OLD MAN YELLS AT CAR

Gaze in wonder at this parking job in a parallel parking spot for handicapped people at the local Walmart.

Then consider I've been to this same Walmart twice this week and both times saw vehicles parked in a similar manner. The first, which I did not photograph, was a big ol' honkin' truck, protruding out much further into the lane of travel than this sedan.

I don't know what's happened -- and I'm not the only one in the family to notice this -- but traffic in town for the month of October has seemingly tripled, and the newcomers all appear to be about as dumb as a box of rocks.

When he heard my rant, our youngest son sent me this:

I have to confess he's not wrong.

Applesauce from Our Own Apples

Last night we made fourteen quarts of applesauce, from the tiniest apples we've ever worked with.

What made it worthwhile is they're apples from our own tree. That's kinda cool.

Artificial Intelligence Grandma

Albert uploaded this photo of our Grandma Speirs (Mom's mom) to Facebook today, along with this story of her roping a hawk in her backyard.

Facebook's AI wanted a chance to comment on the upload, so I had it produce the following photos:

First, of her ranching skills. Note the square cows.

Next, its version of her roping skills:

No hawk to bee seen. And AI, bless its heart, cannot do hands to save its life.

Invisible, Imperishable Good Stuff

My wife came into the study to drop off a book she'd just finished reading. I glanced at it and the first thing that caught my eye was the illustration of a sweater:

As soon as I saw that sweater, I thought "Huh, must be a book about Mr. Rogers."

I was close: "The World According to Mr. Rogers, Important things to Remember," is a collection of thoughts collected from his life.

I feel like I need Mr. Rogers in my life now much more than I did as a kid.

I need someone to remind me that if I want to accomplish my dreams, I have to do the work.

I need someone to remind me I have dreams.

We're heading into winter here, and the seasonal depression it brings with it. I might have to pull this book out every day and reread a few passages from it, just to help me get along.

I recommend this book. Read it all at once or a few pages at a time, but more importantly apply what he says. Work on your dreams. Be kind. And remember the shining moments:

In the eternal scheme of things, Shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of -- moments when we human beings can say "I love you," "I'm proud of you," "I forgive you," "I'm grateful for you." That's what eternity is made of: invisible, imperishable good stuff.

I'll quote one more, which ties in with the first:

Beside my chair is a saying in French. It inspires me every day. It's a sentence from Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince," and it reads, "L'essential est invisible pour les yeux." (What is esential is invisible to the eyes.) The closer we get to know the truth of that sentence, the closer I feel we get to wisdom.

That which has real value in life in any millennium is very simple. Vewry dep and very simple! It happens inside of us -- in the "essential invisible" part of us, and that is what allows everyone to be a potential neighbor.

Nogoodniks

When I opened Facebook Monday Morning, first thing I was was an anti-Kamala Harris screed posted on the official Pickles comic Facebook page.

Unlike the commenters on the post - aghast the comic's author would inject politics onto a page usually reserved for gentle comedy - I knew the page had been compromised and taken over by a political propagandist.

Brian Crane, former owner of the compromised Facebook page, apologized to his readers and expressed frustration that it appears he won't be able to regain control of an online community built over years. He uses the phrase "nogoodniks," which brings to mind Russian propagandists, but who knows what's going on.

If this is the kind of thing you have to stoop to to get your message out, your message, to me, is worthless. This propagandist found a way to take over a Facebook page with a big reach. The people doing this obviously have an agenda, and it's not one that favors good faith political discourse, but is propaganda pure and simple. They're bad actors, whether you agree with the "message" or not.

If you condone this type of action to spread a message you agree with, you are part of the problem. We should not nod in unison with a message we agree with when the message is put out on social media in a deceitful manner.

Which, of course, makes Facebook part of the problem. They may not condone it, but appear either powerless to stop it or, as I suspect, no longer have humans at the tiller.

I engage very little with the political end of social media, particularly with that posted by people or organizations I don't know, because my cynical nature leads me to believe the vast majority of political content on social media is propaganda put out by bad actors.

Then crap like this shows up: People trying to profit off of his creative work.

Probably Don't Include Me in Doctrinal Conversations

Our scripture reading last night brought us to the Three Nephites and their desire to not taste death before the second coming of Christ.

Part of the discussion led to me pondering their appearance as the Three Stooges as being a funny but confusing part of their timeline, and that is where my wife pulled the plug on the conversation.

I *Fully* Expected the Option to Be Able to Live on the Moon as an Adult . . .

The United States space program, 1962:

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."

John F. Kennedy.

The United States space program, 2024:

That Well-Traveled Road

Just watched the MASH episode "Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead" from season ten.

Seen it dozens of times before, of course.

If you're not familiar with it, it focuses on the ghost - or spirit - of Private Jimmy Weston, killed in action and wandering the 4077th trying to convince others he is not dead.

The closing scene, shown in the photo, shows Weston joining a nameless soldier and others, including Chinese soldiers, civilians, and other combatants walking up a road, destination unknown.

