STOP THE DAMN FLICKERING

On advice of electrical counsel, I'll be replacing two three-way switches in the basement to see if they will help our LED lights from randomly flickering.

We've been dealing with random flickering in our basement lights pretty much since I put them in a few years ago. For a long while, it was one fixture that would randomly flicker, then stop for a while, then flicker again. Now that one seems to behave nicely but the other one has picked up the habit, and I can't explain it. We finally asked a friend of ours who studied as an electrical engineer, and she suggested the switches might be the problem. It's possible -- the switches in the wall have been there since the house was built in the mid-80s, and I'm pretty sure I've replaced just about every electrical outlet in the house because they were just worn out. Maybe the same thing has happened to the switches. I hope that solves the problem, because it's been a real pain.

Little "Thanksgiving" Mac

You remember Little Mac.

Little Mac got into the Thanksgiving spirit, so I expect he'll help us celebrate all the other holidays. Which means we're going to have to fix his nose and the base he stands on.

Holding Power: Waning

Thanksgiving Day.

Started early for me. The dogs think every morning starts shortly before 7 am, so that's when I started. I did convince them to nap with me after their potty, which helped.

Then preparations begain. The turkey was made ready the night before. This morning, for me at least, the potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables. But before that, a mound of dishes from the pie-making the previous evening. Lots of scrubbing. But before that, emptying the dish drainer to receive newly-washed dishes.

Turkey in at 11 am. Pots of potatoes and carrots put in the fridge where the turkey had been.

No napping. A lot of diet Pepsi, but I know it won't last.

Guests come at about 3:30. Dinner and games until about 7:30. The guests leave because, like us, they are also middle-aged and also subscribe to the Ed Wynn Adage on Middle-Age: A middle-aged person is one who'd rather not have a good time than try to get over one. Food is tucked into the fridge. The younger ones have more energy and use it for things. But the older people, they find somewhere to bloat and rest and sleep with the dogs, who also started their day at 7 am and need a break because there were Strangers in the house and they needed first to be barked at and second to be begged from.

We're all exhausted.

 

A Provocative Anecdote . . .

Ammon tidbit: Youngest was southbound on Eagle Drive at the point the city just made the road southbound only and overheard part of a conversation between a county sheriff's deputy and a driver caught going the wrong way into the neighborhood. Appears Mr. Wrong Way lives in the neighborhood in question and was salty about getting caught . . .

One Beard Hair

One beard hair.

I have wavy hair on my head. But this stuff is ridiculously twirly. The little loops are at the far end, of course, and they tangle together something awful. I rarely used conditioner on my head, but with the beard it's a necessity.

A friend compared its shape to the Ebola virus. I couldn't argue.

Subvert Expectations

I'm the last to say I'm musically inclined, but I have taken a shine to Charles Cornell on YouTube deconstructing songs to see what makes them work:

I like what he says about this song setting up expectations and then subverting them in subtle but surprising ways. I need to remember to do that in my writing. And that's probably why I like listening to him. Though he's talking about music, what he has to say has applicaiton across many creative disciplines.

I need to set up some guidelines as I write, and "subvert expectations like Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley" is going to be on it.

And though I'll always hear this song in Gene Wilder's voice, I also like the Ben Vereen version:

I will admit Wilder's version lets the song take center stage, while other versions have a bit too much of the singer in them. The mild wockachas don't add much to the Ben Vereen version.

Not Your Typical Thurber

From James Thurber's "The Man on the Train":

I instantly felt as if I had stumbled into a wrong apartment in which someone was dressing. And yet I had merely glanced across the aisle of a train at a man I had never seen before, who looked back at me. I had an unreasonable feeling that there must be something I could do for him. It was almost as if he had spoken. And yet I met his gazed for only a moment or two and then we both turned away. It happened a long time ago -- four or five years -- and it is as meaningless to my life as an old forgotten telephone number; but there it is , as sharp as any memory I have of a friend. It comes up before me clear, irrelevant, and uncalled for, at unexpected hours. . .

There is something lugubrious about the expression of a man with a toothache. I think I could always pick out such a sufferer instantly: a man with a toothache looks, crazily enough, as if he were trying not to laugh. But this was not a look of physical pain. I felt, for some odd reason, as if the cause for it were on the tip of my mind; as if, by some little extra effort, I could divine the dark experience, whatever it was.

That is about a sixth or seventh of the entire short story. And we expect, as we go along, to the reveal that the man has suffered some insignificant foible for which Thurber is famed for framing as a catastrophe.

