Human Connection Will Always Win

I'm a fan of Charles Cornell, a music educator on YouTube.

He recently posted the video above, discussing the potential impacts of AI on music and music education.

I don't know the answers, obviously, but I hope my comment on his video, reproduced here, at least puts in a glimmer of hope:

I've come into your channel a bit unconventionally. It might have been your video on "Pure Imagination" that came across my feed. But I'm not a music educator. I'm not a musician. I can carry a tune, but I don't sight read, I don't play an instrument, nor do I really comprehend about half of the stuff you say in your videos (musicians use a looney moon-man language). However, I do enjoy music eclectically. I'll start a YouTube mix going at night as I'm drifting off to sleep. I watch your videos and see parallels between writing music and writing words (my niche, where we also use a lot of looney moon-man language).

I guess my point is this: Yeah, real creators on YouTube might lose people to audiences that do not care that what they're consuming is AI-generated. AI might get good enough to do the kinds of things you describe, and for maybe the majority of people, that'll be fine. I think this is already true for people who turn to the internet for quick answers or instant gratification, no matter what they're looking for, and it's likely you're already not reaching these people.

But I firmly believe there are and will continue to be plenty of people out there who want that "human" element that we only find in meat-space, or at least in meat-adjacent space like your videos. Your videos have helped me make connections to things I want to learn, things I already know, and things I want to create not because some algorithm created your content and fed it to me when I asked for it but because of the stuff I have in my head connecting with the stuff you have in your head making a connection through your channel.

I'll admit that when I look for content and I get a whiff of AI, I resent it. I'm in that minority he talks about. That's not to say everything AI is terrible. I am growing to appreciate the AI summaries that come up in my searches, but I definitely take it with a grain of salt, much as we used to do with Wikipedia. This is particularly true on social media. On YouTube, I've yet to run into much content that's AI-generated, and for that I'm grateful. But I guess only the ether knows what'll happen in the future.

HOUSE.

 

If things go to plan this next week, Keaton and Lexi will be the new owners of 2013 Westbrook Avenue in Idaho Falls.

They've been house-hunting for quite a while, and were a bit discouraged by the local supply of houses in their price range, where they saw a lot of scary stuff including one house I went to see with them that had only plastic on the ceiling in the laundry room and a really musty smell all over the place.

This one is a titch out of their price range, but close enough to make it workable. They'll have it inspected this week and hopefully be able to move in sometime in February.

It's an exciting time for them.

It's on the west side of town, not far from Skyline High School. Lexi works right now at the middle school across the street, and the house puts Keaton a lot close to work and the Broadway Park 'n' Ride, so his commute will be about 40 minutes shorter each day.

Mad Libs (and not the 'Libs' You Think)

I, for one, am really tired of waking up to headlines that sound like they've come from Mad Libs.

For example:

I'm also tired of the 12-year-olds we have in charge of the government (both on the left and on the right, but certainly those on the right) who either throw temper tantrums when they don't get their way or think the best way to respond to the tantrums is to write yet another stern letter to the tantrumee's parents.

Thelma

Never thought I'd watch - nay, enjoy - a heist movie whose protagonist is a 93-year-old lady, but here we are watching 2024's Thelma, which I got for Christmas.

It takes the tropes of a heist movie and turns them on their heads. No spoilers, because I want you to watch and enjoy this movie.

Okay, one little spoiler: Be prepared for a scene where, instead of acrobatics to avoid laser beams, you get geriatric acrobatics as Thelma retrieves a gun from a friend's bedroom.

Speaking of the gun:

Ben: (As they stop at a friend's house to get a gun.) Do you even know how to use a gun?

Thelma: How hard can it be? Idiots use them all the time.

Another awesome line:

[Thelma tries to get past Ben, whose scooter she's trying to steal so she can do her heist]

Ben: You can't get through me. I've got a titanium hip.

One warning: There's a little language, including one complete f-bomb, so be prepared for that.

Also be prepared for a thoughtful exploration on how some of "the elderly" are dehumanized in the way society treats them.

[Inserts Carnation into Shop Coat Lapel so I Don't Look too Industrial]

 

The washer's new door switch is in.