Dad had a dream about that road. He dreamed he was on one side of a river, and saw Mom coming up the other side, struggling mightily with a walker on a rough path. She saw him and plunged headlong into the river, startling him. He called out to her, but saw her go under.

Then she came out of the water, swimming strong, and young as she was when they met. She came out if the water into his arms, and they continued their journey in the road, arm in arm.

At my sister Marina's graveside service earlier this year, I had a strong impression that Mom and Dad were there, waiting for her to come out of the water so they could journey together.

We'll all walk that road eventually. There's some comfort in knowing what lies at the end.

Voici, les Tomates

I have had an interesting week.

Got handed two rather complicated and convoluted document revision jobs at work.

Spent a lot more time than I wanted grading papers after the day job and am still behind in my teaching work.

I'll spend this evening helping to paint an enormous pile of pumpkins for a city pumpkin display that has to be ready on Saturday and has a good chance of being snowed on.

But I do have some itty-bitty tomatoes growing in my window well, so that kind of takes the curse off it.

"The Stranger," and Bugs Bunny

I've had this book on my shelf for a long time, and finally pulled it off the shelf to read this week.

The plot: (warning, spoilers)

(Bugs Bunny quote)

[Blam] . . . [blam blam blam blam]

There is no God.

I mean, there's a little more to it, I guess, but that's what I got out of it.

A senseless murder committed, the back cover says, by a man "victimized by life."

Not really. He saw a dog that was poorly treated. He saw his best friend beat up a woman. He didn't know how old his mother was when she died. But he seems a lot more autistic than victimized by anything even approaching life. I say autistic because he's a character who approaches life logicially, and seems to have a difficult time expressing emotion.

I can say I've read the book. I'm not going to say I enjoyed it.

Also, the Cat in the Hat-inspired characters on the cover never showed up.

We Don't Look Half Bad

Thanks to Maaike and Jason, we had a fun cousins party last weekend.

I'm posting two photos because it looks like some of us managed to hide behind the others.

Yes, that one's much better.

 

Paver Project, Almost Done

I'm close to having these pavers done. Well, they're all in place and cut, but I've got to do some cementing along the edges and then get some dirt hauled in because as I discovered, there's a bit of a pit in this part of the yard. Good for keeping water away, but not necessarily good for keeping pavers in place.

Yup. Local Traffic Only.

An update to my post from last May, re: a shortcut many people in Ammon are used to taking through a neighborhood to the south of us to get from 17th Street to Sunnyside without having to traverse the mess that is Hitt Road.

The city's traffic comittee, in conjunction with residents in the area along Curlew and Eagle Drives between 17th Street and the canal at Salmon Street, have decided to really make the roads local traffic only by kneecapping access.

The plan is to make the canal bridge at Salmon a one-way only going south, and the intersection of Curlew and 17th street a one-way-only going north out of Curlew.

Like this:

The yellow line shows the route people were taking to avoid traffic on Hitt, and the red arrows show how that trip will be rendered impossible by the new restrictions.

Changes at the canal bridge will be immediate, but the city is going to have to do a little study and homework to make the change at Curlew and 17th Street take effect.

Traffic counts are showing the route is seeing more than 4,500 cars a day. I'm going to say I have my doubts about this. I admit I take that shortcut route on occasion, and I've never felt the roads had more traffic than the minor arterials in our neighborhood. Yes, Eagle is a narrow road, but for the most part, I've seen people well behaved there. That being said, I don't live on the road and haven't seen what the residents have seen, though I suspect when the traffic counting was taking place there were more than a few residents of that neighborhood who did a few extra loops every time they left home to goose that count up.

As I mentioned in my previous post, linked above, the city has a much better minor arterial at Midway that could do the job this route is doing except it doesn't have traffic lights at either end. A city councilman told me today that to move the traffic lights would cost in the neighborhood of $1-2 million apiece, and since Midway doesn't have the traffic count to merit grant assistance, the city's not in a position to do the work.

That seems a bit disingenuous as I believe the current shortcut is taken partly because the traffic lights at either end, and if the lights weren't there but elsewhere, the traffic count elsewhere would increase. But that's clearly cart before the horse thinking.

Anyway, I guess the local input is what mattered here. I hope they're willing to sleep in the bed they've made, because I'm fairly confident residents of those streets also liked being able to get in and out without having to go to Hitt Road -- which they really can't do anyway, as the city's streets in that area are kind of a cluster anyway (see the linked post above).

I should point out that as of today, the traffic situation in our neighborhood has changed. John Adams is now a through street from almost Ammon Road to Hitt, and before too long Curlew will be a through street from 17th Street to First Street. First Street is temporarily closed as the canal company puts in a new bridge over the canal by Hitt in preparation for First being widened to five lanes next year.

Kinda Showing Your Cards there, Maverick.

When this is the prompt shown going into your artificial intelligence essay writer in one of the ads you're using to shill it on social media, you know what the service you're offering is being used for, and who's going to use it.

I was going to name the company, but it doesn't matter. They're all pretty shameless in their purpose and marketing, so picking one out of the crowd as the most shameless seems moot.

And yet students still appear stunned when instructors call them out on their use of AI.