But this story, with its buildup and closing line, rivals the famed "saddest" story ever written, atrributed to Hemingway but first appearing in print when Hemingway was only seven years old.

I wonder at the story's origin. Is it typical Thurber fiction, but going in a different direction than we usually assign to Thurber, or is this a bit of reportage, something he experienced himself in reality and wrote down so as not to forget it. I don't know what the answer is.

You can listen to the whole story here. (Narration is, uh, not professional by any means.)

Clean as A Whistle, Inside and Out

So. Second colonoscopy a raving success. I'm sure many more people saw my butt than I'd rather think about, but all I know is that I was watching the guy inject the drugs into my IV and the next thing I know they were waking me up and telling me to get dressed.

Result: This time, only one polyp, which they will of course test. I don't have to have another colonoscopy for five years, barring any startling results from the lump they chopped out.

Reading the report they sent, I'm learning a few things I didn't pick up from the last time:

1. I got a perfect 9 on the Boston Bowel Preparation Scale, meaning they could see EVERYTHING.

2. The polyp they found this time was "sessile," meaning fully attached and not dangling like some uvula appendage. I suppose that's a good thing, but I'm not sure. I don't remember whether the three polyps they found 3 1/2 years ago were sessile or not. Clearly I didn't lose sleep over it.

3. My prostate appears normal. I didn't know they checked for that while they were in there, but I guess it makes sense to look around the neighborhood.

4. Gary, my hemorrhoid, which had been acting up earlier in the week, appeared quiescent, and has apparently been joined by others that don't appear to be causing any trouble as of yet.

5. Whatever it is they put in the drugs to put you to sleep is good. I was watching them attach it to the IV, thought "That's interesti . . ." and then they were waking me up saying I should get dressed and that my son was there waiting to take me home.

So in all a good experience the second time around. Worst parts:

1. The prep. That stuff remains not fun.

2. Watching the nurse struggle to get an IV needle into a vein after I told her my veins like to run away.

A Little Prediction

The long talked-about traffic pattern change in the neighborhood east of the Target shopping center is finally coming to pass.

I'm going to make a prediction: Residents of this neighborhood will realize the change brings them certain disadvantages to them and they'll either try to be sneaky (particularly on the south end of things) and use the roads as normal until they're sick of getting caught or want additional changes because what's being put in place is not the advantage they thought it would be.

The latter, of course, will be loud. The former, coming in the form of citations from the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office, will be quieter, but I'll bet it's not nonexistent, and I'll also bet the majority of them come not from people outside the neighborhood, but from within.

It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.

 

That's a Little Embarrassing, Aithor.

Making it look easy by having a blown up image of an Aithor ad on his screen. While eating doughnuts and rocking out to music over his headphones.

This guy is SOOOOOO COOOOOOOOL.

And yeah, I know it's for an ad, and given the product, we're not exactly looking for quality here. But it's fittingly embarrassing for the product, so I like it.

HIDE ALL COMMENTS

Note 1: There are 261 comments on this post.

Note 2: I have requested that Facebook display all comments.

Note 3: Sudowrite is so embarrassed by what people are saying about their artificial intelligence novel writing service that they're suppressing every single comment on their post.

I don't know if Note 3 expresses the truth, but that's certainly what it feels like.

Again, there are no shortcuts or quick fixes.

Water, not Gasoline

Finally found a solution to get the vinyl paper off the bathroom floor without resorting to gasoline and the fumes right next to the water heater pilot light. (An expert I found online said to use gasoline, but he looked like he'd been blowed up a few times, so I was leery.)

It's just water. I let it soak into the paper for five minutes or so, then scraped it off with a metal scraper. It's even getting the adhesive, which is the thing I was most concerned about.

Ultimate goal is to strip the paper off the floor and then level it, so I can put tile down. The leveling is to stop the stupid toilet from rocking back and forth when one sits on it.

Once the floor is done, I'll move on to other work in the bathroom to get it ready to convert into a Dr. Who-themed toidy.

 

[Facebook Removes Post as if it Were Suspended on Wires]

Rest easy, friends. Today Facebook protected you from . . .

. . . my lament that a particular gravity simulator is no longer available on the internet.

They saved you from SPAM, folks. From spam.

Not from the obvious scams they allow to run rampant on their platfrom, not from the random idiot who is using my work email address to impersonate me on their platform (they won't even tell me, nor the IT department at work, who that is, by the way), but from a link that no longer goes where it was supposed to, as I pointed out in the removed post.