And while I'm grateful for the YouTube video I found showing me how to do this repair, I had to laugh at the pristine, not crowded at all room in which they demonstrated the repair. It's nothing like the cramped, dark laundry rooms of yore.

I had to enlist help in getting the washer base moved over the top of the washer so I could look for one of the brass retaining clips I clumsily dropped when I popped it out, and there was no way it was going to go back on properly without someone doing the lugging while I lay on the gritty floor making sure everything was aligned correctly.

Anyway, here's the video:

Participation

I remember getting Participation awards at the elementary school field day too.

Three Stages of Boogeyman or Boogeymen Awareness

A Facebook memory from 2015:

While discussing the possibility that our oldest will get to travel to Boise with the pep band if the high school basketball team continues to do well, the following exchange took place:

Mom: When we're there, you'll spend one night with Grandma and Grandpa.

Youngest: Why can't Dad take care of us?

Mom: Because he's incompetent and we don't trust him.

Me: Because we'd all end up sheltered behind a mattress while I brandish my shotgun, just like Homer.

I think it's fitting that Homer went through the Three Stages of Boogeyman or Boogeymen Awareness:

Stage One: Information becomes available:

Stage Two: The import of the information settles in:

Stage Three: React appropriately:

I Need Adult Garanimals that Glow in the Dark

I got dressed in the dark this morning.

I usually set my clothes out for the next day, or use my cell phone as a light, but my phone was charging and I neglected my bedtime ritual.

This naturally means of all the shirts I could have found in my closet in the dark, I managed to find the one I wore yesterday.

As I am a man, that is indeed the shirt I have on today. 

Carry on.

Cadfael: One Corpse Too Many

 

So I've just finished reading Ellis Peters' "One Corpse too Many," which is probably my favorite Brother Cadfael book.

It's a little heftier than her other books and broods over a dark subject: Murder at the time when so much death occurred at the hands of the partisans for Empress Maud and King Stephen as they battled for the heart and soul of England.

Peters excels at characterization and pacing, especially so in this book, which has two mysteries wrapped in one. As with Tolkien, there is more than one ending, but Peters paces them briskly and doesn't make the second feel overdrawn.

And as much as I love Derek Jacobi's portrayal of Cadfael in the British TV series, the books are so much better. So many thoughtful tidbits to read and to ponder as we figure out how to navigate a world that is as perilous from Cadfael's as it is distant.

This bit, from One Corpse Too Many's opening page, gives me something to ponder: "Cadfael was left to do everything alone, but he had in his time laboured under far hotter suns than this, and was doggedly determined not to let his domain run wild, whether the outside world fell into chaos or no."

That, of course, did not mean inaction in the sight of injustice, but certain, deliberate, intelligent action that kept peace and the desire for peace at its center. I try to remind myself of that a lot these days.

Minding My Own Business

Just sitting here.

Minding my own business.

Oh yeah: *Totally* not mentioning the war.

AI Is Trash, Even When used to Mock ICE

Folks, don't do this.

If you don't want to click - and it could turn into link rot anyway - it's a poorly-done AI video of ICE (a convenient target) assaulting a black man at a gas pump. As assaulters at gas pumps are won't, he's spraying gas all arvo, except none of it seems to hit or irritate ICE, or even puddle up on the ground at their feet.

Typical AI tells:

Garbled text.

While there's a little puddling of gasoline, there isn't nearly enough on the ground, given the amount of gas that speed forth.

At best the hose seems connected anywhere but the nearby pump, and at one point the hose connection is completely severed.

Neither ICE agent reacts to the gasoline at all. Trust someone who accidentally sucked some gas into his mouth when he was trying to drain a tank: Gasoline is not nice at all to eyes or mucous membranes.

ICE is doing completely despicable things. Using AI for clicks to ride on the anti-ICE bandwagon does not do anything to help.

Toilet, Soon

I didn't want to. Really didn't want to. But the only way this bathroom's gonna get done is if I do it.

Part of the reason: The very extended warm period we've been enjoying (40+ temps right up to Christmas) has faded, leaving us with a typical January, so the thought of using my wet saw left me, ha, cold.