The irony is many of the students are going through machination after machination to try to conceal their use of AI -- in other words, putting effort into making a silk purse out of a sow's ear when that effort could go into making the silk purse to begin with.

Hold Fast

I have been highly entertained -- and educated a few times -- by Rainman Ray, a Florida auto mechanic and YouTuber. I've watched him go from working at a dealership to starting up and succeeding with his own auto repair shop.

I've also watched he and his family -- mostly him, because he respects his wife's wishes to keep his kids out of the limelight -- survive through two hurricanes.

Right now I'm watching as he boards up house and shop in preparation for Hurricane Milton. I wish him and his family well.

TOUGHER SENTENCES FOR JOGRAFFY TEACHERS!

One of the biggest buzzes I get from spoken English is hearing a proper English pronunciation of "geography."

They just get to it: JOGraffy.

I have noticed in some Americans a tendency to hesitate slightly on the ending of the first syllable, making it sound like this: JeOGraffy.

Does anyone else notice this?

(Also, I envision some of you spending the next few minutes saying "JOGraffy and JeOGraffy" to yourselves to hear the difference, then getting to the point the word and associated sounds lose all meaning.]

Below, a Brit saying "geography."

And in American English:

But clearly there's still some dispute as how to say it. You'd think Pitt the Younger would get it right, but no:

I had to listen to this twice to make sure I got it right. I fully expected to be wrong, particularly on the second mention of the word, which should have come off as a pejorative. But no.

Then Richard Hammond, accused of being a de facto American nails it as a Brit:

NaNoWriMo Be on Fire, Yo.

Back in the day, I participated in NaNoWriMo, just for the fun of it. I wrote two novels that haven't gone much beyond what I did with the program, and haven't much thought about the site since.

Then I found this video with its understandable righteous indignation about NaNoWriMo embracing the use of artificial intelligence/deep language models in writing.

Obviously, this has caused some consernation in the writing community.

It seems since this video was written the folks at NaNoWriMo have done some backtracking, and I mean a lot of backtracking, as I can't find the post in question on their website.

They don't necessarily condemn the use of AI, however.

That second link says this: "If using AI will assist your creative process, you are welcome to use it. Using ChatGPT to write your entire novel would defeat the purpose of the challenge, though."

So not a ringing endorsement of AI. But they seem to give it a big wink, as long as it "assists" your creative process. How much of an "assist" is allowed? Not the entire novel, it seems. But . . .

Here I am as an English instructor trying to convince students that using artificial intelligence to write their papers is cheating, nothing less. We do not need mixed messages on artificial intelligence use in any writing endeavor.

Good on Ellipsus -- a company I'd not heard of until today -- for backing out of NaNoWriMo sponsorship due to this mess.

I'm also posting this video, which includes a brief but helpful discussion on generative vs. non-generative AI. The generative AI is the problem child.

And while I support the idea of opposing generative AI on the basis of its developers stealing from writers to train it, there's something more fundamental here: When I read a student essay, or a novel, or whatever, I anticipate that a human wrote it. If a robot is writing it -- and right now we can tell, but I suspect it'll get to the point we won't be able to -- I don't want to read it.

Welcome to Fort Dix

We just watched the MASH episode where the characters get their families together for a reunion at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

It's a great episode that is home to two lines by Major Winchester we quote a lot in our family:

1. Hunnicutt, you're to blame for this.

2. I shan't be there. I'm turning myself in to the Chinese.

Not to forget Charles complaining about "my Uncle Ed and *me*" and the goat Randy trying to kiss a turkey.

Tonight, though, it was Klinger's desire to continue the charade that he's really at Fort Dix rather than Korea, so his mother wouldn't worry.

His mother, of course, knew where he was all along, despite the scores of Fort Dix photos he sent home.

Mothers always know.

Miss you, Mom.

Emergency! Or Police Squad! Take Your Pick.

Today at work I was handed two "rush-emergency" document revisions that they want finished by the end of the week.

My boss said she couldn't tell if I was OK with the second assignment -- as my response to her request to do the work was just an emailed "OK."

I should have displayed more gusto, I guess, but I assured her I was certainly okay with the work and got it out for review pretty quickly.

That helped me recall the latter third of my career supporting the Accelerated Retrieval Project at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex. Back then we were siloed as writers, supporting individual projects. When I started there I was on a team of five writers. We got the RWMC through several startups of different waste management facilities, each time creating and revising about a hundred documents each time. The last third of my time at the RWMC I was the sole writer, and saw two iterations through without outside help.

I mean, it was stressful times, but I had a lot of support and we got through it, to the point now that work is done and the facilities are being dismantled and the procedures inactivated. So to be handed two emergency procedures in the same day wasn't all that bad, though it's been awhile.

Not trying to brag here, it's just how things were. I was the writer, we had to get things done, and by golly we got them done as a team. Same game today. Some days it felt more like Police Squad! than Emergency! and in a way I miss those days. I worked with a lot of good people. The people I work with now I don't get to know as well, partially because we're not siloed anymore and support all sorts of projects, but mostly because I work from home. The isolation is a bit odd, but the benefits of work from home still outweigh the disadvantages.