This is all I can say:

This arose because Facebook showed me the gravity simulator in my Facebook memories. Aww, I thought, when I saw it. That's a fun website. I 'll go play with it for awhile. But, alas, it's gone:

So, I thought I'd post about it and allow my friends to join in my lament. Alas, spam.

And seeing as about half of my memories are links to sites that are no longer there, you'd think Facebook would look and say, aw, the oldie is having trouble dealing with the internet's impermanence and the ongoing outage at the Wayback Machine, let's cut him some slack. But no.

There Are No Spiritual Shortcuts or Quick Fixes

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve delivered a significant speech on the benefits and dangers of modern technology, including artificial intelligence, as a devotional for young adults given November 3 of this year.

A lot of my fellow online English instructors hastened to deliver its message to their students, a good thing as we deal with a trickle-to-deluge of AI-written garbage showing up in our classes.

I plan on sharing it with my students as well, but fear it won't reach those who are tinkering with the technology and "getting away with it."

Those who are leery of AI will read the message and appreicate it.

Those who are on the fence with AI will read the message and hopefully avoid the easy pitfalls AI offers.

Those who are already using AI will read the message and maybe think twice, but I suspect for most of them the intent won't reach the core.

I confess to being a lazy person. But I look at AI and think, no, that's not the solution. The solution, as Elder Bednar reiterates several times in his speech, is work, and while I'm not necessarily a fan, I recognize that's the way to go.

The full text of his speech is here.

The text of the church's guidelines on AI use, which he references, is here.

I very much appreciate Elder Bednar's message. The crux of it is here, where he cautions those using AI to not let it deprive them of their moral agency:

As you strive to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and perform the work you have to do, I specifically exhort you to be wise in your use of contemporary technological tools. Innovations such as artificial intelligence [can] both (1) assist you in receiving magnificent blessings and (2) diminish and suffocate your moral agency. Please do not allow the supposed accuracy, speed, and ease of modern technologies to entice you to avoid or circumvent the righteous work that invites into your life the blessings you will need. My beloved brothers and sisters, there are no spiritual shortcuts or quick fixes.

He goes on to say this:

Now beware. The ease of use, perceived accuracy, and rapid response time that characterize artificial intelligence can create a potentially beguiling, addictive, and suffocating influence on the exercise of our moral agency. Because AI is cloaked in the credibility and promises of scientific progress, we might naively be seduced into surrendering our precious moral agency to a technology that can only think telestial. By so doing, we may gradually be transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon. And we may unwittingly help Lucifer to achieve in mortality what he was unable to accomplish in premortality.

Truth is knowledge of things as they really are. Artificial intelligence cannot simulate, imitate, or replace the influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives. No matter how sophisticated and elegant AI technology ultimately may become, it simply can never bear witness of the Father and the Son, reveal the truth of all things, or sanctify those who have repented and been baptized.

I remind myself that all things have a spiritual component, including what we use our brains for and the things we submit as our own in even secular settings such as school and work.

He does not dismiss AI as useless, and even suggests we should not hide from it. There are legitimate uses, but the caution is in letting something else do all the work for us. That takes away our agency, he says, and turns us into things that are acted upon, not something that acts. We should use the talents God has given us. We should develop those talents through righteous work, not through easy shortcuts.

Ladies, A Word

Trying to fathom why men do what they do?

Maybe James Thurber can help with his short story "The Private Life of Mr. Bidwell," published in The New Yorker in 1933.

The beginning:

From where she was stitting, Mrs. Bidwell could not see her husband, but she had a curious feeling of tension: she knew he was up to something.

"What are you doing, George?" she demanded, her eyes still on her book.

"Mm?"

"What's the matter with you?"

"Pahhhhh-h-h-h," said Mr. Bidwell, in a long, pleasureable exhale. "I was holding my breath."

This seems to be Mr. Bidwell's greatest sin.

He does it at home. He does it at parties. He says it's deep breathing, good exercise. But men reading it know better. He was doing it just to see how long he could hold his breath.

Ask any man, they'll tell you. They might even be familiar with this scene from the film "The Right Stuff," and wish they had the power of a John Glenn or a Scott Carpenter:

I have to spoil the ending of the story for you. The Bidwells end up divorced, with Mr. Bidwell unprepentant after many pleas from his wife to change his ways.

The ending paragraph:

George Bidwell lives along now (his wife remarried). He never goes to parties any more, and his old circle of friends rarely sees him. The last time that any of them  did see him, he was walking along a country road with the halting, uncertain gait of a blind man: he was trying to see how many steps he could take without opening his eyes.