Nevertheless, I did this earlier today:

The little trim pieces look like hell in this picture, but I've since cleaned them up so they look a bit better than this.

Was also lucky I was wearing my old pants:

Why even mention it? Because I've picked up my Dad's habit of just starting work no matter what clothes I'm wearing. Sometimes that means I have to clean my clothes, but since I was already in my grubbies, I don't have to get as stressed with my pants looking like this.

I should try to do a little bit more today, so I can get the sink and maybe the toilet put back in place next weekend. They've been missed.

"Why Don't You Take A Picture? It'll Last Longer!"

 

I usually sit in the same chair in the work conference room during staff meetings. Up until today, it had this tag on the bottom of it, and I'd reach under there to feel for the chair adjustments. Today, I ripped it off.

I got a real *bad* temper.

Boom Shanka

How it feels, writing letters to my elected representatives these days.

I try to remain civil. But it's getting harder.

Still, they need to hear when their constituents are angry. It's parf of the contract when you win public office. Especially when you're too chicken to hold town halls with the unwashed masses or have communications that try to control the narrative and solicit input in manipulative ways.

Anyway, here's the text:

Big Crane Update

Did a little digging this morning and found this particular site had been a point of discussion on a city Facebook group for some time.

I'm familiar with the group but looked at it from a distance as it's full of partisan kooks, NIMBY-ers and people who seem extraordinarily frightened of any apartment building projects in town.

Looks like this is going to be a three-story building with commercial on the first floor and residential on the upper floors, and is the first building to go up - aside from the nearby police station - as part of an urban renewal project in the area.

Pretty cool. Because this area is a little on the dumpy side.

It'll be fun to see this stubby little skyscraper go up.

Minding My Own Store

An important lesson from Brother Cadfael here.

Not that we shouldn't be worried about the outside world. But we have such a small chance of impacting the outside world in a meaningful way, we're always going to be better off trying to mind the little world we're in.

And I know I'm judgy, but whenever I hear people offering advice and I can see their own lives are a mess, I'm a lot less willing to listen to that advice.

So I'm trying harder to mind my own store.

That's A *Big* Crane . . .

As I drove my regular route to work this morning, I spotted this at a construction site at First and Lee:

This is at the site of a shuttered Mexican restaurant. I've watched the construction going to and from work, but seeing this huge construction crane there this morning was a surprise.

They've been in town, usually at hotel construction sites, which leads me to think this is going to be a more substantial building than I suspect.

I tried getting on the city's building permit website, but haven't succeeded in plumbing the depths yet. Also asked a local news organization if they know what's up.

New Computer

Getting a new computer is exciting.

Because as great as computers are, the age about as well as people do. The older they get, the more weird noises and tics they develop. They're also magnets for dust, snack crumbs, and in my case, a spider which got evicted.

But getting the new computer set up . . .

You have to log back in to your accounts. You have to figure out why the speakers that were working fine with the old computer don't work with the new one. You have to clean up all that dust and crumbs and spiders and you end up cleaning up a lot because you've neglected surfaces while you were working on your computer.

I'm glad I have my passwords saved electronically and also in print but even deciphering all that is a pain.

Also, you tell yourself that your old computer isn't all that old, until you're disconnecting cables and the connectors on one end of one of them disintegrate in your hands.

War Toys

Congressman Simpson,

Do not sit idly by while Trump and Hegseth play with their war toys. With this action in Venezuela - no matter the concocted reasons nor convoluted explanations or justifications - the United States appears as weak and thuggish as Russia does on the world stage.

If you cherish the Constitution as much as you say you do, clearly you see the unconstitutionality of these actions.

The world is in tumult at the moment. We should not add fuel to that fire. As we do so, we risk greater peril, not only for ourselves but for our allies. This action in Venezuela will certainly make that list of allies grow more thin.

I have little hope you'll do anything but cheer from the sidelines. Please know I will remember your inaction at the ballot box.

Brian Davidson

Sent this morning.

As usual, I'll post any response I get. Not that I have high hopes of getting anything beyond a rah rah rubber stamp for this action.

Starting the New Year with Kelpo