Our team detected that you used other people's data when registering a Coinbase account. The activities you carry out violate our terms and agreements.

Therefore, we will close your account in the next 24 hours. Immediately verify via the link below and use your personal data to repair your Coinbase account.

I, of course, being a suspicous jerk, know immediately this is a scam.

There's the misspelling of "costomer," combined with the lack of personalization and the litany of subtle grammar errors in the message that follows.

There's the email coming from an "info@" address connected to a university hospital in Pittsburgh.

There's the urgency to repair my account, and the contradiction that repairing my account will assuage their accusation that I used someone else's data to create my account in the first place.

Their landing page looks like this:

Coinbase's login page looks like this:

I can see how someone in a hurry might be fooled by this. But see the "suspicious jerk" thing I mentioned earlier, so I'm wary.

Also, I don't have a Coinbase account.

Facebook is Broken

Saw this on a friend's Facebook feed this morning:

The initial post was about "weird red lights" over the Atlantic Ocean, captured in photos purportedly taken by an airline pilot. Huh. But it is posted by National Geographic, so I look more closely.

There are tells:

1. Broken English. I have no trouble with people learning English. I've learned French, and I'm sure I still sound broken in many ways when I use that language. But I expect National Geographic to do better than me.

2. The redirect. The photos/story aren't available at National Geographic, but at another website entirely.

So I know immediately this is not National Geographic despite the name.

Their "About" page is even sketchier:

1. This is a "Group by Wonderae."

2. The welcome message is to "National Geography," the group was created this summer, with the name changed almost immediately when they realized the "National Geographic" group name was up for grabs.

This has all the appearances of a junk science enthusiast trying to nail onto Nat Geo's coattails for fame and fortune.

The real National Geographic is on Facebook, viz:

Reporting this to Facebook will do absolutely nothing. They do not care. Because 99.99% of the they vetting all this information is an algorithm or a bot and not a real human, and these tools are nothing but tools in the tooly sense: They won't notice that one group is masquerading as the other, so nothing will happen. National Geographic might get snippy, but even then it'll probably take a while to get this fake group off social media. And if that happens -- that's if, becuase it's iffy Facebook will do a damn thing about this -- they'll just find another way to spread their junk science.

Facebook, you suck.

I Need A New Side Gig

I'd rather not have to have a side gig, to be honest.

But because I like to spend the money that comes from it, and it's difficult to make ends meet without it, I do maintain that gig. I teach. Online. Online English. With all the wrestling of ChatGPT and the like that implies.

As tired as I am of wrestling with artificial intelligence, I'm even more tired of other aspects of the course, some new (like having to meet with the students "in person" at the start of each semester) and some old (like a really crappy peer review process introduced last semester).

Class starts again next Monday. I've enjoyed a seven-week break between semesters, though our budget hasn't. So getting the money is good. So I've got to talk myself into remembering the classes have good things about them as well, like most of the students.

But I'd love a new side gig that didn't involve AI or conferences. I just don't know what that is. I'll have to keep looking.

Old-Fashioned Anthropomorphism Needed

I have in my reading pile right now two "modern" books using anthropomorphism to tell their stories.

Both, I have to admit, are a bit of a snore, as I've struggled to finish them. But finish them I will, because it's this kind of novel (without the boring bits) that I want to write.

The first is "A Rat's Tale," by Tor Seidler. I guess, as it was published in 1986, that it's not necessarily modern, but modern enough for it to make a contrast with what I hold as the holy grail of such books: Kenneth Grahame's "A Wind in the Willows."

The second is David Sedaris' 2010 attempt, "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk," which aside from a few of the tales being useful as anti-moral relativism screeds, is best left on the shelf (I'm certainly glad I found it used and didnt' pay the $21.99 suggested on the inside of the book jacket).

Seidler's story has the sin of just being dull, which is something I see shining in my own writing, so reading it is a good cautionary tale.

I think what appeals to me in Grahame's work, and in the many like it, is while conflict is certainly the root of the tale (poor old Toad coming near to losing Toad Hall due to his own self-destructive tencencies, just like good ol' 1970s sci-fi) the conflict is only part of the story. It's there to give the characters something to be concerned about, it's not necessarily front and center to the worldbuilding. And for me, it's the worldbuilding, like Beatrix Potter's spotting of the animals putting out their washing, that appeals.

I know I'm not explaining this very well; it's why my own writing is so hard to get through at the moment; I need to clarify my own thinking before I put it on paper.

What I've written is certainly too heavy for the kind of tale I enjoy reading, so a major re-work is needed. But that's how it works in this business.

Another of my favorite anthropomorphized stories:

A Little Vacation Reading

I brought two books to read while on vacation, not expecting I'd get through either one. However, our youngest lobbied to drive, so I've spent most of the driving time  in the back seat, leaving plenty of time to read.

Look so here are a few reports:

Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin. Autobiographical of his years in standup. Sweet and sad, as he takes us through his relationship with comedy, performing, and his family, particularly a fraught relationship with his father, who wanted to be a performer but seemingly did little to pursue that dream.

Plenty to chew on for anyone with creative pursuits, seeing his easy routines and jokes come after years of writing and practice and failure.

Of interest: He gave up on marijuana after a bad experience led to repeated anxiety attacks and says it likely stopped him from ever trying cocaine.

Also, this:

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. I tend to shy away from Holocaust-adjacent fiction, but I'd heard good things about this one. And the good things were true. The book is narrated by Death, but is told with a lot of pathos and humor that knew when to be just heavy enough and when to be light.

People grow, characters develop, secrets are hidden then revealed, then just about everyone dies as you'd expect.

Little judgment is passed, but So sack leaves plenty of thinking for the reader to do. He doesn't let lessons or morals of the story get in the way, though they're alluded to throughout.

Vacation goes on, and I managed to pick up.five new books at a thrift store in Omaha. Looking forward to those.

Noise

Based on what I have heard on this trip, I'm glad the bugs at home have enough sense and manners to do their bug life quietly.