This little story is just one of the many reasons I love James Thurber.

Welcome, Little Mac

Welcome, Little Mac.

I saw this bear buried in the bulk item yard at Deseret Industries and decided the following course of action was required:

1. Take a picture.

2. Text that picture to the family, asking if anyone needed a bear.

I didn't bother checking my phone as we continued to wander the store because I figured no one would want this bear of unusual size. You'd think, old as I am, that I should have recognized the peril in that innocent photo and jokey message, because shortly after our oldest and I left the store we were back at the store ensuring the bear had not been purchased before my wife could arrive for a close inspection.

Needless to say, and despite its flaws, the bear is now in our home, awaiting refurbishment, and startling us as we catch view of him unexpectedly in the kitchen.

Thus the unofficial nickname "Little Mac," which my wife decided to adopt for the critter when I told it to her.

The name comes from a MASH episode featuring a full-sized dummy a chopper pilot uses as a counterweight when he has to fly in only one casualty. The dummy is used in a practical joke at camp and ends up torn to bits. Hoping that doesn't happen to our Little Mac.

Google is Spun Up about Something

So, those of you in the know: What does it mean when Google tells me a handful of pages on a blog I haven't posted on in years cannot be "indexed."

Is that bad? Should I care?

Google doesn't explain in their email.

Also, their reasons for not indexing are cryptic to a noob like me:

1. "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" (4 pages)

2. "Blocked by robots.txt" (2 pages)

3. "Crawled - currently not indexed." (1 page)

I mean, I'm not losing sleep over this. But you'd think if this were a concern to Google, which also hosts the blog in question, they'd do a better job explaining why.

They also included this handy graphic to help me visualize the problem:

Which I am unable to upload right now for some reason. I'll have to try later when Google is less concerned about my "indexing."

They did let me upload. Eventually.

The Tells of AI Writing

Universities are working at the speed of, uh, universities, to help teachers counter students submitting work completed by artificial intelligence.

Students, of course -- at least those looking for shortcuts -- are on AI's bleeding edge, using all sorts of AI tricks to make their "work" easier.

But here's the thing: Detecting artificial intelligence writing is pretty easy, even without AI detectors.

I'm not going to reveal my secrets here. First because there are likely developers on the bleeding edge of AI who are already aware of AI's weaknesses, but also because in case they're not, I don't want to aid and abet. But AI writing is obvious on its face, and is mediocre writing at best.

Part of me wants to continue calling out students who use artificial intelligence to write their essays.

A growing part of me, however, is leaning toward just grading the AI writing and giving students the grades they've earned with their "writing."

Not necessarily Fs, of course, because AI isn't that bad. But it's not churning out A level work. Or even B level work. And in many cases, barely C level work. So use AI in my classes, and you're going to get the grade you deserve, whether I "detect" your use of artificial intelligence or not.

Agreed, that's not what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to fail those students, report them to the university and all. But I'm not sure that works to deter the behavior, even if they get expelled from the university. But getting mediocre grades for AI writing -- and consistently mediocre grades, time after time -- might make them think about how good AI is.

And maybe I'm fooling myself. Could be. But it's more entertaining that way.

Standard Frying the Brain Time

November now. That means going back to Standard Time. Which in our neck of the woods means pitch darkness at 6 pm and gradual darkness in the morning until there's no sun left at all and my seasonal depression kicks in.

I spent today mostly on my butt -- feeling ill. Picked up a bug from somwhere. Don't know where. It seems to be fading, but I'm certainly glad I took the day off work. Not that I want to burn through that personal leave, but I felt really blah.

All because some idiot wanted more daylight after work so he could collect bugs.

Long Trip for Two Old Men

It was a long trip, but we did it. All in one day.

Randy has moved back home and is living with Maaike. We did this trip to get the stuff he wasn't able to bring with him the first time.

The jig to the north, avoiding the interstate, was on the way there so I could stop at Pickles Place in Arco to buy some of their spices. That was the first time I'd driven along those roads. They were really quiet and Arco appeared to be the sole metroplois along the way. Lots of pretty hills, and a good view of Craters of the Moon National Monument.

The drive through Oregon was also a new one to me, and it didn't even have an oasis like Arco along the way.

Ontario remains an armpit.

This trip also confirms to me that Boise drivers are the rudest and worst in Idaho, even in the wee hours of the morning.

We did see a little snow, particularly on the way out, but it wasn't all that bad. Still glad we did the trip all in one day rather than fight the snow in the morning when it was frozen and crustier.